[textop] Re: Editorial system
- From: "Larry Sanger" <larry.sanger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <textop@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 13 May 2006 14:01:09 -0700
Responding now to Matthias Brendel. I should say that we're covering many
different issues here, and that we should probably pick just one at a time
to focus on. I propose to focus on an issue raised by Kunal Sen, which I'll
get to next (tomorrow?). I might also soon prepare an outline of governance
issues that need to be settled, partly inspired by this exchange.
> 1)
>
> >Perhaps, but this is only one part of the puzzle. Another
> part is: who
> >votes? For what it's worth, I had anticipated making "Editorial
> >Groups,"
>
> Now, it would be good if we had a working system and work out
> policies and vote for them. For me many solutions may be OK.
> For example:
>
> (i) Let everybody have the right to vote, who is in the
> project for X month and has Y number of edits. X and Y to be
> set. Some kind of groups of interest will form automatically.
>
> (ii) Let us form editorial groups and only those may vote,
> who belong to that group. This is a more formal approach,
> which does not harm, I think.
Excellent, then you're thinking as I am: we need to consider a number of
different solutions. The one we settle on might be further down the list.
The central constraint on governance design, I think, is the efficiency and
effectiveness of decisionmaking. What keeps me awake at night (so to
speak--actually, despite a baby due in a few weeks, nothing is keeping me
awake at night) is actually the issue that Kunal Sen raised: "A
collaborative project like this is hard to steer once it is launched."
Ain't that the truth. (I will address this in answer to his post, later.)
Making excellent decisions quickly and in a way that is perceived as fair,
about a huge morass of complex issues--that's the challenge. Once we have a
solution to that problem, the precise meritocratic/democratic governance
procedure ought to fall out that as a consequence.
> 2)
>
> >But another point is that *the actual system in which work is
> >done* should be (1) as easy as possible to use, and (2) as open as
> >possible, consistent with the aim of high quality. In other words,
> >work should not be assigned by a text editor; it should be able to
> >carried out "at will" by participants who have made it past some
> >*relatively* low barrier. This is the "open" part of my notion of
> >project governance.
> >
> >I fully expect that most of the actual work on the Collation Project,
> >at least, will be done by graduate students.
>
> I agree. The duty of the editor is only to control the
> quality of the result. He is not an organizer, not a boss,
> nor an administrator, he is a quality controller. Somebody,
> who has veto right. In the normal case the collaborators
> should be able to produce high quality result and resolve
> disputes among them. The editor is only there for publish
> this result, or to deny to publish it.
>
> Of course if the editor rejects something, he should give a
> reason for that. He may dispute it with the collaborators. A
> good editor will do this and he will consider the critique
> and especially majority opinions. The editor may organize
> ad-hoc voting if necessary.
Well, in principle I agree with everything you say here. But again, we must
consider the *actual procedures* whereby work will be done--first and
foremost on the Collation Project. Only then will we be able to say with
any certainty what role editors ought to play. What I do agree about, and
argue in favor of in "Text and Collaboration" on textop.org, is that people
in general ought to self-assign. But as I also argue in that essay, systems
need to be designed with the *specific practical needs* of the project borne
in mind. This requires creativity and imagination as much as
anything--based on experience.
I've been thinking that the way forward is to organize a small group of
people who will work either on a wiki or with my Word files (of Hobbes'
Leviathan) to thoroughly familiarize themselves with the process--and they
can then report back. In other words, a pilot project. Perhaps we need a
pilot project not just for the software, but for designing project
governance.
> 3)
> >> Stewards have to be re-elected in a periodical interval.
> >
> >Perhaps. Talk of "elections" is vague.
>
> I insist on this. Since there is no guarantee that a
> nominated editor is a good editor. If majority of
> collaborators are not satisfied with him, there should be a
> regular process to ban him. In my opinion it is not even
> enough if he may be banned. There must be a periodical
> process of re-elections, like in democracies. Without this I
> am afraid the editors will be simply the first collaborators,
> not the best ones.
I agree that there must be a way to eject bad editors, and I also agree
(wholeheartedly) that the first collaborators must not automatically become
the editors. One way to solve this is to have headless editorship and
collective management via groups of experts on subject area Editorial
Committees. Anyway, we should prise this issue out and discuss it
separately...
> On the other hand we expect that Textop will be growing.
> After a while it is not good that an editor was voted by lets
> say 10 people, and there are 50 new collaborators in his
> area. He has no authority without a re-election in this case.
> This was a serious problem in Wikipedia.
I see--and I would agree, so long as we are talking about elections among
the Editorial Committees. My fear along these lines is *another* problem
with Wikipedia: early on, less well-qualified people flooded the project and
began shouting down those with specialized knowledge, driving them off.
This is a problem for Textop and the DU generally: how do we ensure
continued good management of an open project, when new people at all levels
are arriving rapidly?
> Of course, re-elections should not happen too frequently,
> since Textop is not a state, the democratic subsystem is just
> a necessary device, not the productive device, it should be a
> "light" subsystem.
Again you have it exactly right, in my opinion. Seems you have learned a
lot by observing Wikipedia. :-)
> 4)
> >> Stewards may be banned in a democratic way, if
> >contributors are not
> >satisfied with him. (More strict rules)
> >
> >Which contributors? Under what rules? I would rather think
> that such
> >management decisions should be left up to a group of peers, i.e., to
> >other subject area leaders in the area.
>
> This would be not enough democratic for me. I would insist on
> control from down.
Well, it depends on what positions we're talking about. Or perhaps you're
making the point that in general, the source of authority is "the rank and
file," in the same way that in modern democracies, the voters of a country
determine who's in power. Then I have another question for you: how is it
determined who is in "the rank and file" (who is a basic member) of the
project?
> 5)
> >> Administrators can not be stewards and vice versa.
> >
> >Perhaps, but I'm not sure why you say this.
>
> This is a main principle of democracy. In Hungarian we call
> this the "split (sharing) of power". Different kind of power
> should be distributed. The system should be distributed, not
> centralized too much.
I see. The American term for it is the separation of powers, and again I
agree in principle. But as always, I need specifics: what functions are you
conceiving as "administrative" functions, what functions are "editorial,"
and why (in view of what danger) should those functions not be shared by the
same people?
> 6)
>
> >Here's a question for you. I think a point where we might
> disagree is
> >in the idea that editors might have to run for an election
> and win the
> >support of people who are not experts in their field. I
> think this is
> >a recipe for disaster. But what advantages does the more democratic
> >system, in which rank-and-file participants vote on editors, have?
>
> It has the advantage that it controls the dictatorship of the
> elite. There must be some control from down.
Well, if we're talking about a self-serving dictatorship of a fundamentally
undemocratic nation, then of course I'm all in favor of control from down
below. But we're talking now about Textop, and the goals of its governance
are (I think) to make excellent decisions quickly, to retain as many
valuable people as possible, etc. Why think that using *all* members to
elect editors will help to serve such functions?
> And there must
> be some system of elitism as well. I believe that people will
> recognize authority if the have the possibility to control
> it. I believe that such an electoral system would be more
> than populism. I believe that scientific background will be
> respected by the people. However, respect of scientific
> background should be a policy to follow.
Again: why? Just because "it's more democratic"? If we agree that a
distributed content project is not precisely the same as a genuine
real-world polity, then you need to say more than "it's more democratic" to
defend a policy stand.
> I believe that a democratic-elitism is the good solution. The
> system must be formally democratic, but respect of scientific
> background should be in the policies.
I do agree that respect of expertise of all sorts should be in the policies.
--Larry
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