What fascinates me about this issue is that it reflects the same issue in the culture at large.
In Berlin, adjacent to the
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, there is a remarkable public garden that honors an early pioneer of science education.
Comenius Garten is the handiwork of one man,
Henning Vierck, who, like Jimbo, relies on a volunteer crew to clean up after the inevitable vandals.
What's different is that Vierck ensures that Comenius Garten is open to all, and has no rules and no cops to shoo away the vandals. His volunteer crew cleans up the messes, but doesn't scold, bar, or boot the vandals, or otherwise affix
stigmatizing scarlet letters to their outerwear.
I asked a correspondent who lives in Berlin and frequents Comenius Garten whether the volunteer crew get burnt out the same as we are seeing on Wikipedia.
Here is our
ensuing conversation.
In particular, he writes:
QUOTE(Moulton's Berlin Correspondent @ Comenius Garten)
You can't solve everything with rules. But you can get a lot of things on a good track with good rules.
Or so is a common German belief.
Which is why I find it all the more amazing and impressive that Henning Vierck manages his garden without any explicit rules!
Every public park in Germany has signs which give the rules of the garden and the opening hours, often at every gate.
But Comenius Garten doesn't! And it works! It's a miracle.
But a miracle that is based on hard work and a lot of stamina.