Summary: I read today that only 6% of the people on the planet have ever logged into the Internet. Only about half have ever used a telephone. So Erik's concerns about schoolchildren in India do resonate with me. I just think it's too early to settle on any particular certification scheme.
erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:
You may find it disturbing, but the truth is that there are people like Jimbo who can make high level decisions, and there are sysops that have more power than ordinary users. Many of these decisions already happen in places that most people don't know about (e.g. the mailing list). Glossing over the truth doesn't make it go away: there is a Wikipedia cabal.
To the extent this is true, we should work to make it less true. Keep in mind that sysop status is open to anyone. Sysop powers should be kept to just what is absolutely minimally necessary. The mailing list should be (and is, I think) promoted to such an extent that anyone with an interest in policy can understand that this is where to come for most policy discussions, etc.
The problem with getting comfortable with a cabal is that it will tend to make us lazy about our commitment to openness.
I have already suggested a voting scheme that would democratize the decision processes by the inevitable administration. Aside from extreme opinions like "voting doesn't work", I see few arguments against that. We need to talk openly about this kind of stuff, or what you find disturbing will turn into a nightmare eventually.
Well, voting _doesn't_ work, and I don't think that's an extreme opinion.
The wiki procedure is to try to get near unanimous consensus. This is done in the writing of articles, and is inherent to the wiki process. Authors work together to meet the objections of others, not to campaign for sufficient numbers to vote down the opposing point of view. We simulate that process, imperfectly but to a large degree, in policy decision making.
So what I am suggesting is an alternative viewing mode that would *never* be the default but optional. It would allow me to browse a Wikipedia where the article about Mozart *can* not just have been replaced by an image from goatse.cx. Instead, I would view the last certified version of that article, which hopefully would be brilliant prose.
I think it is inevitable that we, or someone, will someday create such a thing. One proposal sometimes bandied about is that Nupedia could become a repository for peer-reviewed articles from wikipedia.
As a matter of fact, it would hopefully attract all those skeptics that are afraid that something like the above happens to their sacro-sanct articles -- it could still happen, but they could find peace of mind in the fact that the vandalized version would never be certified.
I think that the tiny percentage of people who treat their own writing as sacrosanct will not be comfortable with any free-license writing project.
Last but not least, we should not forget that WP is intended to be a useful tool, not just for those who like to write, but for those who like to read, too. Be it interested adults or curious children, rich or poor, we want Wikipedia to be accessible. We may want to distribute it on CD- ROMs and on paper. Then how on Earth are the schoolchildren in India going to wade through megabytes of Middle Earth mythology and stubs, if not if we supply them with at least the option to filter articles according to criteria developed collaboratively by various teams, working together to find the sparkling gems among the ocean we are creating?
"Being a wiki" doesn't mean that we shouldn't extend the original wiki functionality. Had we stayed with that, Wikipedia would have never become that big. We would still be using CamelCase.
I totally agree with all of this. But I'm not sure that the time is ripe just yet. Perhaps in another year. I'm open to alternative points of view on this, but I think we're not close enough yet to "well rounded" to start seriously worrying about these issues.
--Jimbo