There Is No Cabal: An Investigation into Wikipedia’s Legal Subculture
Published:
This is an investigation into an Internet subculture which I wrote for a class I took titled “Rhetorics of Cybercultures.” It is an ethnography into the community formed by small number of Wikipedia contributors who care enough to decide how, at some level, Wikipedia is run. The work discusses identity, communication, and organizational hierarchy in this subculture.
This work aims to investigate the legal culture of Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that is written and maintained largely by volunteers. The community often places itself in strict opposition to traditional encyclopedias, which are written for profit by a select group of hired experts. Wikipedia as a whole prides itself for being an open and free repository of information, as well as an attempt at being “a multilingual free encyclopedia of the highest quality to every single person on the planet in their own language” according to its founder, Jimmy Wales.
With over 285,000 [This is an investigation into an Internet subculture which I wrote for a class I took titled “Rhetorics of Cybercultures.” It is an ethnography into the community formed by small number of Wikipedia contributors who care enough to decide how, at some level, Wikipedia is run. The work discusses identity, communication, and organizational hierarchy in this subculture.
This work aims to investigate the legal culture of Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that is written and maintained largely by volunteers. The community often places itself in strict opposition to traditional encyclopedias, which are written for profit by a select group of hired experts. Wikipedia as a whole prides itself for being an open and free repository of information, as well as an attempt at being “a multilingual free encyclopedia of the highest quality to every single person on the planet in their own language” according to its founder, Jimmy Wales.
With over 285,000](http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediansContributors.htm) who make over six million edits per month on over five million substantial articles which consist, in total, of over one and a half billion words, Wikipedia has become somewhat of a mystery in organizational theory. The project incorporates a wide variety of opinions from users across the globe, yet disruptions to the natural order are few and far between. In fact, a study by Roy Rosenzweig showed that Wikipedia was roughly as accurate as other major encyclopedias. [1]
So what is it that keeps this community organized and on-task? If anyone has the power to edit nearly any article in any fashion, vandalism and bias could become significant problems with a system such as Wikipedia’s. To combat this inherent lawlessness, there has emerged a group of users dedicated to establishing law and order in the online encyclopedia. While their initial attempts at enforcing behavior were based on building community norms, this group of Wikipedia users has grown (in both membership and legitimacy) so much that it can be considered a sovereign government.
In the course of this investigation, frequent attention to primary sources is necessary. The hypertext medium through which both this project and Wikipedia are presented affords a unique opportunity to make constant reference to the subject matter. In lieu of charts, diagrams, or images of the community, hyperlinks will be used when directly referring to a source or example of the topic at hand. Readers are encouraged to view these links in a separate window and return to this site when examination of these sources is complete.
Introduction
On the surface, it seems that a discussion of law and government in relation to Wikipedia could be summarized in one word: non-existent. The on-line “free encyclopedia that anyone can edit” has been described as a “creative anarchy,” with order only driven by the project’s tendency to display the average opinions of the intellectual herd. Popular depictions represent Wikipedia as a free-for-all in which a myriad of contributors simply espouse their own viewpoints, miraculously creating a normalized harmony out of a lawless cacophony.
This presentation of Wikipedia is incorrect, as it ignores the heavily-specialized set of rules which keep the project’s hundreds of thousands of contributors in check. Officially, there exist forty-two policies (mainly governing behavior and content) and 356 specific guidelines(mainly governing style and formatting) which all users are expected to follow if they desire to contribute to the encyclopedia.
The very fact that these rules are “official” implies that there is some entity which, to use Max Weber’s definition of government, “successfully upholds a claim on the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force.” [2] While “physical force” is an awkward term to use when describing virtual spaces, it can be faithfully interpreted as any action that restricts a user from interacting normally in the system. For example, blocking a disruptive user from the project temporarily or permanently can be seen as the virtual equivalent of jailing or executing a lawbreaker.
In Wikipedia, there is one group of users who not only have this ability, but also exclusively retain the right to grant it to others: administrators. Wikipedia’s administrators typically number over one-thousand, although the large majority of them are only executors of the law, allowed to temporarily ban users for violations of official policy. When disputes over official policies arise, a small subset of administrators interpret community discussion about the law authoritatively, with their decisions carrying significant consequences across Wikipedia. This is known as “closing” an argument or determining consensus. Finally, this government utilizes an interesting mechanism for crafting and modifying the law: consensus policymaking based on the opinions of the community at large – properly interpreted.
Communication
Policy is discussed by many Wikipedians in many different sections of Wikipedia. However, all pages on the site (including discussions) are in a wiki format, which allows anyone to edit nearly any page. If one wishes to participate in a policy discussion, one must edit the discussion page and append a signed comment. Official policies prohibit changing the comments of others, which is both easy to do and catch.
The Village Pump is considered the general discussion section for policy in Wikipedia, although no policies can be formed or decisions made solely in the Village Pump. For a rule to be added or changed, a user to be promoted or banned, or an article to be protected or deleted, a user must submit a request to the various specialized discussion sections outside of the Village pump.
Communication in the Wikipedian government regarding policies or decisions is almost universally focused on existing rules, which are referred to by the prefix WP: followed by an abbreviation of the policy’s full name. For example, the neutral point of view rule is referred to as WP:NPOV. While all users are supposed to know these polices, only administrators and users who wish to discuss policy-related issues are expected to cite them to back up their claims.
Administrators must specify which rule a user is violating when implementing a block, although discussions regarding user actions can become muddled due to the large number of official policies. Furthermore, many rules appear to directly contradict others, with the most (in)famous examples being WP:IAR (Ignore All Rules if they prevent you from improving Wikipedia) and WP:BRD (be Bold when editing, wait for someone to disagree and Revert your changes, and then Discuss the issue with them).
When users discuss changing or adding policies, existing rules are endlessly cited. Similar to a legal opinion or brief, a discussion on a certain issue can involve an intricate application of past situations and policies. One example is from a discussion regarding appropriate content of user pages. This user was attacking a certain line of a proposed policy regarding the content of user pages:
The line stated:</p>Please do not recreate content deleted in this way: doing so is grounds for immediate re-deletion (see criteria for speedy deletion). Instead, please respect our judgement about what is and is not appropriate.
This is not the case; WP:CSD (a policy) explicitly states that:
Recreation of deleted material. A substantially identical copy, by any title, of a page that was deleted as a result of a discussion in Articles for deletion or another XfD process, unless it was undeleted per the undeletion policy or was recreated in the user space. (my emphasis).</div>
I’ve accordingly removed the line to avoid confusion, as only one of the above two statements can be right, and policy trumps guideline (this came to my attention when a user tried to speedy tag a userfied deleted article for this very reason). Proto::type 10:20, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
</blockquote>In response, another user stated:
</div>
I think the line should be restored, because it is referring to user page content that was deleted through <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:MFD">WP:MFD</a> rather than userfied articles deleted through <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:AFD">WP:AFD</a>. However, I do think the line "please respect our judgement" could be changed to refer to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:Consensus">consensus</a>. Khatru2 22:00, 20 November 2006 (UTC)Identity
Like all users in Wikipedia, administrators are constituted by their username, which is inextricably linked to their user page, list of contributions, and user rank. A user page is a Wikipedia article just like any other, giving the user the ability to describe themselves in any capacity they desire. Some users describe their real world selves, often posting pictures, autobiographies, and academic or professional qualifications. Others, however, may remain pseudononymous and simply describe themselves in terms of generic traits, emphasizing their accomplishments and interests on Wikipedia. A few users choose to be nonsensical, placing seemingly-random information on their pages. Finally, many majority of users simply do not make their own user page, which is not an official requirement.
In terms of credibility, a user’s list of contributions is much more important for administrative duties than their user page. In this sense, Wikipedia is a meritocracy, as users with different levels of contribution are treated differently by administrators. When deciding if an individual should be promoted to the level of administrator, one of the main factors is both how long the user has been an active member of Wikipedia and how many edits that user makes in an average day. Candidates who are considered to have too few edits are often rejected for adminship, despite the quality of their edits or work outside of article writing.
Contribution lists are also used by administrators as a form of profiling. Official policy states that users with any history of contributive edits should be given more leniency if they violate a rule. In contrast, a user without an edit history is not afforded this privilege while users with solely negative contributions are often given harsher punishments than those without a history at all.
While a user’s list of contributions is often considered, the most important form of identity in the Wikipedian government is one’s user rank. There are seven main categories of users, which gain certain privileges as they increase in rank. At the bottom are banned users, who are forbidden from editing any pages on the site. Anonymous (non-registered) users are next, allowed to edit all pages that are not protected or semi-protected. Registered users with accounts at least three days old are allowed to edit all pages which are not protected.
Administrators are allowed to block users temporarily (up to one month), delete pages and erase their history to normal users, undelete a page previously deleted by another administrator, edit protected and semi-protected pages, and protect or semi-protect a page. As previously stated, administrators are the most common rank above normal users: approximately one-thousand users hold this rank. A user becomes an administrator after formally requesting the rank and deemed worthy by their peers through a discussion of the user’s merits. Ultimately, users with a rank of at least bureaucrat make the decision to accept or reject the user’s application based on the general opinion of the consensus.
These bureaucrats can (in addition to all administrative privileges) promote users to the admin or bureaucrat user level. This level is less common, with only twenty-three users at this level. Stewards have the previously-mentioned abilities, with the ability to promote to steward and demote any user across any Wikimedia project (which includes Wikipedia, Wikiquote, Wiktonary, and Wikisource). There are only thirty stewards, which are nominated by the public at large annually and selected by the Wikimedia Board of Directors.
Finally, there exists a select group of users with the developer user status. These users have universal access to the entire project. They can change the code upon which Wikipedia runs, irreversibly delete articles without leaving a trace, and perform other technical tasks. These seven users are either employees of the Wikimedia Foundation or are high ranking technical developers for the software upon which Wikipedia runs (mainly MySQL and MediaWiki).
Organizational Hierarchy
In Wikipedia, the executive branch of the government is a group of about one-thousand administrators who collectively enforce the official rules and mandates made by the Wikipedian government. They exist roughly in the same capacity as police officers in most modern nation-states. These administrators are generally semi-autonomous and have individual authority to temporarily block a user from editing if they repeatedly violate certain rules. Although enforcement on this level is up to the discretion of a single admin, administrators will often discuss blocks before and after they occur. However, each officer is somewhat sovereign in this capacity, as it is considered a violation of administrative policy for an one to reverse another admin’s punishments.
Like in most nation-states, enforcement of laws is not handled solely by the executive branch. Theoretically speaking, any punishment given by an administrator can be appealed to a judicial body called the Arbitration Committee. Temporary blocks given by solitary administrators are rarely appealed, as they rarely last longer than it takes to convene the council, much less hold a hearing and formulate a decision. However, when a user is given the maximum penalty by a single administrator (one month) and disagrees with the decision, the Arbitration Committee will occasionally hear the user’s case. Like the U.S. Supreme Court, the Committee often upholds the legal doctrine of stare decisis: both the Committee and administrators are expected to treat all previous Committee decisions as precedents which are to be applied in future cases and disputes.
An example of a conflict in Wikipedia that was resolved by the Arbitration Committee was that of Rootology, a user who repeatedly deleted pages and harassed other users and various administrators. The main target of Rootology’s harassment was MONGO, who repeatedly attempted to delete Rootology’s most extreme instances of harassment. This was technically a violation of policy, as users are not allowed to edit the comments of others. MONGO decided to take the dispute to the Arbitration Committee, which agreed to hear the case.
Taking into account testimony by the plaintiff, the defendant, and several witnesses, the Committee decided on sixteen factual matters related to the conduct of Rootology and MONGO. In their opinion, the Committee created or reaffirmed eleven principles, the most important of which were “it is unacceptable to harass another user” and “[a]ny user, including an administrator using administrative powers, may remove or otherwise defeat attempts at harassment of a user.” No action was taken against MONGO, and Rootology was banned indefinitely as a result of the Committee’s decision.
[1] Rosenzweig, Roy (2006). “Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past”. The Journal of American History 93: 117–146.
[2] Weber, Max. The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (1964)