Who owns LessWrong?

Ignoring the request to go meta in the direction you went:

Look, Eliezer obviously pattern-matches too harshly when it comes to group selection (recent example). That appears to be the root problem here. What is the best way to solve that problem?

As far as I know, this is the first edit-fight between humans to take place on the LW wiki, and no procedure for resolving edit-fights is currently in place. I don't think framing this is a matter of ownership is quite right; we'd be having approximately the same discussion no matter who did the edit and reversion. It's worth noting that Wikipedia has been struggling with this issue for its entire lifetime, and ended up with a situation that people seem mostly unhappy with.

The best outcome would be for some neutral writer to step in, receive support from both of you, and then adjust the article to accurately reflect the consensus(es) and controversy(ies), in that order.

As for the object-level discussion about group selection, I think it's fairly obvious that group selection does happen sometimes, but there should be a very strong prior against attributing any particular trait to it.

ADDED: Please go meta, folks. I am not trying to argue about this specific Wiki article. I am not asking for redress. Specifics about this wiki article are irrelevant. I am asking whether this is still a benevolent dictatorship.

I cannot fathom how you could possibly think this was a practical direction to move your attack. I honestly expected you to quickly backpedal from the ownership challenge and into a more productive method of bringing attention to the group selection issue and making Eliezer look silly. But now you seem to be escalating in a direction that can only end badly.

You had the potential for having a minor moral victory while influencing people about the contentious issue that has your interest. But you're throwing it all away!

• Who owns the domain?
• Who created the Wiki?
• Who owns the code?
• Who pays for the servers?

You left off "Who cares?" Eliezer's practical power over the website itself is not in question. If there was (another) shift of power and control at the SIAI and people there really cared then it could in theory be wrested from him. It is also conceivable that lax legal precautions could allow technical folks like, say, Tricycle to pull a defection. But this is all meaningless. What you should be interested in is the lesswrong community, which is ephemeral, social and not subject to absolute control by legal powers.

Please go meta, folks. I am not trying to argue about this specific Wiki article.

If you have more examples of such one-sided reversion that can make us think there's a wider, deeper or more extensive problem here than a single reverted edit, then you ought give us those further examples.

If not, if what happened with this article is the only thing that motivates your complaint, and the only example you have for wrongdoing -- then you most definitely should be arguing about this specific Wiki article, and not trying to make the issue into something bigger than it is.

The Wiki main page says, "The wiki about rationality that anyone who is logged in can edit".

The Wiki's User Guide also says "please think carefully before making the summaries longer" and also "The default workflow for putting content on this wiki is as follows

Idea for posting -> write post on the blog

Notice something generally accepted on LW without a wiki page -> write wiki page "

Apparently that is a lie.

From a single reverted article into accusations of villainy. I'm rather losing interest now.

What sort of rights or privileges does Eliezer have over LW or LW wiki content?

He can do whatever he likes. Editing out a relatively minor case of someone trying to make his point on a wiki page instead of the board is a comparatively trivial use of power - I mean, he didn't even yell, swear or threaten! In this instance I would not even consider it inappropriate for, say Vladimir_Nesov to revert your changes, given that he tends to be the wiki guy.

The wiki is not the place to try to sway public opinion. Sway public opinion with essays for main or well targeted discussion threads. Don't post the lesswrong equivalent of original research on the wiki.

I followed along on this exchange of edits on the wiki as they happened. If Eliezer hadn't intervened then I would have made a discussion post myself to bring it to the attention to Vladimir and the powers that be. Because while I don't disagree completely with everything you added to the wiki I do care strongly about keeping original research and conflict off the wiki. Fight it out here and leave the wiki out of it.

The reasonable way to proceed would be to make a discussion post to make your case (escalating the disagreement to get it more attention from the community, which is a standard trick).

The LessWrong wiki contains a biased and offensive entry

A rational way to proceed would be to forget the subjective "offensive" part (for example, most of Wikipedia is offensive to one group or another), and concentrate on the more objective "biased" claim.

May I suggest that for each statement that you find biased you list the bias you claim it suffers from and your arguments why it suffers from it.

Here is an intentionally ridiculous example, just to show what I mean:

Postulating group selection is guaranteed to make professional evolutionary biologists roll up their eyes and sigh.

Bias: Generalizing From One Example

Why: EY rolls his eyes when confronted with the claims he finds ridiculous, and assumes that everyone does, including professional evolutionary biologists. However, the evidence [cite] unequivocally shows that the eye-rolling behavior is mostly confined to teenage girls talking to their parents.

It is not reasonable for two rational people to get pissy and engage into an edit fight instead of discussing the evidence, so show that you have learned something from LW.

... he is unwilling to give reasons for his edit

Uh, does "Eliezer Yudkowsky ... (Phil, I'm willing to link to your posted opinion, I don't think it's common enough to deserve primary billing in the LW wiki.)" not count for some reason?

Who owns the domain?

TrikeApps

Who created the Wiki?

TrikeApps

Who owns the code?

As in who holds the copyright to the wiki software? Around a hundred different developers. I would guess few if any of them have ever heard of LessWrong.

Who pays for the servers?

I'm not sure about this one, probably either TrikeApps itself or Matt, the founder of TrikeApps. My next guess would be SIAI.

If someone is in charge, what rights do they reserve for themselves?

More or less all of them.

At what point does the ratio of community contributions to Eliezer's contributions mean we have the right to claim some ownership?

I'm not aware of any case where rights can be transferred by that means without prior agreement.

All in all, the only way you're likely to get the sort of rights you're asking about is to create your own web site, where you can then establish whatever policies you think are fair.

If I do not have as much right as Eliezer does to write a wiki post, I want that point explicitly spelled out.

This is the problem.

I am reminded of when the execrable post "The Conjunction Fallacy Does Not Exist" was added to the main page, Eliezer removed it, in his words, "...on grounds that I've never seen anything voted down that far before..."

He removed it because he felt like it, and he felt like it for two reasons: because the post was downvoted to oblivion and because Eliezer didn't see anything good about it (neither did anyone else). There was no explicit policy about what voting results would get something off the main page, and there still isn't.

The policy of not having any policies except post hoc is not good policy.

This is still a benevolent dictatorship.

I hope that answers your question.

You are justified in asking that these questions be explicitly answered in an easy-to-find area of the site.

Currently, the About section says only that "Less Wrong is associated with the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University and the Singularity Institute, where Yudkowsky is a senior researcher. The site is hosted and maintained by Trike Apps."

Presumably whoever pays the bills can do what they wish with the site, but it would be good to have this explicitly spelled out.

As for your last question, "not even in your wildest dreams" is the obvious answer. You likely retain copyright for your own posts, but that is it.

As wedrifid said -- regardless of whether your specific arguments about the issue of group selection are right or wrong, the wiki page itself is probably not the place to have the argument take place.

When I click his name he has the tag: Editor

I had always assumed he was exactly that. And under that I assumed he has the right to override non-editors.

Google "c2 DocumentMode". Wikis are not for debate. (ETA: as with any Wiki, the core issue is stewardship, not ownership. Ask the right questions.)

Given Eliezer's track record, I feel our wiki would become a worse place if he couldn't delete things he disagrees with.

Voted down for unnecessarily emotive language.

I don't think it matters who owns the domain or the code, etc. Eliezer is in charge of the site; whoever owns the domain or pays for the servers or whatever does so on his behalf. So, if Eliezer wants to, say, remove the entire Group Selection article and replace it with a picture of a cute bunny, he has the power to do it.

You might argue that he shouldn't have the power to do it, for some sort of moral or game-theoretical reasons, but doing so would be more or less futile, because what should exist doesn't change what actually exists. Even if you manage to persuade the entire community that a world where Eliezer has no such power would be better than a world where he does have such power, you would still have to contend yourself with living in our current world.

Eliezer Yudkowsky owns the universe. He's just more open about his connection to LessWrong.

All of these questions could have been answered with a bit of research.

Down voted for not taking a few moments to consider before posting.