User:Cristinac/ThesisQ

F: Yes, we were talking about flamingos. The point is that the man who wrote Alice was thinking about the same things that we are. And he amused himself with little Alice by imagining a game of croquet that would be all muddle, just absolute muddle. So he said they should use flamingos as mallets because the flamingos would bend their necks so the player wouldn't know even whether his mallet would hit the ball or how it would hit the ball.

D: Anyhow the ball might walk away of its own accord because it was a hedgehog.

F: That's right. So that it's all so muddled that nobody can tell at all what's going to happen.

D: And the hoops walked around, too, because they were soldiers.

F: That ' s right—everything could move and nobody could tell how it would move.

D: Did everything have to be alive so as to make a complete muddle?

F: No—he could have made it a muddle by . . . no, I suppose you're right. That's interesting. Yes, it had to be that way. Wait a minute. It's curious but you're right. Because if he'd muddled things any other way, the players could have learned how to deal with the muddling details. I mean, suppose the croquet lawn was bumpy, or the balls were a funny shape, or the heads of the mallets just wobbly instead of being alive, then the people could still learn and the game would only be more difficult—it wouldn't be impossible. But once you bring live things into it, it becomes impossible. I wouldn't have expected that.

-Why do things have outlines? - Gregory Bateson

Research Questions:

How does delegating the labour of policing to bots change the fabric of a community?

Aims and objectives of the research:

The research aims to provide an understanding into how open communities organise themselves and establish a framework in which to function.

Research Context:

Why Wikipedia

“In contrast to a world of increasing homogeneity in which difference is subsumed under the rule of dominant opinion and standardized knowledge, Wikipedia has the potential to proliferate voices and dissent – and yet the increasingly bureaucratic 'policing' of its content, as for example with NPOV, means it is in danger of merely mirroring the typical knowledge economies of the West.” (Daniel O'Sullivan, 2011)

Wikipedia is an example of a large scale effort of self organisation, that operates outside of economic reason. The peer produced encyclopedia is a major addition to the digital commons and is often quoted as a bastion for democracy (although in their very description, Wikipedia refuses this association. Wikipedia is not: a paper encyclopedia, a dictionary, a publisher of original thought, a soapbox or means of promotion, not a mirror or a repository of links, not a blog, …, not an anarchy, not a democracy, not a bureaucracy-really??, not a battleground, not compulsory-!!). This essay will be looking at the means through which the rules of an open community are maintained and how the role of the guardian is distributed among its members. The platform operates under strict rules, listed within its five pillars: “Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia”, “Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view”, “Wikipedia is free content that anyone can edit, use, modify, and distribute”, “Editors should interact with each other in a respectful and civil manner” and “Wikipedia does not have firm rules.”

Why Vandalism Bots

The platform has undergone many changes in its approach to self regulation. Starting with 2006, the Eternal September of Wikipedian enthusiasts, when previous caretakers who invested their time and expertise into the site became the elite initiating newcomers into their ways, it has been employing bots in its service to complete small organisational tasks of broad reach.

One of them is ClueBot NG, an anti-vandalism bot that was created specifically for Wikipedia by users Cobi and Crispy1989. Being extremely lucrative, the bot has quickly gathered a following on Wikipedia, with users leaving plenty of praise on the bot's user page. However, there is a degree of black-boxing veiling the functionality of the bot.

According to Alexander Galloway, 'protocol refers to the technology of organisation and control operating in distributed networks', an apparatus of rules that establishes the techno-social relations between the nodes of a network. In the case of the anti vandalism bots, these rules are embedded into the code itself and are therefore a direct representation of the codes of conduct, but emptied of the social element: in order to contest a bot's decision one must contact the user behind it. These security measures have become mechanisms of exclusion: in order to create value through accuracy of data, the algorithm classifies useful and not-useful entries. A similar situation is noticeable in the case of closed trackers, where mechanisms of exclusion are used to generate value through artificial scarcity. Both instances maintain the quality of submissions through strict guidelines, but what does it mean for Wikipedia to be employing the same devices as a closed system?

Proposed structure:

1. Introduction to the literature around the subject, with a focus on critique of claim to openness and involvement of bots. Relevant texts: Stuart Geiger – The Lives of Bots. Nathaniel Tkacz – Troll Theory. Plus countless other material that is impossible to keep track of. History of Wikipedia. The memorable year of 2006.

2. Introduction to the ecology of Wikipedia: ranks of editors vs ranks of bots. Committee for bot approval and dispute resolution. Possible introduction to Bruno Latour's actor-network theory? Responsibilities of each actor in the network.

3. Still unsure (could be overdoing it) but possible introduction to theory of banopticon- “the field of professionals of uneasy management”: “The ban-opticon is then characterized by the exceptionalism of power (rules of emergency and their tendency to become permanent), by the way it excludes certain groups in the name of their future potential behaviour (profiling) and by the way it normalizes the non-excluded through its production of normative imperatives, the most important of which is free movement.” (Zygmunt Bauman)

4. Example of conflict between user and bot.

5. Conclusion?

Significance:

Bibliography:

• States of Exception - Giorgio Agamben
• The Network Society - Jan van Dijk
• Crypto Anarchy, Cyberstates and Pirate Utopias - Peter Ludlow
• The Culture of Connectivity - Jose van Dijck
• Wikipedia and the Politics of Openness - Nathaniel Tkacz

Problematics:

• • parasitism - > establishing authority through removal of unwanted submissions
  • mechanisms of exclusion: ratio system versus patrolling bots. 1:1 ->
  • state of exception: WP and KG are platforms that operate outside of the economic system, KG outside of legal system
  • bureaucratic tendencies
  • anthropomorphism of non-human agents