[WikiEN-l] Just what *is* Jimbo's role anyway?

[Jimmy Wales]

Steve Bennett wrote:
> IMVHO, there is a conflict between these two ideas: you are
> simultaneously filling a need, and hoping to retire from it. If your
> role becomes purely symbolic, then who will fill the hands-on role?
> Who will wade into a debate on WP:ATT and fearlessly revert 5 months
> of work?

Ah!  Good questions but I think we have experience and therefore good 
answers.

There is *tension* between the two, to be sure.  I am sometimes yelled 
at for not taking an active enough role, and sometimes for being too 
active.  And I don't take that as a sign that I am doing everything 
right, but as a sign that I can and do make errors in both directions. 
I do have the great virtue of boring reasonableness, though, so I 
generally don't go too far in any one direction.

Here is an experience: I used to be (years ago) the only person who 
could ban people.  I never delegated that power to Larry Sanger, in part 
because he would have banned people who were good contributors who 
simply had the audacity to disagree with Larry.  (Cunctator was a prime 
example.)

We wondered: gee, what can we do, who else would have the symbolic 
authority to wade in and finally ban a difficult user?  And we came up 
with a community institution to handle it: the ArbCom.  And there was 
fear about this: I had proven myself to be basically non-insane with 
banning policy (though of course not everyone agreed with everything, 
but I don't think anyone seriously thought I was a total tyrant nor a 
troll coddler)... but would an ArbCom go out of control?

Over time we have slowly built the ArbCom into a viable institution that 
works reasonably well.

In a case like this one: we can think, gee, but who could wade in and 
put a delay and ask for a broader community vote on a major policy.  And 
I think the answer is again: institutionalization of a process.

But, you know, institutionalization really really sucks in some major 
ways.  So we like to keep it lightweight and as free from rules 
lawyering as possible.  So we need to experiment and have the ability to 
turn back from experiments that went wrong.

> Since the start, you've been the leader, as well as the token monarch.
> If you move purely into the token monarch role, can we get a new
> leader somehow? I think we will need one - there are so many
> deunifying processes in Wikipedia, that a powerful, unifying leader is
> a very good thing to have.

My daughter said something fun to me the other night.  We were playing 
and she said in a voice of quiet power: "I will conquer your world."

Me: "Hmm?"
Her: "Wikipedia.  I will conquer Wikipedia and you will make me the new 
founder of Wikipedia."

Well, she's 6 years old, but maybe we could have a hereditary 
constitutional monarch.  (This is just me joking around, please no 
panic.  But be nice to Kira if you ever meet her. ha ha.)

Seriously, could we have an elected President who could take such 
actions?  Wow, that is really hard for me to imagine.  I would not wish 
such a job on anyone.  It would be all the bad parts of being the Jimbo 
of the Wikipedia and none of the good parts.

> If I understand you, you're saying that we don't technically need your
> rubberstamp to get a policy through, but from a practical perspective
> it helps. Is this symptomatic of an immature policy-making structure?

Yes.  Absolutely.  We have no other mechanism right now to say when 
something is or is not law.

Of course, England has the same thing.  The Queen has to approve each 
law.  The monarch has done so without exception since, well, I don't 
know right now, but you could look it up in Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Assent

> Well, with respect, the WP:ATT situation presents a pretty strong case
> for solving some of these problems urgently. Wiping out months of work
> is a big price to pay for "moving forward usefully".

I don't think any work was wiped out at all!  At the present time the 
only change from yesterday at this time is that WP:V and WP:NOR do not 
redirect to sections in WP:ATT, but instead declare themselves to be 
merely explanatory whereas WP:ATT is canonical.

Therefore, with respect to the situation yesterday, there has only be a 
slight editorial change.

--Jimbo