When we were claiming blog topics at the beginning of the semester, I jumped on the opportunity to motivate the discussion on dystopic views of Wikipedia. After going through this week’s readings, though, I found that the positive and negative aspects of Wikipedia’s collaborative project are often inextricably linked.

As Joe Mullin’s article demonstrates, the Wikimedia Foundation doesn’t always make clear its positioning … to the point of hypocrisy. In Mullin’s discussion of Sarah Stierch’s termination, he quotes Wikimedia’s Senior Director of Programs, Frank Schulenberg, standing behind Wikimedia’s decision on the grounds that “it is widely known that paid editing is frowned upon by many in the editing community and by the Wikimedia Foundation,” while somewhat contradictorily spouting that “the Wikimedia movement is a place of forgiveness and compassion.” Well, apparently it wasn’t a place of forgiveness for Sarah Stierch. Clearly, though, paid editing is a potential problem. And I do mean potential, because who is going to determine if the editing itself is biased, meaning in violation of Neutral Point of View and/or Verifiability? Is the “bright line rule” (that paid advocates should limit their comments to  the “talk” page of an article) necessary? Presumably the Wikipedia community would eventually discover such biases and make the necessary changes to restore a NPOV. Should we believe that paid advocates will never adhere to the goodwill of Wikipedia’s guidelines?

I would also like to open up a discussion about Wikipedia’s democratic structures. We looked at the Categories for Deletion (CfD) discussion about American Women Novelists, the Article for Deletion discussion about David Horvitz, the Arbitration Committee (ArbCom) discussion about the Gender Gap Task Force (GGTF), as well as multiple articles discussing the ArbCom decision surrounding GamerGate (Reddit thread, Mark Bernstein’s “Infamous”, and Alex Hern’s article). Is the existence of the Arbitration Committee a sign that the Wikimedia Foundation’s goodwill does not work? In particular, the ruling surrounding the GamerGate ArbCom decision are extremely upsetting. I don’t think that the banned editors were guiltless, but doesn’t the ruling seem to favor GamerGate? Is that my own perspective on the conflict and issues at hand, or is systemic bias more deeply ingrained than I thought?

I was very drawn to ThatPeskyCommoner’s article “Wikipedia:High-functioning autism and Asperger’s editors”, which humorously draws attention to the fact that Wikipedia editors do not always know how to effectively communicate. (I came to this realization myself while reading through the various discussion pages.) Are Wikipedia editors equipped to deal with other editors on the spectrum? Maybe it’s human nature and the complexity of human emotions, but the discussion pages on Wikipedia are filled with much more than just productive conversation.