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Wikimedia foundation could audit the admins who defend each other on a tit or tat basis and attack newbies.

My lifetime achievement is getting one those assholes banned.

Exactly as you say - rules dont aplly to them.

Also using the "standards" to delete everything even when fully cited, while their own articles are slop.

Not to mention people who edit good articles just to have more edits. Often for the worse.

The worst trend recently is putting 5-10 paragraph quotations in articles. Often by some randoms (self promotion?). Those look like articles written by 5th graders.

Wikipedia should be concise!

> Wikimedia foundation could audit the admins who defend each other on a tit or tat basis and attack newbies.

The challenge here is that "the community" really doesn't want the Foundation doing that. The interview mentions the last major flare-up along those lines: FramGate, though it amusingly got mis-transcribed as "Forum Gate".

The WMF handed out a 1 year ban from English Wikipedia to an admin called Fram, who this interview describes as "gruff, not friendly, not the most empathetic", for unspecified harassment. There was a great big "community" revolt over it, and the WMF wound up backing down by letting the English Wikipedia arbitration committee undo the ban.

The Foundation has a lot of practical power, in that it runs the servers. On a pure technical level, it can do absolutely anything and nobody can stop it. But it worries a lot about driving away the admin structures that keep Wikipedia working. Wikipedia would melt down very quickly under its own weight if the entire admin infrastructure was legitimately pissed off and stopped contributing.

(I keep putting "community" in quotes because in wiki parlance it gets used to refer specifically to the set of people who involve themselves in Wikipedia governance, rather than the broader community of people who use and edit Wikipedia. There's a lot of power assigned to a fairly small group of people who invest their time in on-wiki politics. It's kinda like local school boards in that way.)

The problem with Wikipedia is unfortunately the same problem as any society faces. Often things start out well, then [someone] arrives. Society then believes that if we define with rules and scripture how we believe, [someone] will behave like we did.

But [someone] isn't the one who started the project. They're a different person. And even if they read the rules, they are not motivated by the rules.

The above comment seems unnecessarily vitriolic.

> free reign to antagonize newcomers

Nobody has "free reign to antagonize" anyone including newcomers. It's hard to come to a new large community and project with somewhat unusual norms, and established editors should try to do a better job helping people learn the ropes, but at the same time I have gone to look repeatedly when some newcomer complained about being antagonized (either complained here, or other forums, or on Wikipedia) and maybe half the time the newcomer making the complaint was being a total jerk to everyone but really didn't like being called out.

If you (the generic you reading this comment) want to put a bunch of volunteer effort into finding newcomers who are having a tough time and helping them out that would be a valuable contribution. On an all-volunteer project people do what they are interested and unfortunately intermediating on newcomers' behalf is usually not it (I do try to help when I can).

> in 2014, too, but it wasn't dominated by the problems [...]

To my recollection is has been continually dominated by similar kinds of issues, since close to the beginning. It was then, and still is now, often a frustrating slog when multiple editors disagree about something, especially if there's some kind of (typically unstated) ideological motivation involved, e.g. promoting one ethnic group or nation. There are various dispute resolution processes, which work more or less, mainly by attracting more eyeballs any time there is a stuck conflict, but trying to form consensus with a pseodonymous global group of volunteers is just an inherently hard problem.

The main differences between the first few years vs. today are that (1) many topics at least have some kind of article written about them (often still mediocre, especially parts from the early days that haven't seen much dedicated focused effort) which means that there's a bit more bias toward preserving what is already there (an understandable tendency in the face of a constant onslaught of vandalism and entropy), (2) people recently tend to demand a bit better sourcing for claims than was done up to about 2010, so there's sometimes a bit of a disconnect between the quality standard applied to existing material vs. newly added/changed material, and (3) there's a bit more focus than before on earning little gamified badges like stars or green + signs in the corners of articles.

Your pivot from "newcomers who followed the rules [i.e. those who took the time to educate themselves beforehand about the speed limit so they don't break it]" to "newcomers who are having a tough time [because they need help learning the ropes]" isn't particularly artful or subtle.

I'm referring specifically to experienced editors who take the stance that some action by a new/IP account is coming from an confused/uninformed place for no other reason than because it's an inexperienced editor—a bag of foregone conclusions and the kind of presumptuousness that, perversely, your comment exemplifies.

And you're wrong about 2004 Wikipedia versus 2014 Wikipedia versus 2024 Wikipedia. It's much, much worse in 2024.

(I began editing Wikipedia in 2004, by the way. I am not the newcomer described here, but I've absolutely seen other experienced editors behave this way, including in response to IP edits that I've made when I happened not to be logged in.)

> at the same time I have gone to look repeatedly when some newcomer complained about being antagonized (either complained here, or other forums, or on Wikipedia) and maybe half the time the newcomer making the complaint was being a total jerk to everyone but really didn't like being called out

Uh, okay? So if in a group of totally unrelated persons who have nothing in common except for the fact that they're all inexperienced, at least half of them are in the wrong, then it supposed to cancel out or something?

Even if 999 new editors behave badly and 1 new editor doesn't, then that 1 editor has a legitimate grievance when they're being wronged (instead than being the one who's in the wrong themselves). They have no control over and bear no responsibility for the actions of the other 999.

Edit: Nevermind. This conversation isn't going anywhere productive.

> same complaints and conflicts have been happening all along in broadly comparable ways

You're really doubling down on this line of reasoning, even though once was already too much. I'll be even more blunt: it sucks. It's shoddy reasoning.

Tammi says that she's the kind of person that others usually end up taking advantage of, especially at work. But she's wrong. They don't.

Sammi says that she's the kind of person that others usually end up taking advantage of, especially at work. She's right. They actually do.

Do you see how no matter how many Tammis there are, it doesn't negate whatever is true about Sammi?

If you do, and you actually grasp the principle that "you have to actually go look at the specific examples before trying to draw broad conclusions from that", then what possible reason would there be, when Sammi appears or someone tries to discuss her case, to respond by bringing up how often Tammi has made the same complaint? It changes nothing, and it's a shitty thing to make Sammi deal with if she's already having a below-baseline-level experience.

> please assume good faith

Side quest: What does that phrase actually mean to you?

I've literally only ever seen it used pre-emptively as an explicit or implicit accusation—violating the very guideline that the person invoking WP:AGF is trying to claim the other person is guilty of. The only reasonable conclusion is that they either don't know or don't care what it actually means, because it's accepted as the universal response when you want to bundle something up with WP:CIVIL, since it's free to allege WP:AGF violations and there are no consequences for accusing someone spuriously.

It would be nice to see how a long-time editor of Wikipedia avoids the abuses of power the GP speaks of. Would you be comfortable sharing your account? Or some other account that demonstrates non-collusive, even virtuous behavior.

> established editors should try to do a better job helping people learn the ropes

Translation: you're not welcome unless you adhere precisely to established editors’ views and practices. There is no room for introspection, civilized discussion that questions the status quo, and hence, no room for improvement.

Maintainer stance is understandable. They are the ones taking on the risks and who will be left dealing with consequences.

Flyby contributors don’t know how much effort there is to keep things going even at good enough level. It’s up to the newcomer to convince that the new opinion matters and new risk is worth taking.

Maintainers can’t distinguish between troll and flyby-contributor-never-to-be-seen-again and genius-that-will-sacrifice-everything-for-the project.

I get that you can’t convince of anything if they don’t discuss, but that means one must earn the right to discuss, by becoming part of current organisation.

Illustrative analogy from open source project (not mine).

Project had top level directories like “ext” and “external” and “vendor” (which is confusing at the first glance). Potential contributor made PR to rectify it (memory slips on how; but seemed reasonable at first glance). Owner/Maintainer rejected this help. The would be contributor got frustrated, later complained here that the project did not care about code quality and best practices and is hostile to new contributors. I see Chesterton’s fence here and a bit of entitlement on the would-be-contributor’s side.

Editing Wikipedia is not the same as developing software, and they're different enough for the distinction to matter. Wikipedia is not Nupedia, and the comparison in this comment between Wikipedia and open source software maintenance is simply flawed from the start.

Wikipedia explicitly does not have owners.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ownership_of_content>

The statement that "one must earn the right to discuss" alone has the minor problem that it is totally antithetical to the actual policies and guidelines that Wikipedia aims to adhere to.

Wiki, open source projects, stackoverflow and democratic country, all are different, but they definitely have similarities.

Established old-timers have significantly more authority than newbies in any organisation.

Trust built over time matters.

> Wiki, open source projects, stackoverflow and democratic country, all are different, but they definitely have similarities.

A unicycle and a hula hoop have similarities.

As I said, the distinction matters. The argument by metaphor in your previous comment is off-base.

Feel free to address concretely what I wrote in my previous comment.

(Though I have doubts about the quality of any insights that might be offered; no one referring to Wikipedia as "Wiki" is informed enough about Wikipedia to be informative about it.)

I think you want me to address the policy, that you linked to.

Well, the wiki’s policy is irrelevant. Or only 50% relevant.

I see that the policy tries to provide some “spirit of the law” and/or hints to avoid edit wars and such, but evidently many follow the policy only in letter and just know what not to mention, i.e. to not trigger the policy. (instead of rejecting edits with “I own this” or “I know this better”, edits get rejected with “citation needed”)

> As I said, the distinction matters.

I see you sincerely believe that it does, but I’m of different opinion.

People in any group form a hierarchy, and have (frequently unwritten) “traditions”. And those are features, not bugs.

Hierarchy is not necessarily strict or formal, but it helps with coordination.

“Tradition” is the actual way how things are done. “Tradition” can be changed by policies, it may even implement the policy to the letter, but it always encompasses more than the policy contains. Because it’s almost impossible and most undesirable to have policies for each breath we take.

> Feel free to address concretely what I wrote in my previous comment.

Somebody has older account then me here and is feeling authoritative I see. Thanks for good practical illustration.

I thought "Wiki" was used to include other wikis.

If you dismiss peoples opinion ("quality of any insights") on the basis of their choice of words or abbreviations instead of the content, it becomes really hard to assume you're arguing in good faith.

You are certainly welcome, and if you show up on pages where I'm paying attention and you make reasonable good-faith contributions I'll do my best to welcome you, including telling other editors to do better if they don't explain themselves clearly.

My point is that not every contributor is as welcoming as I wish they were. This is a very difficult community problem, without any obvious easy fixes, considering that the contributors can be anyone in the world, are pseudonymous volunteers, and nobody is banned from contributing unless they're being quite disruptive.

There is significant room for introspection and civilized discussion, but people also disagree about what articles should say and how, and it's impossible for everyone's preference to be met. If you ask both sides in a disagreement a newcomer to an article might say that a long-time editor of that article is being a grouchy gatekeeper, but the long-time editor might say that the newcomer is e.g. adding nonsense, is not adequately providing sources, is unhelpfully changing the scope of an article with material that would better fit somewhere else, or is outright wrong (etc.). Sometimes both of those complaints might simultaneously have some basis.

> In a well-ordered and functioning society you can avoid running afoul of the law by following the rules

Name me one of those societies that would prove your argument.

Wikipedia has a functioning appeals process in the form of RfCs, third opinions, and other dispute resolution processes (listed at [[Wikipedia:Dispute resolution]]). American police officers don't have that.

What about the courts?

Are you suggesting online communities should resolve disputes through lawsuits? That sounds terrible to me.

Imagine if on hacker news, if your comment broke a rule, that instead of dang deleting it, you got sued! I don't think that would make a good community.

I think they're suggesting that court is the American police officer dispute resolution process - in response to the "American police officers don't have that" bit.

If by “functioning” you mean that a dispute is only considered resolved if it goes the way of the established status quo, I suppose you're right, but that's a weird definition of “functioning”.