Thread:User talk:Blue/Voting vote/reply (4)

Prepare for long-winded rambling.

I wouldn't trust the RW userbase to organize a pissoff in a brewery, let alone act as watchdogs. We certainly couldn't be trusted with user rights, and we certainly can't figure out what to do with people who rile us up. If I am perceived as authoritarian for attempting to establish a cluocracy in place of an nepotistic adhocracy, so be it. A significant number of users here, including the sainted Nutty Roux, seem to automatically insert their heads up their asses whenever they see good-faith attempts to solve the problems anarchy has caused. They cry "RULESRULESRULESRULESRULES!" (like LX and his ) without fail. Some don't seem to understand that this is a website, not a nation-state, and online communities are regulated from the top down to avoid massive implosions like this past May and June's. I get that RW 1.0 and early RW 2.0 were anarchistic. But we have changed, I watched us change, and we are no longer the same community that could once get on without organization of some sort. That really should have become apparent when we lost eight or so users to the May conflicts - but it didn't, of course.

I believe in minimizing all disputes and conflicts that don't relate to our "services," in which I count mainspace articles, WIGO pages, debates, essays, recipes and perhaps the saloon bar and forums. I believe policies and penalties should be dealt with slowly and bureaucratically, the latter through an arbitration body as I described here. I believe in being bold in all other areas. As a practical concern, inter-user disputes that don't involve our "services" should not receive the attention of arbitrators or "moderators," and when they are brought to moderators' attention, they should be treated with a casual disinterest - their only interest being to stop disruption of contribution to our "services," and that the party(ies) with the most reasonable argument should prevail. In other words, a cluocracy established through meritocratic (or even gerontocratic) structures, substituting bureaucracy for ochlocracy.

All of this means that if you want to see the right thing done, you have to work hard for it. If you don't, the bureaucracy will continue to function normally, preventing implosions so that the userbase doesn't have to take an active role in resolution. What we have had is people shouting "don't be a dick" at each other from every possible perspective or loudly complaining about how little the issue matters. We need a place for the loudmouths to vent (away from our "services") while ensuring that those who care have a place for reasonable discussion, discussion which results in action taken and enforced according to the vested authority of arbitrators. I said "authority," wait, that must mean I'm an authoritarian fascist tinpot dictator! Well, no. I do not want authority. I want stability and the flourishing environment of "free inquiry" that is its progeny.

The thing is, the response to this post will be just "RULESRULESRULESRULES!!!!" My plan is more nuanced and more general than "proposing more rules." Rules have a function, but they tend to hamstring (it works great in nation-states, but not in websites). We need fewer rules and policies. We need rough procedures, but what we really need is organization, and that requires people, not rules. We might have been able to do this with the old rank of bureaucrat; but RW was never the type of site that could use traditional moderators, and despite the name, "bureaucrat" was the wiki equivalent of a friendship bracelet among RW cronies, not any kind of functionary position.

Perhaps I'll write a lengthier and more organized essay about my, er, vision/plan. Apologies for the rambling.