[WikiEN-l] Process is evil

[Kelly Martin]

On 8/21/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Although I'm very much a part of the anti-process-bound crowd, I must ask:
> How many people were in Mr. Shirky's group?
>
> Until it is demonstrated otherwise, it would be wise to assume that
> there is a difference between a group of a dozen carefully selected
> likeminded folks who are making a living doing something,  and a
> project of thousands of constantly changing, self-selecting, unequally
> skilled people, who are largely just fooling around on the Internet.
>
> I enjoy process when it quickly helps me figure out how to do
> something without reinventing the wheel on my own, and when it helps
> my work be more consistent with the rest of the project.  I dislike it
> when it's used as a bludgeoning device by the weak minded to produce
> an easy attack against someone whos actions taken with deep
> understanding and careful consideration.

At my Wikimania presentation ("Does Consensus Scale?") one participant
brought up the consensus building methodolgy used at Apache; someone
else during Wikimania (Lessig, perhaps) mentioned IETF "rough
consensus".  My counterpoint to both of these suggestions (and which I
made at Wikimania) is that if I were to walk into an IETF meeting or
an Apache Software Foundation discussion and expect to have a say in
the discussion, I would likely be shown the door.  Both of those
organizations invite people into their discussions on an
invitation-only basis: you don't get to have a voice until there is
consensus that you should.  This is the exact opposite of Wikipedia:
at Wikipedia you get to have a voice until there is a consensus that
you shouldn't.  And it is my opinion that this aspect of Wikipedia's
consensus building methodology simply doesn't scale.

The old saw is "have an open mind, but not so open that your brain
falls out".  I am beginning to think that, at least on the English
Wikipedia, our collective mind is too open.

So, yes, when it comes to shaping policy on the English Wikipedia, I
support cabalism.  I think it would do better than our current system,
which is basically a ochlocratic dystopia.

Kelly