User:FNMF
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Contents |
[edit] On Wikipedia
From a cybernetic point of view, the success or failure of the Wikipedia project might be conceived as a matter of calculating the following ratio:
(CORRECTIONS + NEW CORRECT FACTS) PER UNIT OF TIME : NEW ERRORS PER UNIT OF TIME
Should this ratio fall below one, then the project could be described as entropic, that is, as losing information at a greater rate than gaining it.
In reality, of course, assessing the character of information is not only a question of whether it is correct or incorrect. Any proper evaluation of the direction of the evolution of Wikipedia must include the question of the relative mediocrity or excellence of the information it contains. If this is the case, then the cybernetic perspective is deficient in failing to recognise that there is an irreducible element of judgment—that is, interpretation—necessary for such an evaluation. This is the true ground of most of the disputes on Wikipedia: beyond disagreements over fact lies differing interpretations of the matter of those facts, and of what facts matter. These are differences grounded in differences of care. It is the inevitable possbility of such differences which makes Wikipedia capable of achieving excellence, but this is also what makes it susceptible to regressive or herdish tendencies.
The relation between editors of an entry is a struggle between the tendency toward competition (in the Greek sense of eris) and the tendency toward community. Each of these—competition and community—is susceptible to regression. When the competitive tendency becomes regressive, it is called war. When the communal tendency becomes regressive, it is called herdishness. The goal of the Wikipedia project must be to encourage editors to strive for competition and community, and to discourage editors from succumbing to their irreducible susceptibility to regression. When these regressive tendencies gain strength around an entry, a "culture" (in a bad sense, as in a bacterial culture) develops consisting of war between herds, and the result is destructive rather than constructive editing. The best must be promoted, and the worst must be demoted, for Wikipedia to project itself forward, or upward.
To defend itself against regressive tendencies, Wikipedia is built upon a hierarchy of powers. And to defend itself against the potential for abuse of these powers, Wikipedia relies on trust: it hopes that those entrusted with power will employ their powers wisely, that is, with a sense of justice and a sense of community. The danger that comes with this hierarchy of powers lies in the fact that, if Wikipedia is a community, it is a virtual one, divorced to a lesser or greater extent from the real world of consequences. Thus the danger is that, divorced from consequences, those entrusted with power may forget or neglect the senses of community and justice which should curb and determine the way in which power is deployed. The risk is thus that those entrusted with power may succumb to the temptations to bully, intimidate, and control. In short, all the regressive tendencies which may afflict Wikipedia editors, are tendencies which may equally afflict administrators and others in the chain of power. Should these tendencies take hold and become hegemonic, the Wikipedia project will cease to be a community and become instead a cult of power—that is, no longer a culture (in a good sense, as in a community of care), lacking the judgment which only a sense of justice can bring, and without which it would be impossible to cultivate the encyclopaedic ends Wikipedia originally projected for itself.
Despite the deficiencies of the cybernetic viewpoint, it is still valid to understand the health and prospects of Wikipedia in terms of the relative strengths of entropic and negentropic tendencies. That is, it is still a question of whether, overall, the entries are improving at a greater rate than they are deteriorating. Although oceans of awfulness remain, and seem to rise higher every day, it is still possible that in the long term the negentropic tendency might be a little stronger than the entropic. This, I believe, is the necessary Wikipedian faith, without which contributors will inevitably sink into despair or retirement.
[edit] On the editing of Christopher Michael Langan
I would like to make some comments on the editing of this entry. My desire to do so is based on an (almost inevitably) incomplete reading of the material here and in the discussion of the CTMU entry. Before I make these comments, I feel compelled to state that I do not have any connection with Mr Langan, knowing of him primarily through the Errol Morris program, and secondarily through material available on the internet. Nor am I a proponent of Langan's work. Nor am I in any way a proponent of intelligent design.
The first comment I would like to make is that the contention that Mr Langan spoke about the CTMU theory and intelligent design is simply not supported by the citation provided. The conference program provided as evidence merely states that Mr Langan will speak about his CTMU. To me this seems plausible, given the degree of Mr Langan's idiosyncratic preoccupations, and his commitment to his own work. He certainly does not seem to me to be the kind of guy given to joining the ranks of a movement of which he is not himself the leader. More to the point, as mentioned, the citation simply does not support the claim, regardless of who ran the conference or what the conference was supposed to be about. It is quite common for a speaker to speak at a conference, but fail to address the purported theme of the conference. How many speakers at conferences really just see the conference as a pretext for whatever barrow it is they wish to push? Given this, it is entirely plausible that Mr Langan spoke at the conference about the CTMU, as the citation states. To insist on more than that (and in the face of denials by a wikipedia editor everybody assumes to be the man himself) is unfair without further evidence.
That brings me to my second comment: there seems to be a will by some editors to "prove" that Langan is a secret agent of intelligent design. That he is associated with intelligent design people is not in doubt, and not denied. But this kind of argument by association is very weak when it comes to assessing the work. If that is all the assessment is based on, then it is based on next to nothing. But if everyone presumes user Asmodeus to be Langan, then what is it he is supposed to be hiding with his constant denials that he is an intelligent design proponent? To me, the relation between Langan and the proponents of intelligent design seems much more like mutual exploitation: the intelligent designers being the kind of people who tend to grab hold of anything that looks like it might help their case; and Langan, a guy who is definitively outside the academy, taking advantage of being offered a platform to speak about his CTMU. If one feels this association reflects poorly on Langan, fair enough, but it is a mistake to feel compelled to prove the association extends further than the evidence indicates. And, truth be told, there is not much evidence. That Langan has stated that the Bible is true "metaphorically" is slim evidence of anything, and hardly spells out a position. To me, what Langan sounds like he means to say with this remark is that what the Bible really meant to say, but can only say metaphorically, is what he says in his CTMU. This may sound grandiose, and it may be unfair to Langan to put it like this, but it certainly doesn't make him a proponent of intelligent design.
And this brings me to my third comment. Asmodeus has on several occasions referred to the distinction between CTMU and intelligent design in terms of the distinction between philosophy and science. It sometimes appears that what Asmodeus is trying to say here is not being understood, even though it is a clear and coherent distinction. The whole point of intelligent design theory, insofar as it is a political Trojan horse, is to escape the limits of religion and philosophy by purporting that intelligent design theory is scientific. This opens the theory to scientific verification or falsification, which is what scientists far and wide have undertaken to do. But the direction of movement, so to speak, is then from religion or philosophy to science, in order to try to win the benefits of being called scientific. The CTMU purports to do something quite to the contrary. It examines and accepts the scientific claims of physics and biology, and purports to offer a non-scientific but nevertheless true and rationally-provable theory operating at a more fundamental level than physics or biology. As non-scientific but rationally true, Langan calls it philosophy. If one has to give things labels, then this seems like a justifiable label for what the CTMU is, regardless of whatever today's exceedingly diverse world of philosophy might consist in. Others might prefer other labels. The point is, however, that this direction of movement (so to speak) is directly opposite to that of intelligent design, and that it is so because the two theories are begun with different motives. Whereas the aim of intelligent design proponents is to assert a scientific basis for religious or philosophical claims (and this is after all the only thing about them that really raises the ire of evolutionary scientists; if intelligent designers stuck to religion or philosophy scientists would only yawn), CTMU tries to move from an acceptance of physics and biology to a more fundamental theory exceeding scientific method. Note that this assessment of what CTMU does is not at all an assessment of the validity of the theory. But what it should make clear is that, whatever actual associations there have been between Langan and intelligent design proponents, the aims, methods, and content of their work is very far from being the same. These points are utterly comprehensible with virtually no understanding of what the CTMU actually says, so editors should not use their belief that the CTMU is incomprehensible or gibberish to justify editing in a way that denies these points. Asmodeus's point is clear (though he probably wouldn't put it in quite these words): insofar as intelligent design is the attempt to garner scientific credibility for what were formerly considered religious contentions, the CTMU cannot be a species of intelligent design theory, because the CTMU explicitly states that it is not verifiable in any ordinary scientific way.
For further information on the poor editing of this entry, see here and here.
Note that the issue of whether to include information about a lawsuit with which Mr Langan was involved led, among other things, to contact with Mr Jimmy Wales. See here.
As a consequence of this contact, Mr Wales made this positive intervention, which he explained clearly here.
Unfortunately, this in turn led to the following petulant response by user Arthur Rubin.
On the issue of whether or not to include the published secondary references collated at Langan's website, see here.
Further clear explanations by Mr Wales here and here.
A further discussion of the relation between CTMU and ID. And also here. And also here.
(Note: a checkuser request about my relationship with user Asmodeus was conducted here.)
For details about the block imposed upon me by FeloniousMonk, see my talk page.
[edit] NOR, BLP and the entry on Christopher Michael Langan: lessons
I would like to make several points in relation to NOR and the entry on Christopher Michael Langan, which was discussed above (I am an involved editor, if only for the past week). I will try to keep discussion of the details of the entry to a minimum, while still giving enough information to demonstrate what I consider important policy considerations arising from the dispute. I apologise for the length of this comment, but hope interested parties will see the importance of the conclusions arising from this case study.
- I believe the policy against NOR is extremely important in relation to biographies of living persons, and I agree that there is a tendency for the policy to be interpreted leniently. But it is more than a question of leniency, and it is more than a matter of "good editors" not understanding the policy correctly. The problem is that a good editor of one entry can at the same time be a bad editor of another entry. What makes the difference?: the editor's perspective on the subject of the entry. Thus it is possible, for example, that an editor may be productive in relation to the entry on "intelligent design," working diligently to keep out original research, while at the same time utterly fail to see when they are themselves violating NOR in an entry on a person they consider a proponent of intelligent design. This problem will of course be particularly acute where the subject of the biographical entry is not very well-known and there are not many editors prepared to invest time and energy defending the entry (thus, even though more people hate George W Bush than hate Chris Langan, there are also more people prepared to defend the Bush entry from original research). It is extremely difficult to defend such entries from original research violations, especially when a group of editors share a similar antipathy for the subject of the entry, and thus can act in concert.
- When a failure to understand the applicability of NOR is combined with a failure to understand that neutrality means more than merely a neutral tone, and combined again with a failure to understand the need to edit living-person biographies sensitively, and combined still further with a failure to understand the need for such entries to avoid controversy, a powerful cocktail results. The outcome may be disastrous for the person who is the subject of the entry, and by extension this is disastrous for the Wikipedia project. (All this occurred with the Langan entry, due to a confluence of factors I cannot go into here.)
- Thus when User Jimbo Wales deleted the section violating NOR from the Langan entry (in brief, a section about a minor legal dispute between two High-IQ societies), this deletion was attacked as incomprehensible. How, they cried, could reporting what is said in court documents constitute original research or biased editing? Opposed editors could not grasp this possibility, even though they knew that Langan did not show up in court to contest the case, and thus knew that only one side was represented. They could not understand, in other words, how the editing strategy they were using was in fact the very strategy used by tabloid journalists to justify one-sided but “factual” reporting of court cases. In fact, of course, it is possible to factually report what court documents state, and still be engaging in original or biased research. Naturally they also could not envisage the possibility that their desire to include the section constituted bias or malice.
- Additionally, they could not understand how factually reporting the contents of court documents necessarily means selectively choosing what to report from primary sources, and thus, in the absence of secondary sources, necessarily constitutes original research. Mr Wales stated very clearly that, lacking secondary sources about the case (since there is no evidence that the case has ever been discussed in any newspaper, magazine, TV news story, etc.), reporting about the case almost necessarily constitutes original research. From this, however, some opposed editors drew the conclusion that one must not ever refer to primary sources for an entry. They therefore claimed to have found a reason to argue against other material in the entry.
- Also compounding these problems was the difficulty opposed editors had in connecting the different pieces of policy together. Thus they might see the point about original research, but fail to see the connections between this and policy regarding sensitivity toward living persons, policy regarding the need to avoid controversy in relation to living persons, or policy about what counts as notable and important in an entry on living persons. Thus the argument was put, for example, that if the Langan lawsuit was not notable enough for inclusion in the entry, then Langan himself must not be notable enough to even have an entry. By failing to see the interconnected nature of policy, opposed editors were able to permit themselves long-term serious violations of several policies.
- At least two conclusions follow: Firstly, policy should be written to make clear that living persons have a legal and moral right not to be the victims of original research in their biographical entries. When editors violate policy in relation to living persons, and especially when they do so by engaging in original research, they violate the rights of the person about whom they are writing. The seriousness of this should be made much clearer than is currently the case. At present, WP:BLP states in its rationale that the information in biographies of living persons "can affect the lives" of such persons. The implication of such a rationale is that editors should understand this fact, and therefore use sensitivity and judgment when editing biographical entries for living persons. What the policy does not state is that living persons have a right not to be the victim of violations of BLP and/or NOR. The current formulation does not make clear that when an editor violates these policies, they also violate the rights of actual living persons. This allows editors to think in terms of their obligations to the Wikipedia project, rather than in terms of their obligations to actual living persons. This increases the chances editors will feel justified in resorting to NOR or other policy violations when editing contentious biographies. Hence my view that the current formulation is too weak.
- Secondly, the way such policies are written should emphasise the interconnections between policies, to encourage editors to understand how it is the constellation of policies which really defines a policy situation. When two or three or four policies are involved in a single issue, this amounts to more than the sum of the parts. This is particularly the case when a violation of NOR is combined with a violation of BLP. If editors do not see the connections between NOR, neutrality, notability, sensitivity, and avoidance of controversy, then they really do not understand each one of these policies singly. I acknowledge that the subtlety of this point is easily lost on editors (especially editors in dispute), but I do believe policy can be written in a way that encourages this understanding. It may be that merging policies is a way to make this clear, but merger alone will not suffice, unless the text of the merged policies also makes these interconnections very evident. It may in fact be the case that merging policy about NOR and about attribution in fact clouds the fact that NOR is more than a matter of attribution. I do not claim to have the final answer to this question, but I strongly believe that those who have invested energy in these important issues should keep firmly in mind the considerations I have pointed toward.
The first version of the above discussion was posted here.
[edit] Proposal for a review process for administrators
I am making this proposal because I believe the indefinite tenure of administratorship is a long-term threat to the quality of Wikipedia. Before anything else I think I should make clear that I am not arguing for a time limit for administrators. Thus I am not arguing that valuable administrators should simply be forced to renounce their powers after a defined period of time. Rather, I am arguing that there should be an automatic review process for all administrators every so often (every year? every couple of years? something like that).
We should not forget that Wikipedia is still only a few years old, and problems which appear minor today may become major in ten or twenty years. It is often stated that there are a small number of administrators when compared to the number of overall users. Nevertheless, there are risks associated with an increasing number of administrators, regardless of the ratio to users. These risks include: that gangs of likeminded administrators may form and act in a concerted way to achieve counterproductive goals; that the longer administrators hold on to their powers, the longer they have to forget how to be a good Wikipedian, but the more entrenched their "status" may become; that when a certain threshold of poor administrators is reached, it will become virtually impossible, with the processes presently in place, to remove them.
If one day there are several thousand active administrators, which seems eminently possible, it will only take a very small percentage of these to be poor administrators for Wikipedia to have a very large problem. It might be thought that administrators will drop off at more or less the same rate they join Wikipedia, however I do not believe this to be the case. Those who gain administrative status enjoy its rewards, and it does not appear that they drop out of Wikipedia very quickly. There is no reason to doubt that a great many present administrators will continue to be active in ten or more years.
If the rate of drop-out is slow, there is another factor contributing to the growth in the number of administrators. Processes as they currently stand make it far easier to gain the status of administrator than to lose it. It might be objected that gaining the status of administrator can only be the outcome of diligent editorial practice garnering the approval of fellow editors. I must make clear that I am not criticising the process of appointing administrators, nor am I claiming that the appointment process is too easy. But what I am saying is that it is very difficult to strip administrators of their powers. I am, in fact, saying that it is currently too difficult for administrators to lose their powers.
My proposal is thus that after a definite period of time administrators should be obliged to undergo a review process to determine whether they should retain their status as administrators. The process could be quite similar to the RfA process, where retention of administrator status requires a consensus (75% or thereabouts) of support. Such a review process would provide a readily-accessible forum for discussing poor administrative practice. Furthermore, rather than having to initiate a long process with no certainty of outcome, those aggrieved by administrative practice will have a definite place and a definite time-period in which to present their views. Finally, if a review determines that an administrator should retain their status, others would then know that this administrator will retain their powers until it was time for the next review. Administrators who lose their status after a review may be able to initiate a new RfA for themselves, perhaps after a certain period of time has elapsed (a year, say).
There are very few positions of responsibility in the world where it is possible to avoid a review process for years on end. Wikipedians may have a tendency to assume good faith, not only about the behaviour of users, but about the Wikipedia project as a whole. This good faith is well-founded, but it should not substitute for an effective review process. That it is presently such a difficult and protracted process to strip administrators of their powers does not only mean that poor administrators can continue to edit, but that groups of poor administrators who feel justified in their poor practice may arise. When one administrator sees another administrator get away with bad behaviour, there is the potential for a culture of poor administration to develop. Acting against poor administrators will then become progressively more difficult over time.
I suspect that this proposal may encounter resistance from some current administrators, who, having achieved their status for an indefinite period, are reluctant to submit to such a review process. This reluctance would not necessarily stem from a wish to conceal their own administrative record, but could simply be a wish to avoid unpleasurable bureaucratic procedures. As such, this resistance is entirely understandable. I think it is important, however, for current administrators not to think in these personal terms, and I certainly do not believe current administrators need to feel defensive about this proposal. This proposal is definitely not intended as an attack on current administrators, the vast majority of whom behave very responsibly. I have no doubt that the great bulk of good administrators would have no trouble passing any review process. I am therefore hopeful that current administrators will be able simply to reflect on what problems there currently are, and consider the question of how these problems may develop in the coming years, and what can be done about them.
The fact is (or, at least, my opinion is) that some administrators are far superior to others. This may be because the wrong person was chosen to be an administrator in the first place, or because, having achieved the status of administrator, they enjoy the benefits of this status a little too much. It is sometimes said that the powers of Wikipedia administrators are quite small. Nevertheless, it should not be imagined that Wikipedia is immune from the fact that "power corrupts."
There will always be poor administrators on Wikipedia. My reason for making this proposal is not that I imagine it is possible to stamp out the evil-doers. But those who care for the Wikipedia project should nevertheless ask what will decrease the chances that poor administrators will be able to persist for years on end as a negative influence. I believe this is a potentially serious long-term problem for Wikipedia, but I also believe that changes such as the one I am proposing will substantially ameliorate these concerns.
This was originally posted here.
[edit] The greatest threat to Wikipedia: the development of a poor administrative culture
The following consists of my responses to discussion of the above proposal. See in particular the final two paragraphs.
- I'm not too sure what question you're really asking. In relation to voting, if it is an acceptable procedure for RfA, I don't see how it could be evil if applied to Renewal of Adminship. If, in the second part of your comment, you are asking about whether this will increase your "workload," I just don't believe that a review process every couple of years will be so catastrophically burdensome. Not for administrators who value their status (as most do). The fundamental question is: are people happy with the accountability processes for administrators? If you think the answer to this question is yes, then no doubt you will oppose my proposal. But if you think there is a problem with administrator accountability, then the challenge is to find a mechanism for addressing this problem (and I reiterate, the issue is not just the scale of the problem today, but what the scale of the problem may be a long way into the future). I believe there is a developing problem with administrator accountability, I believe this proposal is implementable and workable, and I believe it will go some way to addressing the problem. A review process for administrators is just good sense.
- To me, that argument [about "conflict of interest"] comes across as an argument for the entrenchment of power. Because: the argument about conflict of interest applies just as much to ArbCom as it does to the "user public." Whoever is making decisions will inevitably be a party involved in some way. The implication seems to be that ArbCom will protect administrators from the consequences of their own mistakes better than general editors. To which I have to make two comments: (1) is it really so bad if administrators are encouraged to reflect upon the potential consequences of their actions (this would seem to be a fundamental element of the Wiki ethos)?; and (2) is it really so clear that we should not have faith in general users to make good decisions, given that this is the very process for appointing administrators in the first place?
- I'm afraid things don't always work the way you're suggesting. And I'm afraid ArbCom doesn't always hold administrators to a higher standard. It would be nice if things always worked the way you suggest, but I don't believe that the future of Wikipedia is best assured by presupposing that this is how things work and how they will work. The question is not whether things often work well. The question is how effective the processes are when things don't work well. In my opinion the processes for dealing with poor administrators are ineffective and insufficient. I believe poor administrators get away with improper and abusive behaviour, precisely because the process of bringing them to account is so arduous and fickle. I am not a doomsayer, but ineffective accountability for those in administrative positions will in the end deform the project. The problem is fixable (but there may come a time when it is no longer fixable). The question is whether there is the will to fix it.
- About the saying, oft-quoted: "A good admin is rarely a popular one." It may well be true that a good administrator may be unpopular with those who bear grudges against him or her. But I think the notion that this means they are unpopular is fairly un-wiki. I believe good administrators are in fact very popular, because the general community is capable of discerning their goodness. I believe there are good grounds for faith in the ability of the general community to recognise good administrators, just as the general community usually make good choices with RfA. Distrusting the community to come to the correct conclusions about administrator performance is in my opinion revealing. On your second point, the problem is not only whether ArbCom makes good decisions or bad decisions. What must also be asked is: how many times do administrators get away with abusing their powers because the victim of the abuse simply cannot face the Everest climb required to do anything about it? Bad administrators count on the fact that nobody will bring them to account. Because to have the will to do so would mean really really wanting to see an adminstrator punished. That said, I do believe the ArbCom has made bad decisions, but I don't think this is the forum to discuss that.
- Let me also add: it is common for people to describe achieving the status of administrator as no big deal. By the same logic, the loss of that status should be no big deal either. In fact, the Wikipedia systems should be structured so that the loss of that status is no big deal. As I said initially, losing admin status does not mean one cannot apply for it later. Perhaps it might even be a healthy thing for admins to go back to their editing roots for a while.
- Well you may be right that abuse by administrators is not that great a problem. You may be right that there is a process for dealing with administrators who abuse their "tools." In my opinion, however, it is not uncommon that abuse by administrators goes unaddressed. And in my opinion a crucial reason for this is the arduousness of the process. I will be honest with you: I consider the responses (all by administrators) to be disappointing. It is clearly the case that any position of responsibility, in any organisation, ought to have an effective review process attached to it. The process we have is very difficult, open to manipulation, and arbitrary. What I am proposing will be far easier, more transparent, more organised, more efficient, and show greater faith in the editing community. The only thing that protects the Wikipedia project is the effectiveness of its systems. The question is whether administrators—who, however you want to cut it, have a vested interest—are able to show the good sense and judgment to really analyse whether those systems are adequate, or whether they can be improved. I don't see that analysis going on in this discussion.
- To HighInBC: I don't believe that a change couldn't affect existing administrators. A mechanism would need to be introduced to stagger the review processes, presumably from oldest to newest, which would obviously take some time, but I don't see any major obstacle there. Its important to think long-term rather than short-term about major changes such as the one I am proposing, so a little inconvenience now will be coped with a lot better than being forced to deal with a much worse situation in the future. Like global warming! To Nae'blis: I don't believe there is any shortage of applicants for adminship, and I don't believe my proposal will seriously dent that number. I don't believe a fairly-conducted review process will lead to any and every disgruntled user forcing out every good administrator. This objection has been raised before, but in my opinion it forgets the support that good administrators receive from good users and from each other. I think the objection is out of proportion to the likely reality. As for your very kind offer, it is flattering, however at this time I do not wish to pursue adminship. But thanks.
- I feel I need to make clearer what I consider the danger to Wikipedia to be. The problem with an ineffective review process for administrators is not that a rogue administrator will get away with misbehaviour. The real threat is that groups of misbehaving administrators will coalesce, act in concert, and defend each other. No doubt these groups will believe themselves to be good and effective administrators. But that doesn't mean they are. And without an effective means of bringing them to account, they will act with increasing impunity. Admin powers are greatly intensified when administrators can act in concert. Thus, for example: if an administrator is blocked by another administrator for misbehaviour, a third administrator, friendly to the first, may immediately unblock. If the first administrator can count on this support in advance, then on this basis they may grant themselves license to act in whatever way takes their fancy. Now, you might say: but then action can be taken against both the misbehaving administrators. But what if the group is three, or four, or five, or ten? Under the current oversight processes, it is almost impossible to address this situation. And, if this situation does not occur that often at the moment, the question is how it may develop, and how it will then affect Wikipedia as a whole. It is my belief that such situations poison the atmosphere of Wikipedia, and are unconducive to good editing and good administration. The growth of a poor administrative culture will drive away far more good editors and administrators than will any effective oversight process, as many organisations have learned too late. A workable but effective review process is not simply an exercise in making administrators jump through hoops. Most of the "work" will be done by others, those who support or oppose the retention of adminship, and they will be happy to do it. What a workable and effective review process will do is make Wikipedia a healthier and more attractive place to be, and produce a better encyclopaedia.
- The greatest long-term threat to Wikipedia is the development of a poor administrative culture. A culture of poor administration may develop in any organisation. How much more likely is it to develop on Wikipedia, an organisation disconnected in a significant way from the real lives of its contributors, and thus disconnected in a significant way from consequences? The only protection against the development of poor administrative culture is an effective review process. Administrators have a natural inclination to resist the introduction of review processes. But in most organisations these review processes are implemented from above. What Wikipedia administrators need to reflect on is that it is largely up to them to determine the processes of their own review. This is an added burden of responsibility borne by Wikipedia administrators and by the Wikipedia community as a whole, and it is one that requires a leap of imagination beyond the natural inclination against review processes. This discussion has shown this inclination in spades. My proposal is not an attack on administrators, but rather constitutes a defence of good administrators. The question is not what conduct is frowned on and what conduct is approved. The question is what processes are in place to encourage good conduct and discourage poor conduct. The question is whether these processes are adequate. The question is what kind of administrative culture will develop in the long-term if ineffective review processes remain in place. And the question is whether administrators are capable of the leap of imagination required to implement more effective oversight processes. If your answers to these questions are different from mine, you will be happy with the status quo. My belief is that this threat exists, and that signs of poor administrative culture are showing. Naturally these signs are frequently contained within the fine grain details of administrative practice, and may at present be nearly invisible to those who do not apply a magnifying glass to the particular situations of poor administration. But as I said in my initial comment: Wikipedia is still only a few years old, and what seem minor problems today may become major problems tomorrow. Only an effort of thought, will, and imagination will have a chance at addressing these problems, but such an effort can, I believe, address them, if it does not arrive too late.
