[WikiEN-l] #wikipedia-en-admins

Tue Jan 24 19:51:46 UTC 2006

Jay Converse wrote:

>I disagree with this assessment entirely.  I highly doubt the community
>would support secret decision making.  A consensus would be immensely hard
>to reach simply because you and 15 people go "Well we discussed this and we
>have our reasons".  I highly doubt the community would stand for that at
>all.
>
I share Tim's concerns. "Secret decision making" is rarely so explicit 
as you suggest.  The "15 people" don't normally issue a manifesto of 
their common views that they will defend as an organized group.  Common 
unspoken understandings develop as a function of working together.  
Certain outlooks begin to make more sense to the point where alternate 
suggestions in the wider world seem irrational.  Communities do stand 
for it because nobody, including the in-group members,  realizes that 
it's happening.

Maintaining democratic structures is an extremely difficult challenge 
since most models do not scale very well.  Many people like to make 
decisions and have the matter behind them, never to be visited again.  
Most decisions in themselves aren't controversial at all; many are based 
on conventions where an alternate decision would have worked equally 
well.  In North America the basic rule when installing the electrical 
wiring for a house is that the wire at ground potential has white 
insulation, and the live wire has black insulation.  There is no reason 
why the reverse won't work equally well.  People easily accept this rule 
when the potential safety problems of a mixed installation are raised. 

Of course safety is not always so available as an overriding 
consideration.  Sometimes people need to feel that they are a part of a 
decision that was effectively made long before they joined.  Most of the 
time people will objectively agree with the established consensu.  
Consensus needs a temporal as well as a planar dimension.

>I see the channel as a way to quickly get help for administrative duties
>that non-admins can't provide help on.  As a relatively new admin, I run
>into new problems that I can't figure out myself on a semi-frequent basis.
>It'd be nice to have the availability of a dedicated admin group to respond
>in a much more immediate way than talk pages.  I personally happen to prefer
>IRC correspondence to talk page correspondence for quick issues.
>
I don't think that the main effect of this function will be a glorified 
help page.

>The one thing that'd immediately turn me off of the idea of this channel is
>if it becomes clear that the person in charge of the inviting won't invite
>you simply for being an admin.  There's a difference between a chat room and
>a clique room.
>
That's an excellent first chink in the armour;  the other objections 
easily build from that.  Faction building is alive and well.

Ec

>
>On 1/22/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
>  
>
>>The IRC channel #wikipedia-en-admins has now been created, with mode +is,
>>i.e. secret and
>>invite-only. It currently has an access list of 64 people. I am opposed to
>>its existence. To call a
>>forum which admits 800 people "almost public" is bizarre. You admit 800
>>but you exclude thousands of
>>active contributors. Wikipedia has always attempted to encourage newcomers
>>and to assume good faith,
>>but it's a clear violation of that principle to assume that the rest of
>>the world, those 6 billion
>>non-administrators, have nothing useful to contribute to the discussions
>>we wish to undertake.
>>
>>Imagine if you joined Wikipedia today. How would you feel about the
>>formidable barriers against your
>>potential contribution to Wikipedia's decision-making process? How would
>>you feel about having tens
>>of admins declaring new policy, stating their rationale but refusing to
>>enter into discussion with
>>you on equal terms, on the basis that it had already been decided in
>>private?
>>