[Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia moderators and moral authority

Tue Nov 12 03:59:30 UTC 2002

Ed Poor wrote in part:

>I don't understand your "functionality" vs. "authority" distinction.

>I maintain that Wikipedia has *de facto* five levels of AUTHORITY.

>There are five levels of POWER in our community.

I don't know exactly what "functionality" is supposed to mean,
but there is definitely a difference between power and authority.
You alluded to it in your description of the developer level,
although not with exactly those terms.

Power is purely factual; it's what you can do if you decide to.
Authority is normative; it's what you're authorised to do.
Power without authority, if acted upon, is abuse of power.
Authority without power cannot be acted upon, but should be;
to rectify this, authority must be backed up with power.

"functionality", AFAICT, could mean either of these,
or something else entirely.

-- Toby