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Ever heard of the Robots Exclusion Standard colloquially called robots.txt?

If you don't care to learn the ways of the new age then you should rightfully go extinct.

I don't think that anybody ever succesfully using Google or Wikipedia will like being insulted by the established media.

Larry Sanger, the creator of Wikipedia, had a great idea and I am sure it will be born out, although definitely not in Wikipedia, or possibly even Sanger's new project. But it will come about in the coming years, and the importance of Sanger's idea will continue...

Hmmm.

Jimbo is listed on his Wikipedia article as "President of Wikia, Inc.; Board member and Chairman Emeritus of the Wikimedia Foundation".

He's nominally no longer involved in day-to-day editing, because he's an eight hundred pound elephant. (Revert Jimbo and you might wake up with your account banned...) However, he still sticks his nose in every so often, which causes great confusion. Also, he's semi-officially the GodKing of Wikipedia, and acts like it, too. He may blather on about the virtues of openness and accountability (virtues which I happen to believe in), but seems to think that they only apply to lesser folk. (He had no problem keeping his knowledge of Essjay's fraud to himself, for instance. No need for the plebs to trouble their little minds.) Also, he writes hilarious edit summaries like "voting as regular editor".

The upshot of all this is that Jimbo exercises dictatorial authority (though I would argue he doesn't exercise enough to be truly disruptive), but pretends that he doesn't, and in deference to said authority, the community plays along. It's depressing, which is why I keep my edits far away from anything the cabal touches.

Sure. It's mentioned in the first post at the top of this page how he uses his powers of deletion to remove unflattering edits from page history. And sadly, this fits right in with the behavior of many other higher-ups at Wikipedia, including, it would seem, Jimbo himself. I see no reason to disbelieve these accounts. And it's very disappointing.

You might want to have a read of http://www.wikitruth.info/ - enlightening.

If it's good enough for Jimbo Wales to ghostwrite edits that are more favorable to him, why shouldn't this be the case for Microsoft?

IMHO this is part of what's wrong with Wikipedia. They claim to be open to all and to have a community, deciding many things by consensus.

Except when Jimbo, or another well-known admin overrules everyone else.

They've even sneakily formalized this policy in renaming Votes for deletion to Articles for deletion, suggesting that while a discussion can take place about an article's fate, it can generally be ignored if an admin (typically the one placing it up for deletion) disagrees.

There's some interesting information over at WikiTruth about this (like everything else, taken with a grain of salt; there's some obvious bias there).

Anyway, I personally believe this is a bad thing for the overall health of the internet. Wikipedia is a huge site. Making it irrelevant to search engines will probably affect Google quite a lot, and give a *huge* boost to whoever figures out how to get around the nofollow restriction.

Here is a new devesating vandal technique which all ex-wikipedians should know.

1. Go to any page
2. Click edit this page
3. Scroll down to the bottom to the list of templates used
4. Open each template that is not protect in a new tab on your browser
5. Paste in lots of image code of your "favorite" picture (eg [[Image:Willys-Knight1920.jpg]]) into themplate.
6. Repeat for each tab.
7. Enjoy the multi-page vandalism
8. Repeat over multiple projects and wikis
9. Help Reclaim Wikimedia for the vandals.

Willy on Wheels, Pelican Shit, CPLOT and all other vandals unite to get revenge on the deletion of the so-called "Not-Notable" GNAA.

http://www.wikitruth.info/
http://www.wikipedia-watch.org/
http://www.wikipediareview.com/
http://www.gnaa.us/
http://willy.on.whee.ls/

For those who are not sure who or what Wikipedia is, please consult: http://www.wikitruth.info/

It does?

It does?

There is now an "appreciation site" devoted to the collection of cruft deleted from Wikipedia known as the WikiDumper at wikidumper.blogspot.org. The site is beginning to draw attention, too, receiving press from the likes of USA Today, Fortune, Der Spiegel, Boing Boing, and CNET. It isn't surprising that much of the material which is considered for deletion on Wikipedia turns out to be a hoax, but what is surprising is that some of these hoaxes manage to surving 2-3 years before being noticed.

If he wants something done, he'll just sit back and wonder if it should be done. He doesn't need to be on the board for that.

If you really think Jimbo is giving up power, you are wrong. This is a man who directly manipulate elections at Wikipedia.
http://www.wikitruth.info/index.php?title=Board_Ga mes

if he truly goes, then Wikipedia truly benefits but he wont give up the platform tht elevated him from soft porn purveyor to respected internet mind.

This page, although written from an inflammatory POV, raises some very interesting points, though I admit I've not dug too deep into the financials. Quite concerning, for those who want to/do donate to Wikipedia.

As that article states, kinda stinks of interference. Well, not stinks, but is.

My personal favourite, after announcing who two people are and that you should "give them some of your votes" while others have "shown themselves to be untrustworthy", he then proclaims:

I invite an open discussion here of the candidates. This is your community, speak openly of who you trust and why.

Why, so we can flag ourselves as being "against", as in "If you're not with us, you're against us"?

Yeah, but he unfortunately won't be remembered for his abuses of power, but as the guy who saw that encylopaedias written by experts were just too hard to organise; the truth can be determined by persistent edits and the occasional vote, no?

He's just an overgrown pornographer... yesterday he exploited women, today he exploits zealots looking for a cause; in each case, he makes all the money, and someone else does the dirty work. He executes this really well, of the order that Bill Gates courts big business: he is charming, he speaks softly and carries a big stick.

I'm glad that my small efforts, along with the greater contributions of others who see Wikipedia for what it is, have been able recently to get the attention of the media; unfortunately, we have focussed on symptoms, on practical problems, rather than on the shaky principles that form the very foundations of the project.

He doesn't need to throw his weight around. All he has to do is "wonder" if something ought to happen and ... poof! It does. Like magic!

Go look at wikitruth.info if you want to swap stories about how Jiminy Wales is the new Bill Gates and Wikipedia is the new Microsoft. There's lots of good examples of lies becoming fact there based on who Jiminy Wales personally believes and decides will have their views reflected in Wikipedia. There is obviously no definition of a "troll" there other than what Wales himself personally considers one. And as a rich, white, middle-aged male living in the USA of avowedly libertarian views, that puts him in a very small category of people worldwide. Most of the world would not consider him "neutral" in any way, shape, form or test.

You can say this for Wikipedia though: the pages documenting genuine vandalism and telling troll stories about sysop vandalism and other sysop abuses are among the funniest things ever written. If you think pettiness, small-mindedness, self-certainty, ideological rigidity, absolute refusal to examine one's own behaviour, self-sabotage, logical fallacy, misquotes and paraphrases as a way of life, and a deliberate ideological commitment to the strictest definitions of stupidity are funny, that is. Wales is all that and more, but there are clowns around him who make Wales look like Socrates.

This happens to most communities where people are trying to achieve a goal. Everything2, Wikipedia, et al. It has nothing to do with 'critical thinking' and everything to do with 'appropriateness'. People tried to (and to a lesser extent are trying to, though is seems to have been co-opted into a creative writing site) document "Everything" on E2. Some 'old school' types felt that they had 'earned' frivolity, and such, by virtue of their contributions. They wrote nodes with such stuff as "Lesbians! Monkeys! Soy!" and "Butterfinger McFlurry". The wrote nodes with self-referential garbage such as "Earn Your Bullshit", which they used to justify that "once you have written enough serious stuff, you are entitled to inject a bit of utter crap here and there". They were (correctly) called on it.

You have Jimbo flying around the world, talking about how Wikipedia should be burnt on to discs for children without internet access (replete with all the antics discussed places like here) as a valuable resource, people spouting meta-acronyms like WP:CITE, WP:NPOV, WP:V to chastise others who don't take Wikipedia seriously enough, you have defenders railing that "Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia!" when people query some of the methodology and theorising, although they somehow must have missed that big sentence on the homepage that proudly proclaims, "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit."

It has nothing to do with critical thinking and everything to do with this selective deafness when it comes to the pointing out of any hypocrisy in worldview.

Is it wrong to have a sense of humour? No. Are people entitled to do as they wish with their creations? Of course. Is it disingenuous to sweep under the carpet all of the issues inherent, and proclaim that the fault must be in that of the viewer, for "the consensus" knows best? Absolutely (ask yourself about how it is that so much gets deleted in the name of "WP:NOTABILITY", and yet there are literally thousands of articles on manga, and every card in the history of the Magic: The Gathering game has its own individual entry).

The trio of MySpace, Wikipedia and Youtube have been hyped up for a while (look at the alexa ratings, they are very similar but still small compared to the real titans Google and Yahoo). But consider they are mostly a 2005/6 fad. 2007 is when the bubble will pop.

Wikipedia will pop in 2007 when more people discover the Wikitruth and enough college students fail their degree due to citing wikipedia in their papers. Wikipedia was a geek site anyway until Seigenthaler happened.

Youtube will get replaced by hundreds of other video sharing websites. There is only so many 79 year old men with a web cam. Once everybody has seen all the videos people will return to bit torrent for the copyrighted stuff and the video sharing sites will be mostly videos of their cats.

Myspace will crack as soon as all the emos get a life.

You heard it here first

In 2007. Web 2.1 will be launched, with the .1 refering to patch to stop the hype and everything will be back to normal.

Odd thing, the full Encyclopeida Dramatica site is down, and even more strange is that the Wikipedia article for it is deleted and protected, along with the talk page, and there is no explanation, it has been down since august. Does anyone have any idea why this is?

Did it get slashdotted, or purposely removed? Also whats up with the Wikipedia page. I would like to at least know what the Encyclopedia Dramatica is, the only source I could really find was from Urban Dictionary, which really isn't the best source of anything.

i would hate to see how they determine what's "notable."

the wikipedia encyclopedia is ok for science topics but for all the cultural/historical entries, it's like the worst of MySpace combined with the most boring blogs. half the admins there pound anyone who disagrees with them into the ground by using the "rules" and the senior staff arbitarily make secret decisions w/o any oversight. so i don't trust wikianything any more.

speak the wikitruth! http://www.wikitruth.info/

Since Wiki admins have mod points on slashdot, it proves that Slashdot can not be used for fair debate. Wikipedians are known for banning and slandering their critics, and this is proof that you should use Wikipedia for anything.

When jimbo does his "personal appeal" for a "child in africa" this year. Remember that Wikipedia was founded on porn site revenues (he has been closing down sites in order to "hide his past") and that he owns a Ferrari.

When Google gets enough complants about inaccurate Wikipedia listings in it's results and removes them from it's index, Wikipedia will lose 90% of its traffic and will die a slow and horrible death! Mod down if you endorse this.

Remember to tell the Wikitruth!

Did you charge /. for this article Jimbo?

http://www.wikitruth.info/index.php?title=FCYTravi s
http://www.wikitruth.info/index.php?title=Kelly_Ma rtin
http://www.wikitruth.info/index.php?title=WooHooKi tty

http://www.wikitruth.info/index.php?title=FCYTravi s
http://www.wikitruth.info/index.php?title=Kelly_Ma rtin
http://www.wikitruth.info/index.php?title=WooHooKi tty

http://www.wikitruth.info/index.php?title=FCYTravi s
http://www.wikitruth.info/index.php?title=Kelly_Ma rtin
http://www.wikitruth.info/index.php?title=WooHooKi tty

In case anybody wants to look up some of Jimbo's actions from another perspective, go to Wikitruth.

It is to Wikipedia what DailyKos is to conservatism or Instapundit is to liberalism - a completely biased site decrying the flaws in a philosophy. As such, take its claims with some skepticism and salt, feel free to reject them, but do at least consider them before you reject them.

Note: I am not associated with WikiTruth - but I feel they make some good points.

What? Nobody (at least, nobody above +2) has posted a link to WikiTruth? Well, let me do so then.

Please folks dont forget the scavenger hunt at Wikimania! http://www.wikitruth.info/index.php?title=Wikitrut h_Scavenger_Hunt

Fear the Junior Woodchucks.

A site called WikiTruth tracks the reliability of Wikipedia on its Is Wikipedia reliable? page.

Posted are some of the more notable hoaxes to escape the Wikipedia editors, as well as a summary of educational institutions which have explicitly banned using Wikipedia for academic research or as a source of reference.

A site called WikiTruth tracks the reliability of Wikipedia on its Is Wikipedia reliable? page.

Posted are some of the more notable hoaxes to escape the Wikipedia editors, as well as a summary of educational institutions which have explicitly banned using Wikipedia for academic research or as a source of reference.

The big problem with Wikipedia that depsite its mass inaccuaracies, still comes up top in many search results, which lead many naive web users who do not know the Wikitruth being fulled into thinking Wikipedia is actually an authoitative source.

We, in order to take back the search engines need to start taking action. Willy on Wheels has written a guide to filtering and blocking Wikipedia when using Firefox.

If Wikipedia is removed from the search results then it would lose most of its traffic and would soon self-implode with all the edit wars and vandals that remain, and the Internet would become useful again.

Simply a matter of legal responsibility and risk.

Wikipedia risk little and for such reduced risk it carries little legal weight, naturally.

And no you cannot always correct errors, see http://www.wikitruth.info/

Note that it seems most controversy over "people".

An article was created on myself, incorrect and ultimatley targeted as an indirect unfair critisism on a project. The basis of the critisism was the "authoritive" persistance of usenet trolls, some outright admitted. While ignoring the much more official position of publication acceptance of organizations like the USPTO, FFII.org, and http://developer.osdl.org/dev/priorart/

I made some corrections and expanded the corrections to the creation of an article on the subject matter which the project is based. The subject matter of which is easily verifiable.

The article was deleted and it then being obvious the intent was supporting libel against myself, and fraud againt the project, all it took was a little threat of a lawsuit for the article on myself to be removed.

removal is not correction but denial of it.

Being objective, rather than subjective to this insidence, I see the truth about wikipedia. Its not about Truth! And this "not about truth" is even stated in their policies.

Popular belief and cleverly hidden opinions, insinuations is what wikipedia is about.

your theories don't hold up in comparison to practical application.

There are those of us who have personal experience with wikipedia and see through your theories and see the holes in wikipedias policies, all is well so long as one understands what wikipedia is, in making use of it.

Pamela Jones of gorklaw knows, I know and I'm sure there are others too, how incorrect wikipedia can be and how resistant it can be to proper correction at the hands of opionated influence. The theoretical process wikipedia employs in application really just results in putting the controlling opinions vs. genuine research, at another level not so easily or directly seen.

The problems of wikipedia even inspired some former adminastrators to start up another site http://www.wikitruth.info/

A lot of the vandalism is just teenage-level stuff... eg. vandalizing cock.

Also, it's impossible to please everyone. Some people think anything non-notable should be deleted. Some people think that anything that passes verifiability/NOR should be kept, no matter how trivial, since Wikipedia can potentially grow indefinitely. Some people think that only Britannica-level stuff should be kept (eg. no individual schools, no minor roads, no breakfast cereals). it's almost guaranteed that someone will hold strongly to one of these views, and someone is guaranteed to get pissed off over it.

These guys might have a few reasons why not to.

[X] Wikipedia has been blocked indefinitely from use by reputable academic, research institutions, media organizations per ruling of global professional users and/or editors. See the block log.
 
[!] Slashdot is a suspected sockpuppet of Wikipedia, and has been put on wheels.

[X] Wikipedia has been blocked indefinitely from use by reputable academic, research institutions, media organizations per ruling of global professional users and/or editors. See the block log.
 
[!] Slashdot is a suspected sockpuppet of Wikipedia, and has been put on wheels.

[X] Wikipedia has been blocked indefinitely from use by reputable academic, research institutions, media organizations per ruling of global professional users and/or editors. See the block log.
 
[!] Slashdot is a suspected sockpuppet of Wikipedia, and has been put on wheels.

Wikipedia is similar: it's the convenient place to find lots of (pretty much worthless) trivia and a number of good articles. You can find an annotated list of every German Army Division in WWII, but coverage of the U.S. war in Vietnam is so sparse that Paul Harkins, the first U.S. commander in the war and arguably a big reason for the U.S. failure, gets only a single sentence.

And who writes the articles? Experts tend not to stay around, because experts' articles are so frequently "improved" by acne-faced kids with no friends and plenty of time to flame-war on "teh Intarweb". (It's no coincidence that most of Jimbo Wales's "bureaucracy" at Wikipedia consists of teenagers and kids just out of college. They have the time to play around on Wikipedia, and are inexperienced enough to think they know something about everything.

Like Wal*Mart products, Wikipedia's articles are assembled by kids. Free labor keeps Wal*Mart's products cheap and Wikipedia's free. Wal*Mart uses the cheapest possible raw materials; Wikipedia's "editors" far too often paraphrase stuff they've read elsewhere on the web. Cheap products result, but so does shoddy and uneven construction.

And just like Wal*Mart's hiring of people to change articles on it on Wikipedia, Wikipedia shows a great defensiveness and overreaction whenever it is criticized. Wikipedia currently bans linking to sites critical of Wikipedia, even in articles on criticism of Wikipedia.

Recently, a long-time Wikipedia "bureaucrat" was unilaterally and without any process de-sysopped for failing to realize that another bureaucrat had surreptitiously made a page uneditable. It turned out that to avoid "bad publicity", the page was frozen -- on Jimmy Wales's orders -- without explanation. Because the long-time bureaucrat didn't read between the lines, he was locked out of Wikipedia without warning or apology.

People who have spent years building Wikipedia are routinely banned or smeared as "vandals" "trolls" or "conspiracy mongers" just for questioning the fairness of Wikipedia administrators using their powers to ban their personal enemies.

To further avoid publicity, Wikipedia's founder, Jimbo Wales, is alleged to now ask editors he trusts to make silent changes to articles on his behalf "because the stupid media watches everything I do now".

Here on Slashdot, a few weeks ago, I asked a Wikipedia Bureaucrat a few simple questions. My questions were almost immediately modded down. Thanks to Slashdot's readership, my posts in the main article were modded back up. But all four of my comments on the bureaucrat's journal -- where most Slashdotters with mod points aren't even looking -- were modded troll. What a coincidence, huh?

Wikipedia is the online equivalent of Wal*Mart: it's big, it's convenient, but the user has no way of knowing if the articles he's getting for f

The whole thing is disgusting, why is this even news? If you look at the differences between the old and new (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Berry) and old (http://www.wikitruth.info/index.php?title=Uncenso red:Justin_Berry) wikipedia entries for Justin Berry, you'll see that it was clearly not censorship, but an attempt to bring some objectivity to the article. The older one is obviously meant to portray Justrin Berry in an unflattering light, while the newer one meets the standards I have come to expect of Wikipedia.

Maybe they didn't include basic information on purpose so that you'd RTFAs they linked to.

And as of this post wikitruth.info is Slashdotted. Just now I had to go search Google because I'd never heard of the guy before.

This is why we have summaries: to summarize the story. A quick mention of who he was wouldn't have hurt.