[p2p-research] Wikipedia, Citizendium, Eduzendium, ...

Tue Feb 5 01:57:45 CET 2008

were you there at the very beginning of wikipedia?

can you elaborate about your critique of Citizendium?

and how would you do it differently?

Michel

On Feb 5, 2008 2:16 AM, Jon Awbrey <jawbrey at att.net> wrote:

> o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
>
> JA = Jon Awbrey
> MB = Michel Bauwens
>
> Michel,
>
> Continuing at the point marked thus ">>>--->>>"
>
> I will make some attempt to work through your initial comments
> before moving on to the newer responses.  Old stuff is tagged
> and indented, my current comments are unindented.
>
> JA: It may take me several passes to work through your text below.
>
> JA: Let me begin with your definition of peer production,
>    even though I remain a little troubled by a nagging
>    sense that some essential element of equality is
>    missing from the mix.
>
> MB: | Peer production has three aspects:
>    | 1) voluntary contributions;
>    | 2) participatory processes;
>    | 3) commons oriented output.
>
> JA: You have stated your opinion that Wikipedia exemplifies
>    or exhibits the characters of 1 and 3, lacking only 2.
>
> JA: There are several questions that I would have to ask at the outset:
>
> JA: A. Is peer production like "fire production", where missing any side
>       of the "fire triangle" -- fuel, heat, oxygen -- breaks the chain
>       of necessary causes?  Or does one get partial credit for 2/3?
>
> JA: B. What is the output?  What is the product of ultimate interest?
>       Is it the content of documents and files, the content of minds,
>       or is it the conditional general resolution of people to act in
>       certain ways, in short, beliefs?  [beliefs or habits (Peirce)].
>
> JA: C. What does it say about the level of voluntary contribution
>       when there is a very high level of involuntary exclusion?
>
> Re:
> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/from-citizendium-to-eduzendium/2008/01/29#comment-182719
>
> MB: Very clear reply ... though I'm still unsatisfied, and the reason
>    is of course, that, despite the failing of enacting values in the
>    participatory process, it still has 2 of the 3 functions of peer
>    production,
>
> MB: let's say that for me peer production is an objective mode
>    that potentially expresses an 'espoused ideal', and to
>    different degrees, it will have discrepancies with
>    how these ideals are espoused.
>
> JA: Just to be clear, we know the espoused ideals by their "espousals",
>    that is, from their announcement in the advertisements, prospecti,
>    and other public representations collectively known as "PR".  But
>    whether there is any objective mode of production that actualizes
>    these espousals within a given project or range of activities, ay,
>    there's the rubber that seeks to gain traction on the road of good
>    intentions.
>
> JA: Though advertisements may turn our attention to a particular area
>    of activity in the world, we must gather our impressions about the
>    objective mode of it through actual experience interacting with it.
>
> JA: Discrepancies between preaching and practice can be symptoms of many
>    different states of affairs, anything from a moment's inattention to
>    chronic incapacities to reprobate mendacity on the part of preachers.
>
> JA: When we speak of "governance" in the system-theoretic sense of
> "regulation",
>    then we become very interested in the "differential dynamics"
> engendered by
>    these differences.  Indeed, you can usually tell a person who wants to
> fix
>    the problem and who knows at least how to begin fixing the problem from
>    a person who wants nothing more than to deny the problem and hide the
>    very existence of the problem from others by that person's attitude
>    toward these discrepancies.
>
> JA: But I already know the tribal attitude of Wikipediots toward solving
> any problem.
>    It is summarized in the Chapter & Verse of WP:BEANS, which amounts to
> the advice:
>    "Ignore it and maybe it will go away."
>
> >>>--->>>
>
> MB: The other thing though, is how to establish a kind of cutting off
> point,
>    when it really becomes something else.
>
> MB: Take Russia, at what point did it become something altogether
> different
>    than the originally espoused ideals of socialism?  How real where the
>    original soviets? how significant was it that competing interpretations
>    where suppressed from the very start; and what did it really become
> when
>    stalinism was fully consolidated as a new system: was it state
> socialism,
>    state capitalism ?? extremely difficult questions
>
> MB: and here we are at the very beginning of peer production,
>    witnessing a degradation ... at what point does it really
>    turn into something altogether different??
>
> MB: So my question to you is:
>
> MB: what then, has it become?
>
> MB: If not peer production and governance, you would then have
>    to explain to me how to 'explain away the input and output
>    feature, as being also part of another system? and then
>    explain that other system, which in my eyes, is not
>    a market, nor a command and control system ...
>
> MB: So my problem is:
>
> MB: 1) to see it as a degeneration of peer production and governance, but
> still
>    exemplifying this new mode of production;  and we can then discuss the
> various
>    degrees of degeneration and perhaps indicate cut-off points (by
> analogy, when
>    did the perhaps original council system become a top down but different
> system,
>    only retaining public property, but embedding it in a new extremely
> totalitarian
>    and unequal hierarchy system);
>
> MB: 2) to see it as something different than peer production, yet another
> mode?
>
> MB: Please explain how you see this.
>
> Michel,
>
> I am aged enough to remember the beginnings of the open source, free
> software,
> shareware movements.  I can recall attending my first seminars on the hot
> new
> paradigms of "groupware" and "collaborative software" in the mid 1980's
> and I
> worked on several wiki development projects -- if only as a content filler
> or
> a "playtester" -- before I ever heard of Wikipedia.  So I always view each
> of
> these projects that we have been talking about as yet another experiment
> in a
> very wide field of possible experiments.  The critical thing is to learn
> what
> can be learned from each experiment before moving on to the next, and to
> stop
> the experiments that go bad before they do too much harm to their subjects
> or
> to the public at large.
>
> I do not view Wikipedia and Citizendium on the analogy of naturally
> evolving
> political systems like those that you mention -- no doubt politics is
> always
> a bit "violent" in the sense of Aristotle, but I think there is a
> difference
> between a nudge and a putsch.
>
> I think that Wikipedia and Citizendium are more accurately viewed on the
> model
> of "theme parks", like Disneyland(TM).  Yes, Wikipedia is like
> Fantasyland(TM),
> complete with Gnomes and Trolls, and Citizendium is more like
> Frontierland(TM),
> where gun-totin' Constables are deputized to keep the peace.  Theme parks
> like
> these are the enterprises of entrepreneurs.  They are "para-sties",
> derivative
> of legendary realms that once or never existed, in days of yore and
> yesteryear,
> if ever.  To speak of them as "degenerating" into this or that other
> condition
> is simply to put the cart before the horse.  There were ever thus, it was
> only
> the willing suspension of disbelief that we maintained in their interiors
> that
> illusioned us willing ticket-holders to view them as anything but
> wholly-owned
> capital enterprises.
>
> Jon Awbrey
>
> o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
> inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/
> mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey
> mathweb: http://www.mathweb.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey
> getwiki: http://www.getwiki.net/-UserTalk:Jon_Awbrey
> p2p wiki: http://www.p2pfoundation.net/User:JonAwbrey
> zhongwen wp: http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey
> ontolog: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?JonAwbrey
> http://www.altheim.com/ceryle/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=JonAwbrey
> wp review: http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showuser=398
> o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
>
>

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