[WikiEN-l] WP Structure (Offshoot from: Admins shouldn't shoot back)

[Stan Shebs]

Marc Riddell wrote:
> My fundamental question was, is, and will remain: who is actively overseeing
> the day-to-day growth of this organism with the wisdom, judgment, expertise
> and, yes, authority, to keep it in check?
No one, and everyone. (How's that for evasiveness? :-) ) Both the 
Foundation issuing a pronouncement, and the newbie anon editor reverting 
vandalism as one of his/her first edits, are keeping growth in check, 
each exercising authority in their own ways.

A good analogy is the anthill; the ant society as a whole behaves more 
intelligently than any individual ant. You're not going to find some 
superbrainy ant secretly directing things, instead the intelligence 
emerges solely from the interactions of ants that each have only a 
handful of neurons.

It's a hard concept to get one's head around, especially for those 
who've been trained in reductionist analysis.
> Without such active oversight,
> this growth will develop into a jungle - beautiful to observe, but
> impossible to navigate without a very sharp instrument.
>   
What, you have a crystal ball? This particular experiment has never been 
tried on this scale before, and it's been far more successful than even 
many of the optimists imagined. While there are reasons to be concerned, 
I don't think you have any hard evidence that things will go any 
particular way in the future.

Stan