Negotiating the Neutral Point of View

Politics and the Moral Economy of Wikipedia

Moral Economy

• E.P. Thompson’s term to describe how 18th century “crowd” regulated grain prices

• Thompson “an outrage to these [communal] moral assumptions, quite as much as actual deprivation, was the usual occasion for direct action.”

• Not at all clear Thompson would appreciate my appropriation

• Useful to describe consciousness of Wikipedians

The Gaza War Article

The Talk Page

Timeline of Updates

Generated with Sérgio Nunes Wiki Changes tool: http://sergionunes.com/p/wikichanges/

Controversial, High Traffic Article as Difficult Site for Shared Values

• Rapid rate of change makes it difficult for editors to understand what is going on – Article grows from one sentence to 8 pages in 24

hours, to 30 pages by Jan 9– Editors complain about difficult to navigate talk

pages, over zealous archive bots

• Shifting editor community – Digg and other media attention– “Single Purpose” editors

• Nationalism – Seen as harmful to Neutrality– Paranoia about outside organization

Shared Values from Above or Below?

• Wikipedia Admins are particularly concerned with “keeping the peace” on articles involving Israel-Palestine conflict– WP:ARBPIA– Editors show awareness of increased scrutiny

• Admins police the boundaries of the editing community– Semi-protection– 2 of 10 most active editors banned from topic area – One user creates account, posts to talk page, is blocked

indefinitely from Wikipedia in less than an hour

• However, most editing takes place without immediate intervention by Admins

Wikipedia Values Process of Neutrality

• Reagle points out ways “Neutral” can be difficult to define, suggests editors treat neutrality not, “so much as an end result, but as a process”

• Neutrality is constantly re-negotiated• Three guiding principles– NPOV (Neutral Point of View)– WP:V (Verifiability not truth)– WP:OR (No original research)

• Appeals to these principles were common among editors of Gaza War article

Civilian Casualties Debate

• In the case of Gaza, who is a civilian? • Debate over this point starts early, is

often quite fierce• Attempts by editors to define this for

themselves seem irreconcilable – One suggests Hamas’ decentralized

nature blurs the line between civilian and military casualties

– Another argues all Gazans are “victims of aggression”

– Neither has much success, one banned, one quits

Process of Neutrality Opens Space for Shared Values

• Editor Nableezy : “I completely agree with you, but for the purposes of this article, unless we can find a reliable source, and probably people would want multiple sources, that make this point, there is not really any way of doing this. But as a philosophical discussion, I do agree that in an occupying force killing somebody, regardless of the situation, would best be described as killing a victim of occupation.”

• Shifts discussion from irreconcilable and endless discussion of “truth” to concrete, resolvable question of “sources”

Compromise Solution for Civilian Casualty Debate

• As of Jan 12, 2009 Infobox begins citing both IDF and Palestinian Ministry of Health (MoH) figures

• Later MoH figure replaced by those from NGO Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR)

• PCHR methodologies challenged repeatedly, but source holds (so far)

• Questions about methodology added to extensive Casualties section

Limitations of Neutrality Process: The Problem of Reliable Sources

Israel UK US UN Qatar Palestinian Territory

France UAE China Other0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

Sources by Nationality (June 2009)

Number of Sources

Limitations of Neutrality Process: The Problem of Reliable Sources

05

10152025303540

Sources Cited (June 2009)

# of Cites

Additional Elements Influencing Neutrality Process

• Structural/Formal features of Wikipedia limit WP:V based compromise process – Some symbols are scarce• Article titles• Infobox space• Interwiki link

• In some cases Google and other search engines were employed to attempt to establish a consensus among sources (especially for scarce symbols)

Advice for Engaging Critically on Wikipedia

• Sustained engagement is a must• Wikipedia wide structures will

influence particular content in complex ways

• Process of Neutrality means that inserting information to "balance" an article will be seen as more in line with Wikipedia values than re-framing controversial issues. This both enables and limits Wikipedia's possible "critical" role