The main issue of this election, (for me) Options

[Peter Damian]

The main issue for me is which of the following two positions a candidate takes:

1. Wikipedia is an experiment in social democracy in which all content contributors must be treated in exactly the same way. No one is 'above the law' of civility.

2. Wikipedia is about building an encyclopedia. That comes first. For that reason, not all content contributors are equal.

I have put this bluntly in order to emphasise the contrast. Obviously those who support (1) will argue that strict enforcement of civility is the only way to build an encyclopedia. Those who support (2) claim that good content contributors are rarely uncivil, and that (1) is being used as a stick, and so on. It really comes down to whether when it comes to choosing, one chooses civility over content (1), or content over civility (2).

For (1). Rlevse - ScienceApologist has gone so far as to accuse him of wanting "to create a particular kind of community rather than create a good encyclopedia". Giano has taken particular issue with his appointing Aervanath on a recent RFA, despite the user having little experience of content contribution. And Coren, who takes a particularly hard line when it comes to civility.

For (2). Jehochman, who gave some excellent answers to my questions, and Sir Fozzie (likewise). Also Casliber, Fish and Karate, and (to some extent) Wizardman spring to mind

Agree/disagree? Which of the other candidates falls into which camp?

This post has been edited by Peter Damian:

[dtobias]

1. Wikipedia is an experiment in social democracy in which all content contributors must be treated in exactly the same way. No one is 'above the law' of civility.

2. Wikipedia is about building an encyclopedia. That comes first. For that reason, not all content contributors are equal.

Both can be bad if taken to extremes. (1) can lead to the oppressive enforcement of a phony "civility" to suppress criticism and enforce a boring blandness in the name of stopping "drama", ironically often causing drama itself. (2) can lead to unfair double standards where whoever is regarded as "more important" gets a free pass to act like total assholes without sanction, while those who are "less important" get banned at the drop of a pin; and the judgment of importance inevitably becomes a social-networking thing based on who your friends are rather than your actual contribution to the encyclopedia.

[Peter Damian]

(2) can lead to unfair double standards where whoever is regarded as "more important" gets a free pass to act like total assholes without sanction, while those who are "less important" get banned at the drop of a pin

But then the (2) you are talking about is about the 'importance' of the contributor, whereas the (2) I was talking about is the true value of the contributions. These are different.

The problem of course, in a project where judgment about content is supposed to be determined by the crowd, is to determine the true value of a contributor.

[Lar]

(2) can lead to unfair double standards where whoever is regarded as "more important" gets a free pass to act like total assholes without sanction, while those who are "less important" get banned at the drop of a pin

But then the (2) you are talking about is about the 'importance' of the contributor, whereas the (2) I was talking about is the true value of the contributions. These are different.

The problem of course, in a project where judgment about content is supposed to be determined by the crowd, is to determine the true value of a contributor.

And how exactly do you do that? I can rattle off shedfuls of metrics which all have some flaw or another....

- barnstars (do I actually have to explain why that one's bad???)
- Number of DYKs
- Number of GAs
- Number of FAs
- What "your project" thinks of you...
- Number of words of text contributed
- Number of different articles touched
- Articlespace edit count
... and so on

Even in academia, with peer reviewed journals, determining the real intrinsic worth of someone is rather hard... someone who pounds out lots of ho hum papers may not be quite as much worth as someone who writes just a few, but very profound ones.

So it sounds good, and heck, I even agree with you, except... who bells the cat?

Don't think I make light of you, this is an important problem. It's just not easy. That said, I think that since Wikipedia is for the readers, the readers are the ultimate metric. Studies (some of which have been done, and there's even automation for some of this but the URLS escape me) that evaluate how long text remains around after you write it (or how unmodified it is) and how many people see it might be a guide... but even that might be gameable