Wikipediocracy

I've suggested various forms of centralized governance on Wikipedia, in order to create a more solid institutional framework and enable better management of the encyclopedia. Such a model, if it involved elected legislators, would enable an improved ability for content contributors to make decisions on the running of the encyclopedia, as opposed to the current model, where angry cabals of POV pushers, corrupt admins, chronic AN/I trolls and other similar Wikipediots, who have the capacity for endless and exhausting debate, are given free rein.

My views have even caused me to be threatened with a topic ban and subsequently labeled a conspiracy theorist. My real goal in this enterprise is to inspire some sort of political change on Wikipedia—the community of content-builders needs to realize that "consensus" and "the community" are manufactured lies, meant to keep them docile and contributing content rather than having an active part in the governance of the encyclopedia.

Let's say you built a blueprint for a reformed Wikipedia, a recognized and well-tested governance model, with community representation and professional management.

One huge problem is inertia. How do you get the WMF to implement a new way of doing things when they are entrenched and barricaded against such a new idea?

Wer900 wrote:My views have even caused me to be threatened with a topic ban and subsequently labeled a conspiracy theorist. My real goal in this enterprise is to inspire some sort of political change on Wikipedia—the community of content-builders needs to realize that "consensus" and "the community" are manufactured lies, meant to keep them docile and contributing content rather than having an active part in the governance of the encyclopedia.

Free advice: DO NOT FIGHT WITH BEEBLEBROX. He is one of their worst, most abusive patrollers. And he's obviously got the "hots"
for blocking you, which is a typical pattern with him -- he literally goes looking for people like you, harasses them, then blocks them.

You will NOT achieve any political change on Wikipedia if Beeblebrox is involved. He will fight you all the way.

Wer900 wrote:I've suggested various forms of centralized governance on Wikipedia, in order to create a more solid institutional framework and enable better management of the encyclopedia. Such a model, if it involved elected legislators, would enable an improved ability for content contributors to make decisions on the running of the encyclopedia, as opposed to the current model, where angry cabals of POV pushers, corrupt admins, chronic AN/I trolls and other similar Wikipediots, who have the capacity for endless and exhausting debate, are given free rein.

Welcome, Wer900. The flaw is, if these people are elected, how do we ensure that voting is restricted to sensible, mature content contributors? A look at the people regularly !voting at RfA suggests that such people are a minority among those who vote regularly.

Outsider wrote:

Wer900 wrote:I've suggested various forms of centralized governance on Wikipedia, in order to create a more solid institutional framework and enable better management of the encyclopedia. Such a model, if it involved elected legislators, would enable an improved ability for content contributors to make decisions on the running of the encyclopedia, as opposed to the current model, where angry cabals of POV pushers, corrupt admins, chronic AN/I trolls and other similar Wikipediots, who have the capacity for endless and exhausting debate, are given free rein.

Welcome, Wer900. The flaw is, if these people are elected, how do we ensure that voting is restricted to sensible, mature content contributors? A look at the people regularly !voting at RfA suggests that such people are a minority among those who vote regularly.

First off, thanks for the welcome!

With regard to the question of mature voters, I think that the very idea of voting will help that to happen. Currently, decisions on Wikipedia are made by consensus, which is good when employed to resolve low-level content disputes. However, in practically any other area, those with the capacity for endless angry debate win such disputes, taking important content-contributors down. When policy and proposal discussions are handled by an elected body, content contributors only need to be able to decide who is best and vote for that candidate, rather than endlessly debate. (Of course, debate is important. But making it binding allows only angry caballists to prevail.) Good content contributors make up a variety of our active editors; however, these are generally not the ones making decisions.

Create elected representatives to handle political functions, professionalize the administrator force, and create an Administrator Subcommittee of ArbCom to investigate wrongdoing. A Content Subcommittee should also be created. Even though Arbitrators generally do not have malevolent intent, they are simply too weak to deal with major issues, and strengthening the institution of ArbCom would help greatly to complete Wikipedia governance.

More detail on my ideas can be found in essays on my user page.

That's a good essay, Wer900. Wikipedia obviously needs a systematically designed administrative system and a configuration control board, among other things. One thing, though, is that Wikipedia is based on the concept of crowd-sourcing. If this concept is inherently and fatally flawed, then better organization would not ultimately resolve WP's many problems.

Cla68 wrote:That's a good essay, Wer900. Wikipedia obviously needs a systematically designed administrative system and a configuration control board, among other things. One thing, though, is that Wikipedia is based on the concept of crowd-sourcing. If this concept is inherently and fatally flawed, then better organization would not ultimately resolve WP's many problems.

I don't believe that crowd-sourcing is fatally flawed when applied to low-level content disputes and, more importantly for the encyclopedia, content creation, evaluation, and development. Crowd-sourcing is also good for vandal-fighting, especially at the level where actual intelligence (eg, the type that binary computers can never have) is required to identify the vandalism. However, that method will never work for high-level disputes, which require level-headed professionals with some sort of training and with community trust to evaluate those disputes and produce solutions in the community's interest. Until Wikipedians can come to this realization, we will always be under the thumb of the self-selected angry cabals, who never got a mandate from anyone in the community.

To quote Fahrenheit 451: “It didn't come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God.”