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The Register Exposes More Wikipedia Abuse
cyofee writes "The Register has up another article exposing abuse of Wikipedia's policies and processes. It tells a tale of a man, Gary Weiss, controlling the Wikipedia article about himself and his enemies (one of Wikipedia's biggest taboos) all under the blessing of the Wikipedia Cabal. A man who attempted to expose the affair on Wikipedia, along with his his entire IP range (some 1000 homes), was permanently blocked. This comes only days after the affair of the Secret Mailing list."
A good idea corrupted by human execution.
We told them it would happen, but "NO! This time it's different!". Except, it wasn't.
Where's that guy who shills for wikipedia, I'd love to hear his take on this.
It's not the idea. The idea was "everyone contributes, and everyone is equal." If that was still the idea, we wouldn't be hearing all these stories of editorial abuse, because things are now unequal, and that inequality is what's breeding all these problems.
Put a group in charge, and you're going to get abuse. That's just a fact. To get around this, most other organizations add some checks and balances, some oversight, some limitations on power. WP didn't do this, and now they're suffering for it.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Any project like Wikipedia will be subject to abuse. That's just the way things are. Actually, I'm always surprised the Wikipedia is as reliable as it is, and that so many people are willing to devote their time and effort to make it better.
Seek and ye shall find.
and controversies like it long ago. I created over 600 articles, mostly on Martian and Mercurian craters, and the inner workings of the U.S. executive branch of government. The problem with Wikipedia is that only the power-hungry authoritarians seek to become administrators, while the regular editors are content to just sit there and write rather than formulate policy.
That's good to know -- I don't need to write up that material I was going to submit since Wiki is a "love it (as is) or leave it" regime.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
News flash! The Register has less credibility than Wiki, if only for this idiotic smear job.
Ah yes, but The Register is little more than a rag e-zine but Wikipedia attempts to pass of this air of authority that it obviously does not have as there are people, at the top, fucking things up.
Yes, but is this relevant to 85% of the body of work? Do we really need to throw the word "totalitarian" around, or "black helicopters?" Jeez.
How the fuck would we know? We don't have someone who devoted a good bit of his free time in a year to attempting to track down the source of this snafu. It could seriously be that a majority of entries are fucked with in this way -- much to the enjoyment of the douchebags that believe they are somehow important because they are in a "ruling clique" -- but we'd never know w/o more people digging around.
That said, this sounds like a bunch of forum trolling, whining and conspiracy theory that I see on almost every single web-forum that has some sort of board running most of the show. Move along, it's not worth getting upset over.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
So saying that there is a problem at WP is the same as destroying the whole?
The only reason people complain is because they care about it. This is a real concern; I have absolutely no problem believing that there are abuses going on. The editors are human, and, even worse, they have a strong emotional stake in the project. That gives them a lot of motivation to do some "ends justifying the means" crap like banning someone they don't agree with.
The way for WP to solve the whole problem is to address the concerns not to do as you are doing, and pretend like they don't exist, or aren't relevant.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
The defense or truth by presenting all point of views with the origin of each one is both the goal of the Wikipedia and of a vigorous, sane society. "Germ-free" have probably no real future in a living world.
Signature omitted in order to save space. Thanks for your understanding.
Anytime you put a group of humans together, a pecking order will be established and the group will establish and enforce its own set of informal rules, often overriding any formal rules the group may have set forth to guide its actions and behavior.
It doesn't matter if its the local garden club or an open source project - leaders will emerge and their followers will do almost anything to protect the leader's position in the hopes of protecting their own elevated ranking.
What?
Writing to inform isn't that hard either, you should try it sometime.
Slashdot is not the place for subtle subtext and prose. Unless it's trolling or misinterpreted sarcasm. Then, go for it.
The respondent posted his reply because your comment was not a complete maturation of an idea, and was more commentary than discussion-invoking.
I think it's necessary for those who are in decision making positions step out from behind the shadows and start making decisions in a more transparent way as part of some sort of formal Wiki council. It doesn't make sense for such a popular public resource to be controlled behind the scenes without any mechanism available to promote responsibility and accountability of the powers involved. And while I'm on the subject, am I the only one who absolutely detests the name Jimbo?
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
Look, stories like this are seriously hurting The Register's credibility, and now Slashdot's as well for reposting this nonsense credulously. I can't believe anyone is even able to say "The Wikipedia Cabal" with a straight face. Wikipedia is fractured into many small groups and cliques just like the rest of human society (trust me, I know, I'm a Wikipedia administrator). All that's going on here is there is some dispute between a certain group of Wikipedians and some other people. I'm not going to say that either side is innocent because neither is. But to paint it as some gigantic conspiracy, with Wikipedia being ruled and dictated by some secret monolithic cabal, is hogwash.
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
The problem is the perceived corruption that goes all the way to the top.
This isn't about inaccurate information posted by those uninformed, uneducated, or malicious.
This is about administrators, and the site's creator, supporting (again, *perceived*) fallacies, in an effort to discredit and disgrace someone.
THAT's the problem.
CC Licensed Serialized Story and Podcast: Ingenioustries
Employee of overstock.com spams Wikipedia, uses lots of sockpuppets to avoid being blocked, and uses spyware to infect at least one user. Wikipedia blocks him. The Reg writes an article defending said employee and attacking Wikipedia (which Slashdot promptly reposts).
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Definitely funny, but as with all Penny Arcade strips, holds a great grain of truth. Wikipedia is billed as on-line encyclopedia, and while it may contain encyclopedic (and in many cases, overabundant) knowledge, it is actually a system whereby groups can vie for control of the information that others see about a particular topic. How many scandals have their been with entries being edited by groups/individuals on the sly, to make an opposing idea or person seem unpalatable or to spread falsehoods or innuendo? And given its size, how much potential inaccuracy or outright prevarication goes unnoticed?
It's pretty simple: Wikipedia the concept is excellent. The execution lacks quite a bit. At some point, you have to limit the number of people who can actually edit it, and remove the possibility of it going from encyclopedia of knowledge to something more like Facebook or MySpace. And yes, I know, who do you get to edit it? Eventually you have to bite the bullet, trust some people to be full-time editors, watch them to prevent abuse, and cultivate a culture of accuracy in information transmission.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
We in the business have a name for that kind of headline. "Joke" As far as the article, calling it a "deliberate and polemic assault designed to take Wiki down, and rob it of all credibility" is some superb hyperbole. The article itself dabbles in hyperbole, but you've pretty much one-upped it. They overdo it in many place (seriously, "totalitarian"?) but most of what is written seems reasonable when you strip away the, *ahem*, creative writing.
The thing that makes these little flukes on Wikipedia a scandal is that instead of admitting theres a problem, the wiki in-group will loudly deny any problems and pose it as an all-or-nothing, you're-with-us-or-against-us situation.
You clearly didn't read the entire article. I suggest you go back and finish it. FYI, it's 5 pages long.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
This Jimmy Wales quote: "We aren't democratic."
That's one for future generations. That quote should haunt him for the rest of his career. It's right up there with all the ones Bill Gates and Ballmer have made, that are repeated here often.
Two words: "true colors".
I was going to add in the usual references to nazis and Ayn Rand and all the rest -- but honestly, Jimmy's quote says it all, and says it clearer. It's all you ever needed to know about Wikipedia.
Sounds to me like the central problem is that after banning an abusive user with a genuine beef they then failed to take reasonable action on the genuine beef. As a result, two or three articles have become hopelessly corrupted and instead of freezing them in that state they should be declared hopelessly corrupted and removed.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Yes, but is this relevant to 85% of the body of work? Do we really need to throw the word "totalitarian" around, or "black helicopters?" Jeez.
Relax, chief. It's The Register's odd British humor. Go look at any of their articles about robots- they usually insert jokes about robots being one step closer to world domination/human enslavement.
Nevermind that this is the paper that runs the Bastard Operator From Hell series. I can't believe you got modded up to 5 for not realizing a joke on a famously snarky-humor-laden technology news sites.
Also, your comments were a lovely bit of straw man crap: nobody is seriously suggesting (or is it really even possible to) "take down" Wikipedia.
The Register has less credibility than Wiki, if only for this idiotic smear job.
Says you, chief. I think they're one of the best sources for technology news around and I love their (obvious to any idiot) twist. CNET and others happily parrot press release after press release; only the good 'ol Reg actually views 'em with an eye of skepticism.
Please help metamoderate.
as opposed to traditional media, blogs, and rags like The Register, where 100% of the content are controlled by a "cabal" of self-appointed guardians-of-the-truth.
Thanks, but I take Wikipedia over The Register any day.
An example -- and I don't think this will be off topic when you see where I am going with it: for years a set of researchers in Australia insisted that most peptic and duodenal ulcers were caused by a bacteria called helicobacter pylori. Problem was, the treatment for the bacteria was a simple and very cheap course of antibiotics and pink bismuth (brand name is usually Pepto Bismol) for about two weeks -- which negated the value of some very expensive American-developed medicines who basically trashed the research in the medical community for years. The end of the story is that the researchers, Warren and Marshall were correct, and 80% of all ulcers ARE caused by that bacteria. In fact these two were awarded the 2005 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their work on H. pylori.
So what would happen if Wikipedia were available back then and the powers that be basically chose the wrong side and banned Warren and Marshall from editing articles on stomach ulcers, because another group had a vested interest in keeping the status quo? Which is where the real ruckus lies and why I am now backing Citizendium instead of Wikipedia.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Cabal? Really? Are you sure you don't just need to turn off the machine and get outside for a while?
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
Actually, no.
I think the biggest benefit of an oligarch/monarch is that they have the capacity for intelligent long range planning, of the sort that everyone goddamn HATES, but which really does good things for the world.
As an example, I think we should have a higher tax on gasoline to drive down consumption, and increase public transportation and help fund alternative fuel research. Is this possible in our democracy? Not really. Everybody votes against anyone who would even suggest it. During World War II, there was mandatory recycling in a number of cities, and that has benefits, but people hated it, and it got repealed as soon as the war ended.
An absolute ruler has the ability to switch policy overnight. Democracies are unwieldy and take years to come to a new policy, and often they contain so many exceptions that they're practically useless.
If you could insure the whole "philosopher king" thing, make sure you have a person as absolute ruler who is both capable and worthy of it, then that would be by far the best system. Since you can't, we go with democracy, not because it's in any way better, but because it limits the possible harm that can come out of government toward the people. However democracy can't save the people from their own shortsightedness, and it's just damn inefficient.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
"Pay no attention to the people behind the curtain."
Where possible, of course Wikipedia is manipulated for the benefit and glory of those that own or run it (and/or their friends) - DUH. There's money to be made, agendas to set, axes to grind, opinions to influence, minds to manipulate. Then, of course, there are the evil uses :-)
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I know what a cabal is. I've been following the story for a while, and I'm pissed off at the behavior of a small group of people conspiring on the secret mailing list to ban people they dislike. Perhaps the writer in question here deserved it, but dozens more did not. This isn't about protecting wikipedia from vandals. This is about a small group of people acting in secret to crush those they dislike and to protect each other's interests.
I find it hard to believe that anyone uninvolved in the cabal could be as shrill and defensive about it as you appear to be. It seems as though you are taking attacks on this small group of people personally, why is that? We aren't attacking wikipedia, which is a great institution, but the selfish, childish, and paranoid people who are destroying it. Why should this bother you so much if you are not one of them?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
First of all, is *anybody* talking about taking down Wikipedia?
Secondly, and the thing that bothers me the most about all of this, is that there's a simple technical fix to the majority of Wikipedia's problems. "Deleted" articles should remain viewable by the general public, not just administrators. Even if that didn't solve the problem, it would at least let people look at the articles and see whether they should actually be deleted or not.
Thirdly, Wikipedia's motto is "anyone can edit." If they don't let people with 'sockpuppets' (I hate that term) edit, then they need to change the motto. Pointing out hypocrisy in this is perfectly well and fine; it's the same as Comcast advertising unlimited usage, then canceling accounts when they use 5 GB a month. If banning exists on Wikipedia, then not anyone can edit it.
Comment of the year
So what is the ultimate goal here. Is Wikkipedia really an open encyclopedia accessible to everyone or id it an exclusive club of yes men attempting to push some hidden agenda.
"Yes."
For a lot of topics, Der Fuehrer Jimbo or one of his cronies probably don't give a rat's ass. So they wind up leaving those alone, at which point other dynamics (also here) come into play.
And if it is even remotely the second, I could see how exposing the corruption would be a serious things. It threatens the validity of the agenda. But I have to ask, if there is no agenda, then why would corrupt practices be something of interest.
Corrupt practices should be of interest on the basis that they're corrupt, but also because everything has real-world implications. Articles on a country have real implications - they can impact tourism, they can impact politics, they can impact how people view the country. Articles on a political dispute, or a political leader, can have a formative impact on how they are viewed, especially as Wikipedia has hit so high in its search rankings seeing as it's essentially one gigantic fucking linkfarm (that gives out no bump to anyone else now that they implemented external-link "nofollow" tags).
Psychological research for decades has shown what ought to be pretty obvious - the first impression someone gets about something is always the strongest, and absent a massive shock or mound of evidence, will always have more impact on thought patterns than later information. Wikipedia, by virtue of being engineered to hit high in the search rankings, is the first place most people will get information on a given random topic.
That makes it important.
And if there is an agenda, what might it be? I know they have had slanted coverage of politically charged events. Things like one paragraph somewhat hidden on other pages explaining the real problems with the Katrina response and three quarters of the main article focusing on the government, Bush and how evil they are. But I doubt their motivation is purely political.
Depends what article and who you're asking. A number of $cientologists work to bias the hell out of $cientology articles - hiding what the Cult of $cientology wants hidden from view, such as the fact that the "Oxford Capacity Analysis" (their rigged personality test) has nothing to do with Oxford University for example. A rather sizable group of Arabs work to whitewash and control any article related to Islam and regularly war over the Israel/Palestinian issue... the trick is getting yourself entrenched and acquiring allies who are equally fanatical on some other topic that you don't really give a rat's ass about. You scratch their back, they scratch yours... and at the end of the day, the result is that most of the administrators on the site aren't set up about making a better encyclopedia, but keeping an article under their control and helping their new "friends" do the same on theirs.
Check out This page as one example. What do we see? A user named OrangeMike, who just "happens" to be a well-known Democrat operative in Milwaukee and longstanding friend of communist mayor Frank Zeidler comes along and starts whitewashing articles that mention his friend, and abuses his connections to other admins to get his opponents banned. The situation is almost a textbook example of what Parker Peters refers to.
A short time later, after questions of his conduct are removed from >his Adminship candidacy page by his abusive-a
Nice try, HiLJ sockpuppet.
Seriously, this is transparent. Trying to garner sympathy for your fictional character by posting a "tell all" post from some nameless cog in the "Wheel of Destruction!!!" which is out to get you?
WOW.
EPA Official: S-sir, I'm afraid you've gone mad with power...
/simpsons
Russ Cargill: Of course I have. You ever tried going mad without power? It's boring. No one listens to you!
Yeah, whatever, I will still do research for unimportant papers via Wikipedia and its vast citations, because when I use other encyclopedias I only get ONE source for information. Jeez, what is the big deal? If your subject is controversial, what makes you think a single source is more reliable? If you just need to know the molecular structure for cuprous iodide or Mussolini's place of birth it's great! Only pricks are trying to turn it into another Myspace.
FairTax baby!