Power of Wikipedia + Lack of Accountability = Bad News, Does anyone disagree with that? Options

[Kato]

Let's cut back to the chase:

• Due to the power Wikipedia has attained in the world of information, and the fact that this power is wielded without the standards of accountability society traditionally requires, Wikipedia's model presents serious problems. (examples are plenty of the problems that this lack of accountability has created)

Does anyone disagree with that statement?

[wikiwhistle]

Let's cut back to the chase:

• Due to the power Wikipedia has attained in the world of information, and the fact that this power is wielded without the standards of accountability society traditionally requires, Wikipedia's model presents serious problems. (examples are plenty of the problems that this lack of accountability has created)

Does anyone disagree with that statement?

No I don't disagree, but also:-

due to the visibility of wikipedia articles, and the accessibility of information on the internet, wikipedia articles may create problems for companies and individuals that want to manage their image, if they have received any undesirable press. (This to me may be a strength of wikipedia- but obviously for the subjects themselves, it's often not a good thing.)

An example is Nelson's homeopathy - an employee made the article and it was quite pro-Nelsons, but because there was an article up it means problems they've had with providing anti-malaria homeopathy tablets are brought into the open again. I bet the bloke regrets it now. It's a two-edged sword.

I suppose how this relates to your point is that sometimes the things said about BLP's, companies etc, the subjects complain about them not because they are false, but because they are true but they don't want them more widely known. Would you disagree?

[Milton Roe]

Let's cut back to the chase:

• Due to the power Wikipedia has attained in the world of information, and the fact that this power is wielded without the standards of accountability society traditionally requires, Wikipedia's model presents serious problems. (examples are plenty of the problems that this lack of accountability has created)

Does anyone disagree with that statement?

Nope. Knowledge is power; power corrupts. Wikipedia shows not surprisingly that being in control of a big knowledge-source tends to corrupt quickly. Look at Jimbo's escapades with biographizing women.

You also get a guy out there tossing breadcrums to the masses, as he did with Mzoli's meats. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/...,0,344107.story If you read the Wiki on Mzoli's now, you might get the idea that it's the central bastian of post-apartheid progress in a whole damn country. Wrong -- it's just Jimbo's flunkies, cleaning up after him, justifying, justifying. Get out the babywipes again.

This post has been edited by Milton Roe: Wed 28th May 2008, 12:57am

[Giggy]

I tend to agree with that statement, though I'm optimistic it can be solved with less drastic measures than some people have suggested throughout WR.

[Moulton]

The main problem with the statement is that it's weak. It doesn't say anything that is both true and arresting.

[Milton Roe]

The main problem with the statement is that it's weak. It doesn't say anything that is both true and arresting.

More succinctly:

Knowledge-control is power. Power corrupts. Wikipedia: the free source of Jimmy Wales' corruption that anyone can contribute to.

This post has been edited by Milton Roe: Wed 28th May 2008, 1:41am

[Jon Awbrey]

If memory serves — don't ask who controls the servers — people usually attribute that Knowledge Is Power tag to Bacon, I forget which one, but it really goes back to Aristotle, and there the word for power was dynamis, which really means something more like potential than our modern sense of political power.

Cf. Inquiry Driven Systems, § 1.3.9.3. The Formative Tension

Jon

[Kato]

The main problem with the statement is that it's weak. It doesn't say anything that is both true and arresting.

Well at least it's clear, universally comprehensible, and free of self-indulgent bullshit.

[Jon Awbrey]

Let's cut back to the chase:

• Due to the power Wikipedia has attained in the world of information, and the fact that this power is wielded without the standards of accountability society traditionally requires, Wikipedia's model presents serious problems. (Examples are plenty of the problems that this lack of accountability has created.)

Does anyone disagree with that statement?

I think it's pretty obvious that I agree with that.

There are two kinds of problems that come to mind, depending on how much influence you think the Wikipedia way of doing things will come to have. No, Wikipedia is not really all that influential yet, as most people I know keep reminding me whenever I start to bore them with my fears about it.

On a clear day, I think I can see that democratic societies have already fought this war against anonymous authority and irresponsible influence and — even though there are setbacks from time to time — democratic societies will simply never go back to the ways things were before, not so long as they continue to be democratic societies.

On this assumption, the problem that Wikipedia presents is largely a problem of mis-education, namely, that a segment of the population is being habituated to modes of conduct that ill suit them for citizenship in democratic societies.

Jon

This post has been edited by Jon Awbrey: Wed 28th May 2008, 4:00am

[Milton Roe]

If memory serves — don't ask who controls the servers — people usually attribute that Knowledge Is Power tag to Bacon, I forget which one, but it really goes back to Aristotle, and there the word for power was dynamis, which really means something more like potential than our modern sense of political power.

Oh, political power quotes, and all other quotes, are generally assumed to be from our Elizabethan beaurocrat, the aphoristic Francis. Not the gunpowder-making Roger of way earlier. There's six degrees of separation between the two Bacons, at least.

We assume desire and substantiation exist. Natually, knowledge/information alone, like software alone, is impotent. Nothing comes of instruction without mechanism, art without craft, information without implementation, DNA without the cell to be run by it. But even when you have the full potential of hardware plus will and knowledge, power itself is always in a sense mere potential, until you use it to do something.

Knowledge. Intelligence. Strength. Money/Capital. Courage. Industriousness. Fame, charisma, pulchritude, and so on. What are they good for? Nothing, by themselves. None of them is even so much as good or bad (though our genes oft tell us otherwise!) They are all, in an of themselves, merely amplifiers, social and otherwise. Instrumentalities.

-- The Baconator, with Cheese

This post has been edited by Milton Roe: Wed 28th May 2008, 4:17am

[Jon Awbrey]

Matter is potentiality (dynamis), while form is realization or actuality (entelecheia), and the word actuality is used in two senses, illustrated by the possession of knowledge (episteme) and the exercise of it (theorein).

Aristotle, "On The Soul", in Aristotle, Volume 8, W.S. Hett (trans.), William Heinemann, London, UK, 1936, 1986.

[everyking]

There are some problems with lack of accountability, but they are less than the problems that would arise with any substantially increased degree of accountability. Lack of accountability has been crucial in creating the power that you refer to.

[Angela Kennedy]

Let's cut back to the chase:

• Due to the power Wikipedia has attained in the world of information, and the fact that this power is wielded without the standards of accountability society traditionally requires, Wikipedia's model presents serious problems. (examples are plenty of the problems that this lack of accountability has created)

Does anyone disagree with that statement?

Hi Kato,

I broadly agree with the statement. My only argument in qualification would be that ‘traditional’ requirements of ‘standards of accountability’ are themselves subject to power relations (so therefore are subject to being applied inconsistently and oppressively, or being gerrymandered).

I do think Wikipedia has serious problems in its claims to be producing ‘knowledge’, and wields inordinate power in various ways (some of which are only just becoming more evident, and others which may not even be evident as yet.)

The claims to NPOV and SPOV are often hilariously ironic- they are most often made without any careful consideration of the problems of claims to ‘objectivity’ or 'neutrality' and how these might be addressed. My background is in feminist research epistemology and methodology - I‘m most certainly NOT‘ anti-science‘ - and feminists are among those that HAVE produced literature on the problem of claims to objectivity being different from actually achieving objectivity, and not necessarily as a ‘strong programme‘ participant (though there is a lot of that about, as in all areas of social science), but within empiricist commitments to the possibility of scientific and other objectivity .

Often at Wikipedia there is an unpleasant distortion of the ‘SPOV’ whereby appeals to authority are often paraded in place of careful, sober logical evaluation of claims made in science. I think this is a major problem on Wikipedia, possibly related to the personal philosophies of key personnel there. The resort to the ad hominem and operation of power status (POV- pushing admins a major problem) in place of reasoned, logical discussion is endemic there, even on ‘science‘ subjects.

I don’t necessarily think this is unique to Wikipedia- but its so-called global ‘status’ as a source of ‘knowledge’ makes for grave concerns in this area, yes.

How to address them- don’t know. I’ve obviously had my fingers burned and my representation placed under sustained attack, with real world effects, for example. Obviously there are many stories with similarities to my own. Somewhere like WR gets labelled on WP as an ‘attack site’ or a “BADSITE” as a way of trivialising and pathologising any concerns that might be brought up - which would be laughable, but we don’t know how much that sort of WP lexicon or way of thinking is going to be taken up in the real world- another potentially big problem.

So yes, it’s a fair statement to make.

[Jon Awbrey]

Angela,

The problems that you mention have a lot to do, once again, with the intellectual horizon of the average wikipediot admin/editor. Somehow or other, through lack of education, general awareness, or worldly experience, the group in question has missed the whole dialogue on knowledge that has been taking place on the cultural scene for about as long as, well, as I've been paying attention, at least.

This has numerous consequences.

Jon

This post has been edited by Jon Awbrey: Wed 28th May 2008, 2:16pm

[Rootology]

due to the visibility of wikipedia articles, and the accessibility of information on the internet, wikipedia articles may create problems for companies and individuals that want to manage their image, if they have received any undesirable press. (This to me may be a strength of wikipedia- but obviously for the subjects themselves, it's often not a good thing.)

I believe I've said before that Wikipedia is more an information aggregator than always an encyclopedia. If a company or government has bad press (or good press) it is not an inherently bad thing for it be centralized, for people to get all the known facts in one central place. BLPs are a mess, but for articles on civic or private organizations, commercial or otherwise, this practice actually serves the community's interests. By community, I mean the world.

Groups and businesses have no business controlling their "image" beyond the means that the local United States government, where Wikipedia is hosted, allows them. They have in this country, thanks to Freedom of Speech, thankfully little control over such things. Wikipedia is a great service in this regard.


A relevant court case as well, for how this could relate to BLPs (separate and distinct from any Section 230 discussions, before someone brings that up):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nussenzweig_v._DiCorcia

This post has been edited by Rootology: Wed 28th May 2008, 5:45pm

[Jon Awbrey]

I believe I've said before that Wikipedia is more an information aggregator than always an encyclopedia. If a company or government has bad press (or good press) it is not an inherently bad thing for it be centralized, for people to get all the known facts in one central place. BLPs are a mess, but for articles on civic or private organizations, commercial or otherwise, this practice actually serves the community's interests. By community, I mean the world.

Groups and businesses have no business controlling their "image" beyond the means that the local United States government allows them. They have in this country, thanks to Freedom of Speech, thankfully little control over such things. Wikipedia is a great service in this regard.

Yet another example of wikiwishful thinking in the extreme.

A general rule of critical systems thinking is this:

• Any abuse that can occur, does occur.

Wikipedia is deliberately designed to permit the maximum possible abuse.

Most respectable publishers in the real world earn that respect by being vastly most honest than Wikipedia. They say, This is who we are and this is our point of view. Wikipedia is a platform for people who cannot or will not be that honest.

Jon

This post has been edited by Jon Awbrey: Wed 28th May 2008, 5:54pm

[Rootology]

Most respectable publishers in the real world earn that respect by being vastly most honest than Wikipedia. They say, This is who we are and this is our point of view. Wikipedia is a platform for people who cannot or will not be that honest.

And I and any sane person has to reject any argument that basically slags the idea of user-created content via the Internet. The Internet, and its tradition of letting "anyone" compile a page like

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Linux
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Microsoft

Is a fine tradition. Before the Internet, the mass media and print media/"reputable" publishers controlled any and all information flow. You can thanks to the internet enable private oversight of groups, with independent websites that can be a clearinghouse of information on corporations, governments, and groups. In any general sense, such things are good things. This argument you've presented is basically that only reputable experts should be doing such things: nonsense. As long as it's legally allowed, it's fine and a great service. Do Wikipedia articles get slanted sometimes in this regard? Yeah, but they can be fixed by anyone eventually. Can a private website that does the same thing be fixed by anyone, even if it's legal? No.

Any argument that boils down to "Less power to the people" is representative of repressive mindsets that only traditional methods of getting information, controlling information, and distributing information are valid. A world where anyone can get a message out is a good thing. Anything that breaks the control of governments, religions, corporations, or groups over information about themselves is a good thing.

Does that mean that in some cases "experts" or "traditional" authorities may get disempowered, marginalized, or be brought down to the level of talking heads or data points for the casual observer, instead of the word of information God? Sure. This is also not a bad thing, because the benefits far outweigh the negatives.

A great example is when Burma recently cracked down on the news media over their abusive treatment of protesters, and camera phone and citizen journalism told the entire world via the Internet. Wikileaks, and their potential to safely expose corporate or government malfeasance, is another great example. The arguments in thread aren't Wikipedia specific at all, but over whether the idea of anyone being able to compile and distribute information that some would like to see decentralized and scattered, or unavailable, is a good thing.

This post has been edited by Rootology: Wed 28th May 2008, 6:23pm

[Jon Awbrey]

No one here is saying any automatically bad things about User Created Content (UCC).

But I and any sane person sees the problem with Unidentified User Created Content (UUCC).

Jon

[Rootology]

No one here is saying any automatically bad things about User Created Content (UCC).

But I and any sane person sees the problem with Unidentified User Created Content (UUCC)

What are your thoughts on Wikileaks, and anonymously created websites in general? Should a person compiling all available information, say on the Scientologists (who with their Fair Play policy WILL hurt your career and livelihood for speaking out against them)? What about a person compiling information on a website about China, Burma, or the Saudi government? Should they be identifying themselves also, even though it could get them killed?

[Jon Awbrey]

Don't let this beautiful fantasy about a wikipeeple's revolution get in the way of seeing the economic and political realities.

BTDT …

Jon