John Lee wrote:
Indeed - I noticed it was disappearing in 2005, and by 2006 it seemed to have almost completely vanished. I recognise that part of my feelings about this are just irrational wishing for the "good old days" (I have noticed it's always the same with any online community people have been members of for a long time - we tend to get nostalgic and hype up how good things once were). But still, there was a culture of mutual respect for each other. Even if you thought someone was dead wrong, you didn't get into a wheel war or edit war with them.
I don't know how accurate your perceptions are on this point. I've been involved with Wikipedia since late 2002 and haven't noticed a huge change in the amount of respect that Wikipedians show for one another. The main thing I've noticed is that there seems to be a bigger corpus of formalized rules, and a correspondingly higher likelihood that disputes will turn into officious rule-wielding rather than debates directly about articles and their merits. I don't know whether this change is a good thing or a bad thing -- some of both, probably.
As for the "culture of mutual respect," though, I remember some knock- down-dragout fights, ideological wars, and some incredibly nasty experiences with trolls, vandals and cranks. Moreover, this seems to have been going on at Wikipedia since its earliest days. Larry Sanger (who left Wikipedia before I got here) recalls its early history as follows:
Jimmy and I agreed early on that, at least in the beginning, we should not eject anyone from the project except perhaps in the most extreme cases. Our first forcible expulsion (which Jimmy performed) did not occur for many months, despite the presence of difficult characters from nearly the beginning of the project. Again, we were learning: we wished to tolerate all sorts of contributors in order to be well-situated to adopt the wisest policies. But--and in hindsight this should have seemed perfectly predictable--this provisional "hands off" management policy had the effect of creating a difficult-to-change tradition, the tradition of making the project extremely tolerant of disruptive (uncooperative, "trolling") behavior. And as it turned out, particularly with the large waves of new contributors from the summer and fall of 2001, the project became very resistant to any changes in this policy. I suspect that the cultures of online communities generally are established pretty quickly and then very resistant to change, because they are self-selecting; that was certainly the case with Wikipedia, anyway.
http://features.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/18/164213&tid=95
Elsewhere, Sanger goes so far as to say that the "poisonous social or political atmosphere" is one of the reasons why he left the project:
There is a certain mindset associated with unmoderated Usenet groups and mailing lists that infects the collectively-managed Wikipedia project: if you react strongly to trolling, that reflects poorly on you, not (necessarily) on the troll. If you attempt to take trolls to task or demand that something be done about constant disruption by trollish behavior, the other listmembers will cry "censorship," attack you, and even come to the defense of the troll. This drama has played out thousands of times over the years on unmoderated Internet groups, and since about the fall of 2001 on the unmoderated Wikipedia.
[SNIP]
A few of the project's participants can be, not to put a nice word on it, pretty nasty. And this is tolerated. So, for any person who can and wants to work politely with well-meaning, rational, reasonably well-informed people--which is to say, to be sure, most people working on Wikipedia--the constant fighting can be so off- putting as to drive them away from the project. This explains why I am gone; it also explains why many others, including some extremely knowledgeable and helpful people, have left the project.
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/12/30/142458/25
I don't know whether the Wikipedia commmunity today is overall more or less successful than it was in the past at fostering a "culture of mutual respect," but if John Lee thinks it used to be better, I suspect that this may simply reflect his early good luck rather than an actual change. My own experience suggests that the overall culture hasn't changed much. If anything, it probably has gotten marginally better over the years.
-------------------------------- | Sheldon Rampton | Research director, Center for Media & Democracy (www.prwatch.org) | Author of books including: | Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities | Toxic Sludge Is Good For You | Mad Cow USA | Trust Us, We're Experts | Weapons of Mass Deception | Banana Republicans | The Best War Ever -------------------------------- | Subscribe to our free weekly list serve by visiting: | http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_sotd.html | | Donate now to support independent, public interest reporting: | https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?id=1118 --------------------------------
On 2/28/07, Sheldon Rampton sheldon@prwatch.org wrote:
John Lee wrote:
Indeed - I noticed it was disappearing in 2005, and by 2006 it seemed to have almost completely vanished. I recognise that part of my feelings about this are just irrational wishing for the "good old days" (I have noticed it's always the same with any online community people have been members of for a long time - we tend to get nostalgic and hype up how good things once were). But still, there was a culture of mutual respect for each other. Even if you thought someone was dead wrong, you didn't get into a wheel war or edit war with them.
I don't know how accurate your perceptions are on this point. I've been involved with Wikipedia since late 2002 and haven't noticed a huge change in the amount of respect that Wikipedians show for one another. The main thing I've noticed is that there seems to be a bigger corpus of formalized rules, and a correspondingly higher likelihood that disputes will turn into officious rule-wielding rather than debates directly about articles and their merits. I don't know whether this change is a good thing or a bad thing -- some of both, probably.
Yes, my views may be skewed by the massive assumptions of bad faith I've constantly stumbled across - I can't say that my experiences represent an accurate sample. I just feel that there's a lot more assumptions of bad faith these days than there used to be. I recall a lot of nasty debates, especially over deletionism vs inclusionism, but I can't think of any (except trolls, of course) who assumed the other party was acting in bad faith. That's the kind of respect I'm talking about.
As for the "culture of mutual respect," though, I remember some knock-
down-dragout fights, ideological wars, and some incredibly nasty experiences with trolls, vandals and cranks. Moreover, this seems to have been going on at Wikipedia since its earliest days. Larry Sanger (who left Wikipedia before I got here) recalls its early history as follows:
I too can recall many contentious arguments - but none of them as detrimental (I would say) to the community as the kinds of arguments we have today. Today, instead of just arguing, people are more likely to take things to the next level by assuming the other party is acting in bad faith, and revert/wheel warring. I'm well aware of the acrimonious atmosphere engendered by the earliest trolls, but putting the trolls aside (since they rarely contributed much either to the project or the community), I think there was a lot more good faith and mutual respect for other Wikipedians (but not necessarily for the opinions of those Wikipedians).
I don't know whether the Wikipedia commmunity today is overall more
or less successful than it was in the past at fostering a "culture of mutual respect," but if John Lee thinks it used to be better, I suspect that this may simply reflect his early good luck rather than an actual change. My own experience suggests that the overall culture hasn't changed much. If anything, it probably has gotten marginally better over the years.
Well, a sample of one (or two) is never a good foundation for any factual findings. ;) I would note, however, that the mailing list has always been full of acrimonious debates, and has generally been more confrontational than the project as a whole. What concerns me is what actually goes on in the project, because whereas last time, despite the discretion available to all editors and admins courtesy of WP:BOLD, WP:IAR, etc., these powers were rarely abused, today, they are the very first guns to be rolled out in an argument. If you disagree with someone, increasingly the tendency seems to be to revert them, despite our best efforts to contain such attitudes.
Johnleemk
On 2/28/07, John Lee johnleemk@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, my views may be skewed by the massive assumptions of bad faith I've constantly stumbled across - I can't say that my experiences represent an accurate sample. I just feel that there's a lot more assumptions of bad faith these days than there used to be. I recall a lot of nasty debates, especially over deletionism vs inclusionism, but I can't think of any (except trolls, of course) who assumed the other party was acting in bad faith. That's the kind of respect I'm talking about.
Look at the reactions to schoolwatch.
On 28/02/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
especially over deletionism vs inclusionism, but I can't think of any (except trolls, of course) who assumed the other party was acting in bad faith. That's the kind of respect I'm talking about.
Look at the reactions to schoolwatch.
Look at what invoked it. They formed into an organised group as the only way to deal with evidently contemptuous mass-nominations of school articles.
When AFD formed factions in this manner, it was evidently a deeply broken process. Two years later, it's an even more deeply broken process. There's gotta be a better way. More than that, there's gotta be some resolution of the deeper assumptions.
It will not fix itself, because a group is its own worst enemy and will not change from within. It will resist change from the outside, on the assumption that they're so busy and vital that any outside interference must be assumed negative until absolutely proven otherwise. (A good example is how AFD resisted changing the page from one single multiple-megabyte slab of HTML until the devs said it was actually causing noticeable performance problems all on its own.)
Shut AFD for a month. The article load will be negligible compared to the daily firehose of crap, and we can do without the poisonousness inside and outside the project.
- d.
On 2/27/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Shut AFD for a month. The article load will be negligible compared to the daily firehose of crap, and we can do without the poisonousness inside and outside the project.
This isn't as ridiculous an idea as it seemed (to me) at first glance. Maybe not a month, but a few days or a week where the process was halted and a discussion about AfD took place instead might at least move the community, and particularly the AfD regulars, closer to consensus on what the proper purpose and methods of the deletion process should be.
Nothing new is likely to be said, but at least it will make a larger proportion of !voters aware of a larger proportion of the viewpoints. And probably get some users to put some more thought into their own positions.
-Sage
On 2/28/07, Sage Ross sage.ross@yale.edu wrote:
This isn't as ridiculous an idea as it seemed (to me) at first glance. Maybe not a month, but a few days or a week where the process was halted and a discussion about AfD took place instead might at least move the community, and particularly the AfD regulars, closer to consensus on what the proper purpose and methods of the deletion process should be.
Nothing new is likely to be said, but at least it will make a larger proportion of !voters aware of a larger proportion of the viewpoints. And probably get some users to put some more thought into their own positions.
-Sage
People will wait it out. And during that period will likely respond by shoving more borderline stuff into CSD. Or in the case of admins outright out of process deletion.
Neither of these two is a good outcome.
Attacking the AFD regulars or irregulars head on wont work. They will react by viewing you as enemy and will likely oppose any reforms by default. This is basic wikipedia politics.
Deletion process has been talked about for years. So far the outcomes are:
prod ---> only works where the original creator doesn't dispute.
expand csd ---> I tend to feel we have reached the limit on that one we are already asking for too much judgement.
Limit article creation ---> Adding a few extra days will have limited effect. Preventing the creation of orphans might (generally most of AFD and CSD are orphans) but that is hard to do without a software change and may be a bit harsh.
Other than that the various suggestions have involved little more than tinkering. Ultimately the only way we have of dealing with the hard cases is to sit down and have a !vote.
On 2/27/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/28/07, Sage Ross sage.ross@yale.edu wrote:
This isn't as ridiculous an idea as it seemed (to me) at first glance. Maybe not a month, but a few days or a week where the process was halted and a discussion about AfD took place instead might at least move the community, and particularly the AfD regulars, closer to consensus on what the proper purpose and methods of the deletion process should be.
Nothing new is likely to be said, but at least it will make a larger proportion of !voters aware of a larger proportion of the viewpoints. And probably get some users to put some more thought into their own positions.
-Sage
People will wait it out. And during that period will likely respond by shoving more borderline stuff into CSD. Or in the case of admins outright out of process deletion.
Neither of these two is a good outcome.
Attacking the AFD regulars or irregulars head on wont work. They will react by viewing you as enemy and will likely oppose any reforms by default. This is basic wikipedia politics.
But if this suspension of AfD isn't driven by a specific reform agenda, but merely a discussion aimed at increasing the uniformity and predictability of the deletion process (in light of the waves of negative press for the last few months), it might be possible to avoid most of the potential backlash.
It would be more of a community-building exercise (as cheesy as that sounds) than an attempt to impose outsider (with respect to AfD) ideas. Considering that you (geni) are the most forthright defender of the current deletion system, you seem to have a very low opinion of those who participate in it. I'd like to think that Wikipedians who are far enough into WP culture to be AfD regulars would be more likely than the average editor to have internalized AGF.
-Sage
On 28/02/07, Sage Ross sage.ross@yale.edu wrote:
On 2/27/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
It would be more of a community-building exercise (as cheesy as that sounds) than an attempt to impose outsider (with respect to AfD) ideas. Considering that you (geni) are the most forthright defender of the current deletion system, you seem to have a very low opinion of those who participate in it. I'd like to think that Wikipedians who are far enough into WP culture to be AfD regulars would be more likely than the average editor to have internalized AGF.
Its a shame that these same wikipedians felt AGF to be so "internalised" that they felt it necessary to lower its status so they could deal with vandals without any reference to AGF and still stay within their own self-made "laws" when people challenge them in other decisions.
Peter Ansell
On 28/02/07, Sage Ross sage.ross@yale.edu wrote:
I'd like to think that Wikipedians who are far enough into WP culture to be AfD regulars would be more likely than the average editor to have internalized AGF.
I would too, but the evidence of their manner of comporting themselves suggests otherwise.
- d.
Sage Ross wrote:
But if this suspension of AfD isn't driven by a specific reform agenda, but merely a discussion aimed at increasing the uniformity and predictability of the deletion process (in light of the waves of negative press for the last few months), it might be possible to avoid most of the potential backlash.
Perhaps another way to lessen the backlash while still motivating discussion and change would be to put temporary moratoriums on particular subject areas? In this case, for example, we could say "no more webcomic-related AfDs for a month while we work on a better policy to handle the subject area".
That way the people who fret about the dire consequences of not deleting marginal articles as fast as possible won't feel quite so panicked by the prospect of stuff accumulating for a month, and after the month was over it'd be easier to survey the new arrivals that went unAfDed in the meantime. Heck, it might allow time for articles that would normally be deleted to improve to the point where they survive even without major policy changes. That by itself would be useful.
On 2/28/07, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
Sage Ross wrote:
But if this suspension of AfD isn't driven by a specific reform agenda, but merely a discussion aimed at increasing the uniformity and predictability of the deletion process (in light of the waves of negative press for the last few months), it might be possible to avoid most of the potential backlash.
Perhaps another way to lessen the backlash while still motivating discussion and change would be to put temporary moratoriums on particular subject areas? In this case, for example, we could say "no more webcomic-related AfDs for a month while we work on a better policy to handle the subject area".
That way the people who fret about the dire consequences of not deleting marginal articles as fast as possible won't feel quite so panicked by the prospect of stuff accumulating for a month, and after the month was over it'd be easier to survey the new arrivals that went unAfDed in the meantime. Heck, it might allow time for articles that would normally be deleted to improve to the point where they survive even without major policy changes. That by itself would be useful.
Random idea to throw into pot:
We use AFD right now to cover a whole lot of different reasons by which one might want to delete an article.
Possible improvement: Develop separate processes for each reason one might have for deleting an article.
Some ideas along these lines:
Unreferenced and thought to be unreliable - something like Prod, with a longer timeout, see if anyone will come along and provide suitable refs, else it goes. Soft deletion (can be restored if someone comes along with good refs)
Notability - still a sticking point.
(and so on)
On 2/28/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
Possible improvement: Develop separate processes for each reason one might have for deleting an article.
We had that a couple years ago... copyright issues, unverified/hoax, (I forget what all the groups were), were separated into separate VFD subpages. Did that go away at some point?
-- Jake Nelson [[en:User:Jake Nelson]]
On 3/1/07, Jake Nelson duskwave@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/28/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
Possible improvement: Develop separate processes for each reason one might have for deleting an article.
We had that a couple years ago... copyright issues, unverified/hoax, (I forget what all the groups were), were separated into separate VFD subpages. Did that go away at some point?
[[WP:CP]] and speedy for copyvios.
On 28/02/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
People will wait it out. And during that period will likely respond by shoving more borderline stuff into CSD. Or in the case of admins outright out of process deletion. Neither of these two is a good outcome.
This happens already.
Attacking the AFD regulars or irregulars head on wont work. They will react by viewing you as enemy and will likely oppose any reforms by default. This is basic wikipedia politics.
This has been happening two years. So, no new problem to deal with.
Other than that the various suggestions have involved little more than tinkering. Ultimately the only way we have of dealing with the hard cases is to sit down and have a !vote.
I propose shutting down the process for some hard thinking about what lies underneath. So far we have a lot of people utterly convinced they're right and that anyone who disagrees is an idiot at best.
- d.
On 2/28/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
This has been happening two years. So, no new problem to deal with.
More than three years, really.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/htdig/wikien-l/2003-November/
See in particular the thread labeled "Rampant Deletionism", where much of this was said almost verbatim. (And wherein I argued for a moratorium on VFD.) Many of the other threads are about the state of VFD at the time.
There's probably similar discussions from before I was an admin, but I was barely able to remember that one.
-- Jake Nelson [[en:User:Jake Nelson]]