This is the separate thread following the discussions in
the Oekonux events which took place in "We seize!".
We had a discussion about how Free and open projects
like Indymedia or Wikipedia protect themselves against
disturbances like spammers, far right-wing posters,
fundamentalist (Indymedia India served as an example)
and so on and how this relates to (the ideal of?)
openness, control, power and so on. Also this question
touches the question on how to ensure that a project
produces quality and keeps producing quality.
Ionnek from Indymedia UK explained that there are
discussions in Indymedia UK about what should be
permitted and what should be removed. The results of
these things are written down then as editorial
guidelines which people have to comply to. In a personal
conversation I added that the unwritten rules which are
in the head of people change in some way when they are
written down.
In Free Software I think there are two solutions. On the
one hand in most projects there is some kind of
maintainership where a maintainer with a vision for a
project and some technical excellence decides finally.
This is the way how quality is ensured in the project.
On the other hand there is some market like mechanism in
parallel Free Software projects - i.e. in Free Software
projects which try to tackle the same problem. Usually
only one or at least very few projects survive or are
*the* solution for this sort of problem. So in some way
the general public also decides about what are good
decisions and which are not.
Basically I think that every project has the same
problem in the very moment it becomes successful. A
successful project is always also interesting to people
which are in no way related to the goals of the project.
I'd like to say they are alienated from the project. As
the guy from Indymedia India put it: There are some 15
fundamentalist people who decided to use Indymedia India
as there loudspeaker and on a daily basis post some
sexist and otherwise fundamentalist stuff. Now the
people from Indymedia India are very busy to clean this
up also on a daily basis. Also we have some similar
situation in our neighborhood, in OpenTheory. At the
moment it is not possible to enter new projects there
because that would be a further invitation for some
spammers. However, this affects everybody which is of
course a pity.
More and more I think the need for control is deeply
embedded in the way things in the world are. I mean you
need *some* sort of control in a Free Software project
or otherwise a few stupid patches make the whole product
unusable quite quickly. This is a fact which can't be
discussed away. So this factual need should not be
denied because otherwise things realize themselves
behind the backs of the persons involved. This is then
known as latent hierarchies, some tacit power structure
and all this stuff.
So to me the main question is less and less to prevent
control, power, etc. but in the first place how to
control a project and how to do it an emancipatory way.
The key is to enable people, to empower people by that
sort of control instead of suppressing them. At least
the people which are interested in the goals of the
project. On the other hand people who are alienated from
the project need to be stopped, their power must be
countered.
All very interesting stuff I'm keen to look into more
thoroughly. I think it would be great to have this on
our conference. For instance also in Wikipedia there are
some editorial guidelines and people who care about
this. And in Debian, too. So this might be even become
some main topic on the 3. Oekonux conference.