On 3/11/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
I worry that the formal verification thing will take us down the Citizendium road.
Let's think about expressing trust in different ways, of which recognizing a person's credentials is just one. We could build a voluntary "web of trust" where editors recognize others as: - being the person they claim to be, including but not limited to claims they make about themselves, such as credentials (identity) - being knowledgeable in a particular subject area or possessing a particular skill (ability) - acting in good faith, in recognition of their limitations, and in awareness of Wikipedia's policies and practices (reliability)
The first dimension matters to _processes of representation_: positions of high level trust (stewardship, Wikimedia committees, possibly ArbCom).
The second dimension matters to _processes of collaboration_: identifying people to work with.
The third dimension matters to _parameters of participation_: setting the limits of a contributor's right to action within the community.
Such a web of trust model does not require technical changes. It could be built using user subpages, similar to the German "Vertrauensnetzwerk":
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vertrauen
A somewhat similar effort was made in the English Wikipedia a while ago, but never received traction. The German network, on the other hand, remains active and proves the basic viability; the model could be extended to cover the above three dimensions. This _might_ involve some use of external software such as OTRS for verification-related processes. It would be completely voluntary and not involve any official Foundation capacities.
I would caution against any expression of _mistrust_ in such a system, as it can destabilize a community. Instead, I would suggest that the only alternative to any expression of trust is _action_: monitoring or limiting another user's contributions. We have existing processes to do so, and to raise awareness of problem users, so I think we've got that base pretty well covered.
On 3/11/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 3/11/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
I worry that the formal verification thing will take us down the Citizendium road.
Let's think about expressing trust in different ways, of which recognizing a person's credentials is just one. We could build a voluntary "web of trust" where editors recognize others as:
- being the person they claim to be, including but not limited to
claims they make about themselves, such as credentials (identity)
- being knowledgeable in a particular subject area or possessing a
particular skill (ability)
- acting in good faith, in recognition of their limitations, and in
awareness of Wikipedia's policies and practices (reliability) ...
Such a web of trust model does not require technical changes. It could be built using user subpages, similar to the German "Vertrauensnetzwerk":
Editors who've been around for a while do this already. I know which editors I can trust; what their strengths and weaknesses are; who tends to engage in OR; who's great at citing sources; whose edits never need to be checked.
Formalizing this wouldn't work, because you'd get a ton of editors adding others to their "web of trust" on the basis of agreeing with their POV alone. Who's going to decide whose "web of trust" can be trusted? Which gets me back to the original question: who is going to do the verifying?
I don't know much about the German Wikipedia but from everything I've heard it's overly expert-dominated; this shows in the reaction of German Wikipedians when they arrive here and are suddenly expected to cite their sources no matter how much they think they know about a topic. I would hate to see the English Wikipedia head in the direction of taking people's word for things just because they're part of someone's "web of trust."
Sarah
On 3/11/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
Editors who've been around for a while do this already. I know which editors I can trust; what their strengths and weaknesses are; who tends to engage in OR; who's great at citing sources; whose edits never need to be checked.
Then that seems like knowledge worth sharing.
Formalizing this wouldn't work, because you'd get a ton of editors adding others to their "web of trust" on the basis of agreeing with their POV alone.
Then those editors' trust databases would be less useful than those of others -- itself an indication of lower reliability. I think that perhaps one could also capture a reasonable amount of this natural tendency with a fourth dimension, "people I like".
Who's going to decide whose "web of trust" can be trusted?
Nobody.
Which gets me back to the original question: who is going to do the verifying?
Everyone.
On 3/11/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 3/11/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
Editors who've been around for a while do this already. I know which editors I can trust; what their strengths and weaknesses are; who tends to engage in OR; who's great at citing sources; whose edits never need to be checked.
Then that seems like knowledge worth sharing.
It's only worth sharing if people think my opinion is worth something (i.e. if I rate highly enough on various "webs of trust" myself), so you'd end up with endless intersecting webs, each one trying to provide support for some other. This *is* the way it works in people's minds, to be sure, but trying to formalize it would be hopeless. And what happens when someone suddenly surprises me or let's me down? Do I have to remove him from some list? Inform others who've copied my list that X has fallen from favor?
Formalizing this wouldn't work, because you'd get a ton of editors adding others to their "web of trust" on the basis of agreeing with their POV alone.
Then those editors' trust databases would be less useful than those of others -- itself an indication of lower reliability. I think that perhaps one could also capture a reasonable amount of this natural tendency with a fourth dimension, "people I like"
Exactly, at which point it becomes useless.
On 3/11/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
It's only worth sharing if people think my opinion is worth something (i.e. if I rate highly enough on various "webs of trust" myself), so you'd end up with endless intersecting webs, each one trying to provide support for some other. This *is* the way it works in people's minds, to be sure, but trying to formalize it would be hopeless. And what happens when someone suddenly surprises me or let's me down? Do I have to remove him from some list? Inform others who've copied my list that X has fallen from favor?
You don't have to do anything. How well you maintain your network is up to you. Other users will look at the dates when you wrote certain statements, and take this into account. Your trust network is linked to your person, so if you stop to maintain it completely, others will simply judge it to be unreliable and stop using it.
Imagine that what you end up is something like [[Category:Positive trust statements about SlimVirgin]], which contains pages such as
User:Eloquence/Positive trust/SlimVirgin/Biology User:Dogmaster3000/Positive trust/SlimVirgin/Identity
Each of these pages would contain a signed comment as to what it actually means, such as, "I've worked with SlimVirgin on biology-related articles for some time, and believe she is eminently qualified to write about bombardier beetles" or "I've met SlimVirgin at Wikimania 2006 and can confirm that she's really slim. I cannot comment on the other part."
Additional user categories could be made for specific disciplines, such as [[Category:Positive trust statements about biology]]. Even if many people would only put you in this category because they agree with your controversial POV on bombardier beetles, the aggregate of users in that category could be a useful group of people to write an NPOV article on the topic together.
(Yeah, there's actually a bombardier beetle controversy.)
Then those editors' trust databases would be less useful than those of others -- itself an indication of lower reliability. I think that perhaps one could also capture a reasonable amount of this natural tendency with a fourth dimension, "people I like"
Exactly, at which point it becomes useless.
Quite to the contrary, the addition of a noisy category can reduce noise in others. Furthermore, disclosure of friendships can help to predict and understand bias, just like disclosure of official affiliations.
On 3/11/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 3/11/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
It's only worth sharing if people think my opinion is worth something (i.e. if I rate highly enough on various "webs of trust" myself), so you'd end up with endless intersecting webs, each one trying to provide support for some other. This *is* the way it works in people's minds, to be sure, but trying to formalize it would be hopeless. And what happens when someone suddenly surprises me or let's me down? Do I have to remove him from some list? Inform others who've copied my list that X has fallen from favor?
You don't have to do anything. How well you maintain your network is up to you. Other users will look at the dates when you wrote certain statements, and take this into account. Your trust network is linked to your person, so if you stop to maintain it completely, others will simply judge it to be unreliable and stop using it.
Imagine that what you end up is something like [[Category:Positive trust statements about SlimVirgin]], which contains pages such as
User:Eloquence/Positive trust/SlimVirgin/Biology User:Dogmaster3000/Positive trust/SlimVirgin/Identity
A kind of "rate this user" thing, as on e-bay?
It's interesting. Just thinking off the top of my head -- would it discourage people from getting involved in disputes, or from taking up unpopular positions? If only 10 people have made positive statements about me, and I can see that if I toe the party line on [[Islam]], maybe another few people will say nice things about me, how likely am I to insist that popular editor A cite his sources? In other words, would being liked become more important than editing courageously? Or rather (because it probably is more important at the moment), would that priority become formalized?
Sarah
on 3/11/07 7:37 AM, Slim Virgin at slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
It's interesting. Just thinking off the top of my head -- would it discourage people from getting involved in disputes, or from taking up unpopular positions? If only 10 people have made positive statements about me, and I can see that if I toe the party line on [[Islam]], maybe another few people will say nice things about me, how likely am I to insist that popular editor A cite his sources? In other words, would being liked become more important than editing courageously? Or rather (because it probably is more important at the moment), would that priority become formalized?
Excellent and incisive point, Sarah. Each of us must decide what our individual identity, self-concept and self-definition are tied to. This determines how they are affected by such things as disagreement with our ideas, criticism, ridicule, disapproval, failure at a task, etc. At the end of the day, you are the one that's got to be alone with you. And, the question you will be confronted with is: do you approve of you?
Marc Riddell
On 3/11/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
I to insist that popular editor A cite his sources? In other words, would being liked become more important than editing courageously? Or rather (because it probably is more important at the moment), would that priority become formalized?
Sarah
I think we already know the answer to thiis question.
Erik Moeller wrote:
On 3/11/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
Editors who've been around for a while do this already. I know which editors I can trust; what their strengths and weaknesses are; who tends to engage in OR; who's great at citing sources; whose edits never need to be checked.
Then that seems like knowledge worth sharing.
Let's not confuse sharing knowledge (theoretical) with sharing experience (practical).
Ec
I'd just dread the effect it would have on RfA... It's pretty much a certainty that you'll see "'''Oppose''' Not enough people trusting" on an RfA within a week of this becoming widely used. Even worse will be the "Trusts too many people", "Trusts too few people", "Trusts User-I-don't-like, so must have bad judgement", etc. opposes.
In general, I think this idea would turn Wikipedia into a popularity contest.
On 3/11/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
I'd just dread the effect it would have on RfA...
You can't kill what's already dead.
On 11/03/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 3/11/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
I'd just dread the effect it would have on RfA...
You can't kill what's already dead.
"That is not dead which can eternal lie And with strange aeons, even death may die."
On 3/11/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
I'd just dread the effect it would have on RfA... It's pretty much a certainty that you'll see "'''Oppose''' Not enough people trusting" on an RfA within a week of this becoming widely used. Even worse will be the "Trusts too many people", "Trusts too few people", "Trusts User-I-don't-like, so must have bad judgement", etc. opposes.
"Trusted by untrustworthy people." We'd end up being deliberately horrible to certain editors in the hope they wouldn't add our names to their "web of trust." ;-D
I work with some of the de.wiki editors on plants, and they're always a bit surprised at how scattered we are at en.wiki for all the articles we have, and they just seem to have far fewer outliers in every area than we have on en.wiki. Heck, they can even get away with common names instead of scientific names for organisms. This isn't just a function of the homogeneity of the language in the area, because it is not homogeneous, there are as many regions, hundreds of years (thousands in their case) of settlements, disturbances, migrations, wars, and interlopers that impacted the language as much as English--it's that de.wiki is different from en.wiki. Different in a way that apparently allows something like formalized common names and confidence networks to work for them.
In essence it *is* a popularity contest as Sarah suggests. I have no interest in learning how to expand my popularity or add others to my list. Popularity contests among editors and administrators already make for problems, especially in all the nationalistic brouhahas. Also, the more things like this, user boxes, confidence networks that en.wiki has, the more ways to distinguish an ordinary editor from every one else, an editor who justs drops in sometimes to edit from the masses who spend chunks of time every day editing, the more en.wiki becomes a stratified society.
Less ways to stratify editors is better than more ways, imo.
Also en.wiki already informally does this, as others have pointed out. I know who to ask to edit an article, who not to ask, what editors I can ignore when they do edits on my watch list, what editors I can't ignore. Other editors send people to me with questions or issues, people ask me to settle disputes on certain issues, and I know what editors I can go to for the same thing. It takes a lot of time to learn this about other editors, formalizing it, I believe, might remove this necessary time and put new editors into doing it sooner than they really can do it. I loved realizing a few weeks ago that I could and should ask my favorite pop teen editor to work on an article about an african surgeon. I liked it when an editor I barely work with copied a new editor's post to my talk page, knowing I could answer the questions in it.
Some things take time. Starting out with a network for editors to fill out, assign people to, will wind up like user boxes--a gadget, rather than a community building tool. New editors will spend an incredible amount of time on it, without any real understanding, without really gaining any insight into how wikipedia works, how the community works, without really becoming a part of their networks. It will consume time and energy that could be spent really becoming part of the existing networks.
En.wiki just isn't that big on formalizing things, also, so implementing it probably would not occur.
KP
On 3/11/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/11/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
I'd just dread the effect it would have on RfA... It's pretty much a certainty that you'll see "'''Oppose''' Not enough people trusting" on an RfA within a week of this becoming widely used. Even worse will be the "Trusts too many people", "Trusts too few people", "Trusts User-I-don't-like, so must have bad judgement", etc. opposes.
"Trusted by untrustworthy people." We'd end up being deliberately horrible to certain editors in the hope they wouldn't add our names to their "web of trust." ;-D
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"Trusted by untrustworthy people." We'd end up being deliberately horrible to certain editors in the hope they wouldn't add our names to their "web of trust." ;-D
The friend of my enemy is my enemy...