"George Herbert" wrote
On 11/27/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG
<guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net> wrote:
> The profile of Wikipedia is now such that we have a significant number
> of aggressively tendentious editors. These go well beyond the
> occasional "characters" like SPUI and cause massive wasted time and
> effort.
Having them is just an indicator of the scope of
Wikipedia; if you look back
at all the prior Internet interactive projects of note, they have all
attracted malcontents of various sorts over time. Success attracts them.
The question is what is done about it. The best solution I saw was benign
dictatorships where someone in power just booted troublemakers, and was
trusted by the rest to not boot good guys, and where social pressure
functioned and kept good guys having really bad days from becoming
troublemakers requiring the boot.
From where I sit, the issue is not about having some
different kind of constitution. It's about whether you have the 'police' or
the 'judiciary' on top.
It is clear that people in the past have wanted judicial solutions. Problem users get
their day (month) in court.
The current system of Arbitration doesn't go looking for 'aggressively tendentious
editors'. It waits for cases to be brought. We hear quite a lot currently about
possible vigilantism, by those without the time or the patience or the faith in the system
of Arbitration to bring the cases it would need.
I actually doubt we have proportionately more of the really disruptive editors than in the
past. That doesn't mean that there aren't the annoying characters. Some of the
most tiresome definitely have been removed or have left or have been domesticated in 2006.
I think people should not be facile about this. Putting a problem editor out of
circulation is worth the trouble of submitting evidence in a case. That's basic
civics: be public spirited enough to go through the process.
Charles
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