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The WikiPedia Medium Is The WikiPedia Massage, What Is The Real Purpose Of The WikiProgramme? |
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Jonny Cache |
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Picking up on one of Kato's « Key Questions» and generalizing another: - What is the root problem in Wikipedia?
- What do all of these episodes we keep watching have in common?
I suggest that the answer will come from pursuing the question: What is the real purpose of those who control Wikipedia?Maybe it's just me, but I don't think we have to watch every last episode of the Wikipediot Soap Opera, much less every spin-off like Citzendium, ConservaToryPedia, VergoPedia, AdNauseaPedia that comes down the WikiPike in order to figure out the answer to this question once and for all. So permit me to extract my most recent mini-manifesto on this score from the pages of the Soap Opera Digest (SOD) — where it is likely to get buried beneath the fray of WhoScrewedWhoToday — and reprint it here. I keep trying to share what clues I've gathered, but folks at The Wikipedia Review are as just as blind as folks at Wikipedia and all the clueless InterNeuts in the Wowie-Zowie-Web-O-Sphere. Maybe folks didn't read the same books My Generation did in school and college. The scenario was laid out clearly enough in all of those Prophetically Dystopian novels of my childhood, and the basic principles of media dynamics that are involved in Wikipediac Devolution were all laid out by Marshall McLuhan so long ago that they passed from Archetype to Cliche when I was an Undergrub, and apparently into Oblivion now. You all keep being distracted by one damn Message after another when you ought to be looking at the kind of Medium that is being so craftily crafted under your very noses. For example, people on all sides waste so gawdawful much time trying to figure out what side the Cabal is on — when it comes to this or that economic, political, religious, or scientific tiff. The Cabal is not on any side but the Cabal's side. Sure, maybe the Cabal is taking the side of North-North-West Eurasia today, but it can just as easily shift to taking the side of Southerly Eurasia any time that it becomes convenient to do so. What does that mean for the Media Operating Characteristic (MOC) that will selected as their Most Favoured MOC? It means that their Most Favoured MOC cannot allow itself to get phase-locked forever into any one POV. More precisely, it must be agile enough to shift its phase 180° in a period of time just ε-greater than the modal attention span of the viewing public. How long is that? Your Mullage May Vary, but if we look at the US case in the last Dubya-Dubya Police Action, the US media were reporting on the Future Sea Battle for just about 6 months before it started to look downright silly not to go ahead and have it. Six months is not exactly turning on a dime, and I think that the Powers That Bee are probably trying to get that down to a temporal turning radius ≤ 6 weeks. For now … Jonny (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/cool.gif) This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:
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Jonny Cache |
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QUOTE(the fieryangel @ Sun 21st October 2007, 11:22am) QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Sun 21st October 2007, 2:25pm) What is the real purpose of those who control Wikipedia?
Short answer : follow the money and you'll find out … I think that it started as tax shelter for Jimbo and has grown into something else … but is much more profitable than Jimbo initially imagined … Yes, I did start out with the word "created" instead of "control", but I changed it deliberately and precisely so that we wouldn't get distracted by a genetic φallacy. Plus, I have known way too many projects over the last decade or so that look like they were upstarted by this or that hit-or-miss upstarter or other, and then one day a Man In Black Or Grey Flannel Or Olive Drab Or Shiny Sharkskin Or Some Other Gang Color approaches them with an offer they can't refuse. So the emphasis must be placed squarely on Who's Walking You Home Today (WWYHT)? Jonny (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/cool.gif) This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:
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Work In Progress —Picking up on one of Kato's « Key Questions» and generalizing another: - What is the root problem in Wikipedia?
- What do all of these episodes we keep watching have in common?
I suggest that the answer will come from pursuing the question: What is the real purpose of those who control Wikipedia?I don't think we have to watch every last episode of the Wikipediot Soap Opera, much less every spin-off like Citzendium, ConservaToryPedia, VergoPedia, ad nauseum that comes down the pike in order to figure out the answer to this question once and for all. So permit me to extract my most recent mini-manifesto on this score from the pages of the Soap Opera Digest (SOD) — where it is likely to get buried beneath the fray of WhoScrewedWhoToday — and reprint it here. I keep trying to share what clues I've gathered, but folks at The Wikipedia Review are as just as blind as folks at Wikipedia and all the clueless InterNeuts in the Blogosphere. The basic scenario was laid out clearly enough in those Dystopian novels that I read as a youth and the basic principles of media dynamics that govern Wikipediot Devolution were laid out by Marshall McLuhan so long ago that they passed from Archetype to Cliche when I was an undergraduate, and apparently into Oblivion now. People keep being distracted by one damn Message after another when they ought to be looking at the kind of Medium that is being so craftily crafted under their very noses. For example, people on all sides waste so much time trying to figure out what side the Cabal is on — when it comes to this or that economic, political, religious, or scientific tiff. The Cabal is not on any side but the Cabal's side. Sure, maybe the Cabal is taking the side of North-North-West Eurasia today, but it can just as easily shift to taking the side of Southerly Eurasia any time that it becomes convenient to do so. What does that mean about the Media Operating Characteristic (MOC) that is the Cabal's MOC of Choice? It means that the Cabal's most favored medium must be extremely agile, ductile, flexible, malleable, and plastic. It cannot be a medium that allows of being rigidly phase-locked into any one position or any one POV. More precisely, it must be agile enough to shift its phase 180° in a period of time just ε-greater than the modal attention span of the viewing public. How long is that? Your Mullage May Vary, but if we look at the US case in the last Dubya-Dubya Police Action, the US media were reporting on the Future Sea Battle for just about 6 months before it started to look downright silly not to go ahead and have it. Six months is not exactly turning on a dime, and I think that the Powers That Be are probably trying to get that down to a temporal turning radius ≤ 6 weeks. ¤ ¤ ¤ QUOTE(the fieryangel @ Sun 21st October 2007, 11:22am) QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Sun 21st October 2007, 2:25pm) What is the real purpose of those who control Wikipedia?
Short answer : follow the money and you'll find out … I think that it started as tax shelter for Jimbo and has grown into something else … but is much more profitable than Jimbo initially imagined … Yes, I did start out with the word "created" instead of "control", but I changed it deliberately and precisely so that we wouldn't get distracted by a genetic φallacy. Plus, I have known way too many projects over the last decade or so that look like they were upstarted by this or that hit-or-miss upstarter or other, and then one day a Man In Black or Grey Flannel or Olive Drab or Shiny Sharkskin or Some Other Gang Color approaches them with an offer they can't refuse. So the emphasis must be placed squarely on Who's Walking You Home Today (WWYHT)? This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:
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WhispersOfWisdom |
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QUOTE(Moulton @ Fri 14th December 2007, 6:51am) It occurs to me that there is a clue in Jimbo's testimony earlier this week on E-Gov 2.0, in which he touted the Wiki technology model as extensible to other public enterprises beyond encyclopedia writing. It looks to me like he wants to corner the market on public applications of Wiki-based systems.
Google, however, is positioned to provide alternative Web 2.0 technologies that may be more intelligently designed and better adapted to the task.
Jimbo seems to be enamored of the media, but he lacks Google's ability to craft the media tools that are best adapted to the public need. Wiki technology, as implemented and demonstrated on Wikipedia, supports and encourages oligarchical thuggery rather than genuine information democracy.
He can corner the market on a losing proposition that will ultimately be regulated by the Fed. for being abusive and counter to U.S. privacy laws. Further, if it won't work for MySpace or Facebook, it is gone. Lord Of The Flies ends poorly...and the aftershock is also not pretty. The WMF will ultimately lose protection that it gets from the charitable status. http://www.electronista.com/articles/07/12/14/google.knol/I will put my money with Google; Bill Gates; free market capitalism. Jimmy, Angela, Durova and JzG will ........ (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/ohmy.gif)
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Jonny Cache |
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QUOTE(WhispersOfWisdom @ Fri 14th December 2007, 10:21am) QUOTE(Moulton @ Fri 14th December 2007, 6:51am) It occurs to me that there is a clue in Jimbo's testimony earlier this week on E-Gov 2.0, in which he touted the Wiki technology model as extensible to other public enterprises beyond encyclopedia writing. It looks to me like he wants to corner the market on public applications of Wiki-based systems.
Google, however, is positioned to provide alternative Web 2.0 technologies that may be more intelligently designed and better adapted to the task.
Jimbo seems to be enamored of the media, but he lacks Google's ability to craft the media tools that are best adapted to the public need. Wiki technology, as implemented and demonstrated on Wikipedia, supports and encourages oligarchical thuggery rather than genuine information democracy.
He can corner the market on a losing proposition that will ultimately be regulated by the Fed. for being abusive and counter to U.S. privacy laws. Further, if it won't work for MySpace or Facebook, it is gone. Lord Of The Flies ends poorly … and the aftershock is also not pretty. The WMF will ultimately lose protection that it gets from the charitable status. If you read the previous discussion on this thread, you may notice that I am taking some pains to avoid falling into two types of error — - The observational error that social psychologists call Fundamental Attribution Bias (FAB), which arises from the natural human tendency to fixate on the casual effects of individual actors as the principal explanation of any phenomenon, doing that at the expense of giving due regard to background, contextual, environmental, functional, historical, and systematic factors.
- The theoretical error that is commonly called the Genetic Fallacy, which arises from the natural human tendency to fixate on the origin or the genesis of a thing in explaining or evaluating that thing.
The combination of those two sources of error in the present case leads people to answer questions about the present purpose of Wikipedia by speculating on what the purpose of its founders might have been at the beginning of its life. I think that is likely to prove a red herring. Jon Awbrey This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:
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Saltimbanco |
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QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Fri 14th December 2007, 8:11am) What is the real purpose of those who control Wikipedia?
I think you need to have a broad understanding of what 'those who control Wikipedia' means in order to get a useful answer to this. If you look narrowly, you can probably find answers in psychological needs: Jimbo Wales, possibly in response to becoming a father, wants to be known for something other than pornography; Linda Mack wants to combat the forces of wickedness that she sees in the world; etc. But in the broader sense, Wikipedia is part of a long-standing matter of modern democracy. Prior to there being any meaningful democracy, the "ruling elites" pretty much did what they want. With democracy, however, the "ruling elites" are mostly still there, but now they have to get the consent of most of the people in order to do what they want. So you need to control the press, and most of the press, including all major media, is pretty well controlled. Not to the extent of controlling particular broadcasts, but to the extent of being sure that certain "shared values" will always be respected. CNN, for example, which in the early days endeavored to be an international news outlet, now will routinely report things as Americans (sometimes as Westerners), and openly gush about what is good for America, regardless of whether it is right or wrong or good for the rest of the world. All of this, however, was predicated upon the social structure of the corporation, which is extremely un-free and un-democratic: there is no right to free speech in a corporation and there is a rigid hierarchical control. If you step out of bounds in a corporation, you are expelled from the corporation with no trial and no questions asked. (This may be less true outside of the US, but it is still generally true.) But the internet threw a potential wrench into the works: there is no central control of the information broadcast around the internet. But you do have things like Google, which endeavors to be a center for retrieving information from the internet, and like Wikipedia, which endeavors to be a central collection site for information on the internet. If a majority of the people could be relied upon to get most of their internet information through either something already under corporate control or through Google or Wikipedia, the potential problem of information on the internet becomes a lot more tractable. Google, first of all, is a corporation, so it can be brought to rein in the normal way. Wikipedia, however, is a more amorphous thing. So, how do the "ruling elites" make sure that the proper "shared values" are enforced at Wikipedia?
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QUOTE(Moulton @ Fri 14th December 2007, 11:25am) Purposive systems can have both expressed and implied intentions, as well as emergent and contingent purposes. Teasing these apart will be a challenge, given the changing Web 2.0 landscape, competitive threats, and cultural feedback.
There are elements of unmanaged autopoiesis in the evolution of Wikipedia, as well as express and implied (mis)direction from the top.
Not to mention nefarious misappropriation of system resources for unauthorized, irregular, or scandalous purposes.
Sorry, I learned my systems theory back in the days when it led out of automatopoesycybermystification. Jon Awbrey This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:
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QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Fri 14th December 2007, 8:11am) What is the real purpose of those who control Wikipedia?
QUOTE(Saltimbanco @ Fri 14th December 2007, 10:56am) I think you need to have a broad understanding of what 'those who control Wikipedia' means in order to get a useful answer to this. If you look narrowly, you can probably find answers in psychological needs: Jimbo Wales, possibly in response to becoming a father, wants to be known for something other than pornography; Linda Mack wants to combat the forces of wickedness that she sees in the world; etc.
I believe that I take a rather broad view of this question. Indeed, I have not assumed that we know the identities of the agents who could be called the «Controllers Of Wikipedia» (COW). We know some people who push and pull the system this way and that — some of them to what looks the very limits of human endurance — but I can't say that we know for sure who's really in charge of mission control. QUOTE(Saltimbanco @ Fri 14th December 2007, 10:56am) But in the broader sense, Wikipedia is part of a long-standing matter of modern democracy. Prior to there being any meaningful democracy, the "ruling elites" pretty much did what they want. With democracy, however, the "ruling elites" are mostly still there, but now they have to get the consent of most of the people in order to do what they want. So you need to control the press, and most of the press, including all major media, is pretty well controlled. Not to the extent of controlling particular broadcasts, but to the extent of being sure that certain "shared values" will always be respected. CNN, for example, which in the early days endeavored to be an international news outlet, now will routinely report things as Americans (sometimes as Westerners), and openly gush about what is good for America, regardless of whether it is right or wrong or good for the rest of the world.
I don't see much about Wikipedia that could be called democratic, non-elitist, or populist in the genuine sense of those words. QUOTE(Saltimbanco @ Fri 14th December 2007, 10:56am) All of this, however, was predicated upon the social structure of the corporation, which is extremely un-free and un-democratic: there is no right to free speech in a corporation and there is a rigid hierarchical control. If you step out of bounds in a corporation, you are expelled from the corporation with no trial and no questions asked. (This may be less true outside of the US, but it is still generally true.)
Nor do I see much about Wikipedia that supports free speech or pluralism. Don't make me laugh. QUOTE(Saltimbanco @ Fri 14th December 2007, 10:56am) But the internet threw a potential wrench into the works: there is no central control of the information broadcast around the internet. But you do have things like Google, which endeavors to be a center for retrieving information from the internet, and like Wikipedia, which endeavors to be a central collection site for information on the internet. If a majority of the people could be relied upon to get most of their internet information through either something already under corporate control or through Google or Wikipedia, the potential problem of information on the internet becomes a lot more tractable. Google, first of all, is a corporation, so it can be brought to rein in the normal way. Wikipedia, however, is a more amorphous thing.
So, how do the "ruling elites" make sure that the proper "shared values" are enforced at Wikipedia?
I am not sure what values you are talking about, or among whom they are supposed to be shared. Jon Awbrey This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:
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QUOTE(Moulton @ Fri 14th December 2007, 6:51am) Google, however, is positioned to provide alternative Web 2.0 technologies that may be more intelligently designed and better adapted to the task.
Google is better positioned to provide for the task. Absolutely. Some people on this site hate them, and it is true that their level of power was a bit overwhelming, but they behave as a company should. This cannot be said of Wikipedia (and I dont care if it is a 501c3, that's no excuse for how Wikipeida dealsl. QUOTE(Moulton @ Fri 14th December 2007, 6:51am) Jimbo seems to be enamored of the media, but he lacks Google's ability to craft the media tools that are best adapted to the public need. Wiki technology, as implemented and demonstrated on Wikipedia, supports and encourages oligarchical thuggery rather than genuine information democracy.
Jimbo is a flash in the pan. In 20 years he'll be like Evil Kneival (sp?). Someone you heard of a long time ago.
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A major theme in systems science is the duality between control and information, a theme whose names are legion, for example: - control and observation,
- planning and explanation,
- power and knowledge,
- and many others.
This trade-off has a significant bearing on one of the discipline-defining problems of systems science, namely, System Identification (SI). In order to control a system, you have to know something about it, and knowledge about a system comes mainly from two sources: - You built the system to known specs, in other words, according to requirements that were specified in advance, and so you know the system to the degree that it fits those specs or satisfies those requirements.
- You get to know the system by watching what it does under controlled conditions, which may include conditions of "drift" where you gather information about the system while acting on it as little as possible.
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QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Fri 14th December 2007, 1:48pm) I don't see much about Wikipedia that could be called democratic, non-elitist, or populist in the genuine sense of those words.
It might have had these things, though. QUOTE I am not sure what values you are talking about, or among whom they are supposed to be shared. The over-riding value is 'maintaining control.' But the 'values' that are to be shared are whatever allow those who believe themselves to be in control to do what they want to do, when they are shared by enough of the population. They might be, in the real world, the belief that America has the right to kill lots of innocent people in order to secure its energy supplies, or to 'fight terrorism. In Wikipedia, we see much of the same thing, wrought small. To an extent, it is only necessary to foist the 'shared values' onto Jimbo; these might include 'we're here to make an encyclopedia!' which of course segues into banning 'trolls' and otherwise controlling content. But a critical mass of control of Wikipedia, semi-independent of Jimbo, exists, such that it is generally necessary to work with this group in order to promote whatever you want to promote. Probably, however, a lot of these are up to the same sorts of things you are, whether for being up to the same thing you are or for their own personal reasons, so they might be easy to work with. I'm sure I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, nor considering it from a perspective novel to you, so I sort of wonder what the point of your feigned confusion is.
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QUOTE(Saltimbanco @ Fri 14th December 2007, 2:49pm) QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Fri 14th December 2007, 1:48pm) I don't see much about Wikipedia that could be called democratic, non-elitist, or populist in the genuine sense of those words.
It might have had these things, though. QUOTE I am not sure what values you are talking about, or among whom they are supposed to be shared.
The over-riding value is 'maintaining control.' But the 'values' that are to be shared are whatever allow those who believe themselves to be in control to do what they want to do, when they are shared by enough of the population. They might be, in the real world, the belief that America has the right to kill lots of innocent people in order to secure its energy supplies, or to 'fight terrorism'. In Wikipedia, we see much of the same thing, wrought small. To an extent, it is only necessary to foist the 'shared values' onto Jimbo; these might include 'we're here to make an encyclopedia!' which of course segues into banning 'trolls' and otherwise controlling content. But a critical mass of control of Wikipedia, semi-independent of Jimbo, exists, such that it is generally necessary to work with this group in order to promote whatever you want to promote. Probably, however, a lot of these are up to the same sorts of things you are, whether for being up to the same thing you are or for their own personal reasons, so they might be easy to work with. I'm sure I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, nor considering it from a perspective novel to you, so I sort of wonder what the point of your feigned confusion is. Believe me, I never have to feign confusion, and unless there are rather blatant marks of a rhetorical question, I normally ask a question because I want further information. Indeed, I revived this thread because of some questions that other people asked on the recent ArbCom WP:NOR thread, and because I dimly remembered answering them, however dimly, on a previous occasion. Taking both threads into account, we are really just asking — Why would SlimVirgin & Company be so hell-bent to bend to their will what had been the character of Wikipedia's long-standing policy page on WP:NOR? Jon Awbrey This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:
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Let us try to stick with the question of what purpose Wikipedia is being purposed to serve. Moulton said «Search Engine Dominance» (SED), but that is clearly not so much an end in itself as a means to an end. The closest that I came to suggesting a thesis of my own was along these lines — QUOTE The basic scenario was laid out clearly enough in those Dystopian novels that I read as a youth and the basic principles of media dynamics that govern Wikipediot Devolution were laid out by Marshall McLuhan so long ago that they passed from Archetype to Cliche when I was an undergraduate, and apparently into Oblivion now. People keep being distracted by one damn Message after another when they ought to be looking at the kind of Medium that is being so craftily crafted under their very noses. For example, people on all sides waste so much time trying to figure out what side the Cabal is on — when it comes to this or that economic, political, religious, or scientific tiff. The Cabal is not on any side but the Cabal's side. Sure, maybe the Cabal is taking the side of North-North-West Eurasia today, but it can just as easily shift to taking the side of Southerly Eurasia any time that it becomes convenient to do so. What does that mean about the Media Operating Characteristic (MOC) that is the Cabal's MOC of Choice? It means that the Cabal's most favored medium must be extremely agile, ductile, flexible, malleable, and plastic. It cannot be a medium that allows of being rigidly phase-locked into any one position or any one POV. More precisely, it must be agile enough to shift its phase 180° in a period of time just ε-greater than the modal attention span of the viewing public. How long is that? Your Mullage May Vary, but if we look at the US case in the last Dubya-Dubya Police Action, the US media were reporting on the Future Sea Battle for just about 6 months before it started to look downright silly not to go ahead and have it. Six months is not exactly turning on a dime, and I think that the Powers That Be are probably trying to get that down to a temporal turning radius ≤ 6 weeks. Jon Awbrey This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:
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If I understand you, Jonny, I don't think I agree.
We might divide information into two types: immediate information and background information. These appellations are almost self-explanatory, but I'll give an example just to be clear: immediate information would be something like a radio/television/newspaper report that the US is invading some country; background information would be the context in which this happens, which would include encyclopedia entries on the regions and any ongoing tensions therein, as well as scholarly (and non-scholarly) books and articles going into more depth on these matters. While Wikipedia is apparently pretty good at efficiently collecting breaking, 'immediate information' news on a given matter in one place, I suspect that its utility as a tool for controlling information of this sort is very limited: most people learn about such matters from their radio/television/newspaper, accept whatever they find out from these sources and think no further on the matter. Not many people hear that Liza Minelli collapsed on stage and rush to Wikipedia to get something close to real-time updates from almost all possible news sources on exactly what happened. Nor would many people do anything similar on any other immediate news item.
Background information, however, is a different matter. Mostly, people don't research this, either. But a few do, and these people influence the opinions of other people. If I happen to have taken an interest in Liza Minelli's life, I might be able to drop the remark that perhaps her collapsing on stage recently is related to the dizziness that she has reported experiencing for several years (I'm making this up, and I have no reason to believe that Ms. Minelli has experienced any more dizziness than anyone else). And memes like this take on a life of their own; before long there would be a web of self-important sentiment centered around me that is pretty sure that Liza Minelli's recent collapse is related to her chronic dizziness.
And for that sort of information, people do (sadly) refer to Wikipedia, although it would be nice - hopefully Google will do it with their service - if numbers of views for individual pages were disclosed. (This would probably be bad for business for Wikipedia: why spend countless hours documenting that capital punishment really does reduce violent crime, and edit-warring with those who want to stifle such information, if only 17 people a month view the article, including 4 who are actively editing it?)
But background information doesn't seem to be what you have written about, unless you are thinking in terms of an unachievable ideal: people do not abandon or refresh their background information frequently, if they even do it at all. I took a class on the US Military System twenty years ago, and I have not since updated my understanding that the Army's underlying philosophy comes mostly from Clausewitz; the Navy's mostly from Mahan; and the Air Force's mostly from Douhet.
Moreover, I think that if Wikipedia or any other medium endeavored to flip-flop people's background knowledge, it would mostly come off as flakey and unreliable ... which maybe goes more toward demonstrating that that really is what the Wikipedia powers that be have tried to do, but still ...
So have I read you incorrectly?
I had been thinking, by the way, that it might serve to define as precisely as possible what it is that the Wikipedia powers do that we believe does not serve a 'legitimate' purpose: an alternative hypothesis is that Linda Mack bans scores of people because that is pretty much what the legitimate purpose of creating a useful online encyclopedia requires.
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Salt, This is not a day when I can focus, except intermittently, so I'll have to break up your comments into smaller pieces and take things one chunk at a time. My overall impression is that we may be operating from different funds of assumptions, so it may be necessary to re-examine the grants that we severally take for granted. QUOTE(Saltimbanco @ Sat 15th December 2007, 1:39am) If I understand you, Jonny, I don't think I agree.
We might divide information into two types: immediate information and background information. These appellations are almost self-explanatory, but I'll give an example just to be clear: immediate information would be something like a radio-television-newspaper report that the US is invading some country; background information would be the context in which this happens, which would include encyclopedia entries on the regions and any ongoing tensions therein, as well as scholarly (and non-scholarly) books and articles going into more depth on these matters.
While Wikipedia is apparently pretty good at efficiently collecting breaking, 'immediate information' news on a given matter in one place, I suspect that its utility as a tool for controlling information of this sort is very limited: most people learn about such matters from their radio-television-newspaper, accept whatever they find out from these sources and think no further on the matter. Not many people hear that Liza Minelli collapsed on stage and rush to Wikipedia to get something close to real-time updates from almost all possible news sources on exactly what happened. Nor would many people do anything similar on any other immediate news item.
Right off, it appears that you and I entered Wikipedia through very different doors and that we have arrived at very different opinions about a whole host of issues. I have a logical-semiotic quibble with the term «Immediate Information» since «Immediate» means «Unmediated» and since all information is mediated by signs. I can use that term so long as everyone knows that it's just loose talk, but when push comes to shove in the final analysis it will be necessary to use other terms, say, «Short-Term Information» (STI). I cannot agree with these assertions: - Wikipedia is pretty good at efficiently collecting STI.
- Wikipedia's utility as a tool for controlling STI is very limited.
Perhaps more importantly, it never would have occurred to me that an Encyclopedia was supposed to be a resource for short-term information. In Normal Usage, a usage that is apparently news to the WikiΦaithful, there are wholly different names for the variety of publications that fall into the category of «Short-Term Information Resources» (STIR's). So what are the consequences of this Highly Original Innovation (HOI) in the Normal Usage (NU) of the term « Encyclopedia»? No doubt there are those who would say that the consequences of this Initial Idiosyncrasy are trivial and can be neglected. I would object to the contrary that the long-term practical effects of this Wikipedious Originality (WO) are profound and ultimately debilitating to the whole project. Jon Awbrey This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:
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I continue to continue …QUOTE(Saltimbanco @ Sat 15th December 2007, 1:39am) Background information, however, is a different matter. Mostly, people don't research this, either. But a few do, and these people influence the opinions of other people. If I happen to have taken an interest in Liza Minelli's life, I might be able to drop the remark that perhaps her collapsing on stage recently is related to the dizziness that she has reported experiencing for several years (I'm making this up, and I have no reason to believe that Ms. Minelli has experienced any more dizziness than anyone else). And memes like this take on a life of their own; before long there would be a web of self-important sentiment centered around me that is pretty sure that Liza Minelli's recent collapse is related to her chronic dizziness.
And for that sort of information, people do (sadly) refer to Wikipedia, although it would be nice — hopefully Google will do it with their service — if numbers of views for individual pages were disclosed. (This would probably be bad for business for Wikipedia: why spend countless hours documenting that capital punishment really does reduce violent crime, and edit-warring with those who want to stifle such information, if only 17 people a month view the article, including 4 who are actively editing it?)
You appear to putting forth what is known in semiotics as an «Interpreter Model» (IM), that is, a theory about the population of interpreters being addressed by a particular collection of signs. In that context, one speaks of a typical member of the model population as a «Model Interpreter» (MI). If I read you right, you are saying something like this: - In your theory, the Model Interpreter (MI) of Wikipedia content treats background information and breaking news information differently.
- As a result, the Message Controllers (MC's) of Wikipedia content have different degrees of control over background information and breaking news information.
Let me know if that sounds right … Jon Awbrey This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:
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QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Sat 15th December 2007, 10:18am) I have a logical-semiotic quibble with the term «Immediate Information» since «Immediate» means «Unmediated» and since all information is mediated by signs. I can use that term so long as everyone knows that it's just loose talk, but when push comes to shove in the final analysis it will be necessary to use other terms, say, «Short-Term Information» (STI).
I agree; your appellation is better. QUOTE I cannot agree with these assertions: - Wikipedia is pretty good at efficiently collecting STI.
Why not? I'll see if I can find a good example, but mainly I remember seeing a real-world news article about how Wikipedia's page on some breaking event was being updated with leaks almost concurrently with different news agencies releasing different information. QUOTE - Wikipedia's utility as a tool for controlling STI is very limited.
Again, why not? In what way do you think Wikipedia might effectively be used to control STI? QUOTE Perhaps more importantly, it never would have occurred to me that an Encyclopedia was supposed to be a resource for short-term information. In Normal Usage, a usage that is apparently news to the WikiΦaithful, there are wholly different names for the variety of publications that fall into the category of «Short-Term Information Resources» (STIR's).
So what are the consequences of this Highly Original Innovation (HOI) in the Normal Usage (NU) of the term «Encyclopedia»?
No doubt there are those who would say that the consequences of this Initial Idiosyncrasy are trivial and can be neglected. I would object to the contrary that the long-term practical effects of this Wikipedious Originality (WO) are profound and ultimately debilitating to the whole project. Well, forget that it is nominally an 'encyclopedia.' What is it, really? Isn't it really a forum where a lot of people with too much time on their hands enter stuff that is presented as information, with a second wave effort of monitoring the stuff to see that it passes muster as the sort of information that the powers that be want to have presented? And isn't this second wave much less efficient/rapid than the first wave, with exceptions for closely monitored articles?
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QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Sat 15th December 2007, 5:46pm) You appear to putting forth what is known in semiotics as an «Interpreter Model» (IM), that is, a theory about the population of interpreters being addressed by a particular collection of signs. In that context, one speaks of a typical member of the model population as a «Model Interpreter» (MI). If I read you right, you are saying something like this: - In your theory, the Model Interpreter (MI) of Wikipedia content treats background information and breaking news information differently.
- As a result, the Message Controllers (MC's) of Wikipedia content have different degrees of control over background information and breaking news information.
Let me know if that sounds right … Jon Awbrey I would at least phrase it differently. First, I would consider the MI of the vast swarm of information media available ubiquitously, and note that this MI treats background information and breaking news information differently, and that the typical MI of this group does not generally retrieve breaking news information from Wikipedia. This in spite of my belief that one thing that Wikipedia does pretty well at is collecting breaking news in one location. Second, I don't think that the problem of the MCs of Wikipedia in controlling breaking news information as opposed to background information is particularly a result of how anyone differently treats the two types of information; it is primarily a matter of the information itself. The MCs mostly do not have the time to manipulate breaking news information in the same way that they can manipulate background information, and - remembering that it is generally breaking news information to them as well - they have a greater chance of screwing up in easily recognizable ways when they try to manipulate breaking news information. Basically, with background information, there is a lot of stability in from where and at what rate the information seeps into the 'general knowledge' of the set of all MIs, and so the MCs of Wikipedia can plan around this in their manipulations. With breaking news information, this it not so, and if the MCs try to bury reports of torture at Abu Graib, for example, they run the risk that this very information will become a very big story, and that their efforts at censorship will be painfully obvious to anyone, limiting their ability effectively to manipulate information in the future.
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Does anyone really believe that there is any incentive to "break news" at Wikipedia? Hardly. Professional writers, educators, and scholars will never go to a place like Wikipedia with their original works, and as such, nothing breaks there, albeit there seems to be plenty of underemployed people spending countless hours sleuthing and changing things more and more toward a mean and mediocre status quo. I suspect that, on balance, Wikipedia will always be many a stones throw away from anything truly new and / or current, save for youngsters copying the major media centers only to be questioned as to whether or not said information is original. (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/wacko.gif)
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QUOTE(Saltimbanco @ Sat 15th December 2007, 9:29pm) QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Sat 15th December 2007, 10:18am) I have a logical-semiotic quibble with the term «Immediate Information» since «Immediate» means «Unmediated» and since all information is mediated by signs. I can use that term so long as everyone knows that it's just loose talk, but when push comes to shove in the final analysis it will be necessary to use other terms, say, «Short-Term Information» (STI).
I agree; your appellation is better. That was somewhat spur of the moment, but a better term is bound to occur to us eventually. QUOTE(Saltimbanco @ Sat 15th December 2007, 9:29pm) QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Sat 15th December 2007, 10:18am) [I disagree that] Wikipedia is pretty good at efficiently collecting STI.
Why not? I'll see if I can find a good example, but mainly I remember seeing a real-world news article about how Wikipedia's page on some breaking event was being updated with leaks almost concurrently with different news agencies releasing different information. I guess I give more weight to the "pretty good" condition than the "efficiently" condition. Things that I consider "pretty bad" are the lack of multiple independent fact-checking in the bum's rush of Junior Jimbo Olsens to get the scoop. Wikipedia's notable capacity for the efficient generation of unchecked gossip is the sort of thing that prevents me from even bothering to glance at Wikipedia's breaking news stories. QUOTE(Saltimbanco @ Sat 15th December 2007, 9:29pm) QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Sat 15th December 2007, 10:18am) [I disagree that] Wikipedia's utility as a tool for controlling STI is very limited.
Again, why not? In what way do you think Wikipedia might effectively be used to control STI? First let me say that I have not bought the premiss that Wikipedia's Message Controllers (MC's) have any less control over breaking news and current events information than they have over what is more properly called — by more proper callers — "encyclopedic" information. So the generic question is — « How Do Wikipedia's Message Controllers Control Information?» Jon Awbrey This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:
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QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Sat 15th December 2007, 10:44pm) So the generic question is —
«How Do Wikipedia's Message Controllers Control Information?»
By blocking the way of inquiry, of course. QUOTE(WhispersOfWisdom @ Sat 15th December 2007, 10:52pm) In order for Wikipedia to ever effectively compete with Google on any meaningful scale, there would, in fact, have to be an incentive for the next 10 million or so people to start adding content to same on a timely basis; in effect, breaking the news. Then they would have to have a substantial stake and/or compensation package to keep them there. Now, let's see...Google is worth how much and has how many potential access points for ad-revenue?
Google survives nicely without Wikipedia but I doubt the reverse thesis works.
"Knol" is going to be a very interesting project.
Google will have an incentive to direct traffic to Google.
I don't think it would need 10 million people; if you just have people monitoring a broad spectrum of news outlets and making updates based on them, that would suffice. I agree that there is no real incentive for people to do this, and yet, people do it.
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QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Sat 15th December 2007, 10:44pm) I guess I give more weight to the "pretty good" condition than the "efficiently" condition. Things that I consider "pretty bad" are the lack of multiple independent fact-checking in the bum's rush of Junior Jimbo Olsens to get the scoop. Wikipedia's notable capacity for the efficient generation of unchecked gossip is the sort of thing that prevents me from even bothering to glance at Wikipedia's breaking news stories.
Obviously, any information gleaned from Wikipedia is to be sipped rather than gulped: much of it is likely to be crap; some of it is likely to be outright disinformation; and all of it is likely to be poorly written. But if you take a look at Wikipedia's breaking news you find a pretty broad representation of news agencies. I'll go to the 11 December 2007 Algiers bomings article, on the guess that it is less likely to have some villain hovering over it than the other selections. Here we have links to CNN, CBC, al Jazeera, the BBC, Reuters, the Associated Press, a UN agency, and some Chinese news outfit. Most of these come up in a Google search of "Algiers bombing," along with one from Haaretz that seems to be a rehash of an al Jazeera report. But the Chinese one does not, at least not in the top 10 results. In this instance, the additional information from the Chinese site - that a Chinese national was among those killed - is not earth shattering, other than for his friends and relatives, but it illustrates I think the potential for a Wiki model to collect news links,
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QUOTE(Saltimbanco @ Sat 15th December 2007, 11:57pm) QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Sat 15th December 2007, 10:44pm) I guess I give more weight to the "pretty good" condition than the "efficiently" condition. Things that I consider "pretty bad" are the lack of multiple independent fact-checking in the bum's rush of Junior Jimbo Olsens to get the scoop. Wikipedia's notable capacity for the efficient generation of unchecked gossip is the sort of thing that prevents me from even bothering to glance at Wikipedia's breaking news stories.
Obviously, any information gleaned from Wikipedia is to be sipped rather than gulped: much of it is likely to be crap; some of it is likely to be outright disinformation; and all of it is likely to be poorly written. But if you take a look at Wikipedia's breaking news you find a pretty broad representation of news agencies. I'll go to the 11 December 2007 Algiers bomings article, on the guess that it is less likely to have some villain hovering over it than the other selections. Here we have links to CNN, CBC, al Jazeera, the BBC, Reuters, the Associated Press, a UN agency, and some Chinese news outfit. Most of these come up in a Google search of "Algiers bombing", along with one from Haaretz that seems to be a rehash of an al Jazeera report. But the Chinese one does not, at least not in the top 10 results. In this instance, the additional information from the Chinese site — that a Chinese national was among those killed — is not earth shattering, other than for his friends and relatives, but it illustrates I think the potential for a Wiki model to collect news links, Look, «Rule Numero Yuno» in my Book Of Critical Semiotics is «Consider The Source». I have seen how the WikiPepperoni™ is made, and it's enough to make me swear off that brand for good. Jonny (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/cool.gif)
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QUOTE(Saltimbanco @ Sun 16th December 2007, 1:09am) I disagree, Jon.
First, how much do you ever really know about a real reporter? I have only ever looked into the background of one or two, and that mainly to see if there might be a genetic reason for a bias I'd thought I'd been seeing beforehand. Beyond that, a real reporter is a professional; if he wanted to lie to me, I expect that he'd do a better job of it than almost anyone at Wikipedia.
And second, you generally can follow various editors around Wikipedia, and get an idea of their spin. Any experienced user of Wikipedia knows that the discussion pages are an essential part of any article, albeit most of them indicate that nothing in the article should be trusted in the least. The cabal at Wikipedia has not yet been so powerful that they can impose their preferred spin on articles without there being a trail of the shenanigans in the discussion pages.
I have to pack it in for the day, but I remind you that we are currently arguing about how good a newspaper a publication advertized as an encyclopedia makes, which is right up there with arguing how good a hawk something packaged as a handsaw makes. I frankly do not see how you expect to win such an argument, since even if you convince me that something packaged as a handsaw makes a good hawk, then I will have to observe that there is something really out of joint with the packaging. G'night, Sweet Wiki-Prince … Jon Awbrey
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QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Sun 16th December 2007, 1:18am) I have to pack it in for the day, but I remind you that we are currently arguing about how good a newspaper a publication advertized as an encyclopedia makes, which is right up there with arguing how good a hawk something packaged as a handsaw makes. I frankly do not see how you expect to win such an argument, since even if you convince me that something packaged as a handsaw makes a good hawk, then I will have to observe that there is something really out of joint with the packaging.
(Does it make a good encyclopedia, though?) What Wikipedia has succeeded at is in getting thousands of people to contribute content to the Internet in a more or less tractable form. (A lot of that content isn't worth much, but still.) And as the repository of that content, Wikipedia gets a lot of eyeballs. This is what makes it valuable to those who want to influence what people believe. For the reasons I have given previously, I think that it is easier to influence background information in Wikipedia than breaking news information, and I think that a full-court press is underway, at least with regard to certain topics, to control information at Wikipedia. I wouldn't say that Wikipedia makes a good newspaper; more like a RSS feed that sometimes has intelligent input. But for this use, Wikipedia is better than it is in being used as an encyclopedia.
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… and flowers never bend …QUOTE(Saltimbanco @ Sat 15th December 2007, 1:39am) But background information doesn't seem to be what you have written about, unless you are thinking in terms of an unachievable ideal: people do not abandon or refresh their background information frequently, if they even do it at all. I took a class on the US Military System twenty years ago, and I have not since updated my understanding that the Army's underlying philosophy comes mostly from Clausewitz; the Navy's mostly from Mahan; and the Air Force's mostly from Douhet.
You seem to be equivocating the term « Background Information» at this point. - There is the sort of background information that our Model Readers already have and that they are content to maintain in the style to which they are currently accustomed. In that case they are hardly to be found actively seeking more.
- There is the sort of background information that our Model Readers do not already have in sufficient breadth or depth to be content with it, that they are therefore seeking to increase, and that they may reasonably expect that other sources have already accumulated.
It is of course the latter class of Model Inquirer that a knowledge resource is designed to serve. QUOTE(Saltimbanco @ Sat 15th December 2007, 1:39am) Moreover, I think that if Wikipedia or any other medium endeavored to flip-flop people's background knowledge, it would mostly come off as flakey and unreliable … which maybe goes more toward demonstrating that that really is what the Wikipedia powers that be have tried to do, but still …
Exactly. In my experience with Wikipedia, that is precisely one of the reasons why people who do have the relevant background knowledge in a given subject area judge Wikipedia to be so utterly "Flakey And Unreliable" (FAU). Jon Awbrey This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:
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QUOTE(Saltimbanco @ Sun 16th December 2007, 10:26am) QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Sun 16th December 2007, 1:18am) I have to pack it in for the day, but I remind you that we are currently arguing about how good a newspaper a publication advertized as an encyclopedia makes, which is right up there with arguing how good a hawk something packaged as a handsaw makes. I frankly do not see how you expect to win such an argument, since even if you convince me that something packaged as a handsaw makes a good hawk, then I will have to observe that there is something really out of joint with the packaging.
(Does it make a good encyclopedia, though?) What Wikipedia has succeeded at is in getting thousands of people to contribute content to the Internet in a more or less tractable form. (A lot of that content isn't worth much, but still.) And as the repository of that content, Wikipedia gets a lot of eyeballs. This is what makes it valuable to those who want to influence what people believe. For the reasons I have given previously, I think that it is easier to influence background information in Wikipedia than breaking news information, and I think that a full-court press is underway, at least with regard to certain topics, to control information at Wikipedia. I wouldn't say that Wikipedia makes a good newspaper; more like a RSS feed that sometimes has intelligent input. But for this use, Wikipedia is better than it is in being used as an encyclopedia. You are forgetting about the 10,000,000 people that will have an incentive to contribute to Google. By going to Google, you get WP. From now on, that will change, as will the numbers and types of people that will contribute to the new Google prototype. Right now, those people are contributing to their own educational communities and news networks. When the new paradigm opens up at Google, there will be change. Wikipedia was a great start; for that, Mr. Sanger and Mr. Wales are to be congratulated. Next? (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)
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QUOTE(Saltimbanco @ Sun 16th December 2007, 1:09am) I disagree, Jon.
First, how much do you ever really know about a real reporter? I have only ever looked into the background of one or two, and that mainly to see if there might be a genetic reason for a bias I'd thought I'd been seeing beforehand. Beyond that, a real reporter is a professional; if he wanted to lie to me, I expect that he'd do a better job of it than almost anyone at Wikipedia.
And second, you generally can follow various editors around Wikipedia, and get an idea of their spin. Any experienced user of Wikipedia knows that the discussion pages are an essential part of any article, albeit most of them indicate that nothing in the article should be trusted in the least. The cabal at Wikipedia has not yet been so powerful that they can impose their preferred spin on articles without there being a trail of the shenanigans in the discussion pages.
Point 1. I'm not talking about knowing what they had for breakfast or what kind of dog they have. I'm saying that you get to know what to expect from CBS versus CNN, or Buchwald versus Safire, by taking in what they put out over time. And whether you want to believe it or not, people who live up to professional standards — or find themselves with no credibility and/or no paycheck — conduct themselves very differently from the great mass of Wikipediots. Point 2. Please, why don't you think about this one first and try it again. Jon Awbrey This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:
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QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Sun 16th December 2007, 7:46pm) Point 1. I'm not talking about knowing what they had for breakfast or what kind of dog they have. I'm saying that you get to know what to expect from CBS versus CNN, or Buchwald versus Safire, by taking in what they put out over time. And whether you want to believe it or not, people who live up to professional standards — or find themselves with no credibility and/or no paycheck — conduct themselves very differently from the great mass of Wikipediots.
TRB? QUOTE Point 2. Please, why don't you think about this one first and try it again. I think it's tangential, in any case.
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QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Sun 16th December 2007, 11:30am) You seem to be equivocating the term « Background Information» at this point. - There is the sort of background information that our Model Readers already have and that they are content to maintain in the style to which they are currently accustomed. In that case they are hardly to be found actively seeking more.
- There is the sort of background information that our Model Readers do not already have in sufficient breadth or depth to be content with it, that they are therefore seeking to increase, and that they may reasonably expect that other sources have already accumulated.
It is of course the latter class of Model Inquirer that a knowledge resource is designed to serve. The main distinction in your bifurcation seems to be in having or not having. I'm not convinced that this is a worthwhile distinction to make, at least not for a purpose that I recognize in what you have written. It might be worthwhile for me to back up and elaborate on what I mean by 'background information.' 'Background information' is a set of broadly mutually reinforcing beliefs, all of which are accepted as true, and in the context of which any new information is considered. That it is all accepted as true and that it is all broadly mutually reinforcing is what makes it difficult to change. Given my definition above of background information, it doesn't make much sense to consider background information that one does not have; information only becomes background information based on the manner in which one "has" it, and newly acquired information may or may not become background information. What is wanted, toward the end of controlling people's beliefs, is to control the information they get in instances in which they decide that their background information on a particular matter is lacking, and they undertake to acquire more information on the matter, perhaps to incorporate it into their background information. So, someone might decide that he really doesn't have enough background information to make sense of the debate in the US about universal health care. He goes out to learn more. Depending upon where he goes, he might encounter the memes that more than 2% of US GDP is spent on health care paper work; that 16% of the US population has no health insurance; that government-run programs are always less efficient than the free market; etc. He could very easily acquire background information that convinces him of two opposite beliefs: that universal health care would improve life in the US; or that it would make it worse. And then, so armed, he will decide that Presidential candidates advocating universal health care are either honest, responsible politicians for doing so, or that they are villains of some sort. But really, there is no inherent difference between the type of information that becomes background information and that which does not. Surely I'm droning on too long at this point.
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We have been observing a social phenomenon and testing explanations of its more puzzling features. People who do a lot of this sort of thing will tell you that there are many pitfalls on the way to a working explanation of any social phenomenon, and I have mentioned a couple of these cautions in a previous post on this thread. QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Fri 14th December 2007, 10:45am) If you read the previous discussion on this thread, you may notice that I am taking some pains to avoid falling into two types of error: - The observational error that social psychologists call Fundamental Attribution Bias (FAB), which arises from the natural human tendency to fixate on the casual effects of individual actors as the principal explanation of any phenomenon, doing that at the expense of giving due regard to background, contextual, environmental, functional, historical, and systematic factors.
- The theoretical error that is commonly called the Genetic Fallacy, which arises from the natural human tendency to fixate on the origin or the genesis of a thing in explaining or evaluating that thing.
The combination of those two sources of error in the present case leads people to answer questions about the present purpose of Wikipedia by speculating on what the purpose of its founders might have been at the beginning of its life. I think that is likely to prove a red herring. Being aware of our natural inclinations to various types of error makes it easier for us to reframe our attention, to shift our paradigm, to escape the drowning ships of theory that might otherwise doom our hopes of arriving at an adequate explanation of any social phenomenon. McLuhan's maxim is another one of those attention reframing devices. It serves to nudge our focus away from the message and onto the medium. It may not sound like much, but that slight shift of attention is often enough to unstick a moribund process of inquiry and get it moving forward again. Jon Awbrey This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:
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QUOTE(Moulton @ Mon 17th December 2007, 11:48pm) A lot of what we are watching looks like Machiavellian Power Games, where players vie for status and power, with dynamics something like Survivor where each episode ends with someone being pitched overboard — the scapegoat du jour.
It reminds me a lot like King of the Mountain, where players try to topple other players until they make it to the top (until they topple, too).
Those are good descriptions of the phenomenon. But an explanation calls for something more than mere description. We know why the producers of all the various and sundry survivor shows, from the Wikest Link to Borg Brother, do what they do — it's cheap entertainment in every sense of the word cheap. That factor probably accounts for some of the fandumb of WikiΦantasy Egoland, but I think that there has got to be a lot more to it on the side of the producers of the show. Jonny (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/cool.gif) This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:
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QUOTE You know the nearer your destination The more you're slip slidin' away
Moulton, Here is what I find annoying, and it's something that you seem to do as a matter of character. You come up to the verge of some important epiphany, and then jam your gyres in reverse and back away as quickly as possible, with a dust of cloud and a wimpy « Ho Hum Slither Away». As it happens, I have known a number of people who recurrently run through this very routine — « This Vehicle May Back Up When It Comes Time To Draw A Conclusion Or Heaven Forbid Act» is a Sign of the Climes in the Tropic of Academe — and so I long ago dubbed it the « Slip Slidin' Away» phenomenon. For instance — QUOTE(Moulton @ Mon 17th December 2007, 11:48pm) A lot of what we are watching looks like Machiavellian Power Games, where players vie for status and power, with dynamics something like Survivor where each episode ends with someone being pitched overboard — the scapegoat du jour.
It reminds me a lot like King of the Mountain, where players try to topple other players until they make it to the top (until they topple, too).
Here you draw the very apt analogy between Wikipedia and the recent TV de-genre of Survivor shows, but then you do everything but apply the analogy to draw the obvious inference about Wikipedia, that it is a Production, that it therefore has Producers, Directors, Deputy Directors, and maybe even a Script. Unless you think that Kid Nation really is just a bunch of kids cast off in the wilderness on their own, with no direction the home audience is solicited the obsequels of which to keep on keeping on tuning into? Now what is so frightening about the idea that this Production might have Producers? Jonny (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/cool.gif) This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:
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QUOTE(Saltimbanco @ Tue 18th December 2007, 10:49am) Producers? For the whole thing? No.
Not because it's so frightening an idea, but because if there were centralized control built into the very foundation of Wikipedia, it would turn out a more polished product. It's easy to reject an Intelligent Design hypothesis when the design isn't any too intelligent.
The process of control at Wikipedia is one that will predictably lead to one particular, mutually re-inforcing group of people to control the thing. But that doesn't seem to be what you are hinting at.
What purpose do the producers of a TV show have? Is it to turn out a highly polished educational or otherwise enlightening product? No, they tried that in the 50's, and they mostly gave it up. Their purpose must be sought elsewhere. I see a lot of people still buying the populist myth that Wikipedia is some kind of grass-roots phenomenon. I can see that a line like that derives a lot of its obvious attraction from the appeal that it makes to popular narcissism. I can see how people might have believed that 2 or 3 years ago, but there is no real justification for it now, the eternal popularity of narcissism aside. People who go on dreaming that Wikipedia is a grass-roots phenomenon are simply ignoring the "transparent" groundskeeping team that controls all the mowers. Jon Awbrey This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:
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QUOTE(Moulton @ Tue 18th December 2007, 11:11am) Compare Intelligent Design to System Design and Mechanism Design. The latter two are successful design projects, because the outcome was what the designers intended. The Wikipedia Project is not an instance of intelligent system design because the outcome is a chaotic game full of Wikidrama in which the dominant players are those who are most successful at gaming the system to advance their individual personal hidden agendas. We've discussed this many times before. You assume that the Purpose of Wikipedia is just what its advertizers say it is. It is time to examine that premiss. Long past time. Jon Awbrey This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:
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What I see the system doing is tending, over time, to increasing levels of contention, disharmony, ephemeral wikidrama, gaming the system, chaotic reversals of state, confused and inchoate policy disputes, progressive decline of overall levels of trust, increasing levels of disaffection, criticism, and alienation of critics, and a resultant groundswell of external competition. As I see it, Wikipedia is exhibiting the characteristics of a Polionic System. Moreover, the energies of the system are increasingly being expended in support of the system's internal immune response, rather than in support of an external system goal. This post has been edited by Moulton:
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QUOTE(Moulton @ Tue 18th December 2007, 11:46am) What I see the system doing is tending, over time, to increasing levels of contention, disharmony, ephemeral wikidrama, gaming the system, chaotic reversals of state, confused and inchoate policy disputes, progressive decline of overall levels of trust, increasing levels of disaffection, criticism, and alienation of critics, and a resultant groundswell of external competition. As I see it, Wikipedia is exhibiting the characteristics of a Polionic System. Moreover, the energies of the system are increasingly being expended in support of the system's internal immune response, rather than in support of an external system goal. You keep calling Wikipedia dysfunctional. Yes, it fails to optimize certain objectives that are most loudly espoused for it. But the day that it fails to satisfice the objectives of those who have their mits on the plug, they will pull it without a day's notice. As for what you are calling polionic systems, there used to be a lot of lit on double-bind theory from all the usual supects back in the 60's and 70's. Jon Awbrey
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QUOTE(Moulton @ Tue 18th December 2007, 12:03pm) QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Tue 18th December 2007, 11:58am) You keep calling Wikipedia dysfunctional.
Yes, it fails to optimize certain objectives that are most loudly espoused for it.
But the day that it fails to satisfice the objectives of those who have their mits on the plug, they will pull it without a day's notice.
Care to spell out your estimate of the "objectives of those who have their mits on the plug" (as well as the names of those mit-wearers)? I stated a general principle. The fact that a plug-based system is still plugged-in constitutes prima facie evidence that those with their mits on the plug are currently satisficed with what they see the system doing. As to more specific hypotheses, well, this site is full of 'em. Jon Awbrey This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:
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QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Tue 18th December 2007, 12:15pm) QUOTE(Moulton @ Tue 18th December 2007, 12:03pm) QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Tue 18th December 2007, 11:58am) You keep calling Wikipedia dysfunctional.
Yes, it fails to optimize certain objectives that are most loudly espoused for it.
But the day that it fails to satisfice the objectives of those who have their mits on the plug, they will pull it without a day's notice.
Care to spell out your estimate of the "objectives of those who have their mits on the plug" (as well as the names of those mit-wearers)? I stated a general principle. The fact that a plug-based system is still plugged-in constitutes prima facie evidence that those with their mits on the plug are currently satisficed with what they see the system doing. As to more specific hypotheses, well, this site is full of 'em. I have already put forward many hypotheses about the real objectives of those who control the ongoing development of the Wikipedia media platform. The next page collects links to a number of relevant posts and topics. Jon Awbrey This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:
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I think I understand what Jonny is talking about.
A true reality show would just have cameras that no one would know about and people would just go about their lives with no interference from the producers. But there are no such true reality shows.
I understand that the Cabal are basically a bunch of pirates with a "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" alliance coupled with every Cabal member knowing that every Cabal member carries some dark secret that can be blackmailed.
But I have a hard time understanding why any Cabal would be happy with running a dystopic reality show like Wikipedia.
Perhaps by means of private communications (IRC, AIM, e-mail, etc.) Cabalists can poke certain players into committing a certain action that results in drama. Those that push for what the Cabalist wants are saved and those who did not were "trolling." Cabalists create the reward and immunity challenges, pick their vassals, and punish those they consider peasants.
And in a dystopia, people look for leadership. That's how the Cabal benefits. They say "Never fear! We shall protect you from evil and discord in exchange for your loyalty!" That's what Robespierre and Marat did in the French Revolution and what Palpatine did during the Clone Wars.
I think though that sometimes the chaos does not yield what the Cabal desires. It can even go so far out of control, the producers (Cabalists) cannot control the actors. I remember DennyColt (search for him with the forum's search function, ye newcomers!) and his tirades. It was speculated that he was some Cabalist's meatpuppet who went out of control of his handler.
It must be great to be a Cabal Warlord on Wikipedia. But there's always a conspiracy, always a mutineer in one's midst, and always the fear that one's "controlled drama or chaos" can go out of control.
You can't even trust you're fellow producers, it seems.
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QUOTE(Moulton @ Tue 18th December 2007, 11:34am) The compressed dump of WP will fit on a DVD and is available for public download. There are versions with and without edit histories and talk pages. Even if someone at WMF pulled the plug on the main servers, the recent snapshots would be available in perpetuity for mirror sites, scraper sites, and archive sites.
Is the entire history in there, or just the top layer of Wikipedia?
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QUOTE(Saltimbanco @ Tue 18th December 2007, 8:04pm) QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Tue 18th December 2007, 6:00pm) One thing that keeps the con game going is that the marks just keep denying that they have been conned.
Tell your story, Jonny. I'm generally willing to believe the worst of the Wikipedia lot (as an old friend and co-worker once said when I blandly asked her if she was familiar with another, somewhat infamous co-worker, "Whatever it is, he did it."), but there are an awful lot of awful counter-indicators to what you seem to be suggesting. I've stated my null hypothesis; tell me your test hypothesis and give me a chance to shoot holes through it. If it withstands the barrage, then I'll believe you have something. If you're insisting that your Sooper-Sekret Mailing List of Uber-Admins has already vetted your hypothesis, I'm not biting. In a line of theory about the inquiry process that Aristotle kickstarted and Peirce geared up to contemporary speeds, the generation of an explanatory hypothesis is said to be the result of "abductive inference", or "abduction" for short (Greek απαγωγη). An explanatory story is useful to the extent that it reduces the amount of bewilderment, puzzlement, or uncertainty that we experience in the encounter with a surprising phenomenon. Now, it's been a bit of a strain on my acting abilities trying to play the parts of all Seven Siteless Sages, but I do think that the record will show that I have generated a number of useful hypotheses, each of which would serve to explain some aspect of the Wikipachyderm's physiognomy. The hypothesis that Wikipedia is a con game goes a long way toward explaining many features of the generic Wikipedia game that have historically been rather hard to explain on any other hypothesis. I would not say that it accounts for all of the variance from the path of null-hype-ness, but I do think that it accounts for a lot. Jon Awbrey This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:
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QUOTE(Moulton @ Tue 18th December 2007, 9:19pm) Wikipedia may well be a confidence game.
But if someone unfamiliar with the story asked me to explain what the con game is, or how it works, I would be hard pressed to provide a coherent answer.
The engine that drives the confidence game is an unrealistic expectation on the part of the mark, typically rooted in unconscious strata of unrenounced fantasies, for example, delusions of entitlement or infantile wishes for glory, love, power, etc. The confidence artist is an expert in reviving whatever unrealistic hopes the mark may harbor and in using their imaginary values to deprive the mark of goods that have real value. Jon Awbrey This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:
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QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Tue 18th December 2007, 9:40pm) The engine that drives the confidence game is an unrealistic expectation on the part of the mark, typically rooted in unconscious strata of unrenounced fantasies, for example, delusions of entitlement or infantile wishes for glory, love, power, etc. The confidence artist is an expert in reviving whatever unrealistic hopes the mark may harbor and in using their imaginary values to deprive the mark of goods that have real value.
No, Jonny. That's not a con. That's normal business practice. Wikipedia is about getting volunteers to contribute content. Full stop. No smoke, no mirrors. That Jimbo Wales and whoever else hopes to profit through their reputation or otherwise through Wikipedia does not dissuade people from thinking that their volunteer contributions will garner them some sort of reward is not a con. Your car insurance salesman is also not likely to tell you that you you'd do better to buy a cheaper policy.
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QUOTE(Saltimbanco @ Tue 18th December 2007, 9:19pm) QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Tue 18th December 2007, 9:40pm) The engine that drives the confidence game is an unrealistic expectation on the part of the mark, typically rooted in unconscious strata of unrenounced fantasies, for example, delusions of entitlement or infantile wishes for glory, love, power, etc. The confidence artist is an expert in reviving whatever unrealistic hopes the mark may harbor and in using their imaginary values to deprive the mark of goods that have real value.
No, Jonny. That's not a con. That's normal business practice. Wikipedia is about getting volunteers to contribute content. Full stop. No smoke, no mirrors. That Jimbo Wales and whoever else hopes to profit through their reputation or otherwise through Wikipedia does not dissuade people from thinking that their volunteer contributions will garner them some sort of reward is not a con. Your car insurance salesman is also not likely to tell you that you you'd do better to buy a cheaper policy. I have found that most often I get what I pay for. The carrot at WP has always been "power" and admin. status and getting the bit, etc. The problems started when it became known that the average person of power at Wikipedia has only about 14 years of life on earth. I ask myself, would I hire a 14 year old to operate on my shoulder? Would I trust the 14 year old to do my living trust or be the trustee of my estate? Does a college student have any real wisdom? Most people that have the time to spend at Wikipedia "for free" are either students, under-employed, or unemployed. Go "Knol" ! (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/ohmy.gif)
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QUOTE(Saltimbanco @ Tue 18th December 2007, 10:19pm) QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Tue 18th December 2007, 9:40pm) The engine that drives the confidence game is an unrealistic expectation on the part of the mark, typically rooted in unconscious strata of unrenounced fantasies, for example, delusions of entitlement or infantile wishes for glory, love, power, etc. The confidence artist is an expert in reviving whatever unrealistic hopes the mark may harbor and in using their imaginary values to deprive the mark of goods that have real value.
No, Jonny. That's not a con. That's normal business practice. Wikipedia is about getting volunteers to contribute content. Full stop. No smoke, no mirrors. That Jimbo Wales and whoever else hopes to profit through their reputation or otherwise through Wikipedia does not dissuade people from thinking that their volunteer contributions will garner them some sort of reward is not a con. Your car insurance salesman is also not likely to tell you that you you'd do better to buy a cheaper policy. Now you're just being silly. Not to mention insulting to anyone who considers personal integrity to be inseparable from "normal business practice". The distinction between fraud or grift and legitimate business is comprehended by common sense and even by the law. Of course, advertizers try to exploit the collateral desires of their target market to sell everything from automobiles to beer to cigarettes to deodorant. But all civilized societies draw the line at unfair practices, however shifting those lines may be over time. And common sense recognizes the features of the confidence game that put it outside the pale of "normal business practice" — the acquisition of goods under false pretences, the breach of promise that consummates the confidence game, and the outrageous disproportion in the real values of the goods exchanged. No, there is nothing "normal" about that, thank goodness. Jon Awbrey This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:
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QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Tue 18th December 2007, 9:42pm) QUOTE(Saltimbanco @ Tue 18th December 2007, 10:19pm) QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Tue 18th December 2007, 9:40pm) The engine that drives the confidence game is an unrealistic expectation on the part of the mark, typically rooted in unconscious strata of unrenounced fantasies, for example, delusions of entitlement or infantile wishes for glory, love, power, etc. The confidence artist is an expert in reviving whatever unrealistic hopes the mark may harbor and in using their imaginary values to deprive the mark of goods that have real value.
No, Jonny. That's not a con. That's normal business practice. Wikipedia is about getting volunteers to contribute content. Full stop. No smoke, no mirrors. That Jimbo Wales and whoever else hopes to profit through their reputation or otherwise through Wikipedia does not dissuade people from thinking that their volunteer contributions will garner them some sort of reward is not a con. Your car insurance salesman is also not likely to tell you that you you'd do better to buy a cheaper policy. Now you're just being silly. Not to mention insulting to anyone who considers personal integrity to be inseparable from "normal business practice". The distinction between fraud or grift and legitimate business is comprehended by common sense and even by the law. Of course, advertizers try to exploit the collateral desires of their target market to sell everything from automobiles to beer to cigarettes to deodorant. But all civilized societies draw the line at unfair practices, however shifting those lines may be over time. And common sense recognizes the features of the confidence game that put it outside the pale of "normal business practice" — the acquisition of goods under false pretences, the breach of promise that consummates the confidence game, and the outrageous disproportion in the real values of the goods exchanged. No, there is nothing "normal" about that, thank goodness. Jon Awbrey Yes, indeed. Your reasoning is sound and wise. It also explains why the project is beginning to disintegrate at it's core. The University of Minnesota study was quite accurate in the assessment that without the creators and the contributors of key articles, the "flies" would take over.
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QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Tue 18th December 2007, 10:42pm) Now you're just being silly.
Not to mention insulting to anyone who considers personal integrity to be inseparable from "normal business practice".
The distinction between fraud or grift and legitimate business is comprehended by common sense and even by the law.
Of course, advertizers try to exploit the collateral desires of their target market to sell everything from automobiles to beer to cigarettes to deodorant.
But all civilized societies draw the line at unfair practices, however shifting those lines may be over time. And common sense recognizes the features of the confidence game that put it outside the pale of "normal business practice" — the acquisition of goods under false pretences, the breach of promise that consummates the confidence game, and the outrageous disproportion in the real values of the goods exchanged.
No, there is nothing "normal" about that, thank goodness.
Jonny, you're an academic, yes? You've never really worked in the normal business world. I have, and I have in fact sacrificed a couple potential careers over matters where I thought my employer or its representatives had crossed an ethical boundary. But letting, and even lightly encouraging, people to believe that they are getting more out of their participation in something than common sense and a little bit of thought would clearly indicate does not generally cross such a boundary. I am myself someone who will always tell someone if they would probably do better stepping away from something that benefits me, and I think that's a better way to live and, in the long run better for me as well. I would say that people who do not do this are not as good as they might be, but I would not say that they are not as good as everyone else has the right to expect them to be. If there is an outright lie - if Jimbo Wales claimed that someone got tenured based on stuff they'd done in Wikipedia - that's a different matter. But to just nod and grin as someone explains how he expects his Wikipedia contributions will get him tenure, while kind of creepy, is not a con. This post has been edited by Saltimbanco:
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QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Tue 18th December 2007, 10:56pm) QUOTE(Saltimbanco @ Tue 18th December 2007, 10:45pm) If there is an over-riding con at Wikipedia, I would say it would have to be in that volunteer editors, I think, might reasonably believe that their opinions, when they disagree with others, will be respected, and that there will be a process for resolving content disputes that has some grounding in objectivity, as in for example the powers be caring that the process has become highly prejudicial and biased. This is clearly not the case with Wikipedia. The normal expectation of a player entering a game where statements are set forth as "rules" is that other players will play by those rules and that some authority recognized by all concerned will umpire those rules. I have stated this expectation in terms of games and players and rules but analogous forms apply to any norms of conduct in any normed activity. This is clearly not the case with Wikipedia. I agree that these are reasonable expectations, and they are undeniably breached at Wikipedia. What remains to be shown is that those who are routinely breaching those expectations are doing so knowingly, intentionally, and with malice aforethought.
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It seems to me probable that the intended result may have been quite different.
Many or most academic enterprises have substantial elements of volunteerism. You don't get paid directly for publishing, for example; it just adds (so you hope) to your reputation. Nor do you expect to get paid when someone uses your work, just cited.
Were the project more reputable, more people would be proud of their contributions, including on their resumes, applications to doctoral programs, etc.
The other problem is the way the project attacks its own volunteer contributors. This is partly due to the tendencies of the web to produce flame wars, but is greatly exacerbated as an unexamined consequence of the fact that dispute resolution procedures are (formally) content-neutral: the only way to break content deadlocks is to tear one another down. Every meaningful process, from the noticeboards, to RfC's to Arbitration, pits volunteers against one another's reputations by design.
So you have a whole culture where people gather and horde diffs of people of breaking various rules as leverage against them. Opponents greet misconduct, then, not with disappointment, but with glee. 3RR, incivility, etc. are just opportunities to be exploited according to this psychology which is the very essence of edit "warring" and incivility.
What is the chance, then, that contributing to Wikipedia will improve one's reputation, instead of sullying it? The unsatisfying answer to this question drives the trend towards anonymity/pseudonymity, which, as anonymous contributors are more likely to attack others, increases the flame war element in a feedback mechanism.
If we could solve these two problems, it might not be such a rip-off after all. It's not unrealistic to imagine a world only slightly different from our own, where contributing to Wikipedia is something most volunteers could point to with pride. It's a shame that this goal, so obvious from an external standpoint, is absent from the radar screens of the leadership.
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QUOTE(Saltimbanco @ Tue 18th December 2007, 10:58pm) Jonny, you're an academic, yes? You've never really worked in the normal business world. I have, and I have in fact sacrificed a couple potential careers over matters where I thought my employer or its representatives had crossed an ethical boundary.
But letting, and even lightly encouraging, people to believe that they are getting more out of their participation in something than common sense and a little bit of thought would clearly indicate does not generally cross such a boundary. I am myself someone who will always tell someone if they would probably do better stepping away from something that benefits me, and I think that's a better way to live and, in the long run better for me as well. I would say that people who do not do this are not as good as they might be, but I would not say that they are not as good as everyone else ought to expect them to be.
If there is an outright lie — if Jimbo Wales claimed that someone got tenured based on stuff they'd done in Wikipedia — that's a different matter. But to just nod and grin as someone explains how he expects his Wikipedia contributions will get him tenure, while kind of creepy, is not a con.
I am fighting down the urge to launch a Wodin Boast here. The fact is that I've worked in more different venues than you are likely to guess. Lucky for everyone it's past my bedtime. But something to think about for tomorrow is this — Yes, I have seen academic papers that describe Civilization and its Discontents in terms analogous to One Big Confidence Game. And I suppose there is some sense in that. But common sense has to say what is fair and what is not. It is not fair to use the natural human susceptibility to various types of addiction in order to enslave people. It is not fair to exploit child labor. It is not fair to acquire tax-free educational status while miseducating the uneducated about the kinds of conduct that are expected of responsible citizens in real world societies. Jonny (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/cool.gif) This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:
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QUOTE(Proabivouac @ Tue 18th December 2007, 11:13pm) It seems to me probable that the intended result may have been quite different.
Many or most academic enterprises have substantial elements of volunteerism. You don't get paid directly for publishing, for example; it just adds (so you hope) to your reputation. Nor do you expect to get paid when someone uses your work, just cited.
Were the project more reputable, more people would be proud of their contributions, including on their resumes, applications to doctoral programs, etc.
The other problem is the way the project attacks its own volunteer contributors. This is partly due to the tendencies of the web to produce flame wars, but is greatly exacerbated as an unexamined consequence of the fact that dispute resolution procedures are (formally) content-neutral: the only way to break content deadlocks is to tear one another down. Every meaningful process, from the noticeboards, to RfC's to Arbitration, pits volunteers against one another's reputations by design.
So you have a whole culture where people gather and horde diffs of people of breaking various rules as leverage against them. Opponents greet misconduct, then, not with disappointment, but with glee. 3RR, incivility, etc. are just opportunities to be exploited according to this psychology which is the very essence of edit "warring" and incivility.
What is the chance, then, that contributing to Wikipedia will improve one's reputation, instead of sullying it? The unsatisfying answer to this question drives the trend towards anonymity/pseudonymity, which, as anonymous contributors are more likely to attack others, increases the flame war element in a feedback mechanism.
If we could solve these two problems, it might not be such a rip-off after all. It's not unrealistic to imagine a world only slightly different from our own, where contributing to Wikipedia is something most volunteers could point to with pride. It's a shame that this goal, so obvious from an external standpoint, is absent from the radar screens of the leadership. This is a thoughtful and well-written analysis, full of insight. It makes a lot of sense to me.
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QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Tue 18th December 2007, 11:14pm) I am fighting down the urge to launch a Wodin Boast here. The fact is that I've worked in more different venues than you are likely to guess.
If you expect Macy's to tell Gimbel's, I would expect either that you find yourself a place in an ivory tower or that you change working venues about three times a year. QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Tue 18th December 2007, 11:14pm) But common sense has to say what is fair and what is not. No. Societal norms have to say that.
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QUOTE(Moulton @ Tue 18th December 2007, 10:29pm) 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:
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QUOTE(Saltimbanco @ Wed 19th December 2007, 12:22pm) QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Wed 19th December 2007, 8:54am) 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:
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Saltimbanco |
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Who watches the watchmen?
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QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Wed 19th December 2007, 2:44pm) 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?
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QUOTE(Saltimbanco @ Wed 19th December 2007, 4:11pm) 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
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