The Tyranny of Structurelessness, Essay by Jo Freeman (1970) predicts WP Options

The Tyranny of Structurelessness

This is something I've felt for a long time now has been a problem with Wikipedia, perhaps even *the* problem with Wikipedia, but haven't been sure quite how to express it.

The way I would phrase it is that WP suffers from a lack of a functional system architecture.

Even if you have all the right parts to build a working system, you still have to assemble them into a coherent working system. Otherwise, all you have is a pile of parts.

Wikipedia doesn't even have critical parts in the mix.

It lacks a functional social contract, which is one reason it tends to resemble an MMPORG in which competing factions assume bad faith, much like competing cliques and street gangs.

This post has been edited by Moulton: Tue 4th December 2007, 6:09pm

The Tyranny of Structurelessness

This is something I've felt for a long time now has been a problem with Wikipedia, perhaps even *the* problem with Wikipedia, but haven't been sure quite how to express it.

This is a jewel, Anthony. I like that the idea developed some time ago in a different context. I distrust much "internet sociology" as self referential and recentism.

The old elites are rarely willing to bring such differences of opinion out into the open because it would involve exposing the nature of the informal structure of the group. Many of these informal elites have been hiding under the banner of 'anti-elitism' and 'structurelessness'. To counter effectively the competition from another informal structure, they would have to become 'public' and this possibility is fraught with many dangerous implications. Thus, to maintain its own power, it is easier to rationalise the exclusion of the members of the other informal structure by such means as 'red-baiting', 'lesbian-baiting' or 'straight-baiting'. ---

The Tyranny of Structurelessness

Jo Freeman (1970)

The Tyranny of Structurelessness

This is something I've felt for a long time now has been a problem with Wikipedia, perhaps even *the* problem with Wikipedia, but haven't been sure quite how to express it.

This is a jewel, Anthony.

Don't give me all the credit. This link was posted to the wikien-l mailing list by none other than David Gerard.

EDIT: This link is also mentioned at http://reagle.org/joseph/blog/culture/wikipedia/durova

I like that the idea developed some time ago in a different context. I distrust much "internet sociology" as self referential and recentism.

The conspiracy theorist in me wants to believe that Jimbo used this as a "how to" guide when designing Wikipedia. But more likely he accidentally stumbled upon this route to tyrannical power.

This post has been edited by anthony: Wed 5th December 2007, 2:01am

That article is from 1970.

I say he wanted to do a scrape/wikiplagerism of it, and re-entitle it.

The Structurelessness of Tyranny™

It lacks a functional social contract

That misunderstands Wikipedia utterly. Indeed there is a social contract, and most users and most admins adhere to it. The fundamental flaw is that there is no way to deal with the minority of admins who don't.

A central feature of a functional social contract is that it provides a functional mechanism for handling breaches of expectations.