Wikipedia Sucks!

Emiel Rijshouwer wrote a comprehensive exam about the power concentration and self-organization in the evolution of Wikipedia for his PhD. Congrats by the way with your titel Emiel, i am pretty sure you read here too.

Here is the link, it is in English, and it makes very, very clear -my words- something like a cabal forms itself and exist. And I like Arthur his opinion, he is a lawyer, because I think this study can have large legal consequences for Wikipedians and chapters. Because experts have a important roll in out legal system, so this studie can be used in law causes. Is that correct, Arthur?

Sadly I fear this is meant to be read as 'there is no cabal'......

These tendencies of centralization and power concentration do not seem to be instigated by a self-concerned and conservative elite, and these do not seem to be as deterministic as Michels portrays them, as these are, in various cases, successfully mitigated or counteracted by the platform’s constituents.

Always hard to comment on these papers without reading the thing itself.

There is something more, but it is in Dutch.

Hij leidt daaruit af dat de organisatorische evolutie van Wikipedia de afgelopen vijftien jaar wordt gekenmerkt door toenemende bureaucratisering – opvallend voor een anti-hiërarchische en anti-bureaucratische omgeving.

Zelforganiserende bureaucratisering

Die bureaucratisering van Wikipedia’s organisatie blijkt het gevolg te zijn van de inspanningen van iedereen die betrokken is bij de democratische organisatie van Wikipedia ‒ zowel professionals als vrijwilligers.

What he is claiming is the affords of both the professionals as the volunteers leads to a bureaucracy.

Here is some more info, he visited meetings and invested the roll off WMF and the financial situation. To me it looks a solide and interesting study. But for sure you have to read the whole study to draw conclusions, I agree, but I mention it here because I want you all to know this academic study exist.

I really should find the time to read it, since it appears he got some stuff right, but a lot might be wrong.

I am aware that in Europe, academic studies can influence the law, I am not sure to what extend this is the case, because that is not a feature of the common-law, where only Parliament and Judges can make law.

Dysklyver wrote:I am aware that in Europe, academic studies can influence the law, I am not sure to what extend this is the case, because that is not a feature of the common-law, where only Parliament and Judges can make law.

That is correct. (As usual )
Judges and lawyers often relay on experts and academic papers and even on journalistic sources sometimes in our Code Napoleon system. A judge is a servant, in Holland of the king in theory, who has his eyes and ears in the society. It's a complete different system than common-law, and it is a unpredictable system as I have explained before. Because the judge can interpretatie the law in his way. He (or she) is complete free to do so.

This said, I hope you will read that study, Crow. Because there is something awaking in Holland and also the press gets interested in the phenomenon Wikipedia. Julian posted not long ago this link on Eerbeek, our sloppy blog about super editors. It's a article in one of Hollands top newspapers and also on Moira-NL here talkpage a other journalist of De Volkskrant has popped up because she wanted to speak with her.