[WikiEN-l] Please change your passwords. > Leadership

[Thomas Dalton]

> A question: is Wikipedia the first online community you've been deeply
> involved in?
>
> (Not that this is a bad thing on your part, I'm just asking. I suspect
> that this being the case for a lot of people is a lot of the
> perception of the problem. I just find myself repeatedly surprised at
> people talking about Wikipedia's problems as if they're novel in any
> way.)

I've been involved in plenty of online communities, but none quite
like Wikipedia. Even if the basic problems are the same, the standard
solutions often don't apply. For example, in most online communities
its not a problem to have admins (or the equivalent) taking charge of
things as opposed to just doing janitorial work as they do on
Wikipedia. Wikipedia admins giving orders would be very unpopular.
Also, there is the simple matter that Wikipedia is much bigger than
most online communities. Whenever I've been involved in an online
community that was too big for true consensus driven decision making
to work there has always been people (usually paid staff) in absolute
charge. Wikipedia doesn't have that (the foundation don't intervene in
the day-to-day running).