[Textbook-l] Power to dictate policy (Was: Game Guides)

Wed Jun 14 23:43:53 UTC 2006

Kernigh wrote:

>Cormac Lawler wrote:
>  
>
>>As far as I see it: the community has control over the content, and
>>the board bears the legal liability for the content. Jimbo's unique
>>part in this is that he retains the power to dictate policy where he
>>deems necessary, and when he thinks a project has veered off course
>>significantly from its goals or the goals of the foundation. I'm not
>>sure of what other times he has exercised this power, apart from the
>>recent debate about the content of Wikibooks - maybe someone else,
>>perhaps Jimbo himself, can clarify this.
>>    
>>
>
>Excuse me, can you clarify?
>
>How does [[User:Jimbo Wales]] "retain the power to dictate policy"?
>Retention requires that you already have the power. When did [[User:Jimbo
>Wales]] obtain the power to dictate policy "where he deems necessary"?
>
>I understand that someone in the Wikimedia Foundation can dictate policy in
>exceptional cases where that is required, but I do not understand how the
>Wikimedia Foundation is organised.
>
>-- [[User:Kernigh]]
>   http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Kernigh
>
>  
>
The power that Jimbo possessed was the power of the switch on the 
server.  If the community was simply getting out of hand, he could have 
simply pulled the plug and stopped whatever was happening right then and 
there.  It was also the "golden rule", where he who has the gold makes 
the rules.  I know this sounds harsh, but is pretty much the real power 
of Jimbo in the beginning.  That and the fact that he was co-founder of 
Wikipedia and garnered a bunch of support, where regardless of what he 
thought there would also be huge numbers of supporters to agree with 
whatever actions he has made.

One of the problems with the creation of the Wikimedia Foundation is 
that Jimbo's power has been tempered quite a bit.  This is good in the 
sense that he is no longer the absolute god over Wikimedia projects, and 
instead has to answer to not only the WMF board, but also to the state 
of Florida and the IRS in terms of proper conduct for a non-profit 
corporation.  Still, by being chairman of the board, and his co-founder 
status means that his opinion on many matters carries a substantial 
amount of weight and a good number of people still listen to him.  And 
he only has to convince two other board members to agree with him to 
make it fully legal as an action of the WMF.  In theory, he doesn't even 
need the agreement of the elected members of the WMF board.

The problem here is that a number of users on Wikibooks now seem to feel 
that a "Jimbo says..." edict is more than sufficient justification to 
perform certain actions, even though it is not necessarily something the 
rest of the Wikibooks community has agreed to, or even digested to see 
if it is something worth while.  Any users that say "Whoa!  Wait one 
minute!  I think this is happening too fast and I don't necessarily 
agree!" are dismissed and belittled, and ignored.  The only thing to do 
at that point is to get into a wheel war of policy decisions.  That is 
not a good thing, and by itself is likely to get the WMF board to get 
involved formally.  Or that people have to give up and leave.  This is 
not good for Wikibooks either.

For some of the specific policy issues that are facing Wikibooks, some 
of them are legitimate issues that have needed to be addressed.  Others 
are from a bunch of people yelling at Jimbo to come in and resolve the 
issue because they are making it an issue on his talk page or direct 
e-mails to Jimbo rather than trying to gain a concensus on the Staff 
Lounge or other Wikibooks forums.  Of these individuals, I have especial 
contempt as a compromise is always a more reasonable solution, as should 
engagement with the community.  Only if there is a genuine deadlock 
should outside intervention even be considered, and I think legitimate 
arbitrators could still be found to help out besides appealing directly 
to the top of the WMF.

I don't mind Jimbo coming in and weighing in his opinion on these issues 
either, as if he were another normal Wikibooks user.  Indeed I welcome 
that, and want to encourage his input.  The problem is when he starts 
changing policy pages without even a discussion, and acting as if it was 
always written that way doesn't sit well with me.  And I chewed out 
Jimbo personnally when he tried to delete a Wikibook when all he did was 
delete the front page, and left the rest of the sub-pages in place. 
 That just leaves garbage floating around Wikibooks that admins have to 
deal with later.  I can understand if he feels a book is far too 
offensive, but I have little doubt as well that if Jimbo simply added a 
VfD to a Wikibook, it would likely disappear anyway.  Every Wikibook 
that has gone to a VfD so far with disapproval by Jimbo has been 
deleted.  I can't say the same thing about any other admin on Wikibooks.

-- 
Robert Scott Horning