Talk:Criticism of crowdsourcing

Notes & Queries

JA: I guess my first criticism would be a worry about the name "crowdsourcing". It clangs me wrong somehow. Jon Awbrey 12:12, 8 October 2008 (PDT)

NR: My thoughts: Do I even have real-world credentials? Now there's a problem. Why not have a message board and a wiki? There are good and bad points to having either one.

NR: On the thought of what domain name to use: I think MimboJimbo.com (no, that is a very bad idea) something that implies what we're doing (Wiki..something) would be suitable. (Well OK taking the piss out of Jimbo, we can do that in other ways without using the domain name to do it, it also doesn't seem professional, why I thought that was a good idea, I'll never know) — Nathan ^(talk) _{/ 19:15, 8 October 2008 (UTC)}

JA: I've grown weary of fixating on (1) Wikipedia (2) Wikipedia Personae. Yes, most of our concrete data and hard experience comes from those sources — though I did see the very same dynamics in Citizendium despite the one bug fix that Sanger tried to implement — but we need to view that data and experience as cases under generic concepts, and focus on the genus not the individuals. So "MimboJimbo" would probably lead us down the wrong path. Jon Awbrey 12:30, 8 October 2008 (PDT)

PW: I'm afraid that I really don't like "MimboJimbo" either, as it gives a rather "Monty Python" impression and is also inherently negative. If we want to be taken seriously, we've got to have a neutral name which doesn't imply a result (we already know that the result is going to be negative, but we don't need to come out and say that...Best to let people read the evidence and make their own minds up). So, the actual name of the site should be neutral, rather scientific, yet precise. I've suggested "WikiAnalysis" (first choice) and "WikiReader" (second choice)...However, there must be other possibilities.

BK: There is a professor at Kansas State University who does ethnographic studies of cyberspace cultures. One of his classes focused on the phenomenon of YouTube. He recently gave a presentation of his work at the Library of Congress. It's worth watching, mainly for the example of his kind of scholarship. —Moulton 20:15, 9 October 2008 (PDT)

First seven minutes are very engaging. I'm left with the question, "where did Wikipedia make the mistaken turns away from this magical sense of joyful empowerment?" I'll continue later. Bed time now. -- MyWikiBiz 20:33, 9 October 2008 (PDT)

WP made the same mistake that humankind made back in the days of Hammurabi. They adopted a lamentably idiotic community regulatory mechanism. They adopted a regulatory mechanism ideally suited to games or drama, but ill-suited to an academic enterprise. There really isn't any excuse for it. It was a fundamental failure of leadership. —Moulton 21:32, 9 October 2008 (PDT)

DT: Have you reserved any .org or .info domains, in case the project turns into a noncommercial informational resource rather than a commercial entity? Dtobias 20:44, 9 October 2008 (PDT)

Consider the Crowdsource

GK: The only ready synonym for "crowdsourcing" that comes to my mind is "user-generated content", or "Web 2.0". Nathan, you have credentials, in that you have a location, a job, and schooling, which is really all I'm looking for. I think MimboJimbo is way off... I was just mentioning which domains I actually hold claim to. Really, I'm thinking that the domain should be something simple and descriptive (but still available), along the lines of "critiquesofthecrowd.com". -- MyWikiBiz 13:37, 8 October 2008 (PDT)

JA: Okay, let's talk about that. I probably need to start by trying to articulate my inklings, irklings, or reservations about the term.

• When I hear "crowdsource" it calls to mind one of the prime directives of critical thinking, to wit, "Consider The Source!"
  • That leads me to ask:
    • Is the crowd the source?
    • If we mean that the crowd is the source, is that a Good, a Bad, or an Indifferent thing?

JA: That's about as far as I get for now. Jon Awbrey 13:52, 8 October 2008 (PDT)

PW: The whole idea of "crowd sourcing" as it relates to Wikis is a fallacy. First of all, not everyone has access to a computer and of those that do, not everyone is necessarily able to forcibly vehicle their point of view effectively against the "Voice of the Crowd". The demographics of Wikipedia already show the inherent problems with calling what is produced "the sum of all human knowledge" as there are clearly elements of the subset of humans who are not present in the demographics of Wikipedia. So, what is happening in Web 2.0 is clearly not "crowd" sourcing, but the re-enforcement of the idea that "we are those who define reality". It's a celebration of "Us", which implies a "them" and the division that this implies. The WP:En experience serves very well as a test case for this hypothesis. So, perhaps the "crowd sourcing" angle is too limitative and not the entire phenomenon?

NR: I actually do not have two of the things that you mention (I've expanded on this via e-mail). Anyway, that's a better idea for a domain name. It's more descriptive in terms of what the site would actually do. I don't know what I was thinking, really. I also agree, it's probably not possible (or prudent) to use "Wikipedia" as part of the domain name. — Nathan ^(talk) _{/ 22:39, 8 October 2008 (UTC)}

PW: Nathan, I don't think that this has to be so complicated. We can trace you to a real person and it's obvious that you are indeed that person. That's fine by me.

NR: Okay, that works then. — Nathan ^(talk) _{/ 17:51, 9 October 2008 (UTC)}

Suggest we move to the "article"

GK: Might I suggest that we move from "thoughtful conversation mode" here on the Discussion page, over to the wiki-mode "Article" page. Let's craft a collection of principles and ideas that we all can live with, and once we get to that point, we can decide on exactly how to execute. If we start to see "edit wars" on the Article page, even among us friends, then that will itself be an indicator that our ideas are not on a level-set.

JA: For reasons I will tell you about off-line, my mind and time are a bit scattered right now, and I probably won't be up to careful analysis or sustained discussion for another week or so. Jon Awbrey 07:07, 9 October 2008 (PDT)

GK: We'll miss you, but we fully understand, Jon. This is only "web kvetching", you know, and should be toward the bottom of all our priorities!

A word from Joe

WR, in my humble opinion, is just extension of the WP thought police and arbcom, and such has lost sight of it's mission. WR is now, just an apologist for WP and a haven for the miscretin wikipeidiot admins and other power drunk punks, who's respect for others and rule of law is non existent. WP is a Canker Sore on the internet and, in my simple opinion, can not ever be reformed. Wikipedia must be dismantled, it's tax exempt status, revoked and the servers, which houses WP purge of the stinking Cancerous mess of wikipeida and it's lies, mis-information, and virtual altar to the tin god Jimbo, the magnificent.Joehazelton 22:52, 9 October 2008 (PDT)

A word from Blissyu2

My main criticism of Wikipedia is now and has always been the ability for Wikipedia to change truth on important issues. On many very important issues there are multiple viewpoints that must be expressed in order to get an accurate perspective, and it is impossible for anyone to speak or write about them without major bias. Trying to remove the bias leads to removing the factual aspects of the case. Because Wikipedia aims for Neutral Point of View, they forbid experts to comment on topics, which leads to a lot of idiots writing dumb articles. On top of that, experts do secretly edit articles, and secretly control them, to pervert the article. What really should happen is that articles are owned by experts. If an article cannot be written by just one person, then multiple competing articles should exist to reflect all biases. Biases are an important part of historical revelation. I have written many times, and proven pretty conclusively I think, that Wikipedia's article on the Port Arthur massacre, a very important event in Australian history, and even moreso to myself personally, is written horrifically inaccurately. Not only that, but the majority of people who have contributed to it have tried to present accurate information, but have been forbidden from doing so. Because of Wikipedia's inaccurate display of that incident, the generally accepted truth of that issue has changed dramatically, with today as many as 20% of people accepting Wikipedia's version of events, as opposed to less than 5% 5 years ago. On top of that, when Thebainer added the "Conspiracy theories" section, listing some of the least well known theories, and only mentioning their conclusions, rather than the facts that they are based on, combined with saying why they are not believed, he introduced what is called "disinformation". It pretends that these are the only alternatives, when in reality they are not the only alternatives, and indeed represent a minority view even smaller than the minority view presented by Wikipedia.

Wikipedia Review was a good concept, and I think that we can see that in most respects it worked well. The main failure, in my opinion, is in a lack of loyalty. Igor Alexander, the founder of the site, was banned from his own site when we moved. On top of that, then we had all of the original founders, except for Selina, banned from the site, in addition to more than half of the people who have ever held administrator status. Indeed, we have only had perhaps 5 or 6 people ever banned that were NOT administrators or people with power on the site. This reeks of a power struggle, and is quite frankly not on. This kind of thing shouldn't exist anywhere. Perhaps more could have been done to try to stop it, but it is too late now, and I felt like I couldn't do anything more at the time.

Furthermore, a second major problem is that Wikipedia Review began to focus more on popularity and less on integrity. Ever since that director came on (Col Scott, I forget his real name), Wikipedia Review has focussed on what would make them look good rather than what was the right thing to do. For ages we were accused of doing the wrong thing, but then we started to actually do it.

Poetlister should never have been promoted, because Poetlister was never regular enough to warrant it. Poetlister was also the subject of a criticism, hence a poor choice as administrator. Guy perhaps should have been promoted, but they should not have considered both at once, since they were speaking with one voice. Whether they were separate people or not, it is not on.

I do not think that using real names is the answer. That was tried on Citizendium, and it doesn't really make things any better. In the end, if you use your real name on the internet, it just means that the anonymous millions will have more things to smear your name with. When you are talking about criticism and such, you are putting your name out there, and it is dangerous to list your real name.

Besides which, I have known many incidences when people have used what they claimed were their real names, but they actually weren't. It doesn't actually help that situation all that much. Blissyu2 04:40, 10 October 2008 (PDT)