[Wikipedia-l] I'm seeing a trend here or How to keep drivingaway good contributors

[The Cunctator]

On 10/24/02 6:18 PM, "Mark Christensen" <mchristensen at humantech.com> wrote:
> The Cunctator [mailto:cunctator at kband.com] wrote:
> On 10/24/02 5:33 PM, "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
>>> Let's come up with a set of guidelines and figure out how to give
>>> admins the power to enforce them -- in a way that does not curtail the
>>> ability of contributors to fulfill the mission of Wikipedia.
> 
>> You're looking at this in not quite the right way. Rather than thinking
>> about creating a police force (which is what giving one percent of the
>> users power to enforce rules is) we need to be thinking about
>> SoftSecurity.

> I think a police force is can be considered SoftSecurity, so if you
> don't consider it so,  could you please explain what you mean by term?

See http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?HardSecurity . Note the first link.

> People enforcing social norms by quickly reverting the work of vandals
> and antisocial jerks is SoftSecurity, if those people are organized and
> empowered with social authority that makes no difference, except now it
> may seem reasonable to some folks to call that group a "police force" --
> which BTW is not Ed's term, but yours.

I hardly implied it wasn't. It is the case organization and empowerment with
social authority make only a limited difference from self-organization.
However, that is not what Ed said. He was discussing granting special powers
to a group of people differentiated not by social authority but by the law
of the code (admins).

I just want to make clear that I too very much want to find solutions to the
problems we have with recalcitrants. Our best approach is to figure out ways
to make the problems disappear, not ways to fight them.