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Usenet Psychic Wars With Wikipedia
Early last week an anonymous editor with a posting style remarkably like the one widely believed to be that of Sollog himself contributed this article to the encyclopedia, boasting of Sollog's prophesizing prowess and mathematical genius. Less than twenty-four hours later, the article was looking a little more balanced and encyclopedic. Along with Sollog's claims, it now carried the revelation that not everyone is as convinced of the accuracy of Sollog's power of prediction as he himself is, along with links to some rather unflattering appraisals of his work.
A week of spectacular net.kookery has since transpired, replete with vandalism of the article, bizarre legal threats, long semi-coherent rants with LOTS OF CAPITAL LETTERS, a rich bounty of links to Ennis-run sites, and a legion of anonymous posters with exactly the same writing style as one another all strenuously affirming that they are individual and distinct "fans" of Sollog and not the man himself. Unable to accept that Wikipedia's policy of presenting a Neutral Point of View means that an article on Sollog would have to include both pro- and anti-Sollog material, and unable to force other Wikipedia editors to accept his version of reality, Ennis has taken instead to making hostile phone calls to Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales at his home, and setting up his very own Wikipedia and Wales hate site.
Whether or not Sollog really did predict Princess Diana's death, the Oklahoma bombing, 9/11, the crash of TWA flight 800, the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, and most of the natural disasters in the US over the last few years, he doesn't seem to have foreseen his inability to control the picture that Wikipedia presents of him to the world.
See here for the current revision of the article, which may or may not be currently in a vandalized state.
There was a once upon a time when I figured that Wikipedia could work, become a sort of collection of the intelligence and expertise of the masses on the internet. I've run across enough blatent inacurracies over the last year or so, however, that I can't look at it as anything but a basic starting place for research now. Two main problems as I see it (this is hardly new revelation):
(1) Everyone's viewpoint tends to get reflected, even it's just plain wrong. For instance, look at the entry on the Children's Crusade of 1212 -- it presents three versions of what happened, but only one (the last one) is "right", meaning that it's the version backed by modern research. The ability to site sources or research or present an authoratative case is outclassed by the ability to have the time on one's hands to hit the "edit" button a lot.
(2) Not all articles get many eyeballs. The Wiki tends to work best when there are a lot of people looking at the article, so little-travelled articles can have downright bizarre inaccuracies. They fall victim to either misunderstanding, bad source information or the maliciousness of those few anti-social morons who think wrecking the Wiki makes them cool.
While this is an interesting model of the internet at large, it's not a good thing in terms of being a useful resource.
Just as Linux and other open source projects aren't really "open" in terms of accepting everything anyone throws at them, so must Wikipedia find a way to become more selective in what it accepts. The Wiki itself is such a good idea that there's just got to be a way to make it work, but frankly I can't work out a paradigm that will save it from the issues it has now.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Stooping to such levels as to make fun of a mans wife and child publicly on the internet lends ZERO credibility to an argument and makes me lose all respect for a person that would do such a thing.
The problem with libel laws is that it is not libel if you aren't lying. Saying that something sucks is an opinion.
He's a troll who succeeded in getting a entire slashdot story about him.
The poster seriously mis-represents the "Child Crusade" article. It seems to be a VERY GOOD article on the subject and NOT fraught with competing viewpoints. The several "viewpoints" are important to the topic and should be
mentioned.
He criticizes Wikipedia as "inaccurate" but provides no evidence.
Though he does mention Linux. That should give hima a "+4 insightful". Too bad hed didn't mention Apple, then it'd be "+5, informative".
As someone whose father is one of the survivors of the Oklahoma City bombing, it really pisses me off when someone sez "I predicted the whole thing".
Bullshit.
It's easy to sit around on your ass and "predict" after the event happens. But had he known one GODDAMN thing about OKC, he MIGHT have warned everyone ahead of time.
Last I checked, Dad never got a phone call.
IANAL, but I've seen actors play them on TV
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Newsflash: Insane, opinionated crank on the internet. News at 11.
This is not news. It's funny, his wikipediasucks site is distressing, for making fun of the guy's daughter, but this is not news.
Nothing to see here, move along. My guess is that if this hadn't involved wikipedia, but instead one of the many, many other wikkis out there, this would never have been "news".
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Which is exactly how every encyclopedia ever written was created. The writers of the Encyclopedia Brittanica weren't voted into office, They were simply the self-proclaimed "experts" of the time. Also, Wikipedia does go through many editorial reviews by its users.
I don't see Wikipedia as being any better or any worse then printed encyclopedias. I wouldn't necessarily trust the very first version of any given Wikipedia page, just like I wouldn't trust a printed encyclopedia until it's been given a once-over by editors.
The argument that only paid writers should be trusted to give credible information sounds too much like a similar creed that only paid programmers, working on closed source, can be trusted to write secure software.
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Congrats to Sollog, he's really showing /. trolls what it MEANS to troll. Forget the GNAA, forget Fr1st Ps0t and Hot Grits. Sollog has developed a religion and a following (ok, maybe a virtual following) around his trolling capabilities.
Truly an American icon!
Let's say I walked into the library and marked up their encyclopedias with red ink (making legitimate corrections, in my opinion). Would you consider that credible?
Before I respond, I'll call straw-man, since you're assuming that one person's edits are analogous to a community of hundreds of committed editors and thousands more of casual editors. Think about it - the encyclopedia came from draft articles, marked up with red ink by a few people, and published nicely.
Then I'll answer: yes, I would consider this credible, if I see the corrections as worthwhile. If you wrote "LOL PWNED" and "BUSH SUXXORZ" on the book, of course not. If you corrected an article that I see is definitely flawed or lacking information, I would assume that you are probably more correct than the encyclopedia.
"A bunch of people on the Internet think it's good" does not constitute an editorial review.
"A bunch of people in a corporation" does? What is your definition of editorial review? How does it differ from a definition of WP's review where the wording is equally biased to the other side (given that the editors have shown themselves to be committed, and that several are quite accomplished in their subject)? WP is not reviewed by random people on the Internet, as you suggest.
This article explores just how successful one troll can be in disrupting the flow of things for a while -- and how the entire world can witness it.
No; this article suggests how even the most determined troll cannot stand up to Wikipedia, whose community knows how to write an unbiased article and remove personal attacks or self-praise.