Secret Mailing List Rocks Wikipedia 531
privatemusings writes "Wikipedians are up in arms at the revelations that respected administrators have been discussing blocking and banning editors on a secret mailing list. The tensions have spilled over throughout the 'encyclopedia anyone can edit' and news agencies are sniffing around. The Register has this fantastic writeup — read it here first." The article says that some Wikipedians believe Jimbo Wales has lost face by supporting the in-crowd of administrators and rebuking the whistle blower who leaked the existence of the secret mailing list.
Why am I unsurprised by this? (Score:4, Insightful)
These people will of course seek to infiltrate and take over any organization perceived as having any kind of power, whether it is over ideas, money or people. That's because, after all, this is what they are after.
It makes no difference whether it is religion, politics or an Internet encyclopedia, offer an entry for the people with psychopathic tendencies and they will come. The rant quoted in the Register article is simply typical of the breed.
To get people to do moderation work unpaid, you have to offer them something. That something is described above -a small amount of power and the feeling of being in an in-group and privy to secret knowledge. Depressingly, what I conclude from this is that the only real answer is to pay people and have competition. Payment offers rewards to people who do not care about power or exclusivity. Competition means that disgruntled customers and competitors go elsewhere, i.e. they can escape from an abusive in group. What Wikipedia needs is a commercial model and competition. That way, the psychopaths and compulsive neurotics are unlikely to take over the shop (and the ones on the staff can waste their energy litigating, which seems to be the main way we keep psychopaths out of trouble in the English speaking world.)
Re:wiki == worthless (Score:2, Insightful)
Great. (Score:3, Insightful)
Not a surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
And as we've seen, the in crowd are not the ones who really contribute in the first place [aaronsw.com].
So what are these people good for, again?
The cycles of change (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, wikipedia by it's nature is not supposed to have higher-ups, but an administrator group is a technical necessity. These administrators are motivated by the growing popularity of wikipedia in two ways: they gained more power ("Cmon! I'm an administrator on the english wikipedia! Wow!") or in other words, the social status of their administrator title got more important. This is bound to make the admins feel a lot more different, even if unconsciously or unwittingly. They try to protect wikipedia and overreact, get overly paranoid and lose focus of their true goal.
The second reason they can behave wrongly is simply that the social infrastructure didn't adapt to the popularity yet. What I mean is that administrators are not distinct, named, accountable people. They edit using their administrator account (officially, even if some of them use alternative accounts in reality), they are not named people. To fix these problems there has to be a clear separation of priviledges, and clear identifiability and accountability for administrators.
Admins should be compelled to do their actions with their real names attached to it, not behind nicknames. No non-administrator wikipedia contribution should take place on their admin accounts. They should be editing using a non-priviledged account. The regular account of admin personnel should not necessarily be revealed, but admins should be verifying each other's work.
This is really sad to hear (Score:5, Insightful)
It's one thing to contribute and have someone occasionally wreck thing up -- that can be repaired easily. It's a whole other thing to feel like you're contributing to admins with this mindset. Regaining confidence in the leadership isn't done in a similar fashion by a click of a button.
Alright, now I'm waiting to hear what Jimbo Wales will do to stop this behavior. Surely that can is a reasonable expectation?
Re:Why am I unsurprised by this? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's more the case that people who specifically seek power are also those best kept away from it.
Depressingly, what I conclude from this is that the only real answer is to pay people and have competition. Payment offers rewards to people who do not care about power or exclusivity.
Except that it dosn't, people being paid can still care a great deal about power and exclusivity.
Why is this controversial? (Score:3, Insightful)
You can't simultaneously complain that wikipedia is vulnerable to edits by ignorant/malicious/troll/pro-spin users, and complain that wikipedia takes action against those users by identifying them and banning them.
In this case, one of the higher-ups banned a user who seems to be a productive contributor - which is essentially an abuse of power. But, I fail to see how the "secret mailing list" is controversial.
Re:Yeah, that's about what I thought (Score:5, Insightful)
In my opinion Wikipedia should be run like the internet; by a bunch of useless people who are so tied up in their own mess they don't ruin my day and some how out of it all we end up with a magically great resource.
Say what? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Register hates Wikipedia and at every opportunity seeks to spin the tiniest thing into major news that is negative about Wikipedia.
I don't know why they do this, penis envy?
From TFA: (Score:5, Insightful)
Editor falsifying his entire life to give more weight to his editorial views? "Eh well he was protecting himself from stalkers".
Mods discussing mod stuff off-site (granted, completely counter to the notion of transparency that Wikis serve to enable)? "HOLY SHIT YOU HAVE UNLEASHED THE FUCKING FURY YOU ASSHOLES".
Strange group, this Wikipedia. I go there for information on my favorite Pokemon, but for anything serious, I'd much rather google <seriousthing> -wikipedia
so what? (Score:1, Insightful)
That said, the "profiling" methods used are unnecessary and wrong. If editors are being abusive, ban them. If they're trolling, ban them. It's a lot of work, but people volunteer to be administrators in order to do the dirty work, right? Right?
Re:Yeah, that's about what I thought (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:wiki == worthless (Score:3, Insightful)
I think I should respond to this. let me se, reasoned, well thought out, adult...
Your talking utter utter shite. No really, you are.
Lets look at an example, amatour astronomy. the overwhelming majority of the worlds astronomers are amatours, almost none of whome have academic qualifications. In spite of this they are the acknowledged backbone of astronomy, responsible for a huge volume of discoveries and research. The field would be a wasteland without them.
That's just one field, there are others, but I don't want to produce a huge list. This 'right to comment' you describe is rubbish. Anyone can comment on anything, and have the right to be heard. How seriously they are taken depends on how useful or informed their contribution is. That's the hard part, and this usefulness can be acheived either through academic work, or independant work as an amatour. Both are valid, although I have to say the latter is often the one with greater passion.
I'm an academic, and I bow to the superior domain knowledge of a number of my 'unqualified' freinds when it comes to things they understand well and I do not.
Re:In related news: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"Secret"? (Score:3, Insightful)
Jimbo Wales Slashdot sockpuppet found
One has to wonder just what is so vastly important and controversial that an administrator cannot communicate it on site for fear of the dreaded Vandals and Sockpuppets (they're everywhere oh god!!) - gasp - reading it.
Maybe they see it for what it is? A vast collection of Pokemon trivia and amateur writing that is too self-conscious and self-important for its own good?
But, hey, go on sharing your conspiracy bullshit. I'm sure life would be so much better if those goddamned reporters would just mind their own business. Just remember, no original research, k?
The Register loves to troll Wikipedia (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally I think they do it because it's a cheap way to fill column inches and to push a few buttons on readers who recognize it for the invaluable service it is.
Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely (Score:5, Insightful)
First, you'll see people form groups. Then you'll see (some) groups trying to gain power. No matter how petty (and in Wikipedia's case it's anything but petty. People have replaced Google with Wikipedia as a source for good links).
Generally, you'll have two kinds of groups in every assembly of human beings. Those that want to push the cause along and those that want to control it. The latter will most certainly claim they belong to the first group (often even to themselves), but in general they would do anything to aggregate more power, no matter whether the group moves anywhere anymore.
With power and the lust for it comes paranoia. Because the knave thinks the way he is, they start seeing usurpators who want to control the group anywhere. So they become secretive and paranoid. Anyone who is "good" (as in, is actually pushing the cause ahead and keeps things moving) will be seen as a threat, because he will invariably be liked by those who're also in for the cause. Someone who is liked has peer backing, and that could threaten the power base of this group. So he will be mobbed until he leaves.
What's finally left is a dead hulk. Everyone who wanted to move the cause along will have left, what's left is the power hungry group and some tagalongs and posers who present no danger to said group, but who are also not getting the cause anywhere. They're just in for the "experience" and the fame of being "there" and being part of it. Because if they would actually start pushing ahead, they would be seen as a threat to the power group and removed.
Sad, really. But if you can't get rid of such power whores, you'll end up with a dead project.
Re:Why is this controversial? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's irrelevant. The problem isn't that they're banning people. The problem is that they've set themselves up as an elite group, outside the normal wikipedia democratic processes.
Re:Iron law of oligarchy (Score:5, Insightful)
--Missionaria Protectiva, Text QIV (decto)
Re:wiki == worthless (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:"Secret"? (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, that was my point.
Re:wiki == worthless (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I wrote this essay over a year ago... (Score:5, Insightful)
If all opinions are equally valid, then the opinion that that opinion is bullshit is equally valid, so what are you complaining about ? Or did you mean: "All opinions are equally valid as long as they coincide with mine" ?
Re:Say what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I wrote this essay over a year ago... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why is this controversial? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:If I were still in the eighth grade... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I wrote this essay over a year ago... (Score:4, Insightful)
It really shouldn't be necessary to explain that something isn't accepted fact.. and if you're talking to people who believe in accepted fact then its pointless how much of the text you have explaining that something is or isn't accepted fact.
Qualifications matter, but raw data matters more (Score:5, Insightful)
Qualification in a field generally means no more than that the person being "qualified" (e.g. through a degree from an educational institute) in a certain field has shown to have undergone a systematic exposure to and a basic grounding in that previous knowledge. In addition a certain basic competence in the (established through consensus) techniques in that field has to be demonstrated.
By being aware of previously established techniques people can avoid treading in the same pitfalls as those before them (in the case of Mathematics, the Sciences and Engineering often centuries before them). In areas where previous knowledge is plentiful, well-established, and being proven on an hour-by-hour basis, a lack of that knowledge is usually enough to ensure that the odds of that someone saying of thinking anything worthwhile or even coherent about the theoretical size of that common background knowledge (the theory of that area) is really rather slim. There *are* exceptions, but they are mighty rare (the mathematician Ramanuyan was one).
That is as far as thoughts on theory go. However, there is something that generally trumps theory, and that is (valid and careful) observation. Raw data if you like. Precisely how valid an observation is is something an amateur unfortunately often cannot tell because he doesn't know enough of the pitfalls that have been taught to qualified people. However, if he uses an established observational methodology (e.g. pointing a camera at the sky and carefully noting down when and where they did that) there isn't all that much they can do wrong.
If the camera subsequently shows flying saucers, then this bit of "evidence" has to be weighed against all the other bits of evidence that qualified practitioners know about, and may be discounted on that basis alone (it wouldn't be the first hoax). But this is hardly something that a serious amateur astronomer would do ... or even want to do. Amateurs can be as dedicated to the pursuit of truth and knowledge as any qualified practitioner.
For this reason alone, amateur astronomers can contribute without academic qualifications. Simply because they can contribute instrumental observations. Such observations as a rule are highly reproducible (and may be objective, valid and valuable even if they are not reproducible because they record one-of-a-kind phenomena), and their value is one of *discovery*.
This however does *not* contradict the idea that an "amateur" in a certain field is unlikely to be able to fruitfully contribute to thoughts about the theory of that field. As such "amateur astronomers" are a very poor example.
The same holds for Chemistry, Physics, Biology and any kind of engineering. As long as someone can come up with an interesting (and reproducible) observation, they can make a contribution to the total stock of knowledge. When it comes to interpreting that observation, and/or fitting that observation into a theoretical framework one simply needs to know the theory, which is quite unlikely without qualification.
Re:I wrote this essay over a year ago... (Score:2, Insightful)
"Objectivity" should be Wikipedia's single-word anthem if it wants to attain any amount of repectability/reliability. "...60% of scientists agree that, but 20% of public opinion is..." would be a type phrase I would like to see more often -- it would be verifiable too. Yet for the moment, most Wikipedians seem to be too steeped in the "personal expression" opportunities of Wikipedia, as well as tending to the relations created with others in the community with similar views/knowledge, for true objectivity to arrive any time too soon. The "Me" in Wikipedia contributions is both a (very) reason for its existence and the bullet shot into its own foot.
Re:I wrote this essay over a year ago... (Score:2, Insightful)
Then how do you reckon the universe actually...works...and stuff. Theories and opinions?
Re:I wrote this essay over a year ago... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I wrote this essay over a year ago... (Score:3, Insightful)
If my opinion is that gravity not applicable to me, jumping off the top of a five-story building will result in my falling, despite my opinion. I will be falling just as fast and as far as if I beleived, and held the opinion, that gravity did in fact apply to me.
My opinions mean nothing if they are contrary to fact. At best they mislead me to my peril. At worst, they mislead others to their peril as well.
My theory is that there is such a thing as certain truth. I hold it to be immutably true. You may, if you wish, hold the opinion that there is no such thing as certain truth, but if you would apply a logical test to your opinion, you would first disprove it by testing, and second find your opinon wanting and invalid in a real world.
And I mean a 'real' world, where there are things that just are, despite our opinons about them.
Amazing. Reality is the kind of thing that causes people to have an interest in Science. Denying reality is pointless.
Re:wiki == worthless (Score:1, Insightful)
Everybody does have the right to speak their mind though.
Just because you have the right to say something doesn't mean that I have to listen.
Re:wiki == worthless (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I wrote this essay over a year ago... (Score:3, Insightful)
Wiki vs Your Drunk Uncle (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, I like to consider wikipedia my non-kid touching, molestation free drunk uncle of information, maybe, or maybe not, more accurate, but at least I can get quick answers on a lot of topics and I can see how topics are related and then just search google for more information or confirmation of the information I've found, and best of all, it doesn't even cost me a 6-pack.
Re:If I were still in the eighth grade... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not true - I checked (Score:5, Insightful)
That was pretty funny, but you hit on a sore spot of mine: notability deletions. See, there are destructive bastards [wikipedia.org] who like to brag about the articles they've deleted [wikipedia.org] and delight in destroying Wikipedia. Because these "notability" jackboots are tolerated and you're only allowed to see the articles that meet their nebulous standards, Wikipedia is useless to me as a resource. It may cover a lot of the common information on a subject but there's a good chance all the interesting dark corners have been labeled as "cruft" and removed.
I don't mind flame wars. There's nothing you can say to hurt my feelings. Remove my words and pretend they never existed, though, and now we've got a problem. To hell with Wikipedia and the arrogant bastards that patrol it.
Re:I wrote this essay over a year ago... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I wrote this essay over a year ago... (Score:4, Insightful)
Give each of the men a card with gradations of reds and greens, with different values, chromas, and hues. Given standard lighting, any full-sighted person would be able to pick out regions of strong reds and greens on the card, except near the dividing line (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munsell_color_system#Chroma [wikipedia.org]). What's more, both men, upon holding the card up to the tree, will be able to pick out the region on the card where the difference between the tree's color and that on the card is the least.
By definition (remember that normally-sighted people will all agree on whether a given point on the card is a red or a green, except for border cases, and very rarely will a singly-colorblind person argue that a color could fall in a few regions), the tree can have only one color, and even moderately-sighted people can figure out what color it is using such a null technique. It's very powerful.
Re:wiki == worthless (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have to do research to understand what the topic even is, leave it the fuck alone.
Re:This is going to happen a LOT with "internet 2. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, that's about what I thought (Score:3, Insightful)
That's linked to on every freaking page of the encyclopedia. Everybody knows what Wikipedia is, because the media and people like you can't shut up about how unreliable it is. But the official look and tone of much of the content - and the fact that the vast majority of it is accurate - fools many people into thinking it's the Word of God.
That's the people's fault, not Wikipedia's. It's not the project's responsibility to hold everyone's hand and constantly remind them at every turn. "Lincoln was born in 1809, but remember, sometimes strangers on the internet might say something that isn't true! So maybe he wasn't born in 1809! We make no claim to the validity of that statement! Ok, anyway, he was the 16th president of the United States...but maybe not!" If someone's idea of researching a topic is to look on the internet and take the first thing they read as gospel, or to only be skeptical when a disclaimer instructs them to, they've lost already, no matter what Wikipedia says or does. I can sort out fact from opinion, I can do my own research. Leave the fucking content alone and trust me to figure it out for myself.
And I really don't see how putting the disclaimer at the top of the page will somehow make there be "a lot less vandalism and a lot less cabal manipulation".
Re:Yeah, that's about what I thought (Score:3, Insightful)
And this matters...why?"
Because when I search for something on Wikipedia, I am looking for a different sort of result than if I search for it on LiveJournal, Blogger, or the Web at large. Currently, I generally find it. (Thanks Wikipedia admins!)
"All to keep the precious namespace clear of 'low quality' articles (as if there aren't enough low-quality articles already -- it's kind of par for the course when you have user-editable content)."
So you think because Wikipedia includes some poor content, it's unjustified to try to improve it? In my experience, the "par" on Wikipedia is pretty good.
I'm sorry your vanity page got deleted.
Re:"Secret"? (Score:3, Insightful)
I just don't think there is an actual need. Supposedly anyone can edit WP, but apparently that just means anyone who edits it in a manner that the admin minority approves of.
Either the community can take care of itself, in which case there is no problem, or it can't, in which case the problem is insoluble. The solution is not for a self-appointed minority to wield police power with no oversight on flimsy pretexts. Far as I'm concerned, you're all sockpuppets.
And as for a "popular target" you (And by "you" I mean "you the administrators." You can't just say, "Hey that was the other guy, it has nothing to do with me!" when you're here defending the system) banned someone, and people checked up on it, and found you'd done it for obviously crappy reasons...You banned !! because that person was karma whoring (in your opinion) and because you were afraid they were building their credit to get into the sort of power position you're in. To me, that shows that you're worried about the abuse of the power position (which is what everyone in this thread is also worried about) which means you ought to be admitting that, yes, there are issues, and not just defending your rights to abusable power.
Security through Obscurity applies to a lot of things outside of crypto, though I'll grant you that's where the term was coined. If I hide a key under my doormat, that's "Security through Obscurity". If you hide your seeeecret methods for sock-detection, that's "Security through Obscurity". A non-crypto example is bayesian spam filtering; it's open, it's available, it's still effective at stopping spam. What are you afraid of releasing? Certainly in this case, insight into the "process" involved in identifing malicious users has been revealing.
Internet anonymity is something we all like to believe in, but if someone is sufficiently determined, they will find you out, and in this case, you're the people trying to break the user's anonymity! Talk about your hypocrisy! You dig down and figure out who the user is, then have to make this huge backpedal because it turns out you're outing the wrong person! Well done.
Re:"Secret"? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah: Don't.
"Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit."
Hell, I don't even know what a "sock puppet" is, but trying to find them and ban them certainly goes against that cute little slogan on the homepage. Maybe you should modify it to be "the free encyclopedia that anyone but sock puppets can edit", which a link to the definition of sock puppet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sockpuppet_(Internet) [wikipedia.org]
(BTW, I'm not going to edit Wikipedia out of principle, but saying that the word "alt" is universally considered "a false identity through which a member of an Internet community speaks while pretending not to" among all online services is simply wrong. In World of Warcraft, for example, the word "alt" has no negative connotations at all, it's just an alternate character you play sometimes. Despite its obvious importance to Wikipedia editors, I've never heard the term "sockpuppet" heard anywhere except in connection to Wikipedia.)
Re:wiki == worthless (Score:3, Insightful)
There are two different classes of editors: those who come to wikipedia in order to contribute to specific articles related to their areas of expertise and those who treat wikipedia like myspace and edit articles while they are there. Those in the later group have much stronger WP:FU and are thus able to bully people.
When I see it mentioned that someone has made edits on 1000 different articles, my first thought is that they probably had no buisness on at least 950 of those. People just go around burping crap into random articles. The phrase "The Encyclopedia that Anyone can Edit" should not imply that everyone should.
Seriously, the jargon proliferation is beyond absurd, with acronyms and abbreviations freely redirecting to each other. It makes military jargon look intelligible. For all the emphasis wikipedia puts on keeping articles relevant to laymen, WP:SOUP has rendered wikipedia process inaccessible to all but those who are experts in wikipedia.
Re:If I were still in the eighth grade... (Score:5, Insightful)
What? Wikipedia is supposed to be an open organization and it's a public irc channel. There are no concerns which justify that. It would be like kicking someone out of the country for posting logs of what was discussed in an open session of congress.
Yes, actually, it does, and the fact that it does is the reason that fair use law allows quoting as much of something as necessary for the purposes of critique.
Fallout (Score:3, Insightful)
As the saying goes, and is confirmed here in black and white so to speak, Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
The very idea that a small group of people control this information basically makes these people a propaganda machine, not unlike NAZI Germany.
They simple have more advanced tools at their disposal.
I must admit I was not aware how the Wiki manages itself internally.
But clearly, there has to be a more public review of the process and these individuals cannot be trusted to police themselves.
Even a 75 minute ban is unacceptable. Given the remarks by the power structure, I am inclined to believe that this will only continue to become worse without:
1) A complete review of the policies in public used by the admins.
2) A restructuring of the decision making process to include public debate and review. I mean after all, we are talking about book or reference information, much of which doesn't change over time.
Edits made should be suitable for public or peer review and this process should be open, in similair fashion to edit made to software projects, which anyone can join a list to observe or participate.
-Hack