[WikiEN-l] So you think you can be a Wikipedia article

[Stan Shebs]

stevertigo wrote:

>--- Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>
>>Step up.
>>
>
>By this, I assume youre expressing your vote of confidence. 
>Its much appreciated and certainly returned.
>
To be a little more constructive :-), I see the leadership vacuum
too. I think there are many editors who would like to lead in one
way or another, in fact many of them are on this mailing list at
least partly in the hopes of exerting some influence.

But I don't think there's a whole lot of incentive or reward for
leadership, so attempts tend to be brief and unsuccessful. Even if
one manages to organize several like-minded editors into a
cooperative effort, the newest of newbies can still come in and
disrupt, oftentimes with the support of onlookers shrieking about
cabals, and the would-be leader sees his/her investment in WP come
to naught. It's as if you were to get elected as prime minister,
but any recent immigrant could unilaterally nullify any action you
took and blacken your name in the papers - who would even bother to
run for the position?

WP's anarchy doesn't always work in the service of the goal of
producing the free encyclopedia, but with so many anarchists
ideologically committed to working against effective governance,
it's hard even to discuss how the situation might be changed for
the better.

Stan