The topic came up and was swiftly lost in traffic... so I'm going to try to bring this up without connecting it to specific Wikipedians.

At what level, if any, is full transparency necessary at Wikipedia (or any volunteer organization, for that matter)?

In my opinion, and it is only my opinion, transparency is necessary for anyone higher than "administrator". This would include ArbCom, checkusers, oversights, bureaucrats, and stewards.

They have too much control over the content, day-to-day operations, and controls of Wikipedia to be allowed to be pseudonymous.

Or to put it another way -- would you trust the day-to-day operations of, say, the Boy Scouts, March of Dimes, Salvation Army, or (changing gears) Encyclopedia Brittanica to people named JoeUser123, whose faces and real names you never saw and who you knew nothing about? Of course you wouldn't.

So why are the day-to-day operations of "the encyclopedia anyone can edit" in as many pseudonymous hands as they are?

If Wikipedia wants to be trusted, it needs to be transparent.

Of course, it also needs to have a standard set of rules that are outside "anyone can edit", and that are enforced uniformly across the site... but I think that might happen over time if real people instead of pseudonyms were responsible for the site.

Because nobody is named, nobody is responsible.

Because nobody is responsible, a semi-functional (but deteriorating) anarchy is in place.

Transparency is necessary to reverse course.

That's my opinion. What's yours?

The problem is that it's tricky with an information resource. Personally, I think anyone with the administrative bit should be willing to give up their anonyminity as part of the package, but I totally get the argument about anonymous editors writing as well.

At the end of the day, the who of writing the article doesn't matter much to me - the cabalistic POV aspects are more important to address, and as long as the article is accurate and is written from sources, it shouldn't matter who wrote it. It's when those who have a modicum of control over the situation at hand that problems persist, and that's when the transparency aspect should become more important.

Want to remain anonymous? Stay out of areas of power. Want power? Prove who you are. No one gets hurt as a result.

Anyone who is writing BLPs on a site purporting to be an encyclopedia should be identifiable, so they can be held responsible for what they write about other identifiable living people.

It's not just BLPs. Material about identifiable living people can turn up anywhere.

Even here.

Are you talking about proving who you are to the Wikimedia Foundation or simply having a public identity ala Citizendium? I can think of a few situations I've seen over the years where someone got blocked, tried to ID the blocking admin, then went on a harassment bender against the blocking admin, including phone calls to their work/home, etc. Depending on the skills of the person who is doing the identification, they may or may not have even harassed the right person. Granted, these cases are the exception rather than the norm, but as someone who is an unpaid volunteer on a website, I can say that I'd have no desire or intention of willingly revealing my personal information to the public in exchange for keeping my admin bit... and I can't say I'd particularly trust the Foundation to certify the identity or credentials of any Wikipedia participant with any real expectation of accuracy. I think you would see quite a few admins bow out if they were forced to identify themselves publicly, both the good and bad.

(and I think Moulton's point though about the identity of editors in regards to biographical articles is a valid concern as well)

I don't much care if an anonymous contributor is filling in details of how many times Kenny died or which housewife is the most desperate. I do care if anonymous editors are writing stories about identified living persons, especially those in academia.

My opinion:

"Replayed" in part from other threads...... the topic is about time and the law.


Privacy? There is no such thing as privacy when someone wants to be a leader of an internet mob.

If a person wants to be a "public person," they must take the necessary steps to do just that.
(e.g., NewYorkBrad ran for a public office at Wikipedia with no intention of releasing his real name and credentials? That is absurd.)

Would anyone in their right mind invest in or trust the board of any company if all of the leaders of same wear masks and parade around in costumes never fully revealing their real identities or credentials.

Transparency does not equal trust, albeit, without transparency there is no way trust can exist.

It is axiomatic that anyone in a position of authority and leadership; fully integrated into the management of any corporate entity, regardless of size and the tax status therein, must, in fact, fully disclose their identity and purpose and / or motives to the general public, to be in said place.

To hold a person out to be an officer of any legitimate court of a competent jurisdiction, within the U.S.A., and assumption that said officer is, in fact; at the same time representing clients in such a capacity, indeed, as an officer of the said court, that person by rights and by law, must fully disclose their credentials to all parties and gain approval from the law offices of their employer in said jurisdiction.

It is my belief that the position held by Brad, at Wikipedia, will necessitate time away from any real office of the law and will deny real live legal clients their due process.

It is also my belief that the feaux court of Wikipedia that Brad has joined, makes a mockery of the real laws and real hierarchy of legal knowledge that is the foundation of modern western law.

L.N.

Not necessarily. The foundation of modern western law is grounded in a belief that dates back at least 3750 years. I am referring to the belief in Law and Order — the notion that rule-driven systems yield orderly, stable, and predictable socio-regulatory dynamics.

I dare say that 95% of Homo Schleppians still believe in the doctrine of Law and Order.

But among the remaining 5% are the handful of mathematicians, systems thinkers, sociologists, theologians, and dramatists who know better.

It is now known, both theoretically and empirically, that rule-driven systems are inherently chaotic, yielding liminal social drama at best and lunatic scapegoat psychodrama at worst.

What might come of the Faux Court at Wikipedia is sufficient evidence to support the insight that rule-driven systems are not a particularly functional approach to system regulation, primarily due to the nonlinear, discrete, and quantum nature of the haphazard outcomes of judicial processes.

The fact that judicial processes are also erratic only clouds the underlying discovery that they are inherently flawed, even when operated as fairly and efficiently as possible.

Nothing would please me more if someone of the caliber of NewYorkBrad tumbled to that revelatory insight.

Adam, I'd say public identity, period. Editing a website isn't a right, and having power on a website even less so

There are two distinct issues being confounded here.

Out in the Real World it would be a complete No-Brainer to tell the issues apart, but we have to thank the Victims of Wikipediot Brain Rot for the Persistent Inanity of this discussion.

That's okay, I'm not in my sinecures yet — though I do see the day when I'll be done with trying to change Wikipediots' dirty diapers, or even standing at distance and pointing at them.

Back in a flush …

Jonny

If the WMF, or whoever it delegated such powers to, had the moral authority and trust to be the custodian of identities, then there might be a case to argue that some people who needed pseudonymity might be afforded it. However, there is no institution within Wikipedia which commands public respect, in part due to the failure of Jimbo to establish proper public accountability, therefore that is not an option. There should never be total anonymity, there is the path to abuse.

If we were protecting the identity of fighters for truth and knowledge of those in China, then I would have far more interest in the subject, but mechanisms to protect them, such as open proxies, are banned. Instead the system seems designed to protect those who do not seem to need protection except by dint of their antagonistic approach on WP or plain paranoia, for example, SlimVirgin (who seems to qualify on both grounds).

I don't really see editing WP as such an important venture that there is a need to hide and edit: if the editors are either so threatened as to be at genuine risk, why bother, otherwise it is just paranoia feedback to pander to the anonymity nonsense. It encourages abuse without any counterbalance.

I agree with you there Jeff, it isn't a right (and it isn't even much of a privilege). I'm just saying that while I'm not personally active at Wikipedia anymore, if I were and the rules changed to "post your real name or hand over your sysop bit", I would most certainly be handing over sysop, and I suspect that there would be quite a few other administrators who might do the same. When I think about it, quite a few of the most abusive admins are publicly identifiable people who have freely posted their real names at some point. In practice, I'm not sure that requiring public identification will necessarily fix some of the more systemic abuse that happens at Wikipedia, at least at the admin+ level, though it certainly might be useful for combating libel.

Since editing a website isn't a right, the "power" in question isn't much of a power at all.

Correct, unless said power can be used to directly influence the events of history. Let's face it, there are people who will read a Wikipedia article and repeat it as fact unless/until they discover something that contradicts it.

True, but these are the same people who will swear that their cousin's sister-in-law's best friend had a beehive hairdo with spiders living in it, and they were eating her brain!

They may repeat it even after they discover something that contradicts it. I've definitely heard acquaintances repeating old, debunked urban legends well after someone has brought the true story to their attention.

Then how does an admin, or even an "admin+", have more "power" in that sense than an IP vandal using an open proxy. And, before you say it - the ability to make bad edits stick is not a function of being an admin etc.

The ability to make bad edits stick is not a function of being an admin, true. But at some level, the power to make bad edits stick must be backed up by some admin blocking users or protecting articles. Otherwise, someone more dedicated comes along, and you can't make your bad edits stick anymore.

Actually, the way it's structured now, even if no one was anonymous or pseudonymous, no one would take responsibility.

Administrators can be held responsible (thought usually aren't) for misuse of the buttons, but never for failure to use them. Ordinary editors and administrators alike can be held responsible (though administrators again usually aren't) for bad contributions or misbehavior, but not for neglecting to check the contributions and misbehaviors of others.

So when something goes horribly wrong, no one is to blame except that one individual; thus no systemic changes are mandated.