Comment by the_third_wave
4 years ago
Any human grouping/organization of sufficiently large size does not start out as a democracy, this is not the natural organisation form for our species. Traditionally groups are hierarchical with a 'strong' leader who leads in times of strife, often combined with a small group of 'wise' men/women who make more strategic/long-term decisions. The idea of democracy is relatively new, originating in the city-state of Athens some 500 years BC. This Athenian democracy was not a full democracy since only citizens had a voice. While that sounds good it should be noted that women, slaves, foreigners and youths below the age of military service were not eligible for citizenship and as such did not have a voice.
A true democracy is hard to achieve at larger scale but modern technology could maybe possibly eventually - yes, there is that much uncertainty - be used to attain it. Then again, even in a true democracy the individual vote can still be controlled by manipulating the voter towards whatever ideological goals desired by the individual or group in control of the information which reaches those voters.
Wikipedia could allow a more democratic form of content moderation by allowing readers to 'score' editorial decisions, a bit like e.g. the Slashdot meta-moderation system works. This would at least make it possible to weed out activist (groups of) editors who use their 'power' to turn the encyclopedia into their propaganda platform.
Wikipedia should not be made more democratic. Democracies are very bad at making encyclopedias. :-P
Note that pretty much any scoring or measurement system invented by man has ended up being subverted and exploited. Especially when there is something to be gained.
This is a classical case of "who watches the watchers". If Wikipedia is not to be made "more democratic" it should at least be possible for the "demos" (people) to point out the flaws in the organisation. While such a system can be gamed just like the current editorial system has been gamed successfully by turning parts of Wikipedia into a propaganda channel it is one more step to be taken for those who wish to game the system. In the absence of a neutral arbiter [1] some form of meta-moderation could help to point out the flaws.
Democracies don't have to make encyclopedias but they can criticise those who make (or, in this case, break) them.
[1] "Let's use machine learning to implement such a neutral arbiter!" - remember the twitter chat bot which supposedly turned racist by mere exposure to Twitter discourse.
The current system is based on "rough consensus" and the formation of smart mobs.
This does have internal checks and balances. It just doesn't quite work like a democracy system works to run a country. Nor does it have to, of course.
I'm interested in hearing what parts of wikipedia (and which wikipedia) you think have been turned into a propaganda channel. That is highly undesirable and should definitely be dealt with if still the case.
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