[Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia moderators and moral authority

Tue Nov 12 02:22:41 UTC 2002

Larry Sanger wrote:

>Our collective experience is more than enough proof that we need
>*consistent* enforcement, Erik, not *stronger* enforcement.

You're talking about consistency regarding people like Helga and Lir, right?
(I think that we're already pretty consistent about vandalism.)
I agree with you and Ed (if you're saying what I think you are)
that we need to design policies for these situations
so that they can begin to be enforced consistently.
I don't think that this requires a new class of administrator,
since the situations come up rarely enough that
ordinary adminstrators can deal with them
(or could if given the power to ban logged in users,
a change that would be useful even only for vandals).
But a consistent policy on what the authority to ban should be
would be a very good idea.

>Your interest is obviously not in reducing
>power but in keeping power distributed among a lot of different people who
>use it in totally different, inconsistent ways, and none of which has any
>particular respect among other users.  Virtually anyone can, for the
>asking, get sysop privileges and start banning IPs and locking pages.
>That certainly appears to be mob rule and by golly, in my experience on
>Wikipedia lately I have to say it certainly *feels* like mob rule.

It doesn't feel like mob rule to me,
because adminstrators don't abuse their power.
When we have mistakes, it's because the policies either aren't clear
(and in that case we need a change, we need to write clear policies)
are aren't understood (and in that case we don't need a change,
since the mistake can be undone by another administrator).

>Erik Moeller wrote:

>>Larry Sanger wrote:

>>>In that case, we can always collect a list of people who have been
>>>driven away or who have quietly stopped editing so much out of disgust
>>>with having to deal with people who just don't get it.

>>That's not the kind of list I'm talking about, because it only tells us
>>about the reactions, not the actual actions. You may say that these people
>>were driven away by silly eedjots, but I cannot tell whether this is true
>>without looking at the actual conflicts.

>Be serious--look at what you just wrote.  Does anyone other than you
>really need it to be proven?  It's *obvious* to anyone who has observed
>very many of the people who have left the project in disgust.

It's obvious to me only because I've looked at the conflicts,
and then only in those cases where I *have* looked at the conlficts
(which is all of the cases that I know about, which is very few).
If Erik hasn't seen the conflicts, then they should be pointed out to him
(this is where viewing deleted pages without undeleting them would be useful)
so that it can become obvious to him.

>It's also
>quite obviously the fact that we have to tolerate a bunch of people who
>just don't want to play by the rules--even after being told what the rules
>are and that those rules are indeed not going to be changed--that a lot of
>highly qualified people see the website and decide not to participate.

And it's not obvious to me that this actually happens at all.
Who are the "highly qualified" people that decide not to participate?
You know them, I suppose; Erik and I don't.

>But in the mouths of any libertarian or anarchist

(quoted for context of the word "ideology" below)

>The result of this ideology is that *anyone* who is distinguished in any
>way that results in their having more authority--whether officially or
>unofficially--will be opposed as an evil "elite" or "cabal" by you and
>people like you.

Although Erik claims not to be one of them (and I believe him),
I suspect that we do have a lot of libertarians and anarchists here,
and if you want people to have moral authority among these users,
then it won't be helpful to give them extraordinary powers.
(Of course, the anarchists will prefer to say
"community trust" rather than "moral authority",
but you don't have to let them in on that -_^.)

>>>Well, the times I'm concerned about aren't necessarily times when people
>>>are shouting against the majority, but when they write nonsense, brazen
>>>political propoganda, crankish unsupported stuff, and so forth--in other
>>>words, violating community standards.

>>Do you mean nonsense in the sense of "something that just isn't true"
>>or in the sense of simple noise, like crapflooders? How do you plan to
>>define / recognize "crankish unspported stuff"?

>Do you really think it would resolve anything in our discussion if I were
>to supply you with an answer to these questions?  No, you seem to want to
>ask rhetorical questions, and the point of the questions is: there are no
>clear standards whereby we can determine when community standards are
>violated.

I think that it's an important practical question
if your system of moderators is to be used.
What will the standards by which moderators decide
whether or not community standards have been violated?
Specifically (for Erik's question), how will they decide
when something is "crankish unsupported stuff"?
You answer this practical question in general below:

>Some standards are explicitly stated and have been vigorously debated and
>shaped to something well-understood and -agreed by Wikipedia's old guard
>and best contributors; for example, NPOV, having lower-cased titles, and
>not signing articles.  Other standards are specific to a field and some of
>them are known (and indeed perhaps knowable) only to people who have given
>adequate time studying the subject.  There are certainly clear standards
>of both sorts, and the fact that there are borderline cases, where we're
>not sure what to say, hardly impugns the idea that there are such clear
>standards.

:except for the borderline cases, which is a pretty good start.
And if the borderline cases are rare, then the answer to that could be
case law, as you mentioned in your original moderator proposal,
so now the general question is completely answered.
But you didn't answer the specific question,
about detecting "crankish unsupported stuff",
which IMO is still a reasonable practical question.

>(As an aside, [[Neutral point of view]] has specific implications for the
>case that you raise; where the implications are unclear, we use our
>judgment and engage in debate.)

Well, we do now.  What will the moderators do,
when there are only 3 of them at one time,
and nobody besides Jimbo can overrule the trifecta
until their term of office is over?
(after which they still leave their precedent in case law).
It might be better to clarify the implications now, where possible.
We don't have to figure this out immediately,
but I think that it's important to Erik,
so if you have ideas, then it will help you to mention them.
(It will also help Erik to read [[Wikipedia:NPOV]]
and come up with specific examples, hypothetical or not,
of the sort of thing that still worries him after reading that.)

>>>Erik Moeller wrote:

>>>>I am, like many others, a big believer in the concept of "soft
>>>>security".

>>>Why don't you explain exactly what that means here on the list, and why
>>>you and others think it's such a good thing?

>>The idea of soft security has evolved in wikis, and it is only fair to
>>point you to the respective page at MeatballWiki for the social and
>>technical components of soft security:
>>http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?SoftSecurity

>I'm not particularly interested in going to the website to find out what
>you mean.

Then you're not particularly interested in engaging in discussion with him.
That's your right.

>If you want to introduce an unfamiliar term into a debate, it
>is polite to define it.  Use information from that Usemod page to make
>your case, but don't expect me to go there and provide you arguments
>against it here on Wikipedia-L.

I went to the web page, and it means pretty much what I thought that it did
(I had previously just figured out the meaning from context on this list).
I'd copy down the definition for you, but there is no definition;
it's a vague concept, so instead I'll list examples and nonexamples.
And of course, I'll have to define what each of the examples is.

Actually, rather than put all that text into this post,
let me just point you to two web pages that have it already:
<http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?SoftSecurity> (for the examples)
and <http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?HardSecurity> (for the nonexamples).
Both pages have some stuff after the lists of examples,
but you can ignore all of that (although you might find it interesting).

I think that this is an entirely reasonable way to carry on a discussion.
It's not like I've put down a dozen links that you need to hunt through;
I've put down two links that clearly and up front say what I want to say.
If you don't want to continue the discussion under these terms,
then that's your choice.

>Erik, two things.  First, we already have banning and deletion.
>From what you say I infer that Wikipedia has LONG AGO decided
>against using SoftSecurity.  Those of you who promote it apparently are
>trying to change it.

Rather, Wikipedia has decided against using *only* soft security.
It still uses many soft security measures,
the most obvious being the ability of any user
to undo the changes done by any other user
(on the same level of Ed's hierarchy of power).

>It's very hard to abuse power in an environment when a sizable
>minority of the contributors are virtually drooling with the opportunity
>to catch someone in an act of abuse of power.  (I oughta know.)

Well, but you never really *tried*, now did you?  ^_^

>You say that you're disgusted by the thought that we are already banning
>innocent users.  The best way we have of ensuring against that is by
>adopting my proposal; it would provide for a totally open, regular,
>rational method of imposing sanctions, quite unlike the present system.

But your proposal isn't about banning vandals, is it?
Surely you're not saying that 3 moderators at a time
is better than every administrator going after the vandals!
And the banning of innocent users is primarily occurring
as a side effect of the war against vandalism.
This is an important, but I think different, issue.
One possible solution is to automatically unban after, say, a week.
Erik (or maybe it was somebody else) has suggested a technical fix
that would improve this (but possibly worsen other things),
on a different thread.

>My point was that peer pressure
>*did* indeed work pretty well under my tenure.  It seems to be working
>considerably less well now.  Whether my official presence had anything to
>do with it, I don't know or care; I do know that the problem is far worse
>than it was.

>Again, you could ask the many people who have left or who have stopped
>contributing as much.

We should also ask the people that *haven't* done this.
(Not me; I wasn't around when Larry was official.)

>>>I don't want to see
>>>something that I've helped build wear away into something awful.

>>Again, I'm not seeing that happen.

>Then, frankly, Erik, you haven't been paying attention, or your ideology
>is blinding you to facts that seem obvious to the many others who have
>commented on them on Wikipedia-l.

I've been paying attention, but I'm not seeing it happen either.
Perhaps I'm blinded by my ideology; perhaps you're blinded by yours.
Since I can't tell in either case, I'm just going to have to give
each of our impressions equal weight.

>>>But one reason I'm worried about the current state of Wikipedia is
>>>that we might have some expert reviewers coming in to do some good
>>>work here, only to be attacked by some eedjit who gets his jollies out
>>>of attacking an expert precisely because she's an expert.  That *will*
>>>happen, almost certainly, if the Wikipedia peer review project gets
>>>going.

These experts will be in a much better position
than Julie was to ignore their attacks.
They make their edits, approve the article,
and if the eedjit messes it up, still Recylopediasifter will be OK.
So while they'll no doubt be just as annoyed
(since they'll have to undo the eedjit every time that
the article comes back around on their schedule for review,
assuming that nobody else has dealt with it in the meantime),
they won't have to leave the project, since Wikipedia isn't the project.

>>Well, I can predict that I'm going to "attack" experts myself if they
>>add non-NPOV content, fail to cite sources properly, insist on their
>>authority to make their point etc.

>Good luck.  Remember, experts know more about their areas than you do.
>That's why we call them experts.  So don't embarrass yourself too badly.

First, the people on Recyclopediasifter will be PhDs, not experts.
While these characteristics tend to go together, they're not the same thing.

More importantly, if Erik attacks an expert (not just a PhD, but an expert)
for not citing sources and arguing fallaciously (argument by authority),
and if the expert comes back and cites sources and argues validly
and proves her point beyond any doubt, leaving her critics in the dust,
then I for one will not consider Erik to have lost any face.
(Nor the experpt, because while she was in danger for a moment there,
in the end she made good.)

OTOH, if Erik tells an expert that she isn't being NPOV,
and the withering force of her vast knowledge proves that she is,
then, yeah, he should be embarrassed.  That's the risk of debate.

>>My view on experts and what makes an expert is very different from
>>yours, but I believe both views can coexist in a good certification
>>system.

>I'm a Ph.D. epistemologist.  My dissertation adviser was (still is) an
>expert on the concept of expertise, and I've read several papers on this
>area of social epistemology as part of a graduate course.  In addition, I
>gave careful thought to this subject while working on Nupedia.  Now, what
>is [it] that you think [is] my view of what experts are and what makes an
>expert?

(I'm not sure if I parsed the last sentence correctly, so please check it.)
I get the strong impression from what I've read of your opinions,
here and on Nupedia, that you think that experts are usually correct
and that academic degrees are strong evidence of expertise.
I get the (weaker) impression that Erik doesn't believe these things.
But rather than go by my impressions (or Erik's, since you asked him),
we'd probably get further if each of you just came out and said
*what* your views on experts and what makes an expert *are*.

>>>The whole reason behind a random sample is precisely to forestall the
>>>sort of "elitism" and abuse of power that you fear.

>>I know, and I respect this good intention. I just don't think it's the
>>right approach, it will only lead to less informed decisions. Better keep
>>the decision process open to (almost) everybody (we need to prevent vote
>>flooding as well), that way we can reduce abuse of power the most
>>effectively. That's why K5's moderation system works and Slashdot's
>>doesn't.

>I just have no idea why you say the system I proposed would "lead to less
>informed decisions."  Perhaps you should reread the proposal (even though
>it was, as I said, just a rough outline); I even went so far as to suggest
>that perhaps there would be a body of Wikipedia "case law" developed, that
>moderators could consult.  This would lead to *less* informed decisions
>than in the present case, when virtually anyone can have the power to ban
>and delete?

Why can't we start developing the case law anyway,
either under the present system of discussion and consensus,
or under Erik's voting proposal?
In fact, I claim that we *have*been* developing such case law,
in the form of the precedents and customs that we bring up
every time discussion of a new content based banning takes place,
and also bring up in the talk discussions that precede such efforts.

-- Toby