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

[David Gerard]

On 21/03/07, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:

> 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.


Speaking from the inside (as a former arbitrator and still being on
the list to kibitz), it helps that the AC has a lot of experienced
people who are *very far* from agreeing with each other on everything.
It's a bit like looking into a sausage factory at times. But everyone
respects each other and the results mostly work.


> 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.


This is why Wikipedia not working on precedent is important.


> 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.)


Make sure she reads [[Charles I]] ;-p


> 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


A constitution may help with this - the set of policies on policies.
That's how I think of NPOV, NOR, V (or the new role of ATT) and NPA,
AGF and arguably BITE - new rules that contradict those rules are
probably a really bad idea.


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


Everything should keep working much the same without outrageous surprise.


- d.