User:Rlevse/Thoughts On Wikipedia

While I was resigned from arbcom, I did a lot of thinking about Wikipedia, particularly the English Wikipedia and the Arbitration committee. There are several things wrong with it as well as several things right about it.

Dramamongers, trolls, vandals, etc are a small but vocal part of the community and waste a lot time of those users who have to deal with them that could otherwise be spent in producing quality content.

Arbcom tends to attract legal types and a set of users who constantly complain about arbcom, which makes being an arbitrator especially stressful. No matter what arbcom does, someone will complain about it. Some of these users even regularly bait and stalk the arbs, make exaggerated accusations about not following process, recusing, and being a secret cabal. As I write this, I have been an arb for a little over 6 months and I can emphatically say that every current arb and most former arbs are all dedicated upstanding members of the community who spend massive hours trying to make Wikipedia a better place. The arbcom naysayers will never be happy. However, I’ve found the vast majority of the community supports arbcom but is more silent about it. Every autumn we have an election and that election consistently shows the general community strongly feels we need arbcom and supports the arbs. This year’s arbcom is particularly diverse, which is a strength.

Wikipedia’s openness is both a strength and a weakness. It’s a strength because it brings people with varied backgrounds together to build quality content. It’s a weakness because being open makes it prone to vandals, trolls, people with mental issues, and the fringe elements. The fringe elements love Wikipedia because it provides an excessively easy forum for them to foment their viewpoints.

I view Wikipedia’s user anonymity as a two-edged sword. It protects users from things like the mentally deranged stalker types but it also provides users with an avatar-like existence behind which some users feel free to act in rude, crude, and unacceptable ways that they may not do if their identity were known. This is why some people feel Wikipedia should require use of real life names on the “if their identity were known they wouldn’t behave so bad”. However, like I said, that is a two-edged sword with plusses and minuses.

Ethnic wars are one of the most un-enjoyable areas of Wikipedia. I’m worked in several of them as an admin and arb. The root problem is that each side is totally convinced by hundreds if not thousands of years of ethnic hatred that their version of the truth is being perverted by the other side(s) and they feel duty bound to “fix” it and will not compromise. This problem is seen in other areas, where Wikipedia is used to push one particular point of view over another. This is one of the main reasons projects like Citizendium have arisen.

About 15% of editors make about 85% of contributions. Most of the articles, however, are of poor quality. Click on the “random article” button 10 times and you’ll see what I mean. Only 11073 articles are FA, FL, or GA; which is about ½ of 1% of the total 2,300,000 articles on Wikipedia. The best articles fall into two categories: ones with lots of traffic that are good because lots of people have worked on them and ones of low visibility that were written by dedicated users who are skilled at writing quality content.

APCD. This is a classic case of users trying to do something to improve Wikipedia being torpedoed by bickering. See Advisory Council on Project Development/Drini for an excellent summary of this situation. This could have been a refreshing source of new ideas, but what did it become?...Another improvement vehicle sunk by bickering, conspiracy theorists, cabal hunters, and arbcom bashers. Arbcom was seeking input from the community to improve wikipedia, which would be a good thing; but a vocal group saw fit to sink it and led to two arbcom resignations. Perhaps Arbcom was stretching their reach, but their intentions were solely to help Wikipedia. The APCD body was intentionally selected from an extremely diverse group of wiki users to get input from a myriad of wiki backgrounds…hmm, isn’t that one of the goals of Wikipedia? What was the RFC…more premature overreaction, which is rampant on Wikipedia, as are those who see secret cabals everywhere. APCD was to be advisory, a think tank—which is good, does it really matter than Arbcom tried to get it in motion?

Wiki elections have become so drama prone and abusive that many people avoid them. The most extreme examples of this are arbcom elections. Submitting a legit arbcom candidacy is like taking a suicide pill. When I was an arb clerk I thought I knew what being an arb was like, but I didn’t. Some non-arbs think they understand, but they don’t, they haven’t “walked a mile in that moccasin”. Once you’re a sitting it takes no more than 48 hours to realize what you’ve really gotten yourself into. I’m surprised as many people run for arbcom as there are.

English Wikipedia is the joke of the world-wide Wikis because it has come to empower drama queens, trolls, non-AGF users, vandals, stalkers, and disruptors. It is seen as completely dysfunctional with excessive needless infighting. Instead of nipping these self-destructive behaviors in the bud, we give them the attention they seek by doing things like blocking them 25 times and giving them yet another chance, instead of making them behave and act like a sane mature manner, we let them insult totally innocent people without so much as a slap on the wrist because lame excuses like “it wasn’t that bad” and “he can’t help it”. We unban users whose stated goal is to destroy Wikipedia. We give into their demands if they complain loud and long enough (IOW, instead of sticking to policy, we throw them the bone they want hoping they’ll leave us alone). If someone can’t behave productively in a consensus based environment, they need to go.

WikiReview – a case of multiple personality disorder. One side tries to legitimately improve Wikipedia while the other does everything it can to destroy it. And the leaders and trolls there are hypocrites because they are all over outing wiki users, especially arbs, yet hide behind their own avatar.

Strict fair use interpretation of images. Not a ban on them, but tight use of them. The featured article History of merit badges (Boy Scouts of America) is a fine example of excellent use of fair use images and an article that would be much less informative without them.

Increase article standards. Do we really need things like Truck nuts?

The Role of Jimbo. Jimbo has a GodKing-like existence on Wikipedia. People should not be able to bypass all the means of dispute resolution and go to him. In fact, he should have no special powers in this area. He should have no special role in unblock and ban appeals. He should focus on running Wikia and dealing with the public.

Wikipedia in theory should not work, but it does, wiki politics and cults aside.