Controversy has erupted among the encyclopedia's core contributors, after a rogue editor revealed that the site's top administrators are using a secret insider mailing list to crackdown on perceived threats to their power.
Many suspected that such a list was in use, as the Wikipedia "ruling clique" grew increasingly concerned with banning editors for the most petty of reasons. But now that the list's existence is confirmed, the rank and file are on the verge of revolt.
Revealed after an uber-admin called "Durova" used it in an attempt to enforce the quixotic ban of a longtime contributor, this secret mailing list seems to undermine the site's famously egalitarian ethos. At the very least, the list allows the ruling clique to push its agenda without scrutiny from the community at large. But clearly, it has also been used to silence the voice of at least one person who was merely trying to improve the encyclopedia's content.
What struck me particularly was the following passage:
Durova then posted a notice to the site's public forum, insisting the ban was too important for discussion outside the purview of the Arbitration Committee, Wikipedia's Supreme Court. "Due to the nature of this investigation, our normal open discussion isn't really feasible," she said. "Please take to arbitration if you disagree with this decision."
Now, where have I heard that before? "This person is guilty: we can prove it, but doing so would reveal terrible states secrets, so you'll just have to trust us" - oh yes, I remember: it's the standard trope used to justify internment in Guantanamo, "extraordinary rendition" or simple kidnapping; it's the same trick that has been used by totalitarian governments the world over to justify repressive "anti-terror" laws that cannot be questioned, because doing so would aid the "enemy".
Not very good company for Wikipedia, "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit", to be keeping. The sunlight of openness would do a world of good here - and anywhere else power that claims to be democratic refuses to explain its actions to the people.
It's deja-vu all over again.
ReplyDeleteThat's what they said about my block/ban - "he's guilty, no we're going to keep the evidence private, you'll just have to trust us".
Back in the early part of 2007, Durova stated that I had "given misleading information to journalists". When I asked to see the evidence, she first said that she thought she recalled reading something in the Wikipedia Signpost about me. When I researched that for her and pointed that nothing of that defamatory sort could be found about me in the Signpost, she THEN made up another story. She said she had compiled evidence against me, but that disclosing it to me might compromise her anonymity. (At the time, she was trying to hide the fact that she was Lise Broer, despite that connection already circulating on the Internet.) So, I never got the evidence. The AP reporter who wrote about me (Brian Bergstein) was the unsolicited recipient of this evidence, but he told me that it "wasn't relevant" to his story about me.
ReplyDeleteIronic, isn't it? And Jimmy Wales STILL maintains that Durova was the one who was mistreated in this entire debacle. The fish rots from the head down.
All very sad, all very worrying.
ReplyDeleteWhen I suggested a comparison between Durova's backroom dirtcollecting and the House Unamerican Affairs Committee, I was roundly criticized for "personal attacks", and Jimbo has since several times accused me of making "personal attacks" for criticizing Wikipedia.
ReplyDeleteYou see, on Wikipedia a "personal attack" is any statement that Jimbo doesn't like.
I spent a good deal of time in the 90s studying cults. Wikipedia is showing many of the signs of cultic behavior. It's an open question whether it can avoid becoming one completely.
The evidence mounts....
ReplyDelete