Having recently decided that Wikipedia's survival is none of my business, not one way nor another, and that it should be evaluated and analyzed from a completely external vantage point I am ready to go one step further. I'm ready to take a lesson from behavioral psychology and object oriented programming and adopt a black box model of Wikipedia. I want an understanding based on stimulus -> response, parameters in and returned values out.

Reading RfCs, ArbCom proceedings and talk page discussions are of no more value in understanding Wikipedia as a form of social media than listening to dreams of psychoanalysis patients. Much can be said about it. A whole literature can be built around the conceits and vanities of the subject. But at the end of the day it does not explain anything in any meaningful way.

That the policies, investigations, on wiki personalities and drama are great entertainment but explain little. It is strongly suspected by many that a whole other game, based on influence and alliances, is in play and operates beyond the reach, or even understanding of people who showed up to edit a collaborative encyclopedia.

This shifts the discussion away from WP internal processes and looks to outside standards of responsibility from the view of the BLP victim, unjustly banned user, frustrated scholars and constituencies aggrieved by a lack of editorial restraint. It means that the tools of litigation, outside dispute resolution, public relations, legislation and social advocacy are embraced while endless wonkery is eschewed. This is the only way to spare myself of the dreary working of that charnel house.

That was downright lyrical and poetic.

Herr Perlenspiel's prufrockian lament reverberates many of the things that I've been saying from the beginning of my time here about the Purpose of Criticism. I think that most concerned observers are bound to reach this point eventually, if their calling is so compelling that they cannot simply give up the Geist and wait for whatever comes in a remote enough resort to afford themselves the aesthetic distance and the moral luxury of comedy.

There is another dimension, however, that goes beyond the Critique of Works to the Probation of Systems.

But sufficient unto the day are the tributes thereof …

Jon Awbrey

I think that you're absolutely right. The system is part of the problem and the system exists to create the problem, so to solve the problem, you have to ignore the system.

Thanks for stating it so clearly.

Not all that many people are into Systems Theory. But if you are, Wikipedia is an interesting example of haphazardly crafted system with a maladaptive regulatory structure. However, it is unlikely the system will ever be reformed into something more functional or appropriate to the goal of crafting a legitimate encyclopedia.

Let us not forget that System Identification (¤ SI(GH) ¤) is one of the fundamental problems of Systems Theory.

With that in mind, I think I can fairly say that Wikipedia is amazingly well-crafted to its purpose.

It's just that so many observers mis-identify the purpose of the system.

Now why is that?

Jonny