[WikiEN-l] Exit Interview -- Jon Awbrey

Tue Jun 20 03:34:08 UTC 2006

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post 7.

JA = Jon Awbrey
JW = Jesse Weinstein

JW: You've made 5 posts in this "Exit Interview" but haven't gotten around 
    to explaining the details of what prompted you to lose patience with 
    Wikipedia.  This is, I think, what would of most interest and use to 
    the rest of us.  We've heard the generalizations you've made so far 
    many times before - not that they arn't valid, just that they arn't 
    news to us.

Thank you for questions that go to the point.
I thought that I went to the heart of the problem
in my very first posting, namely, expanding abbrevs:

JA: In the present state of Wikipedia, the rules in practice and the
    prevailing attitudes of administrators are all skewed in favor
    of the Infantile Vandals and the Expert Disrupters, while the
    Accurate Reporters and Responsibe Scholars don't stand a chance.

That still seems like the best summary of my experience,
but I've been spending the subsequent posts mostly just
responding to what seems like a massive immune response
on the part of the faithful, and it just seemed like it
was necessary to go a little slower than I did at first.

I may have been stalling a little while I waited for the results of
a promised sock &/or meat-puppet investigation, but it looks like I
shouldn't hold my breath waiting on that, so I will just say what I
currently suspect, as already posted in my answer to the 3RR action. 

JW: However, the particular examples of problems you had probably *are* 
    news to most of us on the list, so explaining them might be helpful.

JW: Just glancing over your contrib list, you seem to be working on
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Peirce
    and various philosophy articles, like
    [[Truth]] and [[Propositional calculus]]

JW: One possible issue you (and many others) have had with dispute 
    resolution at Wikipedia is that, as intended, they give no advantage to 
    any side, requiring possibly endless argument, and in practice, the 
    endless argument can be short circuited either by all but one side 
    being blocked due to violations of norms of discussion (i.e. 3RR rule, 
    personal attacks).  Factual superiority (i.e. citing more, or having 
    the books on your side) is only successful if you can convince most of 
    the people who happen to be interested in editing the page.  This is 
    very frustrating for many good researchers who come across Wikipedia.  
    Is that the sort of issue you had?

I am used to controversy and dispute resolution, and if proceedings
are instituted and conducted fairly, then I can take my winnings
or losings and go back to work.  But I do not think that the
system in place in WP works that way, and I have begun to
see the reasons why it never will.  There are too many
flaws built into the system at its very foundation,
and everybody is just shutting their ears to
the creaks and the moans of the structure.

It may have sounded so far like I'm blaming administrators,
but all I'm faulting them for, at least, the ones that I have
interacted with so far, is the fact that they seem to be acting
on default assumptions that date back to another era in WP's life.
It seems to me that the  Expert Disrupters know the ins and outs of
the system far better than any of the admins that I've encountered,
and they jerk the rules around like any good Washington lobbyist.
I understand that the admins are out-numbered and over-worked,
but none of that would lead to despair.  The thing that makes
it seem so hopeless at present is that the admittedly noble
principles of WP are just not embodied and insisted on by
the WikiPopulace at large, and frankly no size army of
WikiPolice could force that spirit into their "hearts
and minds", as the fatal saying goes, if they just
don't really have it imbued in them already.  And
that is how it looks at present.  It's not a few
Brown Sockpuppets that make the Reich, it's the
rest of the population that thinks they see
some short-term advantage to themselves in
letting them do whatever the devil they
want for "just a little while, and then
we'll reign them in in the end".  Yep.

If you have heard this before, then
you should think about the fact
that you keep hearing it.

Jon Awbrey

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inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/
wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:Jon_Awbrey
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