[WikiEN-l] Re: Centralization of power: not a good idea

[Sheldon Rampton]

I wrote:

>  > Have Jimbo appoint a governing committee. This would inevitably be a
>>  non-representative subset of the entire community, but having Jimbo as
>  > our benevolent dictator is also non-representative.

And Ed Poor responded:

>Sometimes Sheldon has good ideas, but this is not one of those times. He
>is otherwise a fine writer, and I've learned a lot from him.
>
>Centralizing power won't help us make an open-content encyclopedia. In
>fact, the very reason Jimbo and Larry gave up Nupedia was that having a
>central committee guiding all productive activity simply doesn't work.
>(It didn't work in the USSR or any other Marxist socialist state,
>either: no incentive for individual excellence, and no sufficiently
>incorruptible way to coordinate activity)

Thanks for the kind words, Ed, but I think you've misunderstood my 
point. Right now power is ALREADY centralized. It's centralized in 
the hands of Jimbo, who almost always makes appropriate decisions but 
who simply doesn't have the time to adequately govern a community as 
large and contentious as Wikipedia has become. Establishing a 
committee would DECENTRALIZE power. I'm not proposing this as a 
"final solution" to the problem of governance for Wikipedia, merely 
as a transitional way of beginning the process of replacing Jimbo's 
benevolent-dictatorial rule with something more representative.

A good example of what I mean by "Jimbo's benevolent-dictatorial 
rule" was his recent handling of Plautus Satire. Jimbo didn't wait 
for the arbitration committee to do more than wring its hands; he 
simply reached a point of exasperation and said, "screw it, this 
guy's outta here." He did it unilaterally, and I applaud him for 
doing it. Nevertheless, he did it the way a dictator makes decisions: 
unilaterally, without any pretense that he was acting as a 
representative of the Wikipedia community.  And this is perfectly 
understandable. In the absence of WikiDemocracy, Jimbo *has* to act 
as a dictator.

All I'm saying is that establishing a "committee" could be a useful 
first step toward establishing something more representative than we 
have at present. It would also remove some of the burden from Jimbo. 
I see no reason to expect that a "dictatorship by a benevolent 
committee" would be any worse than "dictatorship by a benevolent 
individual." And it wouldn't be "guiding all productive activity," 
except in the sense that Jimbo is ALREADY "guiding all productive 
activity" on the Wikipedia. Jimbo doesn't review and approve every 
article; he merely steps in when he sees a problem and fixes it. He 
also occasionally issues pronouncements on general policy. That's all 
we would want a governing committee to do. It shouldn't, wouldn't and 
couldn't dictate all activity on the Wikipedia.  What I'm proposing 
is therefore quite different from the "Marxist socialist state" you 
describe.

>The thing that has propelled Wikipedia to greatness and will forever
>sustain it, is the ability for "anyone, any time" to update it. All we
>need are some simple community norms and a transparent, agreed-upon
>method of enforcing these norms.

There's a contradiction in your language. On the one hand, you're 
saying that "anyone, any time" can update the Wikipedia. On the other 
hand, you're talking about "enforcing" community norms, and 
enforcement by definition means that some people are PREVENTED from 
participating. If enforcement exists, then it's not true that 
"anyone" can update the Wikipedia. The problem that keeps recurring 
with users like Bird is that they take the first promise at its word. 
Bird thinks he has a god-given, inherent right to post to the 
Wikipedia, because "anyone, any time" can do so. He interprets 
attempts to curb his vandalism as the use of "force to prevent free 
speech."

I think Wikipedia needs to bite the bullet and realize that we really 
DON'T want to allow "anyone, any time" to contribute. As Ed correctly 
observes, we need a method of enforcing community norms. This isn't 
an impossible task. The Internet is full of examples of discussion 
fora that are generally open to the public while still enforcing 
rules that keep out trolls and spammers.

--Sheldon Rampton