Imagining a Wikipedia "reset": what do you keep? change?

[oscarlechien]

In the WP:soapbox thread, I suggested that maybe the way to reform Wikipedia might be to try to find a way to force a "system reset": to start again from the beginning, somehow leveling the field. I personally don't believe that this would ever be possible, but for the exercise, let's imagine that it is. All of the procedure, history and established experience are going to be "flushed". Wikipedia becomes a blank page.

Now, we probably all know what we don't want (or maybe we don't?) but do we kow what we want? What needs to stay and what needs to change? How can that situation be improved?

I'l start.

1. No anonymous editing. All people adding any content to wikipedia would have to go through a simple process of verifying their identity (credit card number verification or something like that). All people adding material to BLP articles would be informed that they would be liable for anydamage done to the reputations of living persons.

2. Changing the sourcing rules to be similar to those expected for a University Thesis. Original research could be included if it followed these established rules.

I have more, but I'd like to see other people's reactions and own lists before I continue?

Who's next?

[thekohser]

Sorry to be flip, but you've already covered 90% of it with #1.

[oscarlechien]

Sorry to be flip, but you've already covered 90% of it with #1.

I agree with you on that!

[HRIP7]

Sorry to be flip, but you've already covered 90% of it with #1.

I agree with you on that!

There are two sides. We know the side of malicious anonymous editing. That's what we usually discuss here: the many, many biography subjects who get worse than what they deserve, because of anonymous malice.

But new problems might arise with registered editing. Editors could be subjected to malicious lawsuits by people with deep pockets who don't like what is written about them. Outspoken journalists and scholars have been threatened (or worse) in some regimes, and the same could conceivably happen to Wikipedians. That side would also need to be addressed. How?

[Randy from Boise]

1. Anonymous editing is the first thing to go. Everyone needs to register and to sign in to edit.

2. Democracy is good. Elimination of the oftentimes circus-like RFC process and establishment of a mechanism for democratically-generated referenda, followed by voting involving an actual count. Pseudo-consensus decisionmaking out, some sort of well constructed parliamentary procedure in. Just because it is "the encyclopedia anyone can edit," it doesn't follow that it is necessarily "the encyclopedia any newcomer can govern," I note -- so some sort of substantial (time + edits) vesting process to gain electoral rights is not only reasonable, to avoid ballot-box stuffing it is doubtlessly essential.

3. Elimination of anti-canvassing rules, which are a mechanism to preserve secrecy of decision-making and ensure minority, clique rule.

4. Publicity of arb com deliberations. Outside of narrowly defined "executive sessions," all discussion and debate to be on the record in a publicly-accessible forum.

5. Elimination of special status of Jimmy Wales. As the organizational laws are currently written, Jimmy Wales can overturn Arbcom decisions, etc. This should be stricken from the books as anachronistic and Wales rendered an editor like any other.

6. Eradication of WP Commons. All images to be hosted by the language wikipedias. All publicly-visible images MUST be linked to encyclopedia articles, warehousing of so-called controversial content (read: porn) to be either housed in a manner not accessible to non-administrators or eliminated entirely.

7. Reduction of the number of notice boards. All policy decision-making to be held at a single centralized location; all enforcement of site rules and implementation of sanctions to be held at another single centralized location.

8. Improvement of filing system so that previous decision-making (ANI-sort of activity) can be rapidly located. Permanent URLs for cases...

9. Elimination of "clean slate" restarts. Name changes must be readily identified at the TOP of a user's user page with a standard template.

I could go on, but I need to go to work at the pototoe farm.

RfB

[dogbiscuit]

I could go on, but I need to go to work at the pototoe farm.

RfB

You are Dan Quayle and I claim my £5.

[eppur si muove]

The problem with democracy on contents is that it can be used to enforce cultural biases. Just think how the Hebrew, English, Russian and Arabic Wikipedias are likely to be positioned on the spectrum of opinions on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Also the more general votes are going to represent the activist minority. Take for example the SOPA boycott vote. It may have been a very large turnout by Wikipedia standards but still only a tiny minority of Wikipedians voted for it, let alone Wikipedia readers.

Democracies only work if the electorate are educated about the issue and there is a high turnout. Otherwise they are thinly disguised oligarchies.

[eppur si muove]

I could go on, but I need to go to work at the pototoe farm.

RfB

You are Dan Quayle and I claim my £5.

Dan did at least have an "a" in it though he did receive assitance from someone better educated then him.

[dogbiscuit]

I think there is a fundamental flaw in assuming that applying real world solutions to Teh InterWeb work. Now RfB actually makes some sound points and on the basis of the "Perfection is the enemy of the Good" it would be churlish to dismiss them, but you would have to implement them knowing that it is a step in the right direction, not a solution.

I certainly would go back to the very original concept where there was some sort of semi-professional publishing house at the top. People stillwould get their kicks knowing that they have contributed.

However, I do not have confidence in the ability of normal human beings to understand that the Internet does not have to be a Wild West lawless state. I will give you a personal example. Locally, I am involved in a local residents' group and we were dealing with a big application for a supermarket. It was obvious that opinions were divided and we took a conscious decision to step back and not to drive opinion in one way or another. For this we were derided as cowards and letting the community down, but I was pretty happy that it was the hard decision, the easy decision would have been to go along with the anti-supermarket should-along. An individual known to me, constantly was on a local news web site posting libellous comments about me. Everyone locally knows who he is, and where he lives, he even signed his name on the comments. These were not trivial libels, they involved stating that I had been bribed, I was lying, I was a naive idiot and so on. My response was simply to post very serious and thoughtful comments about the issue and ignore the libels, which had the effect of making him look stupid and also diverted attention on the site from name calling etc. onto considered discussion.

Anyhow, this then continued on into emails, where he made snarky comments about drinking champagne at our AGM paid for by the supermarket - they didn't even provide the tea bags for the half time tea and coffee - and when I dismissed various accusations of bribery, I got the "when did you stop beating your wife" reply of "I touched a nerve". In a prior exchange he made it clear that he believed that as it was on the Internet, it didn't count, that is the way it is, you just have to put up with it. Yet, down the pub he would never contemplate speaking in that way face to face.

That is the legacy of USENET and the Free[favourite thing you don't want to pay for, mentally or moneywise] movement. There is no reason why the Internet has to lack culture, there are some pretty good oases of calm around there. I'd even suggest that in general, WR up till last year was pretty high functioning aside from its inappropriate tolerance for a handful of nut-cases.

So anonymity is not a solution, you need to go further and establish the right cultural values. For what its worth, I've been instrumental in setting up a forum for the Welsh language where we solely focus on the language and all the politics etc. that goes with Wales is completely off the agenda - there are other places to deal with that. It has created a very positive environment which leaks into the real world creating positive real world friendships. The founding members are real political beasts and yet they have been able to curb that side of their nature in that environment.

If Wikipedia is to succeed, the fundamental thing it has to cast aside is the belief that it is somehow governed by "Teh InerWeb Kultur" and out to establish its cultural credentials on real world values. That means casting aside smarmy trolls like David Gerard with his drive-by "free culture attitudes are right without the need to provide any evidence to assert that" and Jimmy Wales who clearly has no idea about the way his cult functions in a way that is damaging to the long term goal of providing something useful aside from an income for Jimmy Wales by lying about how he has been brilliant in providing this to the world (both how he did not really invent Wikipedia, and how his cultural approach has damaged it rather than make it functional). The WMF could possibly drive it in the right direction, but they'd have to adopt a Facebook-like dictatorial stance and have to be a lot clearer on the goals that they are trying to achieve.

I'd say that something like Wiki UK and things like the GLAM projects hint at that positive side, but they'd have to get rid of game players like Fae, and put up with the image of being nerdy do-gooders. Those projects will not succeed long term without a fundamental culture shift in Wikipedia.

Basically, Wikipedia needs to be brutal and get rid of anyone playing games, and ignore the "but they are building content", if they are disruptive they go, and that means Jimmy if needs be. Leave the harmless gnomes and the Pokemon editors in their little corners, and if that means it dies back a bit, so what? If people object to flagged revisions, or disrupt them, they are gone. Easy.

[EricBarbour]

Basically, Wikipedia needs to be brutal and get rid of anyone playing games, and ignore the "but they are building content", if they are disruptive they go, and that means Jimmy if needs be. Leave the harmless gnomes and the Pokemon editors in their little corners, and if that means it dies back a bit, so what? If people object to flagged revisions, or disrupt them, they are gone. Easy.

And what are the chances of this happening, especially with their present "leadership"?

I've already made a suggestion that would involve minimal disruption to their sick little "community": make two wikis.

One is open, for the lunatics and trolls to keep playing with as they wish, but prominently marked as untrustworthy and not for children. The other is a closed wiki, controlled by actual experts (make the WMF spend some of their millions in the bank on hiring people). The closed one contains the 400,000-odd "best" WP articles, cleaned up and vetted as necessary. That side can be accessible to schoolchildren.

Of course, that will never happen either.

[thekohser]

Editors could be subjected to malicious lawsuits by people with deep pockets who don't like what is written about them. Outspoken journalists and scholars have been threatened (or worse) in some regimes, and the same could conceivably happen to Wikipedians. That side would also need to be addressed. How?

Let's address that when we see it actually happen. I doubt it would happen, frankly.

[rhindle]

A couple of things I would do:

1. Anon editing was once fine but is irrelevant now since wikipedia is a top 10 website. Registered accounts should have at least a valid email.
2. Admins can only have limited terms, if they want to stay an admin they should do another RfA. Everyone's a volunteer right?

[Cla68]

Make everyone an admin after 2,000 edits or something like that if they have a clean block log. Only have RfAs for the editors who don't have a clean block log or who are under some kind of administrative sanction. Require, however, that all admins be 20 years of age or older.

This would increase the number of admins, so that backlogs of items requiring admin actions wouldn't get as long. Also, there would be more admins to take on issues raised at ANI, AN, ArbCom Enforcement and the like, so that editors wouldn't get as frustrated with nothing ever being done to resolve their concerns.

[EricBarbour]

No, reform how the thing works, so you need fewer bloody admins....