[Campaigns-l] Going down the wrong path?

[Stephen Abbott]

Jimbo:
Thanks for this. And I agree with your comments on the Talk page that a
proper deletion process should be devised.

I do appreciate that it's a *very* thin tightrope you walk to balance the
ideals of a full-participation wiki and the need for rules. It certainly is
a delicate balance. If you have too many rules, you stifle free expression.
If you have too FEW rules, you end up with a free-for-all, and the goals of
the project are compromised.

I'll be kind of bold in saying I think it might have been better to have had
some (if not ALL) pre-set categories and article titles ready to go at
launch, since I can envision a huge "process fight" over what is and isn't
legitimate, and I find these kinds of fights very distracting, potentially
destructive and demoralizing. A set template for how articles and comment
pages are set up would also have been nice. Currently, articles run the
gamut from one-person, one-sided rants to full-blown, Wikipedia
article-length articles with pros and cons - though sometimes, heavily
biased in one direction.

While my first point (pre-creating articles) can't be done because it's in
the past, the second - templates (or at least some guidelines) for articles,
is still possible.

Now some philosophy. I'm not a huge fan of letting "soulless forces
operate" - to borrow a phrase. It invariably leads to huge amounts of
confusion, angst and anger. On the Internet, people will do what they can
get away with, be it vandalism, personal attacks, intentional bias or simply
causing havoc for it's own sake. To ignore these emotions is to pretend
human nature is not what it is. Democracy works, but always within the
parameters of law and regulation (created by the people themselves, of
course.) Mobs never govern, they just destroy. With some realistic
guidelines, however, all can come to the wiki and find an oasis of civility
and participation that can then be translated into their own political
lives.

Without some kind of guidelines governing conduct and policy (for starters,
I'd suggest: no personal attacks, no deletion of others' personal comments,
no elimination of opposition views in articles, balance in articles is
required, no vandalism is tolerated) we risk not seeing an experiment in
participatory democracy that is any different from what we have in the Real
World.

Stephen A.
(Nhprman)

p.s. And please, God almighty in Heaven, let's not have Userboxes here!

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales at wikia.com>
To:  <campaigns-l at wikia.com>
Sent: Saturday, July 08, 2006 10:58 AM
Subject: Re: [Campaigns-l] Going down the wrong path?


> Stephen Abbott wrote:
> > What I find a *tad* disturbing is someone just created a list of
"Corrupt
> > Politicians." (http://campaigns.wikia.com/wiki/Corrupt_politicians).
> >
> > It's not a coincidence that they are all from one party, considering the
> > political tenor of Washington these days. However, I thought we were
aiming
> > for something different here -- a bit less ... predictable.
>
> Per the discussion on the talk page, I have deleted it.
>
> My style, as most of you probably know, is to have a very light touch.
> I do not want to be heavy handed in any way about what the exact
> direction of various parts of the site should be.  But I would like to
> provide some light guidance early on, to set a joyful and productive
> tone where we (ironically enough) leave politics at the door. :)
>
> I have friends on all sides of the political spectrum, and there is a
> really unfortunate tendency to assume that "the other side" is filled
> with morons, or benefits from stupidity, etc.  I don't think that is
> true, and this whole attitude is part of what I want us to try to cure. :)
>
> --Jimbo