The WikiPedia Medium Is The WikiPedia Massage, What Is The Real Purpose Of The WikiProgramme? Options

[Moulton]

I'd probably turn to a Theory of Equity and Justice or something like that.

But then I'm just a hopeless academic.

This post has been edited by Moulton: Wed 19th December 2007, 4:39am

[Jonny Cache]

I'd probably turn to a Theory of Justice or something like that.

But then I'm just a hopeless academic.

Rawls is extremely helpful here.

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Wed 19th December 2007, 6:14pm

[Moulton]

I'd probably turn to a Theory of Equity and Justice or something like that.

But then I'm just a hopeless academic.

Rawls is extremely helpful here.

Yes, that's where my colleague who teaches Ethics in Journalism starts -- with Rawls' Veil of Ignorance.

[Saltimbanco]

I don't think Rawls gets you very far with regard to Wikipedia. The big question with Wikipedia is, who enforces the rules? Rawls might direct you to a fair set of rules, but if Linda Mack is the one enforcing them, you're screwed.

And then if you try to throw the Veil of Ignorance on whether or not you are among those making the rules or not, you don't get a very satisfactory answer. If I knew that Linda Mack might be the one enforcing the rules, I'd be strongly inclined to have very limited means of enforcement.

What you should sort of want is rules for deciding who should enforce the rules that are pre-disposed toward selecting "good" people. The problem with that is that almost everyone considers himself good, so even through the Veil of Ignorance people will want to have rules that will promote people like themselves to authority.

[Jonny Cache]

In order for it to be a confidence game, there has to be some sort of planned act of betrayal.

One can certainly feel betrayed when one's (perhaps naive) expectations are not met, but for an encounter to be a con game, there has to be an express promise that those making the promise have no intention of ever delivering on.

I think it's fair to say that for a lot of people, Wikipedia has turned out to be a disappointment. That's true of a lot of new ventures, with or without unwarranted hype at the welcome mat.

To say it's a con game implies that the barkers at the gate know full well that they are fixing to fleece whoever comes through the front gates.

I have seen different explanations for the use of the word "confidence" in the term "confidence game".

The confidence game proper begins when the conman takes the mark into his confidence. Confidence — "faith or belief that one will act in a right, proper, or effective way" (Webster's) — may depend on the native and even naive expectation of the mark that the conman will "keep the faith" in return for the mark's "good faith" investments, priming of the pot, and other forms of stake-holding in the enterprise afoot.

What the con artist confides, expressly or impressly, is typically a secret, er, confidential path to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, that is, the actualization of the mark's unbounded expectation.

For all sorts of reasons that I'm sure are obvious, the game works best that relies on the unbidden tendency of people to trust in others who have trusted in them — as their confiding the big secret seems to prove — but there may come a point when shows of "good faith" on the part of the mark are not just taken as freely given but expressly demanded in no uncertain terms.

But I don't suppose you know of any games like that …

Jon Awbrey

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Wed 19th December 2007, 2:02pm

[Moulton]

One of the ways to avoid shattered expectations is to organize around an express Social Contract. That's not a very popular approach, although it's been used in some notable Linux open source projects. Google also has a Social Contract with its employees.

Wikipedia has expressly rebuffed the idea of a Social Contract model.

[Saltimbanco]

But I don't suppose you know of any games like that …

????

Jon, what did you expect to get out of your participation in Wikipedia? From what I can see, you tried to write high-quality, rigorous articles on matters within your expertise, which is great, except that you contributed them to the encyclopedia that ANYONE CAN EDIT. How can it be a surprise to you that people who once read a Reader's Digest article on Charles Peirce would crap all over everything you did? You went pearl diving in a cesspool - what exactly is the confidence that was betrayed?

[Jonny Cache]

One of the ways to avoid shattered expectations is to organize around an express Social Contract. That's not a very popular approach, although it's been used in some notable Linux open source projects. Google also has a Social Contract with its employees.

Wikipedia has expressly rebuffed the idea of a Social Contract model.

I do not know how you took them, but I read Wikipedia's mass of policy and guideline pages as an implicit social contract. I held up my end of the bargain — those who arrogated to themselves the name of "community" did not.

Jon Awbrey

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Wed 19th December 2007, 6:06pm

[Moulton]

One of the ways to avoid shattered expectations is to organize around an express Social Contract. That's not a very popular approach, although it's been used in some notable Linux open source projects. Google also has a Social Contract with its employees.

Wikipedia has expressly rebuffed the idea of a Social Contract model.

I do not know how you took them, but I read Wikipedia's mass of policy and guideline pages as an implicit social contract. I held up my end of the bargain — those who arrogated to themselves the name of "community" did not.

Jon Awbrey

I take a Rules and Sanctions Model as no better than Stage 4 on the Kohlberg-Gilligan Ladder. I take a Social Contract Model as Stage 5.

Wikipedia doesn't even rise to Stage 4, because there is no due process.

[Jonny Cache]

I'd probably turn to a Theory of Equity and Justice or something like that.

But then I'm just a hopeless academic.

Rawls is extremely helpful here.

Yes, that's where my colleague who teaches Ethics in Journalism starts — with Rawls' Veil of Ignorance.

Back when I was reading more ærie-færie theory about the relation between democracy and inquiry, instead of wasting my joules on all possible ways they get out of joint in hard-knocks practice, there was a line of thought that I traced back in time from Rawls to Polanyi to Peirce to Riemann to Kant.

Those Were The Days, My Friend …

Jon Awbrey

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Wed 19th December 2007, 6:25pm

[Moulton]

One can trace Rawls' Veil of Ignorance all the way back to Hillel.

[Jonny Cache]

I take a Rules and Sanctions Model as no better than Stage 4 on the Kohlberg-Gilligan Ladder. I take a Social Contract Model as Stage 5.

Wikipedia doesn't even rise to Stage 4, because there is no due process.

Maybe some people literally have a pen shoved in their tiny fists when they exit the womb, but most social contracts I ever signed onto were rather implicit and incrementally ratified.

Jon Awbrey

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Wed 19th December 2007, 7:28pm

[Moulton]

I dunno how to put my signature to a document that has never been put in writing.

[Jonny Cache]

But I don't suppose you know of any games like that …

????

Jon, what did you expect to get out of your participation in Wikipedia? From what I can see, you tried to write high-quality, rigorous articles on matters within your expertise, which is great, except that you contributed them to the encyclopedia that ANYONE CAN EDIT. How can it be a surprise to you that people who once read a Reader's Digest article on Charles Peirce would crap all over everything you did? You went pearl diving in a cesspool — what exactly is the confidence that was betrayed?

I expected editors to follow the guidelines, from the Five Pillars on to the rest of the WikiPantheon. I expected the Espoused Leaders to be the most exemplary models of those principles, not the most craven WP:IDNNSR (I Don't Need No Stinkin' Rules) bunch in the crew.

Had they done that, it would have afforded a path for those who had the knowledge and who were capable of demonstrating that knowledge to get that knowledge under the ∑.

That is what they would do if they really cared about the advertized goals.

But nooooooo …

It being now clear that they do not do that, that they have no intention of doing that, modus tollens dictates the conclusion that that they do not really care about the advertized goals.

QED.

Jon Awbrey

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Wed 19th December 2007, 8:06pm

[Jonny Cache]

I dunno how to put my signature to a document that has never been put in writing.

You do understand that the concept of a social contract was a metaphorical construct, right?

Jon Awbrey

[Moulton]

Not where I come from.

Where I come from, a Social Contract is a set of written promises that the signatories pledge to adhere to.

[Jonny Cache]

Not where I come from.

Where I come from, a Social Contract is a set of written promises that the signatories pledge to adhere to.

Excusez-moi, je suis de la France.

Jonny

[Saltimbanco]

I expected editors to follow the guidelines, from the Five Pillars on to the rest of the WikiPantheon. I expected the Espoused Leaders to be the most exemplary models of those principles, not the most craven WP:IDNNSR (I Don't Need No Stinkin' Rules) bunch in the crew.

Had they done that, it would have afforded a path for those who had the knowledge and who were capable of demonstrating that knowledge to get that knowledge under the ∑.

Jon, from where did you think a qualified volunteer referee would come to mediate between your contributions and those of Billy the Exceptionally Bright Fourteen Year Old? Isn't it only under the most extremely contrived situations that truth reliably prevails over falsehood? Why would you ever have expected that the encyclopedia that any dumb-ass can edit would provide that?

[Jonny Cache]

Jon, from where did you think a qualified volunteer referee would come to mediate between your contributions and those of Billy the Exceptionally Bright Fourteen Year Old? Isn't it only under the most extremely contrived situations that truth reliably prevails over falsehood? Why would you ever have expected that the encyclopedia that any dumb-ass can edit would provide that?

I cannot imagine what you think a Socio-Technical Architecture (STA) is, if not an extremely contrived situation.

My expectations that the STA of Wikipedia would have certain properties were not contrived by me, however, they were contrived by dint of the pretences and representations that anyone who looks can still find being pretended and represented on that website.

Do some of us now know that Wikipedia's pretences are false pretences, that Wikipedia's representations are misrepresentations?

Yes, indeed, we do.

The fact remains that the general public does not yet know what some of us now know, and our mission, if we choose to accept it, is simply to inform them of what we know.

Jon Awbrey

[Moulton]

Wikipedia is an adolescent and quirky wine. I think you will be amused by its presumption.