Wikipedia Primary
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 17:43 UTC
This page is intended to list quotations from critics of Wikipedia, especially in publications, whose criticisms may be contested. Please cite sources of the quotations. (Contradicting evidence may also be appropriate to list under a given quotation.)
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 17:43 UTC
The Wiki Prayer: Please, grant me the serenity to accept the pages I cannot edit, The courage to edit the pages I can, And the wisdom to know the difference.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 17:43 UTC
Most users are anonymous, many go by pseudonyms, some probably aren't who they say they are, and almost no one has met anyone else in person.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 17:43 UTC
Yahoo!'s Content Acquistion Program includes Wikipedia, which should boost traffic through Yahoo!. Yahoo approved our datafeed on May 25 2004.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 14:30 UTC kw=policy
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia created by a community using a wiki. Those three basic characteristics suggest three basic guiding principles for editors, of which all others are corollaries:
as an encyclopedia: Neutral point of view - our basic editorial policy
as a community: Don't be a dick - our basic social policy
as a wiki: Ignore all rules - the suggested personal policy
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20061206 16:22 UTC kw=policy
The pillars of WP is an encyclopedia, NPOV, free content, code of conduct, and lack of firm rules
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia incorporating elements of general encyclopedias, specialized encyclopedias, and almanacs. All articles must follow our attribution policy which excludes original research, and requires accurate representation of verifiable sources; Wikipedia is not the place to insert personal opinions, experiences, or arguments. Furthermore, Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Wikipedia is not a trivia collection, a soapbox, a vanity publisher, an experiment in anarchy or democracy, or a web directory. Nor is Wikipedia a dictionary, a newspaper, or a collection of source documents; these kinds of content should be contributed to sister projects, here, Wiktionary, Wikinews, and Wikisource, respectively.
Wikipedia has a neutral point of view, which means we strive for articles that advocate no single point of view. Sometimes this requires representing multiple points of view; presenting each point of view accurately; providing context for any given point of view, so that readers understand whose view the point represents; and presenting no one point of view as "the truth" or "the best view". It means citing reliable sources whenever possible, especially on controversial topics. When a conflict arises as to which version is the most neutral, declare a cool-down period and tag the article as disputed; hammer out details on the talk page and follow dispute resolution.
Wikipedia is free content that anyone may edit....
Wikipedia has a code of conduct: Respect your fellow Wikipedians even when you may not agree with them. Be civil. Avoid making personal attacks or sweeping generalizations. Stay cool when the editing gets hot; find consensus; avoid edit wars; follow the three-revert rule; and remember that there are 1,696,454 articles on the English Wikipedia to work on and discuss. Act in good faith, never disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point, and assume good faith on the part of others. Be open and welcoming.
Wikipedia does not have firm rules besides the five general principles elucidated here. Be bold in editing, moving, and modifying articles, because the joy of editing is that, although it should be aimed for, perfection is not required. And do not worry about messing up. All prior versions of articles are kept, so there is no way that you can accidentally damage Wikipedia or irretrievably destroy content. But remember — whatever you write here will be preserved for posterity.
or=Wikimedia y=2007 r=20071005 19:15 UTC kw=collaboration
The pillars of WP is an encyclopedia, NPOV, free content, code of conduct, and lack of firm rules
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia written for the benefit of its readers. It incorporates elements of general encyclopedias, specialized encyclopedias, and almanacs. All articles must follow our no original research policy and strive for accuracy (unreferenced material is subject to being removed, so please provide references); Wikipedia is not the place to insert personal opinions, experiences, or arguments....
Wikipedia has a neutral point of view, which means we strive for articles that advocate no single point of view. Sometimes this requires representing multiple points of view; presenting each point of view accurately; providing context for any given point of view, so that readers understand whose view the point represents; and presenting no one point of view as "the truth" or "the best view". It means citing verifiable, authoritative sources whenever possible, especially on controversial topics. When a conflict arises as to which version is the most neutral, declare a cool-down period and tag the article as disputed; hammer out details on the talk page and follow dispute resolution.
Wikipedia is free content that anyone may edit....
Wikipedia has a code of conduct: Respect your fellow Wikipedians even when you may not agree with them. Be civil. Avoid making personal attacks or sweeping generalizations. Find consensus; avoid edit wars; follow the three-revert rule; and remember that there are 2,036,624 articles on the English Wikipedia to work on and discuss. Act in good faith, never disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point, and assume good faith on the part of others. Be open and welcoming.
Wikipedia does not have firm rules besides the five general principles elucidated here. Be bold in editing, moving, and modifying articles, because the joy of editing is that, although it should be aimed for, perfection is not required. And do not worry about messing up. All prior versions of articles are kept, so there is no way that you can accidentally damage Wikipedia or irretrievably destroy content. But remember — whatever you write here will be preserved for posterity.
or=Wikimedia y=2004 r=20040305 kw=policy
The neutral point of view policy is easily misunderstood. The policy doesn't assume that it's possible to write an article from just a single unbiased, "objective" point of view. The policy says that we should fairly represent all sides of a dispute, and not make an article state, imply, or insinuate that any one side is correct.
Articles without bias describe debates fairly rather than advocating any side of the debate.
The other side might very well find your attempts to characterize their views substandard, but it's the thought that counts. In resolving disputes over neutrality issues, it's far better that we acknowledge that all sides must be presented fairly, and make at least a college try at presenting the other sides fairly. That will be appreciated much more than not trying at all.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 17:43 UTC kw=policy
The primary articulation of neutrality not as objectivity, but of a representation of all perspectives that would be recognized as such by their proponents. The goal is an encyclopedia of all knowledge, including beliefs with which we might disagree with, and for which the intellectual independence of the readers is respected. Perspectives should be represented generally in proportion to how they are held.
The neutral point of view
The neutral point of view is a means of dealing with conflicting views. The policy requires that, where there are or have been conflicting views, these are fairly presented, but not asserted. All significant points of view are presented, not just the most popular one. It is not asserted that the most popular view or some sort of intermediate view among the different views is the correct one. Readers are left to form their own opinions.
As the name suggests, the neutral point of view is a point of view. It is a point of view that is neutral - that is neither sympathetic nor in opposition to its subject.
Debates are described, represented, and characterized, but not engaged in. Background is provided on who believes what and why, and which view is more popular. Detailed articles might also contain the mutual evaluations of each viewpoint, but studiously refrain from stating which is better. One can think of unbiased writing as the cold, fair, analytical description of debates. When bias towards one particular point of view can be detected the article needs to be fixed.
Bias
NPOV requires views to be represented without bias. A bias is a prejudice in a general or specific sense, usually in the sense of having a predilection for one particular point of view or ideology. One is said to be biased if one is influenced by one's biases. A bias could, for example, lead one to accept or not-accept the truth of a claim, not because of the strength of the claim itself, but because it does or does not correspond to one's own preconceived ideas.
Reasoning behind NPOV
Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia, which means it is a representation of human knowledge at some level of generality. But human beings disagree about specific cases; for any topic on which there are competing views, each view represents a different idea of what the truth is, and insofar as that view contradicts other views, its adherents believe that the other views are false and therefore not knowledge. Where there is disagreement about what is true, there's disagreement about what constitutes knowledge. Wikipedia works because it's a collaborative effort; but, while collaborating, how can we solve the problem of endless "edit wars" in which one person asserts that p, whereupon the next person changes the text so that it asserts not-p?
A solution is that we accept, for the purposes of working on Wikipedia, that "human knowledge" includes all different significant theories on all different topics. So we're committed to the goal of representing human knowledge in that sense. Something like this is surely a well-established sense of the word "knowledge"; in this sense, what is "known" changes constantly with the passage of time, and when we use the word "know", we often use so-called scare quotes. Europeans in the Middle Ages "knew" that demons caused diseases. We now "know" otherwise.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 17:43 UTC kw=policy
One of the keys to writing good encyclopedia articles is to understand that they should refer only to facts, assertions, theories, ideas, claims, opinions, and arguments that have already been published by reputable publishers. The goal of Wikipedia is to become a complete and reliable encyclopedia, so editors should cite reliable sources so that their edits may be verified by readers and other editors.
"Verifiability" in this context does not mean that editors are expected to verify whether, for example, the contents of a New York Times article are true. In fact, editors are strongly discouraged from conducting this kind of research, because original research may not be published in Wikipedia. Articles should contain only material that has been published by reliable sources, regardless of whether individual editors view that material as true or false. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth.
The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is thus verifiability, not truth.
or=Wikimedia y=2007 r=20070410 22:22 UTC kw=policy kw=policy
Wikipedia has developed a body of policies and guidelines which have helped us over the years to work toward our goal of creating a (successful) free encyclopedia.
While we strive to build consensus, Wikipedia is not a democracy, and its governance can be inconsistent. Hence there is disagreement between those who believe rules should be explicitly stated and those who feel that written rules are inherently inadequate to cover every possible variation of problematic or disruptive behavior. In either case, a user who acts against the spirit of our written policies may be reprimanded, even if technically no rule has been violated.
However those who edit in good faith, show civility, seek consensus, and work towards the goal of creating a great encyclopedia should find a welcoming environment. Wikipedia greatly appreciates additions that help all people.
Key policies
Wikipedia works by building consensus. Consensus is an inherent part of the wiki process. (See Wikipedia:Consensus)
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Its goals go no further, and material that does not fit this goal must be moved to another Wikimedia project or removed altogether. (See What Wikipedia is not.)
Respect other contributors. Wikipedia contributors come from many different countries and cultures, and have widely different views. Treating others with respect is key to collaborating effectively in building an encyclopedia. (See Wikipedia:Civility, Wikipedia:Etiquette, Wikipedia:Dispute resolution.)
Don't infringe copyrights. Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. Submitting work which infringes copyrights threatens our objective to build a truly free encyclopedia that anyone can redistribute, and could lead to legal problems. (See Wikipedia:Copyright.)
Avoid bias. Articles should be written from a neutral point of view, representing views fairly, proportionately and without bias.
Add only information based on reliable sources. Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable published sources, and these sources should be cited so that other editors can check articles. (See Wikipedia:Attribution).
Wikipedia is free and open, but restricts both freedom and openness where they interfere with the purpose of creating an encyclopedia. Accordingly, Wikipedia is not a forum for unregulated free speech. The fact that Wikipedia is an open, self-governing project does not mean that any part of its purpose is to explore the viability of anarchistic communities. Our purpose is to build an encyclopedia, not to test the limits of anarchism. See also meta:Power structure.
For an encyclopedia that is indeed an experiment in anarchy, visit Anarchopedia.
or=Wikimedia y=2007 r=20070327 19:42 UTC
Instruction creep occurs when a person or persons add to a list of instructions repeatedly, causing it to increase in size and complexity over time. Instruction creep is generally frowned upon, as it causes instructions to be unmanageable and daunting. In general, people are less likely to read and follow long instructions than they are shorter ones. Instruction creep is common in complex organizations where rules and guidelines are created by changing groups of people over extended periods of time.
The first element in negotiating issues of bias with others is to recognize you have a point of view, and to pin-point where it comes from. "It's what everybody I know believes," is a start. But in co-writing an article with someone who believes differently, it's often important to have some evidence at hand. This includes not only evidence for your view but evidence for how many others hold it and who they are. Information like this enables writers and participants in discussion to come to practical decisions.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060421 19:46 UTC kw=policy
Writing for the enemy is the process of explaining another person's point of view as clearly and fairly as you can. The intent is to satisfy the adherents and advocates of that POV that you understand their claims and arguments.
It's a great way to end an argument in real life, and it can often halt an edit war in an instant.
Note that writing for the enemy does not necessarily mean one believes the opposite of the "enemy" POV. The writer may be unsure what position he wants to take, or simply have no opinion on the matter. What matters is that you try to "walk a mile in their" shoes instead of judging them.
Writing for the enemy contributes to the NPOV of Wikipedia. Wikipedians often must learn to sacrifice their own viewpoints to the greater good.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060411 20:15 UTC kw=faith
As we allow anyone to edit, it follows that we assume that most people who work on the project are trying to help it, not hurt it. If this weren't true, a project like Wikipedia would be doomed from the beginning.
Assuming good faith is about intentions, not actions. Well-meaning people make mistakes, and you should correct them when they do. You should not act like their mistake was deliberate. Correct, but don't scold. There will be people on Wikipedia with whom you disagree. Even if they're wrong, that doesn't mean they're trying to wreck the project. There will be some people with whom you find it hard to work. That doesn't mean they're trying to wreck the project either; it means they annoy you. It is never necessary that we attribute an editor's actions to bad faith, even if bad faith seems obvious, as all our countermeasures (i.e. reverting, blocking) can be performed on the basis of behavior rather than intent.
Of course, there's a difference between assuming good faith and ignoring bad actions. If you expect people to assume good faith from you, make sure you demonstrate it. Don't put the burden on others. Yelling "Assume Good Faith" at people does not excuse you from explaining your actions, and making a habit of it will convince people that you're acting in bad faith.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060421 19:55 UTC
In heated debates, users often cite AGF. However, the very act of citing AGF assumes that the opponent is assuming bad faith. Carbonite's law tells us, "the more a given user invokes Assume good faith as a defense, the lower the probability that said user was acting in good faith." It is in combining Carbonite's law with AGF that we produce AAGF: Assume the assumption of good faith, which simply states:
"When involved in a discussion, it is best never to cite WP:AGF."
In reality, this is simply an extension of AGF, which allows for the possibility that one can incorrectly judge another's intentions or assumptions. AAGF acknowledges that the act of citing AGF requires one to assume the assumption of bad faith, and is thus open to its own form of abuse—an abuse which Carbonite's law reveals as an eventuality. While AGF should still be cited for especially egregious situations, or in debate among new users, it should be avoided whenever possible.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060528 16:07 UTC kw=faith
Being rude, insensitive or petty makes people upset and stops Wikipedia working well. Try to discourage others from being uncivil, and be careful to avoid offending people unintentionally. Mediation is available if needed.
Civility is a rule for the conduct of edits, comments, and talk page discussions on all Wikipedias. Whereas incivility is roughly defined as personally targeted behavior that causes an atmosphere of greater conflict and stress, our rule of civility states plainly that people must act with civility toward one another.
Our Wikipedia community has by experience developed an informal hierarchy of core principles — the most important being that articles be written with a neutral point of view. After that we request a reasonable degree of civility towards others. Even if "civility" is just an informal rule, it's the only principle that we can apply to online conduct, and it's the only reasonable way to delimit acceptable conduct from the unacceptable. We cannot always expect people to love, honor, obey, or even respect another. But we have every right to demand civility.
or=Wikimedia y=2007 r=20070327 19:50 UTC kw=faith kw=faith
Wikipedia is a communal effort. To make it work, contributors must think from a community perspective as well as a personal one. This means:
Respect common standards - If the Wikipedia view of how articles should be presented differs from one's own perception of the subject, then it's important to recognize that Wikipedia has standards applicable to the community and all its members.
Don't over-guard articles - Even if a subject is close to one's heart, or an article has been fostered lovingly, remember that it is still a communal article and communal shared collaboration. Even if it takes the article in a direction that you don't agree with, so long as policies are being followed, allow communal ownership to supersede personal emotional involvement.
Don't be more certain than you have reason to be - Too much certainty can lead to assumptions of bad faith, or to inability to listen to others properly, both sources of conflict.
Don't be zealous to the point other goals are lost - Intense caring for Wikipedia's policies and ways can at times lead to such excess of zeal as to be a problem in its own right. Such editors often do not understand why others criticize them, because in their own eyes they are "just doing what's right for Wikipedia".
Don't slip into bad behavior - Fanaticism often leads towards personal attacks and breaches of civility, if "the truth" becomes "what one wants to hear", rather than "what's best for the project and those ones working with."
Don't try to marginalize others - If you dismiss other points of view, or attempt to marginalize the people who hold them, your position may actually be the marginal one. Instead, ask probing questions to see who is standing on solid ground.
Remedies:
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060411 13:58 UTC kw=faith
In this situation, it may be tempting to illustrate a point using either parody or some form of breaching experiment. For example, the contributor may apply the decision to other issues in a way that mirrors the policy they object to. These activities are generally disruptive: i.e., they require the vast majority of nonpartisan editors to clean up after the "proof".
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060421 19:54 UTC
Wikipedia can be stressful. Requests for arbitration are made and accepted every day. Many talk pages are filled with conflict and even personal attacks. Some editors spend most of their time trying to prevent and cool down conflict.
However, Wikipedia is not supposed to be about conflict. It should be about building an encyclopedia. And that can be stressful too! But the key issue here is what editors get out of working on the encyclopedia—nothing, besides the personal satisfaction. Editors are supposed to enjoy themselves on Wikipedia. This is all too often forgotten. Most Wikipedians enjoy writing for the encyclopedia- but problems arise when they don't enjoy themselves. All editors should remember this at all times. Enjoying yourself is the key to Wikipedians remaining active on the project. If you are ever not enjoying yourself, you need to step back and consider what you are doing. Remember how to remain calm when editing becomes stressful. But never let Wikipedia become a chore.
or=Wikimedia y=2007 r=20070327 19:50 UTC kw=faith kw=faith
Do not make personal attacks anywhere in Wikipedia. Comment on content, not on the contributor. Personal attacks will not help you make a point; they hurt the Wikipedia community and deter users from helping create a good encyclopedia. Equally, accusing someone of making a personal attack is not something that should be done lightly, especially if you are involved in a dispute. It is best for an uninvolved observer to politely point out that someone has made a personal attack, and for the discussion to return to considering the content, not the person.
1 What is considered a personal attack?
2 Responding to personal attacks
3 Consequences of personal attacks
4 See also
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060411 13:54 UTC kw=faith
WikiLove is a term that refers to a general spirit of collegiality and mutual understanding. It was coined over time on the Wikipedia:Mailing lists. Because people coming from radically different perspectives work on Wikipedia together – religious fundamentalists and secular humanists, conservatives and socialists, etc. – it is easy for discussions to degenerate into flamewars. But we are all here for one reason: we love accumulating, ordering, structuring, and making freely available what knowledge we have in the form of an encyclopedia of unprecedented size. Wikipedia is not just another discussion forum – it is a project to describe and collect what we know.
If we keep this common goal, this love of knowledge, in mind, if we concentrate on achieving a neutral point of view even when it is difficult, if we try to actually understand what the other side has to say, then we can reach the state of "WikiLove". If we fail to achieve WikiLove, this will only mean that the encyclopedia as a whole will suffer. Constant flamewars drive contributors away, POV articles drive readers away, and both harm our reputation in the long term.
or=Wikimedia y=2007 r=20070517 14:31 UTC kw=faith
Good faith, or in Latin bona fides, is the mental and moral state of honesty, conviction as to the truth or falsehood of a proposition or body of opinion, or as to the rectitude or depravity of a line of conduct, even if the conviction is objectively unfounded. This concept is important in law.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 17:43 UTC
Don't take yourself too seriously!
Stop looking at your watchlist. It contains pages that you are emotionally involved with. Ignore it. Find new pages that you don't care so much about. It probably also contains stressful pages like problem users which should be avoided. Angela 02:03, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Of course, not having any page in your watchlist is a good start :) Christopher Mahan 02:05, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)
...
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 17:43 UTC
The Wrong Version is the version of a page that is protected following an edit war. The Wrong Version is biased, nationalistic, libellous, inaccurate and a disgrace to Wikipedia generally. There are no reports of a sysop ever having protected the "right" version.
Note that consensus can only work among reasonable editors who make a good faith effort to work together to accurately and appropriately describe the different views on the subject. (e.g. insisting on insertion of an insignificant factoid into an article in opposition to many other editors has been judged a violation of consensus; see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Charles Darwin-Lincoln dispute.)
It is difficult to specify exactly what constitutes a reasonable or rational position. Nearly every editor believes that his (or her) position is reasonable; good editors acknowledge that positions opposed to their own may also be reasonable. But Wikipedia's consensus practice does not justify stubborn insistence on an eccentric position combined with refusal to consider other viewpoints in good faith. With respect to good faith, no amount of emphasized assertions that one is editing according to Wikipedia:Neutral point of view while engaging in biased editing will serve to paper over the nature of one's activities.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060421 19:54 UTC
Divisiveness on Wikipedia between members of the Wikipedia community is against Wikipedia's policies, guidelines, and reason for existing because Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and dividing Wikipedia contributors up into separated camps hinders rather than helps the process of creating and maintaining an encyclopedia.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 17:43 UTC
Talk, third parties, poll, and arbitration
If you would like assistance with the process, the Association of Members' Advocates is a group of users who have offered to help resolve disputes.
First step: talk to the other parties involved
The first resort in resolving almost any conflict is to discuss the issue on a talk page. Either contact the other party on that user's talk page, or use the talk page associated with the article in question. Never carry on a dispute on the article page itself. When discussing an issue, stay cool and don't mount personal attacks. Take the other person's perspective into account and try to reach a compromise. Assume that the other person is acting in good faith unless you have clear evidence to the contrary.
Both at this stage and throughout the dispute resolution process, talking to other parties is not simply a formality to be satisfied before moving on to the next forum. Failure to pursue discussion in good faith shows that you are trying to escalate the dispute instead of resolving it. This will make people less sympathetic to your position and may prevent you from effectively using later stages in dispute resolution. In contrast, sustained discussion and serious negotiation between the parties, even if not immediately successful, shows that you are interested in finding a solution that fits within Wikipedia policies.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 17:43 UTC
Keep in mind that raw text is ambiguous and often seems ruder than the same words coming from a person standing in front of you. Irony isn't always obvious - text comes without facial expressions, vocal inflection or body language. Be careful of the words you choose — what you intended might not be what others perceive, and what you read might not be what the author intended.
Be prepared to apologize.
Forgive and forget.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 17:43 UTC
Mark me this - from here on out, our primary problem will not be users who do nothing but cause general angst, but POV pushers -- people who edit Wikipedia with an agenda (even if they are not aware of it) While this makes our job infinitely harder, THIS IS NOT ACTUALLY A BAD THING. It is a sign that Wikipedia is maturing, that we have successfully established rules and mechanisms to ensure that good decorum is maintained
The $64,000 question is, then, what do we do about POV pushing?
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 17:43 UTC
Vandalism is any addition, deletion, or change to content made in a deliberate attempt to reduce the quality of the encyclopedia. The most common type of vandalism is the replacement of existing text with obscenities, page blanking, or the insertion of bad jokes or other nonsense. Fortunately, this kind of vandalism is usually easy to spot.
Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism. Apparent bad-faith edits that do not make their bad-faith nature inarguably explicit are not considered vandalism at Wikipedia. For example, adding an opinion once is not vandalism — it's just not helpful, and should be removed or restated.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 17:43 UTC
Wikipedia policy states that you may not revert any article more than three times in the same day. This is a strict limit, not a given right; you should not revert any one article more than three times daily.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060512 11:44 UTC kw=policies
Do not insult the vandals. Most vandals fall into one of two categories, newbies who don't know any better, and true vandals or trolls. Getting angry and insulting, deriding, or verbally assaulting them is exactly what they want from you, so as to play up into a flame war, and will potentially alienate useful future contributors.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 17:43 UTC
Describes the roles of administrators, signed-in users, bureaucrats, stewards, and developers. Document stresses that sysop is not an authority, but an accepted commitment and expectation of wisdom
m=March 23 y=2005 r=20070504 17:02 UTC kw=power
Administrators are not imbued with any special authority, and are equal to everybody else in terms of editorial responsibility. Some Wikipedians consider the terms "Sysop" and "Administrator" to be misnomers, as they just indicate Wikipedia users who have had performance- and security-based restrictions on several features lifted because they seemed like trustworthy folks and asked nicely. However it should be noted that administrators do not have any special power over other users other than applying decisions made by all users. In the early days of Wikipedia all users acted as administrators and in principle they still should. Any user can behave as if they are an administrator, provided that they do not falsely claim to be one, even if they have not been given the extra administrative functions. Users doing so are more likely to be nominated as full administrators by members of the community and more likely to be chosen when they are finally nominated.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 17:43 UTC
Wikipedians generally oppose the use of talk pages just for the purpose of partisan talk about the main subject. Wikipedia is not a soapbox, it's an encyclopedia. In other words, talk about the article, not about the subject.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 17:43 UTC
power
The Wikimedia projects as a community have certain foundation issues that are essentially beyond debate. People who strongly disagree with them sometimes end up leaving the project:
Several other projects are notable in their use of different principles. For example, h2g2 and some other collaborative projects have editorial boards that review content. Fred Bauder's fork Wikinfo project uses a sympathetic point of view rather than NPOV.
The presence of these foundation issues is, on the one hand, one of the strengths of the existing community, and on the other, one of the factors that has led to charges of cabalism.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 17:43 UTC
A WikiGnome is a slang term for a wiki user who makes small and useful edits without clamoring for attention.
or=Wikimedia y=2007 r=20071108 16:43 UTC kw=misc
There are more than 75,000 active contributors working on some 8,700,000 articles in more than 250 languages. As of today, there are 2,081,723 articles in English; every day hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world make tens of thousands of edits and create thousands of new articles to enhance the knowledge held by the Wikipedia encyclopedia.
m=Oct 20 y=2003 r=20050106
Not under the Wikimedia Foundation auspices, no. NPOV is an absolute non-negotiable requirement of everything that we do.
j=First Monday v=3 n=10 y=1998 r=20041213
An interesting essay on how notions of ownership operate within the open source community. In particular, reasons for humility are particularly interesting (productivity, less noise, shows good judgment, furthers meritocracy, a voice personality cult, is welcoming to newcomers), compared to pirate culture.
An Introductory Contradiction
1 Anyone who watches the busy, tremendously productive world of Internet open-source software for a while is bound to notice an interesting contradiction between what open-source hackers say they believe and the way they actually behave - between the official ideology of the open-source culture and its actual practice.
The Varieties of Hacker Ideology
Promiscuous Theory, Puritan Practice
3 forks, while possible, are rare
5 The taboos of a culture throw its norms into sharp relief. Therefore, it will be useful later on if we summarize some important ones here.
There is strong social pressure against forking projects. It does not happen except under plea of dire necessity, with much public self-justification, and with a renaming.
Distributing changes to a project without the cooperation of the moderators is frowned upon, except in special cases like essentially trivial porting fixes.
Removing a person's name from a project history, credits or maintainer list is absolutely not done without the person's explicit consent.
Ownership and Open Source
5 The owner(s) of a software project are those who have the exclusive right, recognized by the community at large, to re-distribute modified versions [1].
5 found a project, be handed the project, revive a project
Locke and Land Title
The Hacker Culture as Gift Economy
The Joy of Hacking
The Many Faces of Reputation
9 reputation is an intrinsic reward, attracts attention/cooperation, may spill into other command/economic cultures
Ownership Rights and Reputation Incentives
The Problem of Ego
11 This illustrates an interesting point about the hacker culture. It consciously distrusts and despises egotism and ego-based motivations; self-promotion tends to be mercilessly criticized, even when the community might appear to have something to gain from it. So much so, in fact, that the culture's 'big men' and tribal elders are required to talk softly and humorously deprecate themselves at every turn in order to maintain their status. How this attitude meshes with an incentive structure that apparently runs almost entirely on ego cries out for explanation.
11 The contrast with the pirate culture is instructive. In that culture, status-seeking behavior is overt and even blatant. These crackers seek acclaim for releasing "zero-day warez" (cracked software redistributed on the day of the original uncracked version's release) but are closemouthed about how they do it. These magicians don't like to give away their tricks. And, as a result, the knowledge base of the cracker culture as a whole increases only slowly. In the hacker community, by contrast, one's work is one's statement. There's a very strict meritocracy (the best craftsmanship wins) and there's a strong ethos that quality should (indeed must) be left to speak for itself. The best brag is code that "just works", and that any competent programmer can see is good stuff. Thus, the hacker culture's knowledge base increases rapidly.
11 Nietzsche and Rand "deconstructed "altruism' into unacknowledged kinds of self-interest"
The Value of Humility
12 so the ego taboo increases productivity; creates a lower tolerance for noise; "talking softly" can convince the community of good judgement, allow it to juge arguments on their merit, and result from fear of personality cult; precludes a premature sense of completionand therefore it is inviting to newcomers
12 Once on a dinner expedition with Larry Wall I joked "You're the alpha hacker here - you get to pick the restaurant." He flinched audibly. And rightly so; failing to distinguish their shared values from their leaders has ruined a good many communities, a pattern of which he and Linus cannot fail to be fully aware. On the other hand, most hackers would love to have Larry's problem, if they could but bring themselves to admit it.
Global Implications of the Reputation-Game Model
13 Globally, these two tendencies (gap-filling and category-killers) have driven a broadly predictable trend in project starts over time.
Noospheric Property and the Ethology of Territory
13 Claiming property (like marking territory) is a performative act, a way of declaring what boundaries will be defended.
Causes of Conflict
14 In conflicts over open-source software we can identify four major issues:
15 Accordingly, the three problems a conflict-resolution theory has to resolve about a project are (A) where the buck stops on design decisions, (B) how to decide which contributors are credited and how, and (C) how to keep a project group and product from fissioning into multiple branches.
15 The role of ownership customs in resolving issues (A) and (C) is clear. Custom affirms that the owners of the project make the binding decisions. We have previously observed that custom also exerts heavy pressure against dilution of ownership by forking. It's instructive to notice that these customs make sense even if one forgets the reputation game and examines them from within a pure 'craftmanship' model of the hacker culture. In this view these customs have less to do with the dilution of reputation incentives than with protecting a craftsman's right to execute his vision in his chosen way. The craftsmanship model is not, however, sufficient to explain hacker customs about issue (B), who gets credit for what (because a pure craftsman, one unconcerned with the reputation game, would have no motive to care). To analyze these, we need to take the Lockean theory one step further and examine conflicts and the operation of property rights within projects as well as between them.
Project Structures and Ownership
15 The simplest non-trivial case is when a project has multiple co-maintainers working under a single `benevolent dictator' who owns the project. Custom favors this mode for group projects; it has been shown to work on projects as large as the Linux kernel or Emacs, and solves the ``who decides'' problem in a way that is not obviously worse than any of the alternatives.
15 Typically, a benevolent-dictator organization evolves from an owner-maintainer organization as the founder attracts contributors. Even if the owner stays dictator, it introduces a new level of possible disputes over who gets credited for what parts of the project.
15 Pursuing this logic, we see that a 'benevolent dictator' does not in fact own his entire project unqualifiedly. Though he has the right to make binding decisions, he in effect trades away shares of the total reputation return in exchange for others' work. The analogy with sharecropping on a farm is almost irresistible, except that a contributor's name stays in the credits and continues to 'earn' to some degree even after that contributor is no longer active.
15 two tiers form: ordinary contributors and co-developers for subsystems
15 By custom, the 'dictator' or project leader in a project with co-developers is expected to consult with those co-developers on key decisions. This is especially so if the decision concerns a subsystem which a co-developer 'owns' (that is, has invested time in and taken responsibility for). A wise leader, recognizing the function of the project's internal property boundaries, will not lightly interfere with or reverse decisions made by subsystem owners. Some very large projects discard the 'benevolent dictator' model entirely. One way to do this is turn the co-developers into a voting committee (as with Apache). Another is rotating dictatorship, in which control is occasionally passed from one member to another within a circle of senior co-developers (the Perl developers organize themselves this way).
Conflict and Conflict Resolution
15 distribution of design authority and partial property rights also "dilutes the leader's authority to squash potential conflicts."
15 Conflicts do not as a rule become serious unless these two criteria ("authority follows responsibility" and "seniority wins") point in different directions, and the authority of the project leader is weak or absent.
Acculturation Mechanisms and the Link to Academia
Conclusion: From Custom to Customary Law
Questions for Further Research
Notes
References
or=Meatball Wiki m=April 12 y=2006 r=20060412 16:35 UTC kw=faith
In April 2000, SunirShah founded the MeatballProject to explore "collaborative hypermedia". Mostly, it provided a common space for wiki developers and proprietors from all over the Internet to collaborate.
Soft security is now the canonical name for the architectural decisions that have gone into wiki design to ensure that their essential openness is not unfortunate naïveté. It flows from a few basic principles.
AssumeGoodFaith. People are almost always trying to be helpful; so, we trust everyone, confident that occasional bad will be overwhelmed by the good.
PeerReview. Users, rather than software or sysadmins, moderate each other.
ForgiveAndForget. Even well intentioned people make mistakes. They don't need to be permanent.
LimitDamage. When mistakes are made, minimize the damage.
FairProcess. The theory that being transparent and giving everyone a voice are essential management skills. (cf. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, "Fair Process: Managing in the Knowledge Economy." Harvard Business Review January-February 1997 pp65-75.)
or=Meatball Wiki m=November 09 y=2007 r=20071109 18:04 UTC kw=faith
In the mid-seventies, the social scientists John W. Thibaut and Laurens Walker combined their research on psychology of justice and the study of process to look into what makes people trust a legal system enough to follow the laws voluntarily. They discovered that people care as much about the fairness of the process as the outcome the process generates. Simply put, people want to be treated like people and not numbers.
FairProcess, or procedural justice, universally requires adherance to three principles:
Engagement. Involve individuals in the decisions that involve them. Get their input, allow them to actively PeerReview the ideas on the table. Respect individuals for their ideas.
Explanation. Everyone involved and affected must understand the reason why the decisions were made. Demonstrating the rationale behind decisions shows people that you have considered their opinions thoughtfully and impartially. Not only will this make people trust the decision maker but it will help them learn.
Expectation clarity. Once a decision is made, clearly specify the expectations for the people involved, what responsibilities they have. Even if the expectations are demanding, people want to know by what standards they will be judged and what penalties there will be for failure. Understanding what to do reduces useless political manouevering and it allows people to focus on the task at hand.
By no means does fair process imply consensus. In fact, people are more than happy to let someone make the final decision provided they understand why that decision was made and that it was the best decision for the best reasons. And of course if you try to ForceConsensus?, you will experience many failure modes, especially the ConflictParadox where we get buried staring at the trees instead of seeing the forest.
Because fair process builds trust and commitment, people will go above and beyond the call of duty, volunteering where before they would have to be coerced.
Meatball was founded on a series of core values. They were chosen carefully, and we care deeply about them.
Support. The value of Meatball is not the text or the code or the URL but the mutual support we give each other. CommunityOverContent We care only about you as a person; we believe everything good will come out of our friendship. Our value to you is our support; your value to us is your support. Similarly, we support other OnlineCommunities; we are beneath them, but behind them. We study other online communities to learn from their mistakes and successes. We explain solutions clearly. We provide assistance to those who need it. In turn, we gain support by being valued.
BarnRaising. We work together within the community, and work collectively with other communities. We, TheCollective, have a SuperordinateGoal to make something valuable. Our only value comes from working together.
Powerlessness. We only use our hands, hearts, and minds. We do not exist to control or influence other communities or people. We do not use technology to create power; we only use the social power of having many friends. We will only support others, not control others. We share our values by explaining them clearly and demonstrating that they are useful, not by coercion.
Humane. We are human beings. We have RealNames and real lives with real feelings and we exist in the RealWorld and talk to each other. We care more about how people feel than what is technologically possible. We care about how technology impacts our lives, and we seek to ensure it does so positively. People and people and computers and people.
Growth. We aim to grow not in size, but in spirit. We seek to be better people. We unfold and help to unfold. We strive always to find the better answer, not just one that is self-satisfying. We make an effort to teach what we know, and learn from each other.
Timelessness. Meatball does not exist in time. We write for those five years from now with those who have past five years ago. Today is not important, only the WikiNow. We intend to be salient decades from now.
Boredom. Meatball should be boring to everyone who is not interested in us. We do not aim to be popular, we aim to be useful. Quality, not quantity. ContentOverForm. LimitTemptation. DefendAgainstPassion.
NonViolence. Do no harm, even to those who would harm us. Even social power can be used to cause harm, and we reject such uses.
Pluralism. Meatball strives to be as open as possible for contributors of all origins, cultures and opinions. Variety is richness. We seek a small common denominator: "acting as real persons", "interest in community" and "willingness to unfold and help to unfold". As a "community of communities" Meatball does not seek and has no chance to establish a unified world view (like for example a clique, club or church) but has to follow the model of a society with views living side by side.
m=September 16 or=MeatballWiki y=2006 r=20070208
Includes the elements of good faith, reasons people suspend good faith, and seeing others' humanity
1 What constitutes GoodFaith?
2 A fuller statement of AssumeGoodFaith is "I have faith that I am doing good for you."
2 Other pragmatic approaches in the face of seemingly uncooperative behaviour is to AssumeStupidityNotMalice. Be warned that whatever we assume may become a self-fulfilling prophecy. We AssumeGoodFaith as a way of creating good faith, but assuming indifference or stupidity will encourage those modes as well. See PygmalionEffect, ModelDesiredBehavior.
3-4 reasons people stop assuming good faith: angry cloud, hiding information, trolling, cross purposes, no goalstatement, ...
3 Trolling. (cf. WhatIsaTroll) Fomenting controversy without clear purpose causes people to stop listening to you. While unwillingness or inability to discern a purpose might be the fault of the perceiver, rather than the perceived, the art of communication makes it the responsibility of the speaker to be as clear and diplomatic as possible. More dangerously, trolls cause people to stop listening to each other, and to stop listening to newcomers.
or=MeatballWiki m=May 15 y=2007 r=20070515 13:48 UTC
Good faith is honesty and openness (OpenProcess), and a key to successful interaction. (The Catholic Encyclopedia [describes] good faith as "the mental and moral state of honest, even if objectively unfounded, conviction as to the truth or falsehood of a proposition or body of opinion, or as to the rectitude or depravity of a line of conduct.") When you operate in good faith, you act with an open heart and clear conscience in the belief that you are doing the right thing.
Yet good faith has its downside. It is the good faith of a community that trolls (WhatIsaTroll), vandals, FlameWarriors and UnwelcomeVisitorÿ?0ÿ in general exploit to cause trouble; and a community whose participants act exclusively in good faith can still be subject to the TragedyOfTheCommons. Good faith may also be misapplied; it has been [pointed out for a long time] that "Hell is paved with good intentions".
or=MeatballWiki m=May 15 y=2007 r=20070515 13:49 UTC
Therefore, operate from a PrincipleOfFirstTrust. AssumeGoodFaith in others from the start, and you will in most cases get GoodFaith.
But, some people are too dense to get it. They are the rotten apples that spoil the whole bunch. Fortunately, if you trust people enough to empower them, SoftSecurity can usually make up for any problems.
Robert Axelrod, a political scientist at the University of Michigan, and one of four members of the BACH group (Burks, Axelrod, Cohen, and Holland) who first discovered Complexity in the mid 1980s, has run IteratedPrisonersDilemma games on computer models and has empirically verified that the PrincipleOfFirstTrust is true. Agents that begin by cooperating instead of conflicting always outperform agents that don't. You can read more about it in his books and articles on cooperation.
or=MeatballWiki m=May 15 y=2007 r=20070515 13:49 UTC
Briefly stated, the PygmalionEffect is that people tend to behave as you expect they will. If you expect a person to take responsibility, they probably will. If you expect them to not even try, they probably won't.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060412 16:23 UTC kw=policies
Don't be dense. If people abided by this, other policies would flow naturally and be intuitive.
"Don't be dense" is the basic underlying message of every editorial and meta-policy in a social space. All rules are an attempt to define the boundaries of density.
Remember: "Assume good faith" is a nicer restatement of "Never assume malice when stupidity will suffice." Try not to be stupid either.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060412 16:24 UTC kw=policies
"Don't be a dick" is the fundamental rule of all social spaces. Every other policy for getting along is a special case of it. Although nobody is empowered to ban or block somebody for being a dick (as this would be an instance of being a dick), it is still a bad idea to be one. So don't do it.
No definition of being a dick has been provided. This is deliberate. If a significant number of reasonable people suggest, whether bluntly or politely, that you are being a dick, the odds are good that you are not entirely in the right.
Being right about an issue does not mean you're not being a dick yourself! Dicks can be right — but they're still dicks; if there's something in what they say that is worth hearing, it goes unheard, because no one likes listening to dicks. It doesn't matter how right they are.
If you've been labeled as a dick, especially if you have been told this by several people in a particular community, it might be wise to consider the possibility that it is true. If you suspect that you may be a dick, the first step is to become aware of it. Ask yourself what behavior might be causing this perception. Try changing your behavior and your mode of presentation. In particular, identify the harsh words in your communications and replace them with softer ones.
Honestly examine your motivations. Are you here to contribute and make the project good? Or is your goal really to find fault, get your views across, or be the one in control? Perhaps secretly inside you even enjoy the thrill of a little confrontation. This may not make you a bad person, but to everyone who is busily trying to build something great, you become an impediment. People get frustrated, rancor ensues, the atmosphere changes, and the whole project suffers. Are you here to give, or to take?
If appropriate, apologize to anyone to whom you may have been a dick. It's okay; this won't make you seem weak. On the contrary, people will take notice of your willingness to cooperate and will almost always meet your efforts with increased respect.
Telling someone "Don't be a dick" is something of a dick-move in itself, so don't bandy the criticism about lightly. Don't be dense may be sufficient, but see that page before citing it.
or=Wikimedia y=2007 r=20070320 20:08 UTC kw=policy
1. Wikipedia's success to date is entirely a function of our open community. This community will continue to live and breathe and grow only so long as those of us who participate in it continue to Do The Right Thing. Doing The Right Thing takes many forms, but perhaps most central is the preservation of our shared vision for the NPOV and for a culture of thoughtful, diplomatic honesty.
2. Newcomers are always to be welcomed. There must be no cabal, there must be no elites, there must be no hierarchy or structure which gets in the way of this openness to newcomers. Any security measures to be implemented to protect the community against real vandals (and there are real vandals, who are already starting to affect us), should be implemented on the model of "strict scrutiny".
"Strict scrutiny" means that any measures instituted for security must address a compelling community interest, and must be narrowly tailored to achieve that objective and no other.
For example: rather than trust humans to correctly identify "regulars", we must use a simple, transparent, and open algorithm, so that people are automatically given full privileges once they have been around the community for a very short period of time. The process should be virtually invisible for newcomers, so that they do not have to do anything to start contributing to the community.
3. "You can edit this page right now" is a core guiding check on everything that we do. We must respect this principle as sacred.
4. Any changes to the software must be gradual and reversible. We need to make sure that any changes contribute positively to the community, as ultimately determined by me, in full consultation with the community consensus.
5. The GNU FDL license, the openness and viral nature of it, are fundamental to the long-term success of the site. Anyone who wants to use our content in a closed, proprietary manner must be challenged. We must adhere very strictly to both the letter and spirit of the license.
6. The mailing list will remain open, well-advertised, and will be regarded as the place for meta-discussions about the nature of Wikipedia. Very limited meta-discussion of the nature of the Wikipedia should be placed on the site itself. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. The topic of Wikipedia articles should always look outward, not inward at the Wikipedia itself.
7. Anyone with a complaint should be treated with the utmost respect and dignity. They should be encouraged constantly to present their problems in a constructive way in the open forum of the mailing list. Anyone who just complains without foundation, refusing to join the discussion, I am afraid I must simply reject and ignore. Consensus is a partnership between interested parties working positively for a common goal. I must not let the "squeaky wheel" be greased just for being a jerk.
8. Diplomacy consists of combining honesty and politeness. Both are objectively valuable moral principles. Be honest with me, but don't be mean to me. Don't misrepresent my views for your own political ends, and I'll treat you the same way.