On Thu, 14 Jun 2007 15:24:32 -0400, "David Goodman"
<dgoodmanny(a)gmail.com> wrote:
WP is in the peculiar situation where any one of over
1200 people can
on their own initiative decide on the outcome of a deletion debate--or
a DRV. The result in seriously disputed matters depends on the
personal judgment of whoever steps forward
In theory, yes. In practice the pool of admins who close debates is
much smaller, of course.
I know of no successful organization with a comparable
size and
procedure. Historical precedents are not reassuring. The Roman
tribunes & consuls had similar power, but the total number never
exceeded 12; even so, the Republic's history was marked by frequent
civil wars. The Polish liberum veto in the sejm of approximately 400
is generally thought to have destroyed the country. And both were
merely vetoes, not the promulgation of decisions.
no, that's not really a valid analogy. We have ArbCom as our
sort-of-senate and communications links are so fast that anything
obviously batshit will rapidly result in desysopping.
In this case, the self-selected admin pronounced:
"A COMPLEX MERGE. I
think I've arrived at a solution." -- self-admittedly his own
solution, not the consensus of the dispute seen rightly or
wrongly--this specific merge had not been mentioned in the
discussion--and there were only 2 or 3 voices supporting any merge at
all. .
A solution which had previously been mooted by others and was based on
other recent actions such as merging of "biographies" into articles on
conjoined twins and other concepts.
But so what if it was a bold idea? We are supposed to prize boldness
and creative solutions.
Deletion policy lets closers disregard particular
arguments "not made
in good faith," and to "use their best judgement...to determine when a
rough consensus has been reached." I don't think either statement
covers this case. I'm too new an admin & editor to feel comfortable
proposing a desysop--and it might not be fair, because there were
other recent arbitrary single-handed actions taken by individual
initiative.
Yup. And yet it kind of works.
Apparently bumblebees can't fly, either.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG