Re: [WikiEN-l] Three cheers for Wikipedia's cancer info (or two and a half)

[Ian Woollard]

On 02/06/2010, Ray Saintonge  wrote:
> So instead of getting an overall bird's eye view of a subject, we end up
> with a nerd's eye view.

All that's happened is that the professionally produced material had
some specific attention towards making it readable.

The Wikipedia AFAIK doesn't have any formal processes to check that,
so far as I know.

There are reading age metrics so it might be well worth running a bot
over the whole wiki to calculate them and add them to the talk page to
help people work out whether articles are written at an appropriate
level for their content.

> Ec

-- 
-Ian Woollard

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Three cheers for Wikipedia's cancer info (or two and a half)

[Steve Bennett]

On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 7:53 AM, Keith Old  wrote:
> The researchers write in their study's abstract, to be presented at the
> current annual meeting of theAmerican Society of Clinical
> Oncology:
> "Although the Wiki resource had similar accuracy and depth to the
> professionally edited database, it was significantly less readable. Further
> research is required to assess how this influences patients' understanding
> and retention."

Does this signal some advance in public perception of Wikipedia? At
last we leave behind the question "is it accurate", and move on to "is
it well written"?

Steve

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Three cheers for Wikipedia's cancer info (or two and a half)

[Ray Saintonge]

Keith Old wrote:
> The researchers write in their study's abstract, to be presented at the
> current annual meeting of theAmerican Society of Clinical
> Oncology:
> "Although the Wiki resource had similar accuracy and depth to the
> professionally edited database, it was significantly less readable. Further
> research is required to assess how this influences patients' understanding
> and retention."
>
>   
So instead of getting an overall bird's eye view of a subject, we end up 
with a nerd's eye view.

Ec

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Three cheers for Wikipedia's cancer info (or two and a half)

[Nathan]

The problem is the fundamental issue of rapidly changing content; a
snapshot analysis will never give you a good grasp of an article (or
all of Wikipedia's) general reliability, because any article can be
perfectly accurate in one minute and horribly misleading in another.
Any article about Wikipedia's reliability as a source for key
information should have that as a caveat.

Nathan

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[WikiEN-l] Three cheers for Wikipedia's cancer info (or two and a half)

[Keith Old]

Folks,

The LA Times health blog Booster Shots reports:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2010/06/three-cheers-for-wikipedias-cancer-info-well-two-and-a-half-cheers.html


As it turns out, information on Wikipedia can largely be trusted, at least
as it pertains to cancer. That should be a relief both to patients and to
the doctors who care for them. The entries in the user-edited online
encyclopedia often show up high atop search-engine results, and many users
likely have taken their content at face value.

But that content's reliability has been in doubt. After all, it's created by
users, not traditional "experts." ("Don't use Wikipedia," earnest
eighth-graders in search of homework help are told.)

Now researchers at Kimmel Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson University in
Philadelphia have done their own analysis of that content, comparing
Wikipedia information on 10 types of cancer to information found in the
National Cancer Institute's Physician Data Query.

The entries were solid, the researchers found, at least in terms of key
points. Way to go, online writers and editors! But they were also quite
dense. Tsk -- points subtracted due to lack of clarity, online writers and
editors.

The researchers write in their study's abstract, to be presented at the
current annual meeting of theAmerican Society of Clinical
Oncology:
"Although the Wiki resource had similar accuracy and depth to the
professionally edited database, it was significantly less readable. Further
research is required to assess how this influences patients' understanding
and retention."

Here's the abstract of the Wikipedia
analysis;
one of the researcher's
comments,
as presented in the university's news release; and the aforementioned Physician
Data Query , a peer-reviewed cancer
database.

Surely, no one needs help finding Wikipedia. But here's how it's
created,
worth reading now more than ever.

http://abstract.asco.org/AbstView_74_41625.html

The abstract of the analysis is here:

Regards


*Keith*



-- 
Keith Old
62050121 (w)
62825360 (h)
0429478376 (m)
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Re: [WikiEN-l] declining numbers of EN wiki admins - The theory that making it easier to get rid of admins is a solution to the decline in their active numbers

[Carcharoth]

On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 5:47 PM, AGK  wrote:
> On 1 June 2010 16:17, Carcharoth  wrote:
>> I'm not a moderator, but I've just been skipping those long posts.
>> They are annoying, but I may one day read those posts if I have
>> nothing better to do, and sometimes there is something interesting in
>> there.
>
> Now you know how we feel with your posts, Carch :).
>
> (I'm kidding, ofc. Your input is most valuable in part because it's so
> detailed.)

I wish I could say I didn't have your comment in the back of my mind
when I posted on-wiki a few minutes ago, but I did and the comments
were slightly longer than usual... :-P

Carcharoth

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Re: [WikiEN-l] declining numbers of EN wiki admins - The theory that making it easier to get rid of admins is a solution to the decline in their active numbers

[Carcharoth]

On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 7:02 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax  
wrote:
> At 11:17 AM 6/1/2010, Carcharoth wrote:
>>On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 2:57 PM, Risker  wrote:
>> > Procedural note to moderators:  Perhaps it is time to consider a length
>> > limit on posting?
>>
>>I'm not a moderator, but I've just been skipping those long posts.
>>They are annoying, but I may one day read those posts if I have
>>nothing better to do, and sometimes there is something interesting in
>>there.
>
> That's what I do with long posts that don't grab me. Some people like
> long posts, some don't. Some of those who don't want to prevent those
> who like them from receiving them. It is a very old story.

Actually, what we have here now is thread drift. We are way off topic,
so anything discussing mailing list etiquette (or even discussing Abd
if anyone wants to do that) should be started in a new thread, and
this thread should go back to discussing, er, let's see:

"declining numbers of EN wiki admins - The theory that making it
easier to get rid of admins is a solution to the decline in their
active numbers"

But maybe with a shorter title?

Carcharoth

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Re: [WikiEN-l] declining numbers of EN wiki admins - The theory that making it easier to get rid of admins is a solution to the decline in their active numbers

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 11:17 AM 6/1/2010, Carcharoth wrote:
>On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 2:57 PM, Risker  wrote:
> > Procedural note to moderators:  Perhaps it is time to consider a length
> > limit on posting?
>
>I'm not a moderator, but I've just been skipping those long posts.
>They are annoying, but I may one day read those posts if I have
>nothing better to do, and sometimes there is something interesting in
>there.

That's what I do with long posts that don't grab me. Some people like 
long posts, some don't. Some of those who don't want to prevent those 
who like them from receiving them. It is a very old story.

I skip *lots* of posts. But I have no opinion that there is 
necessarily something wrong with them. Obviously. If the writer 
wanted to reach me, then the effort failed. But the post wasn't sent 
personally to me, if it were, I'd be much more inclined to read it.

Now, what I do which could be a problem is to respond to an 
individual, thus luring the individual into reading it, but I'm 
actually exploring a much larger topic. Perhaps if I'm going to write 
something that might be taken as an attack, I should make it brief 
and separate it from the larger commentary -- or not send it at all.


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Re: [WikiEN-l] declining numbers of EN wiki admins - The theory that making it easier to get rid of admins is a solution to the decline in their active numbers

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 10:01 AM 6/1/2010, you wrote:
>On 1 June 2010 14:30, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax  wrote:
> > Therefore, instead of only needing to skip one mail, you'll need to
> > skip two. This is part one.
>
>Abd, have you ever considered opening a blog? :)
>
>You could write the lengthy version of your comments on various topics
>in a post there, and post a summary comment here on WikiEN-l (with a
>link to the concurrent blog post)? Just a thought.

Sure. Now, tell me why I should go to this trouble? Absolutely, if my 
goal were polemic, it would be an effective way to proceed. That's not my goal. 


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Re: [WikiEN-l] declining numbers of EN wiki admins - The theory that making it easier to get rid of admins is a solution to the decline in their active numbers

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 09:57 AM 6/1/2010, Risker wrote:
>Procedural note to moderators:  Perhaps it is time to consider a length
>limit on posting?

There is a 20K limit. That's lower than usual, my experience. I think 
it's silly, since it is easier to ignore one 30K post than to ignore 
two 15 K posts. But, hey, I have well over twenty years experience 
with this, and there will always be people who want others to 
self-censor so they don't have to bother. Nobody is obligated to read 
any post (except *maybe* a moderator, and that can be reserved for complaints.) 


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Re: [WikiEN-l] declining numbers of EN wiki admins - The theory that making it easier to get rid of admins is a solution to the decline in their active numbers

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 09:38 AM 6/1/2010, AGK wrote:
>Derailing meta-discussion with criticism of specific users stinks of
>axe-grinding.

I criticized an argument with an expression of concern about how an 
administrator might apply that argument. That remains within 
metadiscussion. I specicifically disclaimed any criticism of actual 
behavior. I have no axe to grind with AGK. 


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Re: [WikiEN-l] declining numbers of EN wiki admins - The theory that making it easier to get rid of admins is a solution to the decline in their active numbers

[AGK]

On 1 June 2010 16:17, Carcharoth  wrote:
> I'm not a moderator, but I've just been skipping those long posts.
> They are annoying, but I may one day read those posts if I have
> nothing better to do, and sometimes there is something interesting in
> there.

Now you know how we feel with your posts, Carch :).

(I'm kidding, ofc. Your input is most valuable in part because it's so
detailed.)

AGK

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Re: [WikiEN-l] declining numbers of EN wiki admins - The theory that making it easier to get rid of admins is a solution to the decline in their active numbers

[Carcharoth]

On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 2:57 PM, Risker  wrote:
> Procedural note to moderators:  Perhaps it is time to consider a length
> limit on posting?

I'm not a moderator, but I've just been skipping those long posts.
They are annoying, but I may one day read those posts if I have
nothing better to do, and sometimes there is something interesting in
there.

Carcharoth

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Re: [WikiEN-l] declining numbers of EN wiki admins - The theory that making it easier to get rid of admins is a solution to the decline in their active numbers

[David Gerard]

On 1 June 2010 15:45, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen  wrote:

> I don't actually agree with Sue on that particular summary being
> all that insightful. (Sorry Greg!) But a lengthy summary did in
> fact please Sue in that particular instance. So making the moderators
> bar posts like the one by Greg, I think serves no one.


The 20KB limit on wikien-l used to be a 10KB limit. Deliberately
working around it is antisocial at the least; I would ask that
contributors not do this, and instead take the time to rewrite more
concisely when they get a bounce due to length. The writing will also
undoubtedly improve.


- d.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] declining numbers of EN wiki admins

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 09:07 AM 6/1/2010, David Gerard wrote:
>On 1 June 2010 05:56, Durova  wrote:

>>  [...] It is hardly surprising that, in this weak economy, wise 
>> editors have been > declining offers of nomination.

>This is IMO asymptom of there being insufficient admins.

Yes.

>And again, this is because of ridiculously ratcheted-up requirements 
>by serial objectors at RFA that have no reasonable threat model attached.

I just opposed a call for adminship that I would not have opposed if 
it were easier to modify the behavior of abusive administrators. The 
editor might make a fine administrator and was merely naive about 
blocking policy and how free of abuse it is.

>The way it's done at RationalWiki is that sysophood is inflicted on 
>almost all regular editors without their asking. The criterion is 
>"mostly harmless." That way, it really is "no big deal."

Yes. The power gap between editors and administrators on Wikipedia is 
too great. It was, perhaps, a decent first attempt at addressing the 
problem of how to manage the project, but it became frozen.

>Of course, that's a wiki with 1/1000 of the activity of en:wp. (Some 
>powers that sysops have on en:wp, such as editing interface text, 
>are reserved to bureaucrats. I realise this just puts the problem 
>off another level.

Levels are good.

>But then again, the cycle of heavily active participation is 18 
>months anyway, so changing everything every couple of years keeps 
>the system fresh.)

In my view, that cycle should be building a large body of 
editors-in-reserve, people who may only occasionally edit but who 
will contribute great value when they do. That would require some 
kind of superstructure that connects inactive editors and brings them 
in when they are needed. Part of the proxy concept is that proxies 
would serve as links to those they represent, would understand and 
know their special interests and expertise, and would, say, email 
them when it was needed. "Proxy" is a bit misleading. There has been 
no proposal that proxies would exercise actual voting power, for 
example, but only that it might be possible to estimate consensus 
more efficiently if we have some designations of personal trust.

The proxy is really a node in a communications network, in delegable 
proxy systems. It works, I've seen that. Value is gained from even a 
single proxy designation, for the proxy and client.



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Re: [WikiEN-l] declining numbers of EN wiki admins - The theory that making it easier to get rid of admins is a solution to the decline in their active numbers

[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

Risker wrote:
> Procedural note to moderators:  Perhaps it is time to consider a length
> limit on posting?
>   
While I understand where you are coming from, it bears noting
that some people would like a limit of length both on the short
and the long side, and you would in the eyes of some, fail on the
short side of the limit -- as I do often too, not being too particular
either way. Not passing judgement long or short, but just
noting that both are annoying, even I admit to have rarely done
both...

...And I suspect I will do both again. Do note that the current
person in charge of the staff serving the foundation, very specifically
commended a very long post by Gregory Maxwell that in her view
nicely summarised the situation on commons -- albeit that post was
at the foundation-l.

I don't actually agree with Sue on that particular summary being
all that insightful. (Sorry Greg!) But a lengthy summary did in
fact please Sue in that particular instance. So making the moderators
bar posts like the one by Greg, I think serves no one.


Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

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Re: [WikiEN-l] declining numbers of EN wiki admins

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 12:56 AM 6/1/2010, Durova wrote:
>Let's not mince words: Wikipedia administratorship can be a serious
>liability.  The 'reward' for volunteering for this educational nonprofit can
>include getting one's real name Googlebombed, getting late night phone calls
>to one's home, and worse.  The Wikimedia Foundation has never sent a cease
>and desist demand to the people who have made a years-long hobby of driving
>its administrators away.

Durova's history is a classic example. She was hounded by a screaming 
mob when she made a mistake, even though she recognized the error and 
undid it within an hour. She might have been desysopped had she not 
resigned, but that would have been a miscarriage of wikijustice. She 
should have been defended, but was not. And why? I've never really 
studied that.

While I've studied and have dealt with administrative abuse, the 
people who are most abused by the Wikipedia system are 
administrators, and that is probably a major source of abusive adminship.

I've argued for clear and strong rules for admin recusal, but what's 
often been missed is that this *protects* administrators from 
becoming over-involved in the mudslinging contests.

I've been a meeting chair, and a good chair rigorously stays away 
from involvement. So the chair is obligated to rule on matters of 
procedure, and perhaps a member stands up and starts shouting about 
how stupid a ruling was and how the chair is biased. What does the 
chair do? Argue?

No, the chair puts the ruling to a vote, immediately (that's the 
substance, there are details I won't go into). The chair is not 
actually in charge, the membership is, at all times. The chair is 
just a servant. A chair who doesn't understand that and who becomes 
attached to control can make quite a mess, and the belief of some 
that Robert's Rules of Order is some kind of oppressive document have 
probably experienced a chair like that. But even a few members in an 
organization who understand the rules and know how to use them to 
guarantee that decisions are adequately deliberated and that 
democratic decision-making is maintained efficiently can handle even 
a poor chair.

But there is no power that can avail against a stupid and active 
majority, and when that happens, it's time to consider leaving. 


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Re: [WikiEN-l] declining numbers of EN wiki admins - The theory that making it easier to get rid of admins is a solution to the decline in their active numbers

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 05:21 AM 6/1/2010, Charles Matthews wrote:
>I think this is something to untangle. We need to get to the bottom of
>the community's fears about "overpowerful" admins, by talking through
>and delineating what a single admin can expect to face in awkward
>situations.

Yes.

>I've never been in favour of restricting admin discretion,
>which is really what is being proposed.

It's not what I'm proposing. Discretion should be almost unlimited as 
to primary action; however, there should be much better guidelines so 
that admins can know what to expect. WP:IAR is a fundamental and very 
important principle, but that doesn't negate that if one ignores 
rules, one should be prepared to face criticism and be required to 
explain why or face warning and possible suspension of privileges.

>We can't anticipate the
>challenges the site will face (even though it may appear that there is
>little innovation from vandals and trolls).

There are structural devices which can make vandalism and even 
editorial review much more efficient, and there are trends in that 
direction. When Wikipedia starts valuing editorial labor, and sets up 
systems to make it more efficient and reliably effective, it may get 
over the hump. I've suggested that it may be appropriate to start 
channeling labor into what I've called "backstory," i.e., 
documentation of why an article is the way it is. Then, if a new 
editor disagrees, that editor can quickly come up to speed on the 
history, see all the arguments and evidence organized, and would not 
be imprisoned by that, but rather might be encouraged, if some 
argument there is defective, to show that, to expand the consensus 
there. And then that can be taken back to the article. Articles 
should not slide back and forth, that is incredibly wasteful. They 
should grow, such that consensus is always that they have improved by 
a change. Flagged revisions is a piece of this puzzle.

>  I do think admins can be
>held to account for their use of discretion. Right now it seems that a
>piece of the puzzle is missing: admins don't know clearly how they stand
>in relation to the actions of other admins.

I developed, early on, a sense of how Wikipedia worked, and it made a 
great deal of sense in terms of the organizational theory I was 
familiar with. And then I discovered that only some administrators 
seemed to understand it. Others believed that the structure was 
something else. I saw no disruption coming from administrators who 
understood the concepts that seemed obvious to me. It came from the 
others. Recusal policy should be far more clear. But that's not the 
first priority. The first priority is establishing consensus process 
that is more efficient; the inefficiency discourages participation 
and causes proposals that might actually help to go nowhere. "No consensus."

That should be a clear suggestion for "refer to committee." That's 
what successful organizations do when faced with a problem where the 
response is not clear. (And then committee composition and rules and 
process become very important.) 


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Re: [WikiEN-l] declining numbers of EN wiki admins - The theory that making it easier to get rid of admins is a solution to the decline in their active numbers

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 12:45 AM 6/1/2010, David Goodman wrote:
>Neither they nor anyone else   knows how to do this at our scale in as
>open a structure as ours.

While I understand the opinion, how do you know that? Isn't it a tad 
limiting to believe that nobody knows how to deal with our problem? 
Perhaps the expertise exists, but we haven't been looking for it or 
connecting with it, or, worse, rejecting it when it's suggested, out 
of a *belief* that it couldn't work, but without actual experience.

The model I know that worked, and spectacularly, was Alcoholics 
Anonymous. Grew rapidly. The scale became *very* large, particularly 
in terms of active members, most registered accounts on Wikipedia, I 
suspect, are inactive. Now, AA certainly is also different.

I merely suggest that, with AA, some specific organizational concepts 
were developed, from the study of the history of organizations, and 
were expressed and became solidly accepted traditions that are 
actually practiced, and the result was a highly unified organization 
without central control. Branfman et al call these "starfish 
organizations," because you can cut them up and they re-form from the 
pieces, and he distinguishes them from "spider organizations," where 
if you cut off the head, the organization dies.

Most of the recent thinking in this area looks to hybrid 
organizations. AA, as an example, has a central office, which is 
operated by a nonprofit corporation with a board that is partly 
elected by the World Service Conference and partly self-appointed. 
The analogy here would be the WMF, Inc. However, to take this analogy 
further, Wikipedia would be a collection of independent "meetings" 
that voluntarily associate, and membership in each meeting would be 
open, self-selected. The resemblance stops when people who are *not* 
members of a meeting impose control over the meeting. That isn't done 
with AA. Period. Yet, without any central control, people can go to 
an AA meeting almost anywhere and will *mostly* find the same 
consensus, but it's not an oppressive consensus (usually! AA members 
are still human). Members are welcome to disagree, and express the 
disagreement, and they won't be kicked out. Unless they actually 
disrupt the meeting directly, and I've not heard of it. I'm not an 
alcoholic, though, so I've only been to open meetings, not to closed 
ones, only open to alcoholics.

>Most ideas tend to retreat towards one form
>or another of centralized control over content or to division of the
>project to reduce the scale.

My own work suggests continuing the ad hoc local organization that 
does, in fact, work very well, but moving away from centralized 
control imposed coercively, distributing control, perhaps to a series 
of "Volumes" that are organized by topic area. But what I really 
propose is that process be established for the development and 
discovery of consensus with efficiency. It does require that 
discussion be reduced in scale, and there are lots of traditional 
ways to do that, known to work. I.e, discussion takes place in a 
hierarchy of discussions. Classically, a committee system. The 
committees merely collect evidence and argument, organizing it and 
making recommendations, they do not control. But if they do their 
work well, their reports will be adopted centrally by whatever 
process exists there, or, if something was overlooked, it will be 
sent back to committee for further work in the light of what happened 
"higher up."

The ad hoc Wikipedia process does this, but with informality, for the 
most part, and the structure that it would fit into has not been 
completed. Probably the "top level" would be an elected 
representative body, and for that to function to maximize consensus, 
it needs to be thoroughly representative, and my work with voting 
systems leads me to understand how to do that efficiently and 
thoroughly. It could be amazingly simple.

 From the AA analogy, this body is actually only advisory, not 
exercising sovereign control. It would advise the community and the 
WMF. The WMF has legal control over the servers and the name 
"Wikipedia." But advice developed through consensus process is 
probably more powerful than centralized control.

>  That it is possible to organize well
>enough to do  what we've done on our scale, is proven by the
>result--an enormously useful product for the world in general. That we
>could do better is probable, since the current structure is almost
>entirely ad hoc, but there is no evidence as to what will work better.

I would not say "no evidence," but I'll certainly acknowledge that 
there is no proof. One of the problems is that the current structure 
has become so entrenched and so self-preserving that experiments, 
even conducted in ways that could not do damage (other than perhaps 
wasting the time of those who choose to participate in them), are 
crushed. WP:PRX was simply an experiment, it consisted only of a file 
structure, and established no control at a

Re: [WikiEN-l] declining numbers of EN wiki admins - The theory that making it easier to get rid of admins is a solution to the decline in their active numbers

[AGK]

On 1 June 2010 14:30, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax  wrote:
> Therefore, instead of only needing to skip one mail, you'll need to
> skip two. This is part one.

Abd, have you ever considered opening a blog? :)

You could write the lengthy version of your comments on various topics
in a post there, and post a summary comment here on WikiEN-l (with a
link to the concurrent blog post)? Just a thought.

AGK

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Re: [WikiEN-l] declining numbers of EN wiki admins - The theory that making it easier to get rid of admins is a solution to the decline in their active numbers

[Risker]

Procedural note to moderators:  Perhaps it is time to consider a length
limit on posting?

Risker
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Re: [WikiEN-l] declining numbers of EN wiki admins - The theory that making it easier to get rid of admins is a solution to the decline in their active numbers

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

(continuation from Part 1, preceding.)

I never sought the desysopping of JzG, as an example, and didn't 
argue for it for WMC. I argued for *suspension* until the admin 
assured ArbComm that he would not repeat the use of tools while 
involved. JzG's actions had been egregious, and still ArbComm was 
unwilling to ask for assurances. Behind this, I'm sure, was an 
impression that JzG would have considered it an insult. But it should 
be routine. Indeed, ArbComm bans editors all the time when it could 
simply ask for *voluntary assurances.* And even more are community 
banned under a similar failure. Voluntary compliance, negotiated with 
respect, is far less likely to build up sustained resentments, than 
bullying and blocking.

These are all really obvious principles, but it's been amazing to see 
what oppositino they aroused when they were brought up before 
ArbComm. ArbComm remained silent on them, and on what was said in 
response. ArbComm mostly functions as a passive body, but then it 
does something different and becomes very active. It depends on whose 
ox is being gored.

>  The problem, as I have defined it, is of negative voting. The
>sheer suspicion of those who apparently want the mop-and-bucket. (And
>anyway, I obviously was using "well-adjusted" in the sense of "round peg
>in a round hole", not as a comment on anything else.)

If it's easy to revoke, it would obviously be easier to grant. 
Indeed, the supermajority standard is a problem. You propose that an 
administrator might avoid being "shot at" if the admin avoids 
controversial areas. So, to become an admin, avoid controversial 
areas! But, then, we don't know how the admin will behave when 
involved in controversy.

The same arguments that are applied to, say, required reconfirmation 
of administrators, should apply to granting adminship in the first 
place. If an editor has tacked difficulties, the issue should be how 
the editor did it, not how many people were offended. If the editor 
needlessly inflamed the topic, that's a problem, for sure, and could 
betray that there could be problems as an administrator. But if the 
editor calmed the conflict, with only a few die-hards then resenting 
the intervention or involvement, it should be a positive mark. There 
is no substitute for actually examining the record, if the record matters.

In fact, it shouldn't matter much, and here is why: adminship should 
routinely be granted based on an agreed-upon mentorship, with an 
active administrator. I'd suggest, in fact, that any admin who 
approves of the adminship would be allowed to do what a mentor could 
do, but an agreed-upon mentor would be taking on the responsibility. 
So if anyone has a complaint about the admin's actions, they have 
someone to go to for review, without going to a noticeboard and some 
possible flame war there. They can even do it privately, by email. 
That's how WP DR structure is supposed to work, it's supposed to 
start small. I've been amazed to see how few understand this!

Given administrative supervision, with any supervising admin being 
able to go directly to a bureaucrat or steward and request removal of 
the tools, if necessary, there is no reason to disapprove of almost 
anyone, and a discussion would only take place to the extent that it 
would be an opportunity to express objections. The closing bureaucrat 
might, indeed, review those, but numbers would not matter. What would 
matter would be (1) no sign of *likely* abuse, and (2) the presence 
of effective supervision.

At Wikiversity, this is apparently done, though I don't know all the 
details. There is then, after a time on probation, a "full adminship" 
discussion. (There is no difference in the tool settings between the 
two, an admin on probation has full tools, the only difference is a 
responsible mentor.) But with a more detailed structure, there might 
not be the need for "full adminship." I'd say that every 
administrator should have a "recall committee," a set of editors who 
are both trusted by the admin and by the community to correct the 
admin if he or she veers off-course. Only when this process fails, 
perhaps because of too-close alignment of the admin and the recall 
committee, would it be necessary to escalate to broader discussions. 
Ultimately, we should go back and set this up for existing 
administrators. This should, in reality, only be a problem for 
administrators who believe that they should have no supervision at 
all. That's a problem in itself. And I'm leaving the details of how 
such a committee would be formed, and how admins who have become part 
of it are replaced as they vanish, as many do, to a later discussion 
and, of course, ultimately, to the community if it ever starts to go 
here. I'm just proposing ideas to show that there might be some 
possible solution, and with no pretense that my ideas are the last 
word. I really do believe in the power of informed consensus, and the 
only kind of consensus that I ha

Re: [WikiEN-l] declining numbers of EN wiki admins - The theory that making it easier to get rid of admins is a solution to the decline in their active numbers

[AGK]

On 31 May 2010 20:00, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax  wrote:
> Interesting, AGK. Are the ideas important, or the personalities?
> Here, you just demonstrated my concern even further.

Now I understand why you are able to write at such length. Rather than
make your arguments based on facts, you run with guesswork and
assumptions. Instead of stating what my position and opinion is and
then outlining why thinking so makes me a terrible administrator, try
actually asking me a question?

I won't comment any more on your remarks against my history as a
contributor, because they are largely irrelevant to the main topic of
this thread. But needless to say, yes, the manner in which a point is
made does count; in this instance, you acting like an insufferable
jerk turns people off and makes your e-mails increasingly less
appealing to read.

Derailing meta-discussion with criticism of specific users stinks of
axe-grinding.

AGK

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Re: [WikiEN-l] declining numbers of EN wiki admins - The theory that making it easier to get rid of admins is a solution to the decline in their active numbers

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

Again, this gets long. If allergic to Abd Thought, or to lengthy 
comments, please don't read. Nobody is required to read this, it's 
voluntary, and you won't hear a complaint from me if you don't read it.

Actually, the mail triggered moderation, the list is set to 20 KB 
max, which is low in my experience, and it was rejected as too long. 
Therefore, instead of only needing to skip one mail, you'll need to 
skip two. This is part one.

At 03:14 PM 5/31/2010, Charles Matthews wrote:
>Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
> > At 01:35 PM 5/31/2010, Charles Matthews wrote:
> >
> >> Actually, most people who don't apply as an admin just don't apply.
> >
> > With ten million registered editors and a handful of RfAs, that's
> > obvious.
> >
> >>  They
> >> don't generate "evidence" one way or another. It is a perfectly sensible
> >> attitude for a well-adjusted Wikipedian getting on with article work not
> >> to want to be involved in admin work.
> >
> > Sure. However, there is a minority who are *not* "well-adjusted" who
> > would seek adminship for personal power.

>Yes, and the first required quality for being given such power is not to
>want it. Etc. But you were the one talking about getting painted into a
>corner.

Sure. "You were the one" implies some argument being applied to one 
side and not the other. What was that?

Barging ahead anwyay, I'd say that anyone sane would not want to be a 
Wikipedia editor unless (1) they have some axe to grind, or (2) they 
are neutral and simply want to help an obviously desirable cause. 
However, when people become highly involved, they naturally develop 
attachments, which is how it comes to be that even a quite neutral 
editor can become an abusive administrator, and this will be quite 
invisbile, for many, when they don't have the tools. The more boring 
grunt work you do, the more natural it is to think you own the 
project. After all, if not for you

I remember reviewing the contributions of an administrator, known to 
all of us here, because of some suspicion that an sock puppeteer was 
really, from the beginning, a bad-hand account of someone, and this 
admin was a possible suspect. What I saw, reviewing edit timing, was 
thousands upon thousands of edits, for hours upon hours, a few edits 
a minute, doing repetitive tasks. The admin was running a tool that 
assisted him by feeding him proposed edits, so what he was doing, for 
many hours, was a few button pushes a minute to accept the edits. I 
was both in awe (at the dedicated work) and in wonder at how this 
could be done without losing one's sanity

In fact, it might have been better if that work had been replaced by 
fully automated bot work, with processes and procedures for reviewing 
it and fixing problems. If he could do that for hours on end without 
error, probably a bot could as well, with only a little error, 
perhaps. But, of course, for quite good reasons, most fully automated 
bot editing has been prohibited. That's changing, to be sure, there 
is now, for example, a spambot that reverts IP additions of spam web 
sites, an intermediate position to blacklisting that allows possibly 
useful but often abused sites to be used by registered editors, and 
edits by the IPs become "suggested edits" easy to review if anyone is 
willing. And the IP could actually ask any registered user to do it, 
or register and get autoconfirmed

Overall, editorial efficiency has been seriously neglected, because 
editorial labor was not valued. Admin labor has been valued somewhat, 
and some of the disparity between the real rights of administrators 
and those of ordinary editors comes out of assumptions about this.

So, Charles agrees that wanting power is a disqualification, and I 
agree. (You might look at RfA/Abd 2, where I addressed this, I didn't 
want to be an admin, I was merely responding to a suggestion that I 
help clean up the place, and I was quite clear that anything that I 
wanted to do, personally, wouldn't be helped by being an admin, I'd 
just be tempted to use the tools while involved. I'm pretty sure that 
I'd not have aroused serious controversy over the use of admin tools, 
but, of course, those who later were offended by me as an editor seem 
to have assumed that I'd simply have blocked anyone who disagreed 
with me. That would have been really silly!)

But if it's a disqualification at the beginning, then, we must see, 
it should remain a disqualification. If an administrator is 
personally attached to being an administrator, it's a problem. Which 
then exposes the contradiction of the picture being presented: 
supposedly people would not apply to be administrators, or perhaps 
would quit, if they saw that allegedly abusive administrators would 
lose their tools. The fact is that when controversy arises over tool 
use, the best administrators back up and back off, and hardly ever 
get taken to ArbComm, because they don't allow themselves to be the 
focus of the controversy. Rather, say, they 

Re: [WikiEN-l] declining numbers of EN wiki admins

[David Gerard]

On 1 June 2010 05:56, Durova  wrote:

> Let's not mince words: Wikipedia administratorship can be a serious
> liability.  The 'reward' for volunteering for this educational nonprofit can
> include getting one's real name Googlebombed, getting late night phone calls
> to one's home, and worse.  The Wikimedia Foundation has never sent a cease
> and desist demand to the people who have made a years-long hobby of driving
> its administrators away.
> It is hardly surprising that, in this weak economy, wise editors have been
> declining offers of nomination.


This is IMO asymptom of there being insufficient admins. And again,
this is because of ridiculously ratcheted-up requirements by serial
objectors at RFA that have no reasonable threat model attached.

The way it's done at RationalWiki is that sysophood is inflicted on
almost all regular editors without their asking. The criterion is
"mostly harmless." That way, it really is "no big deal." Of course,
that's a wiki with 1/1000 of the activity of en:wp. (Some powers that
sysops have on en:wp, such as editing interface text, are reserved to
bureaucrats. I realise this just puts the problem off another level.
But then again, the cycle of heavily active participation is 18 months
anyway, so changing everything every couple of years keeps the system
fresh.)


- d.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] declining numbers of EN wiki admins - The theory that making it easier to get rid of admins is a solution to the decline in their active numbers

[Charles Matthews]

David Lindsey wrote:
> What we need, then, is not a way to desysop more easily, but rather a way to
> delineate highly-charged and controversial administrator actions, and the
> administrators qualified to perform them, from uncontroversial administrator
> actions, and the administrators qualified to perform them.  I will not
> presume to provide a full criteria for what separates controversial from
> uncontroversial administrator actions, but I would suggest something along
> the lines of the following.  Controversial: Arbitration enforcement actions,
> blocks of established users for any reason other than suspicion of account
> compromise, close of AfDs where the consensus is not clear (this of course
> becomes itself a murky distinction, but could be well enough set apart),
> reversal of the actions of another administrator except when those actions
> are plainly abusive.  Non-controversial: All others.
>
>   
In other words, a two-tier system of admins. Against that, I really 
think there is an area that should be thought through, just alluded to 
there. The criteria for reversing another admin's actions do matter, and 
it seems to me matter most.

Admin actions that can be reversed (i.e. technical use of buttons, 
rather than interaction by dialogue) lack the sort of basic 
classification we need: into situations of urgency and situations that 
can wait; situations of key importance to the project (such as involve 
harassment, for example), and those that can be treated as  routine; and 
into situations where consultation should be mandatory and those where a 
second admin can use judgement to override. The fact that some people 
might conflate those analyses illustrates the need to be more careful here.

I think this is something to untangle. We need to get to the bottom of 
the community's fears about "overpowerful" admins, by talking through 
and delineating what a single admin can expect to face in awkward 
situations. I've never been in favour of restricting admin discretion, 
which is really what is being proposed. We can't anticipate the 
challenges the site will face (even though it may appear that there is 
little innovation from vandals and trolls). I do think admins can be 
held to account for their use of discretion. Right now it seems that a 
piece of the puzzle is missing: admins don't know clearly how they stand 
in relation to the actions of other admins.

Charles


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