[WikiEN-l] Re: Why is this an emergency?

[Daniel P. B. Smith]

On Sep 25, 2005, at 3:09 AM, wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org wrote:

> Why is this an emergency?  Why not just email the guy
> and let the issue sit until tomorrow?  Wikipedia will
> not fall because a couple school stubs didn't get
> undeleted for 24 hours.

Because the debate over schools has had very little to do with  
anything relating to actual articles for a long time. It is just an  
arena for an unpleasant sports event between two factions.

(Note: carefully chosen metaphor. No metaphorical human beings were  
killed or injured in the making of this metaphor).

The Wikipedian community seems to me to be the sort of community that  
really does rely on common goals and shared values.

It is unlike organizational structures that _assume_ that  
factionalism is the _norm_, and consequently are designed to measure  
the relative strength of factions with precision. Such structures  
rely on hierarchies, constitutions, parliamentary procedure, and voting.

Oldtimers: is the school struggle just par for the course, or does it  
represent an emerging and deepening _lack_ of consensus on important  
issues?

--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/