[WikiEN-l] How to bring back people who don't want to bother?

[Ray Saintonge]

John Lee wrote:

>I think that's what those of us bitching about Jimbo's ostensible 
>abandonment of involvement in the wiki have in mind. There's nobody on 
>Wikipedia who can absolutely put his or her foot down on something and 
>say, "Stop it you f*ckfaces, that's just wrong". Some members of the 
>arbcom could theoretically do that, but at the risk of eroding what 
>authority and semblance of impartiality they have. IMO, a number of 
>major disputes related to the userbox wars, wheel warring, etc. could 
>probably have been resolved with less acrimony had Jimbo, Angela or 
>someone else with their level of authority stepped in. As things stand, 
>there's a lot of confusion and ill-will within the community, still 
>breeding and stagnating.
>
>Hopefully this all part of the wiki process, and we'll manage just fine 
>without Jimbo. Still, I have my doubts about how much longer we can 
>continue to scale the old model.
>
I agree that having someone on hand who can make these decisions is 
important.  Obviously Jimbo can't do it all himself, because he can't be 
everywhere at once or spend the time needed to fully understand the 
specific disputes.  It's not at all a question of the positions that he 
supports or what articles he would choose to delete.  When he only 
occasionally steps in it makes matters worse because those appearances 
are unpredictable, and it leaves offenders with the hope that he will 
somehow step in and take their side.

The authority of such a person would be separately determined for each 
sister project.  The issue really breaks down to what kind of person 
would be suitable to the task.
    1.   The person must have the Jimbo's trust to the extent that Jimbo 
will not override his decisions without first discussing the issue 
fairly but not necessarily publicly with him.
    2.   The person must have the broad trust of the community even when 
he takes unpopular decisions.
    3.   The person must be seen as more a conciliator than one who 
insists that there is only one solution for every problem.
    4.   The person must be capable of finding a balance between public 
consensus and established policy. There are times when rigid adherence 
to policy is completely wrong, and other times when public consensus 
fails to consider the broader implications of that consensus.
    5.   The person must accept that he will sometimes make decisions 
that will incur hostile responses.
    6.   The person needs to be appointed rather than elected.  The risk 
in an election is that it leaves a minority that may not feel 
represented by the person.
    7.   Etc.

Ec