I agree. Is there any way to "inoculate" organisation to prevent this failure mode?
For companies this usually means pushing product cannibalisation and accepting to forgo additional profit in exchange for better long term viability.
I think Apple was good at this during most of Steve Jobs's second term. Didn't last long though. Perhaps too much success is the biggest issue ?
I'm not sure you noticed it, but the people complaining about "editors" being toxic are actually those who are confronted with these "very clear rules and goals" already specified by the community , and they are calling foul once they see their edits being edited based on these established and time-tested processes.
And by the way, wikipedia supports conflict resolution processes which can culminate in articles being temporarily blocked to prevent endless revertions. You just need to flag the article and ask people their opinion.
It's strange how this whole debate centers around abuse, offers all kinds of solutions to perceived problems, but not only fails to acknowledge these processes are already in place in Wikipedia for over a decade but also they don't even wonder what content was added by the editors complaining their edits were reverted. I mean, think about it for a second. Do you think wikipedia achieved a notable level of quality because all edits, regardless of their content, remain untouched in place as-is?
You could with the right people across the entire organization succeed without and actively combat the manifestation of this effect for as long as those, or like minded, people remain… but given the fact that organizations have a bidirectional relationship with people and culture, over a long enough period of time the organization will inevitably revert to the mean.
In more broad terms, I described the path of least resistance for a complex system (the default mode), while “you” are asking for a system that deviates from that path, which requires the introduction of entropy. As can be observed in many other fields, the total entropy of a system over a long enough period of time will always trend towards zero.
Given the specifics of this particular model are bound by social behaviors you could in theory create a culture that has a default mode that does not have the issue described, but to do so you would have to start at a much higher level than a single organization and thus for the purposes of the point I was making it is moot.
Even having said all of this, there is still a great deal more left unsaid that lead me to believe this to be true.
I've seen volunteer organizations founded on mild anarchistic principles thrive for a few decades while occasionally reinventing themselves. The key is a culture focusing on people working together for a common purpose. Keeping in mind that the purpose of the organization is more important than the organization itself.
There may be formal stakeholders and formal power hierarchies, but their role is kept to a minimum. Some people need to be in charge for legal and practical reasons, but leadership positions are not associated with high status. Ideally, the leaders are selected through a deliberative process, and they voluntarily step down after a while. Some people inevitably acquire high status within the community, but they are expected to recognize it and avoid being too vocal.
Countering it means to cultivate an open and egalitarian platform, where vulnerability is part of the equation as well as the associated trust that is needed. Good faith over bad faith. Selfless behavior vs “I am gonna get mine.”
My sources are my experience in organisations as well as a good friend who manages such an organization.
I bet the top Wiki editors don't think there is an issue. That is the hard part. How do you get the people with the most vested interest accept change?
So you need a new synthesis in a dialectic system of two opposing wills. Like you say, how do you get people to accept less? Only if you can make them see what you are seeing, and if they can see different points of view. For some this is impossible I find, depending on character and circumstances. Also can you make them see that their behavior is detrimental in the long run? Or that they might have their heart in the right place (they care about the subject) but it is forced?
But yeah, the ability or willingness to see through other eyes is definitely “good faith” to me. You still don’t always have to agree, you don’t have to become a hivemind. But knowing that your ideas or critiques are heard, echoed makes you feel part of the whole, just being seen or heard makes a world of difference I think.
actively encouraging structures made up of almost-competing interests that sum towards a common goal helps guide our individual competitive natures towards accomplishing larger-than-one projects
picture a bunch of sticks leaning against each other; individually they'd fall, but their combined vector gives the total structure strength
Maybe competent moderators, and a kind of rock-paper-scissors rule structure. Where you have rules, but excessive rules lawyering is a grave, bannable offense.
Example: Guido van Rossum