Wikipedia:Delegable proxy

A delegable proxy system, in which users delegate to other users authority to represent them in discussions, could aid in determining community consensus on Wikipedia and help reduce participation bias in debates.

Proxy systems work by allowing each member of a community to choose a proxy who can act on his behalf. In most systems of this type, the member retains the right to voice his opinion directly on an issue if he chooses, in which case the proxy's opinion does not count for him. The proxy is also revocable at any time. A delegable proxy system takes the proxy concept a step further by allowing a member's proxy to delegate authority to participate on the member's behalf to the proxy's proxy. Delegable proxy systems are used by the Swedish political group Demoex and several other organizations. The word "proxy" can refer to both the authorization to act on a member's behalf, and the person who is so authorized.

Wikipedia-specific proposal

It is proposed that Wikipedia use a delegable proxy system to help determine consensus on xfDs, policy discussions, RFCs, etc. It would begin by allowing users to add themselves to a proxy table, which could have one column listing each participating member, another column designating proxies, and columns that both the user and proxy would sign indicating their acceptance of this arrangement. Proxies would then have the authority to speak on behalf of themselves and the members who appointed them. For instance, suppose A appoints B as a proxy because B shares A's general views on notability and inclusionism. In a deletion debate, B says, "Keep – An important concept in microbiology cited in five journals." This is the same as B making this remark and A concurring, "Keep per B." On the other hand, if A comes across that discussion and finds that he disagrees, he can write, "Delete – these journals do not meet the threshold of being reliable sources," and in that case, B's opinion will only count for B. If A finds that he is frequently disagreeing with B or otherwise loses trust in him, he can revoke the proxy at any time.

Proxy chains can form under this system, in which users delegate their participatory right to a proxy, and the proxy in turn delegates it to someone else. It is even possible to form loops, in which A appoints B, B appoints C, and C appoints A. If B and C go on vacation, but A participates in a deletion debate, his opinion counts for all three of them. This makes the system more robust by enabling a group of like-minded users to be consistently represented in debates regardless of how many actually participate.

It is possible to tabulate the proxy counts by hand using the proxy table, but an automated system could also be created to calculate the number of proxies flowing through the proxy chains to each discussion participant.

You may appoint a proxy right now by going to Wikipedia:Delegable proxy/Table and adding yourself and your proxy to the table. Remember that both you and your proxy must sign in order for it to take effect. You can revoke the proxy at any time by deleting that line from the table.

Rationales

The central problem with the current system is that, since only a small fraction of Wikipedians take the time to participate in any given discussion, and those participants are self-selected, participation bias can cause the result to be non-representative of the consensus that would have been reached by the community as a whole. The proxy system would allow for a better approximation of consensus by answering the question, "If more people got involved, what would be the likely outcome of the debate?" It would make the system more stable in that outcomes would not depend so much on who happens to show up at a discussion.

Wikipedia's current discussion system does not scale particularly well. It works optimally when the number of participants is within a certain range. But it can produce unreliable results when the participants are too few, due to the small sample size; accordingly, these issues require a relist in order to be finalized. This has been observed in debates such as Wikipedia:Pure wiki deletion system which simply never went anywhere due to people not taking time to comment. Some debates might be settled through the opinion of a few widely-trusted proxies without the need for relists.

When the participants are too many, the discussion can become overwhelming to process, as people begin repeating one another's remarks, or canvassing, etc. In these cases, it rapidly begins to look and be treated like a vote. In such cases, we may as well apply improvements to the process such as proxies. If I hear about a contentious debate on a subject on some importance to me, and see that my proxy has already made a well-written remark on that page, I need not add my own, "Agree with XYZ ~~~~" to the page, as he has already spoken on my behalf. In this way, the page can remain uncluttered.

Allowing users to delegate policy and deletion decisions to trusted members of the community could free up more of their time for productive mainspace edits. In many ways, Wikipedia is a direct democracy system. James Green-Armytage classic essay Direct Democracy by Delegable Proxy sums up the pitfalls of direct democracy systems thus: "If most citizens do not take the time to become fully educated on the issues, but nearly all of them choose to vote, then public decisions are likely to be somewhat arbitrary, and easily manipulable by public relations campaigns. If most citizens do not take the time to be fully educated on the issues, and many of them do not vote, then the system may become a discriminatory one, excluding the values held by people in particular sectors of society. If nearly all citizens do take the time to become fully educated on the issues, this may excessively remove some people’s attention from other valuable endeavors. One could argue that there would be a certain amount of wastefully redundant effort in this last scenario."

Objections and responses

An objection to using this system might be that Articles for Deletion and similar discussions are not votes, and these decisions are to made based on the merits of the comments made. If a rationale is blatantly factually untrue or inconsistent with policy, then it can be disregarded, no matter how many people voice that same rationale. It is true there are some articles that exist in a "white area" in which the correct application of policy is objectively clear; for instance, an subject with a large amount of non-trivial coverage in mainstream media is generally considered to be notable. However, many articles fall in a "grey area" where the decision is more subjective. Some sources may straddle the borderline of being a reliable source, and what constitutes "non-trivial" coverage can be a judgment call. Allegations of "spam" are also subjective, in that they draw a (possibly mistaken) conclusion about about the contributor's motives. As the community grows, it becomes more difficult to judge, based on personal interactions, which users are unlikely to be spammers; and the potential for false positives grows.

If the closing administrator is not particularly knowledgeable about a subject matter, it can be quite easy to delete based on a lopsided discussion, even if the policy is being misapplied. It can be difficult to resurrect an article in such cases, as the debate on deletion review may well focus on the fact that the consensus was to delete. Despite the many assertions that these are not votes, many users do in fact treat them as such, voting, "Delete per nom," or repeating an argument already made. An admin who initially had one view of the proper outcome of a debate is likely to take a second look if he sees a large number of remarks with the opposing view. What if, under a proxy system, there were 20 users recommending deletion, and 5 recommending keep, but those 5 were proxies representing hundreds of other users? It would likely be a red flag that the situation deserves a closer look. That is the purpose of the delegable proxy system. It is to indicate which users in a discussion have established themselves to the point where they have the respect and trust of a large number of peers. If the peers nominating that proxy have themselves established a good reputation, they may well be proxies themselves, which would give them more proxies to pass along to their proxy. Thus, the delegable proxy system is an efficient means for determining which users' opinions are representative of a large number of established Wikipedians.