[WikiEN-l] When Websites Attack

[Daniel R. Tobias]

On 26 Aug 2007 at 12:55:36 -0600, Todd Allen <toddmallen at gmail.com> 
wrote:

> So, there's my criticism for the day. I think, to far too large of an
> extent, things are trying to be done in ways that -once- worked, for a
> much smaller and more obscure project, but no longer work since that
> project doesn't exist anymore, and it's been replaced by a
> highly-publicized behemoth. Village council governance works great for a
> village where everybody knows everybody, but it ceases to when that
> village suddenly grows to the size of New York City. That doesn't mean
> everyone who loved that openness and informality will give it up easily,
> nor even that they should not insist that the best parts of that should
> not be retained, but changes do have to get made.

Although, I wouldn't classify the BADSITES policy as being "open" or 
"informal" in any way... nor does it fit very well into the general 
philosophical framework of the early, geeky, community; geeks tend to 
have "Information Wants To Be Free"-style positions in opposition to 
wanting tight control over the flow of information.

There wasn't likely to be any pressure for an anti-attack-site policy 
in the earliest days, anyway, since when it was a small geeky project 
it probably didn't have very many attackers out there yet.

That sort of policy is more of an artifact of the middle stage... 
when it's grown way beyond the tiny size of its early days, but some 
are desperately trying to keep (awkwardly and artificially) the 
cohesiveness and collegiality of those days, by forcibly shutting out 
parts of the outside world they find to disrupt it.

You're hopefully right that they'll outgrow that eventually, but what 
sort of structure will develop next?


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