[wongarsu]

So to summarize:

he resuggested "WikiProject Intellectual Diversity", a group with the goal to make "Wikipedia more intellectually diverse" and "ensure fair and open decision-making and governance, broaden the range of permissible sources, reinforce genuine neutrality, rein in over-aggressive blocking while holding the powerful to higher standards of accountability", etc, with the implied undertone of preventing Wikipedia from drifting too far to the political left.

This is unpopular because people oppose this on various grounds (mostly that it might be vote brigading and tiling decisions in their favor just by showing up in an organised way around wikipedia). Also the same project was apparently suggested before and rejected in early stages

But then he made a tweet that basically just says "I suggested this, some people like it, some hate it". That's super against the rules, because it attracts people to the proposal who otherwise wouldn't have seen it. Probably in an attempt to sway discussion, because his tweets are obviously seen primarily by people who like his ideas

Which then lead to the vote to ban him from editing Wikipedia. With a total ban getting more votes than a more limited ban, like banning him from participating in articles namespaced for internal matters

Is that about right?

[Sweepi]

Well there is a lot more, e.g.:

After that, Larry Sanger remarked: "What people don't realize, actually, is the number of people who are actually at work on Wikipedia on any given day is not really that enormous. It's more in the hundreds or low thousands, not in the millions. Well, there's a lot of people in India. There's a lot of educated people in India, right? There's a lot more educated people in India than there are in, say, England. Just due to sheer numbers, you can field a lot of good writers on Wikipedia, and if you quite simply learn how to play the game..." (33:54).

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Adminis...

[Aurornis]

You cut out the context, making it look like he was trying to bias the website.

The part you left out was that he was asked by the interviewer how Indians who felt the site was biased against them could fight the bias:

> When asked about how "Indians and Hindus who feel there is this bias" could "fight it actively", Larry Sanger responded:

So he’s saying that a group can combat bias on the site by participating in the site. India has a lot of educated people and therefore it wouldn’t be hard to find people to contribute. Why is this so controversial?

[wongarsu]

Ok, saying things like "The left marched through this institution. There’s no reason we can’t march right back" is pretty bad.

To be clear: it would be equally bad if you swapped left and right in that sentence. I don't know if his assessment of the issues with Wikipedia is correct, but his solutions aren't what you propose if you want to make Wikipedia more neutral

[Aurornis]

> Ok, saying things like "The left marched through this institution. There’s no reason we can’t march right back" is pretty bad.

He’s not saying they need to “march through this institution”. He’s saying they need to learn how to navigate the increasingly Byzantine rules set up by the small number of editors so they can contribute to the site.

[throwawaypath]

>Ok, saying things like "The left marched through this institution. There’s no reason we can’t march right back" is pretty bad.

Why is that bad?

>To be clear: it would be equally bad if you swapped left and right in that sentence.

Not at all, if it was swapped, the left would be calling for diversity, equity, and inclusion. They'd call those opposing said diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives every -ist they could throw, all while playing the victim.

Then O'Sullivan's First Law inevitably comes true and the terminally online leftist entryists shut anyone right of them out.

[rozab]

I'm trying to find the charitable read on this and I'm unable to. He's saying that it would be great to allow Hindu ethnonationalist sources, because that would open up a talent pool of Hindo ethnonationalist editors? What kind of an argument is that?

[afh1]

Yes, banned by the status quo for trying to disturb it. Wikipedia is nowadays highly politicized and more time and energy are spent on politics than on actually contributing with any useful knowledge. I've stopped contributing years ago after a decade of writing because of how bad things had gotten. It's a lost battle, all that remains is scorched earth filled with toxic editors trying to push their POV and banning everyone who exposes them or attempts to change things.

[martinald]

Yes agreed, for example, there was an interesting table on the starlink page I used to check every so often showing which countries had access to starlink as it was rolled out. Was interesting to see the expansion.

Of course, some editor decided it was 'marketing' for starlink so it got deleted despite loads of people protesting. It was the only source I could find easily for showing which country got starlink when.

A huge list of prose is still on the page (not marketing?) showing the updates in a very hard to read and not comprehensive way. Something is really quite wrong over there.

[ieie3366]

And the worst is the cycle:

1. There is incorrect information on wikipedia.

2. Legacy news publishes an article, using wikipedia as source (of course).

3. Now the incorrect information is essentially canonized

[JdeBP]

On the other hand, some of the best is when a hoax written by a monk in the north of England some time around 1300 is debunked by late 20th century scholarship, and eventually someone makes Wikipedia no longer re-hash a propagandist revision of the Battle of Stirling Bridge re-set in Wales that stood unchallenged for almost 7 centuries.

* https://youtube.com/v/mLdB5s7-h0w

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletio...

[ieie3366]

It’s a shame :( There’s a lot of blatantly incorrect information on wikipedia, and i’ve had multiple wikipedia edits reverted due to ’bad sources’

[wongarsu]

An interesting procedural detail is how an admin decided to just close the discussion and ban the user before the mandatory discussion period was over, and got a lot of pushback for the sloppy decision making process. This was overturned, only for another admin to reach the same conclusion seven hours later, after the discussion was online for the mandatory 72 hours (with no consideration for the two hours between the wrongful decision and the reversal)

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Adminis...

[Aurornis]

Having a labyrinth of rules to follow and then applying them asymmetrically is a classic way to build power for the ingroup and exile outsiders.

The ingroup knows the rules well enough that they can wait until an enemy crosses one of the rules, then they have an excuse to punish them. The more rules on the books, the more opportunities to use them against your enemies.

When someone inside breaks the rules, it’s treated as a misstep, handled internally, and then forgiven after a short ceremony to make it look like order and procedure are still being maintained.

[chollida1]

> But then he made a tweet that basically just says "I suggested this, some people like it, some hate it". That's super against the rules, because it attracts people to the proposal who otherwise wouldn't have seen it.

How would this in any way be against the rules? Wouldn'tan open and democratic process like wikipedia want as many eyes as possible on a vote or rule change?

That sounds completely backwards from the open and free spirit of wikipedia. If even wikipedia has gone full mob rule then hwo do any projects stay open and free to everyone?

[ameliaquining]

Consensus-based decision making doesn't work if people can bring in their existing audience from elsewhere to overwhelm the discussion. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Canvassing.

[bayindirh]

(Note: This is what I got from the Talk page about the ban)

The core idea is, Wikipedia has internal mechanisms to make these kinds of notifications, and making these decisions needs some knowledge and experience about how Wikipedia works.

Recruiting inexperienced people to bias decisions which requires knowledge is effectively converting that proposal to a blunt instrument and trying to force your way in (aka bludgeon).

When the mechanisms in place and requirement of experience (i.e. competence), whistling the town square and calling people to force a gate is textbook brigading, and brigading is forbidden everywhere (maybe except 4chan/8chan).

[dotancohen]

> Recruiting inexperienced people to bias decisions which requires knowledge is effectively converting that proposal to a blunt instrument and trying to force your way in (aka bludgeon).

I agree with your premise and with your conclusion. That said, campaigning in a democracy is exactly recruiting inexperienced people to bias decisions which requires knowledge. Any support of that viewpoint would effectively ban political campaigning.

[john_strinlai]

>How would this in any way be against the rules? Wouldn'tan open and democratic process like wikipedia want as many eyes as possible on a vote or rule change?

if you bring in a bunch of non-wikipedia people (i.e. people who haven't previously cared about or participated in wikipedia discussions at all), all from 1 person's twitter following, you aren't getting "open and free spirit"-ed discussion. you are getting a bunch of larry followers who want larry to "win"

[WarmWash]

While I agree, the internet has also long suffered from brigading (for better or worse) because the barrier-to-action is virtually zero.

[altilunium]

The Wikipedia community proudly states that they're not a democracy [1]. I don't even know how that works. People simply think their opinion is the best one while hiding behind statements like, "This is THE consensus, you can't do anything about it. Oh, Wikipedia IS NOT A DEMOCRACY, so your pathetic voting attempt has literally no power here."

[1] : https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia:IS_NOT_A_DEMOCRACY...

[Sweepi]

Why not quote the rule, if it is so offending?:

  Wikipedia is not an experiment in democracy or any other political system. Its primary (though not exclusive) means of decision making and conflict resolution is editing and discussion leading to consensus—not voting. (Voting is used for certain matters such as electing the Arbitration Committee.) Straw polls are sometimes used to test for consensus, but polls or surveys can impede, rather than foster, discussion and should be used with caution.

  Off-site petitions and votes have no weight in the formation of consensus on Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_no...

[JdeBP]

Fun fact:

Sanger wrote the original version of that rule, and its change over the years has reflected a shift from people coming to Wikipedia in the very early years thinking that they could just do whatever the Hell they wanted, to in later years people coming to Wikipedia thinking that it is run like a legislature.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Diff/423054

[stonogo]

I would describe Wikipedia's process as democratic but not necessarily open. And it's pretty hypocritical to describe how they operate as 'mob rule' while complaining that rabble-rousing on other platforms should be allowed. Which is it? Should Sanger be allowed to raise a mob to win a policy vote, or should Wikipedia forbid external vote-whipping?

I stopped engaging with Wikipedia because my experience of their administration is that it's deeply toxic. This specific instance doesn't seem too out-of-hand to me, since the rules are clear in this instance. It's where there are grey areas that their behavior starts to get unhinged.

[lanyard-textile]

Remember that the editors of wikipedia do not owe us anything. Time is a gift, and they give theirs to us in great abundance.

It's perfectly acceptable for them to charter their own rules and keep these kinds of matters internal until they agree it's best, for their goals, to involve the public.

Frankly, they strive to be some of the greatest practitioners on neutrality. This is not the kind of organization that needs the kind of public correction you are wondering about.

And if it was, I think we can all understand why modern day Twitter is the wrong place to exclusively inspire that discussion.

[pjc50]

> "intellectually diverse"

That instantly set off the alarm. It's a conservative phrase that's been carefully crafted to look like one of of those "should we consider feminist/indigenous/nonwhite perspectives" pieces of discourse, except in this case it means "people who have been proven wrong or have no real evidence". Anti-vaxxers, climate change deniers and so on.

Edit: well that hit a nerve

[classified]

> that hit a nerve

Speaking the unvarnished truth often does.

[throwawaypath]

> "intellectually diverse"

That instantly set off the alarm. It's a liberal phrase that's been carefully crafted to look like one of of those "should we consider feminist/indigenous/nonwhite perspectives" pieces of discourse, except in this case it means "people who have been proven wrong or have no real evidence". Anti-nuclear activists, biological sex deniers and so on.

[tpm]

And once they get powerful enough, both diversity and intellect suffer.

[tialaramex]

"Intellectual Diversity" seems to be another of these "Intelligent Design" rebrandings where rather than admit they were wrong the same crap just gets re-branded and goes straight back on the shelf.