Reflections on the Wikipedia for Debates and P2P solutions

From @gregorycassel -

I believe that your Wikipedia for Debates concept is heading on a different track than I am, particularly with your emphasis on a "curator" role. However, I do believe in complex social organization which allows each network (or community) to identify different types of roles and responsibilities. So perhaps our thoughts will converge somewhat over time. Feel free to read this (https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/peer-peer-digital-networking-internet-work/2016/10/28?utm_campaign=comment_replied_to&utm_medium=email&utm_source=thread_mailer) for a bit more background on where I'm at.

Ah yes, that's you? I've seen this before.

I don't think my curator role, nor my canonical location, is incompatible with what you're trying to do. They can definitely compliment one another.

The curators are needed, IMHO, as organizers (de-dupe information and arguments) and as arbiters of quality (of just the title and the description), much in the same way as Wikipedia. However, the debate site is not meant to HOST all content - rather, to provide a skeleton, or hangers, on which to link out to external content. It is also not meant to be the one place, nor form, in which debates are held. The idea is to have an open API to which arguments can be fed from wherever they are happening.

I don't know the proposed P2P solutions in depth, but I do have a technical understanding of P2P and blockchain in general. I would say that P2P can be great for information generation and exchange, but instinct and experience tell me it's terrible for organization and quality (Also, blockchain can be fantastic for authentication and provenance of information). I see you have a lot of articles out there on the subject (which do you recommend?), but as a default option, Wikipedia has shown that the canonical + curation model can work, and I'm not sure what would be a corresponding P2P example (Bitcoin? There are a lot of problems with that). The other problem I see, at the outset at least, is that the learning curve for P2P technologies is way too high for mass adoption at the moment.

That's my starting point. But if you can convince me that P2P can produce something canonical, organized, easy to use, and ready for mass participation, I'll be all for it!

Ward Cunningham's original wiki, the first one ever, had what he called gardeners - aka volunteer housekeepers - who got rid of the weeds and helped the good plants grow better. They were mostly self-appointed, but Ward knew who they were.

Elinor Ostrom found that successful commons always had governance organizations.

I believe that too much emphasis is placed by developers (by an almost natural default!?) on technical aspects when the real problem is in social aspects.

Seeking technological solutions implies that we already have the social dynamics down of how to collaborate, debate and decide. As if, if we could come together and site in a circle we would be able to do this. It is, in my experience, an unfounded assumption.

I think social collaboration processes need to be addressed first. Then we can build tools that enable us to do them better, in larger teams, in large contexs and from a distance.

I think that loomio itself is an infant step in that direction, but is a far cry from a working solution. Not because its not a good technology, but because its process is simplistic and not mature.

last year I participated in a one day introduction workshop to Socioracy and I was impressed by the practical thoroughness of the process.

It is not simple to introduce Sociocracy and there is a lot of noise around it that can hide the signal. I have not yet encountered a good site to present it, but these videos may be a good starting point if anyone is interested.

@timothyryanhigh , I think you're using the idea "p2p" above in a somewhat more specialized way than I usually do, akin to the concept of a "flat" or "horizontal" organization with just one "type" of participant, who (hopefully) work together in a way which produces collective value through stigmergic coordination. (Or something like that? Maybe I'm going too far with the specialized interpretation.)

From my perspective, p2p is a proper fundamental basis for developing communications/networking structures, but organization, collaboration and meaning are to be naturally produced in distributed, complexly adaptive, organic ways.

I'm not here to convince you or anyone, however. Persuasion isn't my thing.

I agree with Elinor Ostrom (via @bobhaugen ) that commons need governance. It's just a question of how governance is designed and practiced.

Hmm, ok, but then I'm not sure how curation would be divergent from what you envision. I don't intend to have the debate site be closed in any sense, although curators would need to be managed in a manner similar to Wikipedia. What is your definition of "p2p" and "commons"?

"p2p" in my terms is any form or process in which people interact as participants with equal rights and responsibilities, within an intentionally defined (limited) social context. A p2p process may involve a very small team, or millions of people. It just depends on the intentional social context.

A complex organization may include many peer groups which interact with other peer groups through diverse types of relationships-- including hierarchical and federated relationships. In a hierarchical relationship, a subgroup is subordinate to a parent group.

"commons" is any collection of resources with intentionally shared access/usage rights/ "ownership".

These definitions don't matter much, per se; all that matters is whether or not people successfully communicate with each other.

So how do you view Wikipedia within this context? Is it p2p and "commons", or not? My model is very similar in almost every aspect in terms of participation.

Wikipedia is a very 'commons' and p2p network. Anyone can join and directly start editing. Some other wikis are also very commons and p2p oriented. Some wikis, by contrast, have very exclusive participation structures, and some wikis are private.

I'm a fan of wiki style collaborative writing and editing. It often creates highly valuable content with minimal structure. It works well generally for uncontroversial content. Controversial content, however, can often result in edit wars.