W12. Discuss Reagle's chapter 6 - Solène Huille

As we saw before, Wikipedia is a community with many different contributors from many countries and all over the world. One of the most important principle of this free and universal encyclopedia is the openness. Everyone can edit. But, like in every organization, Wikipedia needs to have an authority to work well, to control some contents and especially the discussions between members. On Wikipedia, there is the model of "benevolent dictatorship".
At the beginning, the founders have the authority and were mediators.
But the community grew up and now benevolent dictators are people who are able to control dispute and disagreements between Wikipedia users. They have a strong personality and a high involvement on edits and discussions. They are really active on Wikipedia.
One interesting point for me is that Wikipedia is not an anarchy, not a democracy, not an aristocracy and not a monarchy. So, the authority should be defined in a different way, especially it is really important to vote and to respect the opinions of each other.
I have one question: Is it always the best option to have benevolent dictators in a online community like Wikipedia?

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