Larry Sanger Has Some Good Ideas to Fix Wikipedia—But Most Are Awful

 

Larry Sanger is well-intentioned, but most of his ideas are terrible.

Wikipedia is hopeless. 

There I said it. Frankly, that's one of the reasons my blog contributions have tapered off over time. The Hamas shills who went to the trouble of creating an imitation site could have saved their Qatari funding for something more useful. Sure there is plenty to write about, the Wikipedia Flood of anti-Israel editors is as pervasive as ever, but what's the point? Wikipedia will never improve. It cannot fix itself. 

That is why I advocate the thre Ds: defunding, demolishing and discrediting. Strip the Wikimedia Foundation of its tax-exempt status. Remove its Section 230 protection. Investigate its funding. Urge people to stop donating.

But now Larry Sanger, Wikipedia's co-founder, has come out with a proposal to fix Wikipedia that he calls the "nine pillars" (a takeoff on the universally disregarded "five pillars" of neutrality and fairness that supposedly govern Wikipedia). Sanger has been vocal in criticizing Wikipedia's left-wing bias, and now he has ideas on how to set things right.

Here is a full discussion  on Sanger's website. He also published his manifesto on Wikipedia. Here is a permalink to the original version, which has been chipped at by Wikipedians, some of whom are now seeking to delete it on specious grounds. and here is an abridged version published in the Free Press. 

Some of what Sanger suggests is good, but most of what he recommends is simply terrible.

Here's the good stuff (all quotes below are from the abridged version):

Revive the Original Neutrality Policy. Sanger maintains that Wikipedia used to actually be neutral in its early days.

He writes: "Wikipedia’s original and ordinary notion of neutrality is, simply, that when an article mentions a topic of controversy, it should be impossible to tell what position the article authors take on the controversy. In short, Wikipedia should not take sides. That’s how the site began."

Now, he correctly maintains, that's over. Now we see "casting aspersions on disliked politicians, institutions, and ideas, in a way that essentially means taking one side in a dispute; and omitting essential information with the same effect."

That's a good idea. But the problem is that it has to be enforced by the same editors who currently make the articles biased. 

Repeal "Ignore All Rules” is also a good idea. The same editors who can't be trusted with enforcing the rules shouldn't have the ability to ignore them, as currently permitted by the same rules. 

Reveal Who Wikipedia’s Leaders Are is easily his best idea.

He writes: 

Wikipedia’s editorial work is self-managed by a group of volunteers. But things are not as democratic as they seem. There are 62 accounts with the most authority, who have the ability to install and remove administrators or check the IP addresses of problem users.

But only 14.5 percent of these accounts reveal a full, real name. The vast majority of Wikipedia’s top editorial leadership is anonymous. . . . .

Wikipedians are doing important journalism: They document the world. But real journalists have reputations that can be tarnished, ruining their writing careers. That is as it should be.

Anonymity on Wikipedia has consequences. It makes it nearly impossible for victims of libel to pursue legal action, since individual editors are untraceable. This lack of accountability also enables conflicts of interest, where anonymous editors can exploit rules and biases to smear others without consequence.

If Wikipedia wishes to be a responsible player in the media scene, it must begin to act like one. Let the reputation of the most powerful Wikipedia editors rise or fall based on merit, and let it be tied to their real and full names. This is the standard for real-world journalism. Wikipedia should be no different.

Excellent idea. I have nothing to add to that except that it will never, ever be adopted because the same people who run Wikipedia benefit from anonymity, and they are never going to change this policy.

So that's three ideas that are good. Now come the bad ones: 

1. End Decision-Making by “Consensus.” Sanger correctly laments that the "consensus" process results in bias. His solution is "an open, identifiable editorial committee. Controversies should be settled by a vote of a subset of the committee, who can escalate important issues upward." 

But what makes him think that a "committee" of biased Wikipedians is the answer? 

Enable Competing Articles. He writes: "To better record the chorus of worldwide voices, Wikipedia should permit multiple, competing articles per topic, written within explicitly declared frameworks, each aiming at neutrality within its own framework." 

What this idea disregards is that the same biased, broken system would create those "competing" articles, and there is nothing to stop the "competing" articles from being just as bad.

Abolish Source Blacklists. He correctly points out that valid sources, including many conservative ones, are not allowed as sources and are "deprecated." But so are some really terrible ones, such as the Kremlin's MintPress. 

Abolishing source blacklists would make the sourcing of Wikipedia's "Israel/Palestine" articles even worse than it already is, replete with now-banned garbage from blogs, YouTube videos and   the Hezbollah organ Al Mayadeen.

Let the Public Rate Articles. Says Sanger: "If articles are evaluated by a diverse audience, content quality and neutrality will improve." How so? And what makes him think that articles would be rated by a "diverse" audience? 

It's more likely that the many pro-Hamas "Israeli genocide" and "Israeli massacre" articles would get a landslide of positive ratings from European leftists and the Arab world. The tiny handful of articles not following the anti-Zionist line would of course be down-voted. 

End Indefinite Blocking. Sanger correctly points out that "blocking—and especially indefinite blocking—can be and is used to ideologically purify the ranks of contributors. It is used, quite shamelessly, as a tool of gatekeeping." It is also used to remove genuinely malicious actors from articles. This idea would open the floodgates to abuse in thousands of articles on thousands of subjects and thousands of people.

And lastly there is Adopt a Legislative Process. 

Sanger is also correct in observing that "there is no legitimate, well-established way to ratify significant reforms. There have been few, if any, significant changes since 2006." He recommends "an editorial legislature chosen by fair elections. To establish legitimate and fair governance, the Wikimedia Foundation should convene a constitutional convention to create an editorial charter and assembly. This assembly would be empowered to make the sorts of changes proposed in these Nine Theses."

The "assembly" would be comprised of the same people who made Wikipedia into a partisan, often antisemitic horror show. Does he really think putting these people in positions of even greater power would help matters? And what makes him think that his ideas would be adopted? Perhaps the Wikipedia Flood would push for, and win, adoption of whatever ideas its Qatari overlords have in mind.

Sanger is well-intention, but his essay reinforces my original proposition, which is that Wikipedia is broken and cannot be fixed.