User:Robert McClenon/Wikipedia as Workplace

Wikipedia as Electronic Workplace
Wikipedia is an electronic workplace. It is an electronic community whose purpose is the production of a product, an on-line compendium of knowledge. Most of the same rules, ethics, and etiquette should apply in electronic workplaces as apply in physical workplaces. Most of the conflicts in Wikipedia reflect the fact that many editors do not understand the nature of the Wikipedia community, and in particular appear not to understand that it is a workplace and so is product-centered. There are several classes of problematical editors, reflecting different misconceptions (whether intentional or unintentional) of what is required for a functional electronic workplace community.

The basic values of any workplace that develops a product or products should include a focus on the product and its quality, and civility toward and respect for other workers. Gross disregard for these principles characterizes two types of users who have often been banned, by consensus, by Jimbo Wales, and by the ArbCom:
 * 1) Vandals, who wilfully damage the product.
 * 2) Trolls, flamers, and bullies, whose lack of civility and respect disrupts the Wikipedia community.

In the Wikipedia workplace, product quality is further defined in terms of collaboration, NPOV, NOR, and verifiability, as well as the need for clarity in writing. Many of the more contentious ArbCom disputes have involved disregard for those principles:
 * 1) Edit warring.
 * 2) POV pushing: POV warriors are editors whose concept of quality is inconsistent with the Wikipedia concept of quality through NPOV
 * 3) Obsessional editing.
 * 4) Original research.
 * 5) Unsourced work and sloppy fact-checking.

In a workplace, whether electronic or physical, the product is even more important than the process. It is necessary to have defined processes in a workplace, but the reason for having defined processes is to ensure the quality of the product. The company that I work for has defined processes for various types of engineering activities, and develops information technology systems. The purpose of the processes is to ensure timely development of systems that are free of bugs. Business process improvement is a means to an end of minimizing defects (bugs). The purpose of processes and guidelines in Wikipedia is similarly to maintain the quality of the product. There is to be sure one "process" policy that should never be ignored, and that is civility. Uncivil behavior is not acceptable in a physical workplace, and it is not acceptable in an electronic workplace. With that exception, processes are guidelines only to improve the product.

A number of bad ideas are being advanced, and a number of good actions are being criticized, typically by editors who are more focused on the processes than on the product. One way in which Wikipedia differs from most workplaces is its nearly egalitarian structure. This results in considerable confusion, because too many editors expect that it should be even more egalitarian than it is. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, but it also is not an experiment in anarchy, and is not an experiment in democracy. No workplace can be truly egalitarian, whether via anarchy or via democracy, because different members of the community have different degrees of knowledge and skill. Any idea, such as a User Bill of Rights, that would limit the authority of the ArbCom, or serve as a check on the necessary functions of administrators, is a bad idea. It would have the same effect in an electronic workplace as rigid union roles that restrict the ability of managers to reassign or fire workers. Unions have a role in an industrial democracy in protecting the rights of workers to a decent living and fair treatment, but they have no role in a volunteer organization that produces a product. Any idea that anyone other than Jimbo Wales should reduce the involvement of Jimbo Wales with Wikipedia is a bad idea because it misunderstands the nature of a workplace. Workplaces have leaders. Any idea to limit the authority of the ArbCom is a bad idea. Workplace leaders and managers need to be able to take action against employees whose contributions are negative. The current problem with dispute resolution is not that the ArbCom is capricious or that it fails to justify its actions. It is that dispute resolution takes too long.

At this point, I think that Wikipedia has two problems. They can both be better understood by thinking of Wikipedia as a workplace rather than a community in the more general sense. The first is that user conduct disputes take too long to resolve. A workplace needs to be able to warn employees whose behavior is disruptive quickly, and then, if necessary, to change their responsibilities or fire them. The product (the encyclopedia) is more important than the process, because processes that maintain the quality of the product are good processes. My own proposal is that arbitration should be a two-tier system, with citations similar to a traffic court, and speedy justice done on trial by one arbitrator at a time, with the right of appeal. The current ArbCom functions well as an appellate court. Administrators need more authority to deal on a short-term basis with disruptive editors, but there needs to be an intermediate level between administrators and the full ArbCom.

The second is that content disputes are sometimes impossible to settle. If two stubborn editors, taking different views on what is the consensus of the larger (historical or scientific) community, refuse to collaborate, there is very little that the ArbCom can do, since it does not decide content disputes. One possibility would be to identify editors in given areas who have specialized knowledge who could be assigned to resolve content disputes. Users who do not understand the "workplace" concept will protest that this idea is elitist. Workplaces have elites based on knowledge.

Wikipedia is an electronic workplace. Some editors do not belong in this particular workplace. Other editors need to understand that Wikipedia is a workplace, not any other sort of community, and so cannot be a democracy or an anarchy. Ideas to make Wikipedia more egalitarian or less "elitist" are well-meaning but mistaken. Workplaces have elites. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, and does not need more procedures, but it does need a concept of respect for leadership.

Wikipedia is not an experiment in democracy or an experiment in anarchy. It is a workplace focused on a product, and a workplace has leaders and followers with shared objectives. Robert McClenon 22:27, 16 January 2006 (UTC)