[WikiEN-l] No RFAs in progress...

[Zoney]

On 23/08/07, John Lee <johnleemk at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> * '''Support'''. We don't need new admins. ~~~~ :p
>
> Maybe now somebody will realise that something is fundamentally wrong with
> our adminship process. It does not scale; it worked when we were smaller,
> but now it seems to me that the old indicators of trustworthiness for
> adminship are unreliable; in the first place, the RfA process seems to
> diminish the importance of the trust factor, emphasising more the ILIKEIT
> and IDONTLIKEIT factors.
>
> Johnleemk
>
>
Actually, the problem is Wikipedia's decision-making apparatus in general.
It's allegedly "by consensus" - but if it really were, there would be
paralysis (as most of the time, there are dissenters who don't back down -
or even quite simply a clear lack of consensus - contributors to the
particular decision-making discussion split pretty evenly two or more ways).
It's allegedly not by voting (although that begs the question, why there are
frequent votes), by majority or supermajority (although realistically, often
decisions are taken on the basis of "most contributors to the discussion
support it"). Despite idealists chosing to believe it doesn't happen,
frequently the status quo is just determined by a small but persistent
group, or even an individual. Considering people on the project are
volunteers, no-one should have their impact on decisions decided solely by
how much time they can afford, and so frequently contributors choose not to
participate in decision-making (plenty of people like myself have stepped
back from regular contribution due to the hassle it entails).

Zoney

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