Wikipedia 2.0 will implement a rigorous trustmodel. People will be automatically rated, based on edits and the lifespan of their edits. Edits that are upheld for a longer time are valued more. Not at all unreasonably. A class system will be introduced to separate between people who can (and should?) publish and authorize changes and those who can. You can earn your way into this group of people by doing the hard work of adding value. Also quite sensible.
Apart from growing a trust ecosystem they intend to use software to bootstrap this process. All users/editors will be evaluated based on their edit behaviour of the past. Trust will be assigned according to the same rules as in the living system. The fact that this is possible is very interesting. It is always said that everything digital leaves a trail. Now we see this principle in action for real.
But there is one thing that I don’t understand. Instead of a trustmodel Wikipedia is set to change to a model of distrust. You, hailed as THE most important asset of collaborative system, is about to be distrusted by default. Why? Why would Wikipedia make this 180 degrees course ‘correction’? I have absolutely no clue! But perhaps it is necessary.
Wikipedia is based on trust and a core community of dedicated/devoted editors securing the integrity. This model has been extremely successful in the case of building Wikipedia. Perhaps it is time to change this system now that it has reached considerable size. Perhaps now is the time to start protecting the assets instead of searching to improve and expand. Perhaps a certain value necessarily leads to the need of protectionism. I still don’t understand this complete reversion of direction.
Wikipedia works. ‘Working’ might be debatable but attacks are recognized and corrected on short notice. This seems to me the ideal situation to build a system of trust (note: the opposite of a system of distrust.) You can punish bad behaviour immediately because of the transparency of the system. Punishment can be automated but the action valuing the act are always human. This policy can even be set to be quite severe. But the assumption of trust can be upheld. So, I still don’t understand why Wikipedia doesn’t trust me anymore!
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Well, I guess you’ve said it yourself in the first words of this post: trust untill proven guilty. Isn’t that what is apparently happening to Wikipedia? It has always been build on trust, but now, as it seems more and more people are abusing the system. So it seems quite logical then that the system of trust doesn’t work and a shift to a system of distrust is needed?
Are you pleading for a reversal of their proposed reward system? That you start out trusted and that you will be ‘punished’ if you misbehave?
Just one more thought: the current system doesn’t allow for the correction of ‘false’ entries in Wikipedia. If the community ‘decides’ what the truth is, that might not mean that it is the truth. The one example that I always keep referring to is the story of John Lanier. A computer scientist, listed in Wikipedia as a movie director, that made a short film a decade ago (a terrible one, by his own account), and has never made one since. He has tried several times to ‘correct’ his entry, as he is not a movie director. But the ‘trusted’ community, keeps ‘correcting’ that over and over again… It seems to me, that this sort of ‘correction’ of Wikipedia entries is needed as well. But how do you deal with that in the current model?
i don’t think wikipedia doesn’t work. i think it works (or worked) perfectly. and part of that is their system of trust. the problems they are solving are difficult. but do they justify a shift this radical? or do we have to conclude that now is the time to build a community of ‘professional’ editors just like encyclopaedia britannica?
so yes, i am pleading for different reward system. not exactly a different system, because i think wikipedia has a lot to gain with implementing trust and reputation. i would plead for a different ‘initial trust state’ of an individual. an initial trust system that assumes the individual is to be trusted is much more in line with their ‘heritage’.
if wikipedia is to start with ‘initial trust’ instead of ‘initial distrust’ they have lots other ways to manipulate this society. ‘initial trust’ can be very quickly deteriorated, for example. and trust earned can be much more valuable, for example.
i think your example does show something about wikipedia. it shows that there is no truth. there are stories, based on something real. and some stories are more fiction than others. or in the case of john lanier more drama?
in this example his ‘fans’ are much more determined to getting their message across than john is himself. is the story on wikipedia completely bogus? probably not, it is only part of the truth. again this situation can be arbitrated (as is also done with more sensitive and/or political topics) but it is not so much trust or truth what is at stake here.
truth itself is shifting in meaning. before we had trusted experts that told us how the world worked. we had teachers that ‘inserted’ information and if you were lucky skills. with individualization we expect everyone to be able to judge the validity of the information given. but we have to learn how to do that? and we also have to learn (or experience) people are doing that?
if we want to implement TRUTH we have to do as signing authorities (verisign/thawte) or as any other bureaucracy, we have to implement a judicial system with investigative capabilities. (who tells me that john lanier is THE john lanier?)
John Lanier ofcourse
…. great philosophical discussion, haha. You’re right, that’s more of a discussion about identity…
Both ‘truth’ and ‘trust’ are difficult concepts in this matter. Truth is shifting you say, maybe there are multiple truths. But the same can be said for trust I think. Maybe there are various levels of trust as well, and maybe it doesn’t even exist anymore. Do we need trust at all? And why?
perhaps truth is not absolute anymore, but a continuum. something is ‘a bit true’ or ‘very true’.
we already deal with trust as a continuum, but with truth. i think we need trust and truth, and they are not separable any more. with information becoming ‘personal’ (not personalized) we need to assert authority. authority once was almost absolute as well. we had teachers and priests and ‘elderly’ had a position of authority (and respect.)
i think trust and truth are almost one, if you consider truth arbitrary. and we are frantically searching for ways to express identity including levels of authority.
but that are other ways to search for ‘truth’. getting back to the john case, suppose wikipedia allowed for multiple, competing descriptions on a topic. and it also found a way to make sure these version were not tampered with. than a rating system might be implemented to add ‘truth’ and offer the ‘right’ john_lanier topic more prominence. i think that if john is right he might be better equipped to rally for support than the fans of his career in film.
As far as I can tell from this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About , wikipedia is not about trusting everyone, but collaborating on an encyclopaedia for everyone with an internet connection. It seems they are extending the requirements for helping out a bit. Doesn’t sound all too radical to me
do you think they should revise the text of the ‘edit this page’ link?
Not really, why do you ask?
in the ‘old’ wikipedia anyone could ‘edit this page’, with the new proposed changes in trust that changes.
what i am thinking is that when wikipedia started the ‘anyone can edit’ philosophy was considered sacred. now that the encyclopaedia is ‘full’ there is no need for this policy anymore.
the text of the edit button should reflect something like ‘you can edit if we trust you. and we distrust you by default.’ a bit long for a button, but that is still the message. or not?
Or it should just show the button to users who can edit…
They have a different task now and probably new insights/experiences they are preserving knowledge and acquire new knowledge, before they only acquired new knowledge. There was nothing to vandalize now there it.
that is exactly my point. before anyone saw that button (including mabel wisse smit.) and now no one sees that button, only after you did something.
it is totally different! or not?
it might be right, it might be wrong. but i wonder about the consequences? and i wonder about the development of things like this. perhaps you always have to start open, and close after a certain threshold is reached.