User:Wiki-Pharaoh/Wikipedia's bureaucracy

Wikipedia is widely regarded as a crushing bureaucracy by outside sources like MiT. This page illustrates the bureaucratic systems on Wikipedia. It is important to note that the bureaucratic systems on Wikipedia are self-imposed. Meaning that many of them are created by the volunteers to create a form of governance.

Administrators
The role of administrators has remained unchanged for years and the process of electing them has also remained. Admins are responsible for deleting, giving roles and blocking. They are therefore the editors with significant authority in respect to how Wikipedia operates. They often selectively choose which policies, guidelines and even personally imposed philosophies to uphold. Request for Adminship (RfA) is the standardised process which non-admin users are expected to follow to gain Administrator privileges on the English Wikipedia. The exposure of the RfA process is limited and only those who are experienced editors are likely to stumble upon the procedure therefore making it difficult for new editors to engage with voting on candidates. Furthermore, there are usually between 100 – 200 average voters per RfA nomination, those editors are a relatively small sample of the 135,000 > active editors on Wikipedia. This presents a challenge of sampling bias. The RfA process also tends to focus on identifying flaws in the applicants editing history rather than objectively weighing both positive and negative contributions creating an erroneous objective bias. Objective bias is used in the context of the meaning determined by the Supreme Court of Ireland in the case O’Driscoll (a minor) v Hurley.

Bots
Bots are software created by Wikipedia editors which perform edits to Wikipedia. They are most commonly seen reversing potential vandalism in articles and have also gained presence for automatically archiving content. The process for implementing bots on Wikipedia is at best obscure. With the roles performed by this software being so important to Wikipedia it is unusual that only a small few who are familiar with the system can play any role in their selection and implementation. With this said the bots on Wikipedia do provide services which have become essential with the need for automation of otherwise manual labour intensive tasks increasing.

Bureaucrats
The role of bureaucrats is multi-faceted. They can add and remove administrators and deploy bots. The process for becoming a bureaucrat is the same as the procedure for becoming an administrator, that is they must be voted by the other editors. This also means that issues such as sampling bias and objective bias remain during the process. There are currently 22 bureaucrats in comparison to 1273 administrators. While those with this right are technically empowered to remove administrator privileges, they rarely do and they are only able to do so in very limited circumstances as determined by the consensus of other editors. The process for changing the rules in respect of when an administrator’s rights can be removed is in of itself an obscure and difficult process. The ability to change these rules comes down to an editor putting forward a proposal and other editors agreeing with said proposal in their majority. However, this procedure is daunting especially to those who have had any interaction with the Wikipedia community which is often abrasive and confrontational at the best of times. This combined with the implicit fear of being seen to be attempting to disrupt established norms can severely limit the willingness of editors to put forward proposals for rule changes. In addition to this the means in which a rule change can be achieved is exceptionally unclear to the average editor.

Checkusers
Checkusers are editors with access to an interface which allows them to ascertain a user’s Internet-Protocol (IP) address and other information related to an editor’s identity. The tool is purported to be used only in situations that a Wikipedia editor is suspected of operating multiple accounts. Unlike many other user privileges on Wikipedia the checkuser permission is not granted based on an election but is exclusively approved by Wikipedia’s arbitration committee. Another interesting aspect of a checkuser is that they are not primarily governed in their use of the tool by the volunteers of Wikipedia and must abide by the operators of Wikipedia’s privacy policy. There is however a potential safety flaw in this system in that members of the Wikipedia Arbitration committee are elected by members of the wider Wikipedia project. Therefore the very makeup of the group responsible for admitting this user right is determined by Wikipedia editors. With this said, the checkuser system is one of the better examples of a working aspect within Wikipedia that sets a good example for other internet communities to follow. Usually one would find that most other websites have a non-transparent system of checking a user’s identity through IP addresses. The current system ensures that those using the tool must only do so in certain circumstances and it sets a relatively high burden of proof before a user’s privacy can be infringed upon. Those who edit Wikipedia can generally expect a private experience without frivolous delving into their personal information unlike what is often reported on a variety of other internet platforms.