Millosh explains The Problem Options Rating

[emesee]

http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/147960

Worth reading maybe... interesting perhaps...

Could this be moved up into the Media section? It's not quite a blog post and its not quite from the external media... WP related none the less...

[Somey]

Hmm... It's more of a "Meta Discussion" topic, so maybe I'll move it in there.

Unfortunately, the author of this particular essay (presumably Millosh (T-C-L-K-R-D) ) isn't a native English speaker, so it's a real slog to read the whole thing, even if you get past the excessive-length problem to begin with.

Take this bit, for example:

At the project level, especially Wikipedia level, we are not anymore in the edit war phase. Actually, edit war phase looks now as super healthy phase for the present phase. Present phase is full of much more intelligent destructive persons at the projects, and even supported by the whole and relevant communities. At the other side, people who are willing to deal with such problems don't get enough support from the upper levels.

This would probably have been written by a native English speaker to read more like this:

On individual projects, especially the Wikipedia projects, we're no longer in the "edit-warring" phase. Actually, an edit-warring phase would be far healthier than the state we're currently in. The current phase features highly intelligent, and highly destructive, users who are tolerated and even supported by the relevant project-level communities, and often the community as a whole. Meanwhile, people willing to deal with the problems caused by these users don't get enough support from users who are more influential within the hierarchy.

On the one hand, it's good to see that still more of them are taking a realistic view of what's going on, Big Picture-wise. Obviously they're more concerned with reversing their decline than with fixing any of the damage they've caused to the internet as a subculture, or to the various academic and journalistic traditions that have been undercut by competition from the freeware sector. Still, it's a good sign.

However, they'll never figure out how to fix these problems, and indeed, there may be no way to "fix" them at all. They also don't realize that the very content-generation model itself, while certainly capable of generating a ton of content, inherently works against them. There will almost certainly be a stubborn refusal to lock down the system, which over time will result in more attrition than they can probably recover from. So when the lockdown phase occurs, it will be more of a reaction to the attrition problem than an evolutionary step brought about by an internal realization that there's no longer any advantage in "open editing," and that their new focuses should be on improving existing content, and on minimizing the negative impact they're having elsewhere on the internet.

Besides all of those reasons, I may clearly see decadency inside of the Wikimedian community. The same decadency which was characteristic of all big societies at the end of the golden era. Bureaucracy is an excuse for not doing things and keeping present positions; openness toward new things is around zero; glorifying of "ol' good days" is more and more common; there are more and more bizarre things; and so on.

Note the use of the term "golden era" - what he's actually talking about aren't merely "big societies." He's talking about empires, often built on the backs of slaves, mercenary soldiers, exploited workers, and oppressed colonial populations. Empires don't fall because of a few stuffy bureaucrats and nostalgic old-timers. They fall because the number of people who are tired of getting pissed on grows to the point where they can't be mollified or controlled any longer.

At some point, they turn on their masters.

[cyofee]

Somey's long post

Milosh has a Problems on the Serbian Wikipedia subpage, the bolded entry from 2006 is "we do not have a rule which would rid the Serbian Wikipedia of trolls".


And interestingly, it wasn't hard for me to read his rant, which is probably related to the fact that we're both native Serbian speakers.

[Somey]

And interestingly, it wasn't hard for me to read his rant, which is probably related to the fact that we're both native Serbian speakers.

Ah, but in your case, I wouldn't have guessed!

Going over some of the responses over there, it looks like most of the serious ones tend to be focused on the question of whether "top-down solutions" are likely to be more effective at solving "the problem," or "grass-roots" solutions (aka "bottom-up" solutions - not to be confused with excessive alcohol consumption, which would probably be just as effective as either approach).

Most people do seem to realize that the problem is systemic, and they may also be starting to twig to the fact that the management structure in itself is an impediment to positive change. But I suspect they're still at the point where nobody wants to admit why the structure is an impediment.

Once again I'm reminded of that scene from The Grifters, where the guy who's running the con operation opens the door in his office to reveal a bunch of fancy-looking computers, which are supposed to be the key to a "perfectly legal" high-tech stock-trading scam, but were in fact just rented for the day. He invites the mark to go in and have a look around, but the mark is being distracted by Annette Bening at the time, and doesn't want them to think he doesn't trust them.

In Wikipedia's case, you'd substitute the roomful of rented computers with a roomful of competent-looking "leadership figures" who appear to know what they're doing, the phony stock-trading scheme with "the sum of all human knowledge," and Annette Bening with Google.

[Son of a Yeti]

[...]
Empires don't fall because of a few stuffy bureaucrats and nostalgic old-timers. They fall because the number of people who are tired of getting pissed on grows to the point where they can't be mollified or controlled any longer.

At some point, they turn on their masters.

I would disagree. Even as I agree with the "Ancient Empires" <-> Wikipedia analogy, I disagree that most empires die because of rebellions. Successfull rebellions may be a symptom of a weakness. The cause is different.

Empires die when not enough people care to defend them anymore. Think rather of the Roman Empire than the Soviet Union.

If Wikipedia dies, it will not be because of slave rebellion but rather general indifference. I believe I can see the beginning of such a trend.

[KStreetSlave]

Somey, what is the syntax for adding the contribs and stuff to a Wikipedia user account here on WR?

IS there a thread somewhere with all the special little commands?

Also, got to love Thomas Dalton's first response: tl;dr. Yes that's the attitude Wikipedia needs. "I don't care to read what you ahve to say. Please spoon feed me." and then Gerard M of course cannot resist popping in and saying "You should read it" which is of course laughably hypocritical because he doesn't ever listen to what anyone else says.


And of course Florence popping in and saying "oh nothing's wrong". I still don't get it....what is she campaigning for? It's obviously something because she's suddenly dropped her critical view of the WMF that earned my respect in her final months as chair.

[wikiwhistle]

And of course Florence popping in and saying "oh nothing's wrong". I still don't get it....what is she campaigning for? It's obviously something because she's suddenly dropped her critical view of the WMF that earned my respect in her final months as chair.

What do you find puts you in a mellow mood?

[Neil]

KStreetSlave - if you add reply (not fast reply), and click BB Code Help on the left of the screen, there's a big list.

The user one is (wpuser)User name here(/wpuser), (change the brackets to square). Like so: Fish_and_karate (T-C-L-K-R-D) .