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

[lcrocker at nupedia.com]

> Just to clarify, there are 40 sysops, about 400 regular
> contributors, 4000 registered contributors, and many
> thousands more readers. I was considering the 4000
> registered contributors the userbase, not the 400 regular
> contributors. In that calculation, the sysops are 1% and
> Jimbo .025%. I don't consider the developers as having the
> power to ban anyone, since they really really shouldn't.

The "registered" list is pretty meaningless; it never gets
cleaned up (another item on my ever growing agenda), so it
has lots of folk who will never been seen again.

Also, the developers clearly have the "power" to block
anyone or anything just as we have the power to make every
page green and purple: having your hands on the code is
about as much power as one can get.  But we serve as checks
to each other; if I did something stupid like that, Jimbo
or Brion or Magnus would undo it, and vice versa.  We should
work to create explicit cultural norms and guidelines for us
too, so that we have some idea what we really shouldn't do.

I think perhaps what Ed is arguing for, and what I support
as well, is the idea that we should perhaps take the idea of
freedom of action and the act-first-argue-later system that
seems to make Wikipedia work pretty well most of the time and
apply it at the meta-level as well; that is, let the sysops and
developers do what they think is necessary, so long as it can
be undone by others, and not freak out about it.  That includes
the drastic things like deleting articles and blocking users.
In other words, let's agree to see them as less drastic because
they're reversible, and accept that mistakes will be made now
and then, but nonetheless give people power--and the cultural
authority--to do them.