Wikipedia Governance
From Meta
This is not a topic I would have chosen to write about again, as I think that the information here is adequately explained elsewhere. But since 24 keeps insisting that this needs to be done, then I will do it.
1. "On March 1, 2002, the wikipedia lost its chief editor, Larry Sanger, and has no clear or obvious way to make certain policy decisions critical to its future." Larry Sanger was my employee, and we made policy decisions together based on our shared vision for the future of Wikipedia, with due consideration given to the desires and needs of the regular contributors. Then, as now, the ultimate responsibility for decisions made rested with me. Nothing has changed.
2. Vocabulary -- The language level of Wikipedia is or ought to be aimed at the level that a college student can understand. http://simple.wikipedia.com is a worthy effort, not very active yet, at making articles available in simplified English. The international wikis should similarly be aimed at the level that a college student who speaks that language natively can understand, and I would support the notion of creating simplified versions of each of those.
Additionally, it should be said that the international wikis are not mere translations, but independent projects. This is in the nature of wiki. It is great if people translate articles, or anyhow if people find articles written in different languages useful in working on articles in other languages. But it is entirely possible that two articles from two different languages will not resemble each other very much.
3. Our NPOV policy is the "glue" that binds us together. My original statement of w:Neutral Point of View was brilliant and perfect in every respect. :-) Larry's detailed exposition only drives home the main points. But the NPOV is not the sole principle which guides the community -- it is our means to our shared end.
To my knowledge, there have been no serious objections to the NPOV. Those who think otherwise should EMAIL me, at jwales@bomis.com, and discuss it privately before I'm willing to waste other people's time (who have seen it all before) with a big public debate.
4. Final policy decisions are up to me, as always. But the license provides a strong counter-balance to my power. If I attempted to deviate from the NPOV policy, to push my own political agenda for example, then the contributors can and should take the database and the software and set up a competing project. In order to hold the project together, and in order to keep the largest possible group of people working together on the central project, I must listen carefully to all elements of the community, and make decisions that are satisfactory to the best interests of the encyclopedia as a whole.
5. Wikipedia is not to be viewed as an adversarial endeavor, nor as a marketplace, but as a co-operative endeavor. Edit wars are to be avoided in favor of efforts to create mutually acceptable articles -- this is where the guidance of the NPOV is most important. The Wikipedia culture is strongly opposed to Usenet-style flame wars. We try hard not to argue, but to find mutually satisfactory solutions.
6. Anyone who disagrees with these governance policies has very little reason to complain. If you want to set up a wikipedia that is an experiment in anarchy, or an encyclopedia for the purpose of pushing your own political vision without the need for NPOV compromises, then you may do so, and I will help you if I can. But ultimately, Wikipedia IS Wikipedia, and not anything else. If you view the NPOV as hopelessly human-centric or not sufficient to overcome implicit biases, there's no need to argue with me about it -- you should consider me totally bullheaded and beyond the possibility of change on this point. But take comfort in the knowledge that you can set up your own project and do things your own way.
Thanks, this is well written and stands as a beginning of a policy statement. It doesn't appear clear what exactly the "ends" are other than "write an encyclopedia", though. I prefer LDC's statement that he "will not allow pages to become useless". At least that implies that he knows they are read not just written. Now, let me write what I would write about this now:
"A free government makes choices not ideologically but politically." - Bernard Crick
In the ideological world of wikipedia "dot com", there are constant assertions from people empowered to make Governing Operational distinctions that they are in fact exercising an objective process of measurement and judgement; That the only Governing Ontological distinction that they make is that something is "NPOV" or "not NPOV" - if the latter, then they believe that "work has been created" for a "responsible" member of the "community". They are not concious of making many interlocking and socially-reinforced distinctions, nor that they create a powerful w:groupthink by doing so. In short, they have an ideological agreement, but not a political process. This contradicts every principle of a wiki..."
This is the actual complaint, that you are confusing an ideology for a polity.
However, there was no complaint at all about NPOV, ever, only about how it is perceived and what it actually is, down to the distinctions you make in seeing. There are substantial questions about the process of neutralizing, not so much NPOV itself, but the Governing Ontological distinctions you make when you recognize or believe that something "is not NPOV" (an overused and nearly worthless phrase - what is?). Describing a social consensus as if it were an operational fact, or an ontological category, is just not useful nor constructive. If you get so much discussion of this in email, then you should build a single elaborated page of all arguments on this subject. If Larry Sanger convinced you that w:ontology was a matter of listening to an expert and then moving the social process of challenge to his model into email, well, I guess it must be said that he is a very inferior ontologist.
Nor is governance a matter of pronouncements that everything is all right.
So, this is a good start, but it is only one opinion, and the employer-employee relationship is not the only one that matters, so saying that Larry was your employee resolves nothing much. Everyone participating retains their own view of reality, their own Natural point of view, and there's a social process by which people come to agree on a Governing Ontological distinction, e.g. "24 is a troll", which may motivate some Governing Operational distinction, i.e. "ban 24", but of course, not very directly.
Your claim that one simply leaps from one to the other, is beyond credibility. Some governing process is going on, and it's either secretive, or it's open.
If it's secretive, this project is not what it is advertised to be. If it's open, then there is a means of governance and political means of suasion, not just to the "owner" or "expert", but to the entire body of contributors.
I don't know who wants to "set up a wikipedia that is an experiment in anarchy, or an encyclopedia for the purpose of pushing your own political vision without the need for NPOV compromises" - no one has argued against compromise except for these magic Gods who leap directly from a distinction in seeing to an action in doing. I don't think you're one of them, Jimbo.
But you can't avoid politics. Period. You need to say what the "end" is, and how "neutralizing" works, and commit to a single description of that. But thanks for trying. - 24
- The process for getting from "X is a troll" to "ban X" is currently somewhat opaque - I'm trying to clarify/reform it at bans and blocks.
