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Wikipedia Is Basically a Corporate Bureaucracy, Says Study (gizmodo.com)
Jennifer Ouellette, reporting for Gizmodo: Wikipedia is a voluntary organization dedicated to the noble goal of decentralized knowledge creation. But as the community has evolved over time, it has wandered further and further from its early egalitarian ideals, according to a new paper published in the journal Future Internet. In fact, such systems usually end up looking a lot like 20th-century bureaucracies. [...] This may seem surprising, since there is no policing authority on Wikipedia -- no established top-down means of control. The community is self-governing, relying primarily on social pressure to enforce the established core norms, according to co-author Simon DeDeo, a complexity scientist at Indiana University. [...] "You start with a decentralized democratic system, but over time you get the emergence of a leadership class with privileged access to information and social networks," DeDeo explained. "Their interests begin to diverge from the rest of the group. They no longer have the same needs and goals. So not only do they come to gain the most power within the system, but they may use it in ways that conflict with the needs of everybody else.""The Iron Law of Oligarchy, demonstrated by Wikipedia," wrote Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist at Caltech. "Rebel all you want, ultimately you become The Establishment."
For all the complaints against bureaucracies, they are often the only way a large organization can run. As organizations grow and mature, they often evolve into bureaucracies. Bureaucracies are often a very efficient way of performing work. The main problem with them is they tend to become static, and inhibit future change. Parts of bureaucracies work to keep themselves in business, and resist change that would eliminate them, even if they become obsolete.
Fork the content, make your own, be happy!
(Try that with Microsoft, Apple, IBM, Monsanto... you name it. See the difference?).
That doesn't mean Wikipedia has no defects. But given the choice...
"Corporate" is the wrong word to use in this case. It implies a separate entity, with financial profit to be made by the owners of said entity.
While that may be true to some extent with Wikipedia, I think what we actually see there with the editors/contributors is much different.
They aren't motivated by financial profit. They are motivated by ideology, and perhaps a lack of power in the real world. It's not necessarily a political or economic ideology, either. They don't really care about the people involved; they just want power for the sake of feeling powerful.
I don't know if there's a good term, but "Tyrannical" is the best I can think of quickly. The Wikipedia editors/moderators/contributors are part of a "Tyrannical Bureaucracy", not a "Corporate Bureaucracy".
Left to their own devices and without strong leadership, a project is doomed to failure by infighting and people who actively seek to ruin the project. It's also why so many open source projects fail or end up being forked into oblivion.
So we can never have nice things until the perfect benevolent AI with perfect egalitarian programming runs the world. At which point, SF has taught us, we no longer have any humanity.
Greaaatttt.
Really? Tell us something that the average person doesn't know, and one of the reasons why if you go to school they will explicitly tell you not to trust wikipedia, not to even use it as a basis for research for furthering your topic. Never mind they've got their own problems, where wikipedia investigates wikipedia and finds no wrongdoing.
Om, nomnomnom...
So fork it. Problem "solved". People like to complain about stuff.
Whether it is Open Source, or "wisdom of the crowd," or whatever: people need to work together, so there must be a power structure and rules. Alternatively, you find some very talented people and give them absolute power, but that upsets people. So, the audience defines the product, and the workers define the organization of the venture, whether it is pro-profit or not. You see the same thing in church groups, rock bands, PTAs and militias that you do in corporate America and Wikipedia.
The first mistake people make is in thinking that bureaucracies have top down control. In a bureaucracy, no one individual (or small group of individuals) have control. Ultimately, bureaucracies come into existence to protect people from being held accountable for their actions. Any organization which does not have a strong leader who takes responsibility for the bad things which happen in the organization (and thus holds those most responsible for those bad things accountable) will turn into a bureaucracy. Even an organization with such a leader will become a bureaucracy if they have to delegate decision making too far down the organization from themselves.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Wikipedia is playing King of the Hill.
The person that spends the most time making edits is the Editor. And there are a lot of self-important busy-bodies that will revert casual edits because they can. Some will attempt to justify it with official-sounding reasons for reversing, others will simply revert without much comment.
This is why I don't contribute to Wikipedia anymore, and why I do not browse it as much as I used to. The idea was interesting, but due to the way it was set up, the trolls run the place.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
This may seem surprising, since there is no policing authority on Wikipedia
Yes there is.... Haven't you ever heard of "New Page Patrol" ? There are such things as Oversighters (History Suppression); The WP Foundation has Police power through Oversighter, and Control of stewards who assign Administrative permissions to some users, who then act as police, Selective Deletion (Destroying/Hiding historical information about past actions), Banned Users, Requests for Discussion, Votes for Deletion, Speedy Page Deletion (eg BLP), and Banned Content
no established top-down means of control. The community is self-governing, relying primarily on social pressure to enforce the established core norms
There are top-down means of control in regards to certain actions (Oversighting).
.
Wikipedia: where truth dies online
"Rebel all you want, ultimately you become The Establishment."
Reminds me of when the Kinks were at the Carnegie and remarked something like "...Rock'n'Roll has become respectable. Bummer."
for a long time due to SJW's seizing articles and the bureaucracy letting it happen.
Basic rules for classifying political alignment on WIkipedia:
If it's seen as a positive thing it's left wing, if it's seen it's negative it's right, even if the world socialism is used to describe the ideology.
If there's a way to take a stab at something male when gender neutral terms would work just as well or better take the stab. If it gets neutralized change it back and use the justification "no it was right before".
Some of this doesn't seem as bad as it was, I actually donated a little again, but overall rule by committee sucks.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
>> The community is self-governing, relying primarily on social pressure to enforce the established core norms
The real trouble with this approach is not that a few people get control, but that it inevitably leads to a real bias in the Wikipedia entries themselves.
entrenched editors at wikimedia have made content there highly biased.
for example check the article on british empire;
attempts to include the factual cited details about british empire's mass murders and genocides, ethnic cleansings(well in to 1970s) , regime sanctioned slavery and bonded labor, preventable famines that killed millions(in to 1940s), large scale land and resource grabs, destruction and looting of cultural treasures, regular revolts and protests against regime ( both violent and non violent) in almost every colony, and their brutal suppressions, are censored(except for a unavoidable line or two). people who attempt to include any of that are regularly banned from wikipedia .
even comment page for british empire article is censored to prevent discussion of sources.
see the history page of the article and comments page in date sequence and changes to confirm this.
contrast this to inclusion of such details about equally horrible actions by similarly brutish regimes like on ussr, communist china, nazi germany, etc. .
Wisdom of the crowd is an extension of the "invisible hand" ideas of the utilitarians: if enough people think something is good enough idea to vote for it or buy it, the overall decision made will be a good one. I counter this with what I have observed, which is the wisdom of individuals if assembled to common purpose. Someone has always noticed something or has some idea, and so if you give that person the ability to gain wealth or glory from that idea, he or she will implement it to the benefit of all. This is not the wisdom of a crowd, but that by assembling a whole lot of people and presenting the same issue, you enable those individuals to focus and spur them to action. $0.02
Back around 1999 to 2001 when people were all excited about user generated content being able to bypass the gatekeepers, I predicted that sooner or later out of practical considerations a bureaucracy would arise around wikipedia, just like the gatekeeper of say, encyclopaedia britannica, except sans the qualifications.
Guess what, here we are.
Karl Marx could not have written that any better.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You can easily see it. Fix one of the MANY inaccuracies on any article, and it will instantly get changed back by some idiot who thinks he owns the article.
. . . to Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy. It's just human nature.
Vandalism isn't easy on Wikipedia any more, but I have found a simple method.
Go to any medium-traffic page, and start adding "Citation Needed" tags everywhere, ruining the flow of the article. The bureaucracy has to follow its own rules, so eventually some Busybody Editor will be forced to come along and provide links showing that the sky is blue, and water is wet.
If somebody complains that it is "obvious" that the sky is blue, point out that their "original research" has no place on Wikipedia.
Wikipedia has too many admins and their minion twinkle users, who revert without even checking. Most of these users spend most of their lives on Wikipedia, like RickinBaltimore.
Wikipedia would be better of if only people with enough social skills to get laid could be editors.
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. -George Orwell
Wikipedia Is Basically a Corporate Bureaucracy, Says Study
Never mind the study. What does the billiard room have to say about it?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Wikipedia is a joke. So is that idea that any organization can function in a "de-centralized, democratic fashion" without every single member of the "democracy" holding the same standards and values as every other person in the group. It's an ideal, but basically, there will always be people willing to spend more time and energy on a given project than others, and they will always emerge as the "leadership class." The problem there is that if those individuals are assholes. And the problem with this planet is that "the masses are asses." So too is the idea of saying that "anybody can edit Wikipedia." Yeah, as long as your concepts and ideas that you're trying to share are in line with the "democracy," otherwise it's just like any other situation where ideas may have truth to them, but if they're unpopular, they don't get any traction and you're back to square one. Wikipedia is simply the repository for what the mass consciousness deems to be true, but it's relationship to truth varies depending on the level of consciousness of the maintainers of that particular subject.
In limited cases - mostly those involving legal issues or to prevent real-world harm - The Wikimedia Foundation steps in and "dictates from on high."
Granted, that's not exactly "external" as the WMF trustees are elected by the community.
The WMF also steps in - whether willingly or not - when a court orders them to do so or, more commonly, when their in-house lawyers tell them they have to step in or they will likely be hauled into court and lose or when it's so obvious that they would lose they don't even need to ask the lawyers.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
...because a large percentage of the editors are gov controlled AI.
1. Wikipedia has become a white wash of left-wing political correctness. There is no more open dialog or multiple perspectives. (Compare their articles on socialism and capitalism.)(What happened to the older articles on IQ?)
2. I've contributed articles on widely used open-source software just to have them taken down because they didn't fit all the rules for "widely used". (They wouldn't allow the entry because there was no third party article written about the software.) (Another case in point, they won't permit an article on Armed Bear Common Lisp (ABCL) )
I've seen rules used to push whatever agenda someone has on wikipedia. Couple of my favorites, only internet accessible verification of a published article is allowed as fact. So that time, when an author tries to correct a "theory" someone else has on his own book, he isn't an authority. Even if he has a website of his own with verification. Also excludes the 70's and 80's topical stories, since many aired on TV and only made a few news articles. So we have no historically available news sites to back it up, so it never happened!
My favorite, is the common beliefs override actual facts. A amateur historian investigated common misinformed facts and would update them, only to keep having them removed. One example, Canada had no troops in Vietnam. But they did in fact have medical units and a CA gov website listing service and medals for serving in Vietnam. Proof doesn't over come biased beliefs of many editors.
What keeps wikipedia back is only 1 viewpoint is allowed, and its voted on. Voting doesn't mean something is true, just that its popular.
So he wrote the federated wiki back in 2011.
PS. SO suffered the same fate, shame it's creator didn't see it coming, well he's no Ward so maybe I shouldn't be so harsh.
Up with the proletariat!
VOTE TRUMP 2016
I assume this is satire, because the irony is dripping from those two statements.
True, which is why societies seek unification of the group through either ideology or heritage. The classic statement of this problem is "The Tragedy of the Commons" by Garrett Hardin.
Parent organization of Wikipedia?
"no established top-down means of control"
False. They have administrators. They run the place.
"The community is self-governing, relying primarily on social pressure"
Nope.
Just try to "vandalize" a wikipedia page. They will overrule you. No social pressure, your edit will be overruled by someone with authority there, or an automated script enforcing wikipedia policy.
Try to edit from a blocked IP address. The edit won't go through. What social pressure there? None.
"since there is no policing authority on Wikipedia -- no established top-down means of control"
Um, patently false. There absolutely is top-down control. Hard core, vicious, draconian top-down control.
instagram and snapchat can get articles, but any little app who meets the same requirments can't get an article.
Fuck wikipedia
I'm not a member of any inner elite. I made my first Wikipedia edit in 2004. I haven't changed the way I interact with Wikipedia. I go in there from time to time as a kind of low-key hobby. I add stuff to articles. I wordsmith phrases sometimes. Occasionally I create new articles.
I do it in good faith. I make sure my additions are verifiable and I cite references. I don't try to push my own point of view, and I rarely try to make any kind of political point.
Most of my content sticks. None of the articles I've created have ever been put up for deletion.
I haven't noticed the ominous changes the article talks about.
Perhaps it is different if you are trying to mould Wikipedia into some desired image, but if you are just a random person trying to add content and improve articles, it all feels just about the same as it did in 2004. (Well, let's say 2006... in 2004 there were no "ref" tags and the verifiability policy was not taken as seriously as it started to be later on).
I read it on Wikipedia.
Yes, that's what I said:
The "benefit of all" part is not contingent upon their mental state. It is the result of a good idea getting done. While I would identify myself as ardently pro-Capitalist mainly because of the horrors of all the alternatives, I would like to point out that, per Hardin, no system can run itself. Smith's invisible hand argument was designed to show that managed economies -- the alternatives to capitalism -- do not work. He is correct, but Hardin updates him: there must be some force encouraging cooperation and preservation of the resources involved, especially one that limits growth so that individual actors are not put into competition with one another. This is where Capitalism by itself is not sufficient; there must be some larger purpose and values system to society, or it collapses from over-exploitation of resources.
> The very term "encyclopedia" means a comprehensive store of information. The default stance to take should be there is a compelling reason to include pretty much everything and everyone.
No, the word encyclopedia is greek for "general education ", much like high school provides a general education. It does not mean "a gargantuan database of every sentence ever uttered, whether useful or not".
Wikipedia, like any encyclopedia, includes objective, verifiable facts about noteworthy topics. Let's call that approach A.
You CAN of course have a site with the approach you suggest- any and all random facts about all random people. If someone wants to post what you ate for breakfast, they can. Let's call that approach B.
A site which implements B is Facebook. The web as a whole is approach B. These are useful, but do not serve the same purpose that Wikipedia serves with approach A. Wikipedia has a different kind of value as it is, as it has developed under approach A.
Wikipedia isn't the entire internet, and it isn't supposed to be. It's supposed to be a summary of the most important verifiable information about important topics.
Wikipedia is a real life Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Its organizational structure may be a bit chaotic and perhaps not as democratic as some think it should be, but in a couple thousand years it will probably be pretty difficult to make your way around the galaxy without it.
Regardless, all nonprofit organizations become "corporate bureaucracies" after a while once they start employing people. Once people make a career out of a nonprofit they will do whatever they can to sustain it because they want to stay employed. Mother's Against Drunk Driving is a good example of a nonprofit that persisted even after its original goals were attained because the people who ran the charity needed it to continue out of self interest. At least Wikipedia is a group whose work can never truly be finished.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
I hope to not come across as a negative person, but I do not see one -- at least, not for all Americans, which makes the original Confederation (1776-1789) seem like a better system of government than what we have now. America is fragmenting, if not fragmented. I share your concern about religiously-anchored purpose and values systems.
Wikipedia is controlled largely by Jewish people. Hasbara trolls abound. Slanted and biased articles that hide the crimes of Israel and her terrorist activities... Outright disinformation. Propaganda.
Wikipedia has become tainted with Zionist filth. Pity.
Jimmy just needs to get the community to agree on a policy that administrators have a finite lifetime,like 4 or 5 years, after which time they get effectively blocked from all administration access. They can then contribute a hell of a lot of good but will be prevented from forming an emergent elite class of wiki administrators. Wikipedia can do this like no other community due to the huge number of people who volunteer.