Unintended Consequences Of The Community Metaphor, Internet Websites Are Not Sovereign Nations — Duh !!! Options

[Jonny Cache]

This was the title of a discussion point that I tried to raise with Larry Sanger and the Citizendians back in the days when their neverending Constitutional Convention was just a toddler in short pants.

But the issue is a perennial one in this Brave Nøøb World of the Wikisphere, and it has flared up once again with the advent of a number of new-fanged lawgifts that those geeks in the Woolen Hearse known as Wikipedia have come abearing.

So I think the time has come to air a mix of old and new tunes on this old song and dance routine.

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Sun 4th November 2007, 6:00am

[Jonny Cache]

There are times when it's tough to keep up with the rush of ongoing developments, revolting or otherwise, and I'm already way beehind the buzziness of WP:BEES and WR:BEES both.

Plus, the birds in the yard are bitchin at me to clean out and restock their feeders, and this time o'year the birds have priority over the bees.

So before I buzz off — a con∑mation devoutly 2b wished by ∑ of you, I'm sure — just let me jot down a couple of notes to myself as memos for the evening's diversion or the morrow's reflection.

1. Wikipedia's New Hanging Tree For The ∑mary Lynching Of Alleged Sockpuppets.
2. Wikipedia Review's Latest Relapse To The Ills That Wikipediot Φlesh Is Heir To.

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Sun 4th November 2007, 8:03pm

[Jonny Cache]

I'm going to extract a few posts from the tarpit that strike me as illustrating the theme of this thread and try to arrange them in a more coherent fashion for the sake of a more focused discussion than I'm guessing they will ever get there, with everyone choking on all those feathers flying about.

Jonny

Art Of The Dithyramb

Speaking of skepticism and inverse skepticism, (not to be confused with echoes of narcissism and inverse narcissism), methinks it's time to craft an essay on Post-Dramatic Stress Disorder (PDSD).

Of all the stressful dramas one can be pitched into, it occurs to me that the Middle School staple of ridicule and narcissistic wounding associated with being the star of a classic Hero-Goat Drama is hard to beat. This is especially so if one lacks the musical talent to compose and perform a sufficiently cathartic post-apocalyptic dithyramb.

Perhaps we should hold therapeutic workshops in the Art of the Dithyramb.

Mr. Dythers, he rambled and rambled and rambled on
Dagwood? He kept luckin on ways to keep on truckin
Bumblin instead of routing every bee-hive and bush
Till one fine day the burning bush dropped the Bimb

After 3 or 4 readings I'm still not exactly sure what Moulton is saying about the Bumps And Bruises Of Self-Esteem (BABOSE), but what it brings to mind in a free associative sort of way is a theme that links up, curiously enough, with the dynamics of fascism. I suppose I'm thinking of the wounds to class or collective pride that issue in many of history's most devasting wars. That element of wounded pride is no doubt a human universal, but I think I detect a specific isotope of this element that is tantamount to the "tribal face" or maybe the "tribal in yer face" of the Wikipediot character.

Eppur Si Muove : Neutralism, Objectivism, Pluralism

Each of us knows what person¹ and person² and person³ and so on thinks about this, that, and the other think, at least if it's on a subject that we care enough to read the comments on. There is no We The People in this Forum to say what They think about this, that, and the other think. So you have to rest content with saying what You think about each think that comes along.

Tragedy Of The Tarpit (TOTT)

Harrumph! Uffda! Zounds!

I woke up at 5AM this morning, only to discover it was actually 4AM, and so I had an extra hour to kill, listening to my least favorite overnight music genre on WBUR, and thinking about an essay I was planning to write, once my morning cuppa cawfee kicked in.

The essay idea was sparked by the confluence of three or four instances of a generic recurring problem, of which this thread reveals an unexpected additional instance.

There is a phenomenon known as The Tragedy of the Unmanaged Commons that arises now and then in an inadequately regulated system.

In the Tragedy of the Commons, there appears some kind of unsustainable practice which, if perpetuated and increased in frequency of occurrence, threatens to corrode, deplete, usurp, corrupt, and consume the system or its core resources.

The other instances of this phenomenon that I had on my mind as I arose in the predawn darkness this morning were carbon emissions from increased burning of fossil fuels, naked short-selling in the securities markets, and excessive politicking among Wikipedians.

In the latter case, and now here on Wikipedia Review, the insidious practice of narcissistic wounding has emerged as possibly the most ominous generative factor in the dynamic that Garret Hardin characterized in The Tragedy of the Commons. It's a corrosive cancer on most human systems, which tend to be susceptible to a spiral descent into the recursion of reciprocal narcissistic wounding.

I would prefer to see a throttling back of the practice of narcissistic wounding throughout our culture, as I consider it an irresponsible practice that is likely to subject almost any human system to becoming ensnared in the Tragedy of the Unmanaged Commons.

Echoes Of Narcissism (EON)

Like-minded souls have wanted narcissistic wounding to abate since the dawn of civilization.

Perhaps the oldest and most insidious example of narcissistic wounding is the practice of scapegoating (shaming and blaming) which the Sumerians and Babylonians introduced into the culture some 4000 years ago. Moses and Aaron sought to supplant that corrosive practice when they devised the original alternative scape-goat ritual. The Passion Story of the New Testament was the second major historical attempt at resolving this persistent and unbecoming practice of demonizing, stigmatizing, and scapegoating the most convenient blameworthy character at unwashed hand.

These are modern times, and those biblical-era solutions have largely fallen by the wayside.

Today, we are obliged to adopt more creative ways to therapize the acedia of dissing and pissing.

Me, I'm partial to recovering from rejection with music or parody.

Scape-Bees

The bee-knighted idea that a hive can resolve a dispute by e-lecting a bee to e-ject from the hive is why we are here.

It's a bee-brained idea.

Wikipedia gets away with ejecting outliers on both ends of the normal distribution because on the one side, no one loves a crackpot, and on the other side, no one loves an iconoclast.

Which, I suppose, is why Wikipedia shoots itself in the foot when it comes to contemplating potentially beneficial innovations.

Wikipedia tends to regress to the mediocre.

A serious investigation of this question — if there is such a thing as a serious thread in the TP&FB — would have to branch out as follows:

1. Do all of the subspaces of interest to us support unimodal population densities? To put it picaresquely — Who would these fardels bear, Camel-Wise, and do you really think there is nothing but Dromedaries in all this wondrous wide world of ours?
2. Not bluddy likely, but some humps are clearly a One not a Many. How goes it with those?
   1. Does every rider of the 1-humped camel chop off its head and its tail over time, leading to a narrow-minded mediocracy?
   2. Or do some riders burn their camels in the middle, turning both ends against the middle until nothing but a polarized caravan remains?

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Mon 5th November 2007, 5:15am

[Yehudi]

Excuse my ignorance, but if they're in the tarpit aren't they supposed to stay there?

[Moulton]

Excuse my ignorance, but if they're in the tarpit aren't they supposed to stay there?

Sometimes a compassionate soul tosses a lifeline into the tarpit.
Usually the tarpit sucks in the compassionate soul, lifeline and all.

[Jonny Cache]

Excuse my ignorance, but if they're in the tarpit aren't they supposed to stay there?

No, you're confusing that with Las Vegas.

Jonny

[Poetlister]

Excuse my ignorance, but if they're in the tarpit aren't they supposed to stay there?

They are indeed, Jonny. I may have to tarpit threads where this sort of thing is done - sorry, I don't like being brutal or anything.

[Jonny Cache]

Excuse my ignorance, but if they're in the tarpit aren't they supposed to stay there?

They are indeed, Jonny. I may have to tarpit threads where this sort of thing is done — sorry, I don't like being brutal or anything.

That's redickulous.

I can certainly copy my own stuff out of the tarpit if I wish.

If Moulton Rouge objects to my elevating his very elevated remarks out of La Brea, then he can do that, and I will delete them ¼with.

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Mon 5th November 2007, 2:58pm

[Poetlister]

¼with.

For the benefit of English speakers, that's pronounced fourth-with, not quarter-with.

[Jonny Cache]

For those who are keeping score:

• On Topic — 3
• Off Topic — 6

This one you may count, of course, as walking the line.

Taking A Little DejaVooey Brake …

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Mon 5th November 2007, 3:32pm

[Moulton]

Cream rises to the top and sludge sinks to the bottom.

Jonny has pretty good instincts about what is meaningful, even when it's abstract and metaphorical.

Our challenge is finding a way to reduce those memes to a common denominator that emerges from the tar pit like a lotus blossom in the swamp.

If we do this right, we end up with some scrumptious jujubes.

[Castle Rock]

Cream rises to the top and sludge sinks to the bottom.

No, the opposite is usually true both in the real world and especially Wikipedia. Just like a toilet, the turds float to the top.

[Piperdown]

Cream rises to the top and sludge sinks to the bottom.

No, the opposite is usually true both in the real world and especially Wikipedia. Just like a toilet, the turds float to the top.

Castle Rock? As in movie productions?

As far as Wikipedia Promotion and Advancement goes, it's been tried and true that it's the band of ruthless thugs and smart sociopaths that rises to the top during chaos in national order.

WP is in its 1926-1945 era. Is this the Bier Hall Putz phase? There are lot of putzes at WP jumping up on tables and declaring heil to the unquestionable leader.

Fascism is so cute when it's young!

P.S. I fear I'm morphing into Jonny Cacheism. Jonny, help me man, I'm devolving! I'll just blame it, like a fratboy sneaking a Sunday morning heifer out the back door, on the wine later.

This post has been edited by Piperdown: Tue 6th November 2007, 2:09am

[Nathan]

That's probably where he got it from, but Castle Rock is MichaelLinnear, aka ED troll but surprisingly non-trollish WR'er.
(He should take that as a compliment from me, that's as good of a compliment as he's going to get)

[Moulton]

Not to spoil the frivolities here, but I have another variation on a dull theme for Jonny to fold into the sludge fudge batter bowl...

Experiences with Civility and the Role of a Social Contract in Virtual Communities

Here's a quote...

It has been our experience that communities are successful when they are founded on a mutually understood and agreed upon Social Contract. Note that it is not possible to have an imposed Social Contract; a Social Contract can only exist if all participants voluntarily agree to it. For this reason Social Contract communities tend to small private communities. Large public communities are not amenable to the Social Contract model. Large public communities with an open-door policy tend to run toward ill-mannered political factionalism. These communities do not support horizontal dialogue; they tend to be dominated by a small number of outspoken partisans who collectively construct, what we charitably refer to as a 'lunatic drama' characterized by mutual disrespect. Such communities can be long lasting and even entertaining but they rarely foster insight, problem solving or personal growth. By contrast the small Social Contract communities can carry their participants along collaborative and profound transformational journeys.

[Jonny Cache]

Not to spoil the frivolities here, but I have another variation on a dull theme for Jonny to fold into the sludge fudge batter bowl …

Experiences with Civility and the Role of a Social Contract in Virtual Communities

Here's a quote …

It has been our experience that communities are successful when they are founded on a mutually understood and agreed upon Social Contract. Note that it is not possible to have an imposed Social Contract; a Social Contract can only exist if all participants voluntarily agree to it. For this reason Social Contract communities tend to small private communities. Large public communities are not amenable to the Social Contract model. Large public communities with an open-door policy tend to run toward ill-mannered political factionalism. These communities do not support horizontal dialogue; they tend to be dominated by a small number of outspoken partisans who collectively construct, what we charitably refer to as a 'lunatic drama' characterized by mutual disrespect. Such communities can be long lasting and even entertaining but they rarely foster insight, problem solving or personal growth. By contrast the small Social Contract communities can carry their participants along collaborative and profound transformational journeys.

I get it that some people are out there on the Internet looking for a long lost sense of community, or trying to get laid in some other way, but most folks I know have all they can do keeping up with the demands of the communities that they already have. What these latter sorts of folk were once naive enough to believe is that yet another medium of communication would help them out with the slate of community duties that they already had.

But no-o-o-o-oh, there is abroad in the Web this rampant Lawgivers Disease that has given us nothing but one damn Banhammurabi after another …

Jon Awbrey

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Sun 25th November 2007, 8:23pm

[Moulton]

It will be interesting and/or tragic to see if WR falls prey to the lividity of the Lawgivers Disease, or if it ascends to a more enlightened and evolved model of self-regulation.

[Jonny Cache]

It will be interesting and/or tragic to see if WR falls prey to the lividity of the Lawgivers Disease, or if it ascends to a more enlightened and evolved model of self-regulation.

It's really quite simple.

Not everything is a business, but some people think everything should be run like a business.

Not everything is a community, but some people think that every population is a community.

Not everything is a family, but some people think that every organization is like their family.

Businesses, communities, and families are all capable of much good in their proper places, but each of these organizational concepts can make for an absolutely disastrous model when they are forced on organizations whose objectives they do not fit.

Jon Awbrey

[Moulton]

Not everything is a system, either.

But there is something satisfying about systems which feature a worthwhile emergent property that appears as a result of an otherwise haphazard collection of elements operating together as a functioning system.

[Jonny Cache]

Not everything is a system, either.

But there is something satisfying about systems which feature a worthwhile emergent property that appears as a result of an otherwise haphazard collection of elements operating together as a functioning system.

Put down the Bauder —

Step away from the ArbCom —

Jonny