Article ownership Re: avoiding forks (was Re: [Wikipedia-l] public service ads in Wikipedia?)

Wed Feb 16 19:59:43 UTC 2005

On Feb 15, 2005, at 3:49 PM, the Epopt of Boskone wrote:

>> NSK said:
>>> Have you ever wondered why I rarely edit at Wikipedia?
>>> it's  because I know that nobody will know that an article or 
>>> paragraph
>>> was written  by me.
>>
>> Good grief, is that what it's all about?
>
> And I thought /I/ was arrogant and self-centered....

What is is all about is that the dispute resolution process on 
wikipedia is often unpleasant, particulary when dealing with organized 
groups of poves. One of the reasons that many people want article 
ownership is that it is very stressful dealing with cranks and others 
who have severely misguided views of the world. If people need an 
example, see CSTAR's trials on Bell's Theorum or Xtar's having to deal 
with a pove on the Australian Liberal Party.  A large part of the 
problem is that often a knowledgeable person must, at length, explain 
basic concepts to people who are unwilling to listen - it moves the 
activity from "editing for lots of people", which is to say a high 
leverage of a writer's time - to "dealing with nasty ignorant people 
retail", which is to say a low leverage of a writer's time. A large 
part of the problem is that the general equation that someone is 
unpleasant when they are wrong is not a sound assertion from an 
epistemological stand point, and that numerical superiority of 
organized groups generates a great deal of hostility very quickly, 
simply because those with numerical superiority have much less 
incentive to engage in discussion, but, on the contrary, have every 
incentive to try and engage in time wasting behavior.

I feel that NSK is wrong on article ownership, but I do think he has a 
point, because it is one made to me by several other people who have 
considered editing wikipedia, and who use it as a resource, but are not 
willing to deal with some of the problems that it has currently.

There are many pages which are "owned" now by small cabals of editors, 
because they can revert away anyone who disagrees with them. In the 
spirit of "no formalized page ownership" this should be addressed. My 
proposal is tighten the revert rule to be content based, that is three 
reverts of particular content in a day is the limit, in each direction, 
and that after that people making further reverts are blocked.  Then 
create categories for RFC and reverting, requiring that someone 
reverting an article place the article in one of the categories based 
on the reason for the revert. This isn't that much more work, and will 
automatically create a tracking system which is better than searching 
edit summaries and better than relying on RFC. The RFC process as is 
would remain in place as a way of giving a more detailed explanation of 
the source of the dispute. I feel the more "automatic" we make the 
process of "raising a red flag" on an article, the more it will be done 
rather than edit warring it out.

Commitment to an open process of consensus means, I think, that we 
examine where that process is not yet acceptable to people who are 
able, energetic and knowledgeable, and who we want as contributors.