Monkeys hold key to successful career

IF you occasionally walk into the office thinking "this place is run by chimpanzees", you may well be right.

Two things came to mind when reading this article. Its direct relevance to modern politics and the way wikipedia is run. Jane Goodall points out some remarkable similarities between humans and our closest relative.


"For example -- see if this doesn't ring a bell -- in a typical chimp group, there will be an alpha male who is the most powerful. As the alpha male becomes more powerful, he brings his supporters through the ranks with him."

Like the way Jimmy Wales didn't take Larry Sanger through the ranks with him. Not after he dared to question the "sole founder" claim Jimmy made.

"When an alpha male is displaced, it causes changes in the whole group. A displaced alpha male can quickly slide in the ranking, and almost overnight can become one of the lowest-ranked chimps. "

I thought this might have happened the other day.

Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales Out of a Job

Ofcourse it was just a joke. Unfortunately.

"A male that is seeking to become the next alpha male will, as much as possible, keep out of the alpha male's way and be respectful to his face."

That pretty much describes half of the administrators at Wikipedia.

"On the other hand, not everybody wants to be the alpha male. Those who do challenge for the top job might get bitten (literally in the case of the chimps) and instead prefer to therefore hang about, doing little. "

Again, that pretty much describes the other half.

"When the alpha male feels threatened, his hair stands on ends and he screeches."

Anyone got a link to one of those tantrums Jimmy routinely throws when he is challenged about founding Wikipedia?

Dr Goodall said the most successful chimp groups had a leader who was not aggressive.

"The best ones are ... self-confident, smart and have alliances," she said. "And as soon as you lose the alpha male, you have absolute chaos."

That explains the mess at Wikipedia. There is no serious Alpha Male. Therefore the apes are running the zoo. Complete chaos.

How would you establish an herd-like dominance hierarchy in a system that removes the possibility of physical intimidation? You have to find some other way, and on Wikipedia, they do it by imposing artificial restrictions on objectionable behavior. I'm not sure they have any choice in the matter, in fact.

In theory, someone redesigning the MediaWiki administrative schema from the ground up might try implementing a kind of "dominance ranking" system, similar to that of other role-playing games, whereby administrators could accumulate ranking points for doing good deeds. Admins with higher rankings could then use their status to overrule other admins, and voting on necessary policies and reforms could (again, theoretically) be weighted by those same rankings. Voting itself would have to be more systematized and formalized to take the rankings into account...

However, any such system would probably be worse than the current one. It might be less hidebound and more able to implement necessary new rules and such in a reasonable period of time, but it would still be too easily gamed, and you'd still have the problem of rule-by-whoever-has-the-most-time-to-waste.

The beehive is still a more accurate animal-kingdom representation of WP's internal workings, because bees generally don't sting each other. If it weren't for the enforced civility, though, I'd have to say something like a snake-pit would be a better analogy.

Beehives and snake pits are well organised. I still think Wikipedia more closely resembles a zoo. Wild animals are generally of a sound mind but zoo critters display all sorts of mental instability.

Intimidation doesn't have to be physical. Trying to talk someone else down by appealing to authority figures or boasting of your own personal achievements is a form of mental intimidation aimed at sandbagging and gagging an alternative opinion.

Wikipedia is supposed to be the encyclopedia anyone can edit. That signals equality. Sure, you can edit stuff. But good luck winning an edit war against a gang of administrators who know all the intricate rules of the place.

Dominance hierarchies are fine for competitive cultures (like tournaments and MMPORGs), but they are anathema to collaborative and creative cultures. But note that successful tournament systems employ scrupulously impartial judges and referees who are neither competitors nor allies of competitors. In the Olymplics, when judges were perceived to be partial to competitors from their own nationalities, it undermined public confidence in the fairness and legitimacy of the games.

In Wikipedia, you have something more like Survivor where the participants vote each other off the island via a corrupt political process full of drama and intrigue. Elimination tournaments have their place in the culture of thunderdome sports and global thermonuclear war, but I see little connection between that and compiling an authentic encyclopedia.

You do know it's a TV show, dontcha, Moulton?

Jon

It is? No wonder my webcam is so fucking large!

Give enough chimpanzees a keyboard, and eventually they will produce Shakespeare.

Give enough humans a keyboard, and eventually they will produce Wikipedia.