[p2p-research] is-something-fundamentally-wrong-with-wikipedia-governance-processes

[Henrik Ingo]

On Jan 6, 2008 3:56 PM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear friends,
>
> I have done quite a bit of research (well ... just a few hours), and this
> will be published tomorrow morning:
>

Good work Michel

This is a very good piece. The last point that Wikipedia's founder is
running a related for-profit business shouldn't be given too much
weight, it is kind of common with many Open Source projects. Apart
from that the compilation of criticisms was eyeopening. I read in
particular the case of http://antisocialmedia.net/. If any of the
other links support this is true, it seems the wikipedia
administration should be ousted in a popular revolt - or a fork
(although brand value of wikipedia is so high the cost of forking is
almost prohibitive).

It seems my previous thoughts on Wikipedia administrators simply
misunderstanding the situation and opportunities of an online medium
was way too positive. I now believe Wikipedia has in fact been taken
over by a bunch of incompetent fools, who are drunk on the power of
administering facts on the worlds now most popular source of
information.

This reminds me of what easily happens with large mailing-lists. An
online medium runs the risk of becoming dominated by those who have
most time to spend - such as people who are unemployed because of
mental problems (this was literally the case, I'm not kidding - of
course some of the others were just weird types without a social life
and therefore spending too much time creating controversy on the list)
- and therefore can afford spending so much time producing nonsense
that all the sane people (with day jobs) just have to surrender and go
away.

One would certainly hope something is done to correct this problem,
Wikipedia is too valuable to suffer such a fate. Let's hope a group of
more clueful and responsible people are willing to spend their scarce
time in the battle that seems to be necessary.


henrik
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