Creating an Accountable and Trustworthy Wikipedia, Wikimedia, and Wikia

For those of us who haven't heard about it, Wikipedia is the "Web 2.0" poster child of our time. Depending on who you ask, it was either founded solely by Jimbo Wales (of Bomis.com fame) or Wales co-founded it with Larry Sanger, the latter of whom now having a pet project encyclopedia of his own with "gentle expert oversight" called Citizendium.

Regardless of its somewhat torrid past history, Wikipedia is the the well-known and hotly debated "encyclopedia that anyone can edit". Many charges have been leveled against Wikipedia, raising appropriate questions as to its accuracy and, more over, the conduct of those who edit it. A quick Google News search will doubtless bring to you the cacophony of dissenting voices from critics and supporters alike. (As corollary to that, a Google search of names, places, or events will produce a Wikipedia article covering that subject as one of the top results.)

The well-documented problems with Wikipedia, which will not be gone through in mirthless detail here, stem from its contributors. Everything from the John Siegenthaler scandal to the "Essjay scandal" stems from an inherent problem within how Wikipedia allows people to contribute. Moreover, there's the laissez-faire way Wikipedia tends to leave its editors to their own devices, which itself is the biggest double edged sword that Wikipedia has in its arsenal.

This is the hole in the dike that the little Dutch boy can no longer put his finger in to hold back the water. And we're seeing the cracks and deficiencies in the construct, all stemming from the lack of proper accountability.

As all things do, this lack of proper accountability has a history behind it:

Back when Wikipedia first started, the issue before the nascent project was to create content. The easiest and quickest way to do this was to just simply allow anyone to edit, and basically hope that whatever was thrown together stuck to the big electronic cork board.

Have you ever seen the bulletin boards at the entrance and exits of your local Wal*Mart plastered with advertisements, fliers, and missing persons notices? Apply that concept to a website and, presto, you have the beginnings of Wikipedia. As with the bulletin board, anyone can contribute, and remove your content at the same time someone else adds something. And you won't even notice it's gone.

Moreover, the lofty, hazy-eyed idealists grabbed on to the sales pitch and began to espouse the "free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" slogan to recruit people. They didn't see beyond the language, nor the ramifications of using such vague and expansive terminology... otherwise they would have realized that they were just creating a massive problem for themselves later on. The publicity of creating a "free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" has now also become the mission statement of Wikipedia as well.

Sounds very cool, doesn't it?

However, just think for a moment. What does "anyone" mean? Without looking at a dictionary, how would you define that in your own words?

"Anyone" means any person from every walk of life, every corner of the planet, regardless of race, religion, creed, or education can submit, modify, and remove content as they will.

Now the first thing that may come to mind is the "wow" factor. And if your an honest, wide-eyed optimist armed with information and the ability to compose sentences and paragraphs, this probably appeals to you. The "credential shtick" is no longer the big deal it was, and, alas, you finally have a place to congregate with others of your ilk to debate the finer points of quantum theory, how many times Kirk's shirt got ripped in Star Trek or whether any of the innumerable 9/11 conspiracy theories have any merit.

Except that, if you look at the world through bloodshot eyes (or cloudy-eyed optimism), you forgot the full meaning of "anyone". Or maybe ignored it in the first place, because it was a mental and ethical inconvenience. The other side of the coin shows us the darker side of the human race: the unethical, the immoral, the dishonest.

The people of that coin's sidewho will lie, cheat, and subtly convert a well written article into something other than the truth, giving us a pack of lies or something that looks to be truth on the surface, but is no better than a con artist in disguise. And I'm not taking about "vandals" who blank pages, add derogatory comments, or assault contributors with the eloquence of a mentally-restricted school yard bully.

Which leads us to the necessity of finding a means to separate the wheat from the chaff...

If you look through Wikipedia, you'll see the breadth of documentation that highlights the duties of administrators, in addition to policies, procedures and guidelines all Wikipedians are supposed to adhere to. Some of them make sense. Others look like they've been ripped from an computer programmer's manual. Even more seem to be written by aficionados of incomprehensible technobabble or PR spinning.

So Wikipedia does have an internal structure and a SOP that they follow, created or modified as needed with such modifications ratified by consensus. We may liken it to another living document which is amended and corrected as needed: the United States Constitution. So they have a toolbox and an assembly of literature to fall back upon...

Except... who ensures that this Wikipedia SOP is adhered to?

Well, Wikipedia has an honor system. Contributors can whistle-blow on other contributors (or even "administrators" and "bureaucrats", high-level custodians for the project) by simply messaging an administrator, setting up a "Request for comment" on users, or going through a set-up mediation process.

Of course, again, we're talking about process and roles. Not about the people who are behind the processes and occupy the roles.

So how are these people hired or promoted to fill these roles?

We know now that they are basically hired off the street without even so much as a cursory interview. Sure, they can slap something up on their user page that looks like a biography, but do we really know who these people are?

No.

So how does one then get "promoted" in a business such as Wikipedia? (Yes, Wikipedia is a business, it's in the "information" business.)

Well, like anyone who wants to get promoted, you need to work for it. You need to prove yourself under fire, by dealing with people who may not see eye-to-eye with you, or want to include (or dramatically change) articles which you've worked on to suit their own world-view. You need to prove it by writing articles, editing them, and even "vandal fighting" and doing the household chores, such as participating in the "Articles for Deletion" process.

Then you are promoted based off your work, since it has now sold you to others. The promotion is done not by any figurehead, but rather a group of active contributors who essentially vote to support or oppose your nomination. This process is identified as a "request for adminship", which is laid out here.

A similar process is done for bureaucrats, appropriately called a "request for bureaucratship", which are people who have a few more tools on their belt, basically renaming users, authorizing automated programs called bots, and promoting contributors to the vaunted rank of "administrator". As for how they directly affect the content of Wikipedia:

"[T]hey are expected to exercise judgment in changing user names, and ensure that the bot policies are followed when granting bot status to a user. They are expected to be capable judges of consensus, and are expected to explain the reasoning for their actions on request and in a civil manner."

Now there are criteria that are met and questions asked, very much like an interview. These are the basic questions that are asked to potential administrators:

1. What admin work do you intend to take part in?
2. What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?
3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or have other users caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?

All questions that tackle what contributors and the higher ups view to be of importance, including a competency question. Also, people are capable of adding their own questions, should they feel the need.

However, you can ask a thousand questions to an applicant, and still come up with a lump of coal, even if you believe it to be a diamond.

Which brings me back to the "Essjay scandal" I brought up briefly beforehand. Essentially, Essjay went through the same process that I've described above, although it's slightly changed over time. On his user page, he wrote this biography on his "professional life":

I am a tenured professor of theology at a private university in the eastern United States; I teach both undergraduate and graduate theology. I have been asked repeatedly to reveal the name of the institution, however, I decline to do so; I am unsure of the consequences of such an action, and believe it to be in my best interests to remain anonymous.

I hold the following academic degrees:

* Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies (B.A.)

* Master of Arts in Religion (M.A.R.)

* Doctorate of Philosophy in Theology (Ph.D.)

* Doctorate in Canon Law (JCD)

He also never revealed his name, which is a fairly common occurrence on Wikipedia. Much like message boards, people more often than not refer to other contributors by their usernames.

However, when he became an administrator, mediator, and bureaucrat, he continued to make people believe he was a "tenured professor" with degrees in religious studies and canon law.

Due mostly to his work on Wikipedia, he became a model citizen of Wikipedia, and was interviewed by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Stacy Schiff of The New Yorker, who repeated the above information. After that, he became a high profile member of the community, which lead to his job to a salaried spot in Wikia, the for-profit company run by Jimbo Wales.

Just to be clear here, Wales also sits on Wikimedia, which is the foundation that backs Wikipedia, dealing with the financial contributions that many thousands of people pour into the "free encyclopedia". Wikia is the for-profit company that runs entertainment wiki sites such as Memory-Alpha, Wookieepedia, and Uncyclopedia.

Of course, when he was promoted and settled into his new job, that's when things began to unravel. The truth came when he himself wrote a jarringly different biography on his Wikia page; his name was Ryan Jordan, he was twenty-four years of age (not the thirty he previously claimed), and neither held any advanced degrees from an accredited university nor has taught in any professional capacity.

Yes, so Jordan was now outed as a deceitful editor. A liar of the highest degree. Every act, edit, and decision he made during his tenure at Wikipedia was now questioned by his fellow peers, who descended upon him like vultures, despite his enablers inside the Wiki-trifecta: Wikipedia, Wikimedia, and Wikia. Wales himself defended him, claiming that his deceit was an attempt to protect his identity online.

Whether Wales knew the whole truth or not, really, is irrelevant to his claims. As a leader, he is fully responsible and answerable for every facet and every act committed by the people under him.

The sad part of that incident is that it, as well as the subsequent egg on Wales' face, could have been avoided with a well-used tool called a "background check".

Of course, lightening does apparently strike twice as the background check issue reared its serpent-like head merely a few months later.

This time, it is another employee hired by Wales in January 2007, a woman by the name of Carolyn Bothwell Doran. After temping for "a few months" as a part-time accountant for Wikimedia, they hire her to be their Chief Operating Officer, in charge for balancing the books and addressing the financial needs of the non-profit foundation.

On Independence Day, the Wikimedia Foundation passed a resolution that removed Doran from the Wikimedia's mailing list. A month later, she was arrested in Pinellas Park, Florida as a result of an arrest warrant issued by Loudon County, Virginia's sheriff.

The impetus of this? Let's start with the fact that Doran is a convicted felon in three states: Virgina, Maryland, and Texas. Her numerous convictions vary from petty larceny, passing bad checks, theft... and to top it all off, various driving under the influence of alochol convictions, one of which resulted in a hit-and-run fatality. There was also the one time she shot her boyfriend in the chest.

Another "stellar" employee to be sure, the Wikimedia foundation didn't know that she was on parole for the aforementioned fatality-resulting DUI. Not to mention the fact that she broke said parole to attend a Wikimedia board meeting in Amsterdam. That's because they didn't pay the one- to two-thousand dollars for the NCIC background check that would have revealed all these deeds.

Understand that background checks are done by employers to determine the claims of their potential employees. A business will, without fail, check references and their legal status as a resident of the United States of America before hiring someone.

Either Wales did not perform a background check before hiring either on as a salaried employee, or did. I'm going to go ahead and "assume good faith" that he didn't, since the opposite would make Wales and company complicit in unethical -- or merely incompetent -- behavior.

(Before I finish, I should note that I tried to do a search for "background check" and could not find one Wikipedia guideline, policy or procedure to verify claims of its members. Unsurprisingly, I did come across an article on the subject -- an article that has been marked for "cleanup" since December 2006. I will also note that the article on the subject of criminal records has been marked for cleanup since July 2007.)

The damning point to be made here is that Wikipedia's higher-ups lack accountability and, perhaps even more damningly, common sense and competency. Administrators, bureaucrats, trustees and members of the Foundation apparently don't check the credentials of their employees -- and do not make the mistake of thinking that they are not "employees". They are employees by their very definition and, regardless of whether or not they work pro bono, and should be treated as such.

This is not to say that every single contributor should have their backgrounds verified. This is an unrealistic request as background checks are costly and time consuming affairs when done in bulk. Thus, background checks should be done on the people at the top (Wikimedia Board of Trustees and hired employees), then work their way down the mediators, bureaucrats, and administrators on a priority scale.

Should if they refuse to submit, then they don't get the job. Very clean cut and dry, like a business.

The Wiki-trifecta has a consumer confidence issue; academics, students and people capable of critical thinking a wary of it, and justifiably so. Despite the PR that claims that Wikipedia is just as accurate as Encyclopedia Brittanica, the fact remains that there will always be that shadow of a doubt hanging over Wikipedia's head due to the lack of accountability. And accountability cannot be held if you're only targeting a villain hiding behind a Guy Fawkes mask, a mere Wikipedia account -- or even a convicted felon minding the house silver, apparently.