Archive:Wikimedia Ethics/Brainstorming

Project Timetable

Past

• 09 July 2008 - create project, identify goals, notify people of its existence
• 10 July 2008 - begin brainstorming, create to do list, create timetable, create structure on main page for subpages, ask for input on ethics guideline and practical objective measurement of it
• 11 July 2008 to current - continue ethics data gathering, continue notification process and volunteer development process, continue brainstorming, create Library and place

Ethics Resources - Links in it

Future

• 2008
  • July
    • move whatever part of the "Timetable" and "Ethics data gathering" seems consensus to main page and/or its own subpage
    • 17–19 : Wikimania takes place in Alexandria, Egypt and board membership changes, among other things. Get someone there to mention this project?
    • identify ethical practises that should be followed and can be objectively measured with available resources and can be improved by a learning resource at Wikiversity
  • August - Carry out practical objective evaluation of ethical management of the English language Wikipedia
  • September - Create learning resource to help with identified problems. Moulton intends to include his academic colleagues in this project, either directly, or by proxying their contributions; and involve journalism students if possible.
  • October - Promote use of that learning resource and adjust according to feedback
  • November - This resource finds favor within the process of becoming an admin and evaluating existing admins.

• 2009 - The English language Wikipedia requires all admins to use some specific approved aspects of this resource.

• 2010 - This resource becomes available in other languages and is used in other projects.

Ethics data gathering

Request Community Input on Ethics

“

We are creating a learning resource at WikiVersity. Please look at Ethical Management of the English Language Wikipedia. You may wish to add your name to the list of human resources. You may wish to contribute to one or more of the items on the to do list. May I request input on proposed ethical guidelines for management of the English language Wikipedia? Or suggestions on a practical objective method of evaluating the same?

”

• Posting of announcements of this project:
  • at Meta-Wiki "Babel" page... Done.: Meta-Wiki:Babel
  • at Wikipedia Admin Noticeboard page... Done.: Administrators' Noticeboard Announcement
  • at Wikinews Water Cooler... Done.: Wikinews:Water cooler/policy
  • at Wikimedia Foundation (Requires a privileged official to post anything at Messages or Blog.) Moulton, how about talking up the project at http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/ ? Done.: I submitted a message to Foundation-l. —Moulton 17:04, 11 July 2008 (UTC) - Thanks WAS 4.250 17:29, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Distinct ethical standards/guides for distinct roles

• Craft or/and gather links to existing distinct ethical guidelines for distinct roles and functions —- Jimbo, Foundation Board, Foundation staff, Arbitrators, Checkusers, Admins, Biographers, News Journalists, Non-Admins, Wikipedia Outcasts.

Links to Existing Wikimedia Project Ethical Guidelines Related to Above

• Wikipedia (Index of Essays and Guidelines)
• Wikinews (Unratified and Unadopted Draft Ethics)
• Wikimedia Foundation (Policies)
• Meta-Wiki (Historical Essays on Ethics)

Other ideas

Ethics Library

• Perhaps a project subpage called "Ethics Library" with both general content and links?

The List of External Links probably will need to be structured like that.

Certificates of Accomplishment

I'm just now beginning to see in my head the mechanisms by which this can provide a positive impact. A major current problem is with teenagers simply trying to "level up" as if this were a game. By deliberately aiming to make passing a course or test or whatever here a badge of honor, a leveling up in itself, the current wikipedia culture can be used to self-correct. We will need to be able to provide a prestgious title and a series of internal leveling up within this project; not for its creators and teachers but for its students. At some point we will need to come up with cool labels/titles, badges and barnstars. See Durova's activities for this sort of social engineering. Hmmm. Maybe she would be willing to help set up such a thing. She's like you - sometimes hard to deal with, but all heart and means well. WAS 4.250 22:11, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

The first thing that comes to mind is helping a student of ethics figure out where he or she is currently operating on the Kohlberg-Gilligan Ladder of Moral and Ethical Reasoning. Moving up a rung is actually a major milestone in life, so we might want to work out some more fine-grained exercises, along the lines of Filll's AGF Challenge exercises, or along the lines that we traditionally employed with the youngsters on MicroMuse back in the golden age of online communities. —Moulton 00:49, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

It seems extremely clear to me that the cause of the majority of the ethical issues on English WP is due to misunderstanding of the core principles and how they should be applied. If they were applied (sources for every bit of information in a BLP, understanding of what NPOV is, understanding of the implications of NOR etc), I believe that most of these issues would disappear. So educating users as to what they are and what they imply seems to be an important part of the solution. The Fieryangel 08:55, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Among the ideas on the table to solve the BLP problem (as defined by Doc Glasgow and others) is to limit BLP authorship to those who have demonstrated competence in crafting biographical material that rises to a reasonable level of accuracy, excellence, and ethics in online media. The way things stand now, on the English Wikipedia, is that more often than not, "BLP" stands for "Blasphemies of Living People." —Moulton 10:27, 11 July 2008 (UTC)