User talk:Stan2525/Statement against Jimbocracy

Right to fork
Perhaps you would like to go and found your own highly successful free content encyclopedia?--Alhutch 02:03, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

GFDL means that you can download the whole encyclopedia (see here), install the software (it's easy, I'm running a copy on my laptop) and just open the thing up. What you do with the site is up to you. Jimbo can't touch you as long as you comply with the license.

So if you wish, you're free to take your contributions, and mine, and those of everybody who has ever contributed to Wikipedia. But this particular website has its own rules, and its own management.

There is nothing to stop you taking the entire content and (if you can convince them) every single editor, and giving them a new site that Jimbo doesn't run. Jimbo would be left high and dry. So why not give it a go? --Tony Sidaway 02:13, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Ca$h maybe? There are certain barriers to entry about forking a project as large as Wikipedia. It's important to recognize this when you are telling people to leave and take their ball with them. --Blu Aardvark | (talk) 23:02, 26 February 2006 (UTC)


 * But you have no problem with Jimbo footing the start-up costs for you, so long as he has no say in how the place is run? -Objectivist-C 04:56, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

A different sort of answer
Of course those who say 'Right to Fork' are right, but my own answer is quite different.

"Therefore, I suggest that if Jimbo feels that something should become a rule, he should see if the community of Wikipedians approves it first."

This is, of course, exactly what I do, always and in every case. In the userbox situation, in particular, I have tried very very hard to work with a wide variety of people to find a positive way forward that is supported by the widest possible variety of people in the community. And the emerging policy seems to be a big step in the right direction.

What I see happening is that a small handful of people who disagree with community consensus, are going around making up manifestos which completely distort the facts. And that's very unfortunate, I think.--Jimbo Wales 10:42, 25 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Jimbo, respectfully, I do not agree that the community consensus is so obviously against userboxes. I do note that you have not personally taken any action against them, or made any decrees about them. Nonetheless, however, consenus is affected, not by you directly, but by users who are making decisions in line with what they assume that you want. In addition, I've come across discussion were the general idea is "Agree, Jimbo wants it that way", or "Delete per Jimbo". The problem, in my opinion, is not your actions in particular, but rather, those of a vocal portion of the community that seemed to believe that unilateral action against PoV userboxes was specifically endorsed by you. I know that you have specifically stated that your actions in regards to the userbox issue were an attempt to engage people in serious discussion - and I agree with that sentiment. And I am rather pleased that we are finally making some headway in reaching a decision. --Blu Aardvark | (talk) 23:17, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Jimbo, respectfully, I appreciate the challenges of using this magnitude of influence without precipitating rash action on the part of community members, but the respect for policy has been obliterated by admins who say, ignore the rules, the encyclopedia is the ultimate good, and Jimbo wants it this way, to justify giving full reign to narrow perspective, ignoring policy altogether and riding roughshod over users. I feel you need to say something decisive to counter this, as confidence in admins is at an all-time low. This is corrosive to the community.

The notion that association by points of view is somehow odious and detrimental to NPOV is fundamentally flawed. Wikipedia should be a work of neutrality produced by a passionate diversity.

The problem isn't that some article might receive a fatwa from some yahoo claiming to speak for a set of users bearing a userbox, the problem is the institutional weakness which might make such a force irresistible, for example an anti-Wikilawyering culture, poor debate process and a shaky understanding of the essence of NPOV. Telling people they cannot declare themselves Christian believer or Unreconstructed Trotskyite or Extra-crunchy Hippie Freak does not reinforce the culture of NPOV. Showing how these people have an immediate common basis for dialog based on NPOV does. That is the true power of NPOV and the beauty of Wikipedia.

StrangerInParadise 23:16, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

The problem is not you, Mr. Wales. The problem is the users who elevate you to the position of God-Emperor of the 'Pedia and cling to your every word as unquestionable edict, whether you will it or no.

On the more specific issue of attempting to force Wikipedians to come to perfect agreement, on the userbox issue or anything else, Justice Robert Jackson put it far better than I ever could in the Supreme Court majority opinion on West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette in 1943:


 * "Struggles to coerce uniformity of sentiment in support of some end thought essential to their time and country have been waged by many good as well as evil men. Nationalism is a relatively recent phenomenon but at other times and places the ends have been racial or territorial security, support of a dynasty or regime, and particular plans for saving souls. As first and moderate methods to attain unity have failed, those bent on its accomplishment must resort to an ever-increasing severity. As governmental pressure toward unity becomes greater, so strife becomes more bitter as to whose unity it shall be. Probably no deeper division of our people could proceed from any provocation than from finding it necessary to choose what doctrine and whose program public educational officials shall compel youth to unite in embracing. Ultimate futility of such attempts to compel coherence is the lesson of every such effort from the Roman drive to stamp out Christianity as a disturber of its pagan unity, the Inquisition, as a means to religious and dynastic unity, the Siberian exiles as a means to Russian unity, down to the fast failing efforts of our present totalitarian enemies. Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard."

Emphasis mine.

There could be no better summation of Wikipedia's present situation. The case applied to public schools, and obviously the Wikimedia Foundation as a private entity is not bound by it in any way, but we would all do well to take the words of Justice Jackson to heart. Attempting to force Wikipedians to conform to one viewpoint on how best to run the encyclopedia (or how users must conduct themselves on their userpages as a subset of that, beyond only the basic rules we had before) will only create ever greater strife. I hope that the admins involved read this and perhaps reconsider their actions. Rogue 9 14:53, 7 March 2006 (UTC)