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

[Oldak Quill]

On 24/07/06, Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> 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.

I think the lack of leadership is good. It promotes community
involvement and it proves to new users that they can help in a big
way.

> 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?

I see the equality between the old boys and the newbies as one of
Wikipedia's greatest assets for the reasons I state above. It prevents
anyone from becoming over-mighty and abusing their power and damaging
Wikipedia. Leaders shouldn't come to the job because of the perks and
benefits - they should fight for it because they truly want it and
believe in the project.

> 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.

A bigger priority, IMO, is making the Foundation more democratic and
answerable to the community while also preventing momentary trends and
fads from destroying the project (such as might occur if the
Foundation were too democratic).

-- 
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)