I am amazed there are people who haven't read this:
http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html
The problem with Internet-based project is that they form groups of humans, and a group is its own worst enemy. That's a marvellous essay by Clay Shirky (who's on the Wikimedia Advisory Board for good reason), and when I read it I was just nodding my head and going "yep" over and over. An Internet community has a life cycle. It starts, it's good for a while, it chokes itself or falls away. I've seen this happen over and over.
The problem comes when the community is not an end in itself but is attached to a purpose: it starts fouling the purpose. We're seeing that on Wikipedia. That is, English Wikipedia's interesting community problems are a wider emergent phenomenon than just Wikipedia or Jimmy Wales having done something wrong.
(Woe is us when flooded with people for whom this is their first online community and who haven't experienced the cycle even once. We have enough trouble enculturating Usenet refugees and their … robust … interaction style.)
Larry Sanger is trying to work around this on Citizendium, as advised by Shirky's main source, Bion's "Experiences In Groups": group structure is necessary. Robert's Rules of Order, parliamentary procedure, etcetera. The question then is how much emergent bad behaviour you can suppress without suppressing the emergent good behaviour.
Shirky says "Constitutions are a necessary component of large, long-lived, heterogenous groups." I've long spoken of Wikipedia's fundamental policies — neutrality, verifiability, no original research; assume good faith, no personal attacks, don't bite the newbies — as a constitution, and said that any process that violates them must be thrown out. The catch being there's not yet a way to enforce that.
One thing Shirky strongly points out: "The third thing you need to accept: The core group has rights that trump individual rights in some situations. This pulls against the libertarian view that's quite common on the network, and it absolutely pulls against the one person/one vote notion. But you can see examples of how bad an idea voting is when citizenship is the same as ability to log in." You would probably believe the outrage when I applied the phrase "one moron one vote" to Requests for Adminship. That, by the way, is the prime example on English Wikipedia at present of a group that's being its own worst enemy. I think it's worse than Articles for Deletion.
(And you'll see this 2003 essay speaks of Wikipedia as a project that's avoided that one. Whoops.)
How to keep the community focused on the point of the exercise? What level of control does one apply to keep on track without killing off the liveliness?
- d.
On 5/2/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I am amazed there are people who haven't read this:
Thanks David,
I love that essay, and it's a timely reminder of it as I potter along with my own readings and writings. Another related (and much more concise) piece that I really like is on MeatBall: http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?WikiWay
Beware! You will now spend a significant part of your day reading MeatBall.. :-)
Cormac
On 02/05/07, Cormac Lawler cormaggio@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/2/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I am amazed there are people who haven't read this: http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html
I love that essay, and it's a timely reminder of it as I potter along with my own readings and writings. Another related (and much more concise) piece that I really like is on MeatBall: http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?WikiWay Beware! You will now spend a significant part of your day reading MeatBall.. :-)
Fortunately, I made my saving throw of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NOTMEAT .
I want to make the rant in my previous post both denser and shorter before I put it on my blog. So I ask people to give me ideas I can steal. I'm looking at *you*, Marc.
Also, do we have a sociologist in the house?
- d.
on 5/2/07 6:18 AM, David Gerard at dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I want to make the rant in my previous post both denser and shorter before I put it on my blog. So I ask people to give me ideas I can steal. I'm looking at *you*, Marc.
David,
I accept the challenge :-). I will think about it for a while and get back.
BTW, good writers borrow from other writers; great writers steal outright. What make them great is that the reader never realizes it ;-).
Marc
On 02/05/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
I accept the challenge :-). I will think about it for a while and get back.
I got impatient and posted anyway:
http://davidgerard.co.uk/notes/2007/05/02/revealed-why-the-community-is-on-c...
- but I'd still really love your thoughtful comments, here or there.
- d.
On 02/05/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
I accept the challenge :-). I will think about it for a while and get back.
on 5/2/07 5:36 PM, David Gerard at dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I got impatient and posted anyway:
http://davidgerard.co.uk/notes/2007/05/02/revealed-why-the-community-is-on-c... ck/
- but I'd still really love your thoughtful comments, here or there.
I'm sorry, David, but I really do want to give it some thought; you've got some themes there that are close to my heart. Today's been a little crazier than usual. I will send my 2 cents soon.
Marc
On 02/05/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
on 5/2/07 5:36 PM, David Gerard at dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I got impatient and posted anyway: http://davidgerard.co.uk/notes/2007/05/02/revealed-why-the-community-is-on-c...
- but I'd still really love your thoughtful comments, here or there.
I'm sorry, David, but I really do want to give it some thought; you've got some themes there that are close to my heart. Today's been a little crazier than usual. I will send my 2 cents soon.
Also got useful ones on the LJ: http://reddragdiva.livejournal.com/417371.html - most of whom I know from various Usenet groups. And of course LJ is a social networking site with blogs as the MacGuffin.
- d.
On 5/2/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
- but I'd still really love your thoughtful comments, here or there.
Depends do you think handing the project over to the most skilled rule lawyers counts as a solution? Constitutions are brilliant for rule lawyers since the darn things are so hard to modify once they find a way to exploit them.
On 02/05/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/2/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
- but I'd still really love your thoughtful comments, here or there.
Depends do you think handing the project over to the most skilled rule lawyers counts as a solution? Constitutions are brilliant for rule lawyers since the darn things are so hard to modify once they find a way to exploit them.
I know precisely what you mean, but I'm really not sure that would be worse than what we have now.
- d.
On 5/2/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 02/05/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/2/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
- but I'd still really love your thoughtful comments, here or there.
Depends do you think handing the project over to the most skilled rule lawyers counts as a solution? Constitutions are brilliant for rule lawyers since the darn things are so hard to modify once they find a way to exploit them.
I know precisely what you mean, but I'm really not sure that would be worse than what we have now.
The problem is the grey areas and ambiguities.
We can't possibly legislate everything; there will be interpretation, and conflicting principles in real world cases.
"We just trust good people" scales until not all the good people agree on everything, and then scales with the culturally aggressive people set until there are so many of us that we explode.
On 02/05/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
The problem is the grey areas and ambiguities. We can't possibly legislate everything; there will be interpretation, and conflicting principles in real world cases. "We just trust good people" scales until not all the good people agree on everything, and then scales with the culturally aggressive people set until there are so many of us that we explode.
How's this:
"Any process that violates NPOV, NOR, V or NPA, AGF, BITE is thrown awa."
Violation not to be decided by popular vote. Hmm.
Note also we need something to give status in the community *other than* an admin bit.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
On 02/05/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
The problem is the grey areas and ambiguities. We can't possibly legislate everything; there will be interpretation, and conflicting principles in real world cases. "We just trust good people" scales until not all the good people agree on everything, and then scales with the culturally aggressive people set until there are so many of us that we explode.
How's this:
"Any process that violates NPOV, NOR, V or NPA, AGF, BITE is thrown awa."
Violation not to be decided by popular vote. Hmm.
Note also we need something to give status in the community *other than* an admin bit.
- d.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
It isn't about individual status, it is about understanding that experienced cabals are sometimes preferable to Athenian democracies - especially when the !voters are not all in any way significant stakeholders.
We keep opposing 'cabal' to 'community' as if one was bad and the other good. The reality though is that the 'community' is an illusion - all you have is the small and not necessarily representative cross-section that turn up for any one debate - a self-selecting cabal in effect. A carefully selected cabal is infinitely superior - and can be for more responsible and representative.
Arbcom is, for instance, one such cabal. And, despite its drawbacks far better than the lynchmob justice that is the alternative. It is elected, basically on one moron one vote, and yet in fact it is a panel of experienced users all with a significant stake in the project.
If an elected cabal is the last arbiter is matters of discipline - then why not in other matters? Why not in policy, or in deletions?
Why not have a committee of the wise replace DRV? Or RfA?
Representative democracy tends to be more stable, responsible and sensible than the law of the 'who turns up'.
Of course we must not create too many elected groups - or participation in the election and candidatures would fall off. But, when it has worked for arbcom, rolling this out a little more would seem sensible.
Doc
On 5/2/07, doc doc.wikipedia@ntlworld.com wrote:
Representative democracy tends to be more stable, responsible and sensible than the law of the 'who turns up'.
That's the drawback of the consensus model. When a project grows beyond a certain size, consensus becomes a "squeaky wheel oligarchy".
On 03/05/07, Ron Ritzman ritzman@gmail.com wrote:
That's the drawback of the consensus model. When a project grows beyond a certain size, consensus becomes a "squeaky wheel oligarchy".
DAMN I wish you'd used that phrase in time for me to steal it.
- d.
On 03/05/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 03/05/07, Ron Ritzman ritzman@gmail.com wrote:
That's the drawback of the consensus model. When a project grows beyond a certain size, consensus becomes a "squeaky wheel oligarchy".
DAMN I wish you'd used that phrase in time for me to steal it.
By the way, this discussion won't go anywhere, any more than this one did:
http://nostalgia.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Cunctator/How_to_destro... http://nostalgia.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_commentary/Responses_to_How_to...
Cunc, you still on this list?
- d.
On 5/3/07, doc doc.wikipedia@ntlworld.com wrote:
If an elected cabal is the last arbiter is matters of discipline - then why not in other matters? Why not in policy, or in deletions?
Why not have a committee of the wise replace DRV? Or RfA?
Because while one election a year is posible with mininimal dissruption multiple elections are not.
geni wrote:
On 5/3/07, doc doc.wikipedia@ntlworld.com wrote:
If an elected cabal is the last arbiter is matters of discipline - then why not in other matters? Why not in policy, or in deletions?
Why not have a committee of the wise replace DRV? Or RfA?
Because while one election a year is posible with mininimal dissruption multiple elections are not.
{{fact}}?
On 5/3/07, doc doc.wikipedia@ntlworld.com wrote:
{{fact}}?
Ever tried to organise an election?
Ok first it requires some kind of site wide notice we normally use MediaWiki:Watchdetails. Personally I view that as intrinsically disruptive.
Then you have the time is takes to do the setup (average election will require the creation of over 100 pages) and the various candidates to write their statements and whatever campaigning there is plus the normal fight over the rules.
The fights on the candidate question pages start
Then the election starts. People have to take time out from editing to read candidate statements and vote the various fights continue as long term disputes boil away beneath the surface.
Still the next arbcom elections will need someone to organise them. Shouldn't be too hard the rules are pretty much in place and you can reuse the previous format.
geni wrote:
On 5/3/07, doc doc.wikipedia@ntlworld.com wrote:
If an elected cabal is the last arbiter is matters of discipline - then why not in other matters? Why not in policy, or in deletions?
Why not have a committee of the wise replace DRV? Or RfA?
Because while one election a year is posible with mininimal dissruption multiple elections are not.
That's a fallacy.
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
geni wrote:
On 5/3/07, doc doc.wikipedia@ntlworld.com wrote:
If an elected cabal is the last arbiter is matters of discipline - then why not in other matters? Why not in policy, or in deletions?
Why not have a committee of the wise replace DRV? Or RfA?
Because while one election a year is posible with mininimal dissruption multiple elections are not.
That's a fallacy.
Ec
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Are we so sure that another couple of elections per year would be more disruptive than say RfA or DRV are currently?
To my mind, you can start to see the cracks in 2004-05 or so - when policy formation stopped being possible because you couldn't get a 75-80% vote on anything. (This was back in the days when this was how we did policy formation) Attempted policies on trolling and blocking for personal attacks failed. That is to say, we lacked a key element of a constitution - rules on how to adapt. And, worse, the lack became a problem precisely because we had too damn many people, rendering it nigh-impossible to come up with one.
And indeed we haven't really come up with one. Policy formation is a madhouse. We can chart the various flavors of madness it's gone through if we want, but that's not really the point.
To my mind, the telling example in the essay is LambdaMOO. The wizards need to come back.
-Phil
On May 2, 2007, at 5:37 AM, David Gerard wrote:
I am amazed there are people who haven't read this:
http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html
The problem with Internet-based project is that they form groups of humans, and a group is its own worst enemy. That's a marvellous essay by Clay Shirky (who's on the Wikimedia Advisory Board for good reason), and when I read it I was just nodding my head and going "yep" over and over. An Internet community has a life cycle. It starts, it's good for a while, it chokes itself or falls away. I've seen this happen over and over.
The problem comes when the community is not an end in itself but is attached to a purpose: it starts fouling the purpose. We're seeing that on Wikipedia. That is, English Wikipedia's interesting community problems are a wider emergent phenomenon than just Wikipedia or Jimmy Wales having done something wrong.
(Woe is us when flooded with people for whom this is their first online community and who haven't experienced the cycle even once. We have enough trouble enculturating Usenet refugees and their … robust … interaction style.)
Larry Sanger is trying to work around this on Citizendium, as advised by Shirky's main source, Bion's "Experiences In Groups": group structure is necessary. Robert's Rules of Order, parliamentary procedure, etcetera. The question then is how much emergent bad behaviour you can suppress without suppressing the emergent good behaviour.
Shirky says "Constitutions are a necessary component of large, long-lived, heterogenous groups." I've long spoken of Wikipedia's fundamental policies — neutrality, verifiability, no original research; assume good faith, no personal attacks, don't bite the newbies — as a constitution, and said that any process that violates them must be thrown out. The catch being there's not yet a way to enforce that.
One thing Shirky strongly points out: "The third thing you need to accept: The core group has rights that trump individual rights in some situations. This pulls against the libertarian view that's quite common on the network, and it absolutely pulls against the one person/one vote notion. But you can see examples of how bad an idea voting is when citizenship is the same as ability to log in." You would probably believe the outrage when I applied the phrase "one moron one vote" to Requests for Adminship. That, by the way, is the prime example on English Wikipedia at present of a group that's being its own worst enemy. I think it's worse than Articles for Deletion.
(And you'll see this 2003 essay speaks of Wikipedia as a project that's avoided that one. Whoops.)
How to keep the community focused on the point of the exercise? What level of control does one apply to keep on track without killing off the liveliness?
- d.
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 02/05/07, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
To my mind, the telling example in the essay is LambdaMOO. The wizards need to come back.
I'm concurring. See latest version on blog.
- d.
On 5/2/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Shirky says "Constitutions are a necessary component of large, long-lived, heterogenous groups." I've long spoken of Wikipedia's fundamental policies — neutrality, verifiability, no original research; assume good faith, no personal attacks, don't bite the newbies — as a constitution, and said that any process that violates them must be thrown out. The catch being there's not yet a way to enforce that.
I think you missed a key policy which is definitely a part of Wikipedia's Constitution: "Wikipedia works by building consensus." This is even listed as number one in the list of Wikipedia's "Key policies". And it's a meta-rule, a rule about how to make the rules.
One thing Shirky strongly points out: "The third thing you need to accept: The core group has rights that trump individual rights in some situations. This pulls against the libertarian view that's quite common on the network, and it absolutely pulls against the one person/one vote notion. But you can see examples of how bad an idea voting is when citizenship is the same as ability to log in." You would probably believe the outrage when I applied the phrase "one moron one vote" to Requests for Adminship. That, by the way, is the prime example on English Wikipedia at present of a group that's being its own worst enemy. I think it's worse than Articles for Deletion.
(And you'll see this 2003 essay speaks of Wikipedia as a project that's avoided that one. Whoops.)
I don't think the author was putting down voting, but rather putting down the idea that members outside the "core group" have a vote which is equal to that of members inside the core group.
Some examples of times when the core group of Wikipedians (which is probably an overlap of most admins and some non-admins) were "outvoted" by people outside the group would be useful in illustrating this point. I can think of lots of times, on RfA and AfD, when the outside group was very loud, but off-hand I don't recall any times when the outsiders successfully outvoted the core group.
How to keep the community focused on the point of the exercise? What level of control does one apply to keep on track without killing off the liveliness?
- d.
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 03/05/07, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
Some examples of times when the core group of Wikipedians (which is probably an overlap of most admins and some non-admins) were "outvoted" by people outside the group would be useful in illustrating this point. I can think of lots of times, on RfA and AfD, when the outside group was very loud, but off-hand I don't recall any times when the outsiders successfully outvoted the core group.
The core group gives up in disgust. Look at CFD - !votes from people who clearly haven't even looked at the category and just don't like the name. Look at DRV, which has been abandoned to sociopaths.
- d.