Only one grumpy person is needed to VETO any good faith changes to an article. Its called monopoly. It deliberately defeats Wikipedia's stated aim, by muzzling valuable good faith contributions. It is the most important flaw in the Wikipedia article editing political model. Assuming good faith is completely inadequate, because only one person who doesn't assume good faith can control the message. Because any unhappy user can VETO any good faith contribution, using the UNDO button, wikipedia articles can become hopelessly biased. Bad faith graffiti needs to be VETOed by UNDO. Good faith edits need public discourse. Malicious UNDO removes/deletes good faith effort from public discussion. UNDO denies the network effect to improve good faith content. The VETOer is not required to point to specific words that need improvement, before deleting the good faith effort with a single click. Any effort to correct a biased article can be simply removed by a biased VETOer with one click. It is an unstable equilibrium. The more biased the article, the harder it is to update and correct it. Cascading equilibrium is actually the basis of Chaos Theory! Wikipedia needs to reorganize its tools to create stable a equalibrium between perspectives in each article.
When I suggested to the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee that bad faith VETO of good faith edits was biggest flaw in Wikipedia, guess what,
my view was deleted. See July 14 to July 24, 2010..
An Example: The "
District of Columbia Voting Rights" article is where
I personally noticed this bias in the cherry picking of the frame of reference in this article, and found no ability to circumvent the wikipedia VETO (bad faith use of UNDO).
With 600,000 disenfranchised full US Citizens, Washington, D.C. is the largest on-going case of disenfranchisement of lawful full US Citizens in the United States. Since Washington DC was carved out of Maryland, all voting rights and elected offices were removed from DC citizens by the US Congress. The US Congress 'alienates' rights of these full US citizens, by using Article one, Section 8, clause 17, of the US Constitution, to act as an "Exclusive legislature", controlling the States Rights of this place. Since Washington DC land and people was removed from US Rep. Craik's District, US Senator Hindman's and US Senator Howard's State, no one can be elected from this place to full voting membership of the US House Congress, because the US Congress cancels the elections and elected offices of these citizens from Washington, DC. Using the States Rights of this place, the US Congress 'alienates' the Citizens of Washington DC of their voting rights, elections, and laws, such as the US Constitution, Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the Maryland Constitution of 1776, all of which had applied in this portion of Maryland was converted into Washington, DC. Washington, DC, citizens are asking for further RESTORATION (full or partial) of their elections and elected offices. The US Congress in debates recorded in the Annals of Congress decided to disenfranchise this portion of Maryland by simply not writing laws to replace the Maryland laws that Congress abolished. Opposition to disenfranchisement was led by Rep. Smilie of Pennsylvania. During debate, Rep. Smilie questioned the disenfranchisement and the tactic the US Congress used to take control, the use of deliberate omission of law. Cleverly, no one can cite the law that stripped these (currently 600,000) citizens of their rights, just debates that discuss the use of omission of law to disenfranchise the full US Citizens forever in the Annals of Congress. Smilie criticized the omission of law that would disenfranchise, saying,
"Not a man in the District would
be represented in the Government, whereas everyman who
contributed to the support of a Government ought to be
represented in it, otherwise his natural rights were
subverted, and he left, not a citizen, but a subject. This
was one right the bill deprived these people of, and he had
always been taught to believe it was a very serious and
important one. It was a right which this country, when under
subjection to Great Britain, thought worth making a resolute
struggle for, and evinced a determination to perish rather
than not enjoy."
The US Congress's omission of law was powerful and intentional act of disenfranchisement.
The wikipedia article excluded (and still excludes) how the voting rights were abolished from this former portion of Maryland to create the nation seat of government, which national laws and elections are currently canceled by Congress, and any words indicating a historical frame of reference, such "restoration" of rights, that suggests that the people and land of District of Columbia were ever protected by the voting rights and elections,
So I added the missing history and frame of reference. Any effort to put frame of reference words such as "restore" are always removed by critics of voting rights. Look for edit comments between April 7, 2010 and April 10, 2010. I would cherish the opportunity to find one person that would help me polish the facts I added, instead of a few people selfishly deleting with UNDO, to protect their own slanted/biased version. I am aware that my efforts to remove the political bias and faux neutrality of the article, as I found it, are not the final or best version that will address my concerns about this article, but I do know, that every time someone deletes my good faith factual updates in their entirety, it is because they have a stronger selfish bias than I do. My energy level to keep writing text that simply gets deleted is minimal so I have not gone back and published many refinements, typo corrections, and additions that describe the breath taking hubris of the US Congress.
Proposed Wikipedia Solution: Wikipedia needs precise limits on the UNDO, and ability to detect abusive VETO of good faith contributions. Using drop down boxes to crisply identify weather a user believes they are undoing good or bad faith edits is very important. Mislabeling good faith VETO as bad faith UNDO should be recognized and penalized. Good Faith VETO is privilege that should require marking up the text first in detail, not some silly opt-in label in the article history where vagueness or misrepresentation is frequently used. Only after marking up concerns in the text should a VETOer of good faith be permitted to undo. This way, other users can clearly and precisely see what the VETOer thinks needs improvement, and address it in the next version. Wikipedia also needs tools such as a concordance for each user, article, each user edits in one article, to track which words and links are deleted and added over time, and by whom, so anyone can detect a bias or conflict. Because wikipedia's article editing political model is so fiercely biased, Wikipedia is unlikely to change it, because wikipedia has acquired an air of respectability, yet is fundamentally controllable by the tiniest of minority opinion. DC Voting rights are as important in the balance of the US Senate and US House as one can get, so I don't see their ever being an article version that explains the differing perspectives of pro-disenfranchisement users and pro-votingrights users.
Moral of the Story: Shooting the messenger creates power through unfairness instead of healthy competition. Using unfairness to create forms of tyranny is why Wikipedia and the US Congress (when ruling over Washington, DC), will not change, and correct their own ways. I doubt that anyone on slashdot will mod this article up, because explaining absence of good policy is long, boring, and hard to explain. I doubt anyone would even contact their elected US Senators and US Congressmen to help restore DC voting rights. Could you even imagine Wikipedia fixing its article editing political model flaws!?! Wikipedia user policy of "assume good faith" does NOT substitute for Wikipedia actually writing software tools to assure that good faith is required and track-able. Can you imagine the US Congress restoring DC voting rights and elections so these citizens could be like state capital citizens or NATO and OECD national capital citizens and have a vote in national legislature? I can't because the people Federally elected to rule over Washington DC are that greedy and jealous. I would be shocked if DC voting rights progress ever made the front page of the New York Times (above the fold), because ending disenfranchisement of voting rights was only of interest to New Yorkers back in the 1960s, (or 1770s, 1820s, 1860s, 1920s, 1970s or 1980s), NOT where NY State's Federally Elected leaders are (and were) already "Exclusive"ly responsible, inside Washington, DC. My father chose to use his Harvard graduate degree as a world class professional in Federal public service, (So he took a paycut, passed numerous back round checks and acquired many security clearances to make certain he was an trust worthy and quiet American.), and moved himself and family to Washington, DC, where I was born. If I live near my family in DC, which I do, I am disenfranchised, ironic, because the bulk of family tree has lived in the United States as full citizens since before the US Revolution. Do you think they fought in every major war since then so I could be disenfranchised?