[WikiEN-l] Admins shouldn't shoot back

[Ray Saintonge]

Marc Riddell wrote:

>Marc Riddell wrote:
>  
>
>>>This appears to be especially true when it comes to discussing the
>>>leadership and structure vacuums within Wikipedia. It is easy to simply not
>>>respond on a List such as this, but how would you react if asked about this
>>>in person, face to face?
>>>      
>>>
>on 6/19/07 7:48 PM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge at telus.net wrote:
>  
>
>>What leadership structure? Sometimes I believe that the leadership is
>>only suitable for drawing and quartering. I often have the impression
>>that we live in a culture of distrust, and that this infects much of our
>>activity, whether on Wikipedia or esewhere.
>>    
>>
>What leadership structure? Precisely. This is what I have been trying to
>drive home for some time now.
>
>A community without strong, definable leadership produces a culture of
>"everyone for themselves". This is true whether in Wikipedia or the world at
>large. It becomes the very familiar "survival of the fittest". And "who can
>you trust?" becomes the pervading question.
>
It either produces a culture of everyone-for-himself, or it exploits 
such a culture that was already there.  I do get the impression over the 
months that you are somewhat more structured in your outlook on these 
points than I, but there is still plenty of room for common ground. 

1. There needs to be a "rules committee" to thread its way through the 
swamp of rules creep.  I am not committed to that name; if there is a 
better name that beter reflects reality that's great.  Let's just 
consider "rules committee" to be a provisional discussion title.  A 
rules committee would make rules itself.  It could synthesize a proposed 
wording from all the variations that might be offered, present that to 
the relevant community for adoption or rejection, and monitor the 
acceptance process..  This is a particularly wide mandate.  One of the 
earliest issues that it would need to consider would be the extent of 
its own mandate, and a general review of the rule making process.  Key 
to its duties would be to insure that seemingly small and unnoticed 
changes to the rules do not unexpectedly become a problem long after 
they are made.  It could begin to apply a form of stable versioning to 
policy.

2. The presence of a firwall between the activities of the Foundation 
and of each of its projects needs to be made clear.  It is impossible to 
guarantee that all activities on all projects will be legal.  This is 
not said to promote illegality.  In a context of multiple languages and 
uncertain legal interpretations on an international scale there will 
always be doubts.  Unduly rigid views of the law stifle creativity; 
unduly flexible views breed disrespect.  At the same time two distinct 
projects can arrive at a different analysis of the same problem..  
Anyone who tries to choose which is correct falls into the same trap.  
With a firewall the Foundation would abjure the right to _decide_ what 
is legal in any project.  It's action on content would be strictly in 
accordance with the requirements of the law.  If it receives a proper 
takedown order it takes things down.  Otherwise it knows nothing about 
it.  To some, this may seem maddeningly literal, but that's what makes 
firewalls work.  What a project does about the same material is its own 
business, but it is entirely within its rights to have rules that are 
stricter than what the law may allow.

3. With project autonomy each project has the right to be run by a gang 
of absolute idiots, but one should not assume that another project will 
submit itself to the same brand of idiocy.  There can be Meta level 
rules, but these need to be kept to a minimum.  The concept of NPOV is a 
good meta level rule, as is a consistent use of Wiki markup.  A rules 
committee could very well propose the same policy for two or more 
projects, but there is no requirement that they would all need to adopt 
that proposal.

Any other concrete proposals?

>>At one time the purpose of religion
>>was to bring people together in a common belief, and that did bring
>>people together. In some communities it still does. But with the notion
>>of God being brought into question it pulls the rug out from beneth the
>>feet of those who used God as a major premise upon which to establish
>>all their other beliefs. If the notion of God is really total nonsense,
>>how do you convince the true believers of that without producing a
>>psychological basket case.
>>
>>Children are told certain received truths by their parents and
>>terachers, but they go online and with minimal research find out that
>>those received truths are completely wrong. The parents are relatively
>>clueless about the online world. Evil as they may be, the sexual
>>predators remain only a tiny part of the problem. At least we can catch
>>them and cut their balls off. But how do you protect kids against anomie
>>when you don't even understand what it is? How do you convincingly say
>>"Trust me" to someone when they've heard it so often before. What we are
>>getting now in this paradigm shift of communications is the first broad
>>generation of disbelief, and Kuhn did warn us that in the great paradigm
>>shifts there will be significant losses.
>>    
>>
>Ray, the questions you raise here are crucial ones, but I believe a
>discussion of them here goes beyond the scope of this List. If you would
>like to discuss them privately, I would be open to it; if they were asked
>rhetorically ­ you have given us much to ponder
>
A fair enough criticism.  I did get a wee bit philosophical there.  One 
point remains:  When you hear someone say, "Trust me," it triggers a 
flight response.  Given that premise, one can hardly make the same request.

Ec