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Wikipedia Adopting Semi-Protection of Pages
kizzle (the other one) writes "A major policy change on Wikipedia was just passed 103-4-2 along with Jimbo Wales' endorsement to incorporate a process called 'Semi-protection' only on the most frequent targets of vandalism."
As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia has some issues. As a model of how and where distributed intellect fails, it's almost shockingly comprehensive.
When we were first considering making Epic Legends Of The Hierarchs available as a publically manageable satirical metanarrative, we dropped the basic timeline on Wikipedia because I liked the way their software went about things. Of course, a phalanx of pedants leapt into action almost immediately to scour - from the sacred corpus of their data - our revolting fancruft.
That's okay with me. I wasn't aware they thought they were making a real encyclopedia for big people at the time, and if I had, I'd have sought out one of the many other free solutions. I had seen the unbelievably detailed He-Man and Pokémon entries and assumed - like any rational person would - that Pokémaniacs were largely at the rudder of the institution.
I am almost certain that - while they prune their deep mine of trivia - they believe themselves to be engaged in the unfolding of humanity's Greatest Working.
Reponses to criticism of Wikipedia go something like this: the first is usually a paean to that pure democracy which is the project's noble fundament. If I don't like it, why don't I go edit it myself? To which I reply: because I don't have time to babysit the Internet. Hardly anyone does. If they do, it isn't exactly a compliment.
Any persistent idiot can obliterate your contributions. The fact of the matter is that all sources of information are not of equal value, and I don't know how or when it became impolitic to suggest it. In opposition to the spirit of Wikipedia, I believe there is such a thing as expertise.
The second response is: the collaborative nature of the apparatus means that the right data tends to emerge, ultimately, even if there is turmoil temporarily as dichotomous viewpoints violently intersect. To which I reply: that does not inspire confidence. In fact, it makes the whole effort even more ridiculous. What you've proposed is a kind of quantum encyclopedia, where genuine data both exists and doesn't exist depending on the precise moment I rely upon your discordant fucking mob for my information.
(Penny Arcade)
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
What do you mean? Anyone can create and edit articles in Wikipedia now, and it IS the best thing since sliced bread. Only difference between then and now is, not ALL articles are under this process, just new/unpopular/not-vandalized ones. What people doesn't tend to realize (is it a flaw of human brain?) is that as processes scale, what served for the small doesn't work for the big.
There's such thing as knowledge crystallization, which changes the nature of the creation process. At the beginning Wikipedia didn't have mature content, so it didn't needed protection for it. Current immature content benefits from wiki default policy now as much as at the Wikipedia beginnings. But now Wikipedia is not homogeneus, so it doesn't makes sense treating all its content equally. So now it includes the best policy for immature content, and the best policy for mature content; it just happen not to be the same policy for both. Big deal.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
These guys are so ignorant it's not funny anymore.
We are talking about Penny Arcade, a website for gamers. So they say it's a "waste of time" and only losers have time for something like that? Gamers say that? If Wikipedia-contributors have too much time, what is to be said about gamers? At least Wikipedia-contributors are getting themselves educated as a side-effect but what excuse do gamers have?
It's a hobby.
Some people collect stamps, others play computer games, others contribute to Wikipedia.
But it seems that a hobby is only OK when it's a complete waste of time, but if someone profits of it (like Wikipedia or free software) immediately someone starts namecalling.
None of the successful collaborative OSS projects have let anyone and everyone submit code to them; that would be a recipe for disaster. What's wrong with Wikipedia restricting people from turning a really good idea into a vehicle for furthering agendas, trolling and outright libel? The world is full of assholes and the relative anonymity of the internet allows them to be a lot more obnoxious than they'd dare be in the real world. Anyone who's played online games has seen that in action.
Does a Christian soccer team even need a goalkeeper?
This happens alot with writing by committees, and isn't unique to Wikipedia. It just gets worse as it gets older. Wikipedia has collected more facts over time, but it reads worse.
There's no cure for this except getting experts and real editors with good language skills, and they're hard to find as anyone who's tried to staff a tech docs team knows. But this runs counter to the "anyone can do it" philosophy.
So no amount of tweaking the processes helps - you simply need skillful people. The ex-Britannica guy (McHenry?) had a good line, which is that Wikipedia can get better, or Wikipedia can keep the utopians - but it can't do both.
"Namely, groupthink, conformism, the silencing of heretics, and the promotion of biased agendas."
Then why is slashdot one of the most popular discussion sites on the web ?
I can't remember reading many discussions where a few people make the same point, and then hundreds of others unanimously agree with them. This is why I think its ridiculous when people talk about the slashdot "groupthink". Think how many times here you've read the word "groupthink" here - that's a lot of people who aren't part of the "groupthinking".
The fact that you made the post to which I'm replying reinforces this. The fact you're (currently) at +5 reinforces it further. I don't agree with your comment. Personally, I think its an effort to use a personal gripe with the slashdot moderation system as a means of promoting a personal "political" belief in lack of restrictions on personal behaviour (which I personally think is a very valid and important principle in many areas).
I'm not complaining about your moderation - you've obviously hit some sort of chord somewhere - but I find it very interesting that the very fact you've been moderated to +5 invalidates the point you were making.
Oh, if you do something as a hobby, your work is not to be taken seriously? Try to explain that to genealogists, free software authors, and anyone else who puts pride into their hobbies.
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
Yup, as this thread shows. But when you look at some of the kooks^Wpeople who are doing it, is makes you think...
The truth is, though, that any good idea that is successful is going to get bashed by the spiteful, the petty, the self-obsessed, and the paranoid. Wikipedia has to show that it's doing something positive about the vandalism/sabotage issue, but apart from that it would be better to just ignore the idiots.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
So they say it's a "waste of time" and only losers have time for something like that?
This was not a comment about anyone who contributes to Wikipedia. It was a response to a particular argument that people make in defense of Wikipedia, that if a person is upset by an entry, they can change it themselves.
His point is that the "if you don't like it, change it" argument doesn't take into account the fact that Wikipedia exists now. There is no "end goal" for Wikipedia, because it is a resource at this very moment. So if an entry is changed for the worse, that entry exists as part of the whole of Wikipedia until it is fixed. (And you can't expect people to constantly monitor all the entries they care about, nor should you expect people to have to spend their time erasing vandalism or stupidity or whatever, so it may potentially exist for a while.)
What people who argue this don't realize is that fixing an entry does not change the fact that it was wrong for some period of time. If your car gets a flat tire, fixing it does not change the fact that it was flat. You may have depended upon the tire being good in order to get to an important meeting, which you did not make. Fixing the tire does not magically get you to the meeting on time.
Similarly, fixing a Wikipedia entry does not magically make the people who viewed the entry while it was bad suddenly view the fixed version. Someone may have used faulty information, or become biased against someone or some product, or whatever. (And yes, there are arguments that respond to these problems, like the "don't trust anything" argument; but this argument, that if an entry is wrong you can just fix it, does not.)
The point is, Wikipedia is not simply its current incarnation, but also all of its past incarnations.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
Seems like Wikipedia has hit stage 3 in the last weeks.
I have discovered a truly remarkable sig which this 120 chars is too small to contain.
They're probably not bothering to make up edits themselves, but they clearly are digging through the history, rather than running the story whilst the incorrect information is on the current version of the page.
I mean, the one they talk about here was reverted in the same minute (01:49, 17 December 2005).
The Register's article is highly misleading (if not outright libellous). Yes, when sometimes other sites accidently let some incorrect information out, even if only for a moment, it can be reported by other sites - but those sites would report it as "So-and-so made a blooper", not "So-and-so claim X", when they are no longer claiming that. I very much doubt that they spotted it, wrote and published this article claiming that this is what Wikipedia are currently saying, all in less than 60 seconds!
Certainly it is a problem with Wikipedia that there is a small chance of reading a vandalised page - perhaps there needs to be a "This article has been recently edited" warning for any page edited in the last few minutes.
But it is unfair to take advantage of the fact that the history is available (which isn't for any other site, including The Register), especially when they falsely imply that the information is still up there.
I used to like The Register, but I find this anti-wikipedia war rather immature - at least I know that the immature edits that appear on Wikipedia are by random vandals and will get reverted. It says something that the Register intends to be this immature as an official policy.
Then why is slashdot one of the most popular discussion sites on the web ?
;)
Because many people still read most or all comments (rather than just the highly moderated ones), and a lot of people are prepared to post against the popular groupthink opinion (we aren't all karma-obsessed).
I can't remember reading many discussions where a few people make the same point, and then hundreds of others unanimously agree with them. This is why I think its ridiculous when people talk about the slashdot "groupthink".
The point wasn't about the discussion, it was about the moderation. There are certain views which will always get modded up ("Apple/Linux/Firefox are great!", "Tell me why I should use BeOS/Opera when I could used Apple/Linux/Firefox?", "Copyright infringement isn't theft" [although amusingly, the one time I saw an exception to this when it was modded up posts saying that piracy of Apple software was theft - clearly the Apple groupthink outweights the piracy groupthink!]), and opposing views get modded down.
The problem is, how would a moderation system be used on Wikipedia? On Slashdot, this groupthink isn't so much a problem because you can still see all the comments, but it would be a problem if your moderation affected whether you can post.
This system already actually exists anyway - if you vandalise articles, you get banned. I don't see how changing it to a moderation system changes anything - that makes it worse, as it means that people who post unpopular edits could also be banned (currently, an admin will check the history to see that there is genuine vandalism).
Think how many times here you've read the word "groupthink" here - that's a lot of people who aren't part of the "groupthinking".
The fact that you made the post to which I'm replying reinforces this. The fact you're (currently) at +5 reinforces it further. I don't agree with your comment. Personally, I think its an effort to use a personal gripe with the slashdot moderation system as a means of promoting a personal "political" belief in lack of restrictions on personal behaviour (which I personally think is a very valid and important principle in many areas).
I'm not complaining about your moderation - you've obviously hit some sort of chord somewhere - but I find it very interesting that the very fact you've been moderated to +5 invalidates the point you were making.
Not really - all this means is that "Slashdot has groupthink" is itself an opinion which is part of the Slashdot groupthink