Tragedy Of The Commons Cant Happen Here

I've been reading the StoneSociety stuff and, of course, TragedyOfTheCommons. And I just don't buy it. I think the wiki is a self-stabilizing system, and that it can't be damaged in this way.

This has to do with the fact it has complete write access (so, what do you need moderators for? it's self-moderating).

How exactly can you take resources from a wiki and by taking, deprive others? All I can do is destroy pages, but in doing so I never gain in resources, even temporarily.

I need to mull over this some more. Because if the TOC can't happen here, that has implications outside this system -- BillDehora

Here is how it has happened: it exhausts the community until they hardly participate (leaving behind a CrystalPalace). But there is a solution in process, see WikiVersionTwo.

The main limited resource is RecentChanges. People's attention is limited, and they don't want to hunt for "good" pages among those they consider "offtopic". See AppropriateWikiTopics, WikiConsensus, and especially MissingWikiBeforeXp. - I don't agree, people will just have to find new ways to direct their attention, like categories in RecentChanges, or use more advanced search options.

As it turns out, the main limited resource is people's memory. No one knows the entire PageDatabase any more so people just rewrite the same crap over and over again, because everyone wants to write on wiki but no one wants to read wiki.

The WikiNamespace? isn't particularly scarce. Even the set of "two words stuck together" is pretty huge, but current thinking is that we don't want to use any significant fraction of them. The discussion of "but Ward has plenty of disk space" and "surely the Wiki doesn't use that much bandwidth?" has been covered elsewhere (WikiStatistics).

Scarceness of space on RecentChanges leads to TooManyRecentChanges. It's not a huge problem - since most editors are RecentChangesJunkies (?) it probably self-regulates to some extent. It's also a temporary problem, because quietness comes later.

I suspect the relative lack of ReallyValuablePages is neutral as far as TragedyOfTheCommons goes.

[as stated above] Scarceness of "memory for existing pages" is the long term problem (NobodyReadsEveryPage). Attempts to regulate this have to be deliberate, and require some effort (WikiRefactoring, MySignalIsYourNoise and the constant application of DeleteTestAndWelcome). Related to this is the problem that the TestForSameness is getting harder .. maybe. It's about finding what you're looking for, or the correct space to put what you're thinking. -- MatthewAstley

(so it seems I agree, somewhat verbosely (sorry) with...)

There's no limit of resources, but there is a problem. I describe it as a TragedyOfComplexity. -- DerekWoolverton

moved here from TragedyOfTheCommons

Some people believe that this wiki community has suffered from the TragedyOfTheCommons. The topics and writing styles have changed greatly over the history of this site, and several people have described the changes as negative. Other authors support the changes, or do not see the problems. There are many forces in conflict, and the technical freedom to alter every page is usually balanced with a community "consensus" spirit.

While some pages describe a "PortlandPatternRepository", many of the original pages (1995-96) were about more general software development topics. Over time, the participants in this wiki described several patterns and a few pattern languages. This forum had many rich discussions, especially in the intersection between ChristopherAlexander's QualityWithoutaName and the "realities" of software development (BeautyAintMyBusinessNoSir). The pattern and software development segments of the wiki community coexisted (peacefully?).

The conflicts over appropriate topics have usually been resolved quickly, with unpopular topics either erased (such the Dmoz project) or withdrawn by their authors. ExtremeProgramming (XP) was the first topic that deeply split the wiki community. At least one of the well-respected core members of the community left because of this shift in focus. See MissingWikiBeforeXp, XpFreeZone, and MustEverythingOnThisWikiBeExtreme for views on this split, and many proposed solutions. There were no generally-agreed solutions, however. As of late 1999, most new XP content is produced for XP-dedicated sites, and wiki XP-content is largely limited to replies to new authors.

The other major conflict is the style of contributions, which has two related issues: DocumentMode/ThreadMode, and anonymity/signatures. The wiki TragedyOfTheCommons is used by some to describe the trend away from anonymous documents to signed threads. See ThreadModeConsideredHarmful, and InPraiseOfThreadMode for some views on this conflict. This issue has not split the community, but it remains irritating to many with strong views on either side.

Many people are concerned that the polite focus of the community will not scale to larger groups. Some have proposed solutions, such as limiting the number of authors, or the form of new contributions. Another idea is the WikiStoneSociety, which would create a marketplace of content. Other wikis (like the FoxForumWiki) are successful by clearly focusing on a small topic area. Finally, there is a continuing concern over vandals.

Some suggest that a technology change in wiki may help resolve some of these forces (see: TechnologyChangeInWiki?).

The way TragedyOfTheCommons is averted in JosWiki, ThoughtsWeaver, WebWebTwo, and OrgPatterns is by giving some writers privileged access to pages - moderators and authors get to write pages that other people can't amend, or can't amend without approval. This, IMHO, removes most of the advantages of using the wiki form in the first place - you may as well just link to ordinary web pages. A feudal system arises and the WikiNature vanishes.

Reading this thread from start to finish, I wonder if what was initially being described might more correctly be viewed as LowestCommonDenominator. As described above, most of the discussion of commons seems to center on the notion of use and exhaustion of a finite resource (grass, cookies, etc.) I'm not convinced that this applies to the Wiki, and am inclined to think that the WikiIsAnInfiniteResource?. The discussion regarding StoneSocietys seems more concerned with the moderation of content in order to insure a high-level of quality and coherence within the Wiki. -- SeanMcNamara

One plausible way to avert this tragedy is to implement a WikiStoneSociety. -- PeterMerel

I've noted one as the PatternOfBabel, but Kent's worthy efforts have resulted in the perfect example: MustEverythingOnThisWikiBeExtreme. Should wiki focus on XP at all? Is XP better, worser, or indifferent wrt the other CreditableMethodologies? Certainly some of the XP pages have seen agreement-by-attrition as correspondents tired of repeating the same edits over and over. The mightiest became the rightiest, which isn't truly the token of social acceptance some XPers have claimed. Not to say I don't think XP is just grand, most of the time, but there are certainly visitors here who don't. Worse, at least one notable deserter (Cope) left because of the wiki's change in focus. A WikiStoneSociety might produce a much more objective or less central view of XP than what survives here today. -- PeterMerel

I'd venture to say, never. The theory that the net is lousy with rabid, content-destroying crackers abusing every cgi they can find is founded on just about zero evidence. Most folk like that are too stupid to understand that wiki is writable in the first place, much less have the smarts to build a script to trash it. Most of them are out smashing car windows instead. The tiny group that have the minds, means, and motives to try to trash wiki have many more obvious targets available to them. (It may be more accurate to say that the small group with destructive ability and purpose has not intersected with the tiny group of wiki visitors.)

As to XP, I certainly agree the folk involved are far from reprehensible. But you don't have to be reprehensible to participate in a TragedyOfTheCommons. You just have to follow your enlightened self-interest and the tragedy emerges naturally. There are no villains in it - just good, hard-working, honest, clean-cut, well-meaning folks. -- PeterMerel

What did Cope want that he didn't get? Was he looking for subject matter that others didn't want to contribute? Cope is a great thinker and writer I would have thought that he could carve quite a niche for himself in a space like this.

Isn't the activity that a page gets, or doesn't get, a RealTime Stone vote?

Nope. Not even close. A WikiStoneSociety would place the binding between page-name and page-content under the control of market forces, not leave it to the first WikiMaster that comes down the pike.

Where has all the XP gone?

They'll be back ...

There's a specific behaviour pattern, whereby each individual thinks, "If I don't abuse this resource, someone else will. Given that the abuse is going to happen whatever I do, it might as well be me that gets the benefit." The expectation of abuse becomes a SelfFulfillingProphecy.

That, for me, is almost the defining characteristic of the TragedyOfTheCommons, and it doesn't strongly apply to Wiki. I don't much benefit from abusing it, and I don't really expect other people to, either. This may be why we have not had big problems. -- DaveHarris

The tragedy often occurs when an individual action is not abuse, but the combined effect degrades the shared resource. The limited resource in this wiki is the attention (and replies) of interesting people. [See IsAttentionScarceOnWiki] When interesting people decide they aren't getting enough from the wiki for the time spent, they will leave. Some of them have already, or greatly reduced their involvement.

The wiki situation is similar to the classic commons in that there are few/no formal rules, but the commons is preserved by unwritten traditions. People learn these rules by watching the users of the commons, and trying to fit in. The problem arises when people disagree, and there are no clear standards from commonly accepted leaders. (Ward could say "no signatures allowed", or "no Smalltalk discussion", and people would accept it and/or leave. Nobody else has clear authority over the PPR.) Without clear leadership, well-meaning people need to choose standards of behavior, and it is easier to choose rules one agrees with...

Also consider that there are people for whom, in the strictest self- interest, WikiWiki is a learning place. For others it's a knowledge base. Yet for others it is a forum for debate. Then it seems that, for a few, WikiWiki is a place in which to prove they're right. Those are the ones who will comment, question, or refute on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis. It's far from clear how anyone (even the perpetrators) get any value out of it. It didn't use to be that way.

For the next visiting WikiWikiVeteran? to edit: 

 .- Patterns and XP have the same roots.

I think they get cleaned up behind our backs - we only notice them as they are going on. Some examples from the last six months (and I don't really see these as "tragedies"):

As AlistairCockburn says on the WikiStoneSociety page, the Tragedy is averted on Wiki because everyone is polite - we self-moderate, and are mature enough to stay on topic. There seems to be an AntiPattern that this behavior doesn't scale up to large groups of people, though. -- KatyMulvey

Apart from the obvious scaling issues, I think the dominance of XP-related discussion gives the lie to this. Certainly all participants are polite and self-moderate; WhyWikiWorks applies too. But we've certainly seen that a few participants driving their kine onto this commons have produced a tragedy, albeit a fascinating and useful one. -- PeterMerel

On scaling I'd advise applying YouArentGonnaNeedIt. I have the same concerns, but it's not a problem yet. -- RonJeffries

As noted on YouArentGonnaNeedIt, even if you haven't implemented such a thing yet you ought to plan for it. To plan for large scales it's good to prototype on smaller ones. And I humbly submit that when folk like Cope are compelled to go elsewhere, it is a problem. -- PeterMerel

It is very sad that Cope went away. I miss him: he's brilliant and witty. But he wasn't compelled, he chose. How many besides me should we have asked to stop trying to contribute, in order to keep Cope? -- RonJeffries

Sorry Ron, a poor choice of words; I meant it seems he felt compelled. And I don't think you or anyone should be asked not to contribute; that's not the point. If XP hadn't become the dominant theme here, something would have. I'd venture to say there are very few who don't find your XP contributions highly valuable.

In fact it's the value of your contributions that have led directly to this tragedy. Let's look back at the village commons again for a moment. Say I want to grow some carrots there, and you want to keep a cow or two fed. Well, your cattle reproduce faster and provide a more vital service than my carrots - soon the village depends on cattle for its day-to-day business and my carrots are all trampled. Evolution sets in - no one's fault, just the nature of commonses.

If the valuable stuff survives, is this "tragedy" really a bad thing? It's free-market dogma to say that it's not bad at all. But let's look closer. Consider the use of antibiotics. Humans depend on them to protect against microbes, but the microbes eventually adapt, rendering the antibiotics useless. In fact the microbes are smarter than we used to give them credit for - once one bug evolves a tolerance to an antibiotic, it actually communicates that tolerance to other species. So a resistant e-coli, for example, can communicate its tolerance to a more dangerous bug like GoldenStaph?.

The more the antibiotics are used, the more the microbes evolve into strains that can tolerate them. But human medicine isn't the only beneficiary; factory farm animals benefit from antibiotics too, and use more of them more often. So the tragedy here is that the more they're used in factory farming, the more rapidly they're exhausted for human medicine. Since new antibiotics are much harder to develop than they are to mass-produce, the free market is permitting them to be used up by factory-farming instead of conserving them for human medicine. This is serious; there have already been instances of infections untreatable by any known antibiotic.

So how would StoneSociety-style economics help here? Simply, transactions in a StoneSociety aren't restricted to just two parties; any member of the society can pitch their stones in, for or against. So if doctors and their patients were worried about depletion of the antibiotic space by factory farmers, they could bid directly against the supply of antibiotics to those farmers, effectively driving up the price of antibiotics for that use so that the farmers would be forced to consider the true social costs of their abuse. Other forms of farming - free range and organic, of course, but also some alternative factory techniques too - don't require the same abuse of antibiotics, and would naturally become the most cost-effective way to farm.

Here on the wiki, I dare say most participants have enjoyed and continue to enjoy the XP discussions. Likewise, most have and do enjoy the pattern pages. Not to mention the many other themes that continue here. A WikiStoneSociety still seems unnecessary to most participants, I think. Certainly it seems like it would be overkill to me. StoneSociety(s) will have to prove themselves by prototype and new use before we even consider their application in a pre-existing community like this. WhyWikiWorks is not a mystery, but the scaling limits of the form really ought to be explored before we try to screw around with wild-ass changes. I brought the thing up because it occurred to me that XP here is a pretty fair example of the tragedy, not to complain or suggest any real change of the WikiNature. -- PeterMerel

Hm. If I may present an alternate view: the Tragedy of the Commons occurs when people using a shared resource don't treat it as well as they treat their own private stuff, so it ends up going to heck. No one has a short-term individual incentive to treat it nicely (since their one act of treating it nicely won't have a material impact on how well-maintained it is), so it rots. Enlightened self-interest is, I think, enlightened precisely to the extent that it manages to avoid this Tragedy by seeing beyond each short-term individual interest. The XP case, which simply shows that not everyone can get what they want in any real community, isn't an example of this Tragedy (or any Tragedy), in the way I think of it.

It would in fact be hard to have a true TragedyOfTheCommons on Wiki, since there aren't really scarce resources? Maybe my imagination is just limited this morning. In the canonical TragedyOfTheCommons, everyone has a short-term incentive to graze Just One More Cow on the commons, and the sum of those incentives results in a useless overgrazed commons. In Wiki, perhaps it's that everyone has a short-term incentive to post One More Yabbit, which eventually leads to so much chatter that no one bothers reading? But we have the good fortune to have the occasional WikiMaster straighten things up; this may allow us to avoid even that form of the Tragedy...

-- DavidChess (but don't let this signature prevent good cleaning up!)

If wiki were a collection of isolated pages, I think I'd agree with you. But wiki isn't like that. WikiPages interdepend and interrelate in a way that focuses the attention of the participant, and it's that attention that is the limited resource here. When AllRoadsLeadToRome, as they do with XP on the wiki, then participants are naturally drawn away from other content and on to XP discussions. Yabbits and WikiMasters don't really enter into this. What was once an undirected forum now has a structure, and that structure hinges on XP. -- PeterMerel

See IsAttentionScarceOnWiki OTOH, there are others who suggest TragedyOfTheCommonsHappenedHere

This is interesting as I am currently (2012) going through wiki documenting links to DMOZ with (see OpenDirectoryProject) as I had no idea what it is and it seems worthwhile to give a consistent pointer. I now see above the following with unpopular topics either erased (such the Dmoz project) so at some point it was known about and deleted, but not entirely. I did find some discussion about people being turned down or ejected as editors. -- JohnFletcher

CategoryWikiMaintenance CategoryWikiHistory

EditText of this page (last edited June 8, 2013) or FindPage with title or text search