Why Wikipedia Is Doomed, The Six Rotten Pillars of Wikipedia Options Rating

[Son of a Yeti]

Marx or no, we're well past empire-slavery, and into the feudal system on WP. That was what you had after raiders decided to settle down after raiding, and just tax people instead of spoiling and raping and killing. But then the settled have to defend your little parcel against outside raiders, and thus you get a government in which local lords owe military service to a central authority (a crown or shogunate).
[...]

This communist propaganda poster from 1911 would be easy to convert to an anti-Wikipedia one:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...list_System.png

And this is not even important if the diagnosis is true. After all the depiction of 1911 society was also a strong POV, as they say on WP.

[Kelly Martin]

But first, I'm afraid the "beheading" of Jimbo I cannot be avoided.

Indeed, it is absolutely necessary. Wikipedia cannot hope to improve until it rids itself of that particular cancer.

[Moulton]

Abandoned Avatars of Azazel's Assassins

"First they came .... for the pseudoscientists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a pseudoscientist.

It's already well beyond that point. They have already come for the scientists, too. (The bards are next.)

On WP, we know who the serfs are, and who the lords are, because we've all been "lorded over" by them, at one time or another. We're at the point, however, where the lords themselves are getting pretty tired of the king, and are about to start drafting a Magna Carta.

I started drafting a Magna Carta / Bill of Civil Rights / Social Contract on Wikiversity, but Jimbo the Godzilla-King came galumphing in (and burbled as he came). Alas, he unceremoniously smote my avatar before I could take my own vorpal sword in hand.

One day, much later, we may even see a civil war, a popular revolution, and a real parliament which includes representation for the serfs, of some kind (A house of "commons.") But first, I'm afraid the "beheading" of Jimbo I cannot be avoided.

A Godzilla-King dies when his adoring fans stop going to the Theatre of Toho Studios.

But first, I'm afraid the "beheading" of Jimbo I cannot be avoided.

Indeed, it is absolutely necessary. Wikipedia cannot hope to improve until it rids itself of that particular cancer.

The funny thing is, my avatar didn't die. After all, Jimbo's site is only a Desert Wilderness MMPORG, and I was playing the role of Caprice the Indomitable Spirit of Resurrection Hackware.

[Peter Damian]

I noticed this proposal on AN yesterday: "Any account used primarily for advocating pseudoscience, fringe theories or other kookery shall be blocked indefinitely".

Why wasn't FT2's account blocked then?

[Cedric]

But first, I'm afraid the "beheading" of Jimbo I cannot be avoided.

Indeed, it is absolutely necessary. Wikipedia cannot hope to improve until it rids itself of that particular cancer.

To be sure, removing Jimbo would be a good start, but in itself would be insufficient to make the reforms needed to keep Wikipedia viable possible. In order for that to happen, you need to not only destroy the rule of Jimbo, but also destroy the ideology of Jimbo as well. The first could very well happen, but the second seems rather unlikely.

[EricBarbour]

I noticed this proposal on AN yesterday: "Any account used primarily for advocating pseudoscience, fringe theories or other kookery shall be blocked indefinitely".

And who defines what is "kookery"? Where is the written, detailed policy?

Jesus. This just gets worse and worse.

Why wasn't FT2's account blocked then?

Naughty naughty.

[Angela Kennedy]

Outside the articles no one cares about, Wikipedia is largely a war of attrition. If you are lucky the forces pushing one POV have as many patient under-employed soldiers as the ones pushing the opposite direction, and, with a bit more luck, the resulting stalemate looks something like neutrality to most people. However, if you've got kooks (or anti-kook cabals) with time on their hands you are largely sunk.

Little cabals can manage to control articles to their own POV if the rest of the community doesn't know enough or care enough to contest them. When the community gets involved, then the house POV generally prevails - it is largely secularist, materialist, and libertarian.

Just watch at the arbcom election when they usual suspects roll out to bully candidates to take the wiki-equivalent of the "Ethanol Pledge", I mean "will you swear on Holy Writ that SPOV = NPOV (and that Richard Dawkins is kinda cool)"

I noticed this proposal on AN yesterday: "Any account used primarily for advocating pseudoscience, fringe theories or other kookery shall be blocked indefinitely". Well, yup we all hate the Scientology POV pushers, the problem is, where does it stop?

Well yeah - especially when the construct 'pseudoscience' is itself highly unstable and inconsistent, and is used as ad hominem attack ad nausuem on Wikipedia, by people with half-arsed understandings of the complex and unstable histories and philosphies of science and its methodologies, but who either don't understand their own knowledge of 'science' is half-arsed, or are cynically manipulating the fact many others' knowledge is similarly so.

[flash]

Yup... sure, why not. Both the 'winning pub team' model and the Houston space center one indicate that a well-organised group is better than 'the best expert'.

With WP, the tension is over admin-experts or occasionally 'user votes' deciding. If WP were to attempt to land on the moon, for sure they'd ban the guy who recognised the error code and vote to change the mission to go to Mars...

Erm, bait and switch - well organised group was neither part of your original premise - which was "the wisdom of the crowds" which is the antithesis of a well organised group. Second switch is also the suggestion that WP is "well-organised". Leave admins out of it, the fundamental model of WP is disorganised mob rule.

[Later] - oh, and there is nothing in that example that suggests that a "best expert" is overridden in his field by an organised group - the organised group might defer to the best expert, but in the appropriate circumstances, a group could not invent more knowledge than an acknowledged expert already had.

Woof woof!

The suggestion, which in your eagerness to BITE has been overlooked, is that IF WP was 'well-organised', like say Houston Space Control, then the wisdom inherent in its large pool of contributors could be utilised. If, on the other hand, one relies on the 'expert' model, the level of contributions cannot rise higher than the level of the experts.

IF you read my - or anyone else's contributions - you would know that NO ONE thinks WP is 'well organised' at present... I specifically refered to the 'cult' of the admin-expert. Grrr...

This post has been edited by flash: Fri 31st October 2008, 12:11pm

[Cedric]

THE SIX ROTTEN PILLARS OF WIKIPEDIA

5. EXPLOITATION OF THE ADDICTED AND MENTALLY ILL. Of all of the unseemly aspects that there are of Wikipedia, I would say that the most unattractive and morally repugnant of them all is the way that those with addictive personalities and/or mental illness are used to generate content and to police the website. One can readily see the addictive qualities of editing WP by clicking on the “contributions” link for any number of WP admins and other “power users”. The 24+ hour editing sprees and other signs of obsessive and compulsive editing are well known to the regulars here at Wikipedia Review. So too are many of their usernames, although I see no need in naming any here.

The culture on WP is such that obsessive and overblown devotion to the website is cause for signal praise, rather than cause for alarm. That is, as long as the user is deemed “constructive” and is also subservient to (or at least acquiescent to) the will of the applicable cabal that controls the matter or “articlespace” where they edit. Users award one another virtual “barnstars”, “ribbons”, and “medals”, along with other “awards” for their “service to the wiki”. It appears that WP has developed even more awards than the old Soviet Union to honor its most politically correct devotees.

There is never any thought of flood control for a “constructive editor”, no matter how clearly obsessive they become. Not unless or until that editor has become unmutual, or simply too great an embarrassment, because of violations of policy (be they written or unwritten), in which case they are blocked or banned. Generally, one can either edit in an unlimited fashion (until they drop), or not all. Of course, has to be noted here that those editors who are better known, who have been deemed “constructive” and “productive” in the past, and who are admins or a friend of an admin (i.e., “power users”), are likely to be judged far more leniently as compared to less well known and less obsessive editors who have no friends in the WP power structure. To those “power users” with personality disorders or addictive personalities, this merely serves as an invitation to delve more deeply into pathological behavior; an invitation rarely, if ever, declined.

The exploitation of the addiction or mental illness of certain users has bad effects other than the deepening psychological harm to the afflicted user. It also has the affect of harming the reputation of WP, by giving the increasingly common impression that “the lunatics have taken over the asylum”. This in turn has prompted a number of actually constructive users to leave WP in disgust as they see the favoritism extended toward certain users who are clearly disturbed, and who also are clearly pushing an agenda, or have little idea what they are talking about. And when the afflicted user also happens to be an admin, the potential for abusive use of admin powers is very often realized. In essence, such admins are both victims and victimizers.

However, merely having an internet addiction or mental illness alone does not give a user an “inside track” to becoming a “power user”. If one is afflicted, but also expresses politically incorrect opinions or fails to show a proper eagerness to play the game, that user can quickly find themself isolated, if not blocked or banned. Also, I would never suggest as a reform that WP start to offer some sort counseling program to troubled users. The very thought of a psychological counseling program at WP is only very slightly less horrifying than wiki-surgery.

“Good Lord, dear! Bethlehem Hospital? I thought this was WMF Headquarters!”

(Tomorrow's installment: BAD GOVERNANCE– THE REIGN OF THE LORDS OF MISRULE)

[Son of a Yeti]

5. EXPLOITATION OF THE ADDICTED AND MENTALLY ILL.

I had a really good laugh reading this installment. Everyone here knows some good examples of the "mentally ill power users" on Wikipedia.

Possibly even some of us, discussing here, could be taken as examples. But it's not for me to judge if I was one (I've already pared down rather radically my WP involvement ).

Thanks again for the great series

[dogbiscuit]

Yup... sure, why not. Both the 'winning pub team' model and the Houston space center one indicate that a well-organised group is better than 'the best expert'.

With WP, the tension is over admin-experts or occasionally 'user votes' deciding. If WP were to attempt to land on the moon, for sure they'd ban the guy who recognised the error code and vote to change the mission to go to Mars...

Erm, bait and switch - well organised group was neither part of your original premise - which was "the wisdom of the crowds" which is the antithesis of a well organised group. Second switch is also the suggestion that WP is "well-organised". Leave admins out of it, the fundamental model of WP is disorganised mob rule.

[Later] - oh, and there is nothing in that example that suggests that a "best expert" is overridden in his field by an organised group - the organised group might defer to the best expert, but in the appropriate circumstances, a group could not invent more knowledge than an acknowledged expert already had.

Woof woof!

The suggestion, which in your eagerness to BITE has been overlooked, is that IF WP was 'well-organised', like say Houston Space Control, then the wisdom inherent in its large pool of contributors could be utilised. If, on the other hand, one relies on the 'expert' model, the level of contributions cannot rise higher than the level of the experts.

IF you read my - or anyone else's contributions - you would know that NO ONE thinks WP is 'well organised' at present... I specifically refered to the 'cult' of the admin-expert. Grrr...

What you meant is not what you wrote, and that is what I have to deal with in front of me.

There is still a problem with what you have written - that you suggest a group can get contributions higher than the knowledge of an expert on the subject. Now I know I am getting pedantic, but in the inaccurate world of Wikipedia, it is important. Your suggestion is that a group can know more than an individual - but that is not the suggestion, both the pub quiz and the Houston example rely on a group of experts, not riff-raff, to succeed. It is an important point, as you can be read as suggesting that simply by being better organised, Wikipedia can increase its collective IQ. It can only increase its level to that of the most knowledgeable person, though I agree that as a group you can organise the work and research and produce a more effective result, when it comes to knowledge of a particular issue, a group of "know it somes" are highly unlikely to be more effective than the specific know it all, who not only already has the knowledge to hand, but also is likely to have the sources and experience within the sources to determine the appropriate answers.

Of course, this strays into Original Research - but it is a dilemma that Wikipedia cares not to resolve - anything that requires careful thought does not belong in Wikipedia, therefore the expert, who can understand the subject and offer interpretation is excluded against the editor who can count sources and discount those he disagrees with.

Put another way, the suggestion you make is that groups can know more than experts - they don't, what they can do is work more quickly to get a wider coverage at a lower level. Wikipedia could never be the definitive guide when organised by the mob - for example you would need an expert on Greek literature to be able to assess the most appropriate of multiple conflicting sources on some Greek work, you cannot simply do a vote of the sources and assume that the most common one is correct. (Why? For example, you need to understand where one source is actually derived from another, repeating an error; or you need to understand that another one was written in the 1950s where there was a different political outlook so the translator may have been influenced by his own times - perhaps writing in the idiom of the day which has now changed meaning). The mob does not necessarily have the intellect to be able to say that they do not understand and should defer to someone else.

[Peter Damian]

Yes, thanks for this series. I particularly liked

It appears that WP has developed even more awards than the old Soviet Union to honor its most politically correct devotees.

Full version now available at MWB here

http://wikipediareview.com/The_Six_Rotten_Pillar...ND_MENTALLY_ILL

This post has been edited by Peter Damian: Fri 31st October 2008, 3:03pm

[Cedric]

I had a really good laugh reading this installment. Everyone here knows some good examples of the "mentally ill power users" on Wikipedia.

Possibly even some of us, discussing here, could be taken as examples. But it's not for me to judge if I was one (I've already pared down rather radically my WP involvement ).

Thanks again for the great series

Yes, thanks for this series. I particularly liked

It appears that WP has developed even more awards than the old Soviet Union to honor its most politically correct devotees.

"You are very welcome, comrades!"

[flash]

There is still a problem with what you have written - that you suggest a group can get contributions higher than the knowledge of an expert on the subject. Now I know I am getting pedantic, but in the inaccurate world of Wikipedia, it is important. Your suggestion is that a group can know more than an individual ... It is an important point, as you can be read as suggesting that simply by being better organised, Wikipedia can increase its collective IQ. It can only increase its level to that of the most knowledgeable person [...]

Put another way, the suggestion you make is that groups can know more than experts - they don't, what they can do is work more quickly to get a wider coverage at a lower level. Wikipedia could never be the definitive guide when organised by the mob ... The mob does not necessarily have the intellect to be able to say that they do not understand and should defer to someone else.

Dogbiscuit and I are chewing over this one, but why not, as doggy says, its important and quite relevant to Cedric's supposedly knocked over and crushed for hard-core WP pillars, esp. 3 and 4.

No, I do not agree taht an expert writes a better article than say, three experts. Nor do I even agree that 1 or 3 experts writes a better article than 100 WP drones... I would take the philosphy pages as examples. The 'experts' are in reality very dull people who read a book many years ago and have been paid to repeat its contents ever since. These people are expert only in comparison to the WP editor in the Street. Get another book out of the library and you see thier expertise is very thin. Go back to 'original sources', as Doggy says, and you get an even stranger picture. But who is to judge?

This is where the WP model gets interesting. A.N. Expert is obliged to 'win over' the mob, and the mob may ferret around (with quick checks of the internet, the odd book, even the odd person like Moulton who seems to know odd bits of information!) and 'challenge' the expert. The article thereby grows organically into something better than the expert would have either chosen to or been able to write.

WP is like the '.Game of Life' simulations - you start off with some very simple rules, and the editors all interact, devouring most of the contributions without trace but leaving behind a structure of suprising sophistication, complexity and elegance.

[dogbiscuit]

No, I do not agree taht an expert writes a better article than say, three experts. Nor do I even agree that 1 or 3 experts writes a better article than 100 WP drones... I would take the philosphy pages as examples. The 'experts' are in reality very dull people who read a book many years ago and have been paid to repeat its contents ever since. These people are expert only in comparison to the WP editor in the Street. Get another book out of the library and you see thier expertise is very thin. Go back to 'original sources', as Doggy says, and you get an even stranger picture. But who is to judge?

This is where the WP model gets interesting. A.N. Expert is obliged to 'win over' the mob, and the mob may ferret around (with quick checks of the internet, the odd book, even the odd person like Moulton who seems to know odd bits of information!) and 'challenge' the expert. The article thereby grows organically into something better than the expert would have either chosen to or been able to write.

We're getting closer - but I think you do experts a disservice - you probably never heard a lecture by A J P Taylor who used to do whole history programmes on TV by just talking - no re-enactments or drama documentaries that you need now. And you are still talking apples and pears, are the WP self-proclaimed "experts" really knowledgeable? Well, we can't tell, there is no reason to assume there is anyone competent in any field on Wikipedia, so we cannot judge whether your characterisation is correct, and your test is as good as any - assuming that the books from the library are appropriately chosen.

You then drink of the Kool-Aid and make the fallacious assumption that someone who is knowledgeable about their subject will win over the mob and therefore the article will be better, whereas experience shows that the expert gets bored of dealing with idiots and walks away, leaving the mob believing they have won - they have won a battle and made the encyclopaedia a little worse.

[Moulton]

You then drink of the Kool-Aid and make the fallacious assumption that someone who is knowledgeable about their subject will win over the mob and therefore the article will be better, whereas experience shows that the expert gets bored of dealing with idiots and walks away, leaving the mob believing they have won - they have won a battle and made the encyclopaedia a little worse.

History shows that the pitchfork-wielding mob will emasculate the subject-matter expert every time. Whether it's Hemlock-flavored Kool-Aid or Blood-On-a-Cross flavored Kool-Aid or Spammish Inquisition Kool-Aid, the story repeats endlessly down through the millenia, with both famous and long-forgotten iconoclastic thinkers being given the heave-ho by the unwashed masses.

Which, I suppose, is why it's traditional to tell the unwashed masses to go jump in the lake.

[EricBarbour]

Which, I suppose, is why it's traditional to tell the unwashed masses to go jump in the lake.

Heh. Too bad this "encyclopedia" is totally dependent on those vile, unwashed masses to write most of its content.

They can't go swimming until they've written another 50 articles about Neon Genesis Evangelion.

[Cedric]

THE SIX ROTTEN PILLARS OF WIKIPEDIA

6. BAD GOVERNANCE– THE REIGN OF THE LORDS OF MISRULE. This Sixth Rotten Pillar of Wikipedia has probably attracted more attention here on the pages of Wikipedia Review than have the five others. The names and exploits of certain abusive admins, the policies they choose to selectively enforce and why, the follies of the Arbitration Committee (“ArbCom”), and the battles between individual users, or gangs of users, are the subjects of frequent commentary here. WP has been called an anarchy, or alternatively, an absolutist dictatorship on a fascist or Stalinist model. While neither view is entirely correct, neither is entirely wrong either. WP has in fact managed in its own dysfunctional way to combine many of the worst elements of both anarchy and absolute dictatorship for its governance model.

Just what that governance model was meant to be is more than a little confusing. In April, 2002, The Jimbo issued a vaguely worded essay entitled “Wikipedia Governance”. The essay makes clear that Jimbo intended to retain a super-veto power as to policy issues; but as to other matters, all he seems to specify is that NPOV is absolutely central to WP governance, and that those who disagree should leave WP and “set up [their] own project”. A more recent page entitled “Power structure” is more detailed, but also more diffuse and confusing. There it is claimed that “Wikipedia's present power structure is a mix of anarchic, despotic, democratic, republican, meritocratic, plutocratic, technocratic, and bureaucratic elements.” Add a few diced carrots and some paprika and you’ve got goulash.

One is given to wonder if all of this confusion is largely or wholly intended. Perhaps so, but more often when one finds a large organization with such a diffuse and ill-defined governance model, the people running the organization are essentially making it up as they go along. Given WP’s sheer size and its largely open and instant editing policy, there is no way that WP’s admin corps of 1,600 has any hope of effectively policing the entire site. It depends greatly upon ordinary users to do grub-work like reverting vandalism, “recent changes patrol”, correcting grammar and punctuation in articles outside of the user’s areas of interest, etc. There are a number of users willing to do this, but they tend to burn out after a time, and then limit their activity to their subjects of interest, or give up on “the wiki” altogether. A great deal of WP is a constantly roiling mass, agitated by thousands of pot-stirrers. In terms of any meaningful quality control, WP is anarchy. While WP’s much vaunted “self-corrective process” does indeed exist, it is hardly any match for the pace of constant change, and has not been for quite some time.

Still, WP is not a perfect anarchy; it does indeed have some of the elements of an absolute dictatorship, but not a terribly efficient one. As noted above, core policies of WP, like “NPOV” and determining “consensus”, are vaguely worded or contain essentially illogical or unworkable formulas. This, in addition to the anarchy that otherwise prevails on WP, serves as a powerful incentive for admins to act in arbitrary fashion to suppress perceived “enemies of the wiki”, which not a few succumb to.

To some degree, WP governance does bears a resemblance to the government of Nazi Germany. A popular misconception about Nazi government is that it was ruthlessly efficient. Ruthless, to be sure, but efficient it was not. The Nazi bureaucracy was an absolute rabbit warren of numerous agencies with overlapping jurisdictions and responsibilities. Bureaucratic infighting was thus ensured and was rather common. This was not the result of inadvertence or incompetence, but rather the result of Hitler’s intended design. With this bureaucratic chaos and the sweeping powers granted him under the Enabling Act, Hitler essentially made himself the German state constitution and the ultimate arbiter of disputes. All was designed to enhance his personal power and worked very much as intended. Where the analogy to Nazi government really falls apart, however, is right at the top. While it would appear that Jimbo always intended to retain some ill-defined special role in WP governance, there is no evidence that Jimbo ever intended for himself a role as central in WP as Hitler intended for himself in Germany. Indeed, Jimbo created ArbCom and other parts of the WP bureaucratic structure in order to take over responsibilities that he had previously exercised himself. In the last analysis, Jimbo is simply too much of a dilettante to be an effective absolute dictator.

If one wants to cast about for a historical analogy here, the Middle Ages in Europe or the Warlord Era of early 20th Century China provides a better fit. As so often happens in the wider world, anarchy is followed by feudalism, and this is what happened on WP. Note that the word “feudal” does not appear in the WP governmental goulash list above. I would suggest that that is no accident. Feudal systems by their nature arise from, and are sustained by, conflict; and by decree of The Jimbo, “Wikipedia culture is strongly opposed to Usenet-style flame wars”. But as a matter of ever increasing fact, WP is dominated by Usenet-style flame wars, and to extent it has any effective governance at all, it is exercised through a number of cabals (also supposedly verboten, according to The Jimbo). This has been documented time and again on the pages of WR. The cabals are truly the “sausage factories” of WP where “consensus” gets manufactured. Were it not for arbitrary misrule of these cabals, staking out and defending "their" territory; there would be no rule at all.

“Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! All those having business before the

Arbitration Committee draw near and demonstrate your fealty!”

(Tomorrow the final installment: THE END GAME)

[Peter Damian]

Nor do I even agree that 1 or 3 experts writes a better article than 100 WP drones... I would take the philosphy pages as examples. The 'experts' are in reality very dull people who read a book many years ago and have been paid to repeat its contents ever since.

You are of course an expert on philosophy?


Full version here

http://www.wikipediareview.com/The_Six_Rotten_Pillars_of_Wikipedia

[Son of a Yeti]

Another excellent installment!

To some degree, WP governance does bears a resemblance to the government of Nazi Germany. A popular misconception about Nazi government is that it was ruthlessly efficient. Ruthless, to be sure, but efficient it was not.

If you are looking for an inefficient tyranny, Russia (of almost any era) could be a better example. But the best one could be the present Russia. It has a strong president (at present pretending to be the prime minister) but also warring clans of bureaucrats and oligarchs. The oligarchs can sometimes reach an almost presidential level and then fall quickly (including a permablock in Siberia) if the president intervenes strongly enough.

Not an ideal model of Wikipedia, but close enough.

This post has been edited by Son of a Yeti: Sat 1st November 2008, 3:44pm