[p2p-research] [P2P Foundation] From Citizendium To Eduzendium

[Henrik Ingo]

On Feb 4, 2008 11:36 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks Henrik,
>
> I understand your point of deleting for quality, but the problem is that
> notability has become an issue ...
>
> why talk about Barbie, but not the number 2 and 3 in the same area ... why
> talk about only very select cartoon titles, and not all .. this has nothing
> to do with quality per se ....; most of all, the whole idea of eyeballs
> making bugs shallow, has been abandoned with deletionism, since the deleted
> articles are excluded from the process

Sure, I completely agree that what is going on at wikipedia currently
is crazy. I just wanted to point out that elsewhere we have thriving
Open Source projects that are selective and undemocratic. So those
notions in themselves cannot be at fault.

So I still hold that the only problem with wikipedia is the
incompetence of its current leadership, and whatever are the failures
in its governance process that allowed it to come to that. (Like
pseudonyms, the more vocal ones driving out the more sane ones,
etc...)

> In a digital environment, I see no objective reason to play the scarcity
> game, which creates a priviliged power where it is unnecessary

I guess my slightly positivist interpretation of deletionism would be
that you certainly can decide to run a website with only perfect
encyclopedia articles. (The fact that WP editors fail to correctly
identify good and bad articles is a separate issue, I'm just talking
about an objective here.) In that light deletionism is just a
statement from WP that they don't want their encyclopedia to be a
staging ground for less than perfect articles, you should first write
them somewhere else and once perfected copy them into WP. This is of
course ridiculous, since as you say there is no need to play the
scarcity game, it is also contrary to how WP come to be in the first
place and wiki philosophy in general. So I agree it is utter folly,
yet I interpret it as a somewhat deliberate policy of the current WP
leadership. And this of course brings us back to my main argument,
that the main problem is incompetent leadership.

henrik



> On Feb 4, 2008 3:33 PM, Henrik Ingo <henrik.ingo at avoinelama.fi> wrote:
>
> >
> > On Feb 4, 2008 10:02 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > correct me if I'm wrong but in free software, it is most usually patches
> > > that are refused, but nobody refuses anybody the right to try ...
> > >
> > > so the exclusion would refer to the process to select excellence, which
> is
> > > vested in unelected, but respected maintainers
> > >
> > > the problem with wikipedia is that the deletionist editors have no
> > > legitimacy to judge those articles and usually know less than the people
> > > writing them, so that their biases become limiting factors ...
> >
> > Yes and no. I guess we have to be more explicit in how we map aspects
> > of Wikipedia to Free Software and vice versa. As I see it
> >  - anyone is free to try = anyone is free to write text or code
> >  - anyone is free to publish this on the internet, a mailing list,
> > even try to publish it on wikipedia until it is deleted
> >  - deletion is an integral part of striving for excellence. Even in an
> > inclusionist wikipedia you'd have to tidy up spam - at a minimum
> >
> > So the problem with wikipedia is not that deletion is possible, the
> > problem is that wikipedia is now run by idiots. And that a lot of
> > other people don't agree with the choices being made by those who de
> > fact have the power in wikipedia. As Tere points out, the cure to that
> > is typically to fork the project.
> >
> > So 1) wikipedia exists, 2) there are some people that hold the power
> > in it 3) they've chosen to make it into a very selective encyclopedia
> > instead of an inclusionist one (which is a choice I wouldn't agree
> > with but a possible choice for a website to make) and 4) unfortunately
> > the deletion of articles doesn't seem to sum up to "excellence",
> > judgement seems to be based on many other factors than the quality of
> > the article and experts are therefore alienated from contributing at
> > all, creating a bad spiral effect.
> >
> > I'll say it again in slightly different terms. The desire to be
> > "selective" is not the problem, but somehow Wikipedia has failed to
> > arrive at the "excellence" part.
> >
> > But also, as I've previously noted, in an online medium there wouldn't
> > be a need to be this selective at all. A rating system or some other
> > softer mechanism (like CZ editing process) would be a better
> > alternative than just rampant deleting.
> >
> > Does this make sense?
> >
> >
> >
> > henrik
> > --
> > email: henrik.ingo at avoinelama.fi
> > tel:   +358-40-5697354
> > www:   www.avoinelama.fi/~hingo
> > book:  www.openlife.cc
> >
>
>
>
>
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-- 
email: henrik.ingo at avoinelama.fi
tel:   +358-40-5697354
www:   www.avoinelama.fi/~hingo
book:  www.openlife.cc