[WikiEN-l] Policy Creation Procedure

[Gregory Maxwell]

On 9/19/06, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.com> wrote:
> Start with a cage containing five apes.
>
> In the cage, hang a banana on a string and put stairs under it. Before
> long, an ape will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the
> banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the apes with
> cold water.
[snip]

No no no.. You've got it wrong.

It really works like this (on Wikipedia for sure, and other places soon)...

There are five apes.  Ape 1 really hates ape 2... perhaps ape 2 took
his girlfriend, or whatever.. the cause isn't important.

The social structure of the apes discourages hostility, .. so the rest
of the apes may be unaware of the dislike.

One day Ape 2 decides to climb the stairs...  Ape 1 then, either due
to a failure to assume good faith due to his dislike or from outright
malevolent intent, yells "LOOK! APE 2 is trying to *STEAL THE BANANA*"
 The rest of the apes step in to stop ape2, either out of support for
their friend ape1 or just because they didn't think it through and
thats what the other apes were doing..

The end result, with the behavior being conserved, remains..

The behavior that gets conserved never actually made any sense.. but a
'reasoning' for it can still be provided.

I can't say that I've seen too many examples on wikipedia where the
situation has changed enough to completely remove a just cause for
strong action... The project just isn't that old... Far more often
there was just no really strong justification in the first place.