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

[Cedric]

When this site went down briefly this summer due to a database attack, what could be termed a declaration of purposes was published a temporary page. It read as follows:

WR:NOT
Wikipedia Review is not a conspiracy, a team-building exercise, a role-playing game, or an experiment in collusion. It is not meant as a resource or training ground for those who would instill fear and misery in others. It does not exist to corrupt, but to expose corruption; it does not exist to tear down institutions, but to expose the ways in which institutions are torn down; it does not exist to hate, but is meant to expose hate in others. To expose these things is not evil. It is not a monolithic entity, nor the sum of its parts. Like-mindedness does not imply singularity of purpose; respect for the rights of one group does not imply disrespect for the rights of another. It is not intended to be predictable, consistent, or dull.

Imagine a world in which human beings are not user accounts, are not programmable, and are not mere words on a display screen. That's what we're doing...

Part of this statement was even included in a recreated article about Wikipedia Review on Wikipedia. My personal belief is that this is as good a summary of what WR is not supposed be about as any I have read.

But this necessarily begs the question: What is WR supposed to be about? A good part of the answer is contained in the above statement. A certain segment of our membership, sometimes referred to as “the old guard”, would say that WR is primarily about serious criticism of WP. I identify with this view. Of late, there appears to be an increasing segment of WR, composed of a significant number newer members, who also happen to be WP administrators and prolific editors, and who would appear to view to WR as more of a “Wikipedia Improvement Association”. That is, a place to exchange information, to gather and discuss problems with WP, and to plan improvements to WP, with a freedom of speech not available on WP itself.

This is not meant to be a thread devoted to which of these points of view should prevail here on WR, or even if it is desirable that one or the other prevail. Rather, it is meant to be addressed to phenomenon producing this situation: WP’s decline and impending fall.

It is becoming clear to even the most fervent wiki-apologists that something is really wrong with the current state of WP. A number of WP users have complained that editor conflicts have definitely been on the rise since 2004, and that the last two years on WP have been particularly bad. This is cited as an ever growing distraction from “building the encyclopedia”. In fact, edit wars over particular articles and other editor conflicts do appear to be growing at an ever increasing rate. In the early days of Wikipedia:Adminstrators’ noticeboard/Incidents (“WP:ANI”, WP’s drama center, founded in December, 2004), it usually took around one week to fill an archive. Now archives are filled about every two days.

So why all the drama? There are a number of reasons, all of which have been discussed here before at WR, and at some length. The most basic causes I identify as

THE SIX ROTTEN PILLARS OF WIKIPEDIA

1. INSTANT EDITING OF ARTICLES. I believe that this one feature of WP is the single greatest factor causing WP’s decline and will largely cause its eventual destruction. This feature ensures that both the improvement and the marring of articles are impermanent, and that the battles against internet trolls, polemicists (in wikispeak, “POV pushers”), spammers, vandals, and ignorant interlopers will be everlasting (at least while WP still exists). It is this single feature of WP, more than any other, that gives rise to the MMORPG character of WP and makes ridiculous its claim of being an “encyclopedia”.

If the WP experience has proved nothing else, it has proved that there is indeed a reason that previously established print encyclopedias (wikispeak: “paper encyclopedias”) use editorial boards to vet suggested changes to content: they are needed. A number of members here (including myself) have suggested as a reform that all article pages (wikispeak: “articlespace”) on WP be “locked down”, editable only by an editorial board, qualified by knowledge and/or expertise in a particular subject area. WP could still retain its user pages and discussion pages, which in this case would be refocused upon users making suggested changes to an article, or suggesting new articles, for the editorial board to act on. The ability of knowledgeable amateurs to suggest changes, and the transparency of the process, would still distinguish WP from other encyclopedias.

What is chance of such a salubrious reform being enacted? Absolute zero. The reason for this simple enough: the “sole founder” and “God-King” of Wikipedia, Jimbo Wales, says so. His 2001 pharaonic fiat reads in pertinent part:

"You can edit this page right now" is a core guiding check on everything that we do. We must respect this principle as sacred.

Later, this “sacred” principle was made into the Third Pillar of The Five Pillars of Wikipedia, which “define the character of the project”. In other words, instant editing is sacred; it is off the table for discussion; and any suggestion of such a reform of WP is wiki-heresy for which the offender shall be banned and consigned to “off-wiki” hell. Never mind that the central administrative junta that largely runs WP (“The Cabal”) makes exceptions as to who constitutes the “anyone” that may edit WP (after all, certain individuals and IP ranges are unmutual and must be suppressed for the good of the wiki); the basic principle remains inviolable.

“So let it be written! So let it be done!”

(Tomorrow's installment: “NEUTRALITY” (“NPOV”) OF ARTICLES)

[dtobias]

You seem to want to turn WP into Nupedia, the thoroughly-vetted "free encyclopedia" that was the predecessor of Wikipedia, and never went anywhere. If you want a few dozen articles instead of a few million, I suppose that's the way to go.

[flash]

You can edit this page right now...

I think this is indeed an inviolable principle - the most interesting thing about the whole Wikipedia project. And in many ways, sociologically speaking, it does work - edits are reversed and misinformation is often corrected while 'new information' is accepted. Wikipedia HAS built up a vast array of 75% reliable information, albeit mostof it trivial. Politically neutral points, pages not directly relating to certain people's 'interests' work okay, on this basis. Moving away from the principle requires the appointment of 'experts' - which scarcely removes bias either.

What has caused most of the ill-feeling towards the project is the ABUSE of the principle - eg. these sorts of comments violate such and such a rule - as interpreted by such and such an admin... Hence the principle is morphed into:

You cannot edit any page - EVER AGAIN!

[Moulton]

Go Jump In the Lake

Another Sacred Principle of Wikipedia is that it repudiates Thomas Jefferson and reintroduces Bill of Attainder as the primary tool of governance, thereby teaching young people around the world to regress to an anachronistic practice that even predates Hammurabi of Mesopotamia.

Bill of Attainder is a decree declaring an individual guilty of some crime and punishing them without benefit of a trial. In Article 1, Sections 9 and 10, the United States Constitution forbids both the federal and state governments to enact Bills of Attainder. The Founders knew from painful political history that Bills of Attainder were a corrosive and corrupt practice that eventually sank any government foolish enough to embrace it. Bills of Attainder were considered an excess or abuse of the British monarchy and Parliament; no bills of attainder have been passed since 1798 in the British Isles.

The practice of banning was so problematic that 3750 years ago, when Hammurabi of Mesopotamia first set 282 secular laws into stone tablets, he made banning (including proof and exculpation) the subject of his first three laws:

These are the first three laws, in their entirety, of the Code of Hammurabi, translated into English:

1. If any one ensnare another, putting a ban upon him, but he can not prove it, then he that ensnared him shall be put to death.
   
   
2. If any one bring an accusation against a man, and the accused go to the river and leap into the river, if he sink in the river his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if the river prove that the accused is not guilty, and he escape unhurt, then he who had brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser.
   
   
3. If any one bring an accusation of any crime before the elders, and does not prove what he has charged, he shall, if it be a capital offense charged, be put to death.

Hammurabi's second law seems bizarre by modern standards. It appears to be the source of the dismissive phrase, "Go jump in the lake." It also appears to be the secular analog of the corresponding religious ritual of baptismal sin cleansing by immersion in the river, along with the "washing of hands" ritual of Pontius Pilate.

There are 282 such laws in the Code of Hammurabi, each no more than a sentence or two. The 282 laws are bracketed by a pukeworthy Prologue in which Hammurabi introduces himself, and a narcissistic Epilogue in which he affirms his authority and sets forth his audacious hopes and futile prayers for his lulzworthy code of laws.

Thus did Hammurabi set into stone the oldest surviving record of Humankind's Original Logic Error (HOLE).

Jimbo unwittingly started Wikipedia to reprise the classical liminal social drama that inevitably arises when a culture mindlessly reprises the same silly mistake initially outlined in Genesis. For as it is written, whosoever reprises Humankind's Original Logic Error truly has a HOLE in their head.

[Kato]

What has caused most of the ill-feeling towards the project is the ABUSE of the principle - eg. these sorts of comments violate such and such a rule - as interpreted by such and such an admin... Hence the principle is morphed into:

You cannot edit any page - EVER AGAIN!

No.

Generally speaking, the people who whine about this admin or that admin are idiots who wouldn't be let loose near a reference work anyway.

"The Project" itself was flawed from the start for many reasons already outlined here at length; anonymity, anyone-can-edit, Jimbo Wales and so on and so forth.

The principle is flawed.

"The project" hasn't been ruined by certain people. Rather, certain people have been ruined by "The project".

[anthony]

You seem to want to turn WP into Nupedia, the thoroughly-vetted "free encyclopedia" that was the predecessor of Wikipedia, and never went anywhere. If you want a few dozen articles instead of a few million, I suppose that's the way to go.

I was about to say that you're exaggerating, and that Wikipedia differed from Nupedia in a myriad of ways, and not just one. But after rereading Cedric's comment, it does seem he wants to throw out the baby along with the bathwater.

I'm still skeptical of the "appeal to the failure of Nupedia" argument, though. Even if the exact same process as Nupedia were adopted, the starting conditions are vastly different, so it's unlikely the result would be exactly the same.

[anthony]

You can edit this page right now...

I think this is indeed an inviolable principle - the most interesting thing about the whole Wikipedia project. And in many ways, sociologically speaking, it does work - edits are reversed and misinformation is often corrected while 'new information' is accepted.

It only works [if you can call it "working"] because it isn't followed. If *anyone* could edit *any page* in *any way* at *any time*, you'd have [[bellum omnium contra omnes]].

So obviously there have to be restrictions on "anyone can edit". In fact, Wikipedia has restrictions on "anyone can edit". The main problem, in my opinion, is that these restrictions have virtually nothing to do with the merit of the editing. An excellent example of this would be the three revert rule. Edit wars are resolved not by examining the quality of the edit, but by...I don't know...what does the three revert rule measure? Who can wikilawyer better? Who can get a bigger gang of cabal members on their side? Who can create more sockpuppets? Who can get more of their friends to act as meatpuppets? It's certainly not merit.

I pretty much lost my interest in Wikipedia when the three revert rule was introduced. I'm not sure that it was ever uphill, but it was certainly downhill from there.

This post has been edited by anthony: Mon 27th October 2008, 2:02pm

[Cedric]

You seem to want to turn WP into Nupedia, the thoroughly-vetted "free encyclopedia" that was the predecessor of Wikipedia, and never went anywhere. If you want a few dozen articles instead of a few million, I suppose that's the way to go.

Nah, not really. Were it within my power to transmute WP into anything, I believe I would change it into a bunch of horny toads. They, at least, are useful creatures to have around (they eat ants, you know).

Seriously though, I think that since meaningful reform is not available for the reason I mentioned above, the best thing for it is for WP to disappear as a website entirely. But I am getting ahead of myself; more on that later.

[flash]

The principle is flawed.

"The project" hasn't been ruined by certain people. Rather, certain people have been ruined by "The project".

It's an interesting bit of a lateral thinking - but what is 'the principle' here anyway? The 'anyone can edit' one?

If so, what are your criteria for failure? Look, WP is the tenth most poular site on the internet visited by one hundred people a millisecond - and clearly influencing the way most people now see and understand the world. We may not like some of the propagand, distortions, stupidity and plain nastiness on the pages - but that is clearly no concern of Jimbo 'Bornis' Wales and doubtless not of the CIA (if they are involved) either? By the most likely criteria - probably calculated in terms of 'hits' - WP works!

[Peter Damian]

If so, what are your criteria for failure? Look, WP is the tenth most poular site on the internet visited by one hundred people a millisecond - and clearly influencing the way most people now see and understand the world.

My emphasis. That bit is the problem.

[edit] To clarify, it is as though Usenet became official. Encyclopedias edited by experts, that is, by people with some knowledge of what they were writing about, were at one time a kind of defence against superstition and muddled thinking. Wikipedia managed to cure that.

1. INSTANT EDITING OF ARTICLES. I believe that this one feature of WP is the single greatest factor causing WP’s decline and will largely cause its eventual destruction. This feature ensures that both the improvement and the marring of articles are impermanent, and that the battles against internet trolls, polemicists (in wikispeak, “POV pushers”), spammers, vandals, and ignorant interlopers will be everlasting (at least while WP still exists). It is this single feature of WP, more than any other, that gives rise to the MMORPG character of WP and makes ridiculous its claim of being an “encyclopedia”.

If the WP experience has proved nothing else, it has proved that there is indeed a reason that previously established print encyclopedias (wikispeak: “paper encyclopedias”) use editorial boards to vet suggested changes to content: they are needed. A number of members here (including myself) have suggested as a reform that all article pages (wikispeak: “articlespace”) on WP be “locked down”, editable only by an editorial board, qualified by knowledge and/or expertise in a particular subject area.

Obviously I agree. I recently proposed a compromise between 'experts' and 'established' or 'trusted' editors. The latter have proven themselves in different ways - they can put a thread around a set of facts, they are good at hunting out sources, they understand the idea of reliable sources and so on.

This post has been edited by Peter Damian: Mon 27th October 2008, 7:11pm

[Cedric]

THE SIX ROTTEN PILLARS OF WIKIPEDIA

2. “NEUTRALITY” (“NPOV”) OF ARTICLES. According to The Jimbo, the most sacred of all the sacred principles of Wikipedia is “NPOV”, i.e., “Neutral Point of View”, of articles for “the preservation of our shared vision” and “for a culture of thoughtful diplomatic honesty” (whatever the hell that means). While on first read this may seem to make a fair amount of good sense, on close examination, it is about the most confusing and drama-inducing formulation imaginable.

“Neutral” in regular English (as opposed to English wikispeak) usually denotes nonalignment; taking none of any of the contending viewpoints as to a subject. But on WP, as with so many other common words, “neutral” has a rather different meaning. The official policy starts off the definition of “NPOV” as follows:

The neutral point of view is a means of dealing with conflicting verifiable perspectives on a topic as evidenced by reliable sources. The policy requires that where multiple or conflicting perspectives exist within a topic each should be presented fairly. None of the views should be given undue weight or asserted as being judged as "the truth", in order that the various significant published viewpoints are made accessible to the reader, not just the most popular one.

So far, so good. Then comes the kicker:

As the name suggests, the neutral point of view is a point of view, not the absence or elimination of viewpoints. The neutral point of view policy is often misunderstood. The acronym NPOV does not mean "no points of view". The elimination of article content cannot be justified under this policy by simply labeling it "POV". The neutral point of view is neither sympathetic nor in opposition to its subject: it neither endorses nor discourages viewpoints. (My bolding).

So it would appear that the central policy of WP requires WP editors to construct a “neutral” viewpoint that somehow through some wiki-magic absorbs bits from the various contending viewpoints, giving no “undue weight” to any of the contending views, but still manages to be a viewpoint all its own. This way madness lies.

Keep in mind that NPOV is a mandatory policy which applies to all WP articles. How, pray, is one expected to manufacture a “NPOV” for a non-controversial subject using this formula? And what of controversial subjects which actually involve taboos, i.e., where one of the contending viewpoints is overwhelmingly accepted, and the other nearly universally rejected due violations of social taboos and/or criminal statutes? Can one really be “neutral” about genocide or childhood sexual abuse and still be a human being? It is mind boggling. It is little wonder that a basic standard that is so illogical and unachievable is the cause of so many content disputes. How could it be otherwise? NPOV creates so many opportunities for polemicists to argue that their position is more “neutral” than those of others by simply divorcing that word from its normal definition in a dictionary (wikispeak: “dictdef”).

A far more rational approach would have been to construct a policy requiring that contending viewpoints (where they exist) to be given a fair, accurate and balanced description. In other words, describe the position and arguments in support, but don’t make the argument. Frankly, I cannot imagine why a policy which requires editors to manufacture some artificial “neutral” viewpoint was ever deemed a good idea for an encyclopedia, much less the core policy. Is this some weird tenet of Randianism? Perhaps someone more familiar with the writings of Ayn Rand and her “objectivist” philosophy, of which The Jimbo claims to be a devotee, could explain this.

“Words mean what I say they mean! Neither more nor less!”

(Tomorrow's installment: ANONYMOUS EDITING– THE CULT OF IRRESPONSIBILITY)

[Emperor]

Instant editing got Wikipedia millions of articles and a top ten ranking. Jimbo is right to stick with a winning formula.

In my opinion, what really derails the Review is when people make unrealistic demands.

[SpatzelL]

I was quite amazed at the insight, much as Herr Dr. Beck to Dr. Jastrow regarding the "Hegemony of the Nations" conversation (Watch "War and Remembrance"...excellent miniseries).

The idea of editoral boards for each topic....amazing and quite plausible. Imagine a board of 100 to 200 persons who were not user IDs but actual verified people with credentials just as verifiable. THEN...you could actually use Wikipedia as a reference. You could actually put it on a resume and have it be respected. "I edted Wikipedia" would not be simply a passing comment at a bar on Friday night, but something to be respected at universities, places of employment, etc. It would actually MEAN something then!

If only they would do this, but we all know they won't.

[Son of a Yeti]

Instant editing got Wikipedia millions of articles and a top ten ranking. Jimbo is right to stick with a winning formula.

Yes. Instant editing is not the great problems. The real problem we are discussing ad nauseam here is actually WP meeting the Peter Principle ("In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence").

Most of the useful stuff on WP pages is still actually relatively free of wiki-politics and therefore not corrupted.

[UseOnceAndDestroy]

Most of the useful stuff on WP pages is still actually relatively free of wiki-politics and therefore not corrupted.

That would be assuming "wiki-politics" is the cause of "corruption".

Meanwhile, all the stuff that's vandalised, misinformed, or just plain wrong hangs around and feeds people false information every day.

Worth re-reading: http://wikipediareview.com/blog/20081005/w...dy-us-senators/

[Son of a Yeti]

You use the example of the US senators as a benchmark of how WP became error infested. But The US politics is one of the fields which users like me avoid at all cost. It's too easy to get involved in an edit war and much too possible to get blocked by an admin with an agenda.

This is what I called wiki-politics. Paradoxically, articles on villages in Portugal or obscure chemical laws will on average have more quality than ones on the US senators. Why? Because no admin ever interfered in them.

This post has been edited by Son of a Yeti: Tue 28th October 2008, 5:06pm

[Random832]

You use the example of the US senators as a benchmark of how WP became error infested. But The US politics is one of the fields which users like me avoid at all cost. It's too easy to get involved in an edit war and much too possible to get blocked by an admin with a

This is what I called wiki-politics. Paradoxically, articles on villages in Portugal or obscure chemical laws will on average have more quality than ones on the US senators. Why? Because no admin ever interfered in them.

It's unclear that this is the cause rather than a symptom - no admin ever interfered with them because they never became a subject of dispute.

And it's not like there haven't been articles that had poor quality without admin intervention. History of western Eurasia, anyone?

[Kato]

You use the example of the US senators as a benchmark of how WP became error infested. But The US politics is one of the fields which users like me avoid at all cost. It's too easy to get involved in an edit war and much too possible to get blocked by an admin with a

This is what I called wiki-politics. Paradoxically, articles on villages in Portugal or obscure chemical laws will on average have more quality than ones on the US senators. Why? Because no admin ever interfered in them.

Not at all. Around 90% of the Senators articles in the study had uncontroversial editing histories, and remained largely untouched, save occasional updates and the type of libelous vandalism that we're talking about here. Some of which remained for days and weeks because the articles were so unwatched by admins / established users.

[Peter Damian]

Instant editing got Wikipedia millions of articles and a top ten ranking. Jimbo is right to stick with a winning formula.

Yes. Instant editing is not the great problems. The real problem we are discussing ad nauseam here is actually WP meeting the Peter Principle ("In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence").

Most of the useful stuff on WP pages is still actually relatively free of wiki-politics and therefore not corrupted.

Millions of articles about crap. Still, Wikipedia cannot compete with a proper encyclopedia when it comes to any subject of substance, rather than about pornography, ill-disguised promotion of paedophilia, articles on pokemon, dr who, star trek or whatever.

Once every few months but as the trolling on here from the Wikipedia gets ever greater and more ridiculous and laughable I wonder if Awbrey was not right after all. To persuade people to solve a problem you first have to persuade them a problem exists.

[Son of a Yeti]

Not at all. Around 90% of the Senators articles in the study had uncontroversial editing histories, and remained largely untouched, save occasional updates and the type of libelous vandalism that we're talking about here. Some of which remained for days and weeks because the articles were so unwatched by admins / established users.

OK. They are useful admins of the kind the actually were supposed originally to be like. And there are established users.

I do agree that articles edited/watched by the two categories are the ones that on can trust in.

My point is that the heavily watched and fought over articles on US politics, Middle East, Intelligen Design, Scientology etc. etc. are much lower in quality just because the wrong kind of decision makers is attracted to them.