Thanks for clarifying this.
He even destroyed my questions then 'protected' (locked) the discussion page. Speak of an encyclopedist... Anyway, here his my take on his
, for you to laugh.
Another Magoo sidesteping
I don't understand this:
a long-standing principle which allows you to sidestep any bureaucracy in order to get straight to where, by common consent, the project needs to be. On the roads, this is the average driver. On Wikipedia, this is the average editor. Some people just don't get it. The Mr Magoo types. One must kindly but firmly escort them to the door.When it comes to sidestep any rule by common consent how can one say that there is common consent when some disagree? Isn't a true, full and complete consensus only attained when every contributor has a veto right?
On the road a driver often refuses a sidestep, pertinent rules therefore apply and I have to see one asking the other drivers around for help to boot him off the road!
However, as WP
puts it, "A too-strict requirement of consensus may effectively give a small self-interested minority group veto power over decisions.".
Therefore a project can either enforce the too-strict requirement of consensus (everyone benefits from a veto right) or it can set up a vote for each contested proposal, to forbids abusive vetoes.
But votes only have value when there is no major fraud, which in turn forbids anonymity (sock puppets...). Wikipedia seems not ready for this.
Such voting system also imply a clear decision about some proportions needed for a proposal to pass (I mean for example some "when at least 1/20 among contributor vote, and 2/3 of all votes accept the prosal (vote 'pro')". There is nothing like that on WP, and I could not find any explanation giving answers to all those considerations.
Worse: this
escort them to the door, which seems to be often used on Wikipedia, is much more unfair than a more classic approach (not sidestepable rules,
arbcom when there is a dispute...) because it is less systematic and transparent. It directly leads to some form of mob rule, especially administrators (sysops) escaping their pure 'cop' ("applying the rules") mission and elevating themselves to the judge or even proprietor status (assessing a situation and freely acting, "creating rules on-the-fly"). It is possible because, in such a case, very few other admins and contributors will take the time to analyze the case at hand, as most will think "a pair/trio of admins say that a given user is a vandal/aggressor/whatever so let's boot him/her". I
was a victim of this approach on WP fr, then the arbcom recognized it at abusive, but for one ready to fight like me, how many arbitrarily booted?
Leveraging the project implies contributors, letting them cooperate imply rules, rules are there to be respected and enforced. This sidesteping thing works by common consent. Deciding to ignore any refusal in order to spare time is somewhat like the quick and dirty approach in software development, which often induces growing pain.
English is not my mother tongue, I'm French and I may even be a Mr. Magoo, so bare with me. Natmaka 09:49, 30 January 2008 (GMT)
