On 25/07/06, maru dubshinki marudubshinki@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/24/06, Peter Ansell ansell.peter@gmail.com wrote:
On 23/07/06, stevertigo vertigosteve@yahoo.com wrote:
Because Wikipedia has no leadership. It has 1000 sysops who are just "janitors" according to the dominant view, no editorial core, and a founder who has had argued enough with trolls and has gone wandering off into the land of politics.
SV
No management expert will ever tell you that a group of 1000 people will ever get anywhere in strategy terms very fast. It is simply too large to facilitate effective communication and quick agreement on issues. As you say, there is a core community group missing. There is the board and related personnel at the top (aka, OFFICE) , followed by a small group of judges(aka, bcrats) who dont make policy so much as rule on it, and then there are the so called "janitors" (aka, sysops).
Following the highly successful national model with Cabinet, Courts, and Parliament, it is the parliament that is missing. Right now, and possibly from the wiki culture, the parliament is traditionally the whole community with anyone who wants to have a say being able to do so. I would contend that the size of such a parliament is limited in its ability to make effective decisions.
The current heirarchy does not place any special policy related privileges on the sysop layer, and I am not about to say that it should, but in ignoring the Parliament layer it is missing an essential branch in the proven three prong, "separation of powers" model.
Peter Ansell
Wouldn't any democracy-variant simply invite even more sock-puppeting? I think perhaps voting through one's edits is the only feasible method, as edits require effort and so put up a barrier to entry (which in the real world is supplied by the minor barrier that one cannot easily replicate oneself). Which is essentially what we already do.
Why would a representative type democracy invite more sock puppeting than the direct democracy that is currently ruling? Apart from the choosing representatives, of which sockpuppeting may already be a problem, it would reduce the load and enable people to get on with improving the project without having to worry about vandals and other nasties twenty four seven.
I agree that a good edit history is important, and for the purposes I am stating it would not be immune. The current model where the "janitors" are in a sense at a mutual respect for each other while not having mandates to practically improve anything, since they are elected on the basis of their civility and lack of vandalism basically.
By giving a group of people a practical mandate to improve the basis of the community and provide it with life from the basic policies outward. This is mostly what I was stating in my first small email that was responded to in tone and started this discussion.
Peter Ansell