Factional point of view

Revision as of 20:14, 16 July 2012 by 24.224.172.198 (talk) (factions can be helpful)
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A factional point of view emerges when a tendency to see things a certain way becomes more than one of many multiple point of view but has the active alliance, loyalty and support of a particular group of people committed to that view and only that view. When factionally-defined terms come to be seen as real by such a group, they may find other factions incomprehensible or consider them to lack moral goodness.

Advocates of extreme standardization often consider factionalism "bad", but no democracy exists on Earth without multiple competing political parties, so the evidence is otherwise. One-party states tend to be stagnant and fail, and to become unified with the bureaucracy. The same will be true of mechanisms within a healthy buying infrastructure like Consumerium itself. From time to time, the power structure must change.

While a faction can fork off completely (hopefully with a peaceful interwiki agreement for mutual ethical trolling of the "original" wiki or project), the longer it can be accomodated within a project usually the better. Extremely successful projects like those of Wikimedia Foundation have high tolerance for factional points of view if properly marked and if not presented as universally agreed. Some mechanisms Consumerium itself might consider:

  • A faction license may specify different conditions for using code or open content for a particular faction, one that will encourage contribution or correction from that faction
  • A faction tag might be applied to indicate information stated in factionally-defined terms that could be neutralized or at least defined, or to users who are demonstrating adamant loyalty to a particular faction or one of the "four gs" golf, gold, a GodKing or Global warming promotion society
  • Distrust and factional rank mechanisms so that approval of one faction can be discounted (or even entirely reversed as default disapproval) of an opposed faction - a simple start to which would be the ability to invert rankings from particular users whom one deems to be loyal to a mistrusted faction.