[WikiEN-l] New way to discourage newcomers invented

[Ryan Delaney]

On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 1:00 PM, Charles Matthews <
charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:

> Ryan Delaney wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Oct 17, 2009 at 3:15 AM, Charles Matthews
> > <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com
> > <mailto:charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>> wrote:
> >
> >     Apoc 2400 wrote:
> >     > Isn't it time to be honest with ourselves and nominate
> >     "Wikipedia is not a
> >     > bureaucracy" for deletion?
> >     >
> >     "Bureaucracy" is a fairly helpful description of how Wikipedia
> >     actually
> >     functions, as far as management style is concerned. Decisions are
> >     taken
> >     according to practice that has been codified to some extent (in some
> >     areas, to a large extent). If you want to get something done, knowing
> >     where to go and how to apply is at least half the battle. But my
> >     reading
> >     of WP:BURO would make the comment "A procedural error made in posting
> >     anything, such as a proposal or nomination, is not grounds for
> >     invalidating that post" central to its intention. I say we don't
> >     delete
> >     that.
> >
> >     Charles
> >
> >
> >
> > Wikipedia has no "management style" because there are no managers. We
> > should not be a bureaucracy in any sense of the word.
> >
> > That is the point of WP:BURO. It's not that "We are a bureaucracy, but
> > if you cut some corners we'll look the other way." That's not what it
> > says at all. It says "We are NOT a bureaucracy" and so "Knowing where
> > to go" should be much, MUCH less than half the "battle" of
> > contributing to Wikipedia.
> >
> > - causa sui
> >
> I'm sure that styles without central managers feature in management
> books, though. In fact I know they do. The question is whether it is
> more helpful to insist that the reality is a purist wiki/collaborative
> style of work with everything freeform, or to look the actuality in the
> face every now and again. The way we operate is a hybrid of pure wiki
> editing with other stuff. And being in denial about the scale issue
> seems head-in-the-sand to me. A wiki with 10,000 pages is a big wiki.
> And we have 1000 times that, one way and another.
>
> Charles
>
>
That's the point made in the OP. Apoc2400 thinks that, since the reality is
that Wikipedia has become greatly bureaucratized (he and I think that's a
bad thing, you think it's a good thing, but that's beside the point) then we
should stop kidding ourselves and get rid of WP:BURO. I want WP:BURO to stay
because I want to have strong resistance to instruction creep and any
complications of the editing process that make content contribution more and
not less difficult for new users.

- causa sui