Community de-adminship RfC enters voting, Canvassed with a Wikipedia banner Options

[Abd]

The poll is intended to run for 28 days - I cant image CDA winning, but there could be more drama yet, though no one on the CDA side seems to be great at leading the show. They've allowed the truly cranky TenofAllTrades to place reams of 'The flaws of CDA' at the top of the proposal! Cue numerous "per TenofAll" opposes.

That was truly outrageous.

TenOfAllTrades was the admin I chose to try to find someone who would talk some sense in to William M. Connolley. So when I emailed him with a civil suggestion that he look at the situation and give some good advice to his friend, he flipped out. The result: WMC wasn't restrained by his "friends," he was encouraged. And he still thinks he got a raw deal. I've concluded that they aren't actually friends. They were simply using him.

The real problem is that the community has no idea how to run actual consensus process, which begins with standard deliberative process. I.e., democracy as practiced in peer organizations for centuries. Unless you just want to put on a show, you never, never debate a difficult issue in a full assembly, it's referred to a committee, which hammers out a report, which report can include minority reports. That's then presented to the whole assembly for approval as adequate. Adequate as a report. That approval itself does nothing, but then it can be moved to take action on the report. By this time, if the report has been well done, and if this isn't a political organization where everyone wants to grandstand for the cameras, the process is swift and efficient. Debate opens and there is a motion for Previous Question, which requires a 2/3 vote; it simply means that debate is over, time to vote on the action question. If Previous Question passes, there is then a vote. In the vast majority of organizations, and except for certain special kinds of questions, the majority of those voting carry the day.

(There are also ways for a good facilitator to speed all this up. And the process can iterate. Report comes back, enough people think it isn't adequate, it goes back to committee for review.)

Wikipedia tried to reinvent the wheel, but too much of the community and the founders didn't understand wheels, so they ended up with a square ones. Bumpy ride, eh?

A community the size of Wikipedia must have some kind of representative body, or else decisions will be chaotic and highly inefficient and too often ill-considered. The adhocracy works well for small-scale decisions, usually, more or less, that's why it became so popular. But when it fails, it fails spectacularly.

[EricBarbour]

Don't look at me, man. If I had to clean up this toilet, I'd just shitcan ALL the
sitting admins, and start over.

Mebbe force them to re-run for the job every damn year.

[Jon Awbrey]

The real problem is that the community has no idea how to run actual consensus process, which begins with standard deliberative process.

Why don't you consult your Robot's Rules Of Order, and tell us what constitutes a quorum of 12 million members.

Jon

[Abd]

The point is that the advertised philosophy grossly misrepresents the actual practice.

Yeah. Causes no end of trouble.

The encyclopedia anyone can edit.

The sum of all human knowledge.

Hey, I'm a human, and I know something, this is great! I'll write an article about my Favorite Topic.

So I spend a few days figuring out how to use the software enough to make it look decent, or I don't, I just write. After spending a few hours, I take a break for the night.

I come back the next day, and can't find what I did. This damn software must be buggy! Try again, come back the next day, gone again! Oh. I notice the banner at the top that I have messages! So I look, and I see why I can't find my articles. They were deleted.

All right, so I read the guidelines and stuff. And then I try again. And, of course, I find out that the guidelines aren't worth the paper they aren't written on. What really counts is what the active core thinks. And if I think they are wrong, and tell them, I'm likely blocked, quickly. And usually nobody actually helps me. Unless I'm very lucky.

The advertising was deceptive. First of all, anyone can edit, but that doesn't mean that people are equal in rights. For example, if you are an SPA, it probably means that you have knowledge of the subject. And this can get you blocked about faster than anything. Again and again, I see support for restrictions on an editor based primarily on "SPA." This, in fact, is the source of the famous "anti-expert" problem at Wikipedia. You expect an expert on, say, chess, to edit articles on underwear and motorcycles before being allowed to touch chess articles?

It is gets much worse if the opinion of the expert is a minority opinion or is thought of as fringe, whether it is or not. (Sometimes fringe opinion is the most solidly based, academically. Not usually, but sometimes. It's "fringe" among Wikipedia editors, but not among academics, but understanding this would require that the oligarchy actually read the sources and understand them.)

And then there is "sum." Most people read that as "entirety." Wow! What an idea! But that isn't what it means. It means "summary," apparently. The extreme inclusionist position would be "entirety." Few are totally extreme, I'd stop with glossing "human knowledge" as "shared human knowledge." One person isn't enough. But two, yes, if the knowledge is shared -- and, yes, that's where verifiability comes in, but the obsessive Wikipedia standards for verifiability -- it did not start this way! -- completely took the project away from the "sum" concept to a very restricted, academically-oriented "summary," except where it isn't.

I.e., most of the project, but gradually the deletionists exert their muscle here and there, remember KillerOfCruft? He was very popular, even though he was a blatant sock puppet of a banned editor. "Cruft" means something you know and care about, and you have lots of friends who know and care about it, but I don't care about it at all, it's not "encyclopedic."

And then the reality is that articles, when they come to the attention of the wikiwarriors, wash back and forth, wasting huge amounts of labor so that anyone half-sensible goes away, washing their hands of the mess.

Great idea. A bit weak in the implementation. It's a shame. But it could still be fixed. Problem is, most people reject the fix immediately, before they understand it.... same old same old, really.

Once in a while, something different happens.

[Malleus]

Don't look at me, man. If I had to clean up this toilet, I'd just shitcan ALL the
sitting admins, and start over.

Mebbe force them to re-run for the job every damn year.

That would be a good place to start, but no "mebbe" about forcing them to re-run.

[Jon Awbrey]

The point is that the advertised philosophy grossly misrepresents the actual practice.

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The Advertising Was Deceptive
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An enterprise whose promoters derive benefits from misrepresentation is called a fraud.

Jon Awbrey

[Abd]

The real problem is that the community has no idea how to run actual consensus process, which begins with standard deliberative process.

Why don't you consult your Robot's Rules Of Order, and tell us what constitutes a quorum of 12 million members.Jon

Organizations of that size don't have meetings of the entire membership, stoopy-head. So there is no quorum of the "12 million members."

But it's actually possible to define one that would make sense, but it would be defined as "present and voting directly or by proxy," and for some structural changes, there might be an absolute majority requirement, which makes quorum moot. And I won't go there yet.

More normally, large organizations set up representative structures, and "quorum" then refers to the number of representatives "present and voting." And they may also set up an executive committee, which is a much smaller body that has executive power ad-interim, i.e., it can make decisions quickly when needed, but it remains responsible to the larger representative body, which is, in turn, responsible to the membership that elects it.

I said "elect," but elections are not the best way to select a representative body, unless advanced voting systems are used. There is, however, a very simple system that would work with ease with Wikipedia; the article on it was unfortunately deleted by AfD filed by a sock of an editor (since ID's and blocked) who AfD'd everything in sight that might be considered critical of or a replacement for Instant runoff voting. Happened while I was site-banned, and nobody else noticed. I could probably get it back, but -- why bother?

The system is Asset Voting. It's a variation on Delegable proxy, which was also targeted by the same people. But Asset Voting -- not under that name but following the same analogy -- was invented in about 1884 by Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson) as a tweak on Single Transferable Vote. In theory, with little fuss and high accuracy, it could elect a fully representative body, limited only by the fact that truly minor groupings of editors would have to compromise with each other in order to gain a seat in the Assembly.

But with present technology, voting could still be universal. It's just representation in deliberation, the ability to "speak to the assembly" and to enter motions, that requires restriction due to scale.

So the quorum would probably be a set number of representatives who must be "present" -- which could mean voting or explicitly abstaining. The number, of course, depends on the size of the assembly chosen.

Who or what determines the size? My suggestion woudl be the Assembly itself: it will determine a size that balances efficiency and representativeness. My guess is that thirty is pushing it.

With pure delegable proxy and a seat in the assembly determined by "proxy rank," thirty could represent more people, but this, then, has variable voting in the assembly.

(With the direct voting I mentioned, each seat in the assembly would represent Q editors, the quota. And if one editor who was among those who assigned their votes in the Asset election -- these are public electors, the election itself can be secret ballot -- had assigned 1 vote to put together the quota for the seat -- decided to cast that vote directly, the vote of the seat would be devalued by 1 vote, i.e., would become (Q-1)/Q vote. But, I'd bet, in practice, those fractional votes would not normally make a difference in decisions, and electors wouldn't cast them usually. Just when they think they know better than the seat they elected, and couldn't convince him or her of it.)

("Elector" means someone who gets votes in the Asset election. In Asset, the electors -- who can also be thought of as "candidates" -- can recast their votes to create a seat. The electors are public voters. The original Asset election is secret ballot. Any candidate who gets Q votes or more is elected, if the candidate chooses to serve. The candidate then may have excess votes to distribute. It's a trick that gets around various impossibility theorems afflicting voting systems, by being not a "voting system" as they are usually defined. It's actually a deliberative process, not pure aggregation.)

Probably more than Jon wanted to see, but, hey, he asked.

An enterprise whose promoters derive benefits from misrepresentation is called a fraud.

Yes. Now what?

[Jon Awbrey]

The real problem is that the community has no idea how to run actual consensus process, which begins with standard deliberative process.

Why don't you consult your Robot's Rules Of Order, and tell us what constitutes a quorum of 12 million members.

Jon

Organizations of that size don't have meetings of the entire membership, stoopy-head. So there is no quorum of the "12 million members."

Which is precisely why organizations like that do not insult the intelligence of the public by using the word "consensus" to describes the results.

Jon

[Trick cyclist]

Nakon has created this script on the CDA results that auto-updates - http://toolserver.org/~nakon/cda.php The stats are at the top.

The amount of opposing admin (v supporting editors) is striking when you see it in list form I must admit, but if you give them reasons to oppose (as this CDA proposal does) then of course a load of them are going to do just that.

Interesting analysis:

Supporters: Average Edit Count - 19420 | Average Account Registration Date - 24 Jan 2007
Opposers: Average Edit Count - 23203 | Average Account Registration Date - 12 Aug 2006
Neutrals: Average Edit Count - 20559 | Average Account Registration Date - 13 Feb 2007

Given that the great majority of supporters and neutrals are non-admins but fewer than 50% of the opposers it is amazing that the average edit counts are that close. Is there someone with a huge total of edits in there distorting the picture?

[SB_Johnny]

Nakon has created this script on the CDA results that auto-updates - http://toolserver.org/~nakon/cda.php The stats are at the top.

The amount of opposing admin (v supporting editors) is striking when you see it in list form I must admit, but if you give them reasons to oppose (as this CDA proposal does) then of course a load of them are going to do just that.

Interesting analysis:

Supporters: Average Edit Count - 19420 | Average Account Registration Date - 24 Jan 2007
Opposers: Average Edit Count - 23203 | Average Account Registration Date - 12 Aug 2006
Neutrals: Average Edit Count - 20559 | Average Account Registration Date - 13 Feb 2007

Given that the great majority of supporters and neutrals are non-admins but fewer than 50% of the opposers it is amazing that the average edit counts are that close. Is there someone with a huge total of edits in there distorting the picture?

The script is definitely buggy, unless I was demoted (in which case I wonder why I still have a delete button), so I wouldn't try to analyze its results just yet.

Or maybe the script believes Durova and thinks I'm a steward?

[Abd]

The real problem is that the community has no idea how to run actual consensus process, which begins with standard deliberative process.

Why don't you consult your Robot's Rules Of Order, and tell us what constitutes a quorum of 12 million members.

Organizations of that size don't have meetings of the entire membership, stoopy-head. So there is no quorum of the "12 million members."

Which is precisely why organizations like that do not insult the intelligence of the public by using the word "consensus" to describes the results.

Unless the word describes the results. Wikipedia indeed abuses the word, frequently. Normally it means agreement by all or almost all. Something like two-thirds vote is not called consensus, but "supermajority." Organizations that value consensus (Wikipedia definitely should, within limits) will sometimes continue discussion long beyond the point of even supermajority agreement; but they have found ways to avoid wasting everyone's time with this; they use devices like minority reports and allowance for reconsideration of issues based on motion by someone who supported the prevailing decision.

Wikipedia structure -- or non-structure may be a more realistic term for it -- does not effectively and efficiently seek consensus, in spite of the protestations and guidelines and sanction of editors for "not seeking consensus." Admins who haven't a clue how to seek consensus routinely block others for failing to do it, and ArbComm supports it.

I'm dealing with a notability problem currently, what seems to me to be a misreading of WP:CLUB guidelines. I have substantial skill navigating the !bureaucracy, and it's still extraordinarily difficult, requiring great effort to gain minor improvements. Ordinary editors? Forget it. There is theoretically an open door, theoretically all editors are equal, but, in fact, how to proceed is generally a complete mystery to them, and, though it isn't to me, whatever I do, someone will complain about it, because there is no step-by-step process and as many different ideas of the best way to handle disputes as there are editors. I can see why so many editors go bonkers. It's extraordinarily frustrating.

But if you know the system, if you have admin tools, why, everything is fine! Until you get tired of dealing with the same problems over and over. A few admins realize the situation, but tend to retire out of frustration. The system abuses administrators just as it abuses ordinary editors. Possibly even worse, for admins typically have invested a lot more of their time.

Still, I'm not terribly sympathetic to administrators who become abusive, such as JzG or WMC, because they can cause such pain to ordinary editors, and sometimes seem to enjoy it or at least to be oblivious and uncaring. But they are gone as administrators, and may be on their way out entirely. Those who used them are still active. It was very convenient to have administrators like them, willing to act when recusal policy would prohibit it, so that these others didn't have to.

[Jon Awbrey]

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Wikipedia Indeed Abuses The Word
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Tanks for yet another Abysmally Boring Digression (ABD), but I used to do statistics for the Institute for Social Research at U of M, have managed surveys for organizations of 75,000 members, tallied voting records for an online standards body — and I know how these words are used in The Real World, which is a far cry indeed from the WP:NONSENSUS that you try so hard to huff 'n' puff a big cloud of dust around.

Jon Awbrey

[Sxeptomaniac]

I voted, partly as moral support for the idea that there does need to be a change. Admin recall would certainly be a huge drama magnet. I strongly support a simple introduction of admin terms, but most people seem to either ignore the idea or try to unnecessarily complicated it with stuff like enforced breaks.

It would be interesting if more admins openly chose to serve for a specific term at the time of their RfA (perhaps instead of voluntary recall), and reran or stepped down at the end of that time. It might be a way for the idea to gain a bit more of a foothold on WP.

[Abd]

Tanks for yet another Abysmally Boring Digression (ABD), but I used to do statistics for the Institute for Social Research at U of M, have managed surveys for organizations of 75,000 members, tallied voting records for an online standards body — and I know how these words are used in The Real World, which is a far cry indeed from the WP:NONSENSUS that you try so hard to huff 'n' puff a big cloud of dust around.

Jon Awbrey

Uh, what was different?

(Setting aside that none of those qualifications indicate experience with organizations that operate by consensus. But maybe. It happens to be a specialization of mine, like over thirty years, organizations all the way from full-consensus -- that's how I know how fucked it can be -- to standard majority rule, to informal chaos, which works with a few people, sometimes, but starts to break down somewhere near a dozen. Depends on the organization and its nature and purpose, and the culture of the members.)

Jon, many times you have "huffed" about this or that alleged error or supposed obfuscation of mine, without actually contradicting it. It seems you have some kind of "issue" with me. "Abysmally Boring" is a description of yourself (because not even nothing is boring in itself), and Digression is likewise highly subjective. In other contexts I'd invite you to share about it. But here, you can stuff it. It is really a digression.

[Abd]

Big images, huge type, to mask a total lack of content, the sign of an intellectual who has gone over the hill. Shame, he's probably a decade younger than I. Or so. And then a list of irrelevant qualifications, followed by the claim:

I know how these words are used in The Real World, which is a far cry indeed from the WP:NONSENSUS that you try so hard to huff 'n' puff a big cloud of dust around.

So, when I see someone on-wiki making such a fuss over nothing, I look at their contribution history. So I says to myself, why not Mr. Awbrey?

Ah. Jon Awbrey (T-C-L-K-R-D) . Appreciated for article writing, detested for utter inability to work with the community. Consensus? He has no clue. That's what's going on here.

Awbrey is opposed to consensus, he believes that the community is stupid and unworthy, and that there is no hope for a community project. His solution would be to put somebody smart in charge. Perhaps someone like himself.

Well, what's stopping him? He could start his own project. If he's smart enough, surely he could attract funding. Probably not volunteers, though, or not for long. Ya have to be able to work with people. Perhaps even if you pay them.

But he's got 4300 contributions here. That's some accomplishment, at least. Except what is the goal of criticizing Wikipedia? Is it to improve it? Make it less abusive? Make it more reliable? Or just to piss on it and everyone connected with it?

I suppose that will sound like fun to some. To each his own.

[Jon Awbrey]

So, what is the current count on MB socks, anyway?

Jon

[Sxeptomaniac]

Jon, many times you have "huffed" about this or that alleged error or supposed obfuscation of mine, without actually contradicting it. It seems you have some kind of "issue" with me. "Abysmally Boring" is a description of yourself (because not even nothing is boring in itself), and Digression is likewise highly subjective. In other contexts I'd invite you to share about it. But here, you can stuff it. It is really a digression.

Surely you've noticed by now that Jon likes sounding smart by means of obscure condescending remarks, not actual arguments.

[Eva Destruction]

Nakon has created this script on the CDA results that auto-updates - http://toolserver.org/~nakon/cda.php The stats are at the top.

The amount of opposing admin (v supporting editors) is striking when you see it in list form I must admit, but if you give them reasons to oppose (as this CDA proposal does) then of course a load of them are going to do just that.

Interesting analysis:

Supporters: Average Edit Count - 19420 | Average Account Registration Date - 24 Jan 2007
Opposers: Average Edit Count - 23203 | Average Account Registration Date - 12 Aug 2006
Neutrals: Average Edit Count - 20559 | Average Account Registration Date - 13 Feb 2007

Given that the great majority of supporters and neutrals are non-admins but fewer than 50% of the opposers it is amazing that the average edit counts are that close. Is there someone with a huge total of edits in there distorting the picture?

You have myself, Malleus, Johnbod and Mattisse in the support column, with a total of about 300k edits between us, skewing the averages. Although I suspect that when Malleus and Mattisse realize they're agreeing on something one or the other will change their vote out of general principle.

[Somey]

So, what is the current count on MB socks, anyway?

Here, or on Wikipedia? Here it's three, but one has been unmasked and inactive for several months now, and the WP folks just recently neutralized another one, so he's down to just one usable account here for the moment. (And it's not Abd, sorry...) We should be seeing another two or three of them though, soon enough.

[GlassBeadGame]

Big images, huge type, to mask a total lack of content, the sign of an intellectual who has gone over the hill. Shame, he's probably a decade younger than I. Or so. And then a list of irrelevant qualifications, followed by the claim:

I know how these words are used in The Real World, which is a far cry indeed from the WP:NONSENSUS that you try so hard to huff 'n' puff a big cloud of dust around.

So, when I see someone on-wiki making such a fuss over nothing, I look at their contribution history. So I says to myself, why not Mr. Awbrey?

Ah. Jon Awbrey (T-C-L-K-R-D) . Appreciated for article writing, detested for utter inability to work with the community. Consensus? He has no clue. That's what's going on here.

Awbrey is opposed to consensus, he believes that the community is stupid and unworthy, and that there is no hope for a community project. His solution would be to put somebody smart in charge. Perhaps someone like himself.

Well, what's stopping him? He could start his own project. If he's smart enough, surely he could attract funding. Probably not volunteers, though, or not for long. Ya have to be able to work with people. Perhaps even if you pay them.

But he's got 4300 contributions here. That's some accomplishment, at least. Except what is the goal of criticizing Wikipedia? Is it to improve it? Make it less abusive? Make it more reliable? Or just to piss on it and everyone connected with it?

I suppose that will sound like fun to some. To each his own.

What a ugly and nasty little rant that say nothing more than "He doesn't love Wikipedia." You feel entitled to appreciation for your "contributions" to the project, but not really. Demanding appreciation is small and unattractive.