If newspapers produce the first drafts of history, Wikipedians certainly produce its latest and — thanks to Google — most viewed drafts. Wikipedia has become an extremely powerful platform with tremendous real-world repercussions for those caught in the crossfire of its decision-making. For this reason alone, Wikipedia can no longer be run like the favorite basement project of anonymous 13-year-olds.

New York Times, 2009-11-27

Here is a juicy paragraph from this op-ed by Evgeny Morozov, "a Yahoo fellow at Georgetown University and a contributing editor to Foreign Policy. His book on Internet democracy will be published in 2010."

This article approached things from the point of view that the rules are too lax. It focuses on one specific incident (the disclosure of the names of convicted killers in Germany). The author seems to be taking WP quite seriously, which suggests to me that they are either not terribly familiar with WP, or that they are looking forward to an idealized WP. The suggestion that WP create a board of expert advisors strongly suggests the former.

I think it is a pretty offensive piece, actually. He acknowledges on the one hand that Wikipedians produced 60 pages of argument about this case, and boldly insults the participants of that debate by claiming that our process amounts to "the favorite basement project of anonymous 13-year-olds." He claims (correctly) that such decisions are too much and too important to be made unilaterally by one person (even if it is me :-) ), but fails to notice that I had absolutely nothing to do with the Wolfgang Werle decision - or hundreds of other decisions made thoughtfully here every day without me even knowing about it. (What does he suppose people were arguing about for 60 pages? It certainly wasn't about how to convince me of anything, since I don't think anyone would suggest that it is or should be up to me to make detailed content decisions of that type.)
None of that reflects well on his suggestion that we find a board of "experts" to overrule community consensus.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:06, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

The German case illustrates that some of the disputes could be too complex to be easily pigeon-holed into an intractable body of Wikipedia’s rules and practices. To resolve such cases in a satisfactory fashion, one needs a thorough understanding of philosophy, history, law and ethics; having some hard-earned worldly wisdom wouldn’t hurt either.
. . .

Thus, whenever current rules and norms of the project come into conflict, Wikipedians shouldn’t shun away from asking for help. An external international panel comprising the world’s most eminent philosophers, legal scholars, historians and others can prevent challenging cases from getting ugly before they reach the courts.

Someone posted the nytimes.com link to Jimmy's talk page. His reply:

...He claims (correctly) that such decisions are too much and too important to be made unilaterally by one person (even if it is me :-) ), but fails to notice that I had absolutely nothing to do with the Wolfgang Werle decision - or hundreds of other decisions made thoughtfully here every day without me even knowing about it. (What does he suppose people were arguing about for 60 pages? It certainly wasn't about how to convince me of anything, since I don't think anyone would suggest that it is or should be up to me to make detailed content decisions of that type.)

Paging Dr. Moulton . . . paging Dr. Moulton . . .

Thus, whenever current rules and norms of the project come into conflict, Wikipedians shouldn’t shun away from asking for help. An external international panel comprising the world’s most eminent philosophers, legal scholars, historians and others can prevent challenging cases from getting ugly before they reach the courts.

After all, there is a reason why newspapers have editorial boards and ombudsmen; it seems strange that one of the most powerful media sites in the world hasn’t yet followed suit. There would be little harm in bringing half a dozen wise people on board, if only to reaffirm Wikipedia’s commitment to becoming the world’s most respected — rather than most feared — source of knowledge.

Someone posted the nytimes.com link to Jimmy's talk page. His reply:

hundreds of other decisions made thoughtfully here every day