Friday, October 01, 2010
To make something, it helps to know what it is
Instead of doing something productive like folding clothes or writing Wikipedia articles, I spent a slice of my free time this afternoon looking at the links in the Navibox of Essays on building Wikipedia. It links to a number of interesting essays; not "interesting" in the sense of encouraging me to be a better writer of Wikipedia articles, but "interesting" in the sense of making me wonder about the mindset of my fellow editors.
Take, for example, this passage from the essay "Wikipedia:Bare notability", concerning research from non-web sources:
The first thing I thought when I read that second sentence was, "But it must be true: I read it on the Internet." In a sarcastic tone, of course.
Of course, I changed it. My version might be considered too harsh, and might be severely rewritten by the time anyone reads this, but dammit when did it become common knowledge that the resources of your local library was always a poor second to the results of a Google search?
I wish my concerns ended there. I read a few more essays, some better thought-through than this one, until I found myself looking for a specific one, which was not there: How to research and write an article for Wikipedia. Actually, after "Wikipedia:Bare notability", I'd be happy to find an essay on only how to research an article; but essays on both would be useful.
My first thought was to consult my copy of the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research papers, sixth edition, and use that to fill the need. The MLA Handbook has a useful chapter at the front on how to research and write a research paper, and after all the average Wikipedia article is a research paper. But after reading the first five pages of that book I had to put that idea aside, partly because to use it as an authority I'd have to deal with the author's assumption that a good research paper will include an idea or interpretation which has not been expressed before -- which violates Wikipedia's policy on no original research -- and explaining that away would effectively negate the MLA Handbook's value as an authority. (BTW, the major reason I had to put the book aside was that I had to get my daughter Rachel to lie back down to her nap. The joys of children!)
More importantly, I believe we would not have many of the problems over content had a definition over what is an encyclopedia. Instead we have Jimmy Wales' assertion, "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." So instead of creating an encyclopedia, an introduction to a subject with clues to learn more about it, we have a website with the authoritative statement on practically every conceivable subject, which means a great many people have a vested interest in what it says. Not only topics about which people have killed and died over (like Israel and Palestine), or people have argued about for centuries (like any religious belief or creed), but even something like the aorist conjugation.
But this is an understandable oversight: in the early days of Wikipedia, everyone involved knew what an encyclopedia was, and knew what a satisfactory encyclopedia article should look like. However with the passing years the community around Wikipedia has changed, and I can't help but suspect a large number of Wikipedians have never seen an actual encyclopedia in book form. They have an unrealistic assumption of an encyclopedia, which is often far more serious or stodgy than the ones I used in high school were. So that horse has escaped the barn long before anyone could close the door.
But at the least, could someone write an essay on how to research a subject for an article? It would benefit both Wikipedia's reputation for reliability, as well as the new contributor who might not know about the resources available, both online and off. I would write that essay, but on one hand I suspect my reputation on Wikipedia has suffered greatly and on the other my own interest in the project has likewise suffered greatly.
Geoff
Technocrati tags: Wikipedia, writing
Take, for example, this passage from the essay "Wikipedia:Bare notability", concerning research from non-web sources:
Look off the web: Visiting your local library may help. But sources found on the web are more likely to be trusted than those that are not simply because they are accessible to more people. So if an off-web source is used, try to make it as detailed as possible to increase the chances of verifiability.
The first thing I thought when I read that second sentence was, "But it must be true: I read it on the Internet." In a sarcastic tone, of course.
Of course, I changed it. My version might be considered too harsh, and might be severely rewritten by the time anyone reads this, but dammit when did it become common knowledge that the resources of your local library was always a poor second to the results of a Google search?
I wish my concerns ended there. I read a few more essays, some better thought-through than this one, until I found myself looking for a specific one, which was not there: How to research and write an article for Wikipedia. Actually, after "Wikipedia:Bare notability", I'd be happy to find an essay on only how to research an article; but essays on both would be useful.
My first thought was to consult my copy of the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research papers, sixth edition, and use that to fill the need. The MLA Handbook has a useful chapter at the front on how to research and write a research paper, and after all the average Wikipedia article is a research paper. But after reading the first five pages of that book I had to put that idea aside, partly because to use it as an authority I'd have to deal with the author's assumption that a good research paper will include an idea or interpretation which has not been expressed before -- which violates Wikipedia's policy on no original research -- and explaining that away would effectively negate the MLA Handbook's value as an authority. (BTW, the major reason I had to put the book aside was that I had to get my daughter Rachel to lie back down to her nap. The joys of children!)
More importantly, I believe we would not have many of the problems over content had a definition over what is an encyclopedia. Instead we have Jimmy Wales' assertion, "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." So instead of creating an encyclopedia, an introduction to a subject with clues to learn more about it, we have a website with the authoritative statement on practically every conceivable subject, which means a great many people have a vested interest in what it says. Not only topics about which people have killed and died over (like Israel and Palestine), or people have argued about for centuries (like any religious belief or creed), but even something like the aorist conjugation.
But this is an understandable oversight: in the early days of Wikipedia, everyone involved knew what an encyclopedia was, and knew what a satisfactory encyclopedia article should look like. However with the passing years the community around Wikipedia has changed, and I can't help but suspect a large number of Wikipedians have never seen an actual encyclopedia in book form. They have an unrealistic assumption of an encyclopedia, which is often far more serious or stodgy than the ones I used in high school were. So that horse has escaped the barn long before anyone could close the door.
But at the least, could someone write an essay on how to research a subject for an article? It would benefit both Wikipedia's reputation for reliability, as well as the new contributor who might not know about the resources available, both online and off. I would write that essay, but on one hand I suspect my reputation on Wikipedia has suffered greatly and on the other my own interest in the project has likewise suffered greatly.
Geoff
Technocrati tags: Wikipedia, writing
Labels: encyclopedias, research, speculations, wikipedia, writing
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
A thought for spring
The liberal arts is a struggle. It is the unending, yet inevitably unsuccessful, rearguard struggle against ignorance and oblivion. Every day new people are born, who eventually learn to talk, to read, to think. Unless we share with them our experiences, our wisdom & histories, they will never know them. But we cannot share all of these with those who come after us, so every day as someone dies, another battle is lost.
That is why I tell myself I contribute to Wikipedia.
It is one way to transfer what has been preserved in print into the electronic medium, where hopefully this material will continue to survive, & be found & used by those who are not yet alive. However, not all of this material will make the transition; the majority of what has been written has not made the jump into print, & the majority of what has been said, let alone experienced, has likewise failed to make the jump into a more permanent form.
So the best we can do is to keep the number of defeats to a manageable number, & hope that those who are not yet alive will join in this unending, demoralizing rearguard struggle. For if we concede this struggle, the result will be worse than the current status.
Geoff
That is why I tell myself I contribute to Wikipedia.
It is one way to transfer what has been preserved in print into the electronic medium, where hopefully this material will continue to survive, & be found & used by those who are not yet alive. However, not all of this material will make the transition; the majority of what has been written has not made the jump into print, & the majority of what has been said, let alone experienced, has likewise failed to make the jump into a more permanent form.
So the best we can do is to keep the number of defeats to a manageable number, & hope that those who are not yet alive will join in this unending, demoralizing rearguard struggle. For if we concede this struggle, the result will be worse than the current status.
Geoff
Labels: speculations, wikipedia, writing
Monday, June 30, 2008
You think Wikipedia's tough on Experts?
Take a look a look at this exchange on Conservapedia, which calls itself "The Trustworthy Encyclopedia". In short, Andrew Schlafy doubts the findings of a published, peer-reviewed article which presents strong evidence of evolution in bacteria, and decides the best way to question these findings is demand the data the scientist based this article on.
Nothing wrong with a bit of skepticism; by questioning what we are told we come to knowledge. However from this exchange, it appears that Schlafy thinks the scientific method works like tagging statements on Wikipedia articles with {{fact}} or {{verification needed}}: if a statement appears to be questionable, ask for sources. He doesn't realize that dealing with experts in the Real World involves a different approach. Schlafy's correspondent, who I doubt is familiar with Wikipedia's conventions, provides him with an object lesson about how to handle experts -- a lesson Schlafy appears to have failed.
When other Conservapedia editors try to explain to Schlafy just why his approach doesn't work, Schlafy persists in his ignorance. Or maybe this is just one of those parodies that are slipped into Conservapedia, to see if anyone notices; I understand it can sometimes be hard to tell.
We may not be kinder to the experts who donate their time and knowledge at Wikipedia, but I like to think that the average Wikipedian knows to stop arguing when she or he has lost the argument.
If the link above is dead, try this mirror of the exchange. Fair warning: I have commented on this over at Daily Kos, which is where I learned about this.
Geoff
Technocrati tags: Conservapedia, Evolution, online communities, wikipedia
Nothing wrong with a bit of skepticism; by questioning what we are told we come to knowledge. However from this exchange, it appears that Schlafy thinks the scientific method works like tagging statements on Wikipedia articles with {{fact}} or {{verification needed}}: if a statement appears to be questionable, ask for sources. He doesn't realize that dealing with experts in the Real World involves a different approach. Schlafy's correspondent, who I doubt is familiar with Wikipedia's conventions, provides him with an object lesson about how to handle experts -- a lesson Schlafy appears to have failed.
When other Conservapedia editors try to explain to Schlafy just why his approach doesn't work, Schlafy persists in his ignorance. Or maybe this is just one of those parodies that are slipped into Conservapedia, to see if anyone notices; I understand it can sometimes be hard to tell.
We may not be kinder to the experts who donate their time and knowledge at Wikipedia, but I like to think that the average Wikipedian knows to stop arguing when she or he has lost the argument.
If the link above is dead, try this mirror of the exchange. Fair warning: I have commented on this over at Daily Kos, which is where I learned about this.
Geoff
Technocrati tags: Conservapedia, Evolution, online communities, wikipedia
Labels: speculations, wikipedia
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Professionals and Amateurs
I just saw this bit of news: within minutes of newsman Tim Russert's death last week of a sudden heart attack, one of the first things someone at the scene did was...update his article on Wikipedia.
Silly me. I've been contributing to Wikipedia for getting close to six years now, and I figure my first reaction would be to dial 911 or start administering first aid.
Good to know that not everyone who worked with Russert was in such awe of the man that they decided not to wait just a little longer until his family was informed, before being the first to update his Wikipedia article, the new standard of knowledge about everything. If a media professional isn't interested in showing some respect to the family of the recently dead, then why should the folks of the English language Wikipedia bother about the ideals of WP:BLP?
Sorry if I'm sounding a bit off-the-wall; it's hard to be effectively sarcastic when one's mind is still reeling over how a professional would do something truly tasteless and insensitive. But I hope this example of stupidity in the "Real World" shows that when an otherwise well-meaning Wikipedian regular makes a mistake in contributing to an article about a living person, it's not the end of the world. Although it's clear to me now where some of these tactless ideas come from -- outside the Wikipedia bubble.
Geoff
Technorati tags: Corporate media, online communities, Tim Russert, wikipedia
Silly me. I've been contributing to Wikipedia for getting close to six years now, and I figure my first reaction would be to dial 911 or start administering first aid.
Good to know that not everyone who worked with Russert was in such awe of the man that they decided not to wait just a little longer until his family was informed, before being the first to update his Wikipedia article, the new standard of knowledge about everything. If a media professional isn't interested in showing some respect to the family of the recently dead, then why should the folks of the English language Wikipedia bother about the ideals of WP:BLP?
Sorry if I'm sounding a bit off-the-wall; it's hard to be effectively sarcastic when one's mind is still reeling over how a professional would do something truly tasteless and insensitive. But I hope this example of stupidity in the "Real World" shows that when an otherwise well-meaning Wikipedian regular makes a mistake in contributing to an article about a living person, it's not the end of the world. Although it's clear to me now where some of these tactless ideas come from -- outside the Wikipedia bubble.
Geoff
Technorati tags: Corporate media, online communities, Tim Russert, wikipedia
Labels: speculations, wikipedia
Monday, March 17, 2008
A not-so-ethical Code
Lately, there's been a lot of talk about "A Blogger's Code of Ethics" -- incidentally about the time when a few of us bloggers associated with Wikimedia have openly wondered about the ethics of some people associated with the Wikimedia Foundation. I didn't comment about it when it was first proposed -- considering how it was introduced as part of a character assassination of Danny -- but I will now. Lao Tzu perhaps said what I think about this proposal best:
Put less elegantly, or less profoundly, when someone talks about the need for a code of ethics, it's fair to wonder about what his real intent is. His ethics immediately come into question.
The point of writing a blog is to speak one's mind. It's the equivalent of one part of a casual conversation over a cup of coffee, where we can cut through the formalities and explanations and talk one-to-one. When you do this with another person, you get to know that person better: you can judge that person's thought processes; sincerity or hypocrisy become evident. You can tell whether the other actually is able to use language well, or if that person is so inarticulate that every thing or action is "fucking this" and "fucking that".
To repeat one objection raised when Tim O'Reilly first proposed this exact Code of Ethics for bloggers about a year ago, as well-meaning as it was, there is no gain to anyone in adopting it. Unethical people will agree to it without hesitation, while ethical people will refuse, feeling that either this is a veiled accusation about their moral character or that they are setting themselves up for an attack based on the letter, not the spirit, of the document. (Anyone who has thought seriously about the Tao of ignore all rules will understand that last part.)
That's why I think this idea is a bad one. Further, the way it was introduced into the discussion -- as part of a blanket accusation that anyone who questions the actions of Jimmy Wales is an enemy to Wikipedia -- makes it hard for me not to suspect the writer's good faith.
Having contributed to Wikipedia for over five years now, I think I have the right to say what I think is wrong about it without my loyalty being questioned. Because of that long history, believe it or not, I actually think of some of the people involved in this my friends. What I write here is what I believe -- the good, the bad, and the tortured rhetoric. My motives here are simple: I think I know something about what happens there, and I want to show off that knowledge. I also want to understand the reasons for continuing with something I want to succeed, when some of the people involved are not acting with the project's best interest as their first priority.
In that last sentence, I am talking about faith; however the response of many of the members of the Foundation have not given answers that address my questions of faith. Danny Wool, whether right or wrong, has made some very detailed allegations. The Foundation has seen fit to do no better than to make routine -- if not cliched -- denials of his allegations. Faced with a choice between two versions, with no other basis of judgment, the intelligent person is forced to accept the more detailed one, because it is the one that can be more accurately verified. No one invents that wealth of detail if it is not the truth -- unless that person either cannot distinguish reality from fantasy, or is a compulsive liar.
If the Foundation actually respects the volunteers of the Wikimedia projects, then there are three appropriate steps, one of which they should take:
Because what will otherwise happen is not hard to foresee. While there will always be malcontents and gadflies around a successful effort to altruistically help people, there may not always be valuable people who will volunteer their time. The kind of people who can write valuable content, intelligently ignore rules, and can teach others how to do that are also the kind of people who do not accept routine denials, but question everything and ask for proof. While some of these people may lose their faith and quit in a visible protest that explains their reasons, others will simply quietly leave, and many more will simply decide not even join.
And making an edit to one of the Wikimedia project websites is much more inviting than sending money. If they don't care about the morale and quality of their volunteers, perhaps they will care when the donations stop coming yet the bills continue to.
Geoff
Technorati tags: Free culture, Blogger's Code of Ethics, online communities, wikipedia
When the Great Tao is rejected,
then there is talk of morality and righteousness;
When knowledge and wisdom appear,
then there is great hypocrisy;
When the six filial relations are not in harmony,
there is talk of dutiful sons;
And when the country is in disorder,
there is talk of loyal ministers.
Put less elegantly, or less profoundly, when someone talks about the need for a code of ethics, it's fair to wonder about what his real intent is. His ethics immediately come into question.
The point of writing a blog is to speak one's mind. It's the equivalent of one part of a casual conversation over a cup of coffee, where we can cut through the formalities and explanations and talk one-to-one. When you do this with another person, you get to know that person better: you can judge that person's thought processes; sincerity or hypocrisy become evident. You can tell whether the other actually is able to use language well, or if that person is so inarticulate that every thing or action is "fucking this" and "fucking that".
To repeat one objection raised when Tim O'Reilly first proposed this exact Code of Ethics for bloggers about a year ago, as well-meaning as it was, there is no gain to anyone in adopting it. Unethical people will agree to it without hesitation, while ethical people will refuse, feeling that either this is a veiled accusation about their moral character or that they are setting themselves up for an attack based on the letter, not the spirit, of the document. (Anyone who has thought seriously about the Tao of ignore all rules will understand that last part.)
That's why I think this idea is a bad one. Further, the way it was introduced into the discussion -- as part of a blanket accusation that anyone who questions the actions of Jimmy Wales is an enemy to Wikipedia -- makes it hard for me not to suspect the writer's good faith.
Having contributed to Wikipedia for over five years now, I think I have the right to say what I think is wrong about it without my loyalty being questioned. Because of that long history, believe it or not, I actually think of some of the people involved in this my friends. What I write here is what I believe -- the good, the bad, and the tortured rhetoric. My motives here are simple: I think I know something about what happens there, and I want to show off that knowledge. I also want to understand the reasons for continuing with something I want to succeed, when some of the people involved are not acting with the project's best interest as their first priority.
In that last sentence, I am talking about faith; however the response of many of the members of the Foundation have not given answers that address my questions of faith. Danny Wool, whether right or wrong, has made some very detailed allegations. The Foundation has seen fit to do no better than to make routine -- if not cliched -- denials of his allegations. Faced with a choice between two versions, with no other basis of judgment, the intelligent person is forced to accept the more detailed one, because it is the one that can be more accurately verified. No one invents that wealth of detail if it is not the truth -- unless that person either cannot distinguish reality from fantasy, or is a compulsive liar.
If the Foundation actually respects the volunteers of the Wikimedia projects, then there are three appropriate steps, one of which they should take:
- If what he says never actually happen -- that Jimmy Wales did not irresponsibly handle money that he should have given to the Foundation -- make the evidence public and prove him wrong.
- If these things did happen but they weren't irresponsible, then prove an explanation.
- If these things did happen, then admit it and promise that they will not happen again.
Because what will otherwise happen is not hard to foresee. While there will always be malcontents and gadflies around a successful effort to altruistically help people, there may not always be valuable people who will volunteer their time. The kind of people who can write valuable content, intelligently ignore rules, and can teach others how to do that are also the kind of people who do not accept routine denials, but question everything and ask for proof. While some of these people may lose their faith and quit in a visible protest that explains their reasons, others will simply quietly leave, and many more will simply decide not even join.
And making an edit to one of the Wikimedia project websites is much more inviting than sending money. If they don't care about the morale and quality of their volunteers, perhaps they will care when the donations stop coming yet the bills continue to.
Geoff
Technorati tags: Free culture, Blogger's Code of Ethics, online communities, wikipedia
Labels: free culture, speculations, wikimedia
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Visons and reality
Maybe you don't read ValleyWag or Danny Wool's new blog, so you haven't heard about Jimmy Wales and Rachel Marsden. Truth be told, I didn't even know that he had separated from his wife -- but then as far as I know, he's unaware that I have a new woman in my life. And so far, only a small number of serious Wikipedians appear to consider it worth their notice: the folks on WikiEN-l haven't spoken a word about this news, for example.
And as Danny Wool admits, Wales' sexual practices really aren't that important: since he is something of a celebrity, of course he's going have a number of women (or men, if he's interested) want him. Even my nieces in their teens and college years admit I'm sorta cool, despite being fifty and balding, because I've contributed to Wikipedia. And if the drama around this news item proceeds in the usual fashion, people will read as far as the fact that he had an affair with Marsden and either accuse him of being a scumbag -- or defend him as blameless -- on other other grounds. Which would mean that the most important item will be overlooked. (Which is not Marsden's problematic relationship with men.)
As Danny posted, details are emerging which affect "the Foundation's cash reserves, which are derived from donations." Danny continues:
Pointedly, Danny asks "I wonder if the students who gave up their lunch money to donate to Wikipedia would have approved of that expense." Wales is a smart guy; why didn't he ask the same question before spending the money -- or at least before expecting the Foundation to reimburse him?
I'm not stirring the Wikipedia drama pot here. A lot of what keeps Wikipedia going -- not only the altruistic donation of money, but labor -- depends on how the project is perceived. A lot of people, both within and out, believe this is done as a selfless labor of love. So when Wales suggested that Wikipedia consider advertising as a possible source of income, almost the entire Spanish language Wikipedia bolted, and only in the last year was the damage from that fork fully repaired. The story for years has been that Wales travels the world to speak to people on the cheap, flying coach and sleeping on couches; now to find that generous checks for speaking engagements have gone to a decadent life style instead of helping the vision flourish can only create doubt.
Even those of us with the most faith in the vision of Wikimedia -- unhindered access to useful information for everyone -- should not be taken for granted. As a personal example, I fully intended in the last donation drive to contribute some money, but when the primary solicitation for money emphasized how the funds could be used to help people in Africa, I lost my interest: if I wanted to help people in Africa, there are at least a hundred non-profits already doing just that, to whom I could send my money to them and know it had more of a positive effect. However, there is only one Wikimedia, which is currently doing the best job of putting useful information into free access on the Internet. I'm writing content for Wikipedia so that my daughter, her future friends, and their children can use without having to pay money to some corporation that treats facts as part of its manorial customs. And I suspect that there is a core of people who do what I do for the same reasons.
So what should followers do when they question their faith in their leader? One response is to continue to work harder in their trust of the leader, which some of us have been doing. I have no problem with paying the Foundation staff the salaries they have been receiving -- for the most part. As Ward Cunningham once observed many months ago, talking about a recent mention of the Wikimedia Foundation in the news, the chronic friction between the people in the Foundation is because they are overworked, underpaid, understaffed -- and very concerned about the success of their vision. I want to believe that they deserve at least as much as they are paid; and if they don't, they shouldn't be working there.
Another response is to embrace the vision: continue to create content for the Internet that does not have a surcharge to access. So can we continue to use the Wikimedia projects to achieve this? Or will using Wikipedia continue to enable someone to live la dolca vita?
Geoff
Technorati tags: Free culture, Jimmy Wales, libertarianism, online communities, Rachel Marsden, wikipedia
And as Danny Wool admits, Wales' sexual practices really aren't that important: since he is something of a celebrity, of course he's going have a number of women (or men, if he's interested) want him. Even my nieces in their teens and college years admit I'm sorta cool, despite being fifty and balding, because I've contributed to Wikipedia. And if the drama around this news item proceeds in the usual fashion, people will read as far as the fact that he had an affair with Marsden and either accuse him of being a scumbag -- or defend him as blameless -- on other other grounds. Which would mean that the most important item will be overlooked. (Which is not Marsden's problematic relationship with men.)
As Danny posted, details are emerging which affect "the Foundation's cash reserves, which are derived from donations." Danny continues:
You see, Jimbeau was certainly not frugal in his spending on his endless trips abroad, but when it came to handing in receipts, he could be somewhat careless. At one point he owed the Foundation some 30,000ドル in receipts, and this while we were preparing for the audit. Not a bad sum, considering that many of those trips had fat honoraria, which Jimbeau kept for himself. (Florence will surely remember his explanation for one of these: "I don’t make any money, and my wife needs a washing machine." Her response was wonderful: "A gold-plated washing machine?")
So Jimbeau cancelled an upcoming trip to Italy, Serbia, and Croatia, and got to work finding receipts. I helped process them. Subway ticket in Moscow: 0ドル.50. Massage parlor in Moscow: priceless. Some were accepted; others were not, like the 650ドル spent on two bottles of wine during a dinner for four at Bern's — I remember that one because he submitted it twice, once with the tip scratched out.
Pointedly, Danny asks "I wonder if the students who gave up their lunch money to donate to Wikipedia would have approved of that expense." Wales is a smart guy; why didn't he ask the same question before spending the money -- or at least before expecting the Foundation to reimburse him?
I'm not stirring the Wikipedia drama pot here. A lot of what keeps Wikipedia going -- not only the altruistic donation of money, but labor -- depends on how the project is perceived. A lot of people, both within and out, believe this is done as a selfless labor of love. So when Wales suggested that Wikipedia consider advertising as a possible source of income, almost the entire Spanish language Wikipedia bolted, and only in the last year was the damage from that fork fully repaired. The story for years has been that Wales travels the world to speak to people on the cheap, flying coach and sleeping on couches; now to find that generous checks for speaking engagements have gone to a decadent life style instead of helping the vision flourish can only create doubt.
Even those of us with the most faith in the vision of Wikimedia -- unhindered access to useful information for everyone -- should not be taken for granted. As a personal example, I fully intended in the last donation drive to contribute some money, but when the primary solicitation for money emphasized how the funds could be used to help people in Africa, I lost my interest: if I wanted to help people in Africa, there are at least a hundred non-profits already doing just that, to whom I could send my money to them and know it had more of a positive effect. However, there is only one Wikimedia, which is currently doing the best job of putting useful information into free access on the Internet. I'm writing content for Wikipedia so that my daughter, her future friends, and their children can use without having to pay money to some corporation that treats facts as part of its manorial customs. And I suspect that there is a core of people who do what I do for the same reasons.
So what should followers do when they question their faith in their leader? One response is to continue to work harder in their trust of the leader, which some of us have been doing. I have no problem with paying the Foundation staff the salaries they have been receiving -- for the most part. As Ward Cunningham once observed many months ago, talking about a recent mention of the Wikimedia Foundation in the news, the chronic friction between the people in the Foundation is because they are overworked, underpaid, understaffed -- and very concerned about the success of their vision. I want to believe that they deserve at least as much as they are paid; and if they don't, they shouldn't be working there.
Another response is to embrace the vision: continue to create content for the Internet that does not have a surcharge to access. So can we continue to use the Wikimedia projects to achieve this? Or will using Wikipedia continue to enable someone to live la dolca vita?
Geoff
Technorati tags: Free culture, Jimmy Wales, libertarianism, online communities, Rachel Marsden, wikipedia
Labels: free culture, speculations, wikipedia
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Is Wikipedia Losing its Potential?
It's a familiar story, maybe bordering a little on urban legend: parents go out of town for the weekend, leaving their teenage son at home. Free of parential oversight, he throws a party and invites everyone he knows and more, and trashes the house. Then the parents come home.
In essence, this is why the case of Corey Delaney is notable, and worth a mention in Wikipedia. What many 15-year-old boys talk about doing, what their parents fear they might do, and what has become the plot of countless movies and television episodes, Delaney did. And it was a blow-out of a party: according to one source, this young Australian threw a party that attracted as many as 500 people, and required a platoon of police, supported by dogs and a helicopter to break it up. For a while, he was on the run from not only the authorities, who wanted to serve him with a bill for the damages, but an even more intimidating nemesis: his parents.
When I was his age, over here in the US, my wildest dream was getting my hands on a six-pack of beer and a cute girl to drink it with. As irresponsible as it is to say this, part of me admires him -- even though he looks like an ersatz pimp in his oversized sunglasses and unbuttoned shirt.
Yes, someone created an article about him in Wikipedia. And yes, the article was deleted, someone insisted that the discussion for deletion should be hidden (after all, Delaney is a minor), and the deletion argument continued to deletion review. (For those not in the know about Wikipedia culture, this is a process that, in some ways, is more like asking your dad for something after your mother has said no than appealing a judge's decision to a higher court.)
I didn't get involved in this argument, in part because I discovered it long after the battlelines had hardened and it was clear that the article would stay gone, but also in part because the battlelines over this notable event had been drawn far differently than they should have been. What is notable about this incident is not Corey Delaney himself -- but the wild party itself. In my, perhaps twisted, opinion the story would have been just as notable had this party been thrown by Delaney's best friend -- or the nerdiest guy in their high school class. However when people heard about this incident, their response was to create a new article about Delaney -- who might change his ways, and decide not to continue the path of being famous because he's well-known, and instead become something less notable like a fireman, an investment fund manager, a Microsoft employee, or a Wikipedia editor.
Instead, this was an incident that should have been added to an existing article. There, the entire matter could have been covered in a few sentences, properly sourced, handled and forgotten. (Maybe I'll make that very edit in a few months -- if I remember to.) These kinds of wild, teenager-created parties do happen; I remember reading how these kinds of parties were a chronic nuisence in the Hamburg, Germany area in a German newsmagazine. Further, many years from now when someone, who remembers that this incident did make the news, and wants to now more, the first place she or he will start looking will not be under this kid's name, but under something more generic, like "party".
But there's a more troubling problem here than just a fight over whether we should have an article. It is an amazing lack of imagination, a quality which continues to grow. In some ways, our choice of new articles -- and their treatment -- on Wikipedia betrays a very conservative approach to possible topics. Instead of organizing information in new and intellectually stimulating ways, Wikipedians are instead modeling their approach in the ways most familiar and accessible to them. Jimbo Wales made a call over a year ago to improve the quality of Wikipedia articles; for many, this apparently means making Wikipedia more like a circa-1955 version of Encyclopedia Britannica than the Encyclopedia Britannica!
Not to say that I have surpassed this race towards mediocrity: almost all of the new articles I have recently created are about settlements -- villages and towns -- in Ethiopia. One could say that I'm not writing an encyclopedia, but a gazetteer; I have the notes for writing an account about a religious dispute of the Ethiopian church, a subject I doubt exists anywhere else online or in print. And writing that article and making it available for free to everyone, would doubtlessly encourage someone who is an expert -- in other words, someone who knows something about the subject -- to write a better account.
The last is just a thought I have when I wonder what I should be working on for Wikipedia.
Geoff
Technocrati tags: Corey Delaney, Free culture, Wikipedia, Writing,
In essence, this is why the case of Corey Delaney is notable, and worth a mention in Wikipedia. What many 15-year-old boys talk about doing, what their parents fear they might do, and what has become the plot of countless movies and television episodes, Delaney did. And it was a blow-out of a party: according to one source, this young Australian threw a party that attracted as many as 500 people, and required a platoon of police, supported by dogs and a helicopter to break it up. For a while, he was on the run from not only the authorities, who wanted to serve him with a bill for the damages, but an even more intimidating nemesis: his parents.
When I was his age, over here in the US, my wildest dream was getting my hands on a six-pack of beer and a cute girl to drink it with. As irresponsible as it is to say this, part of me admires him -- even though he looks like an ersatz pimp in his oversized sunglasses and unbuttoned shirt.
Yes, someone created an article about him in Wikipedia. And yes, the article was deleted, someone insisted that the discussion for deletion should be hidden (after all, Delaney is a minor), and the deletion argument continued to deletion review. (For those not in the know about Wikipedia culture, this is a process that, in some ways, is more like asking your dad for something after your mother has said no than appealing a judge's decision to a higher court.)
I didn't get involved in this argument, in part because I discovered it long after the battlelines had hardened and it was clear that the article would stay gone, but also in part because the battlelines over this notable event had been drawn far differently than they should have been. What is notable about this incident is not Corey Delaney himself -- but the wild party itself. In my, perhaps twisted, opinion the story would have been just as notable had this party been thrown by Delaney's best friend -- or the nerdiest guy in their high school class. However when people heard about this incident, their response was to create a new article about Delaney -- who might change his ways, and decide not to continue the path of being famous because he's well-known, and instead become something less notable like a fireman, an investment fund manager, a Microsoft employee, or a Wikipedia editor.
Instead, this was an incident that should have been added to an existing article. There, the entire matter could have been covered in a few sentences, properly sourced, handled and forgotten. (Maybe I'll make that very edit in a few months -- if I remember to.) These kinds of wild, teenager-created parties do happen; I remember reading how these kinds of parties were a chronic nuisence in the Hamburg, Germany area in a German newsmagazine. Further, many years from now when someone, who remembers that this incident did make the news, and wants to now more, the first place she or he will start looking will not be under this kid's name, but under something more generic, like "party".
But there's a more troubling problem here than just a fight over whether we should have an article. It is an amazing lack of imagination, a quality which continues to grow. In some ways, our choice of new articles -- and their treatment -- on Wikipedia betrays a very conservative approach to possible topics. Instead of organizing information in new and intellectually stimulating ways, Wikipedians are instead modeling their approach in the ways most familiar and accessible to them. Jimbo Wales made a call over a year ago to improve the quality of Wikipedia articles; for many, this apparently means making Wikipedia more like a circa-1955 version of Encyclopedia Britannica than the Encyclopedia Britannica!
Not to say that I have surpassed this race towards mediocrity: almost all of the new articles I have recently created are about settlements -- villages and towns -- in Ethiopia. One could say that I'm not writing an encyclopedia, but a gazetteer; I have the notes for writing an account about a religious dispute of the Ethiopian church, a subject I doubt exists anywhere else online or in print. And writing that article and making it available for free to everyone, would doubtlessly encourage someone who is an expert -- in other words, someone who knows something about the subject -- to write a better account.
The last is just a thought I have when I wonder what I should be working on for Wikipedia.
Geoff
Technocrati tags: Corey Delaney, Free culture, Wikipedia, Writing,
Labels: free culture, speculations, wikipedia, writing
Monday, December 31, 2007
Midway in Life
Saturday was my 50th birthday, and I celabrated it in a number of idiosyncratic ways with Yvette -- which included dropping about 100ドル dollars on Lego blocks at the local Lego store. (As a contrast, shortly afterwards we stopped by the Sharper Image store and despite the fact we are both nerds, neither of us found the gadgets currently for sale there worth buying.)
I've procrastinated over writing anything about this milestone event. One reason is that I wanted to say something profound and significant about it, but couldn't. Another is that admitting to my age means acknowledging a number of things, many of which would indicate that I haven't ended up where I thought I would be ten, twenty or thirty years ago. Yesterday I confessed to my friends that years ago I thought I would have a number of books published by now, be an established pundit of some intellectual stature, and be busy mentoring a new generation. Finding that my primary intellectual achievements has been a large number of positive, but certainly not important, contributions to Wikipedia and this blog, I can't help but feel that I've failed to fulfill the potential I know I once had, and my time to do so is now undeniably finite.
It would be easy to dismiss this as mid-life angst. Not everyone can be a Jimbo Wales (to name one example), travelling the world to speak to enthusiastic audiences, which would be a hard thing for any bright, ambitious person to accept; for there to be a top 1%, there has to be a lesser 99% who are denied recognition for their contributions.
However, I have my own achievements to be proud of. For example, many years ago I had a hand in defeating the adoption of UCITA in Oregon, which was a good thing that helped many, many people. And reflecting clearly on my past activities, I have to also acknowledge that many achievements are far more difficult than they might appear at first. I encountered a couple of simple, if not trivial, examples of this last night while working on Wikipedia: I spent a couple of hours integrating content into the article on Bonga, a town in southern Ethiopia, yet appears in the contribution history as only a pair of edits; and hours creating a new article on the Germama River which amounted to less than 1200 bytes. The reason both took so long was that my goal was to contribute usable content, integrated with relevant articles in Wikipedia, rather than simply adding text in a way that improves my editcount statistics, or argues a given opinion on a subject.
This insight does make significant achievements all the more impressive, even if careful research reveals that those achievements were accomplished with little effort. Still, I know I worry more now about how productively I spend time than I did when I was younger; I only hope that this worry does not erode either my sense of humor, or my sense of fun.
Geoff
Technocrati tags: achievements, age, writing
I've procrastinated over writing anything about this milestone event. One reason is that I wanted to say something profound and significant about it, but couldn't. Another is that admitting to my age means acknowledging a number of things, many of which would indicate that I haven't ended up where I thought I would be ten, twenty or thirty years ago. Yesterday I confessed to my friends that years ago I thought I would have a number of books published by now, be an established pundit of some intellectual stature, and be busy mentoring a new generation. Finding that my primary intellectual achievements has been a large number of positive, but certainly not important, contributions to Wikipedia and this blog, I can't help but feel that I've failed to fulfill the potential I know I once had, and my time to do so is now undeniably finite.
It would be easy to dismiss this as mid-life angst. Not everyone can be a Jimbo Wales (to name one example), travelling the world to speak to enthusiastic audiences, which would be a hard thing for any bright, ambitious person to accept; for there to be a top 1%, there has to be a lesser 99% who are denied recognition for their contributions.
However, I have my own achievements to be proud of. For example, many years ago I had a hand in defeating the adoption of UCITA in Oregon, which was a good thing that helped many, many people. And reflecting clearly on my past activities, I have to also acknowledge that many achievements are far more difficult than they might appear at first. I encountered a couple of simple, if not trivial, examples of this last night while working on Wikipedia: I spent a couple of hours integrating content into the article on Bonga, a town in southern Ethiopia, yet appears in the contribution history as only a pair of edits; and hours creating a new article on the Germama River which amounted to less than 1200 bytes. The reason both took so long was that my goal was to contribute usable content, integrated with relevant articles in Wikipedia, rather than simply adding text in a way that improves my editcount statistics, or argues a given opinion on a subject.
This insight does make significant achievements all the more impressive, even if careful research reveals that those achievements were accomplished with little effort. Still, I know I worry more now about how productively I spend time than I did when I was younger; I only hope that this worry does not erode either my sense of humor, or my sense of fun.
Geoff
Technocrati tags: achievements, age, writing
Labels: personal, speculations, writing
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Admin burnout
A copy of an email I wrote to WikiEN-l:
George Herbert wrote:
> It's been a recurring theme, but the point is that we still haven't
> figured out how to detect and head off (talk to, counsel, convince to
> take a stress-break and come back, whatever) flameouts by admins and
> longtime editors.
>
> There's a difference between people chosing to leave the project, and
> a project where the usual mode of leaving for experienced participants
> is an antagonistic conflict incident blowing up.
>
> That we haven't really come up with good solutions doesn't mean that
> we should stop noting incidents as they happen.
"Admin burn-out" is one of those topics that I've been interested too -- especially since at any given moment I post on WP:AN (or related pages) I am the Admin who's been on Wikipedia the longest; I once described myself as starting on Wikipedia back when Jimbo Wales was not even a "God-king" but just an aristocrat who bought himelf a magic book. In some cases, I have been an Admin longer than some Admins have had Wikipedia accounts. (This has been the case since Zoe bailed earlier this year.) And this is a distinction I'm not especially happy to hold.
(Note: there are a number of Admins senior to me still active on Wikipedia; occasionally I'll wonder what happened to someone, look at their contributions page, & see that she or he made a few dozen edits -- often more -- in the last couple of days. However, they keep an even lower profile than me, rarely, if ever, appearing on the Admin Noticeboards & related pages. Why is that if an Admin doesn't burn out, he retreats to an obscure corner of Wikipedia or just limits himself to Wikignoming? Your guess is as good as mine.)
I don't know whether my longevity is because I *don't* try to handle the hard cases, edit controversial articles (at least not after I learn the hard way that they are controversial) or work very hard at fighting vandalism or spam -- in other words, maybe I'm just Admincruft -- or its because I stumbled across the secret at surviving the often vicious atmosphere at Wikipedia. For anyone who's curious, my strategy has been to remember that the problem people always, in the end, get themselves kicked off of Wikipedia, & act accordingly. For example, when I'm in conflict in an article, & I'm convinced that the other person is a (insert here your favorite term of abuse) who is entirely, undeniably wrong (or has been doing most of her/his research with the help of illegal substances), what I do is ... sit back & wait 3 months, then go back & edit the article. Sometimes I make the changes I was originally fighting for, but more often I realize that the section in dispute ought to read another way -- sometimes the exact text what my opponent was arguing for, but for one reason or another I wasn't persuaded. Amazing what a curious mind can learn in three months!
For this admittedly passive attitude towards Adminship (if not Wikiepdia in general) to work, obviously I rely on other Admins to do the dirty work. For this reason, it would be useful to know how I can support the harder-working Admins so they can keep doing what they do. Telling me to "keep an eye on them" is not a good solution, since much of my work for Wikipedia is researching content -- out of 8 hours I might spend on Wikipedia, at least half of it is reading various sources, more often books than webpages, & trying to figure out how to usefully integrate it into the relevant articles. (BTW, even in my most focussed moments of researching, I find that 90% of what I find is not immediately usable for one reason or another -- most often because I don't see how I can add it to an article.) This means I often learn about the latest "blow-up" several hours -- if not several days -- after it appears to be all over, & someone has put a "Topic closed" notice on the thread.
If anything, I find myself more & more arguing with other Admins over how to deal with a perceived troublemaker; either there are an increasing number of people on Wikipedia who think in black-n-white, think anyone who criticizes Wikipedia is more dangerous than _The Register_ (or whoever is this week's most dangerous threat), & are upset that we are "too easy-going" on the troublemakers, or I am far too laid back. Since I have no problem dropping an indef block on people who are clearly troublemakers (anyone can look at my Admin log to see that I have dropped the banhammer from time to time), I don't think it's the latter. Most of the people who claim that Wikipedia's not honest about the claim that "anyone can edit" are, undeniably, the ones who got banned for good & understandible reasons; but I'm finding an increasing number of cases where newbies are getting the bum's rush for obvious newbie mistakes, & end up complaining about how Wikipedia is run by some inner circle.
Geoff
(Sorry, I don't have anything new to say about Carolyn Doran -- except to note that I received around 500 hits on my post "Uh, what?" yesterday, which is not only far more than any other post I've written, but more than any five other posts I've written. I guess this story has legs.)
Technocrati tags: online communities, Volunteerism, wikipedia
George Herbert wrote:
> It's been a recurring theme, but the point is that we still haven't
> figured out how to detect and head off (talk to, counsel, convince to
> take a stress-break and come back, whatever) flameouts by admins and
> longtime editors.
>
> There's a difference between people chosing to leave the project, and
> a project where the usual mode of leaving for experienced participants
> is an antagonistic conflict incident blowing up.
>
> That we haven't really come up with good solutions doesn't mean that
> we should stop noting incidents as they happen.
"Admin burn-out" is one of those topics that I've been interested too -- especially since at any given moment I post on WP:AN (or related pages) I am the Admin who's been on Wikipedia the longest; I once described myself as starting on Wikipedia back when Jimbo Wales was not even a "God-king" but just an aristocrat who bought himelf a magic book. In some cases, I have been an Admin longer than some Admins have had Wikipedia accounts. (This has been the case since Zoe bailed earlier this year.) And this is a distinction I'm not especially happy to hold.
(Note: there are a number of Admins senior to me still active on Wikipedia; occasionally I'll wonder what happened to someone, look at their contributions page, & see that she or he made a few dozen edits -- often more -- in the last couple of days. However, they keep an even lower profile than me, rarely, if ever, appearing on the Admin Noticeboards & related pages. Why is that if an Admin doesn't burn out, he retreats to an obscure corner of Wikipedia or just limits himself to Wikignoming? Your guess is as good as mine.)
I don't know whether my longevity is because I *don't* try to handle the hard cases, edit controversial articles (at least not after I learn the hard way that they are controversial) or work very hard at fighting vandalism or spam -- in other words, maybe I'm just Admincruft -- or its because I stumbled across the secret at surviving the often vicious atmosphere at Wikipedia. For anyone who's curious, my strategy has been to remember that the problem people always, in the end, get themselves kicked off of Wikipedia, & act accordingly. For example, when I'm in conflict in an article, & I'm convinced that the other person is a (insert here your favorite term of abuse) who is entirely, undeniably wrong (or has been doing most of her/his research with the help of illegal substances), what I do is ... sit back & wait 3 months, then go back & edit the article. Sometimes I make the changes I was originally fighting for, but more often I realize that the section in dispute ought to read another way -- sometimes the exact text what my opponent was arguing for, but for one reason or another I wasn't persuaded. Amazing what a curious mind can learn in three months!
For this admittedly passive attitude towards Adminship (if not Wikiepdia in general) to work, obviously I rely on other Admins to do the dirty work. For this reason, it would be useful to know how I can support the harder-working Admins so they can keep doing what they do. Telling me to "keep an eye on them" is not a good solution, since much of my work for Wikipedia is researching content -- out of 8 hours I might spend on Wikipedia, at least half of it is reading various sources, more often books than webpages, & trying to figure out how to usefully integrate it into the relevant articles. (BTW, even in my most focussed moments of researching, I find that 90% of what I find is not immediately usable for one reason or another -- most often because I don't see how I can add it to an article.) This means I often learn about the latest "blow-up" several hours -- if not several days -- after it appears to be all over, & someone has put a "Topic closed" notice on the thread.
If anything, I find myself more & more arguing with other Admins over how to deal with a perceived troublemaker; either there are an increasing number of people on Wikipedia who think in black-n-white, think anyone who criticizes Wikipedia is more dangerous than _The Register_ (or whoever is this week's most dangerous threat), & are upset that we are "too easy-going" on the troublemakers, or I am far too laid back. Since I have no problem dropping an indef block on people who are clearly troublemakers (anyone can look at my Admin log to see that I have dropped the banhammer from time to time), I don't think it's the latter. Most of the people who claim that Wikipedia's not honest about the claim that "anyone can edit" are, undeniably, the ones who got banned for good & understandible reasons; but I'm finding an increasing number of cases where newbies are getting the bum's rush for obvious newbie mistakes, & end up complaining about how Wikipedia is run by some inner circle.
Geoff
(Sorry, I don't have anything new to say about Carolyn Doran -- except to note that I received around 500 hits on my post "Uh, what?" yesterday, which is not only far more than any other post I've written, but more than any five other posts I've written. I guess this story has legs.)
Technocrati tags: online communities, Volunteerism, wikipedia
Labels: speculations, wikipedia
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
More on a vanished Wikimedia employee
Reading the usual flashpoints where the Carolyn Doran surprise has been discussed -- the WikiEN-L and foundation mailing lists, the Village Pump, Jimbo Wales' talk page, and the Administrator's Noticeboard -- it would appear that the discussion is over, that everything has been said, and everyone (well, everyone whose opinion counts) agrees that the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) has handled this incident quite well. Despite all of those words, there has been a lot of talking around the point that most concerns me, a rank-and-file volunteer who honestly doesn't want to bother with keeping informed about Foundation matters. That point, put as simply as I can,
is as follows:
Reading a bit between the lines of the material that WikiNews has collected, it is clear the first that anyone at the WMF knew about this part of her history was no earlier than the moment she returned to US soil, and was detained by Federal authorities. Further, can anyone doubt that she was let go for cause: omitting to tell your employer that you have one or more felonies in your record is grounds for being either fired -- or told to quit.
The point I want to draw attention to is that while the Foundation was well within its rights to terminate her employment, they handled it in the most clumsy manner possible. There is, we all will admit, the problem that had someone done some kind of a background check, she would not have been hired; you don't want someone with a criminal record of passing bad checks handling money in your business. Now Florence Douvard has pointed out, quite plausibly I'll concede, that it was reasonable to assume that the temp agency which placed her at WMF should have done a background check; lots of temp agencies do this for the simple reason that their credibility is on the line each time they place an employee. Still, to take a bookkeeper who had no management experience and make her a "Chief Operating Officer" is putting far too much faith in an unknown quality. (Why didn't they simply call her job "Office manager"? Except for Jimbo "God-king" Wales, no one involved with Wikimedia has such a grandiloquent title.)
Instead, the WMF handled her departure in such a clumsy manner that until the details came out, no one who hadn't been present at her last interview could be sure whether she was the victim here (for example, she had been subjected to some nasty sexual harassment) or she was a brazen criminal (for example, the Foundation caught her with a large bag of Foundation cash in the parking lot). Now at the time her employment was ended had the Board simply issued a statement that she had left "for personal reasons", when the average Wikipedian learned of The Register's expose I believe she/he would have simply shrugged and said, "So that's why she left" -- and the matter would have been a non-starter. It would have indicated that the Foundation believed they had handled the situation as well as they could have from the beginning, instead of attempting to convince a shocked community five months later that they had.
Note: the phrase "for personal reasons" explanation was just the first that came to my mind. One could indulge in a game of informed speculation, and arrive at reasons -- other than concealing her background -- for why she left. Some of these would include her performance (i.e., it became obvious that she just couldn't handle the job), personal reasons (e.g., she told them she had a sick relative to look after), or that the board had decided to redefine the duties of "Chief Operating Officer" and she was not qualified. However because the Foundation was evasive about why she left, human nature is to assume the worst. Now the unavoidable explanation is that they found out about her criminal past and let her go, and out of embarassment tried to cover this up.
Further, the board is still evasive on this matter: access to their resolution concerning her departure still remains confidential, unlike the one a few months before for Brad Patrick. Since the one for Patrick is so bland -- just an announcement that he is leaving and a polite thank-you for his service -- and they had no reason not to pass a resolution equally as bland, here again it is hard not to see that this cover-up continues. What could this resolution contain that no one outside the Foundation is allowed to see? And if this is personal information, who insisted that it should be included -- and why?
Getting rid of an employee like Doran is a tricky position for any employer. One has to get rid of an embarassment as quietly as possible, with as little trouble as possible -- otherwise, the problem only gets worse. Sometimes the problem employee is given a "carrot or stick" choice: take a nominal separation package and quit, or be fired and face some nasty penalties. In the Foundation's situation, there were few resources to use as a stick, and none for a carrot -- yet, she walked away from the situation far better off than any other party did. The Foundation lost credibility in how it avoided -- or forgot -- to tell anyone she had left, the Foundation raised unneeded suspicion by evading questions when people belatedly noticed she was gone and asked for details -- any details -- and I feel now it is losing more credibility by not stepping up and clearly saying something along the lines of, "We admit that made made these mistakes, we've since made these changes so that this won't happen again, and we've done all of this because we know we are responsible to the Wikimedia community: the volunteers, the donors, and the users."
As I said above, no one is talking about this repeated failure to show that the Foundation can effectively solve a problem -- which would show that the board and staff of the WMF can be entrusted with handling money given for charitable purposes. All I have seen are arguments over whether Wikipedians should even give The Register the time of day, and how the Foundation should cover its ass the next time this happens -- which either trail off into the usual exchange of venomous language between its participants, or with a chorus of Wikipedians repeating that they still have faith in the project.
As much as I believe in the vision of the WMF, this does not mean that I automaticaly believe in any one individual involved in its projects. They have to work at either gaining or keeping my trust. If someone screws up, and doesn't make a sincere effort to fix the mistake, I will begin to lose faith in that person; this is human nature. This also means, if I find that I can no longer assume good faith in large numbers of the people on this project -- by this I mean the people I need to assume good faith in so I can spend my time writing articles -- either I will find another project or simply leave Wikipedia. And I doubt I would be the only one who will contemplate a decision like this.
Geoff
Technocrati tags: Carolyn Doran, online communities, trust, Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia
is as follows:
- Carolyn Doran was the COO of the WMF for several months, until one day she wasn't. Simple as that: one day her entry on the WMF staff page was there, the next day it was gone, explained by only a terse "-Carolyn" in the comments.
- When a few people asked about what had happened to her, they received only evasive and mysterious answers, as well as a statement that everyone who knew anything signed a confidentiality agreement not to talk about it. No one made an issue of this mystery because almost no one outside of the WMF offices knew she existed: Doran had practically no recognition amongst the average volunteers. Her disappearance was something of a mystery, but compared with all of the other drama in the last several months, which involved people whose names other contributors could recognize about, and the fact that the answer might be something entirely prosaic (e.g., she left to take care of an ill relative), the matter was soon forgotten.
- Several months later, to the surprise of one and all, we are supplied with shocking evidence about her, all of which argued that Doran should never had been offered the job. Even giving her the benefit of a reasonable doubt (e.g., acknowledging that the legal system makes mistakes), and for the sake of argument agreeing that many of the charges against her were overblown or simply bogus, this evidence still demonstrates that she has a disturbing habit of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. There is no other way to put the matter: she had accumulated quite a few serious encounters with the law -- "felonies", I believe is the legal term.
Reading a bit between the lines of the material that WikiNews has collected, it is clear the first that anyone at the WMF knew about this part of her history was no earlier than the moment she returned to US soil, and was detained by Federal authorities. Further, can anyone doubt that she was let go for cause: omitting to tell your employer that you have one or more felonies in your record is grounds for being either fired -- or told to quit.
The point I want to draw attention to is that while the Foundation was well within its rights to terminate her employment, they handled it in the most clumsy manner possible. There is, we all will admit, the problem that had someone done some kind of a background check, she would not have been hired; you don't want someone with a criminal record of passing bad checks handling money in your business. Now Florence Douvard has pointed out, quite plausibly I'll concede, that it was reasonable to assume that the temp agency which placed her at WMF should have done a background check; lots of temp agencies do this for the simple reason that their credibility is on the line each time they place an employee. Still, to take a bookkeeper who had no management experience and make her a "Chief Operating Officer" is putting far too much faith in an unknown quality. (Why didn't they simply call her job "Office manager"? Except for Jimbo "God-king" Wales, no one involved with Wikimedia has such a grandiloquent title.)
Instead, the WMF handled her departure in such a clumsy manner that until the details came out, no one who hadn't been present at her last interview could be sure whether she was the victim here (for example, she had been subjected to some nasty sexual harassment) or she was a brazen criminal (for example, the Foundation caught her with a large bag of Foundation cash in the parking lot). Now at the time her employment was ended had the Board simply issued a statement that she had left "for personal reasons", when the average Wikipedian learned of The Register's expose I believe she/he would have simply shrugged and said, "So that's why she left" -- and the matter would have been a non-starter. It would have indicated that the Foundation believed they had handled the situation as well as they could have from the beginning, instead of attempting to convince a shocked community five months later that they had.
Note: the phrase "for personal reasons" explanation was just the first that came to my mind. One could indulge in a game of informed speculation, and arrive at reasons -- other than concealing her background -- for why she left. Some of these would include her performance (i.e., it became obvious that she just couldn't handle the job), personal reasons (e.g., she told them she had a sick relative to look after), or that the board had decided to redefine the duties of "Chief Operating Officer" and she was not qualified. However because the Foundation was evasive about why she left, human nature is to assume the worst. Now the unavoidable explanation is that they found out about her criminal past and let her go, and out of embarassment tried to cover this up.
Further, the board is still evasive on this matter: access to their resolution concerning her departure still remains confidential, unlike the one a few months before for Brad Patrick. Since the one for Patrick is so bland -- just an announcement that he is leaving and a polite thank-you for his service -- and they had no reason not to pass a resolution equally as bland, here again it is hard not to see that this cover-up continues. What could this resolution contain that no one outside the Foundation is allowed to see? And if this is personal information, who insisted that it should be included -- and why?
Getting rid of an employee like Doran is a tricky position for any employer. One has to get rid of an embarassment as quietly as possible, with as little trouble as possible -- otherwise, the problem only gets worse. Sometimes the problem employee is given a "carrot or stick" choice: take a nominal separation package and quit, or be fired and face some nasty penalties. In the Foundation's situation, there were few resources to use as a stick, and none for a carrot -- yet, she walked away from the situation far better off than any other party did. The Foundation lost credibility in how it avoided -- or forgot -- to tell anyone she had left, the Foundation raised unneeded suspicion by evading questions when people belatedly noticed she was gone and asked for details -- any details -- and I feel now it is losing more credibility by not stepping up and clearly saying something along the lines of, "We admit that made made these mistakes, we've since made these changes so that this won't happen again, and we've done all of this because we know we are responsible to the Wikimedia community: the volunteers, the donors, and the users."
As I said above, no one is talking about this repeated failure to show that the Foundation can effectively solve a problem -- which would show that the board and staff of the WMF can be entrusted with handling money given for charitable purposes. All I have seen are arguments over whether Wikipedians should even give The Register the time of day, and how the Foundation should cover its ass the next time this happens -- which either trail off into the usual exchange of venomous language between its participants, or with a chorus of Wikipedians repeating that they still have faith in the project.
As much as I believe in the vision of the WMF, this does not mean that I automaticaly believe in any one individual involved in its projects. They have to work at either gaining or keeping my trust. If someone screws up, and doesn't make a sincere effort to fix the mistake, I will begin to lose faith in that person; this is human nature. This also means, if I find that I can no longer assume good faith in large numbers of the people on this project -- by this I mean the people I need to assume good faith in so I can spend my time writing articles -- either I will find another project or simply leave Wikipedia. And I doubt I would be the only one who will contemplate a decision like this.
Geoff
Technocrati tags: Carolyn Doran, online communities, trust, Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia
Labels: speculations, wikimedia, wikipedia
Friday, December 14, 2007
Uh, what?
Like the rest of you, I just read about the fate of Carolyn Doran. And like most of you (except for the few who revel in schadefroh over any mishap involving Wikipedia or its associated groups), I'm shocked.
I've never quite understood just what Doran's role in the Foundation actually was, and never did shake the assumption that she was little more than a glorified office manager -- someone whose duties consisted of ordering supplies, answering the phone, and reminding other employees about their appointments. Outside of one fluffy but friendly message announcing herself to the Wikimedia community towards the beginning of her brief tenure, her presence was otherwise remarkably unremarkable. It could be said that this was a good thing, that her presence didn't harm the Foundation -- but that's just spin. If nothing else, she received a paycheck that could have gone to someone who actually made a tangible contribution -- so her presence did harm the Foundation by squandering scarce and badly needed resources.
Then there is the problem that she was hired in the first place. Not too long ago, we Americans learned from the legal experiences of Martha Stewart that felons could not legally become corporate officers -- so I am puzzled that no one made the effort to determine whether Doran was one. Yes, the Foundation is currently strapped for money, but at the very least they could have asked her, on penalty of losing her job immediately, if she was one. And instead of providing a non-answer when someone belated noticed she had vanished and asked what happened to her, the Foundation could have simply stated at the time that she left "for personal reasons" -- which is true. Those three simple, intentionally ambiguous words would provide enough of an rationale the faithful would accept when the truth surfaced, something that Wikipedia's many hostile critics Wikipedia could be expected to make happen.
Maybe they knew about her past, but hired her anyway -- for skills that she never had a chance to demonstrate. If they did, didn't it occur to anyone that there are a number of restrictions on her ability to travel? A number of countries (for example Canada, and ironically Australia) do not permit felons to legal entry -- there are a lot of places Doran could not go. Then there is the fact that some legal official would expect to be informed when she left the country, if not his jurisdiction -- which is what landed her in jail.
I'd like to hope that this scandal will be handled much better than it has been because I know there are good and intelligent people at the Foundation, but I find this hard to do. In the past year, Jimbo Wales has twice demonstrated a disturbing lack of skill in handling a situation, and I have enough of an inflated sense of self-worth that I half-expect to receive some angry words from him for my frank post. Even if Wales and the board were to avoid the familiar bunker mentality and publicly say something along the lines that they made a mistake, that they learned their lessons and now they want to move forward -- this is not enough.
I have several posts I've been working on but not yet posted; my reason until now is that I have a hard time deciding which is more important. So if I lapse back into silence on this blog, the reason is that I'm still trying to process this latest challenge to my faith in Wikipedia. If I were truly ready to toss in the towel on this important undertaking, I'd instead end this post proposing a pool to see which Wikipedia critic would be first to make a joke about the dangers of inviting Doran to the Foundation Christmas party.
Geoff
Technocrati tags: Carolyn Doran, online communities, trust, Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia
I've never quite understood just what Doran's role in the Foundation actually was, and never did shake the assumption that she was little more than a glorified office manager -- someone whose duties consisted of ordering supplies, answering the phone, and reminding other employees about their appointments. Outside of one fluffy but friendly message announcing herself to the Wikimedia community towards the beginning of her brief tenure, her presence was otherwise remarkably unremarkable. It could be said that this was a good thing, that her presence didn't harm the Foundation -- but that's just spin. If nothing else, she received a paycheck that could have gone to someone who actually made a tangible contribution -- so her presence did harm the Foundation by squandering scarce and badly needed resources.
Then there is the problem that she was hired in the first place. Not too long ago, we Americans learned from the legal experiences of Martha Stewart that felons could not legally become corporate officers -- so I am puzzled that no one made the effort to determine whether Doran was one. Yes, the Foundation is currently strapped for money, but at the very least they could have asked her, on penalty of losing her job immediately, if she was one. And instead of providing a non-answer when someone belated noticed she had vanished and asked what happened to her, the Foundation could have simply stated at the time that she left "for personal reasons" -- which is true. Those three simple, intentionally ambiguous words would provide enough of an rationale the faithful would accept when the truth surfaced, something that Wikipedia's many hostile critics Wikipedia could be expected to make happen.
Maybe they knew about her past, but hired her anyway -- for skills that she never had a chance to demonstrate. If they did, didn't it occur to anyone that there are a number of restrictions on her ability to travel? A number of countries (for example Canada, and ironically Australia) do not permit felons to legal entry -- there are a lot of places Doran could not go. Then there is the fact that some legal official would expect to be informed when she left the country, if not his jurisdiction -- which is what landed her in jail.
I'd like to hope that this scandal will be handled much better than it has been because I know there are good and intelligent people at the Foundation, but I find this hard to do. In the past year, Jimbo Wales has twice demonstrated a disturbing lack of skill in handling a situation, and I have enough of an inflated sense of self-worth that I half-expect to receive some angry words from him for my frank post. Even if Wales and the board were to avoid the familiar bunker mentality and publicly say something along the lines that they made a mistake, that they learned their lessons and now they want to move forward -- this is not enough.
I have several posts I've been working on but not yet posted; my reason until now is that I have a hard time deciding which is more important. So if I lapse back into silence on this blog, the reason is that I'm still trying to process this latest challenge to my faith in Wikipedia. If I were truly ready to toss in the towel on this important undertaking, I'd instead end this post proposing a pool to see which Wikipedia critic would be first to make a joke about the dangers of inviting Doran to the Foundation Christmas party.
Geoff
Technocrati tags: Carolyn Doran, online communities, trust, Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia
Labels: speculations, wikimedia, wikipedia
Thursday, November 29, 2007
When a Wiki doesn't work
Although I am obviously a fan of this kind of software application, the statement "People who want to bring out the best in themselves and their organizations immediately think of Wiki as the best way to collaborate" in this proposed vision statement got me thinking about the flaws in a Wiki. My thinking was based, more or less, on the old precept that "no tool solves all problems", but once I started it was clear to me that this is a question of understanding the problem, evaluating all of the solutions, and determining the best fit -- with the caveat that some unforseen element may overturn this deliberate process and force one to accept a different solution.
There are a number of criteria and concerns I could mention, but I'm limiting myself to just those which I have found to be the most significant. Which are two.
The first is that the distance between author and audience on a Wiki is very close. In other words, the lag time between what a person adds to a Wiki page and any response -- for example, someone deleting or adding to that person's contribution -- is surprisingly short.
Although as an author I like the fact that I can get immediate feedback from an audience over what I have said or written, sometimes this feedback arrives too soon and forces me to respond. Since I'm not as good at thinking on my feet as many people are (actually, not as good as almost anyone), my responses aren't as good as they could be: either I emphasize the wrong points or explain them incorrectly; I get my facts wrong; I lose my temper; or I settle for a quick and unproductive comeback intended just to shut the person up.
I'm not alone in this desire for some amount of lag time: Wikipedia has a chronic problem with edit wars. Someone will add a passage to an article, someone else will read it, disagree, and replace those words with their own. And it continues, blocking the growth or improvement of the article until either one (or both) are blocked from it or (far less commonly, at least as I remember) they discuss their disagreement and come to a consensus.
One could argue that edit wars are a due to a misunderstanding about ownership, but I think the problem is far more subtle. The goal of the Wikipedia project is to create a text, an encyclopedia; however, Wikis best lend themselves to creating conversations. I use this distinction of "text" and "conversation" with care: the first is a product of research, analysis, and creation, all of which require time -- often years -- to produce; the second is a product of two opinions or points of view interacting, which requires a minimum of time or the conversation dies. The point of creating a text is to have a finished, cohesive work, and the dynamics of a conversation work against that: who has not been interrupted in a conversation? This makes one angry, an anger similar to the anger present in most edit wars.
Although I've described these two as opposed to one another, they aren't absolutes, but rather end points of a continuum. Texts range from electronic ones (like email, usenet, webpages) to printed ones (e.g. an article in a magazine or a printed book) which are often, if not always, written in response to an earlier text. This can be seen as a conversation where the responses are separated by years or more; Western philosophy is sometimes described, not entirely as a joke, as an ongoing discussion with the works of Plato, who lived 24 centuries ago -- which makes this a very slow discussion. Further, even in face-to-face discussions, it is not uncommon for one party to pause and research a fact in a reference book or online.
This leads to my second consideration: content on a Wiki is never finished. Some emphasize the positive aspects of this fact: documents on a Wiki never go out of date, because anyone (with the needed permissions, of course) can update them. The problem that a published book has, that it begins to gradually become inaccurate the moment it is printed, is solved with a Wiki!
While this is a good thing, this unfinished quality can also be a drawback. For no matter how much work is done on a Wiki page, it can always be altered -- and sometimes drastically. Content can be replaced with better content -- or with worse; what makes one Wiki page successful can be removed with a careless or badly-considered edit -- or one intended to improve some other aspect of the page. Hence a Wiki is more akin to a conversation, than a collection of texts.
There are ways to deal with this issue. The Wikimedia software, for example, is written to keep copies of earlier versions of the pages in the application -- so nothing is truly lost. Or one can impliment the practice of marking some pages as "stable", "featured" or "finished", and make them more difficult to change. This is simply one of many issues that an adopter needs to think about when considering a Wiki to help with collaboration.
Now I have encountered some people mention that these points make a Wiki a poor application for the business environment, and point to the apparent anarchy that exists around Wikipedia: anyone can -- and does -- edit Wikipedia. How can a Wiki work inside a business? What these people overlook is the power of the community associated with the Wiki application: this community not only nourishes the content on the Wiki, but this community protects it. Look at the countless pages of policy, dispute resolution, and so forth that exist on Wikipedia currently -- there is a great deal of control over the content on Wikipedia; some would say too much. Any successful business already has these controls in place. It currently uses them to encourage its employees to contribute to its profit; if these controls cannot be replicated to monitor edits to a corporate Wiki, then the business is clearly doomed.
Hmm. I started this post by stating that there were two considerations, but find that there are three: how will the collaborative community make use of a Wiki. Some communities will accept it with little or no encouragement; some have already found a way to collaborate without one, and the effort to get this community to accept a Wiki may be a waste of time and resources. After all, why trade in a car that works -- and is owned free and clear -- for this year's model?
Geoff
Technocrati tags: online communities, online collaboration, software, Wikipedia, writing
There are a number of criteria and concerns I could mention, but I'm limiting myself to just those which I have found to be the most significant. Which are two.
The first is that the distance between author and audience on a Wiki is very close. In other words, the lag time between what a person adds to a Wiki page and any response -- for example, someone deleting or adding to that person's contribution -- is surprisingly short.
Although as an author I like the fact that I can get immediate feedback from an audience over what I have said or written, sometimes this feedback arrives too soon and forces me to respond. Since I'm not as good at thinking on my feet as many people are (actually, not as good as almost anyone), my responses aren't as good as they could be: either I emphasize the wrong points or explain them incorrectly; I get my facts wrong; I lose my temper; or I settle for a quick and unproductive comeback intended just to shut the person up.
I'm not alone in this desire for some amount of lag time: Wikipedia has a chronic problem with edit wars. Someone will add a passage to an article, someone else will read it, disagree, and replace those words with their own. And it continues, blocking the growth or improvement of the article until either one (or both) are blocked from it or (far less commonly, at least as I remember) they discuss their disagreement and come to a consensus.
One could argue that edit wars are a due to a misunderstanding about ownership, but I think the problem is far more subtle. The goal of the Wikipedia project is to create a text, an encyclopedia; however, Wikis best lend themselves to creating conversations. I use this distinction of "text" and "conversation" with care: the first is a product of research, analysis, and creation, all of which require time -- often years -- to produce; the second is a product of two opinions or points of view interacting, which requires a minimum of time or the conversation dies. The point of creating a text is to have a finished, cohesive work, and the dynamics of a conversation work against that: who has not been interrupted in a conversation? This makes one angry, an anger similar to the anger present in most edit wars.
Although I've described these two as opposed to one another, they aren't absolutes, but rather end points of a continuum. Texts range from electronic ones (like email, usenet, webpages) to printed ones (e.g. an article in a magazine or a printed book) which are often, if not always, written in response to an earlier text. This can be seen as a conversation where the responses are separated by years or more; Western philosophy is sometimes described, not entirely as a joke, as an ongoing discussion with the works of Plato, who lived 24 centuries ago -- which makes this a very slow discussion. Further, even in face-to-face discussions, it is not uncommon for one party to pause and research a fact in a reference book or online.
This leads to my second consideration: content on a Wiki is never finished. Some emphasize the positive aspects of this fact: documents on a Wiki never go out of date, because anyone (with the needed permissions, of course) can update them. The problem that a published book has, that it begins to gradually become inaccurate the moment it is printed, is solved with a Wiki!
While this is a good thing, this unfinished quality can also be a drawback. For no matter how much work is done on a Wiki page, it can always be altered -- and sometimes drastically. Content can be replaced with better content -- or with worse; what makes one Wiki page successful can be removed with a careless or badly-considered edit -- or one intended to improve some other aspect of the page. Hence a Wiki is more akin to a conversation, than a collection of texts.
There are ways to deal with this issue. The Wikimedia software, for example, is written to keep copies of earlier versions of the pages in the application -- so nothing is truly lost. Or one can impliment the practice of marking some pages as "stable", "featured" or "finished", and make them more difficult to change. This is simply one of many issues that an adopter needs to think about when considering a Wiki to help with collaboration.
Now I have encountered some people mention that these points make a Wiki a poor application for the business environment, and point to the apparent anarchy that exists around Wikipedia: anyone can -- and does -- edit Wikipedia. How can a Wiki work inside a business? What these people overlook is the power of the community associated with the Wiki application: this community not only nourishes the content on the Wiki, but this community protects it. Look at the countless pages of policy, dispute resolution, and so forth that exist on Wikipedia currently -- there is a great deal of control over the content on Wikipedia; some would say too much. Any successful business already has these controls in place. It currently uses them to encourage its employees to contribute to its profit; if these controls cannot be replicated to monitor edits to a corporate Wiki, then the business is clearly doomed.
Hmm. I started this post by stating that there were two considerations, but find that there are three: how will the collaborative community make use of a Wiki. Some communities will accept it with little or no encouragement; some have already found a way to collaborate without one, and the effort to get this community to accept a Wiki may be a waste of time and resources. After all, why trade in a car that works -- and is owned free and clear -- for this year's model?
Geoff
Technocrati tags: online communities, online collaboration, software, Wikipedia, writing
Labels: speculations, wikipedia, writing
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Notes on Wikidrama
Wikidrama, noun: (1) an instance of excitement or conflict in a Wiki community, which is often thought to be needlessly passionate by those uninvolved in the instance; (2) pejorative, the normal state of affairs in many Wiki communities.
An interesting comment -- okay, better than what I could write, which may not be saying much -- on one of the recent Wikidramas: Luna Santin on the CharlotteWebb arbitration.
Would it be appropriate to opine that one reason people dislike wikidrama is that no Wiki software currently has an extension to add car chases? That statement occured to me while thinking about an essay explaining my opinion in this discussion: while Wikis are an excellent tool for collaboration, it is not a one-size-fits-all solution.
Geoff
Technocrati tags: online communities, Wikipedia, wikis
An interesting comment -- okay, better than what I could write, which may not be saying much -- on one of the recent Wikidramas: Luna Santin on the CharlotteWebb arbitration.
Would it be appropriate to opine that one reason people dislike wikidrama is that no Wiki software currently has an extension to add car chases? That statement occured to me while thinking about an essay explaining my opinion in this discussion: while Wikis are an excellent tool for collaboration, it is not a one-size-fits-all solution.
Geoff
Technocrati tags: online communities, Wikipedia, wikis
Labels: speculations, wikipedia
Thursday, November 15, 2007
WikiEN-l
My activities related to Wikipedia involve more than writing articles. For example, I spend probably as much time away from the computer (or at least on the computer, and online, but not at the Wikipedia website) researching information as I do editting. (I have to find content to add to Wikipedia somehow, and its one of the better ways to find reliable information.) Another activity that occupies a sizable amount of time is reading the various discussions on Wikipedia about Wikipedia: Wikipedia:Administrators noticeboards, Wikipedia:Administrators noticeboards/Incidents, fora at the Village Pump (when I remember it exists), the Signpost, talk pages at various WikiProjects, and about once a week I read through the archives of WikiEN-l.
WikiEN-l used to be far more important than it is now, but I still find it useful to read on a periodic basis. Sometimes I find gems like this announcement of another study about the community dynamics of Wikipedia -- but often I read it for the discussion. There are just under half a dozen people posting there whose opinions I respect, many times more people who I don't know but I'm willing to read in any case and allow them to persuade me, and two or three troublemakers. By "troublemakers", I mean individuals who have been banned from Wikipedia and desperate to complain some more about how unfair people are there.
I can't honestly say that the community around WikiEN-l is really any different from other communities around any other mailing list: there are some people worth reading and some who are wasting everyone else's time. It's just that WikiEN-l has a reputation of being a more serious or important forum to discuss issues concerning the English language Wikipedia. So after lurking there earlier this week, spending a few hours reading, I was left with the impression that the mailling list has outlasted its purpose.
Now WikiEN-l has always had a certain degree of venom or bitterness in its communications. People complain or vent there about daily stupidity on Wikipedia. Troublemakers go there to complain that they are misunderstood and should be reinstated -- or that Wikipedia is broken and needs to be fixed. Then, as happens whenever one brings together a large number of people seriously interested in one project, a number of flame wars will break out, and you can have two or more respected Wikipedians calling each other "troll" or "vandal" or worse. However, the atmosphere there has turned far more nasty than can be explained by these causes: its has turned into a cesspit -- okay, maybe I should say "another cesspit" -- where people go to flame each other, everyone and everything. When things calm down a little, someone -- not always one of the troublemakers -- stirs the sewage and another flamewar breaks out.
This is not just a bad day there. I read a week's worth of email, and the last couple of times I've lurked there things have not been much better. I'd read to find the occasional gem that made the effort worth it, but it's gotten to the point where the effort is not worth it any more. One can make a valuable point or win an argument on WikiEN-l, but chances are good no one outside the list will notice as well as few on the list; ideas, both good and bad, are simply being drowned out by accusations, counter-accusations, and more until the original idea is forgotten.
I find this disappointing, if not sad. As I wrote above, there are some bright and articulate people on the list, as well as some people who are eager to show that they, too, are bright and articulate; but all that is happening there is that they are complaining and arguing over...at this point I don't really know, and I'm no longer that interested enough to untangle things. People are unhappy with Wikipedia, but people have always been unhappy with Wikipedia. People make mistakes; good ideas get overlooked; someone who is an asset to the project encounters one failure too many, feels burnt out, and leaves -- sometimes memorably.
Yet if all of this energy led to some goal, served some purpose, maybe it would be justified; as far as I can tell, very few Wikipedians -- even those who might be said to be part of the alleged "inside clique" -- pay any attention to it. It's become one more dynamic in the project community that doesn't further its purpose -- that is, if Wikipedia has a clear purpose beyond "creating an encyclopedia." Even then, what encyclopedia that exists is incomplete and unreliable -- "early beta" as one participant has described its quality. Much -- if not the majority -- of the energy around Wikipedia seems to go into the process of writing an encyclopedia -- fighting vandalism, flagging articles for quality, arguing over guidelines and procedures.
I don't know what the answer is, but I didn't find it reading WikiEN-l. It might be time to simply shut the list down. Doing that won't solve the problem alone, but by removing one outlet for writing about the process of writing an encyclopedia, it might encourage people to simply just write one.
Geoff
Technocrati tags: online communities, Wikipedia, writing
WikiEN-l used to be far more important than it is now, but I still find it useful to read on a periodic basis. Sometimes I find gems like this announcement of another study about the community dynamics of Wikipedia -- but often I read it for the discussion. There are just under half a dozen people posting there whose opinions I respect, many times more people who I don't know but I'm willing to read in any case and allow them to persuade me, and two or three troublemakers. By "troublemakers", I mean individuals who have been banned from Wikipedia and desperate to complain some more about how unfair people are there.
I can't honestly say that the community around WikiEN-l is really any different from other communities around any other mailing list: there are some people worth reading and some who are wasting everyone else's time. It's just that WikiEN-l has a reputation of being a more serious or important forum to discuss issues concerning the English language Wikipedia. So after lurking there earlier this week, spending a few hours reading, I was left with the impression that the mailling list has outlasted its purpose.
Now WikiEN-l has always had a certain degree of venom or bitterness in its communications. People complain or vent there about daily stupidity on Wikipedia. Troublemakers go there to complain that they are misunderstood and should be reinstated -- or that Wikipedia is broken and needs to be fixed. Then, as happens whenever one brings together a large number of people seriously interested in one project, a number of flame wars will break out, and you can have two or more respected Wikipedians calling each other "troll" or "vandal" or worse. However, the atmosphere there has turned far more nasty than can be explained by these causes: its has turned into a cesspit -- okay, maybe I should say "another cesspit" -- where people go to flame each other, everyone and everything. When things calm down a little, someone -- not always one of the troublemakers -- stirs the sewage and another flamewar breaks out.
This is not just a bad day there. I read a week's worth of email, and the last couple of times I've lurked there things have not been much better. I'd read to find the occasional gem that made the effort worth it, but it's gotten to the point where the effort is not worth it any more. One can make a valuable point or win an argument on WikiEN-l, but chances are good no one outside the list will notice as well as few on the list; ideas, both good and bad, are simply being drowned out by accusations, counter-accusations, and more until the original idea is forgotten.
I find this disappointing, if not sad. As I wrote above, there are some bright and articulate people on the list, as well as some people who are eager to show that they, too, are bright and articulate; but all that is happening there is that they are complaining and arguing over...at this point I don't really know, and I'm no longer that interested enough to untangle things. People are unhappy with Wikipedia, but people have always been unhappy with Wikipedia. People make mistakes; good ideas get overlooked; someone who is an asset to the project encounters one failure too many, feels burnt out, and leaves -- sometimes memorably.
Yet if all of this energy led to some goal, served some purpose, maybe it would be justified; as far as I can tell, very few Wikipedians -- even those who might be said to be part of the alleged "inside clique" -- pay any attention to it. It's become one more dynamic in the project community that doesn't further its purpose -- that is, if Wikipedia has a clear purpose beyond "creating an encyclopedia." Even then, what encyclopedia that exists is incomplete and unreliable -- "early beta" as one participant has described its quality. Much -- if not the majority -- of the energy around Wikipedia seems to go into the process of writing an encyclopedia -- fighting vandalism, flagging articles for quality, arguing over guidelines and procedures.
I don't know what the answer is, but I didn't find it reading WikiEN-l. It might be time to simply shut the list down. Doing that won't solve the problem alone, but by removing one outlet for writing about the process of writing an encyclopedia, it might encourage people to simply just write one.
Geoff
Technocrati tags: online communities, Wikipedia, writing
Labels: speculations, wikipedia, writing
Friday, October 26, 2007
Ignite Portland: the Event
As the blogsphere has documented, last night's Ignite Portland was a surprising success. The organizers expected between 50-100, hoped for more, and were excited to have 300 people sign up. I was one of them.
Weiden+Kennedy was picked as the host, in part because they generously offered to share their facility, but maybe more because their offices provided that cutting-edge, urban hip feel that the attendees expected at IgnitePortland. It was my first inside the building since it was converted from warehouse space, and the interior layout left me admittedly disoriented. Climb one flight of stairs, then climb another, and then one came to the Nike court -- named for Weiden+Kennedy's best-known client -- yet at least three more floor loomed above the visitor, beyond planes of concrete and laminated wood stretching in all three dimensions. I was left with the feeling that the environment was designed to make people to think about the poetics of space within a building, but instead I felt vaguely uncomfortable because I knew this environment would not make me think productively.
The people there were an eclectic bunch, most of whom were not the folks whom I had met or seen at Portland Bar Camp, OSCON, or Recent Changes Camp. Which is I consider a good thing, because it proves that the Portland technology scene is still vibrant and growing; the bleak jobmarket of five years ago is still wel-remembered by those of us who struggled through it. I did see a few people I knew -- but met a few I hadn't, like Mike Lucich (of Return and Kumquat), and Rick Turoczy of the always enjoyable blog, Silicon Florist. It was a thrill for this C-list blogger to talk with a couple of bloggers further up the food chain, and we wondered if Mike Rogoway, the technology reporter at the local newspaper, was there.
As for the presentations, I saw that they were being recorded, and eventually video files should be available; so I won't go into detail about their subject matter. One that I enjoyed were Kevin Tate talking about "Emergence in Business" -- maybe because I'm fascinated with the way, evocative of the language of the Tao Te Ching, that groups, networks and communities form their own environments, or maybe because he alluded to a number of books he recommended to us to read. Another was Scott Huber bemusedly recounting a real-life discovery that, in this time of posting and uploading so much information on the internet, some people inadvertently share too much information. On the other hand, a few presentations were very much contrarian, on such topics as re-wilding our environment, knitting, making cornbread, and a proposal to create an Oregon-style chain of gas stations.
Maybe those contrarian presentations were clearly post-Web 2.0, by forcing us to think about the tension between the context and their subjects in a post-modern way, and therefore examples of Web 3.0 technology. We should think of them ironically, not as open and sincere attempts to share something that the presenters had a genuine interest in; true sophistication has come to Puddletown. Then again, we all know that bloggers will say the most outrageous things just to attract hits, a tactic entertainers have used to drum up an audience for millennia. Is there any point in worrying that a large number of people got together, were exposed to some new things, and had a good time? Learning things and sharing them is one of the joys of being a nerd. And Web 2.0 has brought a new interest to the Internet because it is one more way to bring people together who then share, not because it makes its users more sophisticated.
Geoff
Technocrati tags: Ignite Portland, Portland Tech, Web 2.0, Web 3.0
Weiden+Kennedy was picked as the host, in part because they generously offered to share their facility, but maybe more because their offices provided that cutting-edge, urban hip feel that the attendees expected at IgnitePortland. It was my first inside the building since it was converted from warehouse space, and the interior layout left me admittedly disoriented. Climb one flight of stairs, then climb another, and then one came to the Nike court -- named for Weiden+Kennedy's best-known client -- yet at least three more floor loomed above the visitor, beyond planes of concrete and laminated wood stretching in all three dimensions. I was left with the feeling that the environment was designed to make people to think about the poetics of space within a building, but instead I felt vaguely uncomfortable because I knew this environment would not make me think productively.
The people there were an eclectic bunch, most of whom were not the folks whom I had met or seen at Portland Bar Camp, OSCON, or Recent Changes Camp. Which is I consider a good thing, because it proves that the Portland technology scene is still vibrant and growing; the bleak jobmarket of five years ago is still wel-remembered by those of us who struggled through it. I did see a few people I knew -- but met a few I hadn't, like Mike Lucich (of Return and Kumquat), and Rick Turoczy of the always enjoyable blog, Silicon Florist. It was a thrill for this C-list blogger to talk with a couple of bloggers further up the food chain, and we wondered if Mike Rogoway, the technology reporter at the local newspaper, was there.
As for the presentations, I saw that they were being recorded, and eventually video files should be available; so I won't go into detail about their subject matter. One that I enjoyed were Kevin Tate talking about "Emergence in Business" -- maybe because I'm fascinated with the way, evocative of the language of the Tao Te Ching, that groups, networks and communities form their own environments, or maybe because he alluded to a number of books he recommended to us to read. Another was Scott Huber bemusedly recounting a real-life discovery that, in this time of posting and uploading so much information on the internet, some people inadvertently share too much information. On the other hand, a few presentations were very much contrarian, on such topics as re-wilding our environment, knitting, making cornbread, and a proposal to create an Oregon-style chain of gas stations.
Maybe those contrarian presentations were clearly post-Web 2.0, by forcing us to think about the tension between the context and their subjects in a post-modern way, and therefore examples of Web 3.0 technology. We should think of them ironically, not as open and sincere attempts to share something that the presenters had a genuine interest in; true sophistication has come to Puddletown. Then again, we all know that bloggers will say the most outrageous things just to attract hits, a tactic entertainers have used to drum up an audience for millennia. Is there any point in worrying that a large number of people got together, were exposed to some new things, and had a good time? Learning things and sharing them is one of the joys of being a nerd. And Web 2.0 has brought a new interest to the Internet because it is one more way to bring people together who then share, not because it makes its users more sophisticated.
Geoff
Technocrati tags: Ignite Portland, Portland Tech, Web 2.0, Web 3.0
Labels: blogging, portland tech, speculations
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
It was bound to happen
Many years ago, I had a conversation with my high school debate teacher (yes, it was that long ago) about falsifying the research the debate team used. He pointed out that fabricated information has a tendency to be shared by all team members, and mentioned an instance not long before where it harmed someone -- not the person who fabricated it -- in a debate.
I was reminded of this discussion when I stumbled onto a discussion at Wikipedia: Administrators' Noticeboard/Incidents. Someone, to everyone's shock, had managed to insert over the space of two years, a surprising amount of fabricated or misrepresented information, into a number of articles. He evaded notice by being civil, quick to back down in a conflict, and by focussing his attention on a number of subjects that non-experts were not likely to challenge his edits -- especially when he provided what appeared to be, at a casual examination, reliable sources.
As other editors worked their way down his rabbit-holes of his sources and evidence (another phrase that comes to mind is "mares nest"), it became obvious that he had constructed an elaborate collection of unacceptable sources. He would cite works that did not support his assertions; they either contradicted his assertion or were entirely irrelevant. Some were relevant, but clearly outdated. Still others appeared to be peer-reviewed literature, but on closer examination were not; they were published by groups with deceptively similar names, or self-published. And many of these papers and monographs leaned on each other: publication A would cite publication B, which would cite publication C, which would cite publication A.
I'm not mentioning the user name because my I'm not writing about this specific user, but about the problem he revealed. Despite the fact Wikipedians are always reviewing each others' work and challenging each other's conclusions, there is an irreducable level of trust between all of us. If someone makes statements about a given source, we fidn ourselves assuming that they are telling us the truth about that source.
Wikipedia functions on a certain level of mutual trust, and in the most part, people do not violate this trust. Even the troublemakers, the self-promoters, and the tendentious editors almost always honestly report the contents of their sources. Those who don't -- until now -- are also unable to show enough self-control to be effective in the give-and-take that makes up much of the Wiki environment, stop being civil or clearly violate one of the customs of the Wikipedia culture, and are quickly banned from the site and their edits reverted.
However, this affair has pointed out that this level of trust may not work any more; if an editor claims that an uncommon resource -- say a rare book or an article published in an obscure technical journal -- says something, how do we know that this editor is not lying? While this is less of a concern for established editors than new ones, the fact remains that this specific user contributed 8000 edits over two years, before someone noticed.
This is not a theoretical problem; in my own case, I have been using more and more uncommon works on the history of Ethiopia. Not every article in Wikipedia is a reworking of what is posted on the Internet; some of us do use sources printed on paper! This leads to the problem that not all of these printed works are easily accessible. In my case, like many serious Wikipedians, I have gradually accumulated a collection of books on my topic of interest to overcome this problem. Since not everyone using Wikipedia can do this, should I continue to use them because they cannot verify what I report these sources contain?
Maybe this is a just problem that was bound to happen eventually. As a group attracts more people, the chances that at least one person will abuse that trust increases until it happens. We should be glad that Wikipedia went almost 6 years before this became a serious problem.
Geoff
Technocrati tags: online communities, reliability, research, trust, Wikipedia
I was reminded of this discussion when I stumbled onto a discussion at Wikipedia: Administrators' Noticeboard/Incidents. Someone, to everyone's shock, had managed to insert over the space of two years, a surprising amount of fabricated or misrepresented information, into a number of articles. He evaded notice by being civil, quick to back down in a conflict, and by focussing his attention on a number of subjects that non-experts were not likely to challenge his edits -- especially when he provided what appeared to be, at a casual examination, reliable sources.
As other editors worked their way down his rabbit-holes of his sources and evidence (another phrase that comes to mind is "mares nest"), it became obvious that he had constructed an elaborate collection of unacceptable sources. He would cite works that did not support his assertions; they either contradicted his assertion or were entirely irrelevant. Some were relevant, but clearly outdated. Still others appeared to be peer-reviewed literature, but on closer examination were not; they were published by groups with deceptively similar names, or self-published. And many of these papers and monographs leaned on each other: publication A would cite publication B, which would cite publication C, which would cite publication A.
I'm not mentioning the user name because my I'm not writing about this specific user, but about the problem he revealed. Despite the fact Wikipedians are always reviewing each others' work and challenging each other's conclusions, there is an irreducable level of trust between all of us. If someone makes statements about a given source, we fidn ourselves assuming that they are telling us the truth about that source.
Wikipedia functions on a certain level of mutual trust, and in the most part, people do not violate this trust. Even the troublemakers, the self-promoters, and the tendentious editors almost always honestly report the contents of their sources. Those who don't -- until now -- are also unable to show enough self-control to be effective in the give-and-take that makes up much of the Wiki environment, stop being civil or clearly violate one of the customs of the Wikipedia culture, and are quickly banned from the site and their edits reverted.
However, this affair has pointed out that this level of trust may not work any more; if an editor claims that an uncommon resource -- say a rare book or an article published in an obscure technical journal -- says something, how do we know that this editor is not lying? While this is less of a concern for established editors than new ones, the fact remains that this specific user contributed 8000 edits over two years, before someone noticed.
This is not a theoretical problem; in my own case, I have been using more and more uncommon works on the history of Ethiopia. Not every article in Wikipedia is a reworking of what is posted on the Internet; some of us do use sources printed on paper! This leads to the problem that not all of these printed works are easily accessible. In my case, like many serious Wikipedians, I have gradually accumulated a collection of books on my topic of interest to overcome this problem. Since not everyone using Wikipedia can do this, should I continue to use them because they cannot verify what I report these sources contain?
Maybe this is a just problem that was bound to happen eventually. As a group attracts more people, the chances that at least one person will abuse that trust increases until it happens. We should be glad that Wikipedia went almost 6 years before this became a serious problem.
Geoff
Technocrati tags: online communities, reliability, research, trust, Wikipedia
Labels: speculations, wikipedia, writing
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
As the message mutates
Reading the latest Wikipedia Signpost this morning, I found that David Sarno's article on the squabble over the deletion of Mzoli's Meats continues to send out ripples: the Australian newspaper The Age published an article, "Delete generation rips encyclopedia apart". And as a ripple echoes over a pool of water, gradually losing both its original force and indications of its origin, so has this story.
First, I admit I'm peeved that of the three people cited in Sarno's story, I'm the one who is no longer mentioned. Yes, I get jealous over petty things like this. This probably happened because Andrew Lih has the experience to profitably interact with reporters, Kelly Martin can always be counted on to say something worth reapeating -- or both of them write clearer prose with fewer misspellings than me. But what I find ironic is that yours truly is the one who came up with the "generation gap" idea, which is given prominence in The Age article -- yet I'm the one who doesn't get mentioned. Oh well.
But had the reporter from The Age asked me about that idea -- which I created after about 5 minutes of thought -- I would have backtracked from it some, and tried to provide a more nuanced expanation. There are a lot of human dynamics going on here, which I intended to cover with that label. Not all of these dynamics fit under that label.
Rather than a conflict between "generations", Wikipedia is faced with a conflict between a large number less experienced members, who find themselves needing to follow the rules more literally and with less confidence, and a smaller number of more experienced ones who understand the rules and know when to break them. Resolving this conflict is a stressful and exhausting activity, which frequently leads to members quitting Wikipedia and leaving angry messages about treating the troublemakers better than the productive members. I have a suspicion that this is a common problem in volunteer organizations, but I don't know where I would start researching how other groups cope with it.
Geoff
Technocrati tags: Generation gap, Mzoli's Meats, Wikis, wikipedia
First, I admit I'm peeved that of the three people cited in Sarno's story, I'm the one who is no longer mentioned. Yes, I get jealous over petty things like this. This probably happened because Andrew Lih has the experience to profitably interact with reporters, Kelly Martin can always be counted on to say something worth reapeating -- or both of them write clearer prose with fewer misspellings than me. But what I find ironic is that yours truly is the one who came up with the "generation gap" idea, which is given prominence in The Age article -- yet I'm the one who doesn't get mentioned. Oh well.
But had the reporter from The Age asked me about that idea -- which I created after about 5 minutes of thought -- I would have backtracked from it some, and tried to provide a more nuanced expanation. There are a lot of human dynamics going on here, which I intended to cover with that label. Not all of these dynamics fit under that label.
- New Wikipedians, like new members to any established group, exhibit a tendency to conform to the standards of that group, either consciously or unconsciously. For example, people joining the military are likely to start acting more machismo. It's the same with Wikipedia: people who join Wikipedia study the behavior of the most visible members, and act accordingly, and not all of these most visible members are model members.
- Smart people who want to excel in their chosen field, tend to look for and follow the easiest path of advancement. It's something of a truism that the more recent volunteers or editors have a greater tendency to spend their time in the Articles for Deletion or Vandalism fora than writing articles; management is always a more preferable gig than working on the assembly line. Yet following this line of reasoning further, wouldn't Peer Review -- the section of Wikipedia where article writers post requests for their fellow editors to critique their work -- attract abou tas much attention as these other two areas? Writing a useful critique is hard work -- far harder than deciding whether to keep or delete an article or identifying troublemakers. That is why new members soon end up making most of their edits at the first two fora, and rarely leave any traces at Peer Review -- despite the fact that part of Wikipedia is arguably more important than the other two.
- A last point is that there is a clearly high turnover of volunteers at the English Wikipedia, and perhaps other Wikimedia projects. This means that both expertise and cultural memory is being lost prehaps faster than it is being created. Ten days from now will be the fifth anniversary of having created my user account at Wikipedia, and for at least the last 12 months whenever I post in many of the Wikipedia fora, I am the most senior Wikipedian there. I feel this distinction is unmerited: I haven't been nearly as active in creating or enforcing policy as many volunteers, and I suspect that if I had been, I would have burned out and left Wikipedia long ago. Because I have done so little, I feel that I have now become a community elder with very little -- if any -- wisdom to dispense.
Rather than a conflict between "generations", Wikipedia is faced with a conflict between a large number less experienced members, who find themselves needing to follow the rules more literally and with less confidence, and a smaller number of more experienced ones who understand the rules and know when to break them. Resolving this conflict is a stressful and exhausting activity, which frequently leads to members quitting Wikipedia and leaving angry messages about treating the troublemakers better than the productive members. I have a suspicion that this is a common problem in volunteer organizations, but I don't know where I would start researching how other groups cope with it.
Geoff
Technocrati tags: Generation gap, Mzoli's Meats, Wikis, wikipedia
Labels: speculations, wikipedia
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Another insightful study
Although it could be argued this is dangerously self-referential: Dragon's flight performed this statistical analysis on Wikipedia's log files which includes looking at the edit histories for 118793 English Wikipedia articles (~6% of all articles).
(I found this through Dragon's flight's announcement on the Wikimedia Foundation mailing list. The resulting thread is also worth a read.)
Although some might disagree with this observation, I find this is evidence against my theory that the slowing rate of new article creation is due to a lack of "low-hanging fruit", instead the slowing rate is due to limits on the number of people joining the English-language Wikipedia: the community is reaching its limit of members. There are just so many people in the world who would consider writing encyclopedia articles as "fun." Another thing to consider, is that as non-English Wikipedias gain viability people for whom English is a second language are more likely either to leave the English Wikipedia for the one in their native language, or never to contribute in the first place.
October is producing a bumper crop of studies and facts to chew on, and it's not even half over.
Geoff
Technocrati tags: Online communities, Outreach, Statistics, Wikis, wikipedia
(I found this through Dragon's flight's announcement on the Wikimedia Foundation mailing list. The resulting thread is also worth a read.)
Although some might disagree with this observation, I find this is evidence against my theory that the slowing rate of new article creation is due to a lack of "low-hanging fruit", instead the slowing rate is due to limits on the number of people joining the English-language Wikipedia: the community is reaching its limit of members. There are just so many people in the world who would consider writing encyclopedia articles as "fun." Another thing to consider, is that as non-English Wikipedias gain viability people for whom English is a second language are more likely either to leave the English Wikipedia for the one in their native language, or never to contribute in the first place.
October is producing a bumper crop of studies and facts to chew on, and it's not even half over.
Geoff
Technocrati tags: Online communities, Outreach, Statistics, Wikis, wikipedia
Labels: speculations, wikipedia, writing
Monday, October 08, 2007
Another interesting Wikipedia study
Reid Priedhorsky, Jilin Chen, Shyong (Tony) K. Lam, Kathering Panciera, Loren Terveen, John Riedl. "Creating, Destroying, and Restoring Value in Wikipedia" They attempt to figure out who makes the most useful edits ("useful" defined as a function of persistence -- people are less likely to revert correct or useful information) and the effects, and who makes damaging edits and the effects.
(Thanks to Gregory Maxwell for the link.)
Maybe a little more technical than the curious would like, but I expect this will become another of those widely-quoted or cited studies.
Update: For those of you unable to view PDF files (or even if you can), Ben Yates at Wikipedia Blog has one of the more informative graphs touched up with color.
Geoff
Technocrati tags: information value, vandalism, Web 2.0, wikipedia
(Thanks to Gregory Maxwell for the link.)
Maybe a little more technical than the curious would like, but I expect this will become another of those widely-quoted or cited studies.
Update: For those of you unable to view PDF files (or even if you can), Ben Yates at Wikipedia Blog has one of the more informative graphs touched up with color.
Geoff
Technocrati tags: information value, vandalism, Web 2.0, wikipedia
Labels: speculations, wikipedia
Friday, September 28, 2007
Does this mean I'm important, or I just have a big mouth
You decide: I was quoted in this article that appeared in the L.A. Times about the Mzoli's Meats deletion battle. (At least they quoted one person worth listening to -- Andrew Lih.) As soon as I get over the shock that someone actually takes me seriously, I'll try to form an opinion about the article.
Geoff
Technocrati tags: Mzoli's Meats, Online communities, Wikis, wikipedia
Geoff
Technocrati tags: Mzoli's Meats, Online communities, Wikis, wikipedia
Labels: speculations, wikipedia, writing
