Wikiocracy and democracy

Back when it got going, it was easy to see Wikipedia as a great prospect for democracy. Build by ordinary people rather than experts, it could exemplify the wisdom of crowds. I haven't read enough about the website (still the only one of the world's ten most popular websites that's not privately owned), but I'm aware that it started being effectively run by a small sub-section of its editors quite a while ago. (This article, from as long ago as 2009, reports the results of an investigation suggesting that the top 2% most active editors were already producing some 75% of the content.) And I have edited a little bit. So here are some thoughts about how Wikipedia could better live up to democratic ideals.

Let's start with the apparent drift towards only a few people producing most of the content. In a way, we should be grateful to them for doing so much of the work. At the same time, they've been able to translate the increased time they've spent on Wikipedia into more power over editors, fulfilling some of the predictions of anti-democratic theorists in the process. (Robert Michels, for example, the Italian elitist, would probably have seen in Wikipedia a perfect exemplification of his Iron Law of Oligarchy, according to which even the most anti-hierarchical organizations end up being run by an elite.) The Wikipedia elite even has a series of bureaucratic protocols it can use to decide disputes and even inflict sanctions (bans and so on). You get these powers by being an administrator, something you do by putting a lot of time into the site and being selected by people who are already administrators.

You might think that it makes sense that putting a lot of time into the site gives you more power, and to some extent, it does. But the types of powers administrators have are needlessly strong. For example, if you've ever gotten into a dispute on Wikipedia, you'll know that they're usually resolved by administrators (usually the ones who happen to have come across a complaint). But there are other ways of resolving disputes - for example, a random sample of editors might be contacted and asked to vote on the issue.

One reason that isn't done is that, even though there are elections, Wikipedia has a longstanding devotion to consensus. What part consensus should play in democratic decision-making is a complicated and controversial topic, but it's safe to say it has some drawbacks. On Wikipedia, the problem is often that anyone who wants to oppose a certain change can shoot it down really easily - and here there's a bias towards people who feel especially riled up about certain topics. Whether people who feel especially strongly about something should have more of a say about it is another interesting issue in political theory (I would say they shouldn't, partly because that produces an incentive for people to get riled up). But emotion surely shouldn't be a trump card when it comes to what an encyclopaedia says.

One problem with consensus is that (despite its popularity among left-anarchists) it can actually embed a bias towards the status quo, since absolutely everyone has to agree in order for anything to change. With Wikipedia, that's buttressed by a bias towards people who happened to have edited something early on. It's easy to start an entry, but once it's there trying to change anything risks incurring the wrath of someone with a keen interest in keeping things as they are. If they change your edits back for no good reason, and you insist (even with a good reason), you're liable to be banned for 'edit-warring.' That's even though it takes two to edit-war, and there's no good reason for administrators to side with the defenders of the status quo (after all, a change might well be justified).

What other forms of bias does Wikipedia have? The site has its own limited data on the characteristics of its editors, but I haven't seen any detailed breakdown of the kind of people who edit. We can say one thing for sure, though - the kind of people who spend a lot of time editing Wikipedia are the kind of people who have a lot of time to spend editing Wikipedia. In other words, there's a bias towards the time-rich, a bias that's made worse by the tendency of veteran users to make use of the site's dizzying array of quasi-legal terminology ('You're violating NPOV!' and so on). Worse, if newbies (or even occasional contributors) don't show a ready familiar with the legalese, that can be used against them in a dispute. You might think, in a culture that took democracy seriously, that the reverse would be the case, with administrators trying extra hard to make sure that everyone could have equal access to fair treatment on the site, however long they'd previously spent on it. 

Finally, there's the issue of 'NPOV' itself - Wikipedia's policy that entries should adopt a Neutral Point of View. Again, I haven't seen any research on the political views of contributors. But 69% of them said they contributed because they thought information should be freely available. Is that more of a left-wing view? Certainly, the complaints I've seen about departures from neutrality have been from the right. It's definitely something sincere Wikipedians should be careful about, and not only because neutrality is a good principle for a go-to source of information to follow. It's something we should be careful about if we want to make clear to possible contributors that Wikipedia's a site for everyone. That it is, in other words, a democratic concern.

Accomplished accomplices

The other day I went on a day-trip to the city of Augsburg, just outside of Munich. It's well worth a visit: for centuries an autonomous city-state within the Holy Roman Empire, it's a very pleasant place to wander around, and has, besides, a number of interesting things to see. There's the cathedral (with an excellent museum attached to it), the Golden Hall (which richly deserves its name) in the Town Hall, and the Fuggerei, one of the world's earliest experiments of social housing, set up by the Fuggers, the Silicon Valley billionaires of their day. (Rent was set at one Rhenish Guilder back in the 16th century, and you can still live there for €0.88 a year - all you have to do is say a few prayers each day for the souls of the Fugger family). 

Just down the river from the Fuggerei, another extraordinary encouragement to prayer was being constructed around the same time. These are the three enormous late Gothic/early Baroque altars set up in the church of local saints Ulrich and Afra. (There are actually two churches - one Protestant and one Catholic - in what used to be an independent monastic complex. The ornate altars I'm talking about are obviously in the Catholic one.) These are the work of the Bavarian master Hans Degler, and you can get a sense of them in the picture above. Only a sense, though - I couldn't really find any photos online that succeeded in reproducing the effect of entering the church with the light falling in late winter, and seeing these enormous, shadowy structures looming at the far end of the nave. 

What's so wondrous about them isn't only their hugeness, but also the proliferation of figures crowded into them and hanging off them, like on an Indian commuter train (or, indeed, a Hindu temple). The southern altar (on the right) shows Christ rising from the dead (apparently with a Swiss flag), with Augustine on one side of him and Ambrosius on the left. The northern altar (on the left) is dedicated to the Holy Spirit possessing the Apostles at Pentecost (fifty days, as the Greek term suggests, after the resurrection). It's also dedicated to St. Afra, and shows her martyrdom, in the presence of Saints Ursula, Catherine of Alexandria, Barbara and Cecilia. 

Finally, there's the high altar, in the middle of the picture above, marked with a cross. (Of course, all of the altars are high, but this one earns its name with five stories, one more than the others have.) At the centre of this one is the familiar scene of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem. One story above him, his mother is being crowned, with Peter and Paul the paid bouncers beside her. 

And that's only a pathetically quick description of some of the main figures. I've left out Gregory and Jerome (Fathers of the Church); Saints Rochus and Sebastian; and Mary as Queen of the Martyrs, among many others. And as a matter of fact, it's this super-abundance of focal points that got me thinking on the forty-minute train trip back to Munich. As a good non-theist with an interest (both senses) in meditative techniques, I've been praying the Hail Mary, you see, and one of the things that popped into my mind was the Marian motto 'to Jesus through Mary.' 

Another thing that I was reminded of after staring at those altars was the 'refuge tree' I'd encountered at Diamond Way Buddhist centres. Again the proliferation of figures, deities and semi-deities, Buddhas male and female, young and old, green and blue and white. 

One question that might occur to us when looking at such things is why a monotheistic religion needs them - not to mention a religion which, technically, isn't focused on a divinity at all. If the point is God/Jesus, what's the point of contemplating the saints? And if the point is awakening, or (at a pinch) the Buddha as a guide to awakening, why the profusion of spinning green houris? 

One idea I had is that omething like the following might be going on. As we're always being told (by science as much as religion) the human mind is weak and easily distracted. Because of that, even the simple techniques that have grown up with the idea of calming or strengthening it are quite hard to do - at least, they're hard to do with any degree of success (if by success you mean succeeding on focusing on something without your mind wandering). If you sit someone down in front of a crucifix or a Buddha, chances are their mind will wander to the closest new thing it comes across.

Why not, then, make sure the closest things it comes across guides it back to the meditation object? You could just put up more Jesus or Buddha statues (it's been tried), but the mind would probably just reject all of them in one go. But a saint or a minor Buddha that reminds you of a story involving the Anointed or Enlightened One - that's just the right amount of difference to catch the attention and draw it back. Maybe this is part of how the rosary works - by stringing us along with talk of Mary until we're subtly roped back into God through the changeable tags at the ends of the phrases (which usually tie in Jesus).

I don't know if there's been any scientific work or whether this is how these things really work in the minds of Catholics or Buddhists who dedicate themselves to the these practices. I also don't know of any very explicit passages in the writings of these religions which state that this is what's going on (or should be going on). If you know of any, please let me know in the comments below. If I've lost you at this point but you're still haunted by those altars I was describing before your mind wandered, I'd definitely recommend getting on a train from Munich and being haunted by them again up close.