[Wikipedia-l] Long-term risks to Wikipedia

Fri Oct 25 17:45:25 UTC 2002

Cunctator wrote, in good conscience:

> I think that ideally we should never have to ban anyone. I
> didn't think we should ban 24. I didn't strongly think we
> should *not* ban 24, either. It was a push, given the
> circumstances.

Ward's Wiki is justly proud of having had only a couple of vandalism episodes - ever.

But they are much smaller and much less well known than the pedia. Besides, it's mostly about boring computer programming stuff, precisely the kind of hard-to-learn knowledge that today's Bart Simpson clones can't even understand, let alone have a position on. Their ability to SoftPolice (or whatever you call it when a vigilante posse toses out an anti-social pest) is a thousand times as great as ours.

You can't apply c2.com's rules at wikipedia.org, because community ethics doesn't scale. We're not a tiny village; we're a town becoming a city.

I see Jimmy, Lee, Brion & Magnus as a vigilante group. Nothing wrong with frontier justice, though, and nothing against these men personally or anything they've done. They deserve medals for their dedicated service. Thanks, Jimbo, for pouring so much money into Nupedia, Wikipedia and Larry's salary.

But as we grow ten-fold and a hundred-fold, we will encounter several risks:
* deterioration into an elitist cabal -- many other have pointed this out
* conquest by barbarian hordes (vandals win)
* experts continue to stay away 

We have to deal with competing values. We can't codify a set of rules until we do. We also can't continue as we have much longer without a set of rules.

Values:
* easy to contribute (Wiki software)
* vandalism minimized (IP ban, History)
* experts encouraged to contribute (?)
* valuable contributors stick around (?)

In my woefully inadequate short list of values, I find that only two are supported by mechanisms. The Wiki software makes it easy to contribute, and IP bans and History pages make it easy to thwart vandalism.

We have not, however, found a way to attract more than two or three subject matter experts: (Axelboldt in math, Larry in philosophy, Julie in history)

We have also not found a way to get valuable contributors to stick around. 

I do understand the dangers of creating a police force. I have read the MeatBall links Cunctator suggested. I do hear what Stephen Gilbert is saying. Too much power in the wrong hands will certainly destroy this project.

The problem is that the converse is also true. 

Without a police force, without an "armed citizenry", we suffer from having too little power in the right hands. Did you ever live in a bad neighborhood? Do you know what it's like to be at the mercy of roving gangs of boys/young men? Okay, I confess that I've never lived in such a neighborhood. I'm "middle class", and with my good looks and fine education I can get a great job anywhere and pay the rent, etc.

I don't know if we have already reached the point at which SoftSecurity is insufficient. I have enough patience to outlast anyone. I don't lose sleep if one of the article I "own" (i.e., it's on my Watchlist) is being "attacked" by my "opponents". Some topics are simply works in progress: genocide, global warming, et al. I don't have to have the last word.

But a lot of fine people can't take it. It's really quite a pain to have one's "baby" splattered with mud. Sure, you can give her a bath, but after the 20th or 1000th time you just want to move to a quieter neighborhood. 

Imran Ghory's detailed list of laws is good. But laws require a constitution, and a constitution is created to support values.

What are Wikipedia's core values? Is my 4-point list the core?

Ed Poor