7 ms·

Among the people dedicated enough to become moderators in any online community, there seems to be a large subset that is very rule-focused, exclusionist and in

by codeflo 12y ago

Among the people dedicated enough to become moderators in any online community, there seems to be a large subset that is very rule-focused, exclusionist and in general difficult to reason with. It's not just Wikipedia, basically the same thing happened at StackOverflow, where all the interesting questions have been deleted, and also in several smaller online communities I used to participate in. Given enough time, those people invariably take over and destroy the community. Reddit sort of avoids this because it's so easy to create new subreddits that people can vote with their feet if a moderator is behaving unreasonably. Maybe a similar solution could work for Wikipedia, having sub-Wikipedias with different rules. But that would require the current powers to admit that there's a problem, which is unlikely to happen.

jiggy2011 12y ago
Isn't that what Wikia is for? No single website can reasonably hope to cater to everyone's interests but luckily the web makes it very easy to create alternatives.
- brazzy 12y ago
  > Isn't that what Wikia is for? Says who? > No single website can reasonably hope to cater to everyone's interests Why?
  - cbd1984 12y ago
    >> No single website can reasonably hope to cater to everyone's interests > Why? Should there be pictures of Mohammed on the website? Yes or no? Should homosexuality be mentioned at all? Yes or no? Does homeopathy work? Yes or no? Some issues have no middle ground, or at least no factually-supported middle ground. Therefore, to even address some topics, you have to take a stand, which necessarily means you alienate some people.
- a3_nm 12y ago
  Wikia is not a satisfactory alternative to Wikipedia, at least in terms of ethical status of the host (Wikia is a company and there are ads on Wikia wikis), in terms of internal consistency, and in terms of content licensing and of availability of dumps.
  - jiggy2011 12y ago
    There are open source wiki platforms so wikia is not the only option.
    - a3_nm 12y ago
      The problem is not the license of the software. I think Wikia also uses MediaWiki which is free software. For the other points that I mentioned, I'm not sure I know many wiki hosts which are free as in free beer, run by a nonprofit, sustainable through donations, show no ads, have their content under a free license and dump it in a way comparable to http://dumps.wikimedia.org/ http://dumps.wikimedia.org/.
  - abvdasker 12y ago
    The quality is also much, much worse.
    - cbd1984 12y ago
      Right. Which is why Wikipedia is the way it is.
  - cbd1984 12y ago
    If you want internal consistency, you have to have some centralized way to enforce that, and you're back where you started.
- DanBC 12y ago
  People don't want a webpage on some random website. They want their Truth in Wikipedia.
Houshalter 12y ago
This doesn't solve the problem because the vast majority of people don't "vote with their feet". To borrow a quote from the beginning of this article: >The human longing for freedom of information is a terrible and wonderful thing. It delineates a pivotal difference between mental emancipation and slavery. It has launched protests, rebellions, and revolutions. Thousands have devoted their lives to it, thousands of others have even died for it. And it can be stopped dead in its tracks by requiring people to search for “how to set up proxy” before viewing their anti-government website.
jules 12y ago
Perhaps Wikipedia could make a distinction between core articles and non-core articles. Core being what wikipedia is now, and non-core the more fringe topics.
- kirushik 12y ago
  Sounds a little bit like partage's "overlays" concept. And that's a good thing.
  - polarix 12y ago
    Do you have any more information about partage's "overlays" concept? I can't find anything for those words...
    - jdpage 12y ago
      Parent meant 'portage', which is the Gentoo Linux package manager.
  - a3n 12y ago
    Was "partage" a typo? https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Overlay https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Overlay
- maxerickson 12y ago
  I think if you have 2 categories all you accomplish is creating a new thing to argue about. You could extend it and allow groups or individuals to create their own 'views', but I guess you still end up with people arguing about what to include in the popular ones.
  - jules 12y ago
    That's the point. Instead of arguing whether to delete or keep an article, the deletionists can now argue over whether an article should be core or non core, thus very much limiting the damage they do. They WILL argue about something, we can't control that, we can only control what they will argue about.
glesica 12y ago
Slashdot actually had a simple (and probably accidental) solution to this problem. The slogan is (was, I don't see it there any more) "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters". People would frequently complain when political or social articles were posted by the moderators. The response, almost invariably was that the articles were "stuff that matters". Obviously Slashdot is a bit different since the content is moderated, not voted up or user-created. However, the idea of having "catch-all" rules that allow the community to apply its own value judgements, rather than making the rules ironclad and inflexible, seems like a potential solution to the problem.
- thisjepisje 12y ago
  Here on HN: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
- Torgo 12y ago
  I don't think it was ever meant to be that. "stuff that matters" was always a tongue-in-cheek way of saying that other sites' content, being not-for-nerds, didn't matter. There is an obvious problem with posting general news and proclaiming "nerds are people too and politics interest people". What you're talking about was mainly a result of Slashdot adding a politics section after repeated articles about the Iraq War generated more discussion (and therefore traffic) by far than any other content, short of the SCO lawsuit. Before that point it was pretty good at staying on topic. I consider it analogous to the SciFi channel showing professional wrestling, or MTV showing reality TV, or the gradual slide of TLC and History channel into slop. Niche media is destroyed by pejoration toward the mainstream.
  - glesica 12y ago
    I disagree. "Stuff that matters" was frequently applied and upvoted as a tag to articles during the period of time when article tags were more editorial than they are now. This was quite some time ago. Not to say that no one felt as you describe, but I think an equal number of people, at least, took the interpretation I described. Also, I didn't mean to imply that the site creators intended for the motto to be applied in the way I described, just that it was applied that way in many cases. The point is that sometimes making the rules a little fuzzy can allow a community to moderate itself more flexibly and prevent the "lawyers" from taking over. HN is similar, where though there are loose guidelines, the rules for appropriate content are (deliberately, I believe) kept vague.
halflings 12y ago
I'd recommend listening to StackExchange's podcast (http://blog.stackoverflow.com/category/podcasts/); http://blog.stackoverflow.com/category/podcasts/); They always discuss this problem, and I think the choice they made (be strict on rules) is a good one for the type of platform and community they wanted. Basically: if you wanted to discuss a vague subject that doesn't have a limited set of possible answers, you should probably use a discussion board instead of using a stackexchange website. That's part of the reason why Jeff Atwood left to create Discourse.
nerfhammer 12y ago
I've always wanted some kind of github approach to wikipedia. Just fork and do pull requests. Put whatever crazy stuff you want in your branch. Instead of edit wars people can just maintain competing branches.
r00fus 12y ago
As someone who's had a few stackexchange questions closed for various reasons, I think one solution (especially fitting for StackExchange) would be to mandate that a moderator who closes a question as inappropriate for the forum be required to supply an alternative forum (I did get suggestions when I asked on why my question was closed). Ie, don't just delete/close my question - give me somewhere else I can ask it - or even migrate it - preferably to another stackexchange site. It's probably why stack sites like Programmers were created. That would defray most of the downsides of "strict rules" based rejections.
rwallace 12y ago
I don't think it's at all invariable. The moral compass comes from the top. Wikipedia and Stack Overflow have deletionist moderation because Jimmy Wales and his counterparts are happy with that, which is unfortunate, but it is their right to run their websites as they see fit. The solution is to set up competing sites run by people who want inclusionist moderation.

by codeflo 12y ago

jiggy2011 12y ago

Isn't that what Wikia is for? No single website can reasonably hope to cater to everyone's interests but luckily the web makes it very easy to create alternatives.

brazzy 12y ago
> Isn't that what Wikia is for? Says who? > No single website can reasonably hope to cater to everyone's interests Why?
- cbd1984 12y ago
  >> No single website can reasonably hope to cater to everyone's interests > Why? Should there be pictures of Mohammed on the website? Yes or no? Should homosexuality be mentioned at all? Yes or no? Does homeopathy work? Yes or no? Some issues have no middle ground, or at least no factually-supported middle ground. Therefore, to even address some topics, you have to take a stand, which necessarily means you alienate some people.
a3_nm 12y ago
Wikia is not a satisfactory alternative to Wikipedia, at least in terms of ethical status of the host (Wikia is a company and there are ads on Wikia wikis), in terms of internal consistency, and in terms of content licensing and of availability of dumps.
- jiggy2011 12y ago
  There are open source wiki platforms so wikia is not the only option.
  - a3_nm 12y ago
    The problem is not the license of the software. I think Wikia also uses MediaWiki which is free software. For the other points that I mentioned, I'm not sure I know many wiki hosts which are free as in free beer, run by a nonprofit, sustainable through donations, show no ads, have their content under a free license and dump it in a way comparable to http://dumps.wikimedia.org/ http://dumps.wikimedia.org/.
- abvdasker 12y ago
  The quality is also much, much worse.
  - cbd1984 12y ago
    Right. Which is why Wikipedia is the way it is.
- cbd1984 12y ago
  If you want internal consistency, you have to have some centralized way to enforce that, and you're back where you started.
DanBC 12y ago
People don't want a webpage on some random website. They want their Truth in Wikipedia.

Houshalter 12y ago

This doesn't solve the problem because the vast majority of people don't "vote with their feet". To borrow a quote from the beginning of this article: >The human longing for freedom of information is a terrible and wonderful thing. It delineates a pivotal difference between mental emancipation and slavery. It has launched protests, rebellions, and revolutions. Thousands have devoted their lives to it, thousands of others have even died for it. And it can be stopped dead in its tracks by requiring people to search for “how to set up proxy” before viewing their anti-government website.

jules 12y ago

Perhaps Wikipedia could make a distinction between core articles and non-core articles. Core being what wikipedia is now, and non-core the more fringe topics.

kirushik 12y ago
Sounds a little bit like partage's "overlays" concept. And that's a good thing.
- polarix 12y ago
  Do you have any more information about partage's "overlays" concept? I can't find anything for those words...
  - jdpage 12y ago
    Parent meant 'portage', which is the Gentoo Linux package manager.
- a3n 12y ago
  Was "partage" a typo? https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Overlay https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Overlay
maxerickson 12y ago
I think if you have 2 categories all you accomplish is creating a new thing to argue about. You could extend it and allow groups or individuals to create their own 'views', but I guess you still end up with people arguing about what to include in the popular ones.
- jules 12y ago
  That's the point. Instead of arguing whether to delete or keep an article, the deletionists can now argue over whether an article should be core or non core, thus very much limiting the damage they do. They WILL argue about something, we can't control that, we can only control what they will argue about.

glesica 12y ago

Slashdot actually had a simple (and probably accidental) solution to this problem. The slogan is (was, I don't see it there any more) "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters". People would frequently complain when political or social articles were posted by the moderators. The response, almost invariably was that the articles were "stuff that matters". Obviously Slashdot is a bit different since the content is moderated, not voted up or user-created. However, the idea of having "catch-all" rules that allow the community to apply its own value judgements, rather than making the rules ironclad and inflexible, seems like a potential solution to the problem.

thisjepisje 12y ago
Here on HN: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
Torgo 12y ago
I don't think it was ever meant to be that. "stuff that matters" was always a tongue-in-cheek way of saying that other sites' content, being not-for-nerds, didn't matter. There is an obvious problem with posting general news and proclaiming "nerds are people too and politics interest people". What you're talking about was mainly a result of Slashdot adding a politics section after repeated articles about the Iraq War generated more discussion (and therefore traffic) by far than any other content, short of the SCO lawsuit. Before that point it was pretty good at staying on topic. I consider it analogous to the SciFi channel showing professional wrestling, or MTV showing reality TV, or the gradual slide of TLC and History channel into slop. Niche media is destroyed by pejoration toward the mainstream.
- glesica 12y ago
  I disagree. "Stuff that matters" was frequently applied and upvoted as a tag to articles during the period of time when article tags were more editorial than they are now. This was quite some time ago. Not to say that no one felt as you describe, but I think an equal number of people, at least, took the interpretation I described. Also, I didn't mean to imply that the site creators intended for the motto to be applied in the way I described, just that it was applied that way in many cases. The point is that sometimes making the rules a little fuzzy can allow a community to moderate itself more flexibly and prevent the "lawyers" from taking over. HN is similar, where though there are loose guidelines, the rules for appropriate content are (deliberately, I believe) kept vague.

halflings 12y ago

I'd recommend listening to StackExchange's podcast (http://blog.stackoverflow.com/category/podcasts/); http://blog.stackoverflow.com/category/podcasts/); They always discuss this problem, and I think the choice they made (be strict on rules) is a good one for the type of platform and community they wanted. Basically: if you wanted to discuss a vague subject that doesn't have a limited set of possible answers, you should probably use a discussion board instead of using a stackexchange website. That's part of the reason why Jeff Atwood left to create Discourse.

nerfhammer 12y ago

I've always wanted some kind of github approach to wikipedia. Just fork and do pull requests. Put whatever crazy stuff you want in your branch. Instead of edit wars people can just maintain competing branches.

r00fus 12y ago

As someone who's had a few stackexchange questions closed for various reasons, I think one solution (especially fitting for StackExchange) would be to mandate that a moderator who closes a question as inappropriate for the forum be required to supply an alternative forum (I did get suggestions when I asked on why my question was closed). Ie, don't just delete/close my question - give me somewhere else I can ask it - or even migrate it - preferably to another stackexchange site. It's probably why stack sites like Programmers were created. That would defray most of the downsides of "strict rules" based rejections.

rwallace 12y ago

I don't think it's at all invariable. The moral compass comes from the top. Wikipedia and Stack Overflow have deletionist moderation because Jimmy Wales and his counterparts are happy with that, which is unfortunate, but it is their right to run their websites as they see fit. The solution is to set up competing sites run by people who want inclusionist moderation.