Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a web-based encyclopedia written and presented through the use of wiki technology. It is continuously maintained, and updated through collaborative efforts of volunteers from all over the world who are able to freely edit the articles contained in the project (with some restrictions). The encyclopedia currently contains over 19 million articles (over 4 million in English).

The “holy-shit” graph. Active editors (blue) and the one-year retention rate (red) on the English Wikipedia, 2004–09

In the late 2000s, its editorship began declining. It appears that new users are having a particularly hard time successfully joining the community. Jeffrey Tucker and Dick Clark have agreed that Wikipedia has more gatekeepers than it used to and that some of these gatekeepers attempt to bias the encyclopedia by keeping out content that does not coincide with their views. One of the more famous examples of this was the William Connolley incident. One of the main controversies on Wikipedia is between inclusionists and deletionists, opposing factions on the issue of the merits of deleting articles for the subject's lack of notability.

Governance

Wikipedia is owned by the Wikimedia Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded in Florida in 2003 (and still governed by Florida law), and headquartered in San Francisco, California. It is led by a ten-member board of trustees, three of which are community-elected, two of which are selected by chapters, one is a board-appointed "community founder" seat occupied by Jimbo Wales, and four are board-appointed "specific expertise" seats. The rationale for an Internet-focused organization having chapters has always been suspect, but the WMF claims they are useful for negotiating moral and financial partnerships, setting up Wikipedia parties, communicating with the press in the local language, etc. Participation in the chapter selection of WMF board seats is limited to members of chapter boards. This process has in some cases not been particularly transparent, with confidentiality rules prohibiting the distribution of a list of candidates, or the provision of direct question-and-answer sessions between the candidates and chapter members.

Some of the major Wikipedias have a community-elected Arbitration Community that serves as a court of final appeal on matters such as conduct disputes, blocks and bans, removal of administrative tools, and granting and removal of CheckUser and Oversight tools. The ArbCom also sometimes decides matters involving child protection, mental health problems, suicide threats, defamation, certain kinds of real life harassment, or other situations in which privacy and legal concerns prevent open discussion on-wiki. Usually no rationale for these decisions is published to the community. The WMF staff manual has an "On-Wiki Threat Protocol" for dealing with such situations. The private handling of such matters by the ArbCom without any community scrutiny is controversial.

Decisions on Wikipedia that fall outside the purview of the ArbCom are generally made by "rough consensus," a rather nebulous term referring to some sort of supermajority. Policies can be changed by direct edits to the pages that no one reverts, or they can be made by formal proposal. Formal proposals tend to have a very low pass rate.

Wikipedia has sysops who have power to protect and delete pages, block users, and perform other administrative functions. Wikipedia also has bureaucrats who have power to promote to sysop those users who receive approximately 80% support in a weeklong discussion. Because Wikipedia is structured as a democratic republic, it suffers many of the same governance problems as other democracies. The bulk of the community has, however, repeatedly rejected proposals for commercialization. Commercialization would create a profit motive and eliminate the one-man one-vote system, replacing it with an investor democracy instead in which those who buy more shares can cast plural votes. Those with the ability to make such stock purchases would, for the most part, be those whose who have demonstrated skill and insight in the financial marketplace, in business management, and in general efficiently providing products that customers value.

Neutrality or lack thereof

Wikipedia claims to adhere to a "neutral point of view" policy. However, it would be more accurate to say that it follows a majoritarian policy: "Wikipedia should not present a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserved as much attention overall as the majority view." Thus, for example, a section on Austrian economic perspectives concerning the article's subject might not receive as much space or prominence in an article as a more mainstream Keynesian viewpoint. If an editor attempts to write an article on "Austrian perspectives on x," that may be deleted as a "point of view fork."

Wikipedia's editor base probably consists of a greater proportion of academics than the general population. University students tend to make frequent reference to Wikipedia as a place to gain an overview of a subject and find leads to other sources of information, and some of them are assigned by their professors to edit Wikipedia articles. Those with access to academic databases have an advantage at editing Wikipedia articles, because such resources are likely to be regarded as reliable sources. Any content that is not deemed to be "reliably sourced" is subject to removal, even if the material is true.

Wikipedia's editor demographics are probably the reason why the political bias of its articles tends to be slightly leftist-leaning. However, it also means that Wikipedia tends to have a greater proportion of Austrian economists among its editor base than one would expect from an extrapolation from the generic population. Mises Wiki was created partly to allow editors to create content without worrying about the cumbersomely voluminous rules and procedures; "neutral point of view" expectations; and editors and sysops who may be (overtly or covertly) hostile to Austrian economics and therefore attempt to manipulate the system to eliminate Austrian-sympathetic content, and possibly even Austrian-sympathetic editors, from the wiki.

In a situation of mob rule, the "rough consensus" of editors is in a position to call content it dislikes "biased," or selectively enforce or otherwise misuse rules to suit its agenda. As in other democracies, a vocal and dedicated minority can sometimes prevail over a relatively disinterested or distracted majority. Editing and conduct disputes can become complex, and many editors engage in rational ignorance rather than invest the time needed to sort out the facts.

Links

• Wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia at Wikipedia