Is Wikipedia a closed shop? Options

[Peter Damian]

And now for the final pillar of my forthcoming rant to the UKCC. Though I'm not sure whether I will include it due to the difficulty of evidencing it. Is Wikipedia a closed shop, impenetrable to outsiders? (And if it is, is that in the general public interest, but I think that is obvious). I'm sure we all agree with this, and Kelly even has a post up about it http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showt...=0&#entry290112 . But how would we evidence that? To the man/woman in the street, I mean.

Some suggestions:

* The process for becoming an administrator involves an apprenticeship performing a series of repetitive and monotonous tasks for many years, of no obvious value to anyone.

*Upward 'promotion' from there depends on getting to the first rank.

*It also requires buying an ideology that most people would find weird. (But how to evidence this?)

*Elections to other positions (arbitration committee, steward) involve buying all the above.

Thoughts please, and please can we not get sidetracked into the usual Wikipedians are idiots, geeks, mindless cult morons, evil etc. What is the evidence for Wikipedia being closed to outsiders?

This post has been edited by Peter Damian: Sun 4th December 2011, 7:46pm

[lilburne]

Isn't the point of the charitable status that they provide some educational benefit. Whether the authorship is open or not does not seem to be pertinent to whether they provide educational benefit.

[Cla68]

Perhaps you could show that certain topics in Wikipedia are virtually un-editable by anyone, especially newbies, who don't adhere to the party line of the editors who control that topic.

This post has been edited by Cla68: Sun 4th December 2011, 10:48pm

[iii]

Perhaps you could show that certain topics in Wikipedia are virtually un-editable by anyone, especially newbies, who don't adhere to the party line of the editors who control that topic.

It's actually more insidious than that. On most "hot topics" the articles are un-editable by anyone who isn't willing to start a flame war or generally make the environment intolerable for the editor or group of editors who will inevitably oppose the change. Winning Wikipedia is the only way to effect change in these cases.

[Cla68]

Perhaps you could show that certain topics in Wikipedia are virtually un-editable by anyone, especially newbies, who don't adhere to the party line of the editors who control that topic.

It's actually more insidious than that. On most "hot topics" the articles are un-editable by anyone who isn't willing to start a flame war or generally make the environment intolerable for the editor or group of editors who will inevitably oppose the change. Winning Wikipedia is the only way to effect change in these cases.

Here is an example of what I'm talking about. There are people who believe Intelligent Design to be a science, and therefore should be listed in that category and allow the reader to read the article and make up their own mind. The small group of editors who closely monitor that article, however, have no tolerance at all for this approach, and will censor any attempt to give both sides of the argument that ID may be considered by some to be science. Many articles in Wikipedia are like this, as frequently documented in this forum.

How to keep this simple and short for the CC? Simply state that Wikipedia's current anarchic, chaotic, and administratively mismanaged state allows small groups of editors to take over and control certain topics. Then list some of the most notorious examples such as Intelligent Design and Global Warming.