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Wikipedia to Restrict Creation of Articles
cine writes "News.com reports that starting Monday Wikipedia will restrict the creation of new articles to members. Anonymous users will only be able to edit existing articles. This move comes after a controversial week for the free online encyclopedia" From the article: "Wales said the Seigenthaler article not only escaped the notice of this corps of watchdogs, but it also became a kind of needle in a haystack: The page remained unchanged for so long because it wasn't linked to from any other Wikipedia articles, depriving it of traffic that might have led to closer scrutiny."
I was never the first to post an article anyway.
When it is so easy to create an account on wikipedia, how does this really affect anything? Banning anonymous article creation isn't suddenly going to make all articles interlinked, nor will it stop people from making pointless articles.
It's a shame that creation of articles can't be (officially) anonymous anymore, but I do see the benefit in requiring registration to start a new article. Most common topics already have an article by now -- and it's easy enough to register to start new ones.
I hope they still allow anonymous edits and posts.
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
But wasn't the Siegenthaler issue about an edit of his article, not creation?
In any case it's not that hard to register, and it's not hard to lie about your personal details. Nor is it hard to do this by proxy. So not quite a free-speech issue since prior to this your IP was published anyway. Thumbs up for a decent resolution.
In the interest of accountability, shouldn't it have been this way in the first place? Then again, I'm a crazy person who thinks real sources (not just websites) need to be cited in a Wikipedia article for it to have real credibility.
Commie Mutant Traitors use Wikipedia to spread treasonous rumours
So a hostile anonymous coward can no longer create an entry. Fine. But isn't the real mischief to be made by modifying a pre-existing entry anyway? The article itself talks about a blogging "pioneer" who deleted references to early bloggers from a Wikipedia story. He could still have done that despite this change.
Perhaps the problem is that high-traffic pages attract all the vandals and trolls. But even so, according to Wikipedian doctrine, any suspect edits on a high-traffic page should be discovered and corrected quickly enough to be of negligible impact. Why, then, the need for Template:High-traffic?
If anything, Wikipedia should include a Template:Low-traffic to warn that fewer eyeballs make an article less reliable. That there exists only Template:High-traffic as a minor concession to reality suggests myopia at best, and a willful doublethink at worst.
Let's just hope that starting a new Wiki article doesn't become as convoluted as starting a new newsgroup became. How many admins are you going to have to ego-massage before they let something new in?
IMHO (as an anti-linkspam vigilante on one Wikipedia language version) it's high time anonymous users are prevented from edits which contain external links, as the chances are these will be to spammy sites.
Creating an account takes before creating an article adds about 5 seconds for a user. I can't see how this will help prevent this scenario again. However, I could imagine that this idea ("Best approach?") would help a lot.
Usually I'd check wikipedia... but eh, they're silent on it.
It was only a matter of time before this started happening. its hard to keep objectivity in a service like wikipedia when ANYONE can say what they want. this also hurts the reputation of wikipedia for being a reliable source of information.
The real question is how to manage this tightening. To quick shuts off valuable contribution, too slowly risks splintering chaos.
The second story is interesting too. On page two they talk about Adam Curry deleting references to other people's work on pod casting and bogging. He deleted Kevin Marks's accomplishments and largely credited himself more. A way to weed out conflict of interest is needed for wikipedia. Over all the author of the article makes wikipedia look bad and almost malicious. Why can't people accept this as an information source?
Great webhosting, cheap rates! Enter code SlashdotDiscount
doesn't look like anything's getting blown out of proportion does it?
Wikipedia's success has come from people joining together and creating new articles, not just editing them. We need to be able to post new facts, new ideas, and new discoveries that are going on in the world. New users are the primary source of these articles.
I would rather have a "free" encyclopedia where I can post articles of my subjects of interest than having to edit those that already exist. Besides, I, like most other people out there, use Wikipedia not for scientific research, but to broaden my perspective on the various subjects out there which old fashioned books are "out of the scope" to provide insight for.
Daniel
basiCreations Software
but perhaps they are trying to increase responsibility and accountability. Perhaps if that guy had been able to find out who had libeled him, he would never have been libeled, or at least they would have fired him or sued him or whatever.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
"Anonymous" edits are identified by their originating IP. Depending on where you're posting from, a user account (which can be easily created without any form of validation, including email verification) will provided more "anonymity".
You don't even need to provide a valid email address to create a wikipedia account right now; it's purely optional. This looks like more of a PR move than a move aimed to actually improve the quality of the content submitted.
As an ex-vandal of Wikipedia, I see this is as bad news. First of all, it only takes a few minutes to create an account, so vandals can still create vandalism. Consider this, Wikipedia restricted page-moves from new users due to page moving vandals, but vandals just created accounts, left them to mature for a few weeks and still got through. It will stop idiots performing toolbar vandalism, but it won't stop the professionals.
To give an example, we had a user who created lots of new articles, then claimed he created lots of hoaxes. They banned him, but they still haven't repaired all the damage. There are over 12000 articles tagged for clean up, how many hoaxes are there? This list for example has tonnes of hoaxes, and they have been kept there for over a year!
The Willy on Wheeels is no longer a threat to the Wiki, entropy and admin ignorance is!
Do you play with your Willy?
Indeed. Anonymous Cowards never have anything important to say!
Wikipedia, nice concept...a fairly large resource of information, but a good example somewhat of anarchy in action.
First, Wikipedia often fails to state it's purposes clearly. Is it an information source, an encyclopedia or an all encompassing well of knowledge?
Take for example issues regarding web comics. Wikipedia went on a purge of dozens of web comic entries. Eliminating vast amounts of effort put in by individuals. The premise, "noteworthiness"....a change in the meaning of that term eliminated large quantities of listings. Such a premise must be taken into account before entries begin. To decide to change the qualifications so as to eliminate 90% of entries is to deride the effort of user's works.
Second, a complete lack of check and balances for edits allow for great risk of destructive behaviors. Were Wikipedia to simply implement a small concept common in Roget's rules of order and most others rules of order there would be much less inclination toward destruction. And that is to require a member to "second" any edits. Sure, it still poses risk. But to do so would enable a bit more order. Perhaps large and substantial edits or deletions of content would require 2 or more "seconds" before said change would be implemented.
Changes should go thru some sort of review process and affirmation.
*shrug*
Until such processes are implemented little will impede the anarchy that is Wikipedia.
Forgive me for being out of the loop, but who is Siegenthaler, and what is the controversy?
If they can justify needing an account to make an article, they will soon justify needing an account to edit. It is far simpler to edit a good article than to start a new one. I forget the details, but there have been plenty of articles that have been edited based on opinion, like a game of ping pong between two camps.
I thought the whole point of wiki was that anyone could add anything, at any time, and if someone does not like it, they can use a previous version of the article. Those radio buttons are nice for seeing the evolution of an article.
Plus, why is forcing registration to make articles any less private? Don't they log the IP address of anyone who adds content?
Jimbo Wales and John Seigenthaler Sr. were on CNN to debate this issue. There's a partial transcript being worked on now.
Growing pains for Wikipedia
Alan Thicke is on the case!
I think it's a waste of time...
Colegio Paula Montal Escolapias Astorga
Although it hasn't happened yet, and arguably isn't likely to happen for months or perhaps years, there will be a point at which every even slightly encyclopedic topic will have a Wikipedia article. Think about it: an average week goes by... there's maybe two or three major news stories, a handful of books, movies, and records get released, maybe a new product or two comes to market, and occasionally there will be some sort of scientific discovery. Even by very loose standards, that would be maybe 50-200 new encyclopedic topics per week. Wikipedia has thousands of editors, and currently several new articles every minute.
Since I don't think the flow of new articles will cease once the encyclopedic topics are covered, this means we'll reach a point when "bad" new articles will far outnumber the "good" new articles. Any action on Wikipedia's part to help stem the tide is a good thing. Wikipedia's openness is both its greatest asset and its curse. The challenge it must face is to strike that perfect balance between freedom and control. All the openness in the world will do it no good if nobody takes it seriously as even a causal information source.
Andrew Lenahan http://www.starblind.com/
What I discovered one day - because i dodn't visit the Wiki every day - was that the whole thing had been co-opted by some anarchistic fool who simply thought that *his* take on my project was a better one. That person literally stole my Wiki URL, erased what I and many others had constructed, and started putting his content on it. That, instead of simply starting his own project under a different name. I had to find an intermediary to help me negotiate with this person, just to get him to cease and desist. In the interim, I lost the promise of help for the project that I had received from several people who could have made the project move along faster. they were afraid that their work could/would be wiped out.
The entire incident caused immeasureable harm to my project, and to the project's self-image. The project lost viable contributions from nearly 100 contributors that really cared about what I was doing.This has since been repaired. I had to reconstruct everything from scratch. This disaster happened simply because there was no proper control designed into the process. Thiings are noe getting better on Wikipedia
If you want to see the project- the California Open Source Textbook Project [COSTP] now almost fully back from near-decimation, go to http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/COSTP_World_History_P roject
http://www.opensourcetext.org/
Here's the real problem with this episode:
1. Some jackass complains about something
2. People listen and decide they care.
3. Wikipedia is changed to suit the needs of the complainer.
The mistake was #2.
A more correct action:
2. Fix the article.
3. Issue an insincere apology.
4. Ignore subsequent whining by irrelevant jackasses.
5. Continue as before.
No one has asked the really important question in all of this. Can Seigenthaler prove that he was not involved in any of the Kennedy assassinations? That is the real question! All this Wikipedia bruhaha is just a smoke screen.
So now the Siegenthaler article, previously an admirably libelous piece, is now singing castrato and sounding like a press release from 1984.
"He's a hero and saved a suicidal guy! He worked for civil rights. Oh what a great guy. Controversy, and criticism, is for bitches."
Yes.
Why didn't Seigenthaler pursue the poster of the "bad" information?
The posting of such outright maliciously false information (if it is) deserves to be investigated. The person could still be caught, and their lies exposed. Their IP address can be matched to ISP records.
If the matter is to be discussed then it should be seriously pursued and played-out to the end. Seigenthaler should shut-up unless he is willing to go the distance.
Right now things are addressed in a half-assed way only, and it is the wiki concept itself that suffers, instead.
This sounds really frustrating, but I don't understand why all your content was lost. Doesn't the wiki keep diffs for each edit? If not, it seems to me that that's the solution. If someone comes in and makes a mess, you just revert to the previous state.
There is virtually no hassle to register a free account. Virtually is the keyword. This little hassle is what might reduce the creation of flamebait or other nonsense articles. If you are going to create a legit article, then I'd wager you have enough determination to take this little step anyway, so there's no problem in that respect, either.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
Wrong again. They evolved. From aliens.
Following this incident, a control system was begun that let project initiators have increased control over their Wiki. this appears to be working.
Wikipedia is a great resource, and a great idea. That said, I think the move to more rational control - to prevent malicious attacks or even inadvertant disasters - is a good idea.
"Wikipedia is so often considered authoritative. That must stop now, surely. Every fact in there must be considered partisan, written by someone with a conflict of interest," blogging and podcasting pioneer Dave Winer wrote in his blog.
Isn't this kind of like the pot calling the kettle black? I mean, blogs are also often considered authoritative, even though they're clearly partisan and written by someone with a conflict of interest.
A lot of stories of this ilk about Wikipedia seem to imply that Wikipedia is sort of a black or white thing - it's either authoritative or not, it's either correct or not, it's either a good resource or it's not.
In reality, it's (of course) some of all these things. Sure, it may be less correct on average than some other source, or it may be less authoritative, but that doesn't make it any less useful (especially on topics that are new, esoteric, or emerging - where else could you find well-written, generally correct information about Leeroy Jenkins or the GNAA?)
Honestly, I think having something where a slightly greater burden lies on readers to evaluate the quality of information is probably a good thing - we should really be doing that more with all "authoritative" information sources anyway.
I used to be a big Wikipedia proponent. I have well over 3,000 edits there. Now however I think the site has gone to hell. I do think that it remains a nice reference site when trying to find general information about a common subject, but its usefulness stops there. Trying to get involved in the process any further is an exercise in futility. The site is run by people with huge egos, and any change you do will most likely get changed back regardless what it is. The time of big contributions of factual information is over, and it's mainly revert wars, arguing and vandalism that are most of the current edits.
Slashdot reports that soon, slashdot editors will only accept story submissions which contain severe grammatical or spelling errors, which are dupes of stories you have already sumbitted.
*blinks*
joking!
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
If I wanted just articles on what the people in charge thought was worth having them on I've got Encarta for that. I go to Wikipedia for the article on a small-time foreign singer whose one obsessive fan was able to write a great bio via his public library's net connection. I *want* there to be articles on everything. What makes wikipedia so great is the anonymous stuff. Has anyone actually counted how much of the good contributions come from anonymous people? I know I never went to the trouble of making an account. There are three pretty good articles (they were barely more than stubs when I started them, but the internet has worked its magic and they're pretty darn good now) that wouldn't be there if this policy had been effect in the past.
I am trolling
was instant freedom to edit at will? In any case, I hope to fan the flame of stories like these in the hopes that certain Slashdotters will quit citing some nonsense they read in Wiki as Gospel Truth which disproves my facts from the Webster's dictionary, Encyclopedia Brittanica, US & World Report, two published books specific to the topic, and a live interview with somebody who was there.
No more
"_My_ex_" is a whore who lives at "_this_address_" call her at "_this_number_".
What I didn't mean me...
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
The News.com story did not report this: Jimbo Wales calls this an "experiment." Link to his email announcing the change.
Penny - plain text accounting
Theres a lot of good in wikipedia, and a lot of trolling.
:) use heuristics and bayesian filters, spot the common trolls and apart from a few pages block them entirely.
Whether it is anonymous or authenticated users, they are all the same.
There is no editing skillset.
How about take a look at the edit history of a user?
At present a new user with no edit history has essentially the same rights as a seasoned wiki editor. Why is this?
Edits SHOULD be verified first by another user with >edits than yourself.
It could be implimented like slashdots' moderation, showing you a few edited blocks and grading them.
Thank you for participating, we would like you to look at the following edit contributions.
Please rate them accordingly.
blah blah
[Constructive] [Good] [OK] [Crap] [Troll] [Spam]
Another alternative would be to treat wiki edits like spam
The sad part is that even with all this 1 simple fact remains:
A well laid out none POV factual error is still wrong.
In the case of the article listing, the information may be plainly wrong, but could be taken as true if you read around the general web.
liqbase
I believe that Wikipedia adds a META tag that stops Googlebot and other bots following links. Still doesn't stop it from distracting users though.
"...the Seigenthaler article not only escaped the notice of this corps of watchdogs, but it also became a kind of needle in a haystack: The page remained unchanged for so long because it wasn't linked to from any other Wikipedia articles, depriving it of traffic..."
/hilarity
Not only does the Wikipedia contain incorrect information about Mr. Seigenthaler, but they now also let out that he's not important enough for anyone to care about his biography.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
So where is the problem? Seigenthaler is complaining that he was bad mouthed by an article that hardly anyone read? Most likely the only reason the article and its contents became well known is because Seigenthaler complained. I didn't know about suggestions that Seigenthaler was involved in JFK's assassination or suggestions that he visited Russia, until I heard it from Seigenthaler. Once Seigenthaler highlighted the article and it started getting significant traffic the article was corrected. I conclude that Wikipedia works in its current form.
The problem isn't anonymous article creation. The real problem with Wikipedia is that it outside the control of the big end of town. First step is to ban anonymous article creation. The final step is to have each Wikipedia edit vetted by lawyers, owned by the big end of town, before posting.
If wikipedia has a problem it is that Jimmy Wales is a point of attack.
The situation with the Seigenthaler article was somewhat unusual. The article (according to the OP link) had no links from within Wikipedia, allowing it to escape the scrutiny of Wikipedians. The article might as well have been posted to someone's Myspace page, except that being on Wikipedia grants somewhat more credibility than just appearing on some random blog. In other words, Wikipedia is as much a victim here as Seigenthaler, as its credibility was usurped (presumably with contravention of Wikipedia's rules like NPOV and no original research) to post an unsubstantiated political point. If the article went unnoticed for so long, it's likely that the only people that ever saw it were people who got the link e-mailed to them by the article's OP, or people who actually searched for Seigenthaler's name. Given such minimal exposure, the damage caused to Seigenthaler's reputation is probably greater now than if he hadn't said anything publicly after he eventually edited the article himself.
But unlike Seigenthaler, Wikipedia gets it from both ends in this case. An anonymous user posts (allegedly) false information about Seigenthaler, and then, seeing that he has no recourse against the offender, Seigenthaler lambasts Wikipedia. Are there problems with Wikipedia's policies? Sure. Adding restrictions upon anonymous users is a good thing, especially given how prone Wikipedia is to vandalism, and I'm still surprised it doesn't require every contributor to post under an account (which would let them then focus their attention on weeding out sock puppets). But that doesn't make Wikimedia, as an organization, responsible for the incorrect content. In fact, the whole point of Wikipedia is that if you, the user, see something that you know is incorrect, you behave as any good member of the community would, and you contribute to making Wikipedia more factually correct. This is peer-to-peer information: the community as a whole suffers if you only take without giving back.
...any problems with a wiki trust-community base, given that it would be a flat user-based system.
i dont know if it would cause harm to those who has real needs (ppl in supressed regimes, those writing on controversial or against main stream ect.)
They implemented the rel="nofollow" attribute on the English WP at one point, but this was removed (and rightly so - Wikipedia passes page rank to many good sites, and it didn't make any appreciable difference to link spamming anyway).
Maybe im missing something, but surely when you edit a wiki, some admin/moderator/registered-user somewhere is alerted that the page has been changed and is given a summary of the changes and original content with some kind of button to approve or flag the change for further scrutiny?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Good idea, or more precisely prevent anonymous visitors from adding or editing external links (not just editing articles containing them). Or even better keep these additions off the main article page and into subsequent edits, but still viewable to the public.
For the non-poker players, pot odds is (and this is over simplified so don't jump on me poker nuts) the concept that as the pot gets bigger, it is more likely worth calling.
For example, based upon betting and the cards I've seen, I have a 10% chance of winning. If I estimate that seeing the hand to completion will cost me $100, if the expected pot is $250, I should fold, but if it is $2500, I should call.
It is the reason that in fixed rate games (only a $3 raise, for example), folding is less common then in a "pot limit" or "no limit" game... In the former, after a few rounds of better, even a poor hand should stay in, because a hand that expects to lose (Long Tail people would disagree, and argue that the value of those minor entries are actually more valuable, which means competing goals...
Alex
people who care enough to create an account there and thus are more likely to stick around to reply to question as to why they did what they did. Plus it decreases the need for others to intervene to delete articles created by anonymous users because it was easy and they happened to be bored at the time.
Read the common carrier regulations, anonymous dumbass.
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
It's Robert's Rules of Order. Roget wrote a thesaurus.
Why are you doing a big project somewhere where you can't make backups of the data??? Seems kind of a dumb idea to me.
...you fail it!
A member of the news media complaining someone got their information wrong.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
This disaster happened simply because there was no proper control designed into the process. Thiings are noe getting better on Wikipedia
I think that was the point of Wikipedia. Otherwise, you loose the effort of the collective even though there is a few bad apples that make a lot of noise.
People don't like control and the lack of the ability to censor (perhaps correct would be the better word), but in order for everyone to participate, it requires the least amount of content control as possible.
Otherwise people will leave in droves declaring that wikipedia has been taking over by people with an agenda.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
The Wikipedia process does have its warts, but it has produced one of the most amazingly valuable repositories of information in the history of humankind. It is now one of my regular first stops when researching just about anything, and the ratio of successes to failures has for me been very high. The information does tend to check out as true, but even more importantly, for a skeptic the information on Wikipedia serves as an excellent starting point to become acquainted with what issues might or might not be true... a launching point for whatever degree of verification a person feels they want to carry out.
The uniqueness of Wikipedia is that it has adopted the charter of informing without bias. It admittedly doesn't always achieve that, but it achieves it far and away enough. Googling the web will land a person at plenty of spots that touch passingly on a given subject, or spin a subject for the purposes of politics or marketing, but very few sites like Wikipedia that attempt to objectively portray the status and history of whatever the subject is.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
This wikipedia-related article is a stub. You can help Slashdot by expanding it.
Why not set up wiki software on your own site and manage wiki permissions as you see fit? It doesn't sound like you expected a bunch of strangers to compose the book for you, so the main gain of it being on wikibooks is negated.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
Pithy?
and this is over simplified so don't jump on me poker nuts
:)
Oy, me achin' poker nuts!
Sometimes a comma is a good thing. Sorry, couldn't resist
Download my free songs!
Wow, is it just me or did that interview really rag on Wikipedia
Kyra Phillips, the CNN interviewer, took Siegenthaler's side the whole time. She essentially helped him grill and attack Wales. CNN did nothing to present a balanced story: Nothing positive about Wikipedia, and nothing negative about Siegenthaler or his arguments. She might as well have been Siegenthaler's attorney.
You can submit your comments on the interview here:
http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form4.html?16
I must say that Wales didn't speak up well -- not one word on the benefits of Wikipedia or the ideas behind 'open source' editing. He looked defensive, nervous and frankly guilty the whole time.
I know there use to be behind the scenes discussions on Wikipedia.org itself, but was wondering if someone knew off the top of their head a place where such discussions take place there? That is, about this issue with vandalisms and thoughts on how to counter it, assume there is such a discussion there ?
I often feel it's a sort of a maze to find stuff among all the meta-Wiki and special pages there, but I'm also interested in following this discussion if there is one, as I hope Wikipedia can continue to exist, but hopefully in a better shape with improved mechanisms against vandalism in general.
I'm not sure this specific action will help much, so I hope Jimbo is intending to proceed trying to drive a discussion about this, as the most important thing for an encyclopedia is credibility, really.
I'm aware of the "Wikipedia 1.0" initiative with only screened articles, but I'm more wondering along the lines of Wikipedia rights and policy changes on the site itself.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
In most cases when someone says or prints something nasty and incorrect about you, you have a major struggle on your hand to get it retracted.
This is the one - possibly the *only* - place where you can simply get in there and fix it yourself. Yes, someone can then go back and trash you again - but there are Wiki mechanisms to get that fixed.
If someone had said this stuff about the guy on Slashdot - or in the New York Times - or on radio or TV - he'd have had an enormous fight on his hands to get his good name cleared - and in all likelyhood, never have gotten clear retractions. A retraction in a newspaper doesn't retract all of the copies already in print - an erratum or even a full apology is going to go unread by the vast percentage of readers and would possibly occur weeks or months after the damage was done.
In this case, a dozen keystrokes would have fixed the problem within minutes of the problem being discovered - and REPLACED the offending material burying the original maligning text where most people will never look - and those who do will understand clearly what happened from the document history. Furthermore, the fact that nobody noticed the problem means that almost certainly nobody read the darned article in the first place.
This should never have happened to Wikipedia - it's the one place where this kind of thing isn't a real problem.
www.sjbaker.org
I should add that Wales, in what I hope was a weak moment, tried to blame ISPs for not cooperating in censoring (or ratting out?) Wikipedia users.
Wales had (has) a great idea and runs a great project. I wonder, though, if his skills as a spokesman are up to the task. That's not criticism: I defy most Slashdot readers to appear on CNN and respond persuasively. Nevertheless, Wikipedia needs someone who has those skills.
OTOH, as one poster said, why not just ignore Siegenthaler? I promise that Wales' response encourage other big shots with connections to take the offensive. There could be a flood of attacks on Wikipedia. Maybe Wales should delegate public appearances to someone else.
Nice idea, but with Robert's Rules, you are at least guaranteed that each "second" is coming from a separate person.
The fundamental problem here is that each actual person may hold several* accounts, each of which could second another's edits.
A weighted scoring system or moderation system might work better, but would take much more work from the community to maintain.
* Theoretically, an unlimited number of accounts. Actually, with enough accounts, someone could manipulate even a voting system, if it wasn't well-thought-out enough.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Irene_Ry an&oldid=25972541
As I have said before on Wikipedia, on the top of the front page of Wikipedia, it breaks almost all articles into eight master categories. On the Mathematics and Science categories it does fine. On the History and Society pages, it does an awful job. As far as the History and Society pages, they have just gotten worse and worse over time. Jimbo is lucky Seigenthaler is a free speech advocate and is raising the issue in the press instead of suing the hell out of him and Wikipedia. I foresee alternative wikis springing up to handle history and so forth. The left-leaning Democratic Underground has started Demopedia, although I'm unaware of Free Republic or any other conservative site starting a conservative counter to Wikipedia yet. Anyhow, I'm sure that's the route it will go down I'm sure, a balkanization of certain categories.
While the incident in the article is lamentable, this is hardly the first time Wikipedia has got it badly wrong. Check out this link for another example. Not to mention all the vanity entries of public figures writing their own biased biographies. About time they did something about it if Wiki is going to remain relevant.
If the pattern goes 9am, 10am, 11am, why isn't noon 12am?
So why didn't Seigenthaler just change the article himself?!?
The only topics I'd trust Wikipedia for info on are things like zoology, and some other areas of completely non-personal science.
Where Wikipedia falls down is anywhere that human beings enter the equation. The bias concerning coverage of the Church of Scientology in particular is utterly appalling.
It's important to remember that Wikipedia's parent organisation is a business, and like any other business it has benefactors that need to be kept happy. That also means satisfying the leaders of groups such as Amway and the aforementioned Church of Scientology, so that Wikimedia do not get sued...and never mind whether or not the material presented has any relevance whatsoever to the truth.
Because of this however, for objectivity or quality of information, Wikipedia follows the same general pattern you're likely to see anywhere else. For information where there's no danger of offending anyone, it will generally be extremely accurate. Any information there dealing with human beings however, as I said should not be trusted.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. That is the beginning and the end of it. Encyclopedias happen to also be information sources. It is not an all-encompassing well of knowledge. At what point is this ambiguously stated?
qntm.org
The fanatic edit-mongers would probably like it if they were presented with as many random new edits to give thumbs-up or thumbs-down to as they like. And the number of reviews necessary could be adjusted to match the amount of moderation going on. Maybe there could be a standard wait period of an hour or two before edits go into effect, during which time lots of people would be presented with the edit to weed out vandalism and other bad edits.
If feedback is not unanimous and some people flag an edit as questionable, it goes through another hour or two of feedback, and gets bumped up in the moderation algorithm so more people see it. Then some threshold of positive to negative feedback would be needed for it to go into effect. It might cause some problems on controversial topics, but as long as the threshold isn't too high, it might work well.
If all I had had to go on was my own memory, I would not have pushed the point, but I did link to video of my demonstration in the footnote. See my blog for more detail on my recollections.
My point is this, while trolls are a nuisance, and some are energetic, most humans come to Wikipedia to learn or to teach. There will always be enough good guys to fix the damage of vandals. Otherwise, we should move to a better neighbourhood.
A problem is an opportunity http://mrpogson.com
Pshaw!
I wonder, suppose some renowned newspaper would have made the claim against Siegenthaler, would he have been as eager to sue, with all the newspapers lawyers etc.? Or did it seem just so much easier to go after some presumably poor hacker without a life?
This is the proper way to handle a situation like this. By making the change that requires you to sign in whoever posted the slander is 'winning'. I use the Wikimedia software on my site, and I am perfectly happy with how it works and I have no problem with anonymous users making changes.
In fact, the only problem I have ever had is with ProFTP. I reloaded a new server, and used alternative methods update it and I don't expect any problems.
This is not an illusion, a rip-off, or a ninja technique!
Go ahead and wail, you stupid ACs. My settings eagerly ignore your replies. One of the best little-known features of /., if you ask me.
Returning to the Wikipedia context, I can actually imagine a SINGLE case where anonymity would be justified. That is the case where someone wants to expose an important truth to the public, but would be subject to attack for telling that truth. However, in that case, Wikipedia is obviously the wrong place, since the same person or organization that wants to conceal that truth could just edit the Wikipedia article in question to remove or obfuscate the data.
This is actually the same kind of case where in the old (pre-Reagan) days you could have tried to find an actual journalist to pursue the story. Look at Bob Woodward to see how things have changed, eh? These days, I guess we just have to hope that the glut of data will allow enough of the truths to leak out? (But look at Iraq to see how well that works.)
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
I don't see how you could have lost anything when wiki's keep all page versions in the history. Sounds like a technical glitch on the part of whatever wiki program the site used more than anything else.
Pre-canned Evolution Links for all those Slashdot holy wars.
When I would make articles like the year 2326, Wikipedia was my favorite place to play.
Slashdot requires you to wait longer between hitting 'reply' and submitting a comment.
I run a site with 10,000 or so posters.
Some of 'em start accounts years in advance, play nice, reverse-engineer filters.
Wikipedia will remain vulnerable to this sort of attack as long as people are smarter than filters.
Writers imply. Readers infer.
Isn't it true that anyone can sign up to be a "member", thus circumventing this "restriction"? Ok, so they snatch my fake name and the IP of my anonymous proxy server... Big deal...
I feel the same way about ACs on /. Rather than dismiss their posts out of hand, I prefer to judge posts on their merit, not their post status. I'd bet liars and nuts post as much on /. whether AC or not.
I think you're leaving out a whole bunch of other cases that warrant anonymity. Oppressive governments, families and bosses all spring to mind. There are plenty of knowledgable people living in situations where they would get in some degree of trouble for expressing their views or even visiting Wikipedia.
One last thing, I find it a little Orwellian that you think anonymity, hence privacy, needs to be "justified." Did you really mean to use that word? Did you just mean in relation to Wikipedia?
http://cnx.rice.edu/
There's already some open content there, and pretty decent tools for creating more. It's all creative commons.
The ACs (in /. parlance) apparently have various motivations and excuses, but all of them stink.
Including "I can't sign up for an account because I'm blind"? The W3C has some things to say about that.
No one knew his article wasn't true because no one knew who the hell he was. His article wasn't even linked from anything.
Maybe Encyclopedia Britannica or Worldbook or some other big time publisher wrote the page, tipped off the son and alerted the press....
Wikipedia does not allow "original research" - it wouldn't be a very good place to expose a conspiracy because, right or wrong, the material would be removed.
Even beyond that, I believe in possession as nine points of the law, and even if you agree to let someone collect and use information about you, the default case should require that they store that information on YOUR own computer. You should have the right to change your mind at any time, even if you felt like letting them collect that information in the past.
In practical terms, I think this would generally be handled by your own privacy policies as stored in your computer, and the basic tradeoff would be convenience against privacy. Examples:
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
I think a decent way to ensure articles aren't completely changed is to have an approval rating system for users. If an article is well thought of it gets modded up as reliable. Other users may still change it but with less ease than if it had a neutral or negative approval rating. To combat the popular-makes-it-correct argument you could give mod points to experts in that field based on how many edits or articles they do. If they are highly rated contributors then they can still modify highly approved articles. Basically Wikipedia needs a social structure to reward quality contributors and quality articles so that there is social momentum to resist pranksters the same way we give journalists and broadcasters trust based on past accuracy.
Why doesn't wikipedia just create a queue for articles before they're submitted. Have different queues for each topic that can be pared down, so the editors can see it before it's committed and vote on it or something to ensure some validity. If no one notices/votes on it while it's in the queue, you could commit it, flag the article at the top saying there was unverified data, and zip off a message to a couple people designated to keep an eye on articles committed due to review expiration. If you tweaked the system enough, I could see a couple days between submission and commitance (due to deadline) at the most, which would help credibility and accuracy a great deal, I think.
Glad to see we can still count on the empathy of our fellow human beings in this day and age...
As a libertarian with conservative sympathies, it amuses me to see the hard left starting their own wiki. Perhaps a disciple of Lysenko can be found to run the biology pages?
I like your examples. I would like to add (as an extension of your point) that Wikipedia has the same right. If they don't want anonymous users to post articles, that's their right to decide.
Seigenthaler is a crybaby. The reason nobody "corrected" the article for so long is that nobody knows or cares who he is.
http://www.uncyclopedia.org/wiki/John_Seigenthaler _Sr
It looks like Uncyclopedia has even jumped on the bandwagon.
Having said that, I wish you success, and I hope you prove me wrong!
Find free books.
On this topic, the notion of anonymous voting was actually a relatively recent innovation, and I'm not sure if it's really such a good one. While it does prevent personalized targeting of specific voters, it also makes it relatively easier to manipulate elections. You can't trace either the valid or invalid votes, which actually leads us back to Wikipedia, where the problem is with tracing the sources of valid and invalid information.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_S ignpost/2005-12-05/Page_creation_restrictions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pum p_(news)#Anon._page_creation_disabled
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Nocreatetex t - The message that gets displayed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Nocrea tetext
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_fo r_creation - The page where anon users can list content.
When men are the most sure and arrogant they are commonly the most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation and suspense which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities. (David Hume)
I'd say that a large part of those who remain AC when posting comments on politically charged subjects are doing so because what they are posting is contrary to the editorial slant of slashdot. Basically any post that is not leftist in nature will be modded down either by editors with unlimited mod points or censorship-happy leftists.
This includes posts that are well said, have references, and have no troll factor whatsoever.
I see a consistant effort to stifle free thought through perversion of the mod system.
The fact that you claim to be very happy with the status quo whilst apparently being a hard left advocate kind of makes my point.
So, do you think I should be modded down (usually as overrated - even when no mod points have been applied) for this post?
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
> you loose the effort of the collective
What? In what way would an effort be tight or not tight? What are you trying to say?
I am a law professor who specializes in information privacy law. If you're interested, I have blogged extensively about this case in many posts: Curtailing Anonymity on Wikipedia Fake Biographies on Wikipedia This is on the Adam Curry case: Wiki Thyself I also blogged about an earlier potential defamation case on Wikipedia: Suing Wikipedia Posts on anonymity: A Victory for Anonymous Blogging Is Anonymous Blogging Possible? Using Lawsuits to Unmask Anonymous Bloggers
If /. put the comments in a wiki, we could fix each other's spelling! How cool would that be?
// Pathoschild 21:30, 5 December 2005 (UTC) // Dystopos 00:58, 6 December 2005 (UTC) // Pcgabe 03:34, 6 December 2005 (UTC) // Q00u, 05:47, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Last edited by Q00u, 05:47, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Fixed ironic spelling errors.
Removed smilie (^_^), let's keep it professional guys.
Will you guys leave my comments alone please?
You must be new here.
Don't put advice in your sig.
As the creator and administrator of a Wiki service myself (Wikinote), I have to wonder what Wikipedia is truly thinking.
Wikinote and its sister website, Shortify, have seen their share of abuse. Most of the time it's SSH password-cracking scripts that try millions of usernames and passwords (and make 1GB logfiles with the auth failures - password authentication is disabled on WikinoteShortify). Sometimes you get a user who will try to fill the DB with random garbage.
On WikinoteShortify, disk space is extremely limited, so the major focus of our anti-abuse methods are in limiting the size of individual pages (64KB). Abuse still happens, though.
I've often thought of using CAPATCHAs or email verification to slow down the tide of bogus signups. But, realistically, that would cause more trouble for my users than it would for the spammers.
Abuse is going to happen. Do what you can to limit it. But don't stomp on your users while you are doing it.
That's the problem with limiting page creation to signed-in users. Spammers will create an account (or many, through a script) and attack. The extra step of an HTTP POST to get a new account is nothing for a Python script (nor, mind you, is the block on Python's user-agent). If you think you're accomplishing something, you're not - people will still find a way to vandalize Wikipedia.
The real question is why it is so difficult to detect bogus page creation. Wikipedia has always relied on human intervention to prevent abuse. There's always someone watching. Why is page creation any harder to audit than editing?
Using IP addresses as an identifier is useless for tracking. All you need to do is change your IP address occasionly by causing your ISP to give you a new IP address via DHCP. Takes seconds to do. Today's hardware lets you change your MAC address on the fly too, so changing that gets you a new hardware and IP address at the same time, takes seconds to do and there is no way to track it.
I don't mean to come across as not feeling for your position(I would hate to lose the work, not to mention the support that I had garnered and have to recoup it all over again) but when you started using Wikipedia you knew the potential risks involved with a site that allows anyone to modify content. You could say to yourself that it couldn't happen to you but, again, you were still aware of the risks and you chose to move forward.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
SHUT UP FAGGOT
In fact, I had an entire Wiki wiped out by someone who didn't "agree" with the thrust ofo my project
You can't "wipe an entire Wiki". The whole freaking point is that you can revert changes. What Wiki were you using?
I had to find an intermediary to help me negotiate with this person, just to get him to cease and desist.
Almost every Wiki in existance has a page where you can block users. If they're anonymous, block them with their IP address.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
But couldn't the whole controversy have been averated when, upon seeing the article, Seigenthaler simply edited it to remove the erroneous ionformation? Is that not the whole point?
You mean everything that you read on the internet isn't necessarily true? Shocking.
There's not such thing as anonymity in Wikipedia. Even if you don't sign in, you IP and timestamp are posted. If it was just a question of publishing anonymously (i.e. not using you usual account), that would simply meen that the guy has to make a new account (an alias of sorts) and that's it.
"You superiour intellect is no match for our puny weapons" - The Simpsons
...the wiki experiment failed?
Aren't Web-based reference external links?
Quote from the wiki clean up page : The cleanup page is a place where articles with problems (ungrammatical, poorly formatted, confusing, etc.) can be listed. Any user can fix or list articles here.
So this could simply be bad spelling or grammar. Since wiki article are also written by persons not having english as first language this does not sound that bad. Example taken at random : # Project Chapleau - reads like a press release # Jeff Morrow - Contains poor language, lacking in formatting, and generally needs more information --Spring Rubber 22:00, 24 November 2005 (UTC) # Hydraulic power - Needs more info, categories, internal link creation, heading creation - the works in other words. - (Erebus555 20:25, 24 November 2005 (UTC)) # Fat acceptance movement A tad incoherent at times. # Smog, needs to be sorted into sections. --Thorpe 17:37, 24 November 2005 (UTC) * Article self descriptive? (bad pun, I know)
Granted there might be other section with "worst" cleanup ("read like a PR release, blatantly false, hoax, etc...) but tose 12000+ cleanup are NOT all bad article but also bad grammar that that is the point here.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
At least we have truth revealed at http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/John_Seigenthaler_Sr
MOD PARENT UP! Parent is right on, anonymous cowards are teh bogus!
AC on wikipedia like on many other webpage is most to encourage activity altough user laziness.
It just a good start to be able to just participate, without having do go through the "complicated" process to create an account. Its just to move one barrier away, to become a wikipedian. Once you feel more comfortable you will create an account nevertheless.
--
Karma 50, and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt.
The latest buzz-word in Wikipedia politics is "elitism." In this debate, there are the Wikipedia stalwarts who believe in the infallable wisdom of Jimbo Wales and respond to any criticism by pointing out Wikipedia "policies" which say that if you don't agree with them then go start your own Wikipedia. On the other side of this debate are those who are very unhappy with the present model (mostly experts in their fields who have become frustrated by seeing their work destroyed by people who are either fanatical or ignorant. It is argued that Wikipedia's anti-elitist model is flawed and that expert control over content is needed in order for wikipedia to constantly improve - something that Jimbo Wales' anarchist model predicts but (imho) fails to meet that prediction on a wide scale. I believe that the elitist model is the correct one. Wikipedia likes to compare itself to open source, but good open source projects value expert knowledge and hierchial control. Wikipedia must somehow find a way to ackowledge the contribution of demonstratably knowledgable people. Entire fields of knowledge within Wikipedia are under the de facto control of fanatics and useful idiots who vastly outnumber experts. The idea of having experts every concievable topic continuously editing a free online encylopedia is wishful thinking. But it is still reasonable to work towards such a goal. But the change cannot take place in the back-end. For Wikipedia to harness the knowledge of expert and give them incentive to contribute, change must first occur at the front-end meaning at the user interface level. Firsly, the format of correspondence is completely ridiculous. There is absolutely no systematic form of communication on the so-called "talk pages." The whole idea of having a totally seperate conversation for each article is insanity. Communication on wikipedia should take in a far more centralized manner, where users interested in specific topics can see all of the discussions going on in multiple formats, and they should be able to view and contribute to these discussions through a forum-type interface. This would help attract editors' attention to more articles, form communities, allow for coherent and decisive discussions on far-reaching subjects, and would help for consensus to be reached on controversial subjects. Secondly, the editing process needs to be changed. There needs to be systematic version release control system, similar to that used in the open source software development model. For example, changes on non-current event articles being edited at a high frequency should have a system in place for new edits to accumulate in a draft and then have a scheduled release of the updated article. This sort of thing requires a better mode of communication between editors. Thirdly, the editing interface has to be vastly improved. If that requires moving the editing interface out of the web browser and onto a custom built word processing application, then so be it. In order to really edit on Wikipedia you need to understand web page programming and you need learn Wikipedia's own arbitrary mark-up language. The editing interface is terrible and it needs to be completely changed. For a project like wikipedia, no current web-based content editing technology is suffucient as far as I know. The editing interface MUST change. Finally, once all of this happens, Wikipedia will be ripe for a serious influx of expert knowledge. Expert discussions that still happen on USENET would begin moving to Wikipedia. A system would exist for editors to collaborate and have enough control over their content to prevent ignorant and fanatical people from destroying information. Subject-oriented communities would form, allowing for institutionalized expert control over specific content. Experts, universities and corporations would have the incentive to contribute, by being recognized by their peers and by being acknowledged by name. Consequently, articles will have credible (and even well-known) experts cited as direct authors and it will be ensured that even co
This move obviously does not tackle current controversy. It however shows signs of the pressure Wikipedia people are under and rightfully so. The Wikipedia idealism is shortsighted and naive.
Your little rant has to be the most childish I've seen on /. in a while. Right or left wing you are a typical political knee-jerk idealist. The GP's post didn't have an ounce of right leaning in it. Instead he was pointing out /.'s groupthink. You failed to refute this and instead retorted with an ad hominem and paranoid rant.
BTW, I thought it was the lefts position to be for the privacy of the citizen? Seems like your values are in conflict. It also seems that no matter what side of the political spectrum you come from, if the person is anonymously espousing views contrary to your own, then in your world that person forfeits the right to anonymity. This reeks of the right-wing fascism you so hate. Freedom for those who have the same views and death to dissenters eh?
Pax Slashdotcana: News for those who think the same. Death to anyone who thinks differently.
Not to be trite, but how much can you really complain about a free resource? You get what you pay for. I use Wikipedia all the time to research things and learn about new areas of interest, but I know full well both its provenance and its accuracy.
If you want accuracy, either pay for a resource you trust or do the research yourself. If you want unbiased facts, it solely depends on what you think unbiased means. Everything from the Encyclopedia Brittanica to the Oxford English dictionary has been accused of bias. Why would you think that something that is maintained by volunteers on the internet wouldn't be subject to abuse, scandal, spam, and outrage?
The only thing that really surprises me is the surprise displayed by others when things like this come to light.
"We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking." -Mark Twain
My reason for anonymity is even stinkier: I'm too lazy to create a /. account... :-)
Rubbish, Wikipedia doesn't have annoymous editors like Slashdot! Users who are not logged in show their IP address publicly whereas users who log in don't, except to admins. There are many examples of astroturf IP editors who were only found out because everyone could see their IP address.
Forcing trolls to register accounts only makes things worse because it becomes harder to track who created what and where the troll is posting from. It also severely annoys people like me who have created countless valid articles and redirects without being logged in. Unlike Slashdot, a big percentage of unlogged in editors are valid and this discourages them. There is little need to register an account on Wikipedia unless you want to be a personality.
There is no rational reason to ban IP editors from creating articles. It's a poorly thought out response to the threat of Wikipedia being sued.
It'll still not prove your point that "any post not leftist in nature" will be modded down, but it'll look less like the traditional right wing complaints of the "left wing media".
The GPs opinion of Bush does nothing for your point, I'm afraid. And the fact that you seem to brand anyone not agreeing with you a "leftist" doesn't help either.
Roget's Thesaurus.
It just a good start to be able to just participate, without having do go through the "complicated" process to create an account. Its just to move one barrier away, to become a wikipedian. Once you feel more comfortable you will create an account nevertheless.
Wikipedia has one of the easier registration systems, but it's still yet another password to remember. With so many services, so many passwords, you pretty much have to either use insecure passwords and in multiple accounts, or you have to use some security-breaking measure to remember them all like Gator or the Google Toolbar. At one point, I thought one would be safe using an common password on all of the sites, but with all this talk of libel and the current political atmosphere in the US, how much damage could someone do by posting something via your webmail account? Your online journal site? Or, for that matter, Wikipedia? Theoretically, you can prove you weren't around to write whatever it was, but how much damage would be caused by people who don't see or don't believe the retraction? Worse, there's no guarantee that a site will maintain your information in their database. Years ago, I signed up for a dating service which went under. Several months later, another company contacted me, saying that they had my profile all set up with all the information from my old profile including my password. Shortly thereafter, all of my email passwords changed...
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
color me confused
I've installed Wiki software, and every type I've looked at has not only a history, but a mechanizim for saving "freezes" of the entire wiki that can then be restored.
In addtion, I make back-ups from the shell, completely independantly, and download them to another machine/cd/whatever. That way if the Wiki system failed entirely, I could restore a substantial amount of the work. I make the save points and backups periodically, or whenever substantial work has been done.
I'm confued why these options weren't available to you? I can't imagine setting up a wiki somewhere where I didn't have enough control over it to personally assure that there were backups.
It's just as well I created an article while I had the chance...mind you, I always found it a little bizarre that people could write about ANYTHING on there...I'm surprised it's taken them this long to realise it's not the greatest idea.
Right now, I can't view a single article without dada21 giving his tuppenceworth, usually to the point of (what appears to me to be) lunacy, modded up to the heavens. Why? He may be right wing, but he's not trying to be offensive and he's clearly not a Nazi.
It amazes me that a group that considers itself the "silent majority" in this country is so convinced it's being persecuted. One mistake by Dan Rather is convincing evidence the entire media has a pro-Democrat slant, despite it goring Gore at the last election, and spending pretty much the entire second half of the nineties trying to find something to impeach Clinton about, finally obsessing itself about a minor affair in a way even mainstream Republicans didn't seem to be.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I have a different take on the whole AC thing. I created my account a few weeks ago. Before that, for the last 2-3 years I posted on /. every once in a while as an AC, because... well, I just couldn't be bothered to go throught the process of creating an account. Some would call it laziness, I call it a lack of interest. I just don't see the point in creating accounts everywhere I go, unless I have a clear interest or if it's mandatory.
I suspect that there might be a whole bunch of other people here who post as AC for the same reason. Anyone care to corroborate?
What Wikipedia really needs is trust
Let contributors be anonymous, but let them build trust among their audience by repeated demonstrations of responsible behavior (postings).
Everything is moving this direction, in the sense that my system update tool relies upon verifying digital signatures of software packages against a previously downloaded public key (downloaded from a different server, at a different time).
There really needs to be a free, open public key infrastructure with good mechanisms for accumulating and verifying reputation.
And, no, I don't care if a person adopts more than one moniker and refuses to let one part of his life correlate with another identity. Even if my government/corporation assures me that requiring absolute identification a particular individual prevents terrorism, stops pedophiles, or prevents rampant "piracy".
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Being an AC, I can tell that this is more of a principle for me. I will register to a website IFF the site is so important to me that I would be paying for it. Otherwise, forget about it. I visit some umptillion websites more or less regularly and expecting me to get a login for each and every one of those is obviously ludicrous.
Oh, you say, but you don't need to login to all of them, just to say slashdot and wikipedia.
But then the question becomes: What's so special about them that deserve special treatment?
Nothing, if you ask me. The outcome is that when a comment-based site starts requiring name/pass, I'll simply quit commenting.
And yeah, I like not having to really think twice about my postings too. If I had an uid I'd be fulfilling a role and obligated to write stuff people expect my role to write.
Whoa, that's the first time I've seen anyone use something else but 127.0.0.1 on that block. I wonder how many kids you managed to get DoS themselves.
"So it looks like crybaby Siegenthaler accomplished what many community activists could not achieve--controlling what anons could do in the Wikipedia. However, even though I feel favorable to restricting the creation of articles (and even "major degree" changes) by anons, it appears that Mr. Wales has trumped any community discussion of this. That is rather alarming. That he has allowed an old crybaby to force through a change in the nature of Wikipedia portends bad things ahead if this decision isn't entered into a proper community decision process as soon as possible."
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
You might agree to allow a company to have certain information in exchange for a discount, but you should be able to deny them any further access to that information if you decide for any reason that you no longer want to do business with them.
Hmm...would the company be allowed to tell everyone that you gave them personal information to get a discount, and then renegged after recieving said discount?
Would you be allowed to keep information on a company? That is their personal information isn't it? If you can tell everyone that you bought a copy of XXXXX at YYYYY and that it is a piece of crap, why isn't it fair for said company to tell everyone that you were a good/bad customer?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
AC's sux0r big time!
The point of Slashdot is for pompous Geeks to slam each other's lack of knowledge on current tech topics. This is why Digg will never supercede
This is why AC serves a purpose on
So I'm going to start filtering AC posts, too!
%^%@13#^$3@#$*^&^NO CARRIER
Hey shanen, big party at my place, free beer and the women'll strap mattresses to their asses. Hope you see this post!
I will tell you why I don't register, I can't think of a good nickname, as I don't have a good nickname, I don't have a name (domain name) for a domain name, as I don't have a domain name, I don't have a place from my email. And registering needs an email address, and before anyone suggestions my real name some morons took it and has been holding onto it for a few years already.
Also I have another problem with email, by email they normally mean the SMTP protocol, well sorry to tell you there are other better mail protocols such as Internet Mail 2000, which happen to handle mail a bit smarter, this is a real solution to finish off phishing emails, as the wont be possible, not to say it will mean a real slow down in the amount of spam.
AC on wikipedia like on many other webpage is most to encourage activity altough user laziness.
At last count, I had 155 user-accounts on various websites. Each of those requires remembering my username and password. In a vast majority of cases, creating a new account on one website means giving them the ability to compromise many of my other accounts through password-reuse, or to compromise pseudonymity through usage patterns. With multiple computers and frequent reformats, trusting the computer to generate unique passwords isn't an option. And then there are the unanticipated leaks of personal information, such as finding out that a gmail cookie can be identified with a google search, or that advertisement banners are sharing login details between multiple domains.
And I'm unusually careful by comparison. Most people I know have trouble remembering even 2 or 3 passwords, and don't even consider choosing a new one for sensitive credentials.
Given that, why is it reasonable that someone must create an account just to contribute to an internet encyclopedia, or to comment on a blog such as slashdot, to view a newspaper article, or even just to do a search within scanned books? An "anonymous" wikipedia editor doesn't mean they're lazy, or vandals - it might just mean they're tired of all the registering bullshit which seems so prevalent on the internet nowadays.
And yes, I have accounts at wikipedia and slashdot, and I frequently use both websites anonymously. Without that facility, there are many things which could never be said. Is it worth silencing those things in persuit of a better barrier to entry?
actually I have an account but I'm too busy to try and remember my password...
so I post this way b/c I'm lazy.. take that smarty pants
On the other hand, if you are a troll, please designate me as your "foe". It will save time in the future. I am quite content to ignore designated foes.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
The IEEE Spectrum has had some good articles on the issue of voting security. I'll check to see if I have an old copy laying around.
Examples?
1 2603421
1 0043372
9 041014
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=150319&cid=
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=118986&cid=
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=106194&cid=
Those are all mild examples; of course you could just look at the moderation of the post you just replied to.
It also seems that you have to go WAY over the line in order to get a liberal rant modded as -1 flamebait. The mildest of conservative jabs get immediately modded down as flamebait.
Why do I have to provide you with examples? Just read any thread about Global Warming at -1 and try to objectivly compare how the mod points are used. It jumps right out at you.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
That's irony. You call the censorship notion complete rubbish, and yet the post you're replying to is an excellent example of censorship in action. As of right now, it's modded 40% insightful, 30% informative, and 30% overrated. And yet somehow, it's only received a total moderation of +1. Something funny is going on; the numbers just don't add up. At the very least, that's 4 insightful, 3 informative, and 3 overrated, or +4, +3, -3, which comes out to, err, +1. Yeah. Right. You bet. No editorial funny business going on there.
What are you talking about? I'm calling him out on his hypocritical behaviour and how it resembles what he hates. I don't have any hatred of him, nor am I repeating his behaviour. You're reading to much into it.
I've read a couple of your posts. You come across across as an exceedingly arrogant cunt. Either you are the most pompous, stuck up fool on the planet or you are a troll. Either way, I'm going to become one of those moderators who spare a mod or two for you and mod your comments down from now on just to piss you off.
Have a nice day you arrogant shallow fool.
It's been modded down (and yet not to 0 or -1) because it's complete rubbish. There's no irony there. Stupid comments are not supposed to stand there at +5 Insightful.
Huh? I looked at the first example, and it was an off-topic attempt to stir up things (basically "why don't they use money on other things"). It was reasonably modded down. A follow-up suggesting that he should use his own money was rated to four. I don't get it, it seems to me that moderation is fair here. Neither post is very "left", the reply could be constructed as being "right" (private enterprise solutions & all that).
(There is a space in your links, btw)
Yes, in a thread about global warming I'd expect that a lot of slashdot readers have read RealClimate, and of those who have also read Tech Central Station or some similar site, I suspect most see who have the best scientific basis. It might reflect something, you know, the moderation. Wisdom of crowds & all that.
To me, it seems slashdot moderators on average have a lot of patience for anything up to the most extreme rightwingisms (you know, people who would say giving parachutes to fighter pilots is a bad idea because it discourages them from doing their best. Right wingers often get away with similar arguments in other fields, also on slashdot). What they don't like is attempts to spread confusion, uncertainty and doubt with long-discredited arguments, like creationists and agw-contrarians are wont to do.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Oh, now I looked at the second, too. It was someone making a really lame joke about the similarities of the words corel and coral. Although he mentioned stocks, I don't think he was modded down for his beliefs in the efficiency of market mechanisms. Do you assume that it was because coral => nature => environmentalists => leftists his that his humor was so badly recieved?
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Yes, that is exactly what I think.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
To your last post: It's someone cutting and pasting (in a munging way) some statistics from a christian site web poll, using it to argue that the public is opposed to stem-cell research. That's just a poor argument. Anyway, christian != rightist. (I'm christian, and I oppose many forms of stem-cell research btw). My impression is that slashdot has many Ayn-Rand style rightists, but few religious-right types. Slashdot may have a larger percentage of angry atheist types who dismiss anything from a christian site as worthless, but I think this particular example was justified.
(Anyway, I suspect that non-believers are just more noisy on the net where there is less social pressure, not necessarily that there are more of them)
Got any better examples, drsmack1? Preferrably from archived discussions so that people won't moderate them again? I'm willing to look at them, and make a judgement. But this might be the wrong place, so feel free to direct me to your (slashdot) journal or something.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
So, people are worried about destruction of natural habitats, enough so that they react negatively at attempts to make really poor jokes about it. How is that biased? How is that bad? How is that even leftist? Where I come from we have politically conservative environmental organisations as well.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Show rundown: Saturday December 9, 2005 7-7:30pm: In the News: "Wikipedia"
A popular internet-based encyclopedia called the Wikipedia ran into trouble this week when its policy allowing literally anyone to edit its content led to accusations by journalists that it has become a "breeding ground for false and malicious information". The company has announced that it will now prevent non-members from working on its material, but what does this say about the reputation of information found on the internet? Freedom of Speech?
Guest: Jimmy Wales, Founder of the Wikipedia and Director of the Wikipedia foundation. Audio will be available at www.kgo.com and on the west coast on 810 kHz AM
Look at the modding on this post:
r eshold=1&commentsort=0&tid=158&tid=219&mode=thread &cid=14274202/
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=171402&th
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind