Yes, specifically on arbitration I've only been taken to arbitration once. That was for a content dispute. The problem was that it was an issue that could have easily been resolved if anyone read the citations. But the arbitration is about conduct not content. I was astonished, nobody at any stage read any of the citations for the articles in question.
At the final point I got judged by people who had no knowledge at all of the topic area. They were guided only by their emotional reactions. It was about planetary protection which is a very important issue in modern space exploration. But of course none of them knew that, and the opposing editor drew analogies with the Andromeda strain, said that such concerns are absurd, and said that I was delusional, worrying about things that you don't need to worry about and editing wikipedia to support my delusions. I.e. a totally ad hominem argument - to convince them that I'm a bad editor. Anyone expert in the topic area could see he was saying nonsense - and later on I found out that he was probably just trolling and not really especially interested in the topic even.
Anyway, they answered quickly. I had no opportunity to discuss things with them - only way to respond was to edit my own area of the arbitration discussion, which was also limited in space. I could include links to other material in my user space but that was pointless as they didn't pay much attention to those.
They never asked me any questions about the dispute, never tried to talk to me personally at all. And they found this emotional argument convincing, they all voted against me.
That completely put me off ever trying to get anything settled by arbitration at the highest level.
The dispute finally ended because the opposing editor left wikipedia in the middle of the dispute saying he'd had enough of this and needed to get on with his research - what an editor who was supporting me through the process called "Throwing his toys out of the pram" or some such. So it ended with no outcome, though I think with a warning to me (can't remember the details). Luckily!
Anyway - I think the solution, for content disputes, would have to involve, in some way, some process by which disputes can be resolved by looking at the citations, on a content basis rather than trying to make everything into conduct issues. Sometimes it is purely a matter of content, not conduct, that the editors have different understanding of the sources. Or one of the editors hasn't bothered to read the sources thoroughly at all as in my case in this dispute.
And I'm not sure how. But verified identities could help, if you know for sure that, e.g. , someone is doing postgraduate research into that topic area or is a member of say the Curiosity team of scientists involved in implementing planetary protection for it (or any other such mission) or a member of COSPAR or connected with the planetary protection office or whatever - then they would be natural people to turn to on such questions.
Not to get a final opinion on it. But to get comments that would be respected because everyone knows they are indeed expert in this area. To somehow have respected experts who truly are expert - with a wide range of views so they don't slant the material with their statements.
And also - people who are expert enough and interested enough to actually read the citations - or - chances are they have read them already. That could make a huge difference I think in content disputes in the more academic areas at least.
The idea wouldn't be that they arbitrate on the matters. That would be too much like installing someone as an overall editor of the topic area.
But rather that they comment on them - and any arbitration - if it came to it - would be based on looking at these reviews of the content dispute by expert commentators. I.e. a bit similar to what they do now, but with some possibility for valued input by expert commentators who are recognized as being expert in their topic area. Rather than being respected for their views in a content dispute just because they have been editing wikipedia for a long time in a particular topic area, and have lots of friends there, as is the current situation.
(I'm basing this suggestion and remarks not just on this incident but on other ones as well where the views of a popular editor with lots of friends often prevails over other editors who may be much more expert, e.g. doing postgraduate research specializing in the topic area of the article in one example I know of).
The process works well for trolls and others who disrupt wikipedia, where the problem is their behaviour. Where it goes wrong, I think, is when they try to deal with content disputes as a behavioural issue. They need to find a way to deal with content disputes as a content issue.
But then they run into the problem that the way it is set up there is no overall editing control, and no verified experts. And the only people who know much about the topic area are the ones actually directly involved in the dispute, who are the ones who need arbitration.
So who can arbitrate on content issues? In areas like my special topic area of planetary protection, you can't rely on the general public, uninformed people, to do this. Because there are few news stories about it and most won't have come across them, so how can they know that it is an issue?
The planetary protection office is involved in outreach, Cassie Conley the planetary protection officer for instance visits schools to raise awareness, and in the papers the authors sometimes say that we need a wider awareness of these issues, but still there is not a huge amount of awareness of it. Probably none of the volunteers who arbitrated in my case had been to any of Cassie Conley's talks for instance, there is only so much one person can do.
And you can't expect the volunteer arbitrators to try to read long intricate and scholarly papers that are often also hard to read. They are doing it as volunteers and haven't got the time.
I think it is important to realize that wikipedia is totally volunteer lead. I have no personal grudge or animosity against the people who voted against me. They were doing this as volunteers to try to improve wikipedia. And they made what seemed to them an obvious decision based on the evidence presented to them, and judging it on behaviour - because they believed the opposing editor when he said I was a trouble maker and that the material I was adding to wikipedia represented my own personal views. They had no way of verifying that, not enough time to follow up the citations and read the material, they knew of it only through implausible science fiction movies, and so it seemed a clear decision to them.
So you need to find a solution that can be applied on a voluntary basis. It's not easy. I suggest that verified identities might help, so you can turn to subject matter experts to comment to help inform content based debates, but I'm not sure it would, it is just a suggestion.
The problem for wikipedia is that it's set up so there is no overall editor of a topic or article, and no verification. So - that's got it's obvious good side that everyone has a bias of some sort or another, and even with "writing for the enemy" it's not so easy for one editor to write well on all of a range of views or edit dispassionately, it is just human to have biases and preferences and blind spots.
I don't want wikipedia to lose this which I think is a great strength, if properly used.
It's not a problem with collaborative editing per se. Nowadays there are many collaboratively edited specialist sites. In Scholarpedia then you have to be a qualified expert in a topic area to write an article there. And each article has a main author who curates their article. They have the final decision on any changes. So that's one solution - ends up with reasonably good authoritative articles summarizing a field they are expert on - but still - tends to be one person's slant on the whole thing. And it tends to be a bit academic and hasn't taken off in the way wikipedia has.
Then another example, I often use MicrobeWiki. That is a slightly different approach - it is edited by students and academics at university. For a topic area like this, microbiology, where you need to study for many years to have a thorough understanding, it works well. It is naturally an academic topic area, and their articles are often better than the wikipedia ones in this particular topic area - though some of the wikipedia ones are also expert.
So that's another possibility to split it up into lots of separate wikis edited only by students and academics. But that would restrict the topics, and give it a bias towards academic consensus - which is often not the only view on a topic area.
I think it's a tricky thing, and am interested to see how it develops long term.
At the final point I got judged by people who had no knowledge at all of the topic area. They were guided only by their emotional reactions. It was about planetary protection which is a very important issue in modern space exploration. But of course none of them knew that, and the opposing editor drew analogies with the Andromeda strain, said that such concerns are absurd, and said that I was delusional, worrying about things that you don't need to worry about and editing wikipedia to support my delusions. I.e. a totally ad hominem argument - to convince them that I'm a bad editor. Anyone expert in the topic area could see he was saying nonsense - and later on I found out that he was probably just trolling and not really especially interested in the topic even.
Anyway, they answered quickly. I had no opportunity to discuss things with them - only way to respond was to edit my own area of the arbitration discussion, which was also limited in space. I could include links to other material in my user space but that was pointless as they didn't pay much attention to those.
They never asked me any questions about the dispute, never tried to talk to me personally at all. And they found this emotional argument convincing, they all voted against me.
That completely put me off ever trying to get anything settled by arbitration at the highest level.
The dispute finally ended because the opposing editor left wikipedia in the middle of the dispute saying he'd had enough of this and needed to get on with his research - what an editor who was supporting me through the process called "Throwing his toys out of the pram" or some such. So it ended with no outcome, though I think with a warning to me (can't remember the details). Luckily!
Anyway - I think the solution, for content disputes, would have to involve, in some way, some process by which disputes can be resolved by looking at the citations, on a content basis rather than trying to make everything into conduct issues. Sometimes it is purely a matter of content, not conduct, that the editors have different understanding of the sources. Or one of the editors hasn't bothered to read the sources thoroughly at all as in my case in this dispute.
And I'm not sure how. But verified identities could help, if you know for sure that, e.g. , someone is doing postgraduate research into that topic area or is a member of say the Curiosity team of scientists involved in implementing planetary protection for it (or any other such mission) or a member of COSPAR or connected with the planetary protection office or whatever - then they would be natural people to turn to on such questions.
Not to get a final opinion on it. But to get comments that would be respected because everyone knows they are indeed expert in this area. To somehow have respected experts who truly are expert - with a wide range of views so they don't slant the material with their statements.
And also - people who are expert enough and interested enough to actually read the citations - or - chances are they have read them already. That could make a huge difference I think in content disputes in the more academic areas at least.
The idea wouldn't be that they arbitrate on the matters. That would be too much like installing someone as an overall editor of the topic area.
But rather that they comment on them - and any arbitration - if it came to it - would be based on looking at these reviews of the content dispute by expert commentators. I.e. a bit similar to what they do now, but with some possibility for valued input by expert commentators who are recognized as being expert in their topic area. Rather than being respected for their views in a content dispute just because they have been editing wikipedia for a long time in a particular topic area, and have lots of friends there, as is the current situation.
(I'm basing this suggestion and remarks not just on this incident but on other ones as well where the views of a popular editor with lots of friends often prevails over other editors who may be much more expert, e.g. doing postgraduate research specializing in the topic area of the article in one example I know of).
BEHAVIOURAL ARBITRATION
The process works well for trolls and others who disrupt wikipedia, where the problem is their behaviour. Where it goes wrong, I think, is when they try to deal with content disputes as a behavioural issue. They need to find a way to deal with content disputes as a content issue.
But then they run into the problem that the way it is set up there is no overall editing control, and no verified experts. And the only people who know much about the topic area are the ones actually directly involved in the dispute, who are the ones who need arbitration.
WHO CAN ARBITRATE ON CONTENT ISSUES - ON A VOLUNTARY BASIS?
So who can arbitrate on content issues? In areas like my special topic area of planetary protection, you can't rely on the general public, uninformed people, to do this. Because there are few news stories about it and most won't have come across them, so how can they know that it is an issue?
The planetary protection office is involved in outreach, Cassie Conley the planetary protection officer for instance visits schools to raise awareness, and in the papers the authors sometimes say that we need a wider awareness of these issues, but still there is not a huge amount of awareness of it. Probably none of the volunteers who arbitrated in my case had been to any of Cassie Conley's talks for instance, there is only so much one person can do.
And you can't expect the volunteer arbitrators to try to read long intricate and scholarly papers that are often also hard to read. They are doing it as volunteers and haven't got the time.
I think it is important to realize that wikipedia is totally volunteer lead. I have no personal grudge or animosity against the people who voted against me. They were doing this as volunteers to try to improve wikipedia. And they made what seemed to them an obvious decision based on the evidence presented to them, and judging it on behaviour - because they believed the opposing editor when he said I was a trouble maker and that the material I was adding to wikipedia represented my own personal views. They had no way of verifying that, not enough time to follow up the citations and read the material, they knew of it only through implausible science fiction movies, and so it seemed a clear decision to them.
So you need to find a solution that can be applied on a voluntary basis. It's not easy. I suggest that verified identities might help, so you can turn to subject matter experts to comment to help inform content based debates, but I'm not sure it would, it is just a suggestion.
The problem for wikipedia is that it's set up so there is no overall editor of a topic or article, and no verification. So - that's got it's obvious good side that everyone has a bias of some sort or another, and even with "writing for the enemy" it's not so easy for one editor to write well on all of a range of views or edit dispassionately, it is just human to have biases and preferences and blind spots.
I don't want wikipedia to lose this which I think is a great strength, if properly used.
OTHER EXAMPLES OF COLLABORATIVE EDITING
It's not a problem with collaborative editing per se. Nowadays there are many collaboratively edited specialist sites. In Scholarpedia then you have to be a qualified expert in a topic area to write an article there. And each article has a main author who curates their article. They have the final decision on any changes. So that's one solution - ends up with reasonably good authoritative articles summarizing a field they are expert on - but still - tends to be one person's slant on the whole thing. And it tends to be a bit academic and hasn't taken off in the way wikipedia has.
Then another example, I often use MicrobeWiki. That is a slightly different approach - it is edited by students and academics at university. For a topic area like this, microbiology, where you need to study for many years to have a thorough understanding, it works well. It is naturally an academic topic area, and their articles are often better than the wikipedia ones in this particular topic area - though some of the wikipedia ones are also expert.
So that's another possibility to split it up into lots of separate wikis edited only by students and academics. But that would restrict the topics, and give it a bias towards academic consensus - which is often not the only view on a topic area.
I think it's a tricky thing, and am interested to see how it develops long term.
About the Author
Robert Walker
Writer of articles on Mars and Space issues - Software Developer of Tune Smithy, Bounce Metronome etc.Studied at Wolfson College, Oxford
Lives in Isle of Mull
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