[WikiEN-l] Don't remove a WP:OFFICE tag put there by Danny

[Daniel R. Tobias]

On 11 Mar 2006 at 15:17, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:

> The Cunctator wrote:
> > There seems to be a needlessly aggressive posture from the front
> > office, etc. on this issue, which I'm sure is due only to the
> > pressures of the situation. Let me state for the reecord that I, with
> > I'm sure essentially everyone else in this thread, is here to help. We
> > can't help the Foundation, Danny, etc. if we're not told what's going
> > on.
> 
> Can you tell me about the "needlessly aggressive posture"?  Can you tell
> me exactly what you would like to know, such that you feel that you're
> not being told what's going on?

I think this sort of "feel" is coming from the sum total of various 
postings to talk pages involved in such actions... and I don't even 
know if any of the comments are actually from people speaking on the 
Foundation's behalf as opposed to outside commentators, but you see 
things like:

What happened is there was an issue that the m:Wikimedia Foundation 
needs to handle... The details on what happened will probably not be 
released publically... I cannot comment on the nature of it... We 
must trust that the people at the WikiMedia Foundation know what 
they're doing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Jack_Thompson_%28attorney%29

For some people, this perhaps brings to mind the situations they face 
with regard to other companies and organizations out in the "real 
world"... their employers, for instance.  Most workplaces are 
probably organized in a manner in which there is a "cabal" of 
"bigwigs" in charge, and from time to time they retreat into closed-
door meetings about which it's "none of your business" what they say 
or do there if you're a mere peon employee; but they just might 
emerge from the meeting having made a management decision to lay off 
your entire department.

And maybe there are very good reasons why things work that way, but 
people get peeved at having to deal with that sort of thing anyway, 
and hope for a retreat into something more congenial, run in a more 
cooperative way; that's what Wikipedia probably is for many, and 
that's why there's such a critical reaction to the (so far rare) 
instances where things *are* imposed by management fiat.

And I apologize if anything I said implied I didn't trust you, or 
that I thought you had somehow "sold out" (or were likely to do so in 
the near future).  I do trust you.  It's just that personal trust in 
an idealistic founder is most likely not a good permanent foundation 
for an institution that's expected to endure.  I believe you hope and 
expect Wikipedia to exist in some form over 100 years from now (as an 
actual live, active thing, not just a fossilized static dump, though 
such dumps will undoubtably be of interest to future historians 
researching the culture of the early 21st century).  This requires 
having a structure that can outlive its founder without becoming 
corrupt and self-serving, a very difficult thing to achieve; look at 
the history of the International Olympic Committee for one such "bad 
example".

As it's been said, "power corrupts; absolute power corrupts 
absolutely"; also, "with great power comes great responsibility." 
Such is the philosophy one can learn from comic books... :-) The sort 
of power where a central "office" can make arbitrary, unexplained 
changes and lock them down without regard to community consensus, 
while it's absolutely needed in certain situations (legal 
liabilities, etc.) is also capable of enormous potential of abuse; if 
the position of making and enforcing such decrees ever falls into the 
hands of somebody who's just a power freak who enjoys imposing things 
on people for no good reason, such powers would be greatly enjoyable 
to that person at the expense of everybody else.  "Governments like 
emergency powers; that's why they create emergencies!"

You're doing a great job, and you really haven't directly intervened 
very often.  People are just seeing a possibly disturbing trend in 
that, as Wikipedia gets more visible, the necessity of such 
intervention has been a more frequent thing that it used to be (even 
if still very rare).

-- 
== Dan ==
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