[Wikipedia-l] Educating newcomers

Wed Nov 20 09:50:31 UTC 2002

Hi Toby,

> A *single* person can't prolong the decision-making process forever,
> because we have enough people around that lack of a single person
> is no obstacle to reaching a consensus.  Consensus != unanimity
> (in English, although apparently it does mean that in French --
> see some earlier posts between me and Anthere).

> And even with a voting mechanism in place, a single dedicated person
> could still prolong *discourse* forever.  Or would you censor speech?

No, but in a voting process, the discourse period can be time-limited. Of
course, people could continue to discuss the issue on a dedicated page, but an
enforcable decision could be made before that.

> >And I'm afraid that when people get tired of our tedious  
> >decision making process, they will want to resort to more drastic forms
> of  
> >enforcement and more permanent power structures, which will in turn lead 
> >to wrong decisions, alienation, power struggles.

> Agreed, but IMO, that's exactly what *you* are trying to do ^_^.

Not at all, the idea is to decentralize power, and thereby reduce the
potential for abuse. Voting seems to me very much complementary to the wiki idea.

Regards,

Erik

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