[WikiEN-l] Openness is a means to an end. Nothing more

Thu Dec 1 13:19:28 UTC 2005

> > The entire goal of this project is freedom and openness. 

That is incorrect. The entire goal of this project is to create the largest, most widely-used, and
best encyclopedia in the world and to give that to everybody on the planet. Everything else, and I
mean *everything* (including our openness and the community itself), is a means to *that* end.
Nothing more. 

True, Wikipedia is effectively an experiment in openness and radical democracy. But that has never
been the goal or point of it. We have just found that experimenting in those areas have brought us
great success (at least in terms of growth). But the experiment continues and we will need to
adjust as events change. So we must change the way we do things if and/when any aspect of our
experimental methods show a systematic problem that adversely impacts quality. 

Is the Seigenthaler incident a symptom of such a systematic problem? One can't use a single
example to prove such a thing, but it still should serve as a wake up call. That call is this: We
are big and popular now. Like it or not a great many people who never edit articles and never
will, trust (or at least use) us as a source. So I think we have an obligation to question our
methods when quality has slipped. 

Saying SoGoFixIt when reads outnumber writes by more than 200 to 1 is no longer a valid retort.
However, I agree that killing the goose called Openness that laid the golden egg called Wikipedia
would be a huge mistake. But I think we can and should continue to improve the ways we try to tame
and monitor that beast (better RC patrol features, trust networks to filter RC and watchlists,
article validation, etc). 

Openness has been a profitable gravy train for us. Let's not forget that the train is supposed to
be going toward a certain direction. 

-- mav

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