The Register Exposes More Wikipedia Abuse 524
cyofee writes "The Register has up another article exposing abuse of Wikipedia's policies and processes. It tells a tale of a man, Gary Weiss, controlling the Wikipedia article about himself and his enemies (one of Wikipedia's biggest taboos) all under the blessing of the Wikipedia Cabal. A man who attempted to expose the affair on Wikipedia, along with his his entire IP range (some 1000 homes), was permanently blocked. This comes only days after the affair of the Secret Mailing list."
Waht do you know (Score:4, Insightful)
We told them it would happen, but "NO! This time it's different!". Except, it wasn't.
Where's that guy who shills for wikipedia, I'd love to hear his take on this.
Re:Waht do you know (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Waht do you know (Score:5, Funny)
Unsurprisingly... (Score:3, Interesting)
Look at how they operate. Parker Peters did a fantastic job writing it up: http://parkerpeters.livejournal.com/ [livejournal.com]
If you look at every one of these cases, who keeps popping up? It's the same group of editors - David Gerard, JayJG, JzG, SlimVirgin, etc... all with the blessing of Der Fuehrer Jimbo.
Re:Unsurprisingly... (Score:4, Interesting)
And if it is even remotely the second, I could see how exposing the corruption would be a serious things. It threatens the validity of the agenda. But I have to ask, if there is no agenda, then why would corrupt practices be something of interest. And if there is an agenda, what might it be? I know they have had slanted coverage of politically charged events. Things like one paragraph somewhat hidden on other pages explaining the real problems with the Katrina response and three quarters of the main article focusing on the government, Bush and how evil they are. But I doubt their motivation is purely political.
I would be interested in knowing though. They certainly aren't banning together in secrecy in order to place incorrect information into articles for the sake of being wrong are they? I know they have had some posers like the tenured Harvard professor that was so good, he didn't have to leave his basement in KY long enough for anyone at Harvard to know who he was. There was a few others to. Of course there is also the accusations of ignoring policies to rule on topics or changes outside the secrete mailing lists.
I don't know. Does anyone have any suggestions to what their motivation might be? Just "Power" doesn't cut it for me. It would be like having the toughest character in a video game. It only relates to the game, they don't attempt to conceal it and when people get pissed, they just play a different game. So I don't see this sort of power translating to anything other then imaginary power. Lets dig and see if we can uncover the real reasons.
Re:Unsurprisingly... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Yes."
For a lot of topics, Der Fuehrer Jimbo or one of his cronies probably don't give a rat's ass. So they wind up leaving those alone, at which point other dynamics [livejournal.com] (also here [livejournal.com]) come into play.
And if it is even remotely the second, I could see how exposing the corruption would be a serious things. It threatens the validity of the agenda. But I have to ask, if there is no agenda, then why would corrupt practices be something of interest.
Corrupt practices should be of interest on the basis that they're corrupt, but also because everything has real-world implications. Articles on a country have real implications - they can impact tourism, they can impact politics, they can impact how people view the country. Articles on a political dispute, or a political leader, can have a formative impact on how they are viewed, especially as Wikipedia has hit so high in its search rankings seeing as it's essentially one gigantic fucking linkfarm (that gives out no bump to anyone else now that they implemented external-link "nofollow" tags).
Psychological research for decades has shown what ought to be pretty obvious - the first impression someone gets about something is always the strongest, and absent a massive shock or mound of evidence, will always have more impact on thought patterns than later information. Wikipedia, by virtue of being engineered to hit high in the search rankings, is the first place most people will get information on a given random topic.
That makes it important.
And if there is an agenda, what might it be? I know they have had slanted coverage of politically charged events. Things like one paragraph somewhat hidden on other pages explaining the real problems with the Katrina response and three quarters of the main article focusing on the government, Bush and how evil they are. But I doubt their motivation is purely political.
Depends what article and who you're asking. A number of $cientologists work to bias the hell out of $cientology articles - hiding what the Cult of $cientology wants hidden from view, such as the fact that the "Oxford Capacity Analysis" (their rigged personality test) has nothing to do with Oxford University for example. A rather sizable group of Arabs work to whitewash and control any article related to Islam and regularly war over the Israel/Palestinian issue... the trick is getting yourself entrenched and acquiring allies who are equally fanatical on some other topic that you don't really give a rat's ass about. You scratch their back, they scratch yours... and at the end of the day, the result is that most of the administrators on the site aren't set up about making a better encyclopedia, but keeping an article under their control and helping their new "friends" do the same on theirs.
Check out This page [wikipedia.org] as one example. What do we see? A user named OrangeMike, who just "happens" to be a well-known Democrat operative in Milwaukee and longstanding friend of communist mayor Frank Zeidler comes along and starts whitewashing articles that mention his friend, and abuses his connections to other admins to get his opponents banned. The situation is almost a textbook example of what Parker Peters refers to.
A short time later, after questions of his conduct are removed from [wikipedia.org] >his Adminship candidacy page [wikipedia.org] by his abusive-a
Re:Unsurprisingly... (Score:5, Informative)
Not entirely correct. There is a policy in place that allows Wikia - Jimbo's for-profit enterprise - links, to not be "nofollow"ed, and gain the benefit of Wikipedia's PageRank. Funny, that. If you go look at Wikipedia's entries on Family Guy, too, you'll see another interesting practice - great swathes of things been "not-notable" transwiki'd to Wikia, where ads on each and every page generate Jimbo income. Almost every single link on the Family Guy entries now point to Jimbo's Wikia.
Wikipedia is pretty messed up (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know the other guys, but I really detest JayJG. He would do "drive-by reversions" on completely uncontroversial edits, like adding ISBN numbers to book entries, or modifying a summary to better reflect the article below, usually saying they were "unsupported edits".
Looking at his history list at the time, he was doing between one to three reversions a minute, so there's no fucking way he actually read the article in question to see that the summary changes were, in fact, reflective of the article below (which also had the references in question). Changing it to have the reference in the summary, he'd revert it saying that there was now too much link cruft in the summary.
Either he was pushing his own personal agenda (which, looking at his history of 'edits', I'm strongly inclined to believe), or he was just trying to boost his "edit count" in some sort of retarded metric that a lot of wikipedians share, that rank people by the numbers of edits they make, which is perfectly retarded. I saw a admin ignore one guy's post in a edit war thread because he "only had 80 edits".
I actually prefer to make edits anonymously, since I'd rather have the edits judged solely on their merits, and not traced to me as well, in case a potential employer googles me, but the wikipedian admins (ignoring the don't bite the newbs policy) tend to treat all anonymous edits as vitriolic spam, regardless of quality. You know what? Just turn off anonymous editing on all of wikipedia if you're going to reject the addition of something as noncontroversial as adding ISBN numbers to a page, ok? Right now, they're just pretending to allow anonymous edits.
Try the following experiment: make 10 anonymous edits to a {{controverisal}} page, then make 10 while logged in, and see if their isn't a bias there.
The only really positive thing is that it seems JayJG has retired (an extended so-called "wikibreak", which is a perfectly retarded term as well, IMO).
Re:Wikipedia is pretty messed up (Score:5, Interesting)
c) all of the above.
There's a reason why there's userblocks for "This user has made xx,000 edits to Wikipedia". Often you'll read of a new admin who'll have "joined November 2006, made 11,000 edits, then became admin April 2007". 11,000 edits in 4 months?
Look at Articles for Deletion, too - regular mention will be made of (though it's not policy) certain people's edit counts, "just as a helpful FYI". Durova, who got bit by the "sleuthing" calamity, is one in particular for that, or who'll point out that "this is this user's first vote in an AfD in their last 500 edits" (when said user has several thousand edits) - I've thought for a while about this and can think of not a single valid point that that makes.
Assuming a) he's not behind the scenes pulling strings, unlikely not to be the case, as he's still very vocal on mailing lists, and b) he doesn't have a sockpuppet (hell, I'd be surprised if he didn't have another admin sockpuppet).
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Absolute power is the absolute aphrodisiac?
Absolute power, it's not just for breakfast anymore?
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Power Corrupts.
Study Hard.
Be Evil.
Mad with power (Score:4, Insightful)
Russ Cargill: Of course I have. You ever tried going mad without power? It's boring. No one listens to you!
Yeah, whatever, I will still do research for unimportant papers via Wikipedia and its vast citations, because when I use other encyclopedias I only get ONE source for information. Jeez, what is the big deal? If your subject is controversial, what makes you think a single source is more reliable? If you just need to know the molecular structure for cuprous iodide [wikipedia.org] or Mussolini's place of birth [wikipedia.org] it's great! Only pricks are trying to turn it into another Myspace.
Meh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Put a group in charge, and you're going to get abuse. That's just a fact. To get around this, most other organizations add some checks and balances, some oversight, some limitations on power. WP didn't do this, and now they're suffering for it.
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Re:Meh. (Score:4, Interesting)
On a side note, I would love to see Jimbo [slashdot.org] himself make comment on all this. He seems to have totally given up on Slashdot with his last post. It would be nice to know what is going in the depth of Wikipedia land from it's creator.
Re:Meh. (Score:5, Insightful)
One thing I love about geek pop political/organizational theory - it works as if politics were a god game in which systems are designed by an abstract, external power, rather than always produced by people who already have a stake in it as players.
Re:Meh. (Score:4, Insightful)
Democratic rule basically depends on inefficiency to keep people from doing anything unless most people agree it is the correct thing to do.
They definitely need more transparency. I think what people are most angry about is the lack thereof. Their formalized processes suck. Their reporting of their bannings, etc, suck.
Godwin. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the biggest benefit of an oligarch/monarch is that they have the capacity for intelligent long range planning, of the sort that everyone goddamn HATES, but which really does good things for the world.
As an example, I think we should have a higher tax on gasoline to drive down consumption, and increase public transportation and help fund alternative fuel research. Is this possible in our democracy? Not really. Everybody votes against anyone who would even suggest it. During World War II, there was mandatory recycling in a number of cities, and that has benefits, but people hated it, and it got repealed as soon as the war ended.
An absolute ruler has the ability to switch policy overnight. Democracies are unwieldy and take years to come to a new policy, and often they contain so many exceptions that they're practically useless.
If you could insure the whole "philosopher king" thing, make sure you have a person as absolute ruler who is both capable and worthy of it, then that would be by far the best system. Since you can't, we go with democracy, not because it's in any way better, but because it limits the possible harm that can come out of government toward the people. However democracy can't save the people from their own shortsightedness, and it's just damn inefficient.
Re:Godwin. (Score:5, Interesting)
It does good things for the particular ruler's worldview, yes. The loss of all the outliers is not without its cost, though.
Have you given serious thought to how the opponents might also be right? I realize the whole issue seems so simple to you, but there is a serious and rational counterargument that I'll bet you aren't even aware of. The counterargument is: our time is our most valuable commodity, the source of all other values, and public transportation's real expense is in lost time. Buses and trains seem cheaper when you don't factor in the very high hidden cost of all those people standing around at the station for fifteen minutes.
Again, it seems simple to you because you aren't factoring in all the costs that those "shortsighted" people are weighing. The value of their time, spent sorting and hauling or whatever, vastly outweighs the value of the recycled materials.
You say that like it's a good thing. There is a lot of economic value in stability, even if the current stable point is not the absolute most efficient. Change is very expensive when there are contracts and properties and projects running.
Your cynicism prevents you from seeing the hidden utility of a slow legislature and judiciary. And the exceptions as often as not exist to transform a "It sounds so simple and perfect!" law into one that isn't so costly to implement.
A philosopher king can save us from shortsightedness by delivering us over to narrowmindedness. It's not clear that we should prefer one over the other.
I'll tell you the worse problem with democracy. On the day that the poorest 51% of the population discovers it can vote itself the wealth of the richest 49%, economic collapse is imminent.
P.S. It's not a godwin unless your opponent tries to refute you by drawing a paralle between your argument and Hitler's. I mentioned Nazi Germany to illustrate mankind's willingness to join any evil as long as it is personally profitable.
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The fact is that open source projects aren't democracies, they're meritocracies. You wanna be one of the cool kids of the LKML? Write a few killer features for the kernel or write a bunch of drivers or find and squash a b
Re:Meh. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that their idea of merit is far better described as "prolific". If someone does a lot of decent edits, that makes them prolific. If someone creates a small number of extremely high quality original articles, they have merit. It's the second class that really adds value to WP, and they vastly outnumber the first class. But the second class isn't well represented in the admin group, and the first is.
Without the guys who only write one or two articles, WP would be tiny. But those people have no say. And worse, if they move against the groupthink, then they can be banned.
Re:Meh. (Score:4, Interesting)
Put a group in charge, and you're going to get abuse. That's just a fact. To get around this, most other organizations add some checks and balances, some oversight, some limitations on power. WP didn't do this, and now they're suffering for it.
An amazing parallel to representative government. In the beginning, we set up a government where everyone has their say by voting for the people who represent them. We invest those people with tremendous power. 535 people make the laws in the United States, 1 person gets to review them before they become law, and 9 others get to review them after they become law. Despite the system of checks and balances the original framers of the Constitution tried to create, the country is run at the behest of 300 million+ citizens by only 545 of their countrymen. That it works at all is amazing; that it is corrupt to some degree is to be understood.
The Wikipedia problem won't really be easily solvable, because at some point it needs to make the same trade-offs that the Constitutional Convention made. Eventually, if you want a higher degree of accuracy, you're going to have to reduce the number of people who have access to the data and you're going to have to trust that they have no ulterior motives in their editing, and you're going to have to keep track of just what they do and call them on it when it's clear there is malfeasance.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Slashdot is not the place for subtle subtext and prose. Unless it's trolling or misinterpreted sarcasm. Then, go for it.
The respondent posted his reply because your comment was not a complete maturation of an idea, and was more commentary than discussion-invoking.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
There is this thing called "Grammar" which tells me that the above sentence completely lacks meaning, as it has no subject. I'll assume you're talking about WP.
Let's explore this idea of "human execution." What type of execution are you saying would be better? Not many projects of this sort that aren't executed by humans, at least in our experience, and it turns out that a number of human executed projects (including WP) have turned out pretty well, so human influenc
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Re:What do you know (Score:3, Interesting)
It is unfortunate, but unlike an encyclopedia, the constant state of change makes it nearly impossible to use for anything beyond casual reference. Even grade school level reports require a more reliable source of information, or at least one which can be guaranteed to be the same when somebody goes to ve
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Hmph (Score:5, Funny)
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Definitely funny, but as with all Penny Arcade strips, holds a great grain of truth. Wikipedia is billed as on-line encyclopedia, and while it may contain encyclopedic (and in many cases, overabundant) knowledge, it is actually a system whereby groups can vie for control of the information that others see about a particular topic. How many scandals have their been with entries being edited by groups/individuals on the sly, to make an opposing idea or person seem unpalatable or to spread falsehoods or innuen
If I was... (Score:5, Funny)
Lord Acton... (Score:3, Interesting)
Also blocked (Score:4, Interesting)
Already taken care of (Score:5, Funny)
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Wikipedia is entirely untrus
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It would be an interesting story if it all happened as the article described, but I don't trust the Register any more than I trust Wikipedia, especially when the la
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Heck, I draw the opposite conclusion of the GP: Wales is as much of a controlling paranoid lunatic as Durova.
Have you ever read wikipedia adminspeak? It's an unparseable argot of acronymic jargon. The only thing that I've seen that read similarly was ops manuals for Scientology orgs.
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I stopped editing Wikipedia because of this (Score:2, Insightful)
Wikipedia edit dispute occurs, more at eleven (Score:4, Informative)
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Seriously. Administrative abuse is a problem at Wikipedia like it is at any site that has volunteer administrators (and many online and real-world institutions that have paid and unpaid administrators). It's the insinuations that there's some sort of evil cabal that are ridiculous. As a formerly-active Wikipedia administrator typically more interested in keeping the place clean than in Politics, I can say that it
Re:Wikipedia edit dispute occurs, more at eleven (Score:4, Insightful)
You clearly didn't read the entire article. I suggest you go back and finish it. FYI, it's 5 pages long.
A very good thing (Score:4, Insightful)
The defense or truth by presenting all point of views with the origin of each one is both the goal of the Wikipedia and of a vigorous, sane society. "Germ-free" have probably no real future in a living world.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Thanks for clearing that up.
Is Anyone Really Surprised? (Score:3, Insightful)
Anytime you put a group of humans together, a pecking order will be established and the group will establish and enforce its own set of informal rules, often overriding any formal rules the group may have set forth to guide its actions and behavior.
It doesn't matter if its the local garden club or an open source project - leaders will emerge and their followers will do almost anything to protect the leader's position in the hopes of protecting their own elevated ranking.
Since Wikipedia is So Popular (Score:5, Insightful)
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They do. [wikipedia.org] (I'm on it)
Stories like this are hurting credibility (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Stories like this are hurting credibility (Score:4, Insightful)
Tell me you didn't type that with a straight face.
No, Wikipedia isn't being "ruled and dictated" by some "secret monolithic cabal". It's just got a bureacracy that's developed its own impenetrable code, and makes arbitrary decisions that act to reinforce their own feelings of mutual belonging in their weird little clique, regardless of whether it has any real positive impact on Wikipedia.
Sure, there are good admins on WP. Jimbo Wales and his little entourage are not among them.
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Wrong on two levels.
1. The Register -- what credibility?
2. Nonsense? -- Stories like this are essential - it's called "freedom of the press". Obviously some Wikipedians don't like that sort of vandalism... um, I mean thing.
At least The Register (for all its many faults) and Slashdot do attempt to get the truth about Wikipedia out there. That's very important,
Re:Stories like this are hurting credibility (Score:4, Informative)
Nice signature quote, by the way. Did you know they're gearing up for pre-production for a sequel? Last I read they're just buttoning down the funding.
Summary for the impatient (Score:3, Insightful)
Wikipedia Destroyed (Score:2)
it won't be from without,
but from within!
Well, easy way to punish Wikipedia: (Score:2)
Just have
At the very least, thier servers will get a good workout.
One other idea: make some addition contributions to any article they have regarding Censorship, Freedom of Speech, etc...
yet more toxic fallout from overstock.com (Score:3, Interesting)
Disclaimer: yes, I write stuff on wikipedia, my handle is fivemack. Mostly I write about chemistry; it's pretty clear that wikipedia is the most comprehensive and reliable site for chemistry on the Web, since chemistry is advanced stamp-collecting and wikipedia is a superb medium for presenting stamps in multiple series. The science side of wikipedia is a wonderful resource, and doesn't seem too prone to the kind of lunacy that afflicts other parts of the encyclopedia; people have less heated feelings about the melting-point of tellurium or the carcinogenicity of tetramethylhydrazine than they do about whether Mount Ararat is a Turkish or an Armenian mountain.
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Used to is the operative word. They weren't let go; they quit. And the reason is always the same: Rampant nepotism.
When a relatively new (and incompetent) person is promoted, and a highly experienced and trained person is passed by, it raises an eyebrow. When the reason the person was promoted is they are a niece/nephew, it's a different story entirely.
It's not any one branch of the company
Blocking IP ranges (Score:3, Funny)
Wikipedia is not a democracy, people (Score:4, Interesting)
Wikipedia is probably the most successful collaborative effort on the internet, surpassing the Linux kernel in size and complexity. Its editors and authors do a lot of great work, putting data out there and generally being fair and balanced.
But, it's not a church, it's not a publicly run trust, and there's no oversight committee. Jimbo Wales and Co. can do whatever they want.. it's their site. They can ban anyone they like for any reason, even if they publically claim to be even handed, fair, and open, and the worst they may be guilty of is lying. The real reason people are up in arms is that they are surprised about it.
We get lied to every day, by the government, church, our coworkers, neighbors, pretty much everyone. We sort of expect it, though. Very few people buy in to a religion wholesale and stop questioning anything related to it. Unless you're a fanatic and stupid to boot, you realize that some of it is crap. Even though churches claim that morality and truth are the highest law, and they don't lie, cheat, or steal.
People have let themselves believe (perhaps not consciously) that since wikipedia exists today, that we must have reached some kind of golden age of the Internet and mankind, that wikipedia will grow until it contains everything we know, and all will contribute to it, everyone will learn that being fair and true is the only way to live, and we'll all understand each other better.
But wikipedia lies like anyone else. It's not utopia. "Best" is a relative term.
Wikipedia is the biggest collaboration out there. But that doesn't mean it's made from pure angelic light trapped in circuits.... it's made of people, and people can be corrupt, biased, bigoted, jerks.
The main reason I've never contributed to Wikipedia is that I was burned in the past. Anyone remember CDDB? There are other examples. I've seen some recent positive press for Wikipedia in the recent announcement that the code will be GPL.... it's another step in the right direction.
Information wants to be free.
Erik
Quote (Score:4, Insightful)
That's one for future generations. That quote should haunt him for the rest of his career. It's right up there with all the ones Bill Gates and Ballmer have made, that are repeated here often.
Two words: "true colors".
I was going to add in the usual references to nazis and Ayn Rand and all the rest -- but honestly, Jimmy's quote says it all, and says it clearer. It's all you ever needed to know about Wikipedia.
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sounds like (Score:5, Insightful)
"Cabal" is ridiculous. (Score:5, Informative)
Until now, I assumed that people would be able to properly set the bozo bit on these guys, but now that they've gotten The Register convinced, it's time for the big secret to come out:
We (the Wikipedia admins) aren't competent enough to form a conspiracy. Seriously. We all have our own agendas, our own skillsets, varying levels of intelligence, and wildly different ideas on how the project should run. Accusing us of having the ability to form a global star-chamber of sorts that seeks to control the nature of truth is like accusing us of keeping the metric system down or making Steve Gutenberg a star.
We're just editors with some extra tools, and we fight like rabid cats.
But thanks for the compliment.
this is... (Score:3, Insightful)
Thanks, but I take Wikipedia over The Register any day.
The problem is discourse. (Score:5, Insightful)
An example -- and I don't think this will be off topic when you see where I am going with it: for years a set of researchers in Australia insisted that most peptic and duodenal ulcers were caused by a bacteria called helicobacter pylori. [wikipedia.org] Problem was, the treatment for the bacteria was a simple and very cheap course of antibiotics and pink bismuth (brand name is usually Pepto Bismol) for about two weeks -- which negated the value of some very expensive American-developed medicines who basically trashed the research in the medical community for years. The end of the story is that the researchers, Warren and Marshall were correct, and 80% of all ulcers ARE caused by that bacteria. In fact these two were awarded the 2005 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their work on H. pylori.
So what would happen if Wikipedia were available back then and the powers that be basically chose the wrong side and banned Warren and Marshall from editing articles on stomach ulcers, because another group had a vested interest in keeping the status quo? Which is where the real ruckus lies and why I am now backing Citizendium [slashdot.org] instead of Wikipedia.
If you want to read unsantized information on WP (Score:5, Informative)
* http://www.wikipediareview.com [wikipediareview.com] WR is a forum that is populated by a mix of Wikipedia administrators posting openly, regular users, and a few "banned" users. Unfortunately, the Wikipedia 'elite' routinely badmouth the holy hell out of the WR forums because of the fact that "banned" users are allowed. Also, the Wikipedia "BADSITES [wikipedia.org]" final solution (which is still active--disregard that rejected notice, its just been implemented anyway), was a direct revenge response against Wikipedia Review and similar sites that the Wikipedia leaders have no ability to silence or control in any way.
* http://www.wikitruth.info [wikitruth.info] Wikitruth is a private Wiki, which is ran by a variety of actual Wikipedia administrators, who post deleted content from Wikipedia and other insider information. Wikipedia HATES Wikitruth, almost as much as they hate Wikipedia Review, but are both helpless and powerless against them. Why? Because anything posted to Wikipedia is posted under the GFDL, and you can't de-GFDL Wikipedia content. Wikipedia just "chooses" not to display deleted content as an editorial decision. Oops.
Go to Wikipedia Review for frank and uncensored discussion about Wikipedia. Yes, some lunatics and social and/or mental defectives live there; the same as on the Slashdot comments. But a frightening number of smart and eloquent people post there. Those are the ones that Wikipedia is truly frightened of, because they can't be controlled or stopped. Go to Wikitruth for the best insider dirt.
I'm sure someone will mod me down as flame bait, or trolling, or someone who edits Wikipedia will be along to troll me. However, isn't it funny how whenever this sort of thing happens, you *cannot* get a straight answer out of the Wikipedia "executives"? It's always spin control, and damage control, sadly. Irresponsible.
I stopped reading after (Score:4, Insightful)
Cabal? Really? Are you sure you don't just need to turn off the machine and get outside for a while?
Don't Believe Everything you Read (Score:4, Informative)
On a side note, we need the same level of transparency into our Governments that we're currently seeing in Wikipedia. There were shenanigans going on, but those shenanigans were exposed for anyone who bothered to look for them. Opensecrets.org is a good start, but it doesn't really offer the same level of governmental shenanigans-catching.
Why blacklisting is a bad idea (Score:3, Interesting)
Is there any way around the 'power-hungry weenie' problem? I think some explicit policy on blocking could help. If any IP address is blocked from Wikipedia, there must be a link to an archived copy of the Wikipedia vandalism that was responsible for the blocking, and this evidence should be verifiable by anyone.
Wizards of OZ (Score:4, Insightful)
"Pay no attention to the people behind the curtain."
Where possible, of course Wikipedia is manipulated for the benefit and glory of those that own or run it (and/or their friends) - DUH. There's money to be made, agendas to set, axes to grind, opinions to influence, minds to manipulate. Then, of course, there are the evil uses :-)
"Naked short selling", and all that (Score:5, Informative)
Ugh. Now that I've read the Wikipedia article on "naked short selling", I'm probably going to have to edit it. It doesn't mention some of the real problems. "Naked short selling" creates fake stock, which is then purchased and owned by someone. And they can vote that stock. This can lead to more votes than there are shares outstanding.
The fake stock created by naked short selling is supposed to be replaced by buying real stock within 13 days. But that's not always happening. "Overstock.com" has had such fake stock outstanding for years, more fake stock than they actually have outstanding.
Here's a New York Times article [nytimes.com] that discusses the issue. Forbes [forbes.com] has also written about this.
The top stocks with fake stock outstanding for long periods [mcmaster.ca] are:
Reference to this article erased in 11 mins. (Score:3, Informative)
Was removed by an IP 209.200.52.180 that is somewhere in NYC. The same IP has made dozens of edits just like the article states. Looks like foul play to me when you simply remove a factual reference because it brings light to bad behavior.
Overstock.com page on Wikipedia (my edits from 68.34.73.97): http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Overstock.com&action=history [wikipedia.org]
All edits from 209.200.52.180: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/209.200.52.180 [wikipedia.org]
The anonymous edits from that IP are numerous. In my book if you do that much editing you should have an account. I maybe touch one or two articles a year (maybe) so just add anonymously. I do not remove or correct information anonymously, as that is ass-hattery (in fairness, I have corrected some bad spelling and/or small grammar slips).
Looks to me from all the recent press that Wikipedia is just like the rest of the world: full of partisanship, feuds and corruption.
Won't get my donations.
All or nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
That's good to know -- I don't need to write up that material I was going to submit since Wiki is a "love it (as is) or leave it" regime.
Re:All or nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't like the idea of Wikipedia, or they are natural conspiracy theorists who think all power and centralized control is evil, and are willing to take Wiki down in their cause to reform it on an idealistic model of total anarchy, which anyone with a lick of sense knows wouldn't work, as evidenced by the vandalism problems Wikipedia has had.
I don't want to see that agenda served. I think Wikipedia is a good idea, but it was inchoate, as all good ideas are, and they need time and balance to sort out the problems with that idea, without someone screeching "totalitarian" at what is little more than a bunch of snotty intellectuals with little to no PR experience and/or tact.
Though they failed to mention Nazis, I am calling "Godwin" on the whole bit. I agree with you. It needs to be worked with, and praised for what it is, not assaulted.
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Toro
Re:All or nothing (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I doubt you'll be banned for reasoned criticism, and I only think less of the author of this article, who clearly has a dire agenda, or is so wrapped up in media hype that he doesn't recognize it anymore. Some of these writers have it "turned up to 11" all the time.
Best of luck to you. I'm sorry if I impli
Re: (Score:3)
How about telling that to some of the other top admins, especially JzG (Guy)... he in particular always comes off breathing fire about how there's absolutely no redeeming value in anything any of the banned editors or outside critics or "attack sites" ever say... or even in any ideas that are in a
Re:All or nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. RTFA, then you'll know the score (Score:2)
The summary sounds quite reasonable, then you get to the article and you find out it's based on an infantile rant.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Ah yes, but The Register is little more than a rag e-zine but Wikipedia attempts to pass of this air of authority that it obviously does not have as there are people, at the top, fucking things up.
Yes, but is this relevant to 85% of the body of work? Do we really need to throw the word "totalitarian" around, or "black helicopters?" Jeez.
How the fuck would we know? We don't have someone who devoted a good bit of his
Re:Throwing the baby out with the bathwater (Score:5, Insightful)
The only reason people complain is because they care about it. This is a real concern; I have absolutely no problem believing that there are abuses going on. The editors are human, and, even worse, they have a strong emotional stake in the project. That gives them a lot of motivation to do some "ends justifying the means" crap like banning someone they don't agree with.
The way for WP to solve the whole problem is to address the concerns not to do as you are doing, and pretend like they don't exist, or aren't relevant.
Re: (Score:2)
So saying that there is a problem at WP is the same as destroying the whole?
No. That would be reasoned. Read the f-ing article, which is titled:
Wikipedia black helicopters circle Utah's Traverse Mountain
The imagery of the linked article is a deliberate and polemic assault designed to take Wiki down, and rob it of all credibility. He is trying to make a bunch of milquetoast intellectuals sound like "Dr. Evil." If you didn't read the article, you won't understand why I'm upset with this crap.
The article is not a reasoned complaint, it's a hit job.
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Toro
Re:Throwing the baby out with the bathwater (Score:4, Insightful)
The thing that makes these little flukes on Wikipedia a scandal is that instead of admitting theres a problem, the wiki in-group will loudly deny any problems and pose it as an all-or-nothing, you're-with-us-or-against-us situation.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
They overdo it in many place (seriously, "totalitarian"?) but most of what is written seems reasonable when you strip away the, *ahem*, creative writing.
Seems reasonable? Strip away the writing that serves to color all those facts with a sinister and conspiratorial nature? I wish.
You're in the business and you don't understand how modern PR works?
I agree, there's some useful information in there, but it is tinged with so much connotation of conspiracy and sinister control that it can have a rather marked affect on how the reader will interpret the seemingly reasonable material. It could even make them accept it without question if the job is done well eno
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You're in the business and you don't understand how modern PR works?
I used a poor turn of phrase, sorry. I'm not in the business of writing.
I agree, there's some useful information in there, but it is tinged with so much connotation of conspiracy and sinister control that it can have a rather marked affect on how the reader will interpret the seemingly reasonable material. It could even make them accept it without question if the job is done well enough.
Yep, I mentioned that I thought that they were hyperbolic, and I agree with your point. To call the admins "totalitarian" is excessive.
This is how you get anyone to accept a poor, evil interpretation of reasonable events. You hit them with emotional words ("creative" writing), and then you "back them up" with facts that aren't sinister at all, if you gave any context.
I agree.
Really, it goes a bit beyond a "joke." That's a very lame excuse for some rather provocative PR work aimed at coloring opinions on Wikipedia.
From my limited reading of the site in question, I had the impression that this kind of stuff is normal for them. I guess my point of view was more that they were trying to be witty and not malicious. But, see my previous post and above comments. I do agree that the article is too
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This isn't about inaccurate information posted by those uninformed, uneducated, or malicious.
This is about administrators, and the site's creator, supporting (again, *perceived*) fallacies, in an effort to discredit and disgrace someone.
THAT's the problem.
Re:Throwing the baby out with the bathwaterTROLL-1 (Score:4, Informative)
I'd mod you Troll -1, had I mod points today. The credibility of The Register, which has a reputation years long, is not in question with me.
Re: (Score:2)
The register's reputation isn't in question, we have the answer and it's worth much less than Wikipedia.
Re: (Score:2)
Unless the article is CLEARLY bias, the only way to know if an article is useless is to already know more than the article. How would you know that an article is missing some detail? If you know enough to determine a particular article is not adequate, why are you looking it up on Wikipedia in the first place?
The real problem is - as outlined
The Register's humor (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but is this relevant to 85% of the body of work? Do we really need to throw the word "totalitarian" around, or "black helicopters?" Jeez.
Relax, chief. It's The Register's odd British humor. Go look at any of their articles about robots- they usually insert jokes about robots being one step closer to world domination/human enslavement.
Nevermind that this is the paper that runs the Bastard Operator From Hell series. I can't believe you got modded up to 5 for not realizing a joke on a famously snarky-humor-laden technology news sites.
Also, your comments were a lovely bit of straw man crap: nobody is seriously suggesting (or is it really even possible to) "take down" Wikipedia.
The Register has less credibility than Wiki, if only for this idiotic smear job.
Says you, chief. I think they're one of the best sources for technology news around and I love their (obvious to any idiot) twist. CNET and others happily parrot press release after press release; only the good 'ol Reg actually views 'em with an eye of skepticism.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Secondly, and the thing that bothers me the most about all of this, is that there's a simple technical fix to the majority of Wikipedia's problems. "Deleted" articles should remain viewable by the general public, not just administrators. Even if that didn't solve the problem, it would at least let people look at the articles and see whether they should actually be deleted or not.
Thirdly, Wikipedia's motto is "anyone can edit." If they don't let
Re: (Score:2)
I've found Wikipedia to be a useful starting point for researching highly technical or historical articles. You'd have to be mad to think of it as a good source for, say, politics, or still-living individuals.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I find it hard to believe that anyone uninvolved in the cabal could be
Precisely: you *can't* complain (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Precisely: you *can't* complain (Score:4, Insightful)