Wikidata:WikiProject Limits of Wikidata/WikiProjects as decentralized governance

This is a proposal to reimagine WikiProjects as subcommunities that govern a subgraph or collection of items. It was first shared in either the Wikidata or Wikibase telegram channels.

New concepts

  • Locked item: An item that has been locked from any edits
  • Mass edit protected item: An item that has been locked from any mass-edits by tools (trusted members of WikiProjects can be allowed to edit these items)
  • Archived item: An item that have been archived (implies locked from any edits until unarchived)
  • Dangling item: An item that have no maintained by WikiProject (P6104) statement
  • Healthy WikiProject: See definition below

Healthy WikiProject

A WikiProject that:

  1. is responsive to Wikidata community admin requests and inquiries
  2. maintain their items in a way that is acceptable to the wider Wikidata community
  3. has at least 2 members

Archived item

  1. works as a normal item but cannot be edited
  2. can be excluded from weekly batches or downstream consumers that do not want stale knowledge

Visions

Wikidata

A Wikidata where there are no dangling items and all able humans can share in the sum of all knowledge in a socially viable and responsible way.

WikiProjects

A healthy and striving community of WikiProjects curate and maintain a wealth of knowledge together towards the Wikidata vision.

Role of WikiProjects

Current

  • Weak definition and mandate
  • Community of practice but with no decision power when it comes to item curation

Suggested role

  • Power over items that fall under their sole curation responsibility
  • Shared power over items that fall under shared curation responsibility (when 2 or more WikiProjects curate an item)
  • Can decide to lock items from mass-edits (e.g. only certain users can mass-edit)
  • Can request archival of items under their care if they no longer wish to curate them
  • Adopt dangling items

Role of admins

Wikidata level

  • Handle request for archiving of items because of dormant WikiProject
  • Handle request for unarchiving of items because of revigorated WikiProject
  • Archive or unarchive items

WikiProject level

  • Handle mass edit protections of items (this ensure that the subgraph is stable and mass-edits are only performed by trusted community members in a responsible way)
  • Handle semi-protections of items from vandalism

Challenges

Items curated by multiple WikiProjects

  • If 2 or more WikiProjects are set on an item the WikiProjects must cooperate on decisions involving shared items.

Dangling items

A lot of dangling items is bad for Wikidata as a whole. It means that nobody is maintaining the knowledge and it is slowly rotting in place.

On a community level we should strive to archive all dangling items and keep them under 1% at all times.

Vandalism

In a Wikidata with 1bn+ items vandalism cannot be handled centrally. The WikiProjects have the responsibility of maintaining their items and keeping them up to date and free of vandalism is a very important part of this.

The Wikidata community can decide to archive items if a WikiProject is dysfunctional and not contributing to the overall vision.