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Wikipedia Wars -- Lake Express Ferry
vhfer writes "Wikipedia Warfare has become the latest tool in the battle between rival lake transport systems. The Lake Express Ferry, which links Milwaukee and Michigan, bypasses Chicago traffic. The competing SS Badger runs from Manitowoc, an hour North of Milwaukee, to Ludington, Michigan. The article in the Milwaukee Journal details efforts by SS Badger supporters to highlight some of the delays and problems experienced by the Lake Express, in an apparent effort to divert some traffic to the Badger. Numerous edits to the article added links to news articles critical of the Lake Express, and some derided presidential candidate John Kerry's 2004 ride and the political value of it. The operators of the SS Badger deny responsibility for all the postings, and also say they aren't Internet savvy enough to alter a Wikipedia article."
After all, it seems that Wikipedia readers are more interested in much different topics anyhow.
My Computer Music Tutorial Videos
I find a good way to defend myself is to deny I have the ability to use a wiki.
If these guys say they aren't intelligent enough to edit an entry in wikipedia, why should we trust them to run a ferry?
Funnypics
No text :-)
...without a link to the Lamest Edit Wars in Wikipedia.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
As Slashdot readers we're aware that when people new to online communication find they can publish anything to the world, they can be like little kids in candy stores. With no parents for supervision, they'll pick a little of this and that, and when caught with a mouthfull by the store owner, will mumble a denial.
Wikipedia gives that kind of power to people unexperienced with digital media attention, and depending on the personality, they may be naive, or malicious.
Oh You POS
Is it just me, or does the headline sound like the title of a bad Anime?
"Giving first aid the already disheveled hair projection" -Anakin
The operators of the SS Badger deny responsibility for all the postings, and also say they aren't Internet savvy enough to alter a Wikipedia article.
If they aren't savvy enough, then they obviously don't watch Colbert
Just curious :)
Ah! The memories. When I was but a tad my dad would take the family in the stationwagon from Midland to Minneapolis, via Ludington to Manitowoc (famous now for aluminium cookware) on the C & O ferries. The SS Badger may hark from those days, it looks like it does. Back then there was a lot of traffic across the lake from Wisconsin, where automobile furniture (seats) and body parts were transported to Detroit with the assistance of several of these large boats which could hold several rail cars in their holds. They'd also take on automobiles and passengers for a nominal fee. They ran like clockwork, regardless of the weather and crossings in poor considtions could be the kind you spent clutching a paper bucket. I found chewing gum helped.
Nice to see they still run them. If the weather's fair I would consider a drive to Ludington (or Manitowoc) just for the ride. Ludington's a nice place to visit and camp.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The fact is that this eventually will lose the interest of the concerned parties, and at that point someone will come up and clean up the article. And before anyone bothers to point out that the article may be flawed prior to that point, the fact is that if you rely solely on one or two unreferenced sources, especially on the Internet, you deserve to be debunked. Period.
This points out the biggest problem with Wikipedia, people are selfish. When questions of NPOV come up the disscusion offten becomes not what the NPOV is but who's oppinion will be included in the article and accepted as truth.
There is a Penny-Arcade comic that sums wikipedia up nicely I can't (due to a proxy) look it up right now...
Disclaimer: I am a huge Wikipedia fan... but I only "trust" non political geek culture (Comics, video games) to be relitivly accurate.
I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
Mark Twain
May I just be the first to say:
Badgers? We don't need no steeenking badgers!
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Wikipedia works rather well at the core. Articles about science topics, or most history topics are OK. There are issues with current event topics, but there are plenty of editors working on those. the real problem that no one mentions with Wikipedia is on the fringes. there are 1.3 or so Million english articles. Some of them are poorly translated paragraphs from other languages. Some of them are straight lifts from a Press Release, and some of them are pretty incomplete. This is one such case. While editors can work on NPOV more directly with articles like George W. Bush or Jesus, there are only a handful of editors working on the fringes. I was hitting up the random pages button, and a few days ago, I stumbled across the "Miss Bikini of the Universe" page (no jokes, please). It consists of a few poorly translated paragraphs, a picture that's three years out of date (but attractive nonetheless), and a notice that Ukraine's candidate won the most recent one (which apparently was over the weekend in China somewhere), but no mention of the winner's name, DoB, etc. Now, I tried to do some cleanup - verb tenses, complete sentences, etc., but the page needs an awful lot of work, and frankly, I'm busy, and the orginal writer looks like he ran a few news articles through Babelfish.
I like Jason Scott's rant about Wikipedia over at ASCII. It is related to this next Wikipedia War in the following way:
"It's that there's a small set of content generators, a massive amount of wonks and twiddlers, and then a heaping amount of procedural whackjobs. And the mass of twiddlers and procedural whackjobs means that the content generators stop being so and have to become content defenders. Woe be that your take on things is off from the majority."
A related issue is that with some topics, you will *always* have debates. Certain wiki topics will always cause people to be at "war" with each other. I doubt this will kill off wiki technology, but eventually there probably will be some social conventions to handle disputes. Or, perhaps a more rigid technology will take the place of wikis. Who knows.
Sorry to ramble. My point is just that we need to be careful that we don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. In plain language, a wiki war doesn't mean that wikis are bad.
How to Download YouTube Videos
I hate how Slashdot rarely links to the ACTUAL THING THE ARTICLE IS ABOUT. Lake Express
Vince Papale, that's what!
Who wants to get in an edit war with me at the Edit war article. Then we can create an article called "Meta edit war" and get in a fight over whether that is a neologism! Ah, the wonders of Wikipedia...
Because I always check the local ferry pages before I decide which ferry to use that day.
Pirates motto: Always be who ya arrrrr.
I say we just rename both Ferrys after Stephen Colbert and call it a day.
Even people that believe in pre-destiny look both ways before crossing the street.
Aye!
Lake_Express
Lake_Express edits
SS Badger
SS Badger edits
The first and last time I was on the Lake Express it got a mile from shore one of the engines failed and they had to turn back. 2 hours wasted and I still had to drive through Chicago.....it can sink for all I care.
Gear6 - the Automotive Weblog
Hilarious! Thanks for the link. My favorite after a minute of skimming:
Potato chips
Should potato chips be flavored or flavoured? What is the provenance of the potato chip, America or Ireland? Four-user revert war on these important issues results in the page getting protected and listed on RfC. As a compromise, the chips become seasoned.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
But the owners 8 year old kid is :P
I know it's a cliche, but before this article, I didn't know that there was another ferry that went across lake Michigan besides the Badger.
------ Work is so much easier when you don't
Lake Express was definitely a victim of abuse by SS Badger. Pretty funny comments!
p ress&diff=72406828&oldid=72405352
p ress&diff=68850407&oldid=61693002
p ress&diff=72436565&oldid=72428201
p ress&diff=72437357&oldid=72436565
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lake_Ex
The ferry's operational season has been a bit of an embarrasement for the owner's of the company. When first launched the company announced that the ferry would operate each season until December 31. Because of lack of fall ridership and many press reports of sea sickness earlier in the year, the ferry's operations were ended in October during the first year (2004). In 2005 the company announced they had a plan to make it to the end of the year through better promotion. In 2005 the company was again forced to end their season early as the ship did not seem well equipt to make it in the Gales of November.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lake_Ex
http://www.milwaukee-muskegon.com/ Site comparing Lake Express and other Lake Michigan Car Ferries
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lake_Ex
not to mention that it crashed into the pier at muskegon without passengers aboard in 2005 april
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lake_Ex
In August 2006 several trips were cancelled because of waves and mechanical problems. The vessel was only running on three of its four engines and halted all trips for passenger comfort due to wave conditions. All ferry service was halted to fix mechanical issues on August 15 through August 18.
But the main difference is that the SS Badger is going from way out in the boonies to effing nowhere in 4 hours. Getting from any population center in WI to any in MI is as fast or a lot faster by car (Green Bay->Grand Rapids or Milwaukee -> Detroit). The Lake Express is less extreme, but still not a huge improvement. I lived South of Chicago until last year and contrary to all the complains, the Tri-State isn't really that crowded most of the time. Now if anyone tries to save on the tolls by driving thought the city or take a shortcut via the Edens, Kennedy and Ryan Expressway, s/he is in for a lot of pain.
I'm from Manitowoc, and I know people who have worked at various levels for the USS Badger. I doubt they are lying when they say they don't have the expertise to change wikipedia. I'm waiting for an edit to wikipedia that tells the story of when they lost a car to the lake. I do believe its still sitting right underneath the dock.
Ahh Manitowoc. The county that Jepordy claims has the highest Bar to Capita ratio in the US.
Mushroom
- These characters were randomly selected.
They are very different ships for different purposes. The Lake Express is newer, faster, and more prone to breakdowns and postponed trips due to the higher speed. The SS Badger is older, slower, and more reliable due to it being an 'old fashioned' coal-burning boat that chugs slowly across the lake. The Lake Express is pretty much assigned seating, enclosed from the elements, with very limited space outside on deck. The SS Badger is completely open seating and you can spend the entire trip outside enjoying the views, the rain, and the coal soot.
If you want to minimize your time spent on the water and travel in a new, state-of-the-art, fast boat, take the Lake Express. If you want to prolong the experience and enjoy being out on the lake, take the SS Badger.
The two companies can compete all the want, but I think they have two different customer bases.
The French Castle Scene from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" ... (groans) Bedevere: (pause) Oh... um, look, if we built this large wooden Badger. ...
What? Nobody (at least, nobody above +2) has posted a link to WikiTruth? Well, let me do so then.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Ha. Didn't think this would make it to Slashdot. (I didn't participate in the Lake Express wars, but I did recreate the entire S.S. Badger page because it was created, and persisted, as a copy-and-paste of the History section of their website. I did notice strange things happening in Lake Express at the time, though...)
A more difficult issue in Wikipedia is figuring out how many copyright violations are in the encyclopedia. I don't see how it's feasible for every copyright holder to keep tabs of their Wikipedia article(s); that's not very fair to the copyright holder. More distressing, it seems that the art of proper summarization and citation has been lost from the general community in our generation (aged early 30s and younger) for some time.
With regional, nontechnical and just plain unpopular topics like this, if I (as an editor) don't fix it when I see it, the odds are pretty good no one will fix it. Not to mention I may be introducing some unwanted, commentary-style bias that I'm unaware of. But it always goes back to "unpopular"... unless you have a strong contingent of editors on a particular topic, whether numbering 3 or 30, lightly-traveled topics are just not going to be as good as they could be.
Regarding having opinions on an encyclopedia... it would be a better place if people just learned how and where to pick their battles. My answer to this is "I really don't give a damn, just pick something; it's not that important!"
-Rob
Biblical fiscal responsibility
This highlights a more fundamental problem than the fact that Wikipedia is vulnerable to edit wars, and that is people's/company's/political party's disregard for truth. I have a good friend who was part of a recent high-profile gubernatorial race. I was surprised to hear from him that they had to constantly guard the wikipedia page about their candidate as it would constantly be vandalized. Is it just me, or do you also get a kind-of "sick" feeling when you hear about these kind of things? This is especially true when you take a step back and think about what the potential Wikipedia (and other sites like it) holds for improving the lives of people all over the world. When you look at it from this perspective, well written, unbiased articles, in my opinion, hold a certain level of sacredness. And when you see it being defiled you can't help but to feel disgust.
Now, I know, this example is "small peanuts" in the grand scheme of things. However, it just makes me sick when I see this kind of intentionally malicious behavior focused on something with a primary goal to improve the lives of all.
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
Snaaaake? Snaaaaaaaake!!
Windows has detected an undetectable error.
... a Lake Express snow (11) storm.
(Yeah, yeah. I'm _really_ stretching this one.)
Snake!
All Your Memory Are Belong To Java
It's clear that as Wikipedia gains a higher and higher profile, it is and will be abused by those who seek to make money. Just like 90% of all Internet appliances. Why did we let them?
Been tried! Scroll down the bottom of the page at GP's link to "Meta Lameness"
"and also say they aren't Internet savvy enough to alter a Wikipedia article."
Perl Programmer for hire
Damn, I though I'd see an increase in interest for "do nig*ers have xray vision".
I agree right up until the last sentence. It sounds too much like Colbert and I think is inaccurate. Most of the difficulties with Wikipedia aren't because a majority trying to squash opinions that are out of the mainstream. Most of the problems are vandalism plain and simple - people putting information in that they know full well is wrong either for fun (in the case of Colbert) or to promote their own motives.
The point about there being too many wonks, twiddlers and whackjobs out there causing the good folks to waste too much time being police is ultimately the biggest problem right now. Ultimately I think the solution is to require registration and not take anonymous edits.
Vote Quimby.
In Manitowoc at least I know there are quite a few tourist locations that depend on car-ferry traffic to survive, when they heard about competition to the badger they many felt quite threatened, The badger represents a rush that makes up most of their visitors, My girlfriend who did tours on the USS Cobia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cobia Says that the Badger represents about 60% of their traffic when it was in service.
Manitowoc is a small town, and not exactly a tourist destination in itself, But thanks to the car-ferry which dumps it's passengers right into the downtown, a few things can stay alive that keep your attention for an afternoon. (A few blocks of downtown, an old time ice cream shop, a naval museum with submarine, and an art gallery.) Before they go to Door County (A real tourist area)
The fact that people are trying to put propaganda into wikipedia doesn't surprise me, and the fact that nobody from Milwaukee probably cares doesn't either. A few hundred people coming on a boat wont exactly make or break their economy, But here its the rush that keeps anything tourist related open.
Web Developers: Celebrate to our roots! Animated Gifs and Tiled Backgrounds, dont let our history die!
On a plane!
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Which means we need to get in a Meta-Meta edit war about the pros and cons of various criticisms of edit wars. That and someone needs to get into the wikipedia page and fix the link to recursion so it links directly to itself.
Slashdot: Where anecdotes and generalizations can be freely substituted for facts, logic, or intelligence
I always knew this would happen to Wikipedia. As an all seeing all gathering reference for information it's just not going to work with the public's ability to edit articles. The chief admins will have to keep locking down articles until there are no "unlocked" articles left.
The public Wikipedia assumes that the majority know what the truth is and will correct articles to ensure that's the case. That's a bad assumption. The majority of people don't collectively know the truth. Facts don't change just because a vote decided otherwise.
That is not to say wiki is completely bad. The system used on Wikipedia works well for groups that need documentation provided by several knowledge experts. I have found getting the people who know who a paticular system works together to create documentation is brutal using traditional methods. How great would it be to have a wiki at work that contains technical and user information on systems that people work on every day. Most work places have lousy documentation for there systems and work processes. God knows I have worked at several. The wiki structure would make life a lot easier in these cases. There is far less incentive to manipulate that info for fraudulent purposes.
It's as plain as day that Wikipedia can not work in the long run as the end all be all of all knowledge known to man. There are too many people with agendas who will change articles constantly. For the broad general use, use it as a starting point in any research your doing but don't consider it "the truth".
I find it distubing and hilarious that Anal Sex rates above Ghandi, but below Jedi (check for yourself, that's how they're ranked)....
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
Hey, but you could say the same about the whole internet user population.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
I wish I could edit your post, because there's already *been* an edit war about the contents of the edit war page (by definition lame) as you can see from the "Meta lameness" section of the linked article.
From the linked page -
1154000 ± 17% 4.3731% 1. Main Page
37500 ± 95% 0.1421% 2. Wikipedia
35500 ± 97% 0.1345% 3. Pluto
23000 ± 121% 0.0872% 4. Hurricane Katrina
Does the ± mean something different in Germany? Otherwise, these statistics don't seem to make any sense - how can you have (+121%, -121%) error bounds on a measurement?
There were somewhere between 73830 and -4830 views of "Hurricane Katrina"? How can you have negative page views?
-Mark
It seems that most Wikipedia arguments are over trifling matters that don't really concern the average reader, for which the truth can probably never be established accurately, or are matters of opinion. Was Copernicus Polish, or German? or Prussian? Are the New Avengers the same as the original Avengers? Etc., etc.
So why not simply allow the edits to exist simultaneously? When accessing an article, first display a prompt listing the various versions, and allow the viewer to select the one he would like to see. Like "Show Hitler gay?(y/n)
For instance, one entry for Earth might read:
and another entry might read:
See? End of argument. Have it your way!
Soylent Green is peoplicious!
I like Jason Scott's rant about Wikipedia over at ASCII [textfiles.com].
Jason Scott is an arrogant, self-impressed idiot who thinks he's god's gift to techies because he remembers "the golden days" of BBS's. I met him at my first (and last) slashdot "meetup"; he dominated the conversation amongst a table of eight, spending hours talking about his favorite subject: himself.
Please help metamoderate.
As a potential customer who had reservation for the Lake Express on August 16 (one of the days they cancelled), I say they deserve some bad press.
Just by dumb luck I checked the website to find more detailed directions to the Milwaukee dock, and barely saw the announcement on their homepage about the cancellations. I have yet to receive any email or phone call about our cancelled trip. (We did get a refund)
We were able to reroute our vacation plans to drive around the UP and take the SS Badger on the return trip. I can't imagine how terrible that vaction would have become if we'd gotten to Milwaukee to find out about the problems. Travelling with a 3 and 5 year old, suddenly having to drive around the lake through Chicago... (as a point of reference, the trip across the lake is 60-70 miles, but going around is more like 5-7 hours, depending on rush hour)
As a counterbalance, my father has used each ferry several times, running into delays on the Lake Express more than once. But given his bad luck, the last time he took the Badger, was the 1 trip in something like 4 years that they had mechanical problems.
Anyway, we are now faithful to the Badger from now on.
This is absolutely, smack-bang on target. Wikipedia is largely complete now, and very little improvement is going to happen with most of the articles on important topics. They're as good as they're ever going to be, so if the article on gerbils gets 500 edits this year, that's 100% wasted effort, just running to stay in place. After several years of participating heavily in WP, I finally decided to give up, and only keep an eye on one biographical article I care about. Recently, the only activity on that article has been:
- A long, time-consuming argument about whether converting US-style punctuation to British style was mandatory or optional.
- Vandalism by someone who keeps getting his account temporarily blocked, and then as soon as it's unblocked, he systematically goes around vandalizing articles by inserting the letter "r" into words.
- An attempt by someone to convince us on the talk page that the subject of the article was a Freemason, even though there's loads of verifiable information showing that he wasn't.
Wikipedia these days is like the world of The Matrix -- a diabolical system to suck effort out of millions of people. The only difference is that in The Matrix, the energy isn't wasted.Find free books.
I dont think that list is accurate... but im just basing that off the fact they said porn was 9th place when we all know porn is 1st,2cd and 3rd place.
This is the problem with Wikipedia. You have hundreds of registered users posting FUD about a ferry system. For fuck's sake, those systems cannot be NEARLY as bad as the ferry systems in Corpus Christ/Port Aransas. Reading these Wiki links, then comparing with my real-life experience in ferries further south, I can safely say that these other northern ferries have it fucking EASY. Why they're bitching, nobody knows for sure, but they're bitching, and bitching over what seems to be very trivial matters.
./ editor re-hire process. Every single one of our /. overlords needs to be overthrown so we finally have a news reposting site that's worth a shit.
/. Editors, get your shit straight. If you want me to PAY to read this CRAP beforehand, start getting your heads out of your asses and look for stories that matter. Otherwise, you can count on no ad revenue, let alone subscription revenue, from my wallet. SHAPE UP - NOW. And I think I speak for non-paying and paying members alike when we see shit like this.
I think these people further north need some more remedial education if they're bitching about a 20 minute delay because the other ferry system's cable layout won't permit other traffic while these ferrys are in operation.
If you people have a problem with it, then VOTE AND PASS MEASURES TO GET YOUR SHIT STRAIGHT. Don't bitch on a nobody-gives-a-fuck editable encyclopedia entry. Get real facts, real proof, including video, audio, and pictures, *THEN* bitch about it. Otherwise, this is a total non-issue, and anyone up north bothering to bitch about this are seen to me as nothing more than whiny cry-babies. You've never encountered TRAFFIC JAMS before? How about you laid-back people come down south and see what the people that are responsible for your shit getting to you have to go thru. I'll bet you'll shut the fuck up - remember, without Memphis in today's society, EVERYONE gets fucked. Memphis is the biggest US transport/routing hub in the USA, and will probably remain so for the next half-century.
This has nothing to do with YRO, and why it's labeled as such considering it doesn't deal with the online rights of a user, is far beyond me. It's time for a total
Anyone else care to explain how a traffic jam on the water is related to our "god-given" rights, please? You've got too much traffic, people bitch. Where is the civil/human/privacy rights violation here?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
We're running a proxy system that makes wikipedia accesible by mobile phones, PDAs etc, with several thousand visitors each day. A glance over the access logs would indicate that people not sitting in front of their computers, who need to look up certain things right now have an overlapping but slightly different set of topics they're researching. Among the more popular topics are (obscure and dangerous) sexual practices, sexually transmitted deseases and uncommon drugs, like some nightshades. I'd say googlebot is the only one reading articles on specific ferry lines.
It's about time someone brought back some really witty remarks.
FragHARD or don't frag at all
Porn wasn't always at the top. Back in 2004 there were more searches for microsoft than for porn.
71.3% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
Found an even better search example. Searches for wikipedia are VERY quickly approaching searches on porn.
71.3% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
I work in a shipyard in Sturgeon Bay, (Bay Shipbuilding) and we've had the Lake Express here in our yard for service. I can personally attest that it has, indeed, had more than its fair share of mechanical difficulties. It's actually a large catamaran-style boat, so it will hydroplane (sort-of) on the top of the water. That makes it a more "bouncier" ride than the Badger, which sits lower in the water. This hydroplaning is also what allows it to make the trip across the lake faster than the Badger. As far as the Badger is concerned, I know a guy who used to work in the engine room. It's a coal-fired boat, folks. Coal. Not diesel, steam, or anything that's been invented in the last 50 years. If the owners of the Badger plead ignorance of Wiki, I am 99 percent inclined to believe they are stating the truth. However, perhaps an overzelous employee took it upon himself to help out his bosses. Even if the trip is shorter across in the Lake Express, From Interstate 43, which runs north-south along Lake Michigan, it's about 10 minutes from the exit ramp to the ferry dock in Manitowoc. In Milwaukeee, 10 minutes may get you over the interstate overpass and pointed toward the lake. Seriously, I don't think there's much overlap between the two services, and I can't believe one is poaching customers from the other.
The folks at the SS Badger may not be smart enough to do it themselves, but they sure as heck thought it was a good idea to do it when they first hired their SEO/domain squatter/adwords bottom feeder "consultant" to stir up bad publicity online. This story's a good lesson on what happens when half-brains hire low-class bottom feeder "new economy" douchebags to game the online system.
Regarding the Badger's guy, Christopher Van Oosterhout, here's his game:
1) register mispell and keyword domains
2) build keyword spamming websites to skim traffic of legitimate businesses/websites.
3) sell advertising to competitors of the company whose traffic is being leached.
4) run adwords for CPM and CPC money.
5) if that doesn't work, run negative information and try to extort money in an effort to sell the domain/site to the company he's targeted. The Badger got in bed with Van Oosterhout (of Torresen Marine) on the promise that his 5-pronged approach would be used to damage the Lake Express and only now are feeling upset as the public at large are getting a taste of their manipulation scheme. Christopher's info will follow at the bottom of this post.
How the SS Badger and Van Ossterhout worked in 5-point fashion here:
1) milwaukee-muskegon.com was registerede :www.milwaukee-muskegon.com
2) content is added to the site to build keyword relevance and pagerank - much of the content pulled from Lake Express materials or worded to reflect keyword searches. Cached at : http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&sa=G&q=sit
3) SS Badger advertising banners were featured promiently on the milwaukee-muskegon.com website, especially on pages that featured "passenger" complaints and testimonials centered around the Lake Express.
3b) the same content was posted on Wikipedia, by "anonymous" editor 24.11.28.42 (An IP/editor that also worked on adding Wikipedia links to a Torresen marine sales site). The IP belongs to Comcast in Muskegon, MI - home of Torresen and VanOosterhaut.
4) adwords appeared throughout the site.
5) in the article, Van Ooosterhaut admits that he attempted to sell the site to both the Lake Express and SS Badger, although the claim of trying to sell to the Badger seems a bit far fetched as the value of Milwaukee-Muskegon.com for a company running a Manitowoc-to-Ludington route seems a bit odd. Seems like a botched cover story that directly implicates him of working for the Badger.
A nice added touch is that Van Oosterhaut offered "free" Lake Expres photography through his keyword spam/ shakedown site. Free Lake Express photos -- all you have to do is link to this site. A pagerank and keyword spam (on "Lake Express") tactic.
Here's hoping there's a special place in hell for these squatter-email/search spammer types and the people that hire them.
As promised, here's my notes on the guys behind this scam/wikipedia attack:
Domain name: TORRESEN.COM
Registrant: Torresen Marine, Inc. 3003 Lake Shore Drive Muskegon, MI 49441 US
Administrative Contact: VanOosterhout, Christopher domains@torresen.com 3003 Lake Shore Drive Muskegon, MI 49441 US +1.2317598596 Fax: +1.2317551522
Domain name: MILWAUKEE-MUSKEGON.COM
Administrative Contact: Muskegon, Milwaukee christopher@vanoosterhout.com Milwaukee Muskegon Muskegon, MI 49442 US 231-206-0551
Don Clingan vice president of marketing for Lake Michigan Carferry lmcdon@ssbadger.com
43. Masturbation
44. Wonder Woman
Possible link between these two?
[The Universe] has gone offline.
That is to get from Milwaukee to the "Doo Drop In" on Henry st in Muskegon, of course!
a r=Muskegon,+MI,+USA&radius=0.0&latlng=43234167,-86 248333,11930338792605352426&dtab=0
http://www.google.ca/maps?hl=en&lr=&q=doo-drop&ne
"When you look at it from this perspective, well written, unbiased articles, in my opinion, hold a certain level of sacredness. And when you see it being defiled you can't help but to feel disgust."
You must be new here. Earth, I mean, not Slashdot.
Ha ha. Only serious.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
The spelling is "Gandhi". I could get anal about getting that right.
I doubt, therefore I might be.
ZachPruckowski: "Wikipedia works rather well at the core..."
owlnation: "No... maybe... how do you know for sure? There's simply never any guarantee of that."
Where's the guarantee that information in, say, Britannica is accurate?
I'm not just being a smart-ass; it's a serious question. What, exactly, *is* a trusted source? What makes a fact, a fact? How much do we take on faith whenever we accept knowledge without firsthand experience?
These are age-old questions; Wikipedia just forces the issue into stark relief. We tend to assume that a published book is more accurate than some guy ranting on Slashdot, but what basis is there for that assumption? We've seen plenty of books published by people with an agenda, and even nominally objective sources tend to have inadvertant biases.
Wikipedia has a core policy of Verifiability. Anything which does not cite sources should be automatically highly suspect. Anything which does cite sources can be checked. You thus have the ability to make your own determination as to value, or lack thereof.
Wikipedia forces one to realize just how much we rely on the word of others for all our information. The error is not in putting trust in Wikipedia, but in putting blind faith in everything else.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
So even when you're posting as an AC you can't spit out the word "niggers"? Sure, it's not a cool thing to say to somebody, but if you fear the word itself you just give power to people who'd use it...
Man people look up some sick crap on Wikipedia. I mean, the C programming language?! I can only hope it's just a bunch of curious teenagers, and that they'll grow out of it in a few years.
Wow.. Muskegon actually made it into the news. Even when the project was first annouced Ludington constituents whined, saying it would destroy their economy. God forbid healthy competition forces them to invest in other services or upgrade their aging services.
As a Wisconsin native, Ill try to reassure any readers and potentiel tourists that either ferry service will service diffrent parts of the state. Ive never, to my recollection ridden either of the services myself, but as long as they dont sink, does it matter? Too bad in this day and age, we cant have a level of proffesional courtesy that even the bottom sucking lawyers will (grudingly) adhere to. It sucks that the someone associated with manitowoc will stoop to this level, a visit to the old WW2 sub is worth the trip itself, while Miliwukee is a world class city that will thrive with or without Manitowocs tourist vistors. Besides which ferry service you choose, or not, visit Wisconsin, its a Great state( With a capital "G"). Go Badgers!
In Milwaukee the newspaper folks just can't get enough of the Wikipedia war. Maybe it's because the Brewers now appear to be out of the race and the Packers are already a lost cause that the writers are hoping to rally for at least one win from a Milwaukee team. Editorial coverage continues: When credibility departs: http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=488622
Wikipedia lake ferry entry has lots of back and forth
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=488688
Surfed through the edit wars pages and that was interesting though I didn't find the one on chips. It seems that a wiki is by design vulnerable to 1) edit wars and 2) wasting of critical resources, namely the time of authors and administrators, and the perceived reliability of the wiki, by such wars.
Being a wiki admin I suppose means you are asking for it and shouldn't be surprised at having to arbitrate such battles, but unless the number of admins increases at the same rate as the wiki's articles and readers this is a losing battle. It seems that many of these may be resolved by choosing least common denominator, ignoring the battle and maybe relying on the wiki's search engine a bit more to show related articles.
How about creating a forking wiki? I am not aware such a thing exists yet. Based on the recognition that unlike a static encyclopedia with a static board of editors and publication date, the wikipedia and other wikis are organic entities and involve people with divergent and yet possibly valid opinions. For example see the wars on UK/US terms, historical interpretation (not revisionism), etc. While the U.S. Wikipedia seems quite cool-headed I don't think that is guaranteed for other languages either.
So a forking wikipedia would allow each main article to have links to different versions if there is more than one valid one, basically allowing readers to see both sides of the topic. It would be up to an admin to decide on whether a view is valid enough, since it seems that only a small percentage of pages would have more than one view. You would have to ensure somehow that holders of one view do not edit the other in a prolonged war by locking it.
This sort of functionality might be useful in cases such as description of historical persons and events (e.g. battles), and possibly unpopular but official views held by contemporary governments about history, geography, etc.
It was an inside joke I think so use of the specific word was not required. This was an actual search done by someone through AOL that was found by searching their released search results. The specific user and what he searched for is here.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
Sick is serving the chicken to your parents for dinner.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Well, at least I used the right letters, even if they are out of order...
:-) )
(besieds, lteter odrer deons't maettr, rihgt?
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.