Governance Reform for Wikipedia?

WMF logo as a mosaic of images
Image via Wikimedia CommonsPreviously, I wrote about a Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) wide Wikicouncil. That idea continues to spark discussion (whether I think it's a good idea or not is another matter :) ) ... it has been the subject of discussion by the WMF board, but it appears that the idea is shelved, at least for now.

There is another initiative brewing, perhaps somewhat more grass roots, to foster "governance reform" on the English Wikipedia. The proposal and the talk page make interesting reading.

The argument put forth by proponents is that there has been a failure to get many proposals for reform enacted using the existing (consensus based) processes, and very few reform proposals imposed by fiat either, and that therefore a new process is needed.

Wikimedia Foundation wikis tend to operate using policy that is "descriptive", that is, policy lags behind practice and is written to describe how things are actually done, and as practice changes, policy changes to follow it, or lags practice. By contrast, "prescriptive" policy is written to describe how things ought to be done, and it is changed to force a change in actual practice, that is, policy leads practice.

If this proposal were adopted it would be a major change away from descriptive policy, and, some argue, away from the "wiki way".

Given the number of abortive attempts to change BLP policy that there have been lately, and the frustration I and others have expressed, this proposal has a certain attraction. Heck, it's a siren song... to think that if this were passed, 50 (or however many) reasonable people would now be able to change policy to be as I think it should be, regardless of "consensus" not being for the change. (we have seen things get 65% support and then be declared as dead, lacking consensus)

But there's the rub... who's to say that the 50 (or however many) people selected to be on this thing will be "reasonable", "thoughtful", "bold", etc? If the process used to select them is anything like the Request for Adminship process of late, it's just as likely that they will be popular, non controversial people who have never annoyed anyone or taken a stand on anything... and how do we know if they've never taken a stand what their stand will be on matters going forward? We won't know.

So I don't see this as a good idea, even if we wanted to change away from the wiki way of descriptive policy.

What do you think? Do you think the English Wikipedia has a problem with getting policy to change? If so, do you think the way to solve it is to change to prescriptive policy? And if so, do you think this governance reform is the way to achieve that?

I'd like to know! Tell me! Put your comments in on the talk page as well!

Sungevity, another easy route to solar power?

Earth Day ecology flag
Image via Wikimedia CommonsI previously wrote about SolarCity, the California outfit trying to make it easy to get greener electricity.

It seems fitting, for Earth Day, to talk about another vendor who's trying to make it easy, Sungevity. These guys, like SolarCity, offers pretty much a turn key solution. Contract with them, and they handle the planning, paperwork, financing, and installation. There is major motivation to make a go of it, because California has put 3.3 Billion USD worth of incentives in place. (why I think that's not necessarily a good idea would be the topic for a different post... the point is, the money's out there for California residents to get, so if they can, they should)

The twist in the business model here is that the folk at Sungevity think they can reduce costs by using satellite imagery to understand your house's layout, south facing roof configuration, and so forth, allowing them to design an installation without ever actually doing a site visit. I'm somewhat dubious, but they are claiming a 10% price advantage over the competition. Basically their process has you enter your address, choose what you want in a system, and they generate a plan and quote from the imagry

It's good to see competition and different ideas being tried, it will be interesting to see how things turn out. But I have my doubts.

Meanwhile I'm continuing my search for a vendor that's local... stay tuned on that, I may have found someone, we'll see...

Experts

Many systems of governance/management/administration (although not all) rely on elections to select, or partly select leaders/administrators/adjudicators. The English Wikipedia is no different, in that it has a system of elections for administrators, for bureaucrats, and for arbitrators. Some may quibble whether these are pure elections, but there is an aspect of community popular voting to all of them, to be sure.

It is important not to fall into the trap of thinking that because one won a popular vote that one is somehow more qualified on various matters than those that did not. This is an easy trap to fall into, and unfortunately, sometimes, some members of our ArbCom fall into it. The Mantanmoreland case provides some instances of this, in my view.

Here, Uninvited Company opines that the statistical analysis used in the Mantanmoreland case, developed and vetted by many other community members, lacks rigor.

Here, and here, Jpgordon opines that statistical analysis cannot (yet?) be relied upon, but that textual analysis by arbitrators can, and well should, be.

Here, FT2 is giving us a bit of "I know it when I see it..." which should give us pause.

There are many more examples but these suffice. The arbitrators, at least some of them, at least some of the time, think they know more than others about some rather esoteric topics.

Well, I don't agree... not to give the arbitrators too much of a hard time, but no, not always, not by default.

As I said here ... there is absolutely no reason to believe that arbitrators start out knowing any more about anything in particular (just because they won a modified popularity contest) than anyone else about things like evaluating checkuser results, performing and validating statistical analysis, patterns of speech analysis, jurisprudence, or even arbitration, the process, itself.

I suspect I am not the only person that feels this way. For example Alanyst answers Univited Company's opining with some vigor here, saying, in part:

The point is, for those of us who tried to do this the right way -- methodical, objective, transparent, public, open to either conclusion, willing to go where the evidence led -- the message we got back is that such attributes are not desirable in a sockpuppet investigation, and such matters ought to be handled by those with the experience and judgment to make subjective evaluations of private evidence, discuss them in opaque deliberations, and report unattributed findings of inexplicable inconclusiveness. To get that message back from people we generally trust and admire -- the several skeptical arbitrators -- is what remains so difficult to understand.

That is quite strongly worded, if you ask me. But it points to a real problem, but one that's easily fixed if people keep in mind their own limitations. We are all of us human, after all. No one should take offense at being reminded of this.

Wikicouncil

Danny Wool's post about a Volunteer Council reminded me of the proposed Wikicouncil. I'm not sure whether these are the same thing or different ideas, but the idea of a Wikicouncil leaves me kind of confused as to what problem it is actually trying to solve. I'm not sure a new layer of governance without a clear mission is a good idea, we may have enough of those already.

That idea has been kicking around apparently since 2005 and still seems not quite fully formed.

What do you think?

(edit: Wikicouncil is indeed what is being referred to, see this mail from Effeiet Sanders, thanks to Danny for linking this up for me... my view hasn't changed, I am not sure this is a good idea, see this talk page to discuss pros and cons... )