I've always believed that eventually, a sort of seismic shift would be noticeable on Wikipedia where a certain tipping point was reached. Eventually, the number of both active users and active admins would reach a point where any individual voice was completely lost in the crowd, on a consistent and constant basis. We're not there yet--not by a long shot. But it's now, if not on the immediate horizon, only a few rotations of the seasons away. Evidence:
1. [[WP:ANI]]. This, xfD, and AIV are arguably the busiest places on-Wiki. ANI, for a sole centralized place, IS the most centralized. So much so, that's spawned numerous spin-off pages to handle the load. We have ANI, AN, BLPN, CSN, AIV, tons. Despite this, the rotation and archiving on ANI *still* has to be already set to 24 hours now. Remember two years ago? A year ago? Remember how much quieter that part of the pond used to be?
2. User counts. There are unquestionably many more users on Wikipedia--and vocal editors--than when I started. The community overall has *never* been this busy. The busier it gets, the busier it will get in turn, which will lead to ever more admins...
3. Admin counts. Look at RFA--there are a dozen people practically up now for nominations at any given time, and virtually all are promoted. I predict we'll see 20 open RfAs at one time by the next midwinter, or spring 2008 at the absolute latest.
4. Knee-jerk over-reactions. In my last email, I said (rather indelicately, unfortunately):
On 6/5/07, Joe Szilagyi szilagyi@gmail.com wrote:
I still assert quite well that the "old timers" going nuts of late, trying to forcefully close down discussion on various matters, is a *direct* reaction to the fact that Wikipedia has now grown beyond their perceived personal control, and the fact that any one individual or small clique each day, each week, and each passing month will grow ever more irrelevant and obscure. Where a lone senior editor or admin or three previously had tremendous power, that is no longer the case, and many people are willing to challenge them--and successfully. I saw that even a beaurocrat on the Armedblowfish RFA was reverted, and told to knock it off by a group of editors for overstepping the bounds of his role.
This is, overall, a good thing in the long term--the more the community collectively drives matters, the more irrational and extremist voices on any and all sides will be drowned out, swept away, and largely ignored as they gnash their teeth and wail at the walls. Within 1-3 years, the current 'leaders' of the community--no offense, guys, you brought us here, after all--will need to adjust to the fact that they're just "another user". I think the hyper-aggressive tone is evidence of this--the, "Discussion is over" sorts of proclamations and whatnot.
On the one hand, any and all people "in power" will be de-valued if this occurs. Your voice, my voice--we're just one more person in the crowd if this comes to pass. No one person will be able to ram anything, good or bad, theoretically down Wikipedia's throat as it happens now all too frequently. Appealing to populism will be how things will need to get done. The mass titanic shifts with BLP currently underway--where a very small minority of users are very aggressively trying to change the tone of something more to their suiting... will be impossibly harder to get to stick. On the other hand, populist ideas--BADSITES, anyone?--will be able to gain traction easily. It's the equivalent of screaming "9/11" during a political rally; people will stand up and cheer simply because you said 9/11. This will open Wikipedia to all manner of possible disruption, unless the crowd is able to see it for what it is. On the other hand, *good* populist ideas could spread just as quickly and correctly. But lone people or ultra-minority groups screaming "BLP NINJA ATTACK! BADSITES! TRUTHERS CONSPIRACIES! FLAVOR OF THE DAY CONTROVERSY!" will be relegated to the back of the room, patted on the head, and told to stop disrupting.
If this happens, will it be a good thing? If not, why not?
Regards, Joe http://www.joeszilagyi.com
On 6/6/07, Joe Szilagyi szilagyi@gmail.com wrote:
I've always believed that eventually, a sort of seismic shift would be noticeable on Wikipedia where a certain tipping point was reached. Eventually, the number of both active users and active admins would reach a point where any individual voice was completely lost in the crowd, on a consistent and constant basis. We're not there yet--not by a long shot. But it's now, if not on the immediate horizon, only a few rotations of the seasons away. Evidence:
- [[WP:ANI]]. This, xfD, and AIV are arguably the busiest places on-Wiki.
ANI, for a sole centralized place, IS the most centralized. So much so, that's spawned numerous spin-off pages to handle the load. We have ANI, AN, BLPN, CSN, AIV, tons. Despite this, the rotation and archiving on ANI *still* has to be already set to 24 hours now. Remember two years ago? A year ago? Remember how much quieter that part of the pond used to be?
I remember the time when admins actually hashed things out by talking to each other individually on user talk pages instead of running screaming wheel war abuse to ANI - mainly because ANI didn't exist at the time.
Johnleemk
On 6/5/07, John Lee johnleemk@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/6/07, Joe Szilagyi szilagyi@gmail.com wrote:
I've always believed that eventually, a sort of seismic shift would be noticeable on Wikipedia where a certain tipping point was reached. Eventually, the number of both active users and active admins would reach a point where any individual voice was completely lost in the crowd, on a consistent and constant basis. We're not there yet--not by a long shot. But it's now, if not on the immediate horizon, only a few rotations of the seasons away. Evidence:
- [[WP:ANI]]. This, xfD, and AIV are arguably the busiest places on-Wiki.
ANI, for a sole centralized place, IS the most centralized. So much so, that's spawned numerous spin-off pages to handle the load. We have ANI, AN, BLPN, CSN, AIV, tons. Despite this, the rotation and archiving on ANI *still* has to be already set to 24 hours now. Remember two years ago? A year ago? Remember how much quieter that part of the pond used to be?
I remember the time when admins actually hashed things out by talking to each other individually on user talk pages instead of running screaming wheel war abuse to ANI - mainly because ANI didn't exist at the time.
ANI scales better than individual talk pages, and offers more chances for peer review. I am a firm supporter of both of those.
I think the worrying trend is people (still) BOLDing stuff insistently when a bit of short discussion somewhere would indicate that it's controversial. That's been around forever.
If this happens, will it be a good thing? If not, why not?
It's difficult to say. There are definite downsides to such a situation - for example, consider a scenario where there is a problem and two potential solutions, either of which would work, and the community is fairly evenly split between them. It doesn't really matter which is chosen, but neither will be chosen because anyone trying to push forward their idea will be pushed back by the other side. In the past, it's always been possible for someone in authority to step in a say "Ok, this is how it's going to be" and people would accept that. That is becoming less and less the case and sooner or later, we will end up in an argument we can't get out of. The most likely next step would be voting and decide policy that way. It would be the end of consensus driven decision making and the beginning of democracy (I think that is generally accepted as a bad thing).
That's the main problem with large groups - consensus becomes impossible to achieve. We've already had to switch to "rough consensus" in most places, which causes no end of problems since there is no real definition of what "rough consensus" is.
There are, of course, upsides - you've covered most of them, I think.
The only idea I've had for dealing with this situation once it gets unmanageable is some kind of parliament. The community elects a certain number of MPs, and the MPs make policy decisions (just making policy - enforcing policy in individual cases remains with the community) based on consensus. Basically, mixing democracy and consensus. It is a far from ideal solution, but it is getting harder and harder to make policy decisions, and sooner or later it will become impossible and we will need something.
Thomas Dalton wrote:
It's difficult to say. There are definite downsides to such a situation - for example, consider a scenario where there is a problem and two potential solutions, either of which would work, and the community is fairly evenly split between them. It doesn't really matter which is chosen, but neither will be chosen because anyone trying to push forward their idea will be pushed back by the other side. In the past, it's always been possible for someone in authority to step in a say "Ok, this is how it's going to be" and people would accept that. That is becoming less and less the case and sooner or later, we will end up in an argument we can't get out of. The most likely next step would be voting and decide policy that way. It would be the end of consensus driven decision making and the beginning of democracy (I think that is generally accepted as a bad thing).
The problem here relates to the fallacy of the excluded middle. It's the mentality that says, "You're either with us or agaiunst us." It justifies having two people in a street fight working together to beat up anybody who would dare to try to break up their fight. When you start by saying that there are only two possible solutions you probably insure that the best solution is frozen out. In the context of the BJAODN dispute it leads us to a keep it all versus a delete it all choice, and avoids forging a solution that would have wider satisfaction.
It is also a fallacy to say that consensus and democracy are somehow opposing concepts. Consensus is clearly more democratic than voting. Voting implies a pe-defined question.
The other fallacy to be avaided is saying that all policy decisions are final. We have shown ourselves ill-equipped to deal with subtle changes in circumstances when people insist on the strict leteral application of rules. Rather then defending hard-wired rules we need to be sensitive to changes, and the need to consider the opinions of those who did not participate in the formation of the rules for whatever reason. These reasons include not having been a part of the Wikipedia community at the time the rule was adopted. We need to recognize that the young people who will be most affected by rules did not have a vote in the way that the older generations chose to fuck it up.
That's the main problem with large groups - consensus becomes impossible to achieve. We've already had to switch to "rough consensus" in most places, which causes no end of problems since there is no real definition of what "rough consensus" is.
Then we need to make it less impossible. Rough consensus is nothing more than an intermediate stage.
The only idea I've had for dealing with this situation once it gets unmanageable is some kind of parliament. The community elects a certain number of MPs, and the MPs make policy decisions (just making policy - enforcing policy in individual cases remains with the community) based on consensus. Basically, mixing democracy and consensus. It is a far from ideal solution, but it is getting harder and harder to make policy decisions, and sooner or later it will become impossible and we will need something.
What makes it harder for policy decisions is the unwillingness of some to consider alternative solutions. MPs don't exactly inspire confidence in the real world; what makes you think that wikiMPs would do any better? Maybe we should be looking at entirely new ways of adopting policy. Are we capable of the imagination that such an approach would require?
I prefer to leave the matter of enforcement to some other time.
Ec
The problem here relates to the fallacy of the excluded middle. It's the mentality that says, "You're either with us or agaiunst us." It justifies having two people in a street fight working together to beat up anybody who would dare to try to break up their fight. When you start by saying that there are only two possible solutions you probably insure that the best solution is frozen out. In the context of the BJAODN dispute it leads us to a keep it all versus a delete it all choice, and avoids forging a solution that would have wider satisfaction.
There often is a third option, but if no-one suggests it, it doesn't really matter. In my hypothetical scenario, there were two suggestions and everyone was happy with one of them, so no-one was likely to suggest another one. Often people get irrationally attached to their chosen idea and won't listen to new suggestions put forward, so my scenario isn't very unlikely.
It is also a fallacy to say that consensus and democracy are somehow opposing concepts. Consensus is clearly more democratic than voting. Voting implies a pe-defined question.
I'm no political scientist, but in everyday usage, democracy mean voting - they are the same thing.
The other fallacy to be avaided is saying that all policy decisions are final. We have shown ourselves ill-equipped to deal with subtle changes in circumstances when people insist on the strict leteral application of rules. Rather then defending hard-wired rules we need to be sensitive to changes, and the need to consider the opinions of those who did not participate in the formation of the rules for whatever reason. These reasons include not having been a part of the Wikipedia community at the time the rule was adopted. We need to recognize that the young people who will be most affected by rules did not have a vote in the way that the older generations chose to fuck it up.
True, but I don't think it's relevant to this discussion.
That's the main problem with large groups - consensus becomes impossible to achieve. We've already had to switch to "rough consensus" in most places, which causes no end of problems since there is no real definition of what "rough consensus" is.
Then we need to make it less impossible. Rough consensus is nothing more than an intermediate stage.
An intermediate stage between what and what? No agreement and full consensus? If so, we very rarely reach the end stage.
The only idea I've had for dealing with this situation once it gets unmanageable is some kind of parliament. The community elects a certain number of MPs, and the MPs make policy decisions (just making policy - enforcing policy in individual cases remains with the community) based on consensus. Basically, mixing democracy and consensus. It is a far from ideal solution, but it is getting harder and harder to make policy decisions, and sooner or later it will become impossible and we will need something.
What makes it harder for policy decisions is the unwillingness of some to consider alternative solutions. MPs don't exactly inspire confidence in the real world; what makes you think that wikiMPs would do any better? Maybe we should be looking at entirely new ways of adopting policy. Are we capable of the imagination that such an approach would require?
I don't think wikiMPs would do very well, but I fear that keeping things the same as they are now will end up being even worse. We absolutely should be looking at entirely new solutions - I just can't think of any. If you can, please speak up.
on 6/5/07 3:26 PM, Thomas Dalton at thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
I don't think wikiMPs would do very well, but I fear that keeping things the same as they are now will end up being even worse. We absolutely should be looking at entirely new solutions - I just can't think of any. If you can, please speak up.
Thomas,
The archives of this List are FULL of suggestions for change (some actually workable ;-)). The question is how, and where, do we take those suggestions to be acted upon?
Marc
On 05/06/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
The archives of this List are FULL of suggestions for change (some actually workable ;-)). The question is how, and where, do we take those suggestions to be acted upon?
Good question. An idea has to be both convincing and inspiring to really take. The politics of large-scale volunteer collaboration ... you need to make people *want* to implement your idea.
- d.
On 05/06/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
The archives of this List are FULL of suggestions for change (some actually workable ;-)). The question is how, and where, do we take those suggestions to be acted upon?
on 6/5/07 5:26 PM, David Gerard at dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Good question. An idea has to be both convincing and inspiring to really take. The politics of large-scale volunteer collaboration ... you need to make people *want* to implement your idea.
But, as I understand it, we are not talking about the style, or other such changes, related to editing the content of the encyclopedia. But, rather, changes related to the very structure of its management.
Marc
On 05/06/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
on 6/5/07 5:26 PM, David Gerard at dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 05/06/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
The archives of this List are FULL of suggestions for change (some actually workable ;-)). The question is how, and where, do we take those suggestions to be acted upon?
Good question. An idea has to be both convincing and inspiring to really take. The politics of large-scale volunteer collaboration ... you need to make people *want* to implement your idea.
But, as I understand it, we are not talking about the style, or other such changes, related to editing the content of the encyclopedia. But, rather, changes related to the very structure of its management.
Same there too. It's more work, of course. And it has to be a really good idea and you have to be really convincing with it. It's a process of herding cats.
- d.
On 05/06/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
The archives of this List are FULL of suggestions for change (some actually workable ;-)). The question is how, and where, do we take those suggestions to be acted upon?
on 6/5/07 5:26 PM, David Gerard at dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Good question. An idea has to be both convincing and inspiring to really take. The politics of large-scale volunteer collaboration ... you need to make people *want* to implement your idea.
On 05/06/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
But, as I understand it, we are not talking about the style, or other such changes, related to editing the content of the encyclopedia. But, rather, changes related to the very structure of its management.
on 6/5/07 6:05 PM, David Gerard at dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Same there too. It's more work, of course. And it has to be a really good idea and you have to be really convincing with it. It's a process of herding cats.
David,
Where, and/or to whom, do we take ideas involving management structural changes in Wikipedia?
Marc
On 05/06/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
Where, and/or to whom, do we take ideas involving management structural changes in Wikipedia?
Here. The [[Wikipedia:Village Pump]]. Everywhere. Running them past other editors to see if they think that (a) they'd work (b) they'd take. (b) is harder.
There is no central authority that tells volunteers what to be interested in.
- d.
On 05/06/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
Where, and/or to whom, do we take ideas involving management structural changes in Wikipedia?
on 6/5/07 6:37 PM, David Gerard at dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Here. The [[Wikipedia:Village Pump]]. Everywhere. Running them past other editors to see if they think that (a) they'd work (b) they'd take. (b) is harder.
There is no central authority that tells volunteers what to be interested in.
"They'd take" (?); "Interested in". Do you think the very people who would be most affected by the management and structure of this Project would be "interested in" such a subject?
What do you think about the present management structure of the Wikipedia project?
Marc
My take on these things.
In January, 2006 I predicted that as the community grew administrators would exercise more discretion and start to handle disputes in a fairly autonomous manner, with arbitration taking a backup role. This is because arbitration doesn't scale and admins do.
I think that's happened pretty much as I predicted.
Another thing that has happened is the growth in the number of people who are basically second class Wikipedians, because they aren't yet acculturated, and they probably never will be. Some of these people are even administrators. So we've got a lot more stupid clutter on talk pages, a heap of stupid user categories, and those pesky old userboxes. Meh, we've worked around it, and we'll deal with it if it becomes a serious problem.
Wikipedia, though, has remained under the effective control of a pretty small part of the community. And the core community has grown more effective as it has learned what it does and doesn't want the encyclopedia to be, which problems need to be dealt with quickly and which can just be ignored. Robots now perform in a matter of hours, feats that would have taken weeks in the past. Problem users who would have made it to arbitration before now end up being blocked indefinitely, because we recognise the behavior patterns and we know that the prognosis for rehabilitation is very low indeed.
Through trial and error, we've reached the threshold of a radically different vision of the encyclopedia regarding the treatment of living people. Most of the pieces are in place, and the level of acceptance is high. The core community will get behind it and make it work.
So the way I see it, we've met and passed the test of our Long September. We have learned to manage change and diversity, and the quality of our articles has grown as we have learned to manage them by subject area. We're slowly but surely overhauling some of our more decrepit and non-functional institutions and processes, totally bypassing them where necessary, changing the ground rules where that can be done in a sustainable fashion. I'm very optimistic about the future.
On 6/6/07, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
My take on these things.
In January, 2006 I predicted that as the community grew administrators would exercise more discretion and start to handle disputes in a fairly autonomous manner, with arbitration taking a backup role. This is because arbitration doesn't scale and admins do.
I think that's happened pretty much as I predicted.
Consensus among admins isn't scaleable, IMO. As the community grows, so will the number of admins.
Johnleemk
On 6/5/07, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
Wikipedia, though, has remained under the effective control of a pretty small part of the community. And the core community has grown more effective as it has learned what it does and doesn't want the encyclopedia to be... <snip>
Unfortunately, this makes two pretty presumtuous statements. One, it presumes that the 'old core' of admins, those that can trace their WP time back to 2004-05 and earlier, will remain in power. Simple math says you won't be; a simple countdown began when Wikipedia became popular that dictates this--*unless* it is codified somehow that some people based on seniority get more clout, and it's enforced.
The core community per-person has 'power' in the sense that the others of the core community support them. There is such a constant influx of new people and new administrators all the time, however, that the value of the old cliques, cabals, and 'cores' will be simply another small party in the future. Sure, some of the new people will go along. But from a simple point of realism, and from a sociological standpoint, this will not be in the end.
WP is a system that, by design as David said, is un-designed. The only immutable things are state of Florida and United States legal matters. Everything else can be changed with enough pushing be it a little or a lot. Let's not be coy--the 'core' community of editors, admins, and defrocked admins you refer to numbers at best around 100 people or less. Unless the system itself is changed to do something to assure that this core be held in some higher level of clout, when pushes comes to shove, there will be no recourse but to edit war over policy pages (gee, that's not happening almost daily yet, is it?) or to have absurdly overblown RFAR hearings over minutae.
A system that as worded gives everyone equal rank means that a small group in the system, without either active bringing people into it's fold and working to bring others around to it's way of thinking... will fade away. What does that mean, Tony? Convince people of the value of the changes YOU want. The old ways of "click it, forget it, and then say Fuck Process with my apparenty incivility pass" won't work. You will need to sell the worth and value of what you're after. Or else the strength of crowds in the end will simply revert your ideas away as just another edit warrior. Fight back blindly by clicking away with the Fuck Process mentality, and the But The Cabal Is Right mentality, and you'll find yourself on the losing side of 3rr blocks. Enough of this, and you--or anyone--will end up on the receiving end of a indefinite ban firing squad on CSN or ANI or wherever.
My point is, in short, that the simple weight of the massive number of users will be deciding on the ultimate path and fate of Wikipedia. Not Tony Sidaway, nor David, nor Kelly Martin, nor Jimbo Wales, nor me, nor any other lone person, or small group of people. In 'x' number of months or years, unless the system is codified differently, you and five other people saying, "This will not stand, this will be changed," on a given matter, may find yourself impotently starting down four or five times as many people.
You will have no recourse but to go along with them, scream about it, or leave. To contrast: people liked to say that my old admin recall ideas where ultra-extremist, ultra-minority; and they like to say that Badlydrawnjeff's views are often the same. That's fine, for today, early June, 2007. The same perspective may well apply to the current views of the "Core' come early June, 2008 or 2009, when their ideas are outnumbered by people 7:1 or 10:1.
Regards, Joe http://www.joeszilagyi.com
On 6/6/07, Joe Szilagyi szilagyi@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/5/07, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
Wikipedia, though, has remained under the effective control of a pretty small part of the community. And the core community has grown more effective as it has learned what it does and doesn't want the encyclopedia to be... <snip>
Unfortunately, this makes two pretty presumtuous statements. One, it presumes that the 'old core' of admins, those that can trace their WP time back to 2004-05 and earlier, will remain in power. Simple math says you won't be; a simple countdown began when Wikipedia became popular that dictates this--*unless* it is codified somehow that some people based on seniority get more clout, and it's enforced.
The core community per-person has 'power' in the sense that the others of the core community support them. There is such a constant influx of new people and new administrators all the time, however, that the value of the old cliques, cabals, and 'cores' will be simply another small party in the future. Sure, some of the new people will go along. But from a simple point of realism, and from a sociological standpoint, this will not be in the end.
WP is a system that, by design as David said, is un-designed. The only immutable things are state of Florida and United States legal matters. Everything else can be changed with enough pushing be it a little or a lot. Let's not be coy--the 'core' community of editors, admins, and defrocked admins you refer to numbers at best around 100 people or less. Unless the system itself is changed to do something to assure that this core be held in some higher level of clout, when pushes comes to shove, there will be no recourse but to edit war over policy pages (gee, that's not happening almost daily yet, is it?) or to have absurdly overblown RFAR hearings over minutae.
A system that as worded gives everyone equal rank means that a small group in the system, without either active bringing people into it's fold and working to bring others around to it's way of thinking... will fade away. What does that mean, Tony? Convince people of the value of the changes YOU want. The old ways of "click it, forget it, and then say Fuck Process with my apparenty incivility pass" won't work. You will need to sell the worth and value of what you're after. Or else the strength of crowds in the end will simply revert your ideas away as just another edit warrior. Fight back blindly by clicking away with the Fuck Process mentality, and the But The Cabal Is Right mentality, and you'll find yourself on the losing side of 3rr blocks. Enough of this, and you--or anyone--will end up on the receiving end of a indefinite ban firing squad on CSN or ANI or wherever.
My point is, in short, that the simple weight of the massive number of users will be deciding on the ultimate path and fate of Wikipedia. Not Tony Sidaway, nor David, nor Kelly Martin, nor Jimbo Wales, nor me, nor any other lone person, or small group of people. In 'x' number of months or years, unless the system is codified differently, you and five other people saying, "This will not stand, this will be changed," on a given matter, may find yourself impotently starting down four or five times as many people.
You will have no recourse but to go along with them, scream about it, or leave. To contrast: people liked to say that my old admin recall ideas where ultra-extremist, ultra-minority; and they like to say that Badlydrawnjeff's views are often the same. That's fine, for today, early June, 2007. The same perspective may well apply to the current views of the "Core' come early June, 2008 or 2009, when their ideas are outnumbered by people 7:1 or 10:1.
Regards, Joe http://www.joeszilagyi.com
I *do* think Jimbo Wales will hold similar, or even possibly greater power, since today's editors are significantly less likely to know him personally, and treat him more like a god-king. However, I do somewhat agree with your assessment overall, but how will the large majority actually take action? ~~~~
On 06/06/07, Joe Szilagyi szilagyi@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/5/07, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
Wikipedia, though, has remained under the effective control of a pretty small part of the community. And the core community has grown more effective as it has learned what it does and doesn't want the encyclopedia to be... <snip>
Unfortunately, this makes two pretty presumtuous statements. One, it presumes that the 'old core' of admins, those that can trace their WP time back to 2004-05 and earlier, will remain in power.
Ah, no. It presumes that the old core successfully enculturate a new core - not that the very same people remain in a position of power, but that a group of people who think the same way as them do.
Wikipedia, as a community, *really* dropped the ball on enculturating newcomers in or around early 06; I wish I knew why or when or how, but I don't. It's reasonable to say that before a certain point, new users were met and slowly enculturated into the general "way we do things around here"; after a certain point, this stopped working as well.
And so we end up with... well, groups of people who just appear to inhabit a different project, who came here thinking this was an experiment in online democracy or a neat social-networking site or a place to strike a blow against The Man, *and were never convinced otherwise*. By the time any group of different initial assumptions has grown large and old enough it looks like the old guard to new users, then the project's governance and culture is heading in interesting directions.
On 6/6/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 06/06/07, Joe Szilagyi szilagyi@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/5/07, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
Wikipedia, though, has remained under the effective control of a pretty small part of the community. And the core community has grown more effective as it has learned what it does and doesn't want the encyclopedia to be... <snip>
Unfortunately, this makes two pretty presumtuous statements. One, it presumes that the 'old core' of admins, those that can trace their WP time back to 2004-05 and earlier, will remain in power.
Ah, no. It presumes that the old core successfully enculturate a new core - not that the very same people remain in a position of power, but that a group of people who think the same way as them do.
Wikipedia, as a community, *really* dropped the ball on enculturating newcomers in or around early 06; I wish I knew why or when or how, but I don't. It's reasonable to say that before a certain point, new users were met and slowly enculturated into the general "way we do things around here"; after a certain point, this stopped working as well.
And so we end up with... well, groups of people who just appear to inhabit a different project, who came here thinking this was an experiment in online democracy or a neat social-networking site or a place to strike a blow against The Man, *and were never convinced otherwise*. By the time any group of different initial assumptions has grown large and old enough it looks like the old guard to new users, then the project's governance and culture is heading in interesting directions.
--
- Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
[[Eternal September]]? ~~~~
On 6/7/07, Gabe Johnson gjzilla@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/6/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 06/06/07, Joe Szilagyi szilagyi@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/5/07, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
Wikipedia, though, has remained under the effective control of a pretty small part of the community. And the core community has
grown
more effective as it has learned what it does and doesn't want the encyclopedia to be... <snip>
Unfortunately, this makes two pretty presumtuous statements. One, it presumes that the 'old core' of admins, those that can trace their WP
time
back to 2004-05 and earlier, will remain in power.
Ah, no. It presumes that the old core successfully enculturate a new core - not that the very same people remain in a position of power, but that a group of people who think the same way as them do.
Wikipedia, as a community, *really* dropped the ball on enculturating newcomers in or around early 06; I wish I knew why or when or how, but I don't. It's reasonable to say that before a certain point, new users were met and slowly enculturated into the general "way we do things around here"; after a certain point, this stopped working as well.
And so we end up with... well, groups of people who just appear to inhabit a different project, who came here thinking this was an experiment in online democracy or a neat social-networking site or a place to strike a blow against The Man, *and were never convinced otherwise*. By the time any group of different initial assumptions has grown large and old enough it looks like the old guard to new users, then the project's governance and culture is heading in interesting directions.
--
- Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
[[Eternal September]]? ~~~~
Indeed. I'm not sure if Andrew has the date down right, but some time in 2006 seems correct. I remember feeling impressed around the beginning of '06 that I was still seeing new admins and editors who shared the same philosophy and principles of Wikipedians I remember from when I started out in '03/'04, but I can't recall having a similar experience since then.
Johnleemk
On 06/06/07, John Lee johnleemk@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/7/07, Gabe Johnson gjzilla@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/6/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 06/06/07, Joe Szilagyi szilagyi@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/5/07, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
Wikipedia, though, has remained under the effective control of a pretty small part of the community. And the core community has
grown
more effective as it has learned what it does and doesn't want the encyclopedia to be... <snip>
Unfortunately, this makes two pretty presumtuous statements. One, it presumes that the 'old core' of admins, those that can trace their WP
time
back to 2004-05 and earlier, will remain in power.
Ah, no. It presumes that the old core successfully enculturate a new core - not that the very same people remain in a position of power, but that a group of people who think the same way as them do.
Wikipedia, as a community, *really* dropped the ball on enculturating newcomers in or around early 06; I wish I knew why or when or how, but I don't. It's reasonable to say that before a certain point, new users were met and slowly enculturated into the general "way we do things around here"; after a certain point, this stopped working as well.
And so we end up with... well, groups of people who just appear to inhabit a different project, who came here thinking this was an experiment in online democracy or a neat social-networking site or a place to strike a blow against The Man, *and were never convinced otherwise*. By the time any group of different initial assumptions has grown large and old enough it looks like the old guard to new users, then the project's governance and culture is heading in interesting directions.
--
- Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
[[Eternal September]]? ~~~~
Indeed. I'm not sure if Andrew has the date down right, but some time in 2006 seems correct. I remember feeling impressed around the beginning of '06 that I was still seeing new admins and editors who shared the same philosophy and principles of Wikipedians I remember from when I started out in '03/'04, but I can't recall having a similar experience since then.
I did an unscientific test a while back which pegged "RFA goes crazy" at or around the first quarter of 2006. That was also when we hit the crazy userbox fiasco, and the weird cultural shift from the Siegenthaler thing, which doesn't sound like a bad marker.
I would say that by twelve months ago, we were irrevocably past the tipping point; fifteen or eighteen months maybe not quite there.
I will love to read this chapter when someone writes a history of the project!
John Lee wrote:
Indeed. I'm not sure if Andrew has the date down right, but some time in 2006 seems correct. I remember feeling impressed around the beginning of '06 that I was still seeing new admins and editors who shared the same philosophy and principles of Wikipedians I remember from when I started out in '03/'04, but I can't recall having a similar experience since then.
It struck me around that time too - admins and whole projects that had been active for some time, but of which I was completely unaware, even though I had 19K articles on my watchlist, and imagined I had something like a global view of WP development.
I don't know that anybody messed up, it's just that growth outpaced ability to enculturate. If I'm putting in 30 hrs/week on WP, it's not plausible that I bump the time up to 60 hrs/week so as to keep up with newcomers.
Stan
On 06/06/07, John Lee johnleemk@gmail.com wrote:
Indeed. I'm not sure if Andrew has the date down right, but some time in 2006 seems correct. I remember feeling impressed around the beginning of '06 that I was still seeing new admins and editors who shared the same philosophy and principles of Wikipedians I remember from when I started out in '03/'04, but I can't recall having a similar experience since then.
The beginning of 2006 was the Userbox Wars, where Kelly Martin got a ridiculous RFC against her for ... removing blatantly copyright-violating "fair use" images from userboxes.
- d.
On 6/6/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
The beginning of 2006 was the Userbox Wars, where Kelly Martin got a ridiculous RFC against her for ... removing blatantly copyright-violating "fair use" images from userboxes.
Nah it was deleting the boxes that was the problem. Pulling "fair use" images will annoy people but generally not enough to file an RFC.
On 6/6/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 06/06/07, John Lee johnleemk@gmail.com wrote:
Indeed. I'm not sure if Andrew has the date down right, but some time in 2006 seems correct. I remember feeling impressed around the beginning of '06 that I was still seeing new admins and editors who shared the same philosophy and principles of Wikipedians I remember from when I started out in '03/'04, but I can't recall having a similar experience since then.
The beginning of 2006 was the Userbox Wars, where Kelly Martin got a ridiculous RFC against her for ... removing blatantly copyright-violating "fair use" images from userboxes.
There were ridiculous things before then. I think the community weathers such things quite well. Individuals may encounter problems but the show goes on.
On 06/06/07, Gabe Johnson gjzilla@gmail.com wrote:
otherwise*. By the time any group of different initial assumptions has grown large and old enough it looks like the old guard to new users, then the project's governance and culture is heading in interesting directions.
[[Eternal September]]? ~~~~
It's not an unfair analogy to draw, except there it was *definitely* just the floodgates breaking open rather than any systematic fault on the community's part. I am not entirely convinced we ourselves didn't cock this one up...
Tony probably considers me one of the people referred to in: "Another thing that has happened is the growth in the number of people who are basically second class Wikipedians, because they aren't yet acculturated, and they probably never will be. Some of these people are even administrators."
I joined WP last September for two reasons; one was quite simply to work on better individual articles. The other was to improve the scope and reliability of WP in general. Having taught about WP as a teacher of librarianship, I was very aware of the problems.
The problems derive from the practices of the people who began, and it is right that an turnover in the more experienced people should change things. They were interested for the most part in demonstrating a concept, and also in providing a platform for writing about what they were interested in in a way that would have somewhat more stability and responsibility than usenet. They accepted each others' ways, they asked for very little in the way of authentication, they documented careless from the relatively limited array of online sources, they were primarily interested in a very limited range of topics--and those were not covered well by other available sources, they were willing to use any PD content whatsoever regardless of obsolescence, they controlled behavior and standards by a consensus of the most active members & they were in general agreement.
None of this is the case now. BJAODN is a typical product of the old school, as is poking fun at the unfortunate. Some of the problems now are over-reaction. A draconic BLP is a reaction to an irresponsible lack of policy. An overinsistence on the details of GFDL is a reaction to irresponsible attitudes to copyright. A requirement for formal sources were important subjects intrinsically have no formal sources is an overreaction to the use of inadequate sources even where there were good ones. Each of these will reach a balance.
The use of arbitrary structure and decision making however remains. A policy where any admin can delete anything and any other admin can reverse him made sense only when they knew each other. Now, it's a parody of direct democracy--it's rule by autonomous warlords in a world without boundaries. I know of no organization whatsoever of this size which even attempts to work this way. It persists because people are for the most part sensible--as are the new admins, in my somewhat biased opinion as one of them.
But some established administrators generally, not just in WP, react to threatened change by hardening their positions. I--and all or almost all of the newer people--would never dream of the sort of extensive one-sided or otherwise unfair actions that have taken place. I cannot imagine deleting on my own authority a group of long-established pages on a relative technicality. I cannot imagine a process of repeatedly nominating pages for deletion until it by chance happens. I cannot imagine a process of staffing the deciding body in such a small and unrepresentative a way that such variation can occur. I cannot imagine having a deliberative process like Deletion Review or AfD and then letting a single person decide to not let actions under them run their course.
I would never intervene administratively in a matter where I have debated. But the established people do this all the time, and think it justified.
DGG
On 6/6/07, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
I would never intervene administratively in a matter where I have debated. But the established people do this all the time, and think it justified.
To be impolite, this is because there are no real immediate repercussions to be had short of going nuts with a sysop bit, blocking Jimbo, and deleting the main page. A regular user who starts warring and being incivil generally will be blocked and/or heavily tongue lashed and chastised. Established users, and in particular certain admins, generally have free reign to do whatever they please. They're not likely to be blocked, and more importantly, they are--short of ArbCom or their going completely batshit insane--won't lose their admin status.
It's far too easy for any idiot to get admin status. Put up a nice facade, rack up your 3,000 to 5,000 edits, do your 3-6 months of time, don't piss off anyone critically, and voila: you get buttons.
It's equally for too difficult for the idiots with bits to be knocked off. This is a major problem. The community, if empowered to desysop as well as sysop, would put a stop to half the problems of such a nature. Unfortunately, that would not happen, because such a movement would require administrative support to become policy, and all the admins would then have bullseyes on them if they misbehaved (theoretically). It's unfortunate, but understandable. And unfortunately, it will likely not change.
Regards, Joe http://www.joeszilagyi.com
I did not want to include in the first message, but I would certainly support a move to desysop all admins who did such action. ArbCon is not entirely indifferent to the voices of the community. this is of course a long drawn out and complicated process. I think it is best deferred till the present immediate issues are settled. If there is further arbitrary action against the apparent wishes of the community, it can only prove counterproductive, and will further encourage opposition. However, it is possible that the sensible people among the established WPedians will realize the advisability of compromise.
Personally, I will take the arbcom decision on BDJeff as an indicator. I do not want to take the decision not to promote Gracenote as a negative indicator, because the AfD was compromised by irrelevant argumentation--yet there was a 73% support.
DGG
On 6/6/07, Joe Szilagyi szilagyi@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/6/07, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
I would never intervene administratively in a matter where I have debated. But the established people do this all the time, and think it justified.
To be impolite, this is because there are no real immediate repercussions to be had short of going nuts with a sysop bit, blocking Jimbo, and deleting the main page. A regular user who starts warring and being incivil generally will be blocked and/or heavily tongue lashed and chastised. Established users, and in particular certain admins, generally have free reign to do whatever they please. They're not likely to be blocked, and more importantly, they are--short of ArbCom or their going completely batshit insane--won't lose their admin status.
It's far too easy for any idiot to get admin status. Put up a nice facade, rack up your 3,000 to 5,000 edits, do your 3-6 months of time, don't piss off anyone critically, and voila: you get buttons.
It's equally for too difficult for the idiots with bits to be knocked off. This is a major problem. The community, if empowered to desysop as well as sysop, would put a stop to half the problems of such a nature. Unfortunately, that would not happen, because such a movement would require administrative support to become policy, and all the admins would then have bullseyes on them if they misbehaved (theoretically). It's unfortunate, but understandable. And unfortunately, it will likely not change.
Regards, Joe http://www.joeszilagyi.com _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 6/6/07, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
Personally, I will take the arbcom decision on BDJeff as an indicator. I do not want to take the decision not to promote Gracenote as a negative indicator, because the AfD was compromised by irrelevant argumentation--yet there was a 73% support.
When someone can get 201 support !votes, and not get the sysop bit because of an ultra-minority of people pouring poison on the RFA (and likely ruining any future RFA for Gracenotes) over a fake policy, the system is broken.
Regards, Joe http://www.joeszilagyi.com
On 6/6/07, Gabe Johnson gjzilla@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/6/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 06/06/07, Joe Szilagyi szilagyi@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/5/07, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
Wikipedia, though, has remained under the effective control of a pretty small part of the community. And the core community has grown more effective as it has learned what it does and doesn't want the encyclopedia to be... <snip>
Unfortunately, this makes two pretty presumtuous statements. One, it presumes that the 'old core' of admins, those that can trace their WP time back to 2004-05 and earlier, will remain in power.
Ah, no. It presumes that the old core successfully enculturate a new core - not that the very same people remain in a position of power, but that a group of people who think the same way as them do.
Wikipedia, as a community, *really* dropped the ball on enculturating newcomers in or around early 06; I wish I knew why or when or how, but I don't. It's reasonable to say that before a certain point, new users were met and slowly enculturated into the general "way we do things around here"; after a certain point, this stopped working as well.
And so we end up with... well, groups of people who just appear to inhabit a different project, who came here thinking this was an experiment in online democracy or a neat social-networking site or a place to strike a blow against The Man, *and were never convinced otherwise*. By the time any group of different initial assumptions has grown large and old enough it looks like the old guard to new users, then the project's governance and culture is heading in interesting directions.
--
- Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
[[Eternal September]]? ~~~~
-- Absolute Power C^7rr8p£5 ab£$^u7£%y
Coincidentally, I started around April 2006. Just saying.
(Back when [[Wikipedia:Esperanza]] still existed....) ~~~~
On 06/06/07, Gabe Johnson gjzilla@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/6/07, Gabe Johnson gjzilla@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/6/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 06/06/07, Joe Szilagyi szilagyi@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/5/07, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
Wikipedia, though, has remained under the effective control of a pretty small part of the community. And the core community has grown more effective as it has learned what it does and doesn't want the encyclopedia to be... <snip>
Unfortunately, this makes two pretty presumtuous statements. One, it presumes that the 'old core' of admins, those that can trace their WP time back to 2004-05 and earlier, will remain in power.
Ah, no. It presumes that the old core successfully enculturate a new core - not that the very same people remain in a position of power, but that a group of people who think the same way as them do.
Wikipedia, as a community, *really* dropped the ball on enculturating newcomers in or around early 06; I wish I knew why or when or how, but I don't. It's reasonable to say that before a certain point, new users were met and slowly enculturated into the general "way we do things around here"; after a certain point, this stopped working as well.
And so we end up with... well, groups of people who just appear to inhabit a different project, who came here thinking this was an experiment in online democracy or a neat social-networking site or a place to strike a blow against The Man, *and were never convinced otherwise*. By the time any group of different initial assumptions has grown large and old enough it looks like the old guard to new users, then the project's governance and culture is heading in interesting directions.
--
- Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
[[Eternal September]]? ~~~~
-- Absolute Power C^7rr8p£5 ab£$^u7£%y
Coincidentally, I started around April 2006. Just saying.
(Back when [[Wikipedia:Esperanza]] still existed....) ~~~~
I'd say that if you're posting to wikien-l, you're enculturated!
It's not so much that after a certain point, new people Just Didn't Get It (whatever It may be), but that after a certain point the proportion who Never Got It began steadily to grow.
...
...so what is "It" that we're moaning about people not getting? That's the open question. What are the systematic gulfs of difference in opinion beyond large segments of the current population and the general community as it was before, say, early 2005? The most obvious thought is "eventualism versus immediacy".
On 6/6/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
And so we end up with... well, groups of people who just appear to inhabit a different project, who came here thinking this was an experiment in online democracy or a neat social-networking site or a place to strike a blow against The Man, *and were never convinced otherwise*. By the time any group of different initial assumptions has grown large and old enough it looks like the old guard to new users, then the project's governance and culture is heading in interesting directions.
Well, by the time I came along there was definitely a defusion of governance. But I also observed a lot of more or less isolated groups owning various topics. Or in other words, it looks like an experiment in online tribalism and oligarchy, with the various policy discussions filling in for the League of Nations.
On 6/6/07, Joe Szilagyi szilagyi@gmail.com wrote:
Unfortunately, this makes two pretty presumtuous statements. One, it presumes that the 'old core' of admins, those that can trace their WP time back to 2004-05 and earlier, will remain in power.
No such assumption is made. I don't think there has been a single finite set of editors that one could term "the core community". But that core community exists, it enjoys continuity, and it exercises effective control over the direction of Wikipedia.
Let's not be coy--the 'core' community of editors, admins, and defrocked admins you refer to numbers at best around 100 people or less.
Oh I think it's much, much larger than that. Hundreds, certainly. Thousands, possibly.
Unless the system itself is changed to do something to assure that this core be held in some higher level of clout, when pushes comes to shove, there will be no recourse but to edit war over policy pages (gee, that's not happening almost daily yet, is it?) or to have absurdly overblown RFAR hearings over minutae.
No, just a tweak here and a tweak there. The trick is to know where, then and how to push.
My point is, in short, that the simple weight of the massive number of users will be deciding on the ultimate path and fate of Wikipedia. Not Tony Sidaway, nor David, nor Kelly Martin, nor Jimbo Wales, nor me, nor any other lone person, or small group of people.
I detect lack of realism and undue pessimism. There are at least ten times the number of users than there were in 1995, but in that time policy has become more aggressive, the wiki is better organised, automated editing has seen a massive increase in the power to implement core policies, and the core community has grown more powerful. Like someone said once, it's like Calvinball.
On 06/06/07, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
Wikipedia, though, has remained under the effective control of a pretty small part of the community. And the core community has grown more effective as it has learned what it does and doesn't want the encyclopedia to be, which problems need to be dealt with quickly and which can just be ignored. Robots now perform in a matter of hours, feats that would have taken weeks in the past. Problem users who would have made it to arbitration before now end up being blocked indefinitely, because we recognise the behavior patterns and we know that the prognosis for rehabilitation is very low indeed.
Of course, there are some who see exactly the same situation and feel it just indicates we're going downhill faster, more vigorously, and more efficiently!
On 6/5/07, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
Another thing that has happened is the growth in the number of people who are basically second class Wikipedians, because they aren't yet acculturated, and they probably never will be. Some of these people are even administrators. So we've got a lot more stupid clutter on talk pages, a heap of stupid user categories, and those pesky old userboxes. Meh, we've worked around it, and we'll deal with it if it becomes a serious problem.
Evidently, we also have a growth in at least one person with a pretty dismissive attitude towards his fellow contributors.
So the way I see it, we've met and passed the test of our Long September. We have learned to manage change and diversity, and the quality of our articles has grown as we have learned to manage them by subject area. We're slowly but surely overhauling some of our more decrepit and non-functional institutions and processes, totally bypassing them where necessary, changing the ground rules where that can be done in a sustainable fashion. I'm very optimistic about the future.
Why does this fill me with dread?
On Wed, June 6, 2007 1:22 pm, The Cunctator wrote:
On 6/5/07, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
So the way I see it, we've met and passed the test of our Long September. We have learned to manage change and diversity, and the quality of our articles has grown as we have learned to manage them by subject area. We're slowly but surely overhauling some of our more decrepit and non-functional institutions and processes, totally bypassing them where necessary, changing the ground rules where that can be done in a sustainable fashion. I'm very optimistic about the future.
Why does this fill me with dread?
Because we both know that it's not true, and we know who's asserting that it is.
-Jeff
On 6/6/07, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
On Wed, June 6, 2007 1:22 pm, The Cunctator wrote:
On 6/5/07, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
So the way I see it, we've met and passed the test of our Long September. We have learned to manage change and diversity, and the quality of our articles has grown as we have learned to manage them by subject area. We're slowly but surely overhauling some of our more decrepit and non-functional institutions and processes, totally bypassing them where necessary, changing the ground rules where that can be done in a sustainable fashion. I'm very optimistic about the future.
Why does this fill me with dread?
Because we both know that it's not true, and we know who's asserting that it is.
I think it might be because it sounds like it's coming from this: http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/games/career/bin/ms.cgi
On 6/5/07, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
So the way I see it, we've met and passed the test of our Long September. We have learned to manage change and diversity, and the quality of our articles has grown as we have learned to manage them by subject area. We're slowly but surely overhauling some of our more decrepit and non-functional institutions and processes, totally bypassing them where necessary, changing the ground rules where that can be done in a sustainable fashion. I'm very optimistic about the future.
on 6/6/07 4:22 PM, The Cunctator at cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
Why does this fill me with dread?
Perhaps because it is uncertain in whose interests the future lies.
Marc Riddell
On 06/06/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
"They'd take" (?); "Interested in". Do you think the very people who would be most affected by the management and structure of this Project would be "interested in" such a subject? What do you think about the present management structure of the Wikipedia project?
It's an emergent adhocracy. It's something that grew rather than being planned. That is, it's something to map rather than look up the plans for. If I said I understood it I'd be saying I understood all there was to getting large groups of people to do what I want them to, and I don't.
- d.
on 6/5/07 8:05 PM, David Gerard at dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
It's an emergent adhocracy. It's something that grew rather than being planned. That is, it's something to map rather than look up the plans for. If I said I understood it I'd be saying I understood all there was to getting large groups of people to do what I want them to, and I don't.
David,
My questions are: 1) Are you satisfied with the present organizational structure of the Project, and 2) Are you convinced it will be able to guide and maintain the Project as it grows?
Marc
on 6/5/07 8:05 PM, David Gerard at dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
It's an emergent adhocracy. It's something that grew rather than being planned. That is, it's something to map rather than look up the plans for. If I said I understood it I'd be saying I understood all there was to getting large groups of people to do what I want them to, and I don't.
David,
My questions are: 1) Are you satisfied with the present organizational structure of the Project, and 2) Are you convinced it will be able to guide and maintain the Project as it grows?
Marc
My questions are: 1) Are you satisfied with the present organizational structure of the Project, and 2) Are you convinced it will be able to guide and maintain the Project as it grows?
I don't think that's a fair question. As the project grows, the organisational structure will grow - it has done for the past 6 years, and will continue to do so. So far that growth has been primarily organic and not planned more than one step in advance. The real question is whether the organic growth of the organisational structure will be able to keep up with the growth of the project, or will we need to develop a more pre-planned structure. It's a difficult question to answer - looking at how things stand now, I'm tempted to say no, but I've been surprised by the resilience of organic structures in the past, and may well be again.
My questions are: 1) Are you satisfied with the present organizational structure of the Project, and 2) Are you convinced it will be able to guide and maintain the Project as it grows?
on 6/26/07 5:00 AM, Thomas Dalton at thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
I don't think that's a fair question. As the project grows, the organisational structure will grow - it has done for the past 6 years, and will continue to do so. So far that growth has been primarily organic and not planned more than one step in advance. The real question is whether the organic growth of the organisational structure will be able to keep up with the growth of the project, or will we need to develop a more pre-planned structure. It's a difficult question to answer - looking at how things stand now, I'm tempted to say no, but I've been surprised by the resilience of organic structures in the past, and may well be again.
Thomas,
I don't understand why you think my question was unfair. I was merely asking what was thought of the structure as it exists now. If it is, in fact growing, there must be something in place now that is in the act of this growth.
I persist with this issue because I am still concerned about the stability of a project I have come to respect, and to believe in, very strongly. And, even more importantly, the community of persons who are devoting so much thought, time, and creative energy to it. If it fails, it will not be the result of something that happens from without, but, rather, something that does not happen from within.
This is basic organizational stuff. I have seen well-intentioned, wonderful projects fail in the past for the very reasons I am trying to present here.
One more volley: Like it or not - threatening to some or not; what's needed here is a strong leader.
The ultimate fate of the Wikipedia Project will a part of only one person's legacy - not mine, and not yours.
Marc
On 27/06/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
I persist with this issue because I am still concerned about the stability of a project I have come to respect, and to believe in, very strongly. And, even more importantly, the community of persons who are devoting so much thought, time, and creative energy to it. If it fails, it will not be the result of something that happens from without, but, rather, something that does not happen from within. This is basic organizational stuff. I have seen well-intentioned, wonderful projects fail in the past for the very reasons I am trying to present here.
Trust me when I say that quite a few of us think about this *all the time* ... I've been here three and a half years and I'm still getting my head around what this creature is and how it does and doesn't work.
One more volley: Like it or not - threatening to some or not; what's needed here is a strong leader. The ultimate fate of the Wikipedia Project will a part of only one person's legacy - not mine, and not yours.
Hmm. Jimbo has increasingly done things by the "occasional nudges of influence" method, because day-to-day micromanagement just isn't feasible.
Jimbo, ideas?
- d.
on 6/27/07 8:54 AM, David Gerard at dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
day-to-day micromanagement just isn't feasible.
David,
I'm not talking about MICROmanaging anything - that would be stifling to the creative process within WP.
Marc
Marc Riddell schreef:
One more volley: Like it or not - threatening to some or not; what's needed here is a strong leader.
Why? What exactly would this strong leader do? Would he take over the functions of existing Wikipedia structures (WP:RFA, maybe? DRV? ArbCom?) Or do you see anything that needs to be done that is not done today?
Can you please give some examples what the strong leader would do on Wikipedia?
Eugene
On 6/27/07, Eugene van der Pijll eugene@vanderpijll.nl wrote:
Marc Riddell schreef:
One more volley: Like it or not - threatening to some or not; what's
needed
here is a strong leader.
Why? What exactly would this strong leader do? Would he take over the functions of existing Wikipedia structures (WP:RFA, maybe? DRV? ArbCom?) Or do you see anything that needs to be done that is not done today?
Can you please give some examples what the strong leader would do on Wikipedia?
Speaking from experience, the process of policymaking is so haphazard and difficult to handle because of the nebulous concept of "consensus" (for more, see Zoney's recent post on consensus). Practical policy changes, e.g. [[WP:PROD]], are still possible because the "descriptive, not prescriptive" model applies, but for non-practical things, how will we ever come to a consensus on more abstract/meta issues? Things like the userboxen wars got sorted out eventually, but not without a lot of pain and grief that I think was unnecessary.
Johnleemk
on 6/27/07 10:49 AM, Eugene van der Pijll at eugene@vanderpijll.nl wrote:
Marc Riddell schreef:
One more volley: Like it or not - threatening to some or not; what's needed here is a strong leader.
Why?
Eugene, I believe I have answered this question many times, in many ways, in my past posts.
What exactly would this strong leader do?
The specific details of their role would need to be worked out by many more heads than just mine.
Would he take over the functions of existing Wikipedia structures (WP:RFA, maybe? DRV? ArbCom?)
Certainly not "take over their functions", but, rather oversee them; to keep them honest, fair, accountable, and on track.
Or do you see anything that needs to be done that is not done today?
Full, active, day-to-day oversight of the Project.
Marc
Marc Riddell stated for the record:
Full, active, day-to-day oversight of the Project.
Marc
And how much does this 7/24 on-call job pay?
Marc Riddell stated for the record:
Full, active, day-to-day oversight of the Project.
Marc
on 6/27/07 12:32 PM, Sean Barrett at sean@epoptic.com wrote:
And how much does this 7/24 on-call job pay?
Sean,
Being just a brainstormer in this, I don't have to think about things like that :-). I leave it to the honest, wonderful, generous, fair-minded, brilliant people who would have the actual power to implement it ;-).
Marc
Marc Riddell wrote:
Or do you see anything that needs to be done that is not done today?
Full, active, day-to-day oversight of the Project.
Oh, I see - you mean somebody like Larry Sanger! :-)
It's instructive to ponder that a person in your suggested role failed at it when WP was just 1/100 of its present size and complexity. Although I think it's theoretically possible to have a single person that does daily oversight of WP in its present state, I also think there is no actual human being alive today who possesses sufficient talents to have the kind of beneficial effect you're imagining.
Stan
on 6/27/07 12:33 PM, Stan Shebs at stanshebs@earthlink.net wrote:
Marc Riddell wrote:
Or do you see anything that needs to be done that is not done today?
Full, active, day-to-day oversight of the Project.
Oh, I see - you mean somebody like Larry Sanger! :-)
That's way before before my time here. But from the history I have read, no - not someone like him.
It's instructive to ponder that a person in your suggested role failed at it when WP was just 1/100 of its present size and complexity.
Perhaps the person failed, does that necessarily mean the role did? And, if the role he played did fail; perhaps the specifics of the role needed work.
Although I think it's theoretically possible to have a single person that does daily oversight of WP in its present state, I also think there is no actual human being alive today who possesses sufficient talents to have the kind of beneficial effect you're imagining.
Stan, I don't share your pessimism.
Marc
Marc Riddell wrote:
on 6/27/07 12:33 PM, Stan Shebs at stanshebs@earthlink.net wrote:
Marc Riddell wrote:
Or do you see anything that needs to be done that is not done today?
Full, active, day-to-day oversight of the Project.
Oh, I see - you mean somebody like Larry Sanger! :-)
That's way before before my time here. But from the history I have read, no
- not someone like him.
Larry Sanger was important in his own time. I see his job as having been getting something up and running out of nothing. That kind of leader would not work here any more. Too many highly experienced editors would resist it.
It's instructive to ponder that a person in your suggested role failed at it when WP was just 1/100 of its present size and complexity.
Perhaps the person failed, does that necessarily mean the role did? And, if the role he played did fail; perhaps the specifics of the role needed work.
A leader that gets bogged down in daily oversight wouldn't have any time left to be a leader. I will differ from Marc in one important respect. Rather than needing a strong leader I would prefer to say that we need strong leadership. Embodying leadership in the person of one leader can be very distracting. It's what leaves someone like Jimbo as the revered god-king who must have the answers to every proplem we can imagine. It's demanding a physical impossibility. Good leadership does give all the answers on a silver platter; it guides the groups toward a real consensus that does not leave opposite sides of an issue at each other's throat.
Ec
on 6/27/07 7:20 PM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Rather than needing a strong leader I would prefer to say that we need strong leadership. Embodying leadership in the person of one leader can be very distracting. It's what leaves someone like Jimbo as the revered god-king who must have the answers to every proplem we can imagine. It's demanding a physical impossibility. Good leadership <snip> guides the
groups toward a real
consensus that does not leave opposite sides of an issue at each other's throat.
Ray,
Following your thoughts here, "good leadership" seems a bit nebulous to me. In the context of this medium, how do we achieve it in a practical sense?
Marc
Marc Riddell wrote:
on 6/27/07 7:20 PM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Rather than needing a strong leader I would prefer to say that we need strong leadership. Embodying leadership in the person of one leader can be very distracting. It's what leaves someone like Jimbo as the revered god-king who must have the answers to every proplem we can imagine. It's demanding a physical impossibility. Good leadership <snip> guides the groups toward a real
consensus that does not leave opposite sides of an issue at each other's throat.
Ray,
Following your thoughts here, "good leadership" seems a bit nebulous to me. In the context of this medium, how do we achieve it in a practical sense?
Good leadership will likely require a group effort. Those who feel the need for reform need to look at where they have common ground, and build from there. Some things that need to be reatified may seem obvious, but such ratifications can strenghthen policy.
We have core principles, but have we ratified them? They are embodied in five pillars, but how much of that page is really the five pillars, and how much of it is elaboration that may or may not do justice to the principles? We know that the five pillars themselves are unchangeable, but what degree of support must the elaboration need?
The leadership group can be made up of people who have an ability to be flexible in their thinking. It can review a policy and propose a rewritten version with a cleaned up text, which must then be ratified or rejected by Wikipedians. I don't think that "electing" such a group would be helpful; the whole process of elections tends to bring out those who want to see their favourites in the group, rather than those who are more concerned with finding consensus.
Ec.
On 6/27/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Marc Riddell wrote:
on 6/27/07 12:33 PM, Stan Shebs at stanshebs@earthlink.net wrote:
Marc Riddell wrote:
Or do you see anything that needs to be done that is not done today?
Full, active, day-to-day oversight of the Project.
Oh, I see - you mean somebody like Larry Sanger! :-)
That's way before before my time here. But from the history I have read,
no
- not someone like him.
Larry Sanger was important in his own time. I see his job as having been getting something up and running out of nothing. That kind of leader would not work here any more. Too many highly experienced editors would resist it.
See http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200609/wikipedia for a good early history of Wikipedia and Larry Sanger's role.
The Cunctator schreef:
See http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200609/wikipedia for a good early history of Wikipedia and Larry Sanger's role.
The impression I got from that article is that Larry Sanger left, because he felt he wasn't supported in his fight to keep Wikipedia running; because there were not enough rules to ban vandals and other troublesome editors.
It may be relevant for our discussion about the "structure" of Wikipedia to see Larry's ideas for a workable environment to write an encyclopedia: https://lists.purdue.edu/pipermail/citizendium-l/2007-June/000994.html, "Towards CZ 2.0".
Marc (Riddell), does that mail from Larry describe more or less what you mean by the "structure" that is necessary for Wikipedia? If so, you now have a nice /in vivo/ experiment.
Eugene
on 6/29/07 6:04 PM, Eugene van der Pijll at eugene@vanderpijll.nl wrote:
The Cunctator schreef:
See http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200609/wikipedia for a good early history of Wikipedia and Larry Sanger's role.
The impression I got from that article is that Larry Sanger left, because he felt he wasn't supported in his fight to keep Wikipedia running; because there were not enough rules to ban vandals and other troublesome editors.
It may be relevant for our discussion about the "structure" of Wikipedia to see Larry's ideas for a workable environment to write an encyclopedia: https://lists.purdue.edu/pipermail/citizendium-l/2007-June/000994.html, "Towards CZ 2.0".
Marc (Riddell), does that mail from Larry describe more or less what you mean by the "structure" that is necessary for Wikipedia? If so, you now have a nice /in vivo/ experiment.
Eugene
When I tried to open the link you provided, I got a "Link Not Found" message.
Marc
Marc Riddell schreef:
https://lists.purdue.edu/pipermail/citizendium-l/2007-June/000994.html, "Towards CZ 2.0".
When I tried to open the link you provided, I got a "Link Not Found" message.
Probably because your mail program included the comma in the link. Try: https://lists.purdue.edu/pipermail/citizendium-l/2007-June/000994.html
Eugene
on 6/29/07 6:04 PM, Eugene van der Pijll at eugene@vanderpijll.nl wrote:
It may be relevant for our discussion about the "structure" of Wikipedia to see Larry's ideas for a workable environment to write an encyclopedia: https://lists.purdue.edu/pipermail/citizendium-l/2007-June/000994.html, "Towards CZ 2.0".
Marc (Riddell), does that mail from Larry describe more or less what you mean by the "structure" that is necessary for Wikipedia?
No, not even close.
If so, you now have a nice /in vivo/ experiment.
It will be interesting to watch.
Marc
The Cunctator schreef:
See http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200609/wikipedia for a good early history of Wikipedia and Larry Sanger's role.
The impression I got from that article is that Larry Sanger left, because he felt he wasn't supported in his fight to keep Wikipedia running; because there were not enough rules to ban vandals and other troublesome editors.
It may be relevant for our discussion about the "structure" of Wikipedia to see Larry's ideas for a workable environment to write an encyclopedia: https://lists.purdue.edu/pipermail/citizendium-l/2007-June/000994.html, "Towards CZ 2.0".
Marc (Riddell), does that mail from Larry describe more or less what you mean by the "structure" that is necessary for Wikipedia? If so, you now have a nice /in vivo/ experiment.
Eugene
Eugene,
It occurred to me that you may be missing an important point here. I am not proposing a structure for the Wikipedia Project. Rather, I am proposing that there be day-to-day leadership that would oversee one.
Marc
Marc Riddell schreef:
It occurred to me that you may be missing an important point here. I am not proposing a structure for the Wikipedia Project. Rather, I am proposing that there be day-to-day leadership that would oversee one.
But in that case there should be a structure to be overseen? Or do you mean the current stucture?
The current wikipedia is much to large for one person to lead directly; that must be obvious to you, right? So any overseeing has to be done hierarchivally, using chains of responsibilty. And I would think that would imply rules similar to those Larry is proposing for Citizendium.
The current structure of Wikipedia is simply not suited for central There are an immense number of groups and committees that have some responsibility over a part of Wikipedia. Some of these have some kind of formal status, transferred by the Wikimedia Foundation (or Jimbo), but that is only a very small part of the "governance" of Wikipedia.
Most of the work is done by small groups that have spontaneously formed, without directing from above, and I bet the leaders of Wikipedia (let's call them "Jimbo") don't know half of them.
As an example: take the Bots Approval Group. Before the BAG formed, the work was done by some experienced users on an ad hoc basis. And some of those users said: this is not working to well, we need to form a group with x members who are from now on the only ones who can approve bots. And because the bot writers saw the reason of this, the small BAG group now has the responsibilty over that part of wikipedia, without ever having been approved by "Jimbo". And as long as the BAG does good work, there's no need for the leadership to do except just leave them to it.
If such a group has to be overseen by the WP leader(s), there has to be a procedure to create and approve such a group. Which means that the creation of such groups is hindered, some groups will not be formed, and that will be detrimental to the site.
Perhaps you can look at it like this: Citizendium is going to be modeled on a company, with rules about who does what, and people at the top being ultimately responsible for everything that happens. Wikipedia has more similarities to the society, with freedom of association, and leaders who set the boundaries of accepted behaviour, but within those limits let the "citizens" do whatever they like.
It will indeed be interesting to see what the differences between the resulting encyclopedias will be.
I hope this long post clarifies more than it obscures.
Eugene
on 6/29/07 8:12 PM, Eugene van der Pijll at eugene@vanderpijll.nl wrote:
Marc Riddell schreef:
It occurred to me that you may be missing an important point here. I am not proposing a structure for the Wikipedia Project. Rather, I am proposing that there be day-to-day leadership that would oversee one.
But in that case there should be a structure to be overseen? Or do you mean the current stucture?
The current wikipedia is much to large for one person to lead directly; that must be obvious to you, right? So any overseeing has to be done hierarchivally, using chains of responsibilty. And I would think that would imply rules similar to those Larry is proposing for Citizendium.
The current structure of Wikipedia is simply not suited for central There are an immense number of groups and committees that have some responsibility over a part of Wikipedia. Some of these have some kind of formal status, transferred by the Wikimedia Foundation (or Jimbo), but that is only a very small part of the "governance" of Wikipedia.
Most of the work is done by small groups that have spontaneously formed, without directing from above, and I bet the leaders of Wikipedia (let's call them "Jimbo") don't know half of them.
As an example: take the Bots Approval Group. Before the BAG formed, the work was done by some experienced users on an ad hoc basis. And some of those users said: this is not working to well, we need to form a group with x members who are from now on the only ones who can approve bots. And because the bot writers saw the reason of this, the small BAG group now has the responsibilty over that part of wikipedia, without ever having been approved by "Jimbo". And as long as the BAG does good work, there's no need for the leadership to do except just leave them to it.
If such a group has to be overseen by the WP leader(s), there has to be a procedure to create and approve such a group. Which means that the creation of such groups is hindered, some groups will not be formed, and that will be detrimental to the site.
Perhaps you can look at it like this: Citizendium is going to be modeled on a company, with rules about who does what, and people at the top being ultimately responsible for everything that happens. Wikipedia has more similarities to the society, with freedom of association, and leaders who set the boundaries of accepted behaviour, but within those limits let the "citizens" do whatever they like.
It will indeed be interesting to see what the differences between the resulting encyclopedias will be.
I hope this long post clarifies more than it obscures.
Eugene
Once again, Eugene, my focus is not on the internal structure of the Wikipedia Project; but, rather, the need for a strong day-to-day leadership to oversee it. This is the discussion I am trying to encourage. If the Community feels a need for this, the details can be worked out in a constructive, creative way. The Community is full of minds I believe would love the challenge to create something that is believed to be impossible.
I believe an open discussion of "leadership" within the Wikipedia Project is being hampered by one very important thing: The fact that this Community has been burned by leadership here in the past. For the sake of the Project's future, isn't it time to get past that?
As a member of the Community, if you are happy with the present system of leadership, say so; if not, say so.
Marc Riddell
PS: Isn't it also time to stop the references and comparisons to Citizendium? Every time you mention it in the context of Wikipedia, you identify us with it. Enough.
Marc Riddell schreef:
Once again, Eugene, my focus is not on the internal structure of the Wikipedia Project; but, rather, the need for a strong day-to-day leadership to oversee it.
What I'm saying is that the internal structure of the project is badly suited for strong day-to-day leadership (by an individual or a small group).
So if you want to introduce such a leadership, you will have to think about how you want to change that structure.
I believe an open discussion of "leadership" within the Wikipedia Project is being hampered by one very important thing: The fact that this Community has been burned by leadership here in the past. For the sake of the Project's future, isn't it time to get past that?
Are you referring to Larry Sanger's time here? I don't think this is the reason. As a fraction of total editors, only very few people are left from that time.
As a member of the Community, if you are happy with the present system of leadership, say so; if not, say so.
I'm not unhappy with the current system; I would have liked most of the alternatives much less.
PS: Isn't it also time to stop the references and comparisons to Citizendium? Every time you mention it in the context of Wikipedia, you identify us with it. Enough.
I don't understand this comment, but I won't mention our collegues again.
Eugene
Marc Riddell schreef:
Once again, Eugene, my focus is not on the internal structure of the Wikipedia Project; but, rather, the need for a strong day-to-day leadership to oversee it.
on 6/30/07 1:15 PM, Eugene van der Pijll at eugene@vanderpijll.nl wrote:
What I'm saying is that the internal structure of the project is badly suited for strong day-to-day leadership (by an individual or a small group).
This is your opinion; thank you for it.
I'm not unhappy with the current system; I would have liked most of the alternatives much less.
Which alternatives are you referring to?
Marc
Marc Riddell schreef:
on 6/27/07 10:49 AM, Eugene van der Pijll at eugene@vanderpijll.nl wrote:
Marc Riddell schreef:
One more volley: Like it or not - threatening to some or not; what's needed here is a strong leader.
Why?
Eugene, I believe I have answered this question many times, in many ways, in my past posts.
I must have missed those answers. As far as I know, this was the first time you've spoken about the need for a single strong leader. I really want to know why you feel this way, so I'd appreciate it if you'd answer this question one more time.
I'm not asking you to list what is wrong with Wikipedia; I can remember you doing so. I want to know why you feel that it needs a strong leader to solve the problems, instead of gradual improvements on existing structures.
What exactly would this strong leader do?
The specific details of their role would need to be worked out by many more heads than just mine.
Some concrete examples should be welcome though. You must have some ideas, right?
Would he take over the functions of existing Wikipedia structures (WP:RFA, maybe? DRV? ArbCom?)
Certainly not "take over their functions", but, rather oversee them; to keep them honest, fair, accountable, and on track.
How? Should he be a one-man appeals committee? We already have ArbCom; why do you think one man can do a better job than them?
Or should he take a more active role, reading WP:ANI and related pages all day, and reacting to the roprts there? Admonishing and blocking trouble makers?
Or should he be a more distant leader, guarding the most basic policies of the site (WP:NPOV, WP:V, etc.) in the background, coming to the fore only rarely to gently remind us of the rules?
Something like that?
Eugene
On 6/27/07, Eugene van der Pijll eugene@vanderpijll.nl wrote:
Marc Riddell schreef:
One more volley: Like it or not - threatening to some or not; what's
needed
here is a strong leader.
Why? What exactly would this strong leader do? Would he take over the functions of existing Wikipedia structures (WP:RFA, maybe? DRV? ArbCom?) Or do you see anything that needs to be done that is not done today?
Can you please give some examples what the strong leader would do on Wikipedia?
Invade Russia!
On 6/5/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
The other fallacy to be avaided is saying that all policy decisions are final. We have shown ourselves ill-equipped to deal with subtle changes in circumstances when people insist on the strict leteral application of rules. Rather then defending hard-wired rules we need to be sensitive to changes, and the need to consider the opinions of those who did not participate in the formation of the rules for whatever reason. These reasons include not having been a part of the Wikipedia community at the time the rule was adopted. We need to recognize that the young people who will be most affected by rules did not have a vote in the way that the older generations chose to fuck it up.
Problem is the wording of the rules was precisely based on the fear that people would try to do what they are now trying to do. BLP only allows deletion of unsourced info precisely because people were worried about what is now happening.
CSD is so limiting because people didn't want admins to decide stuff more than was required to keep the wiki ticking over.
What makes it harder for policy decisions is the unwillingness of some to consider alternative solutions. MPs don't exactly inspire confidence in the real world; what makes you think that wikiMPs would do any better?
Judging by experience with trying to elect an arbcom they would be a lot worse.
on 6/5/07 3:03 PM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Maybe we should be looking at entirely new ways of adopting policy. Are we capable of the imagination that such an approach would require?
Ray,
I believe we need to be. There are some truly creative minds in this mindfield. The question is: Do we have a mechanism in which to make these ideas explode - and become a reality? I don't know of one here.
Marc
Joe Szilagyi wrote:
On the one hand, any and all people "in power" will be de-valued if this occurs. Your voice, my voice--we're just one more person in the crowd if this comes to pass. No one person will be able to ram anything, good or bad, theoretically down Wikipedia's throat as it happens now all too frequently. Appealing to populism will be how things will need to get done.
You clearly do not understand the negative aspects of populism.
The mass titanic shifts with BLP currently underway--where a very small minority of users are very aggressively trying to change the tone of something more to their suiting... will be impossibly harder to get to stick. On the other hand, populist ideas--BADSITES, anyone?--will be able to gain traction easily.
I reject your notion that BADSITES was a populist idea.
Ec
On 6/5/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Joe Szilagyi wrote:
The mass titanic shifts with BLP currently underway--where a very small minority
of
users are very aggressively trying to change the tone of something more
to
their suiting... will be impossibly harder to get to stick. On the other hand, populist ideas--BADSITES, anyone?--will be able to gain traction easily.
I reject your notion that BADSITES was a populist idea.
Ec
You're absolutely right on that one - the majority of editors opposing that particular idea were newer and less involved in the internal workings of Wikipedia - the supporters were almost exclusively long term, highly proliferate editors with extensive experience in the internal politics of Wikipedia. It would be more accurate to say that *opposition* to BADSITES was the populist movement. Incidentally, why does that acronym still redirect to WP:NPA?
Risker
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On 6/6/07, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/5/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Joe Szilagyi wrote:
The mass titanic shifts with BLP currently underway--where a very small minority
of
users are very aggressively trying to change the tone of something more
to
their suiting... will be impossibly harder to get to stick. On the
other
hand, populist ideas--BADSITES, anyone?--will be able to gain traction easily.
I reject your notion that BADSITES was a populist idea.
Ec
You're absolutely right on that one - the majority of editors opposing that particular idea were newer and less involved in the internal
workings
of Wikipedia - the supporters were almost exclusively long term, highly proliferate editors with extensive experience in the internal politics
of
Wikipedia. It would be more accurate to say that *opposition* to
BADSITES
was the populist movement. Incidentally, why does that acronym still redirect to WP:NPA?
Risker
That's not how I recall it panning out - I seem to recall a significant number of longtime editors expressing doubts about BADSITES on this list, and I think I've been around for longer than quite a few BADSITES advocates. IIRC, there were arbitrators on both sides of the debate. Characterising the argument as one between oldies and newbies, regardless of which side you place them on, isn't very helpful.
Johnleemk
On 6/6/07, John Lee johnleemk@gmail.com wrote:
That's not how I recall it panning out - I seem to recall a significant number of longtime editors expressing doubts about BADSITES on this list, and I think I've been around for longer than quite a few BADSITES advocates. IIRC, there were arbitrators on both sides of the debate. Characterising the argument as one between oldies and newbies, regardless of which side you place them on, isn't very helpful.
Wholly agreed. There were old users and new users on both sides of the debate, as well as among the middle ground.
-Matt