Re: MR: Our story so far...

[Mark Schuldenfrei <schuldy@abel.MATH.HARVARD.EDU>]

Poster: Mark Schuldenfrei <schuldy@abel.MATH.HARVARD.EDU>

                                                                            I
  actually can think of a good reason to warrent official web masters, and
  that is the same one used to warrent chroniclers.  As a group, we want to be
  certain that the information we distribute is correct and official.

Perhaps.  But how do we do that?

Do we require whomever warrants pages to inspect them frequently? Or do we
require whomever creates them to get them pre-approved before distribution?

The first case requires tons of effort, and closes barn doors after the horse
is gone.  The second is awkward, annoying, and potentially censorship.

To prevent abuses, the rules would have to get tougher, and narrower, and show
creeping bureaucracy.

What are the options if someone violates the warrant?  Pull their warrant?  Big
deal, the page is out there.  Take legal action against a bad page?  That
doesn't require a warrant in any case: it's just a nuclear response to what is
a small issue, generally.

Consider some of the "unoffical" and "official" pages for movies, TV programs,
senators, products, etcetera.  Generally, they point at one another if they
each find the other a good citizen.  And don't if they don't.

The whole issue is, basically, that there is NOTHING you can do with the
warranting system, that you cannot do without it, better, by acting
cooperatively.  Sure, it can get chaotic.  But a really good web page manages
that chaos.

Why do you think that Wolfgang's page became the central SCA one, long before
Corporate embraced it?  Because he worked well with others, organized things
nicely, kept them up to date, and managed the chaos.

A good set of local pages will do that: a bad one won't.  What we need is good
cooperative efforts, like the kind we had before someone muttered the word
"warrant".  The same effort that brought you the original SCA pages, the
original Atlantia pages, and all the other ones that are so neat and
interesting.  And all the boring, useless and ignorable ones that aren't worth
wasting time on.

	Tibor
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