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The 'smart mob' - which is a bit of an odd name when applied to actions centred on a digital platform - can be a way for an in-group to form. Once that in-group
by the_third_wave 4y ago
The 'smart mob' - which is a bit of an odd name when applied to actions centred on a digital platform - can be a way for an in-group to form. Once that in-group has seized control over an interest area they'll (ab)use their power to keep out any further take-over attempts. As long as they are ideologically aligned with the majority of editors they're mostly free to police 'their' interest areas which unfortunately makes this a self-reinforcing structure.
- Kim_Bruning 4y agoI do know what you mean. At the time when I was still very active, the great majority of the time it really was a smart mob that got misidentified. Very rarely you did get to see an undesirable in-group forming (usually it turned out to be due to misunderstandings, mind). I even wrote a procedure on how to find (among other things) in-groups by exploiting existing natural processes, but I don't think I did a very good job of explaining at the time. (and it has since been rewritten a lot) https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:BOLD,_revert,_discuss_cycle&oldid=29309552 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:BOLD,_r... The here-relevant part of the trick was to make a change to a disputed page, and then to observe who reverts it[*]. The person or people who revert it are always going to be interesting in some way. The new version is actually clearer sometimes, especially the general overview. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BOLD,_revert,_discuss_cycle#General_overview https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BOLD,_revert,_discus... [*] A whole lot of caveats apply.