[WikiEN-l] It's not anarchy (was: unilateral bans of controversial users)

Fri Feb 6 14:17:00 UTC 2004

Tim,

I respectfully disagree: we DO NOT have anarchy.

It's a benevolent dictatorship, moving gradually to a parliamentary
democracy.

Jimbo is the leader. 

Developers (like you!) hold most of the reins of power.

Admins (over 100 now!!) have access to "ban buttons" but have "limited
authority" to use them.

Signed in users are the Middle Class.

Anonymous (IP) users are the Lower Class.

Jimbo is amazingly different from a GodKing (as described on Meatball
Wiki). He subscribes to the principle that "government is best which
governs least", but when push comes to shove he has occasionally put his
foot down -- I know, awful metaphor ;-)

Developers almost always keep quiet and implement software features
which seem to have consensus. No one ever complains about THEM!

Last year saw an explosion of admins; most of the active ones now have
been around less than one year (this is a, what? 3-year-old project).
They can delete or restore an entire page (with its edit history) and --
recently -- can ban a signed-in user for 24 hours. (It's only one day,
right?) This temporary ban is really only supposed to be for
emergencies, but Jimbo issue a Decree of Clemency for the bans of the
last few weeks: let's start fresh!

I'm just as frightened by the emergence of a new government as anyone
else, but I know a few things:

* Wikimedia will continue to run Wikipedia.
* The text is all GPL'ed, so there's no way the encyclopedia can be
"taken over" by commercial or ideological interests.
* Everyone on the 2 committees has a proven track record of genuine
concern for both the product and the process, i.e., the goal of creating
a superb free encyclopedia and the goal of maintaining a pleasant
"workplace" for volunteers.

Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed

-----Original Message-----
From: Tim Starling [mailto:ts4294967296 at hotmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2004 12:52 AM
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: unilateral bans of controversial users

Bjorn Lindqvist wrote:
> I think further action is necessary. Either:
> 
> 1. Remove the feature. It wasn't there before and probably isn't 
> really needed now either.

It was implemented specifically to deal with Michael and others like 
him. It has been an invaluable tool in that respect.

> 
> 2. Kick the sysops using the feature in the wrong way. If you look at 
> Wikipedia:RfA it seems to be clear that admins are supposed to hold a 
> higher standard than regular users. It therefore doesn't make sense 
> that admins are allowed to make so many extremely critical errors and 
> are escaping with at most, a slap on the wrist. Especially not while 
> anon users arbitrarily can lose their editing powers and logged in 
> users are only slightly more fairly judged.

Certainly this is the option I would favour. When I implemented my 
feature, I thought that policy would be enough to keep sysops in line. 
But I now realise that for a policy to be useful, a threat of punishment

is required. You can't expect people to follow the rules when there are 
no repercussions for stepping outside them.

I can understand Hephaestos' frustration. In fact, I'd be in favour of 
banning by a vote or community consensus, during this transitional
period.

What we have at the moment on Wikipedia is anarchy. There is no 
coordinated way to deal with trolls, and sysops (and indeed developers) 
have free reign.

IMHO we need

* Empowerment of users allowing them to do things without developer help
* Rules governing the use of powers
* Structure to enforce the rules

But that's just me.

-- Tim Starling

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