Netesq

David

noted your edit to the m:Referees page... do you really think it's a good idea to Wikify within a heading? There's something that says it's not good to somewhere, I forget where.

Thanks for looking at the page! Andrewa 16:00, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Greetings, Andrewa. If you feel that wikifying headings is bad form, please feel free to revert. -- NetEsq 19:42, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Wikifying headings only makes sense if they are standard headings, that is, repeated on so many pages that it makes sense to have "what does this mean" centralized. Rules for See also and External links for instance would be reasonable to have at the other end of a wikified heading. For that matter you could see a vast map of "what links to what" (internal and see also) and "what wikipedia links to" (as a credible source). That'd be nice.

NetEsq, you are simply wrong about "online community". What you are talking about is en:epistemic community which often "feels like" a "real" community to those who participate in them too much, and have some petit-bourgeois idea of what "community" is about (i.e. have never been on the "wrong side" of those cops, courts, rules and jails). A proletarian understanding is different, and it is quite obvious to those who live in their bodies and not in words that a real community is different from an epistemic one.

Trolls submit that the reason you are no longer "putative leader" of those two false "communities" you mention, is that they were NOT in fact communities and so you could NOT in fact "lead" them away from those who own the computers and software they run on. Real communities can of course shift leaders and move to another place. Real communities can express themselves politically, unless of course they are actually enslaved or owned by those who own the 'company town' they live in or "on". When your "communities" actually *escape* the domination and control of those who own infrastructure, or have the trust of those who do (sysops), you may be able to credibly say you "led" two "communities". Until then, it's just wrong to say that.

You may however be waking up to the reality of false or "virtual" community... trolls commend your efforts at waking up the slaves and seeking regime change. This will not however occur until you see 1. Karl Marx was right 2. Trolls are right 3. Wikipedia must therefore be left, in either the political or departure sense.

<< NetEsq, you are simply wrong about "online community". What you are talking about is en:epistemic community which often "feels like" a "real" community to those who participate in them too much, and have some petit-bourgeois idea of what "community" is about (i.e. have never been on the "wrong side" of those cops, courts, rules and jails). >>

Call it what you will, but I think it's very clear what I mean by online community, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with "petit-bourgeous idea[s] of what a "community" is about." I'm not a fan of cops, courts, rules, and jails, and I'd be just as happy in a world that was void of such institutions. Moreover, my sympathies are generally with those who are on the wrong side of such institutions.

OK, I didn't say *you* were bourgeois, just using a concept of community that is inherently bourgeois - since bourgeois are the task-specialists and advance themselves through shall we say "colleges" or "professions", they are taught to see epistemic community as if it were real community. That is not the workers' view, and it can't be the workers' view, because the workers know damn well that it is shared physical risk that really forces them to see things in some common/community way.

<< A proletarian understanding is different, and it is quite obvious to those who live in their bodies and not in words that a real community is different from an epistemic one. >>

By virtue of my veneration of Erich Fromm, I am quite familiar with the theories espoused by Karl Marx. The things that Marx missed -- and Fromm did not -- were the importance of freedom and the need for self-determination as the means for defining one's own humanity. When given a choice, most intelligent people will choose fascism, but they will seldom be honest with themselves or others about making such a choice.

Heh. True. They will invent such concepts as the Wikipedia community, for instance, which is basically a way to make what Jim Wales or his friends decide look fair or reasonable or objective or as if it came from some process or rule of law. When in fact it derives from various sorts of clique and more collective/systemic bias, and provably so.

Rather, they will speak of the "practical limitations" of unrestricted freedom as a way of rationalizing their own decision to submit to some external authority.

We are all fascists of ourselves. That is, our brain presumably gets very annoyed and imposes technological means of disciplining unruly body parts that do not want to obey it.

"Intelligent" people are usually educated/trained/brainwashed/indoctrinicated into a technocratic civil regime which makes them feel at least left out if not evil, if they do not for instance respond to a sports team or flag in the way prescribed. This is true even/especially of people who think they are "free", e.g. Americans.

Karl is notable mostly for his view of sociology and the different views of power people will necessarily take based on their economic "class" (status as body-risking worker, task-specialist bourgeois, reputation-risking owner). It is true Marx missed a lot, but, he sure did manage to predict what would happen to world-scale capitalism in its last days: fraud, looting, arbitrage, lying to the point where there is no such thing as truth, and outright indulgence of most or all national and religious hatreds in order to keep generating chaos that weapons makers and conflict promoters enjoy. en:L. Ron Hubbard called these people "the chaos merchants".

<< Trolls submit that the reason you are no longer "putative leader" of those two false "communities" you mention, is that they were NOT in fact communities and so you could NOT in fact "lead" them away from those who own the computers and software they run on. >>

The primary reason that I am no longer the putative leader of the two online communites that I mentioned is because I chose to stand down. I could have easily led people away from these communities to start new ones, but the only reason that I accepted the role of leader in the first place was because of the financial incentives that were offered to me. Once these mercenary incentives were removed, I was satisfied to let the communities disintegrate and return to my own solitary existence as an independent research consultant. The fact remains that during my tenure as the putative leader in each of these communities I was able to enforce a general policy of "Ignore all rules" as well as a general policy wherein people were required to work out their differences between themselves. -- NetEsq 23:30, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)

It's good to create spaces where civilization can be ignored, obviously. These en:Temporary Autonomous Zones are critical to establishing real freedom later - people must have some experience of freedom, which is why trade protests and Reclaim the Street festivals, despite their being a huge expenditure of activist energy, really are useful. But, note that you are saying that the so-called "communities" died or dissipated without you, that is, they did not select a new leader and soldier on. I would submit that this "take it or leave it" character of so-called "online community" is exactly what distinguishes it from a real community. You can't just let a *real* community dissolve - the consequences would be quite violent and painful.

You may find projects like Consumerium and Disinfopedia and Metaweb more open to rational governance proposals. I think one of those will probably end up taking over Wikipedia's function, in the very long run. They face far more several challenges that will force them for instance to develop a better wikitext standard.

However, if the point is democracy, stick around here, interesting things are happening and will keep happening. In particular linguistic democracy in a multilingual project was very refreshing, and faction and power structure and Wikipedia sociology is starting to make a kind of analysis worth reading.

Suggestion: start by rotating sysops out of their "responsibilities", for at least an equivalent amount of time as they have spent "in power".

Suggestion: protect and automatically NPOV-dispute any page reverted to the same version more than three times so that it is not possible for a page NPOV-disputed by an excluded "troll" to remain as if it were undisputed.

Suggestion: do not let any sysop ban the same IP/name/suspect or revert the same article more than once. If the ban or revert is valid, well, then, surely another sysop can be found to do it. This will make at least the cooperative cliques and police conspiracies obvious to all. And they should be so obvious.

<< [B]ourgeois are the task-specialists and advance themselves through shall we say "colleges" or "professions", they are taught to see epistemic community as if it were real community. >>

My views on communities, be they "real," "virtual," or "epistemic," are my own; they do not reflect the bias of academia or the bias of any of the professions that might claim me as a member. -- NetEsq 23:45, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

<< [T]he Wikipedia community . . . is basically a way to make what Jim Wales or his friends decide look fair or reasonable or objective or as if it came from some process or rule of law. When in fact it derives from various sorts of clique and more collective/systemic bias, and provably so. >>

I am, at best, a fringe member of the Wikipedia community, more aptly described as a "participant observer," and it should be quite evident that I am not particularly impressed with Wikipedia's de facto systems of governance. The facade of objectivity to which you allude is particularly insidious because so few Wikipedians reflect deeply upon the bias that is inherent in their ideals. Instead, they spend most of their time packaging their own ideals as objective and defending themselves against claims that those ideals are not being upheld. One of those ideals is openness, and that ideal is totally inconsistent with the growing trend on Wikipedia towards censorship and forced politeness. -- NetEsq 23:45, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

<< "Intelligent" people are usually educated/trained/brainwashed/indoctrinicated into a technocratic civil regime which makes them feel at least left out if not evil, if they do not for instance respond to a sports team or flag in the way prescribed. This is true even/especially of people who think they are "free", e.g. Americans. >>

Erich Fromm addresses issues like these in Escape from Freedom and Man for Himself. I cannot possibly do his views justice in the context of the present discussion, but I would urge you to read these two books if you have not already done so along with Fromm's most popular work The Art of Loving. NetEsq 23:45, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

<< Karl is notable mostly for his view of sociology and the different views of power people will necessarily take based on their economic "class". . .>>

These views did not begin with Marx. They are part of the humanistic tradition, which goes back thousands of years. Marx simply repackaged these theories in an effort to promote his own utopian ideals, ideals which have (for the most part) failed miserably in practice.

<< [N]ote that you are saying that the so-called "communities" died or dissipated without you, that is, they did not select a new leader and soldier on. I would submit that this "take it or leave it" character of so-called "online community" is exactly what distinguishes it from a real community. You can't just let a *real* community dissolve - the consequences would be quite violent and painful. >>

But for my carefully executed exit strategy, the consequences would have been quite violent and painful. In any event anthropologists have addressed these issues in their attempts to operationalize culture theory. In the final analysis, the death of a community does not resemble the death of an organism because the members of a community are all individuals. As such, when a community disintegrates, members of defunct communities can join other communities. Indeed, they usually must join other communities or perish, as the success or failure of individual humans is directly correlated to their ability to engage in social interaction (at some level) with other humans. -- NetEsq 23:45, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

<< Suggestion: protect and automatically NPOV-dispute any page reverted to the same version more than three times so that it is not possible for a page NPOV-disputed by an excluded "troll" to remain as if it were undisputed. >>

I've already made a proposal very similar to this, but for different reasons. In time, I think the need for automatic page protection will become obvious to the vast majority of Wikipedians. -- NetEsq 23:45, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

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