Here are the current contributors to the debate: http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?t...&action=history

I do this to illustrate a point. The 'editors' here represent extreme and opposite viewpoints on sexual content seen in the recent uproar. (Although the advocates of including hard-core pornography seem to have the advantage). And that as I have commented here many times is the Wikipedian way: any controversial issue will attract only the extreme proponents on each side. Neutral views tend to be excluded for many reasons, including the fact that people with neutral views aren't that interested, and that no sane or reasonable person would be editing Wikipedia in the first place.

Contrast the Wikipedian system of polarisation with the way it happens in real life, which is the very reverse. The system in most societies is to have a class of people called 'the great and the good'. These are people who have worked their way through 'the system' in business or academia, or even (as in the UK until very recently) to have inherited privileges. I am not saying this is a brilliant system, far from it, but it does ensure that the end product is socialised and normalised in some way. You can't work your way up in business or politics without some appreciation of how to deal with people, and to appreciate both sides of an issue, you can't succeed in academia without the ability to judge a position neutrally and by considering the evidence on both sides in a detached way. Also, the power and influence that results in being nominated for a committee of the great and good is an incentive to attract the truly neutral. I am not saying it's a great system - it has a tendency to corrupt, and a strong tendency to preserve the interests of a whole class of people that don't represent ordinary society.

Oneof the fascinating things about Wikipedia is that it is a laboratory, a work in progress, for a society that is run in quite a different way, radically different from the old one. My view so far is that the old one, for all its flaws and inherent defects, is in all respects superior to the Wikipedian model.

Wikipedia does indeed run in quite a different way from the one that exists in contemporary culture, but Wikipedia does not run in a way that is newer or more advanced or more evolved from contemporary culture. Rather Wikipedia is run in a way that was common some 4000 years ago, prior to the advent of civilization as we have come to know it. Technically speaking, Wikipedia adopts a pre-Hammurabic tribal model that few people today would recognize as long-forgotten phase of human society, pre-dating the advent of the Rule of Law.

One would hope that it takes less than 4000 more years for them to introduce some reasonable form of governance.

Not holding my breath though.

Even if you bathed them in pure Oxygen, they still wouldn't catch up to where Hammurabi got us, some 3700 years ago.

Moulton is generally correct. I found that open discussion groups, back in the 1980s, tended to move toward a kind of mob interaction that could be highly abusive. I was excited by the new process of having discussions where the whole discussion was available, readily read. I'd done a lot of work with meetings in person, and meeting process, and, here, when a dispute arose, the entire genesis of it could (often) be seen.

And then I discovered that people formed, held, asserted, and insisted on opinions without having read the history. They did so based on immediate reactions. If someone was complaining about being abused, they could tell that this person was angry (often correct, but not always) and obsessed (also not unreasonable, sometimes, but also sometimes incorrect). And such people should be excluded. The only protection against actual exclusion and/or continual disruption was intervention by a more-detached moderator. Tribal model, with a tribal leader or judge. Very old model. Good judge, works well. Poor judge, not well at all, but such tribes would generally become rapidly extinct. Discussion groups that weren't well run would frequently die. But some didn't, perhaps they were sitting, so to speak, at a crossroads, prominent, attracting all or almost all new interest in the topic.

Wikipedia developed at a crossroads, becoming, from historical accident rather than necessarily something it did well, dominant in its field. Because of the constant influx, it seemed that it could escape the necessity for good governance, for a long time. But it's been fouling its nest, building up resentment and bad reputation. It's hard to tell if it's gone too far or if it is recoverable. It's still so dominant that other startups have great difficulty gaining enough user momentum, vide Citizendium, perhaps one of the best placed. And still with an inadequate model.

Wikipedia has more or less dumped the tribal leader, who has become a kind of figurehead, but this wasn't replaced with another leader or with functional governance structures that would be reliable. Given the legal situation, I'd say, every one of the WikiMedia wikis should have a "servant" with, at least bureaucrat privileges and authority to act on behalf of the Foundation. This could be a person elected by the community (hey, it could be done without an actual election, in ways that would confer other benefits, that's my specialty, in fact), subject to the approval of the Foundation, who would be a kind of executive, normally not active, but able to intervene quickly when needed.

I've also been seeing comment that the Polish wikipedia has an ArbComm that is far more functional. It can be done.

I wholeheartedly concur with Abd's commentary, above. Perhaps if more people understand just how anachronistic Wikipedia's governance model is, they would be less likely to think of it as some wonderful new grand experiment in a novel and untried community model.

Why replace one kind of weird-ass-made-up-on-the-fly kind of governance with another weird-ass- made-up-on-the-fly governance? What is needed is to implement normal responsible forms of non-profit governance with clear lines of authority. End the shell game of accountability avoidance that is facilitated by the community/WMF duality. Bring some representation from responsible sectors of the wider world and curb the dominance of of the spoiled child community on the board.

If they are charged to act on behalf of WMF they should not be elected by the community. They should be appointed by the trustees. I guess you've learned nothing from the recent porn riots other than it was fun take pot shots at Mr. Wales.

I don't think he was talking about replacement. As I understand it, this proposal would add another layer to the game. This added complexity will make it a richer, more fun experience for the regular players, and will give them another advantage over the newbies who are still learning the rules.

This is due in part to the recently adopted "three-prevert" rule.

Moulton, Hammurabi was an idiot who apparently thought that strong swimmers were better people who should be less subject to the law.

Yah, I know, but his ideas were marginally more advanced than those of the tribal culture who went before him. His idea of what constituted due process was remarkably quaint, but at least he had some notion of due process. As Lar famously pointed out, WP didn't have any notion of due process whatsoever.

Lar wasn't the first to say that. I was.

Lar was the first to say it to me, on WP.

But just out of curiosity, where and when did you first say it?

Well, I said it in July 2008 in a thread about Lar (Lar to Suffer the Inquisition):

http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&sh...ndpost&p=115665



Gee, I used to be smarter than I am. Maybe it's just the extra inspiration of stumbling upon these things anew, when by now I take them for granted, and expect everybody else here on WR to do so as well.

Edit: Just found that the Kohser had noted WP's lack of due process 2 months before, in May 2008. The search function on this site sucks greatly, but so far as I can tell Kohs may actually be first. Damn you, Kohs:

http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&sh...ndpost&p=100342

Umm, Lar (and also GR Berry) said it to me, on the English Wikipedia, on May 15-16, 2008.

Well, Kohs said it here May 9, six days before that. Anybody else have a claim?

Note that I raised the question of due process before ArbCom on December 9, 2007. Therein, I asserted my own view that I had not been afforded diligent due process, and I asked ArbCom to review my case to affirm or refute my assertion that I had not been afforded diligent due process.

ArbCom declined to take up the question. Six months later, Lar and GR Berry explained why ArbCom had been reluctant to take up my question -- because their honest answer would have been that not only was I indeed denied due process (e.g, in a one-off out-of-process exception to normal procedures), but that the project simply doesn't do due process at all, full stop (and my case was therefore not exceptional in that regard).

YOU WERE THERE … March 29, 2008

It was, of course, a day like any other day …

Thanks! and a Tip o' th' Hat to Copernic

Jon