Editing Netizenship/Wikipedia
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''It's a good idea - but it only works in practice, not in theory.''--Common community joke | ''It's a good idea - but it only works in practice, not in theory.''--Common community joke | ||
Wikipedia stands alone on the list of most-visited websites as one which is governed by its users and contributors. The causes of this powerful exception are almost as unique: an origin in the open-source software movement, an obvious goal, a strong resultant sense of purpose, and strict standards of ethics and conduct. | |||
'''Wikipedia is fundamentally an anarchy'''; its first rule is [[wp:WP:IAR|ignore all rules]]: "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it." Over time, democratic and meritocratic elements have been added to its governance as they have been found necessary. Over all of this stretches a constitutional monarch: the Wikimedia Foundation. | '''Wikipedia is fundamentally an anarchy'''; its first rule is [[wp:WP:IAR|ignore all rules]]: "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it." Over time, democratic and meritocratic elements have been added to its governance as they have been found necessary. Over all of this stretches a constitutional monarch: the Wikimedia Foundation. | ||
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The 5th pillar is the first principle of Wikipedia, so far as governance is concerned; the others will be touched on as necessary. | The 5th pillar is the first principle of Wikipedia, so far as governance is concerned; the others will be touched on as necessary. | ||
Editors are careful to keep their discussion and debate "under the hood" and out of the view of "mainspace", the namespace where all the articles and outward-facing content are. Hence, most readers of Wikipedia are not aware that controversies | Editors are careful to keep their discussion and debate "under the hood" and out of the view of "mainspace", the namespace where all the articles and outward-facing content are. Hence, most readers of Wikipedia are not aware that controversies roil just below the surface of what they are reading. | ||
==Anarchy== | ==Anarchy== | ||
Wikipedia is, first and foremost, an ''anarchy''. | Wikipedia is, first and foremost, an ''anarchy''. | ||
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Wikipedia does not have firm rules; it has '''policies''' and '''guidelines''' which are enacted, changed, and interpreted by '''consensus'''. Consensus requires less than unanimity but more than a simple majority vote; it requires that all legitimate concerns weighing on the question be appropriately considered<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Consensus</ref>. (Even so, participants in major discussions will comment in "support", "oppose", or "neutral" sections, and number their statements within it, but they will still take care to call their statements "!votes", pronounced "not-votes"; their comments in favor or against are ''not votes'', and "Support" or "Oppose" accompanied by no reasoning or just "per [for the same reasons as] <another user>" is frowned upon.) As such, it is notoriously difficult to enact or change a major policy or guideline. | Wikipedia does not have firm rules; it has '''policies''' and '''guidelines''' which are enacted, changed, and interpreted by '''consensus'''. Consensus requires less than unanimity but more than a simple majority vote; it requires that all legitimate concerns weighing on the question be appropriately considered<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Consensus</ref>. (Even so, participants in major discussions will comment in "support", "oppose", or "neutral" sections, and number their statements within it, but they will still take care to call their statements "!votes", pronounced "not-votes"; their comments in favor or against are ''not votes'', and "Support" or "Oppose" accompanied by no reasoning or just "per [for the same reasons as] <another user>" is frowned upon.) As such, it is notoriously difficult to enact or change a major policy or guideline. | ||
The routine day-to-day work is also carried on by consensus, but these are strictly local and specific consensuses that cannot in any sense override the general and global consensus that formed the policies and guidelines. '''Content disputes''' ( | The routine day-to-day work is also carried on by consensus, but these are strictly local and specific consensuses that cannot in any sense override the general and global consensus that formed the policies and guidelines. '''Content disputes''' (what variant of English to use, what title an article should have, what language should be used in the text, and the like) are decided by consensus on the "talk page" of the article. | ||