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

[Jimmy Wales]

Seth Finkelstein wrote:
> 	Can I use this thread to ask a question as a "worked example"?
> *Procedurally*, what was the way in which "nofollow" was added to
> external links? My impression was that Wales just said to do it, and
> it was done, even though there was no "community consensus". Now, I'm
> not saying it was the wrong thing to do. But from an outsider's
> perspective, it was pretty much an instance of "He's the decider".

Outsiders often imagine that we have a much greater degree of procedure 
than we actually do.  We have a group of friends working under "rough 
consensus and running code" and decision-making is highly distributed 
and what may appear to be lines of authority are often merely lines of 
respect and thoughtfulness.

In the case of "nofollow"... to the best of my knowledge, the history is 
that it was implemented without my knowledge or approval (which is 
normal and fine) in various (some? all? depending on local opinion?) 
languages except en.wikipedia.org.  There were discussions about it, 
both public and private, and I expressed my own concerns about it.  Out 
of respect for me, the implementation was delayed for a long time on 
English Wikipedia while I talked to Matt Cutts at google about it.

(BTW, Brion would know when and why nofollow was implemented elsewhere.)

Matt recommended that we use it, and I reconsidered various arguments 
that people had made about it, and I dropped my objections to it. 
Sometime later, Brion Vibber, acting on his own authority as CTO and the 
leader of his own part of the whole Wikipedia beast, went ahead and 
implemented it.  (Did I ask him to do it, or did he notice my dropping 
my objections and just do it?  I don't remember but the question really 
misses the point.)

Now, you can imagine this as an instance of me being the decider, but I 
think the truth is a lot more complex... and a lot more wonderful... 
than that image would suggest.

--Jimbo