On 8/11/06, Gareth Hughes ([[User:Garzo]]) garzohugo+wiki@gmail.com wrote:
There are a few good points in the blog (let's not call it an essay!). I particularly like the description of Wikipedia as a 'semi-anarchic feudal state'. Perhaps we should put that on a banner somewhere — your fiefdom or mine? The comparison of Wikipedia with Linux distributions is a bit misplaced. The main objection to this approach is that, simply put, they are very different beasties. One has to do with facts and information, the other has to do with software programmes. How would we modularise the article on [[cactus]]? Extracting anything more useful from this is dasht difficult.
— Gareth Hughes ([[User:Garzo]])
True, his general idea of Wikipedia as a semi-anarchic feudalism certainly is one of the better descriptions I've seen, but his whole article squatters thing is misguided. Yeah, most articles have a quasi-expert or interested-lay person interested in them who maintains them - but I strongly dispute the idea that they are as bad as he thinks they are: "Article squatters are the feudal lords of Wikipedia and the only way to displace someone is to spend a great deal of time fighting with them, possibly escalating through the central authority. No doubt there exist article squatters who make it there mission to work with others to improve content but, in my samples, the trend is more towards censorship."
I mean, he's arguing that we should move closer to open source practices, and what is an "Article squatter" (note the inaccuracy of the derogatory term 'squatter') but a really *weak* form of a program's (or package's) maintainer? Article squatters can't revoke the edit bit like all program maintainers generally can, for example, or change a program's license, or the website in general and so on and so forth.
~maru