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Originally published in SiteProNews, August 17, 2007

durova: Hello.

Sent at 11:02 AM on Wednesday

durova: I'll be standing by whenever you're ready.  I'm working in another window.

Sent at 11:03 AM on Wednesday

me: hi there

Sent at 11:05 AM on Wednesday

durova: I was reading your list of questions overnight and did some research for this chat.

Where would you like to start?

me: anytime you're ready

durova: Oh, now's fine.  Should I start with your first question?

me: What is your official title?

durova: I'm an administrator.

me: what does Administrator do?

durova: Which in Wikipedia terms means an editor with a few extra tools.

I can protect and unprotect pages, block and unblock editors, delete and undelete article, and a few other things.

me: do you mind if I ask a few background questions first?

durova: Sure.

me: ok.  Is there a hierarchy of editors/volunteers at Wikipedia?

durova: Mostly it's a meritocracy.

me: ok... a hierarchy based on merit

durova: In theory (I could show you a quote) an administrator's opinion in a discussion carries no more weight than any other editor's.

But certain tools have to be restricted for practical reasons.

me: k.

durova: There are tools I don't have.

Checkuser, for instance, gives information about an account's underlying IP address.  That's very closely controlled for privacy reasons.

Likewise there's a power called Oversight.  That's done to erase personal disclosures.  Such as a twelve-year-old who posts her home address.

me: what are the various titles (ie: admin, editor, etc...) and how are they earned/granted

Sent at 11:10 AM on Wednesday

durova: Well, anyone's an editor who edits the sight.  You could click the "edit" tab on an article and become an editor right now, if you haven't already.

Here's a page on administratorship. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators

Administrators and bureaucrats are elected by community consensus.

Arbitrators are a combination of election and appointment.  The other positions are appointed either by Jimbo Wales or the arbitration committee.

me: TY:  my goal here is to help users understand the environment.

durova: Sure.

me: how does one get noticed by the community / stand for election?

how long are the terms?

durova: Arbitration is a three year term.  The others have no specific duration.

me: as an estimate, how long does the average editor/admin/arbitrator serve?

durova: Most arbitrators resign before the full three years.  It's a very demanding position.

me: no doubt

durova: For the rest, people are as active as they want to be.  Wikipedia had 1302 administrators when I checked this morning.  About 2/3 of those are active.

Sent at 11:15 AM on Wednesday

me: so you are one of about 860?

durova: There's a voluntary program called "Administrators open to recall."  These are sysops who've pledged to go through a reconfirmation vote if enough other editors ask for it.  About 100 administrators participate in that program.  I'm one of them.

I could check that number if you like for accuracy, but about that.  Yes.

Here's a link to the current votes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:RFA

me: ok. this is like a democratic method of deposing admins for the editors?

durova: There's been talk of that.  Nothing formal has come out of it.  The arbitration committee handles instances of misconduct.  Occasionally they desysop someone.

me: I'd like to get back to that in a moment or two.

durova: Sure.

me: why would a candidate's nomination be voted down or fail to reach consensus?

how do the voters (editors) know about each nominee?

durova: Well, there could be concerns about an editor's overall experience or about their conduct.

me: is there a lot of thought put into voting by the editors?  Is there debate?

durova: These are discussions rather than raw votes.  Reasoning counts for a lot. If you'd like to take a moment and look at the current discussions you'll see a cross section of how this plays out.

me: I will, but won't waste your time while doing that. If I ask a question straying into that area, please let me know

durova: Sure.

me: how long were you involved in Wikipedia before becoming editor or admin?

durova: But don't be shy about my time.  I can take a few minutes in another window if you'd like to scan something.

me: but of course...

durova: Well, I guess the only way to be "involved" without being an editor is to read the site.

I first started noticing it in Google searches around 2004.  Like a lot of people, I was skeptical.

In October 2005 I started editing.  A year later I became an administrator.

I waited longer than I needed to.  Some people become administrators after half a year if they're active.

me: what does the job of admin entail?  how much time commitment?

durova: Totally flexible.

I could spend ten hours a day or do nothing for a month.

me: yes but the work must pile up if Admins don't dedicate time

durova: There's usually enough of us to keep on top of things.  We could always use more help.

I asked for help collecting statistics on the workload.  One sec while I dig up an example.

me: k

durova: Here we go.  In August 2005 the site deleted about 1000 articles a day.

12 months ago the average was 3000 deletions a day.

By 6 months ago that average was 5000.

Another area that eats up a lot of administrative time is Recent Changes patrol.

me: so, on average, there could be up to 150,000 deletions a month

durova: In that neighborhood, yes.

me: Recent Change: no doubt... wanna get to some funstuff there too

durova: Here's a humorous look at vandalism patrol. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Friends_of_gays_should_not_be_allowed_to_edit_articles

me: 150K deletions in a month indicates a lot of (what?)

durova: Well, one classic example is garage bands.

A group of friends start a band, try to get gigs, aren't signed yet.

So one of them writes a Wikipedia article to try to get attention.

Unfortunately there aren't any reliable sources to prove whether the article is something real or a hoax.  Just the band's homepage, which can be spoofed.

So we delete that.  Happens all the time.

me: what is the test for reliability, credibility?

durova: For your readership, I should note that a certain percentage of those deletions are about non-notable people and businesses.

Let me give you a link to the notability guideline.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability

The links lead to detailed discussions for specific areas.

me: ty

durova: Here's another important link, our articles for deletion page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:AFD

Right now there are 96 open discussions for businesses and organizations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:AfD_debates_%28Organisation%2C_corporation%2C_or_product%29

me: what constitutes "consensus"?

durova: Usually, two-thirds.

But closure is complex.

It's pretty obvious when someone joined up just to comment at a discussion.  Those opinions usually get discounted.

And a single editor's post may get extra weight for raising one or more important points that the opposing side doesn't answer.

Sent at 11:35 AM on Wednesday

durova: At requests for administratorship, threshold for consensus is usually 75%.  At requests for bureaucratship (another specialized ability), usually 90% is necessary.

me: ok.  what do bureaucrats do?

Sent at 11:37 AM on Wednesday

durova: Here's one classic example of why it doesn't help to ask friends to save an article from deletion.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/NUGGET

Sent at 11:39 AM on Wednesday

durova: Many Wikipedians don't like the notion of voting because votes can be gamed.  We usually refer to these as discussions.

me: nice quote: "Delete and hush the sockpuppets. If this article had any legitimacy it would come with links and citations."   WHO crossed it out?

durova: Just let me know if you're following one of these links, all right?

You could check the article history for that.

Do you know how to read a page history?  It's a very useful skill.

me: am on it now

durova: 

me: i imagine matching times of entry is the fastest way

durova: Usually I make a guesstimate and compare two distant versions, then narrow it down.

Or I look for edits by the editor most likely to have made the change.

BTW one interesting phenomenon happens a lot.

Regular Wikipedians comment delete and keep.  Sockpuppets comment do not delete.

me: what's a sockpuppet?

durova: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:SOCK

me: wikipedia is so helpful

durova: It's when you create more than one account.  That's not always against policy, just when you misuse it.

We try to be.

I've compared the site architecture to hospital architecture.

Everything is there, but it can be very confusing to find your way around when you're new.

me: interesting.  care to elaborate on that?  that would make a great quote...  oh you just did

durova: Well I used to think that hospitals were designed by sadistic architects.

me: so... you have Editors, Administrators, Bureaucrats and others appointed by Jimmy...

durova: You know, take a bunch of people who are sick and medicated and then create a maze so complex that a rat would starve to death before sniffing its way to the limburger.

Then I learned that hospitals are designed by doctors.

They make exceptions to the architects' plan.

So each individul area runs well, at the expense of overall accessibility.

The same dynamic tends to happen with Wikipedia site architecture.

me: Is there a trade-off between max-inclusion and accessibility?

durova: More like there's a tradeoff between linking and categorizing these pages and performing other urgent tasks.

me: let's get into administrating such a large and growing site...

durova: Sure.

me: What is the process an entry goes through when made?

(from editor/admin perspective)

durova: Well, each new edit gets listed at Recent Changes.  There's a link to that at the far left of your screen (depending on which skin you use).

Here it is for simplicity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Recentchanges

Some of the volunteers hang out here to screen for vandalism or new articles that need deletion.

They also add categories if the article doesn't have any categories.

me: I see over 50 new entries in the past minute or two

durova: Yep.

me: are the rate of entries per day growing?

durova: This isn't my quote. "At a rate of four hundred words a minute, twenty four hours a day, a person could read nearly twenty million words in a month. In the month of July 2006, Wikipedia grew by over thirty million words. In other words, a sleepless fast reader could never catch up with Wikipedia's new content. Reading the current incarnation at that rate would take over two years, and by the time they were done, so much would have changed with the parts they had already read that they would have to start over."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Statistics

me: ty

durova: np

me: so if the readers can't keep up, how can the editors?

durova: Heh.

We do our best.

Some bots crawl the site to sniff out vandalism and copyright violation.

me: is there a tremendous backlog of unedited or unfiltered posts?

durova: Mostly Wikipedia keeps on top of it.

Watchlists are important.  I wrote about them in my last article for SEL.

me: will find it and read it.

durova: I'll get you a link.

me: what is the average time for an entry to be dealt with (posted or deleted)?

durova: http://searchengineland.com/070807-085103.php

Well it goes up immediately.

The German language edition of Wikipedia has developed a screening system called "Stable versions."

That allows editors who've been active a while to flag a certain page as pretty good.  We've been adapting something similar for the English language edition.

Here's the link.  It's at proposal stage.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Flagged_revisions

Hm, looking at the talk page I might just do something here.

me: (did you know that 8 tabs is around the point Firefox starts freaking out?)

durova: Heh.

You might want to close some of those windows.

I can resend the links if you have trouble catching up.

Want to wait a moment while I put something onto the Community Bulletin Board?

me: sure

durova: ty

Sent at 11:58 AM on Wednesday

durova: Okay, I've added a request for consensus to the bulletin board.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_Portal

btw do you have a Wikipedia account?

me: I don't think so.  If so, it was long ago.

I have tended to stay away from areas where I would be tempted to act as an SEO

durova: Would you consider starting one?

It can be good to get your toes wet if you write about the site.

Nod.

me: I'd start one but it would likely be inactive

again, too tempting...

durova: Kinda like keeping candy bars in the kitchen?  I understand.

me: or worse, by the desk

durova: I hear you.

me: you obviously feel deeply involved with Wikipedia

durova: Well, most of the people who contribute as actively as I do rarely publish outside Wikipedia.

I've gotten overwhelmingly positive responses from other Wikipedians to my work offsite.  Even though it hasn't been that much so far.

me: does it become like a mission?  do you feel a sense of ownership?

durova: I've been hoping that better communication could reduce the frustration on all sides.

me: what frustration?

durova: 5000 deleted articles a day represents a lot of wasted time.

We all know that Wikipedia is a top Google return.  And of course the professionals in SEO and related fields pay attention to it.

me: oh yeah

durova: There are things you can do to achieve your goals that work within site standards without taking too much of your time.

Most of the professionals don't know much about what these methods are.

And a lot of the things that get published in the mainstream press are written by people who don't know Wikipedia very well.

me: What exactly do you mean?  Are you referring to the goals of a marketer or those of an editor?

durova: They may be well-intentioned, but they often misrepresent one or more aspects of site policy.  Their readers read those mistakes and follow them, then our volunteers have to go to work.

me: oh.. I think I get it now.  (a problem with text interviews is no inflection of voice)

durova: You're right.

Now in SEO your basic goal is to send readers to websites.  Would you say that's a fair summary?

me: Absolutely. Increased traffic is the goal. That was generally done via search engines. Now, Wikipedia is sort of a search engine that has at least one guaranteed placement in Google SERPs

In this and a few other ways, Wikipedia is starting to remind me of the Open Directory project.  SEOs are going to pay a HUGE amount of attention to Wikipedia in the coming year

durova: Well the way to get durable outgoing links from Wikipedia to a client's site is to treat Wikipedia as an encyclopedia first.  Its social media aspects exist to support the encyclopedia.

I wrote about one way to do that in my first SEL column.

My next column is going to address another way to create durable links.

me: excellent

durova: Wikipedians don't like linkspam, but they don't begrudge links that serve a clear encyclopedic purpose.

me: I've seen that phrase "encyclopedic purpose" in discussions @ Wikipedia. There is no entry (heh) so how is that defined?

durova: Ooh, philosophical question.

And actually a very good one.  May I give a long answer?

me: please

durova: Okay, pretty much from the middle of the eighteenth century until the end of the twentieth century, the economics of book publishing limited the size of encyclopedias.

Dead trees are expensive and heavy, if you know what I mean.

me: I live in BC

durova:  Canada ?

me: yeah

durova: Okay.

me: big trees are far better standing than dead

durova: Right.  Well there's a saying at Wikipedia, "electrons are cheap."

That doesn't mean we publish everything in the world.

That NUGGET article was about a school prank in Australia .

Sorry, no go...unless it gets notable enough that it gets into the newspapers.

Wikipedians have been expanding the realm of encyclopedic content because we aren't constrained by the desire to keep those beautiful forests in the Pacific Northwest .

Onsite we have debates between "deletionists" and "inclusionists," and between "immediatists" and "eventualists."

me: "eventualists"?

durova: How dreadful is the article today vs. how much better is it likely to be in a couple of years.

me: heh.

durova: I won't kid you.  As pro-Wikipedia as I am, I'm embarrassed that its biography of Britney Spears is bigger than its article about Socrates.  52kb vs. 34kb.

But check this out as an example of how good we sometimes are.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pericles

me: oh yeah. I've found and used similar entries.

durova: Immediatists want quality right now.  Eventualists figure things will improved with time.

improve with time

I've been turning into an eventualists out of necessity.  It's impossible to keep up with everything.

me: Is there worry among Admins that there will be too much work to keep up with?

durova: We have a lot of discussions about how to get more good editors sysopped.

me: This is problem that happened to DMOZ

durova: I do a lot of what we call "admin coaching."

Now as an administrator I specialize.

I do mostly dispute resolutions and investigations.

And I train more people into these areas.

Sent at 12:23 PM on Wednesday

durova: That's one reason why I get criticized so heavily in comments offsite.  Because one way or another, I've interacted with a good number of editors who eventually got sitebanned.

me: was going to ask about that...

durova: Sure.  I have a standard offer to community banned editors for how I'll support their return.

Don't try to sneak back on sockpuppets during your ban, promise to follow site policies when you return, and please don't bash Wikipedia offsite.

If they do that for six months I'll welcome them back.

me: how many editors end up getting banned by the community?

durova: sec

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_banned_users#Banned_by_the_Wikipedia_community

me: How effective is Wikipedia in being a "self-corrective" community?

durova: Well, there's one formerly banned editor who was even listed in a long term vandalism report who's doing so well that I've offered to become his admin coach.

His candidacy would be about six months away if everything continues on its current course.

The arbitration committee has stated that all banned editors are theoretically welcome back eventually.

What happens is that most of the people who can't adjust to site policies will behave in ways that keep themselves sitebanned.

But yes, I've awarded barnstars to editors who'd been sanctioned at arbitration.  Some turnaround and do quite well.

One of the areas where I've devoted a lot of time is into making community sanctions fair and equitable.  We don't want someone to get railroaded out of the project because of an edit dispute.

At the same time, we don't want someone to frustrate good editors into quitting just because they insist "The moon is made of green cheese."

If someone hangs out at an area long enough, insisting that an article read something like "The moon is made of green cheese," eventually they can cause a lot of hassle.

me: how about blatant self promotion or promotion of friends?

durova: Hm.  Try this link for that. http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/08/vote-on-the-top.html

It's a good caution to the SEO profession and related fields.

me:   yeah, I saw that this morning

that's how Fox, Diabolt and NYT were outed

durova: I'm glad someone finally wrote a tool for that.  I see a LOT of it.

me: what do you think about cases like that?  These are mainstream news sources (or in the case of Diabolt, major corporation)

durova: Usually I keep quiet.

me: why?

durova: Well, I do my best to persuade the editors to follow policy.

If they don't, I try to treat them the same as any other editor.

Informal consensus is that we don't want to scare people away from making legitimate contributions.

But the stuff is all there in the public archives.

May I mention something strictly off the record?

me: yes, will delete from saved file

< -- section deleted -- >

durova: (Going back on record).

me: Does Wikipedia have a relationship with Google?

durova: Yes, we run away for intimate weekends in the mountains and cuddle up on the bearskin rug by the fire.

me: do you think they respect you in the morning?

durova: We'll see how Wikia does in the marketplace.

I have no connection whatsoever to Wikia, by the way.

me: I figured that. Wikia is still very small

durova: I think Google is very smart and is watching that very closely, and probably has a business plan to address it if it takes off.

me: Oh yeah. Google watches the space like nobody else's business.  seriously though. Does Wikipedia have any agreements w/Google regarding content?

durova: Not that I know of.  Wikipedia is all copyleft licensure, so anybody can use the material for free if they credit the source.

But a lot of people wonder why Wikipedia consistently ranks so high.

me: does the fact that entries will almost certainly get high placements under relevant keywords have any bearing on editorial decisions?

lots of links.

durova: Among Wikipedia regulars, no.  Among occasional visitors and newcomers, very much so.

So to the extent that the hardcores like me deal with it, we're taking out links and explaining policies to those people.

I know this isn't the ivory tower.  Wikipedia content and links have real world impact.

That's a reality and I deal with it.

Occasionally I siteban people because of it.

me: is abuse of link-power increasing?

durova: It's actually rather easy to address the obvious abuse.

me: because of the RECENT CHANGES page?

durova: One thing no SEO professional wants to get on is the Spam blacklist.

We also have a conflict of interest noticeboard.

Most of the people who run it have trained with me.

me: how long have you been an admin?

how many hours per day/week do you devote to it?

durova: One sec.

me: k

durova: Here's my candidacy for adminisratorship.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Durova

I try not to count the hours I devote to Wikipedia.  I have over 17,000 edits.

me: "hat experience was – pardon the pun – a trial by fire."  nice...

durova: ty

According to the latest dump, I'm the 713th most prolific contributor out of over 5 million accounts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_Wikipedians_by_number_of_edits

me: OMG

durova: You might find this amusing.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Editcountitis

Sent at 12:51 PM on Wednesday

durova: I try not to read those pages very often.  Because when I do I think, "Gee, I could do some vandalism patrol and stub sorting, get over 20,000, and hit the top 500."  I try not to let those motivations drive me.

me: heh.  are any of the Wikipedians paid?

durova: The Wikimedia foundation has about 7 employees

Which is incredible, considering how much they accomplish.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Complete_list_of_Wikimedia_projects

me: no doubt.  Does the Foundation actively interact with editorial policy?

durova: Well, they deal with things like licensure issues.

Big news this week is we can accept Creative Commons 3 licenses now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2007-08-13/CC_3.0

For the most part the individual projects create their own policies and governance.

Sent at 12:55 PM on Wednesday

durova: BTW as an aside, I suppose this is a lot to take in at once.  If you'd like me to write something for your site I'd be glad to do so.

me: That would be great.

I have one more question though...

durova: Sure, name the topic and give me a word count and a deadline.

not a problem

me: what is the most important message you would like to get out to the search marketing community?

Sent at 12:57 PM on Wednesday

durova: "Web 2.0" is a hot buzzword this year.  I think that's detrimental for SEO professionals who are newcomers to Wikipedia.  We're not Facebook or YouTube: we're foremost an encyclopedia.

An approach that would make perfect sense at MySpace could cause friction here, and potentially backfire in terms of real world news coverage.

May I point out something along different lines before we wrap up?

me: please

durova: One of the questions you sent me yesterday was about the Foundation.

I'd like to give some perspective there.

me: ok

durova: Here's the full list of Wikipedias.  We're in 253 languages so far.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias

The basic goal of the Wikimedia Foundation is to provide a free encyclopedia of 50,000 articles to every person on the planet in his or her native language.

They've met that goal in 28 languages so far.

Yet when you look at it, nearly all of those large Wikipedias are European languages.  The four exceptions are Japanese, Chinese, Hebrew, and Indonesian.

As you go down the list the trend continues.  For example Cornish, which has no native speakers, has a Wikipedia of 1322 articles.

The Pashto Wikipedia, which serves 40 - 50 million speakers, has 1023 articles.

I think the biggest shortfall is at Hindi.  The language has nearly 1 billion total speakers but its Wikipedia as only 12.748 articles.

me: demographics of European mercantilism and imperialism

durova: Obviously literacy and Internet access are issues for some of these languages.  The Foundaton has been interfacing with governments and other nonprofits about addressing that.

Here's one fact that I don't think got reported anywhere in the press in late February - early March when the Essjay scandal made news...remember our 24-year-old administrator who faked his credentials?

me: yea

durova: At the time when that story broke, Jimbo Wales was in India working toward improving the Indian language Wikipedias.  Part of that time he was in locations where access to the Internet was almost nonexistent.  That delayed his response as well as his ability to keep abreast of developments.

me: yes, I remember that too

durova: I was among the first (if not the very first) to call for Essjay's resignation.  I also think, in the big picture, what Jimbo was doing at that time was more important.

me: once outed, his resignation was pretty much given wasn't it?

durova: I thought so.  I hadn't been aware of any problems until then.  He wasn't someone I interacted with very much.

me: apparently he had a good cover

durova: I just hadn't seen any reason to check things out.

He had 20,000 edits and was well respected.

I didn't notice any red flags.

me: if I remember correctly, he was dealing with catholic liturgy and 17th century art

durova: Well, once the request for comment was opened and other editors pointed out what those red flags were, I agreed immediately.

Wikipedia's too big for one person to track everything.  My attention had been elsewhere.

me: And Wales was away setting up another Wikipedia.  How long did it take the collective/community to deal with the matter?  It seemed over as quickly as it made the news

durova: Would you like me to show you the request for comment?

me: but of course

durova: This might be a moment.  Things moved so quickly it was fractal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Essjay/RFC

The earliest part of that discussion is at another location.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_sanction_noticeboard/Archive3#Essjay-The_New_Yorker_community_discussion

me: wow.  so this was dealt with within 36 - 48 hours

of exposure

durova: There's also some history here.  http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Essjay&action=history

And here. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Essjay&action=history

me: how long do you think it would take a corporation to do the same?

Sent at 1:14 PM on Wednesday

durova: Well, it was my view at the time that immediate resignation was necessary.  The problem was legitimate and it had happened in a venue that the journalism community was certain to appreciate fully.  I doubt the young guy understood what a big deal it is to lie to a Pulitzer-winning reporter from The New Yorker.

me: heh

durova: Regardless of who he'd told, my basic reaction would have been the same.

me: Durova... thank you for your time.  I really appreciate it.

I have a lot of material here to work with.

durova: No problem.

me: I will erase the off-rec part

durova: ty

me: I will also send topic and word count info soon.  Thanks for saying you'll write a piece

durova: Send me the specs for an article and a deadline and I'll put that into my to-do list.

Best regards.

me: I agree communication between Wikipedia and the SEM community will keep problems down

best to you too

Jim Hedger is the Executive Editor of SiteProNews.com

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