Fred Bauder
What can we do to reduce the problems that arise? Neglected articles
with defamatory material, articles with little in them but some
unfortunate incident, clumsy attempts to correct articles by subject.
Frankly, I don't know. In general, I don't like to play the
know-it-all, to tell someone how to run their "business". There's too
many times when I've gotten advice from some well-meaning but
unknowledgeable person, "Seth, you should do X", and frequently they
react very unfavorably to my reply "I thought of doing X, but it has
problem Y, and downside Z, so all in all, it seemed like a bad idea".
The next part of the exchange, running "No, Seth, do X! It'll work!
Sez *me*!", tends to be very draining. So I don't want to be "that
guy"
to other people.
For example, I could say "I think you should ease up on people
editing their own biography", but even writing that hypothetically
sounds so arrogant on my part. I know it's been discussed endlessly,
so what I say has little impact, even if it would ultimately be correct
(and there's a high chance it isn't). Moreover, as an outsider, it
might even be counter-productive for me to make suggestions due to
giving them bad associations.
Wikipedia is so interesting to me in part because it's managed
to find a functioning trade-off among some extremely difficult
conditions (and I get into hot water for my belief that the way in
which it's done that is sometimes not so nice). I feel I'm on very
firm ground in pushing back against one of those trade-offs, the
"cost-shifting" of negatives onto individuals, of attempting to make
them bear the complete burdens of poor quality control and any
reputational damage thereof. You can see in this thread how it works -
trivialize, minimize, demonize, all directed to having Wikipedia
insulated from any costs from flaws. Not that every person does that,
but the institutional incentive is clear.
So I think of staying focused on advocating for an opt-out as
having the humility to know my limits, and not venturing past my area
of "expertise".
--
Seth Finkelstein Consulting Programmer
http://sethf.com/
Infothought blog -
http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/
Interview:
http://sethf.com/essays/major/greplaw-interview.php