[WikiEN-l] The Second Decade, was Re: Please change your passwords. > Leadership

[charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com]

"David Gerard" wrote

> > > Marc Riddell wrote:
 
> > >> You still seem to be avoiding the key issue presented in this part of the
> > >> thread: Is there, or is there not, a need in WP for a strong and formal
> > >> structure of hands-on, day-to-day leadership?
> 
> > > Answer: I'm not sure it would be workable, and I suspect it would kill
> > > the golden goose.
> 
> > In what ways could the existence of a designated, day-to-day leader be
> > unworkable in WP? I believe, without such a leader,  the goose you refer to
> > will inevitably lose its way.

> I'm not clear on how this is supposed to actually work and how to get
> people to go along with it. Changing words on a policy page doesn't
> change thoughts or behaviours. It probably wouldn't be too hard to get
> lots of people to leave. Of course, the addictive power of wikicrack
> may be more powerful than I'm estimating.

I think what Marc is wanting to discuss is in the area of "Wikipedia: The Second Decade". We could discuss this more effectively, if we had an idea what WP will look like at the beginning of 2011. The 'golden goose' argument has, up till now, been very convincing: WP works better than (almost) anyone expected, some genius comes along with a tweak to the model supposed to convey advantages at minimal cost, and the reply is 'I can see the problem you are trying to solve, but the medication may kill the patient'.

This whole argument is affordable, basically, because WP is not in a mature state; and is plausible because we don't know much about what that maturity might be like. How big will WP be when it starts to saturate its market? What sort of income will it have? Will there be a move to locking up content more in 'stable versions', or suchlike hardening of the wiki model?

The constitutional solution is likely to depend on these outside factors. As I've said before, the de facto constitution of enWP lacks a deliberative body: discussions are not centralised. Having a fulltime person there, to be lobbied (as it would turn out, certainly) and get stuff done in an executive fashion, is just one model. I think it smacks too much of command-and-control (which was also my reaction to some of Danny's BLP-related proposals). I think, given enWP's size, the intelligence-gathering function is going to prove more important.

Charles

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