[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia Leadership (was NY Times article on gender gap in Wikipedia contributors} - repost

Wed Feb 2 14:58:08 UTC 2011

i see the role of an elected leadership as a supplement to the
consensus process not a replacement. Basically they should usually be
there to advise us but when deadlocks happen they would have the
authority to decide whether or not a minority arguement is strong
enough to block consensus - in any event a majority is always going to
be the minimum to go forward with any change and a minority will still
be able to block a short sighted change - at least long enough that
they can be heard out and usually much longer. The difference is that
the minority would no longer have what amounts to a guaranteed veto
over any change - they would have to convince the community and/or the
council why sometimig should be blocked. That gives a small minority
the voice needed to steer us away from huge mistakes and to amend
proposals through discussion and compromise but the days of a small
cabal being able to hold the status quo without reasoned argument
would be over. Consensus still wins.

On 2/2/11, WereSpielChequers <werespielchequers at gmail.com> wrote:
> We seem to be confusing several separate issues here.
>
> 1) Directive versus self organising organisations.
> Those who believe that centrally controlled, planned organisations are
> inherently superior to and less chaotic than decentralised self
> organising organisations where power is devolved and individuals
> empowered to make decisions will tend to have a problem with the way
> Wikipedia runs itself. In political terms I see this as a Marxist
> Leninist/Liberal divide, I don't know why there are still people out
> there who think that a planned organisation with a strong leader
> should outperform unplanned but cooperating groups of empowered
> people, but there are people with that view and they will tend to
> think of Wikipedia as chaotic, and consider chaotic a criticism. I'm
> not convinced that real world political ideologies have a good match
> with Wikipolitics, but I will happily admit to being a Liberal in my
> instinctive assumption that "strong leadership" is more often a
> disadvantage than an advantage.
>
> 2) Consensus versus Wikipedia's interpretation of consensus.
>
> Consensus building requires all or most participants to be willing to
> discuss their differences and seek common ground. It fails when people
> realise that to frustrate change all they need achieve is a blocking
> minority.
>
> 3) Direct versus indirect Democracy
> Direct democracy has the disadvantage that it doesn't scale up as well
> as indirect democracy, and there is an argument that at one point EN
> wiki was getting too big to work as a direct democracy, however as the
> active editorship and active admin cadres are both dwindling that
> argument is losing strength. Direct democracy has the failing that a
> small minority of the clueless can give you inconsistent decisions; If
> 49% want better services and are willing to pay the taxes to fund it,
> and 49% would like to have better public services but not if that
> means paying the taxes that would be needed, and 2% want low taxes and
> better services, then in a direct democracy the 2% win both referenda
> and the idea of referenda takes a knock, whilst in an indirect
> democracy the 2% are the swing voters who decide which of the other
> options wins.
>
> But it does have the advantage that you have a group of people from
> the whole community who are empowered to rule on intractable local
> disputes such as climate change and various nationalistic arguments.
> Whilst depending on the people who turn up risks driving off all but
> the fundamentalists.
>
> The case for more indirect, elected democracy in Wikipedia would
> either depend on the argument that the community has scenarios where
> existing procedures have produced inconsistent results, or where the
> only people who turn up are involved, or that this is an acceptable
> way to get round the drawbacks of consensus.
>
> My own experience of getting change on Wikpedia has been mixed, I was
> involved in BLP prod, one of the biggest recent changes, and little
> but remarkably uncontentious changes such as the death anomalies
> project -
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2010-09-13/Sister_projects
> Some of my other attempts to change Wikipedia have been rather less
> successful.  So I've got a lot of sympathy with those who want change
> that has majority but not consensus support, much fellow feeling with
> those who support a change but accept that the community doesn't agree
> with them, and rather less sympathy with those who try to impose what
> they believe is right even if they know that the majority oppose them.
>
> WereSpielChequers
>
> On 2 February 2011 02:59, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
>> on 2/1/11 9:22 PM, Fred Bauder at fredbaud at fairpoint.net wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>> Fred, please re-read what I said. The Council would be a body elected by
>>>> the
>>>> Community. How is that arbitrary? Why would their be loss of volunteer
>>>> and
>>>> donor support? And, I specifically said that the Council would have
>>>> nothing
>>>> to do with day-to-day editing or behavioral disputes. Where is the loss
>>>> of
>>>> independence?
>>>>
>>>> Marc
>>>
>>> You were talking about something else. However even the council is a bad
>>> idea with anonymous editors electing it. We have no idea what kind of
>>> skulduggery is involved. Secret ballot by anonymous people; what kind of
>>> sense does that make?
>>>
>> Your use of the word "skulduggery" in this context is very telling, Fred.
>>
>> Marc
>>
>>
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