Digital sovereignty a wikimedian approach
From Devwiki
Mariano Araujo
We know that Wikipedia is a digital community composed by millions of users witch interact in a increasingly complex environment determined by the arquitecture of the Internet, and more specifically, by the precise boundaries of it´s own place in Cyberspace. How is this community evolving? We know that Wikipedia has experienced a sustained growth in it´s amount of users and articles, but what´s most important is: How are these changes shaping the new form of the interactions between it´s users and taking form under the "Encilopedia´s frame". Under these general guidelines, the presentation is going to study the general aspects of the Wikipedia Community, how they match with the characteristics of any other community (even in the physical world), and the way that it´s members organize their interactions inside the Enciclopedia, analyzing the case of the CRC ("Comité de Resolución de Conflictos" or the "Arbitration Comitee" in the English Wikipedia), as the most depurated example of the application of it´s constitutional power as a sovereign community.
As the Abstract summarizes, the presentation aims to study the Wikipedia community case to understand it´s main elements and attributes, in comparison with several characteristics of any other community. Once achieved this, I´ll focus in the main subject of the presentation, witch is to study how the Wikipedia Community shares with any other community (among other characteristics), it´s own sovereign power to rule and organize interactions between it´s users and range of competency, exploring the case of the CRC (AC) as it´s most developed and institutionalized example of the previously described situation (taking into account that the jurisdictional power, together with the legislative and executive, is one of the main forms of expression of sovereignty in history).
The presentation will be structured in three main parts, and during each one of them, I will expand and elaborate each concept until de final conclusion of the presentation and the questions of the audience (if there are any).
Introduction: In the beginning of the presentation I will introduce the main subjects of it, with a general explanation about the reasons that motivated the specific approach taken to study the development of the Wikimedia community. After that, I´ll continue the presentation by giving a quick description and definitions of the main concepts that will be used along the presentation (such as Community, Sovereignty, Constitutional Power, Citizenship, Territory and how it´s characteristics can be applied on Cyberspace, among others). The aim of this first section is not to engage in a tough an deep technical debate about the very essence and fundamental elements from each concept in order to establish a definitive meaning of every single one (attempting that would take several hours or days, taking into account the number volumes written about each term, and the presentation must be suitable for any average Wikimania audience), but to reach at least a primary agreement on the general concepts of each term, in order to show how can they be applied to define characteristics of any organized Community (either on the real or digital world).
The objective of this instance of the presentation is only to introduce what is it going to be about, and what are the concepts that are going to be used during it. Questions about Why did I choose this or that definition (and of course, why I did not introduce any other concept), may be asked later, but my intention is not to deeply discuss this choices, but to set some basic agreement about the general aspects from any community to clear the way into the next stage of the presentation.
Further development: In a second stage of the presentation, I will continue describing how the previously defined concepts specifically apply to the Wikipedia Community, comparing why they are usually applied only to the real communities (concepts such as Sovereignty o Constitution, witch are traditionally related to flesh and bone persons as part of larger human groups), and how and why is important to use them to describe the Wikipedia´s community dynamics. The aim of this part of the presentation is to define the Wikipedia Community as an organized entity (with the correspondent regards) composed by several individuals, that respecting the basic rules (witch are the 5 pillars, policies, etc., the closest thing to a Constitution that Wikipedia has), from the Cyberspace they frequent (in this case, Wikipedia), regulate their interactions and solve their mutual problems with tools originally given by the creators of the space, but that they can shape and transform in the way they see fit (within the limits imposed by the "Constitutional rules", such as any other community).
At this point, I´ll introduce the second cluster subject of the presentation, witch is the analysis of the CRC (AC) case, and how can we apply the previously defined concepts on it. The CRC is a jurisdictional body, constituted by the users of some Wikipedia in order to to put an end on different problems that could not be solved by a simple conversation or the arbitration of a Librarian or an Administrator, with a precise and defined material and territorial competency. Even if several users (in both English and Spanish Wikipedia), hate the idea of seeing the CRC-AC as an ordinary tribunal (and according to the previous categorization given to the Community), no one can deny that it is de most depurated expression of the sovereign power entitled to an organized community, an so endowed with all the elements and characteristics judicial body (again with the applicable regards of the case, and in the frame of it´s own competency).
These previous asseverations, do not only have a profound impact in the most basic categorization of the essence of the Wikipedia Community, but on the way we see and understand how this kind of institutions work, and the way they should be organized and´ll probably develop in the future.
Conclusions: By the end of the presentation, I´ll give my conclusions on the previously exposed subjects (following the same argument lines given before), and comparing the actual state of the CRC (mainly in the Spanish Wikipedia, but dedicating some time to the English one), witch are it´s current problems, and how should these be solved to the light of the basic needs and claims of an increasingly organized and clearly sovereign community within it´s own Cyberspace.
