[WikiEN-l] Re: Mother Teresa article

Mon Oct 27 20:17:45 UTC 2003

Jimbo,

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my concerns.

>>Root causes of the "current upset" have everything to do with Wikipedia 
>>policies and customs, in particular, the absence of some sort of means 
>>for dealing with article disputes that cannot be solved within the Wiki 
>>consensus editing model.
> 
> 
> Is there any evidence that this is the case in the current
> controversy?  What I mean is that the article already seems much
> improved over the past several weeks.  So in what way is it really
> true that the problem can't be solved within the Wiki consensus
> editing model?

James and Erik became frustrated to the point where they each were 
trying to line up support and get you involved.  I consider that a 
failure of the "Wiki consensus editing model," and the collateral damage 
(that is, Erik and James' frustration and anger, and that of others who 
tried to help) isn't worth it, even if the article is better in the end; 
also, it does not scale so when we have ten times the active 
participation we do today, the process, such as it is, breaks down. 
Besides, we're not done yet (with the Mother Teresa article, that is), 
and several key points remain unsettled.

> Hmm, well, I don't think of mediation and arbitration as being means
> for settling run of the mill legitimate disputes about the content of
> the articles, but rather as a means to formalize and decentralize the
> _banning_ process, i.e. to deal with persistent, ongoing disruptive
> and counter-productive behavioral patterns.

Perhaps there are two separate things.  Most disruptive and 
counter-productive behavior by longstanding users has its roots in 
disputes over content.  Provide a fair, effective means of resolving the 
content disputes, and >poof<, the cases of disruption requiring bans 
become rare.

> I do not envision, and would strongly oppose, that mediation and
> arbitration committees get involved in ruling on the exact detailed
> contents of articles.  (There is of course some overlap, since some
> behavioral problems exhibit themselves via a refusal to engage in NPOV
> editing over a long period of time.)

Well, anyone involved in mediation shouldn't be ruling on anything at 
all, since it is their role to marshall users through a group 
decision-making process rather than to make edicts.  As for arbitration, 
well, if we are going to have an arbitration committee, there isn't 
going to be much for them to do if they aren't going to hear article 
disputes :-).

Ideally, we would find some way to bring about a culture change to 
encourage more supportive and facilitative work on the part of 
Wikipedians in general.  Had their been a greater amount of this in the 
Mother Teresa article, I think the dispute would have been contained and 
resolved.  Instead, Wikipedians reviewed the article and made their own 
edits; though the article may have improved, that didn't help the 
dispute much.

Perhaps it has something to do with the demographics of the Wikipedia 
participants.  Somehow I don't think there's too much background in 
group dynamics.

>>This the latest in a number of attempts at out-of-process methods to 
>>control the content of the article.
> 
> 
> I am opposed to the use of such votes, but I don't regard this as
> out-of-process at all.  Such votes are nothing more than expressions
> of opinion, and are thus non-binding in every relevant sense.  Do you
> see what I mean?  Voting is just one method (a bad one, in cases like
> this, I think) of _talking about the article_.

Well, I think we agree that voting may not be the best choice for 
creating great articles.  Did you read the "votes" in question?  I think 
there was an intent to make them more or less binding.  There were 
several different things one could vote upon, and fairly good 
participation.

Louis