Metaweb:Governance debate
(Redirected from Metaweb:Governance ideas)
This list was originally posted to Metaweb:An explanation of the similarities and differences between Wikipedia and Metaweb by an anonymous user.
Pat "moved it to an authored page because it reflects an individual's view of how the Metaweb should work. I also thought it a large enough list that it makes sense to give it its own space. If we come to any conclusions about governance, I'll summarize them on Metaweb:An explanation of the similarities and differences between Wikipedia and Metaweb. --Pat 09:33, 17 Oct 2003 (PDT)
However, it is actually more of a debate, and now includes commentary by two figures. More is invited. If you wish to take a single specific position on this debate, write an authored essay.
There is no formal template yet for a debate page, other than talk pages. This is more of an issue-by-issue structure, not so chronological.
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- governance, hopefully - the Wikipedia project is in/famous for various bad things no one would want to emulate:
Systematically ignoring the fact that the number of people with fast connections and spare time tends to heavily skew the entries to a US, UK, native English speaking and Western white male point of view.
Banning anyone who points this out consistently.
Trying to run every policy decision top-down using a mailing list, requiring people to use a quite different suite of software than that they use to edit. And, address themselves in English to people who speak only English. This can hardly be fair to those who need a dispute mediated in one of the other 40 languages Wikipedia supports.
Having no formal Mediator Role or indeed no formal roles at all other than "sysop" powers which are daily abused by those with the favour of the clique that owns the servers - which most of the other-language Wikipedias want rid of since they slow everything down anyway.
Having no formal Role:Editor for making the kind of serious policy decisions that any encyclopedia must make.
Not following their own rules or procedures even where they have some.
Changing rules and procedures about once a week, so even if you tried, you couldn't track them.
Breaking the terms of the GNU FDL they champion, in at least ten specific ways.
Other stuff that leads MeatballWiki, WikiWikiWorld, and others, to specifically say "we're not like Wikipedia" over and over again...
As a long-time Wikipedia contributor and often a critic, I need to say that the above is a bit over the top in its criticisms of Wikipedia. The mailing list is a real problem. Not having formal roles is a good thing. I seriously doubt they're breaking the terms of the GFDL. They don't ban "anyone" who points out that the Internet is western-centric. They only ban people who are incapable of working with other people. You can see my less bug-up-rear comments on Wikipedia governance, equally applicable here: How to build Wikipedia. --The Cunctator
The mailing list is a real problem. The mailing list is probably the problem, ultimately. Only a few contributors post things there, those that do often distort facts, and it's all in English. Any attempt to do governance by any other means, such as the aborted attempts to start dialogues with people using "/ban" and later "/mediator" pages, is systematically crushed by Wales or his cabal. Even attempts to describe how the project itself defines itself get attacked, e.g. the article on self-reference, amazingly, doesn't even mention the list of articles where Wikipedia tracks itself. Thus self-organization is deliberately retarded, and those interested in self-reference and self-organization as one path to governance are systematically prevented from seeing that there are alternative ways to organize than "begging in Full English on the mailing list". Not having formal roles is a good thing. There are arguments both ways on this. Surely you don't believe that those who try to prototype formal roles, such as the Mediator or User Advocate, should be attacked, IP-blocked and legally threatened simply for starting a dialogue on what these roles might be, and inviting a group of willing participants to work out the job description? I seriously doubt they're breaking the terms of the GFDL. They clearly are, and there was a list of ten ways they were doing so floating around about a year ago. Even the normally obtuse mailing list crowd acknowledged that it could become a problem. Notable terms they break include (a) FDL requires visibly crediting up to five authors, they credit none, not even on printable versions where it would be easy to do (b) FDL requires that the original source text (in wikitext presumably) be available to literally anyone who reads the content, but, an IP-block, which is commonly applied, prevents one not just from editing but also from getting that source text. The only way to actually get the content in original source form is to install a very specific and flaky bit of software (what they now call mediawiki) and commit to a lifetime of slavery to MySQL, in order to keep it running. Then of course they let people show up and publish libel. They don't ban "anyone" who points out that the Internet is western-centric. That's not what I said. I said anyone who points this out consistently, i.e. who tries to do anything systematic about solving it, who wades in on the side of various underdogs who are under-represented, etc. - doing these things makes one a target. Just ask User:Anthere or User:Ed Poor who do it regularly. If they didn't show up on the mailing list and speak eloquently about every other day in their own defense, they'd have been banned as well. And organized groups like the pro-Likud Israel crowd has now started to identify its enemies and find excuses to attack them. In many cases just making up those excuses. They only ban people who are incapable of working with other people. Nonsense. They've banned several people who are only incapable of running around like a rat in a maze to satisfy ever-changing conditions of participation, of pleasing the mailing-list crowd with their wrong ideas about governance, or incapable of working with Wales. There are lots of examples of folks working with others who get attacked and banned by the mailing list crowd, who treat each other's decisions as precedents. The people so attacked are quite capable of "working with other people" - they are just probably not capable of working under a GodKing. According to MeatballWiki etc., who study these things, that is a common trait. There are other comments at Wikipedia Governance, "governance", systemic bias, status quo, power structure, Internet Authority Disease, faction and factionalism, and probably most constructively at linguistic democracy in a multilingual project. See also meta User:Mediator for a process to do something about the latter.
I'll only respond to the GFDL stuff: for one, the "five authors" requirement refers to modified versions of an original document--Wikipedia isn't distributing modified versions, but the original document. Thus it doesn't need to list the authors. Moreover, at least early on, when this issue was originally raised, it was agreed that we wanted the entries to be genuinely collaborative and to go under the collective authorship idea. Or I should say, I pushed that issue and it wasn't really well picked up. So there should be some more work on that but it's only for redistribution purposes--Wikipedia isn't violating the authorship clause currently. You're more or less right about the download dumps. The UseModWiki output was nicely XMLed. It's irresponsible for the download dumps now not to be. But instead of making ad hominem attacks and whining about MySQL, you'd be better served making a constructive effort to improve the situation. --The Cunctator Oh, one other thing. You do realize that you're talking to the original number one critic of the project? And I admit, I've basically stopped editing there because I've become disgusted with how the governance has been progressing. It's just too bad that you're upset by a number of red herrings (e.g. Jimmy Wales is not the problem).--The Cunctator
...Thus it doesn't need to list the authors. There are other interpretations of this. But let us save it for the actual lawsuits. ...Wikipedia isn't violating the authorship clause currently. That's one legal opinion, and probably you are not a lawyer...? There are also a lot of other issues - the list is floating around. ...But instead of making ad hominem attacks and whining about MySQL, you'd be better served making a constructive effort to improve the situation. The most constructive effort would be 1. create a wikitext standard to eventually ditch MySQL and mediawiki in favour of some serious software. 2. fix the governance of each language wiki to the point where it can/must ignore the mailing list 3. mass bans of sysops who ban others for political reasons, of whom there are many. ...Jimmy Wales is not the problem. You are right - it is Wales' beliefs about governance that are the problem. But get rid of him, and the mere process of replacing him would yield constructive results.
Please don't repond inline to my comments. It would also help matters if you signed your comments. This, admittedly, is a problem created by mediawiki not being designed for conversations. --The Cunctator
Refused on both counts. EVERYONE responds inline to comments on wiki talk-like pages. A new set of standards cannot be developed for the wikis when everyone else has learned email, chat, and similar standards, all of which include inline threating. As long as it remains clear (via indents or whatever) that someone who CHOSE to sign wrote a given comment, and it isn't changed, there is no confusion. Those who do not wish to sign should not be forced to attach their paragraphs together. Nor should they be forced to attach many comments together by assuming an identity. In any case, any Wiki that uses anything less than full biometric identification also permits those technologically-enabled to actually add every line from a different IP number, making it impossible to track who wrote what, if those who did are determined not to be tracked. So allowing ANY anonymous IP or newly-created-account input whatsoever necessarily implies no reliable means of attribution for comments. Get used to it. If you have a problem with that, you must advocate banning all anonymous IP input. It is your own comfort at not having "a person" with a consistent "identity" that you can track and assign "reputation" that bothers you here. But this of course is an issue with the wiki medium itself.
And, of course, we are not on a Talk: page here, so, either of us (or anyone else) is free to alter the structure of the information in such a way as to maximize the benefit third parties get from it. If you wish the threading and attribution perfectly preserved, by all means move it to the Metaweb_talk:Governance_ideas page instead. But on a non-talk page, the Page History is enough to establish who wrote what, this page should not and cannot be organized for the reputation benefit of any one person trying to differentiate his own "voice". If you wish that, you can write "authored articles" under your own name, and ignore what is written here by "the community", as you erroneously call it.
See also "factionalism" - something Wikipedia keeps trying to avoid by adding new layers of bureaucracy.
This denial is really the root of the problem.