Good Faith Collaboration: The Culture of Wikipedia

Joseph Reagle

Becca Butler, Alison Kulczak Jenny Wilkin

About the Author

• Joseph Reagle• Computer Scientist at

MIT• Specific Interest in

Social Protocols: An explicit mixing of computer science ideals with insight about social organizational norms

Forward• ”There is value in studying anything that was once thought impossible

but then proves possible” (ix).• Lawrence Lessig: Professor of Law at Harvard Law School• Ethnography: a scientific description of the customs of individual people

and cultures (OED). • Shows Wikipedia as a community similar to family structures found

elsewhere in the world.• Wikipedia is a community formed through collaboration, and “that

collaboration happens within a culture…guided by principles that the community accepts and fights about, and through that struggle defines” (x).

• “It is hard to imagine a more significant and sustained community working to produce understanding” (x).

Preface

• Purpose of book— “Attempting to understand and portray the spirit of Wikipedia collaboration” (xiii)

• This is where the author reveals his bias and admits that he is obsessed with the project.

• “Building an encyclopedia is a cumulative and interdependent activity” (xiv)

Chapter 1: Nazis and Norms

• “Show me an admin who has never been called an nazi and I’ll show you an admin who is not doing their job” __ J.S.’s Second Law (1).

• Godwin’s Law of Nazi Analogies: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.” (2)

Wiki Wiki!

• WP is a snapshot of a moment in time—of the community’s continuing conversation.

• Wikipedia- refers both to the textual artifact and the community producing it

• Wiki wiki means “super fast” in Hawaiian (5) and was brought to the web by Ward Cunningham through his software the WikiWikiWeb in 1995

• Encyclopedia- comes from the greek words enkyklios and paidei which means “circle of learning” 4

Wikifacts

• 3 million articles, but only 11000 are considered “Featured” or of highest quality

• While there are often mistakes, they aren’t more than you’d find in a regular encyclopedia (4 per article vs 3) (7).

• Possible because of FOSS (free and open software), According to Jimmy Wales “people weren’t just talking about programming, they were working together to build things of value” (4)

The “Holy Trinity” of Wikipedia

• Neutral point of view (NPOV)

• No original research

• Verifiability

The Shared Dream

• “Wikipedia is an heir to a twentieth-century of vision and universal access and goodwill” (13).

• “The Metaphor of the puzzle is useful in understanding Wikipedia collaboration: NPOV ensures that we can join the scattered pieces of what we think we know and good faith facilitates the actual practice of fitting them together” (15).

Chapter 2: The pursuit of the Universal encyclopedia

• Sum of all human knowledge adj.: Descriptive of the ultimate aim of Wikipedia. Regretfully, the vast majority of human knowledge is not, in actual fact, of interest to anyone, and the benefit of recording this collective total is dubious at best.” –WikiSpeak (17)

And then we get history (most of which we’ve gone over in our readings)

• Vannevar Bush “As We May Think” – concept of the memex• Melvil Dewey—Dewey Decimal System,• Wilhelm Ostwald invested in an international institute for organizing

intellectual work across the wold• Suzanne Biet—advanced the development of documentation• Emanuel Goldberg “Statistial Machine” to index and retrieve

microfilm records• Paul Otet “Universal Bibliographic Repertory”

– Primary tenet “to detach what the book amalgamates, to reduces all that is complex to its elements and to devote a page (or index card) to each” (22)

– Concept of the Biblion== a permanent Encyclopedia formed by linking together materials and elements in all relevant publications

• HG Wells “The World Brain”– A “super human memory”

Predecessors of Wikipedia:

• Project Xanadu• Ted Nelson• “The original hypertext and

interactive multimedia system”• 1960• Named for Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s

poem “Kubla Kahan”• Mission Statement “The World Wide

Web (another imitation of paper) trivializes our original hypertext model with one-way ever-breaking links and no management of version or contents. WE FIGHT ON”

• Was the first hypertext system

• 2000• Jimmy Wales

– Bachelor and Masters degrees in Finance• Larry Sanger

– Doctoral candidate in philosophy working on his dissertation on “Epistemic Circularity”

• Inspired by Linux and the Open Directory Project• Goal was to be open to all expert contribution and free of

charge to all uses• “Nupedia.com building the finest encyclopedia in the history

of humankind”

is Dead• January 10, 2001 Sanger e-mailed Wales with the message, “Lets

Make a Wiki”—Nupedia users balked, so they started this in a new format and called it Wikipedia which launched January 15, 2001.

• Within six months it was wildly successful and had killed off most of its predecessors and competitors. In September of that year it was proclaimed “Interpedia is dead—long live Wikipedia”. When Nupedia crashed in September of 2003, it was never restored.

• “Even unfulfilled visions, failed projects, and erroneous predictions tell us something about those people and their time…the projects discussed in this chapter are attempts at realizing a universal vision, encompassing the goodwill of collaborators and reaching toward global accord” (42).

Chapter 3: Good Faith Collaboration

• “All rules and guidelines add up to this; Respect!” – Phoenix 15’s Law

NPOV & Good Faith

• Complementary Postures at the heart of Wikipedia collaboration:

• Neutral Point of View (NPOV) - Impartiality, plurality, accountability (45)

• “In taking a neutral stance one’s task is to describe the controversy rather than to partake in it” (54).

• Good faith- “assume good faith on the part of others, and act with patience, civility and humor” (45)

• “Wikilove”- a general spirit of collegiality and mutual understanding (62)

Collaborative Culture

• Culture: (46)• The “way of life of a people” • “The value-laden system of ‘meaning making’ through

which a community understands and acts, including its own maintenance and reproduction.”

• “Culture acts as a set of basic assumptions that defines for us what to pay attention to, what things mean, how to react emotionally to what is going on, and what actions to take in various kinds of situations.” --Edgar Schein

Collaboration cont.

• “The process of shared creation: two or more individuals with complementary skills interacting to create a shared understanding that none had previously possessed or could have come to on their own. Collaboration creates a shared meaning about a process, a product, or an event.”

Collaborative Culture

• “Set of assumptions, values, meanings, and actions pertaining to working together within a community.”

• “Low barriers of engagement, support for creation and sharing, and some form of mentorship or socialization, and members believe that their contributions matter and they ‘feel some degree of social connection with one another’.” --Henry Jenkins on participatory culture

Levels of authority within Wikipedia norms

• Essays- nonauthoritative pages that may contain useful insights.

• Guidelines- actionable norms approved by general consensus.

• Policy- much the same but “more official and less likely to have exceptions”.

Policy Trifecta (3 central principals of Wikipedia collaboration)

• As a collaborator on an encyclopedia, use a neutral point of view

• As a member of a community, “don’t be a dick”

• As a user of a fast and flexible wiki, “ignore all rules”

Patience

• “There is plenty of time to stop and ask questions” (64). • Civility:• “Refraining from personal attacks, rudeness, and

aggressive behaviors that disrupt the project and lead to unproductive stress and conflict” (67).

• “Respect other contributors. Wikipedia contributors come from many different countries and cultures, and have widely different views. Treating others with respect is key to collaborating effectively in building an encyclopedia” (66-67).

Humor

• “Humor serves as an instrument of anxiety-releasing self-reflection” (69).

• “Humor is an instance of intellectual joy, like the many jokes and puns common to geek culture” (70).

Conclusion

• “A productive contributor who cannot collaborate is not a productive contributor” (71).

• The Wikipedia community is one of much diversity and yet dedication to a joint cause- “to increase access to information and social accord”. This vision must be upheld with a collaborative nature and a willingness to put personal opinions aside for the common good.

Ch. 4: The Puzzle of Openness

• “Problematic users will drive good users away from Wikipedia far more often than good users will drive away problematic ones”. –Extreme Unction’s Third Law

• “Trolls are the driving force of Wikipedia. The worst trolls often spur the best editors into creating a brilliant article with watertight references where without the trollish escapades we would only have a brief stub”. –Bachmann’s Law

Open Content Community

• Community- “a group of interdependent people who ‘participate together in discussion and decision making and who share certain practices that both define the community and are restored by it” (75).

• Open content- “provides content that is available under Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) licenses” (75).

Transparency & Integrity

• Transparency- “makes its processes, rules, determinations and their rationales available” (75).

• Integrity- “ensures the integrity of the processes and the participants’ contributions” (76).

Nondiscrimination• Nondiscrimination- “prohibits arbitrary discrimination against

persons, groups, or characteristics not relevant to the community’s scope of activity. Persons and proposals should be judged on their merits. Leadership should be based on meritocratic or representative processes” (80).

• Noninterference- “the linchpin of openness, if a constituency disagrees with the implementation of the previous 3 values, the open content license permits the constituents to take the content and commence work under their own conceptualization without interference. While ‘forking’ is often complained about in open communities—it can create some redundancy/inefficiency—it is an essential characteristic and major benefit of open communities as well” (82).

Openness

• Discussing Openness (83)• 1) What is the scope of anyone?• 2) Balancing Values• 3) Does possibly imply essentially?• 4) Do technological constraints always imply

movement away from openness?

Conclusion

• As an open content community, Wikipedia faces major challenges in providing its users with transparency, integrity, and nondiscrimination while balancing freedom and safety. Maintaining boundaries while honoring openness and free speech is a mission that requires constant discussion and flexibility among Wikipedians.

Ch. 5: The Challenges of Consensus

• “Consensus: Any group in agreement about something whose opinion is the same as yours; antonym of cabal [i.e., those who disagree with you].” – WikiSpeak

The Case of Disambiguation

• “In the history of the encyclopedia much has been made of the attempts to organize knowledge and how that dream was eventually superseded by simple alphabetical order. Wikipedia has continued this trend by avoiding any formal organizational scheme and letting people simply name articles as seemed fitting. Articles are then accessed via other pages, including user-created categories and search engines” (98).

• “Disambiguation in Wikipedia is the process of resolving conflicts in article titles that occur when a single title could be associated with one or more than one article” (98).

Characteristics shared with the Quakers (100)

• Unanimity and a lack of voting• Pausing when agreement cannot be reached• Participation by all those with ideas on the

subject• Listening with an open mind• Facilitators but no leaders• Egalitarianism• Factual rather than emotional focus

Consensus

• “But if consensus is a discussion, who is invited to the conversation?” (103)

• “In an open and forever changing group, how long might any decision be considered the group’s consensus?” (104)

Conclusion

• With purposefully limited policy, Wikipedia’s community is constantly faced with the dilemma of consensus among its users. To represent such a diverse community with neutrality and respect is indeed a challenge to any community, let alone one producing an encyclopedia.

• “If hundreds of people edit a piece of work in good faith, over a long period, what changes least over time may be a new consensus or, in other cases, a period of instability where the new version and the old version compete” (114).

Chapter 6The Benevolent Dictator

“When a building is on fire, a leader will not survey everyone to see what the consensus is about a response. It is time for action.”

-Bhadani’s Second Law

In this chapter: 1. Authorial form of leadership vs. open content community2. Story of Wales and Sanger3. The communities view of the leaders and how having leaders in this

community places Wikipedia’s values at odds.

Creation of a Leader

3 major questions to address (118-19):1. What is the environment from which such

leadership emerges?2. How is it enacted?3. How is it discussed and understood by the

community?Leadership influences the direction of the

communities culture.

Sanger vs. Wales

Sanger1. The arrogant dictator2. Bad cop (121)3. “Wikipedians who saw his actions

as unjustifiably autocratic and he eventually broke with the project altogether” (120).

4. Became an apostate: “It is important to let people built their own organisation. Jimbo has this very powerful strength, in this that he lets most of the organisation be a self-organisation (121).

Wales1. The benevolent dictator2. Good cop (121)

1. “speak softly and carry a big stick” (121).

3. He has never a significant author in terms of creating content.

4. “Wikipedia’s good faith culture undeniably has been shaped by Wale’s own values and actions; while he did not write many articles, he did help establish many of Wikipedia’s essential values and norms.

Beyond the Founders

1. System administrator 2. Bureaucrats 3. Stewards 4. Developers 5. Volunteers 6. Trustees 7. Arbitration Committee 8. Registered users and anyone else

Discussing Leadership1. Wales is the benevolent

dictator, but does not accept this title.

2. “It is not appropraite for any one person to be the benevolent dictator of all human knowledge” (132).

3. “…One moves in a direction supported by Jimbo much more quickly than in a direction not supported by Jimbo” (131).

Chapter Conclusion

1. Wikipedian culture has been influenced and steered by authorial leadership.

2. Leadership prevents Wikipedians from forking and having to many disputes.

“So your opinion is now law? Wonderful. We don’t need all of those nasty little polls or votes…All we have to do is have you make the decision for us. I thought Jimbo was the benevolent dictator. You seem just to want to be dictator, period” (134).

“An informal benevolent dictator serves to gently guide the community, to mediate internal disputes between those of good faith, and to defend against those acting in bad faith” (135).

Chapter 7Encyclopedic Anxiety

“Over time, the average of Wikipedia articles rises, but Wikipedians’ standards rise more quickly.” - OpenToppedBus’s First Law

“The higher the standards that Wikipedia aims for, the more that Wikipedia will appear sub-standard to the outside world.” - OpenToppedBus’s Corollary

In this Chapter:1. Triggered social change about technological and social change.2. New roles of content production and the individual’s role in production. Are these

changes genuine or hype?3. Why do reference works prompt such arguments? (138).

Normativeness 1. Normative=

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/normative

2. The dictionary includes every word of interest even if this means it is going to be a twenty-volume edition (139). Encyclopedia’s cannot come in as many volumes if they are to be used by a library.

3. Wikipedia is more similar to a dictionary in that it is not limited by space on a library shelf.

4. The problem: If an encyclopedia includes everything is it child friendly? – Resists being “child safe”– Social context

Criticisms of Wikipedia and Web 2.0

1. Hive like and “Maoist" collective intelligence2. Web 2.0 is a misleading term 3. Before Web 2.0 publish then filter; filtering before

was by publishers, today it is by ones peers (146)“Though I am personally sympathetic toward

Wikipedia, my intention is not to argue for or against Wikipedia supporters or critics, but to identify the larger social issues associated with Wikipedia collaboration and the pursuit of the universal encyclopedia” (146).

Collaborative Practice1. Hive minds leads to loss of

individuality vs. the internet connects people

2. It is “the product of many minds” not “the product of a collective mind. Instead, “it is an assemblage of texts that have been written by people with credentials and expertise that have been edited, verified, and supplied with a scholarly apparatus enabling the user to locate desired knowledge” (151)

3. Criticism of collaborative practice: Wikipedians have no “credentials and expertise” (151).

Universal Vision1. “if the under-priviledged (or

under-titled) among us are supposed to keep quiet, who will enforce their silence – the government?...To who it should be our privilege to defer? (153)

2. “transformative effects of gadgets” and a “siren song” (155).

3. Problems with collaboration: authority, individual autonomy, content production (155).

Encyclopedic Impulse

1. “The range of personality types spans spectrum ranging from noble self-improvers to the criminally insane, though they all shared a commitment to their craft” (155).

2. Wikipediholics: editcountis: a serious disease consisting of an unhealthy obsession with the number of edity you have made to Wikipedia (157).

3. The idea of liberating facts from the binding of a book is an enchanting one (158).

Technological Inspiration1. Liquid library is the digital equivalent of tearing out the pages of all

the books in the world, shredding them line by line, and pasting them back together in infinite combinations. Reuslts in a web of names and a community of ideas (161).

2. Wikipedians do not say that each of their articles is at the “highest quality of scholarship.” Each page says in what state the record is in.

3. “Yes it is garbage, but its delivers so much faster” (166).4. Section ends saying that Wikipedia, in reality, is not very good. Why?

5. Every visit to Wikipedia’s free information hive means one less customer for professionally researched and edited encyclopedias such as Britannica (166).

Chapter Conclusion

1. Some people like the changes technology creates, others are disgusted by it and do not welcome it (168).

2. “We should not confuse the useful measures of relevance and popularity in finding the information with the means to validate it; we must continue to develop means of critical judgment” (168).

3. Wikipedia allows people to see how knowledge is constructed and contested (168) to become a reference source.

Chapter 8 Conclusion:“A Globe in Accord”

“The problem with Wikipedia is that it only works in practice. In theory, it can never work.”

-Zoeroeth Law

“Everyone who comes across Raul’s laws eventually adds on of their own”

- Ben’s Revolting Realization

How is something like Wikipedia possible? How can we understand Wikipedia’s collaborative culture?

1. “Wikipedia’s success is more due to the fact that it is strongly collaborative than it is a wiki” (171).

2. “[Reagle’s] argument is that good faith social norms (combined with wiki features) constructively facilitate Wikipedia collaboration” (172).

3. “…concerns about Wikipedia’s quality, community, and culture as it evolves. And just like any community Wikipedia does change” (172).

Conclusion continued1. “Among all of those

individuals throughout history who have pursued the vision of a universal encyclopedia, Wikipedians have come closest to realizing it” (173).

2. “Wikipedia has always been a puzzle. Born almost a happy accident, growing beyond anyone’s expectations, and applauded not because it is perfect but because it is confoundingly good” (173).

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What is the value of Wikipedia?