Slashdot Mirror
Wikipedia Admin's Manipulation "Messed Up Perhaps 15,000 Students' Lives"
Andreas Kolbe writes: Recently, "ArbCom", Wikipedia's highest court, banned an administrator account that for years had been manipulating the Wikipedia article of a bogus Indian business school – deleting criticism, adding puffery, and enabling the article to become a significant part of the school's PR strategy. Believing the school's promises and advertisements, families went to great expense to send sons and daughters on courses there – only for their children to find that the degrees they had gained were worthless. "In my opinion, by letting this go on for so long, Wikipedia has messed up perhaps 15,000 students' lives," an Indian journalist quoted in the story says. India is one of the countries where tens of millions of Internet users have free access to Wikipedia Zero, but cannot afford the data charges to access the rest of the Internet, making Wikipedia a potential gatekeeper.
without further fact checking, is a complete idiot.
Or as Ronald Reagan once said, "Trust, but verify."
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
Puffery - legal term for bullshit.
Are you really blaming a website with no affiliation to the school for your shitty decision making skills to not actually look into a school before going or sending your kids there? Was it a problem that it was happening? Was it Wikipedia's fault your retarded? No
Wikipedia will soon start calling out all of the bogus higher education scam artists for sure!
Here in the US, colleges still send thick glossy booklets full of pretty pictures of campus locations students will hardly ever see in rare weather conditions with attractive and diverse people they'll never meet. Then we wonder why we have millions of non-STEM graduates serving coffee and whining about "student debt relief" for their useless degree(s). To me, all the "extra" college grads we have in the country are a much bigger deal than "just" 15K people getting a little wiser on how the world really works.
... are bogus as far as I can tell.
I've worked with plenty of Indian engineers (mechanical, electronic, and software) over the past 30+ years, and my general impression is that at least 50% have no knowledge of the subject matter at all. As far as I could tell they simply purchased a document claiming they had a degree. So, this appears to be just another example.
Do they not lease a connection, with a certain speed, and that's that? Data caps are a thing of the nineties...
"Verifiability not truth" is the shelter biased and power-hungry Wikipedia editors hide behind. Post an article or fact they don't like and they'll do their level best to claim it's not a good source using nebulous definitions and intra-Wiki politics. The author of a cited article can himself say, "that's not what I meant" and it will be rejected. One symptom of this source problem is a lack of consistently followed, useful guidelines for source material. Oh, there are guideline, they're just not consistently followed and entrenched interests have allowed their definitions of a good source to slide to support various point of view various editors want to push. NPOV is a religion they follow like a Baptist in his cups.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
The "real" educational market is messing up the lives of millions of students.
This is treachery !
Ive worked with numerous indian H1B holders. The ones that are smart enough to apply for citizenship and get the hell out of whatever indentured servitude theyve been thrust into are the ones I love working with. Eloquently spoken as always, they will be the ones that bring insight and technical expertise along for any meeting or project.
On the other hand, ive had many experiences with ESL H1B holders that amounted to nothing short of a phone tech in the states. Any H1B hired for any oracle product for example is a roll of the dice. Ive worked with a senior level RDBM that after an entire year of working on a project and requesting funding, quit when it was revealed the funding had all been directly applied to Oracle Gold support and remote hands. H1B sysadmins that just reboot servers all day long to fix problems, or feverishly post to message boards with an irate "please respond immediately" seem to be the bulk of what ive encountered in linux and unix. Ive been present for meeting room meltdowns and phantom disappearances where H1B holders just quit showing up for a project as well.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Here, just for you, a quote from the Slashdot headline itself, not even the article:
> India is one of the countries where tens of millions of Internet users have free access to Wikipedia Zero, but cannot afford the data charges to access the rest of the Internet, making Wikipedia a potential gatekeeper.
How do you say "Don't believe everything you read on Wikipedia" in Hindi?
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Cheaters getting upset that they wasted money on other cheaters, because someone gave them free advice.
Color me amused.
People need some incentive, which doesn't have to be money, to spend the time doing work on wikipedia articles. People get money, college credits, good PR, to edit wikipedia the way they want it. If they're an admin, they can sell their services to maintain a POV. Wikipedia does at least keep a record of changes and discussions of the changes, so you can view the talk pages and see the mess for yourself.
Also, 5000+ edits and reverts for how to pronounce J.K. Rowling's last name.
I like Wikipedia, but I don't trust it for anything political.
Pales in comparison to the 1.2 billion lives messed up by being born in India.
without further fact checking, is a complete idiot. Or as Ronald Reagan once said, "Trust, but verify."
By reading the Slashdot summary I learned about the existence of Wikipedia Zero.
I have to write that, in my opinion, that's super cool.
Wikipedia free of charge on mobile phones, particularly in developing markets.
That is awesome. Really, access to so much free knowledge in poorer countries, that's a great development.
Very nice initiative of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Because the internet is the only place to find information and verify things?
Their facebook page is driving a pro-feminist agenda, and welcoming women-only posts in wikipedia under the guise of promoting "gender diversity". Last time I checked, promoting a diversity of something is welcoming from all sides, and nobody ever was preventing some sexes to use wikipedia. It is really a nice strategy to flip the bird to the people who most helped you grow. I have contributed to wikipedia in the past, but I am done with them.
Corruption, cheating, lies and half-truths are the normal operating proceedure of the nation.
The Commonwealth games when they had them showed this;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concerns_and_controversies_over_the_2010_Commonwealth_Games#Allegations_of_corruption_and_financial_irregularities
The recent English test cheating scandal showed this. The video tells it all:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/11488326/India-arrests-300-over-blatant-cheating-in-school-exams.html
And you can get three years jail time for rape and murder:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Delhi_gang_rape#Juvenile_defendant
And thousands of other examples...
I don't even need to RtFA to say F-off on laying that a Wikipedia's feet. The school messed up 15,000 students lives and Wikipedia should be commended for making any effort period. The bad actors are the one's who take advantage morons. Change the F'ing headline and grow up.
can be found in this article by Mridula Chari on scroll.in: Wikipedia bans editor for consistent bias in favour of Arindam Chaudhuri's IIPM. Includes some more details on goings-on in the Indian-language Wikipedias (Marathi etc.)
The impoverished people living in rural areas, without affordable access to the Internet, and the people that can afford to send their kids to this school, are probably disjoint sets.
One might even blame Indian journalists, like the one who is quoted in this article blaming Wikipedia, for not better informing the public about legitimate and scam educational institutions.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Just a reminder that this is the sort of shit that the butthurt gaming bloggers and their pals from silicon valley tried to pull with the #Gamergate article by saying it's about misogyny and harassment and not about censorship, yellow-journalism and slander, all in the name of gathering free publicity for their fuckbuddies patreon accounts and investment in their brand of cultural snake oil.
yes: blame the victim
the "logic" of this line of thought never ceases to surprise me
it doesn't matter who was shot, who was robbed, who was raped... there's always some fucking genius out there who wants to present a rationale whereby the victim is at fault
do you consider yourself a moral person?
you do?
stop
you're not a moral person. you really aren't. you lack moral reasoning
morality is *never* about blaming the victim
example:
if i put $100 on my front porch i'm an idiot. a moron. stupid
and innocent
if someone steals that $100 they have transgressed onto property that clearly was not there's and taken something which was clearly not there's. they are the person 100% in the wrong. they are who you *should* blame
but you don't, do you?
what we have is a world where people like yourself take all of your outrage, and point it at the victim for being "stupid" (all crimes can be described in a manner where the victim has done something stupid along the way and so they "deserve" it). but the really amazing part is: how much of your "outrage" have you pointed at the perp? none. you let the actual criminal get away with zero blame in your mind. thus, you lack fundamental moral reasoning
"oh but i do blame the criminal too..." but you spend your energy attacking the victim. that's who you blame. that's the problem
you're the problem, in many ways, more than than the stupid victim, more than the evil criminal
because you further victimize the victim, and you let the perp get away without any blame or focus. and so justice is not served. the victim suffers more. the perp goes on to victimize others. some even laud the criminal for being strong and tough for picking on the stupid and the weak. true amorality
just take solace in the knowledge there are a hell of a lot of douchebags out there like yourself who blame the victim all the fucking time
there should be a morality iq test in this world. lot's of "intelligent" people (good at chess and software design) seem to lack really basic fundamental aspects of moral reasoning
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Read this before passing judgement
http://www.newsweek.com/2015/04/03/manipulating-wikipedia-promote-bogus-business-school-316133.html
Wait, wait,.... does that mean there are non-bogus business schools somewhere?
Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.
It really takes a spectacular degree of incompetence and disregard for warning signs to render arbitration at a pace so slower than a New Delhi court.
It took a court in the real world to get the clowns on ArbCom to get off their lazy duffers and take action. That is pathetic.
The problem with your perspective is that you want one party to carry all the blame. Pointing out that someone made a stupid decision (your label of "blaming the victim") does not mean that the other parties do not have responsibility.
Spread the blame to everyone that made poor choices: Indian Institute of Planning and Management, Wikipedia and those that enrolled without verifying their expectations.
Victim idolizing has got to stop.
moral - I'm not sure that word means what you think it does.
And this is why the "channel" Internet is a horrible, horrible idea, which needs to be nuked from orbit, just to be safe. It'll be the return of corporate-interest TV, with all the propaganda that comes with it - but with the veneer of "it's on the Internet, so people checked it!".
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
In the end, these people can still claim they have MBAs. Just because it's not from an accredited school doesn't mean that they don't have one. It's up to the perspective employer to verify education. They'll get tossed out of a few opportunities, but many won't even notice.
You assume that people are able to afford to check other sources besides Wikipedia.
A poor person, using Wikipedia Zero, without extra rupees to afford further research does what?'
Failure to check your assumptions and seeing if they are valid, takes your comment and shows it for the falseness it is.
People can be both victims and perps.
Who is the victim in these situations?
- School vs. Wikipedia
- School vs. parents
- School vs. students
- Parents vs Wikipedia
- Parents vs. students
- Students vs. Wikipedia
And even that is an oversimplified view, if only because most of these parties may have multiple separate relationships to eachother.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
That's pretty much what Wikipedia is worth: zero. Relying on the honesty of volunteers (and the correctness of the information they provide), compounded by the righteous, overbearing admins of Wikipedia to police everyone (but themselves) just leaves them with a product that is wholly untrustworthy. At best, it's a start for doing actual research on the subject, but it is in no way reliable in and of itself.
It may be self evident to people reading this site, but there are many people that don't know how to critically evaluate a site to determine its veracity, reliability, timeliness and biases. Combine that with giving it "free" to people who are unable to search the greater internet is like going door-to-door selling books that are "guaranteed to make you smarter, or double no money back!" (apologies to Gary Larson).
How did this drivel get upvoted? The parent uses 19 poorly-written lines (without a single capital letter) to make one lengthy strawman argument about the grandparent "blaming" the victim. All the grandparent said was that someone had to be stupid to fall victim to a scam like this - and the parent, using an analogy, apparently agrees ... but seems to argue that it shouldn't be permitted to say so, and that saying so is an indication of a moral failing?
Calling the victim stupid serves a number of important purposes here. It reminds people that they can avoid scams like this by applying a bit of thought (i.e. "don't be stupid"). It reminds people that those who can't help but be stupid may need a bit of assistance to avoid being scammed. Both of these things reduce the success rate of future scams, which makes scammers less likely to bother carrying them out, which reduces the background level of scams that the rest of us have to watch out for.
The parent seems to think that, by calling the victim stupid, we would somehow reduce the punishment applied to the scammer, which could offset these benefits - but I don't see any coherent argument as to why this should be the case. (Especially not in the parent post.)
Actually, the Just World Hypothesis (link ironically to Wikipedia) can help to explain the cognitive process behind the behavior that you observe with regards to "victim blaming". I found it fascinating when I first read about it (probably here on /.)
Read the summary:
The only site that is available to many people. The only other available source would be PR stuff from that very school.
Trying to cross check the promises in some school leafl3eats using a usually trustworthy (and the only available) source isn't a masterpiece, but within the available means, "due diligence"
bickerdyke
Awesome... Meanwhile, Heaven forbid Facebook or any other KKKorporation sponsors some poors' Internet-access. No, better they have no Internet-access at all!
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I don't know. I have an degree from an actual business school. It's every bit as valuable as a sham one.
I looked at some of the applicants that we've had come in. There are many for India, and we've definitely had many that were under-qualified compared to their paper. However, a good mix of my current co-workers are also (originally, immigrated and now PR) from India, and they're generally as good or better than their paper credentials.
Why? Because my bosses actually have decent interviewing skills, and picked candidates with actual skills in something other than B.S., rather than just looking for somebody cheap. From what I've seen, a lot places where the poor workers are endemic seems to be:
a) The hiring process sucks and/or is done almost entirely through 3rd-party recruiting companies who are basically contractor-mills. In some cases the hiring manager is good, but never sees the good/skilled candidates because they lack the correct buzzwords on their resume
b) The pay is sub-par, and all you're getting is people who are desperate or are unqualified. For the former, once they've settled they'll move on. For the latter, well you've seen what happens.
If we dumped a bunch of the 3rd-party recruiting parasites, that might be a good start at improving things. I actually got my job through a recruiter once: a 3mo contract which I said I'd only take if there was a chance for permanence, and then they tried to tack on conditions that I couldn't *TAKE* a permanent permission without their permission (paying a placement fee). I argued with them until they removed that clause, but apparently they put it on the employer instead (cannot hire without paying a recruiting fee). Thankfully my employer liked me enough to pony up. Afterwards, the same recruiter called me about 6mo later with "hey, are you happy at $X, we've got a position at $Y which would be great for you!"
Come on folks. Please verify your Wikipedia finds with something reliable. I use Reddit!
Nothing you say changes the fact that Wikipedia is a steaming pile of shit that ANYONE can edit to say ANYTHING.
So fuck off with your half assed social justice bullshit.
what we have is a world where people like yourself take all of your outrage, and point it at the victim for being "stupid"
The world is not a black and white as you seem to see it. In most cases both parties carry some blame with the majority going to the perp.
all crimes can be described in a manner where the victim has done something stupid along the way and so they "deserve" it
Sorry but leaving a car with the engine running outside a store while one goes shopping is stupid. If the car gets stolen the driver is at least partially to blame.
because you further victimize the victim
We also teach the victim ways to avoid the issue in the future.
and you let the perp get away without any blame or focus.
No, the perp needs to have consequences for his bad act.
some even laud the criminal for being strong and tough for picking on the stupid and the weak.
Rarely does that happen.
The problem with the "victim" attitude is the lack of personal responsibility and illusion of control. By putting the blame completely on the perp the victim appears completely helpless. That is often not true. There are many things a victim could do to avoid the situation. In this case a little more research could have avoided the issue. Being a powerless victim can lead to depression and suicide. The other issue is the illusion of control. I can only control myself, and sometimes not very well at that. I have no control over what other people do. When I get into an issue all I can do is figure out what I can do in the future to avoid other situations. All we are doing is explaining what could be done in the future to avoid such scams.
just take solace in the knowledge there are a hell of a lot of douchebags out there like yourself who blame the victim all the fucking time
There is a problem with using terms like "all the time". Most people do things "most of the time" and extremely rarely "all the time". Absolutes rarely apply. For example I doubt many people would blame an innocent bystander who was killed in a drive by shooting. Each instance has to be analyzed on it's own merits.
Sorry but your idea of the victim always being blameless and the perp always being completely to blame does not work in the real world.
there should be a morality iq test in this world.
There are different morals in the world. Your seem to be that there are powerless, innocent victims and powerful, evil perps and nothing in between. Other people have different views. Personally I see victims that can learn from their or others' experiences and fight against the evil perps. Whose morality should we measure against?
So...you have a website where anyone can say anything and people are trying to figure out who to blame when someone says something false?
I see.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Why EXACTLY is this a troll post mods? We are talking about poor people whose only access to online info is a Wikipedia under the control of scammers...I don't see how they can be seen as anything BUT innocent victims....yet we see post after post blaming them because they didn't have the wealth to do the research YOU take for granted...want to blame them for being dirty and brown while you're at it?
If anybody should be considered trolls its those jackholes that always blame the victim, which sadly we see here every.single.time. there is a post here where somebody was preyed upon by somebody else.
As for TFA...if Wikipedia has any kind of morals at all they would demand their name be taken off of Wikipedia Zero and the site shut down, since they obviously aren't willing to spend any of the millions Jimbo is constantly begging for to actually police the site, only acting AFTER the article was called out by the Indian press and judiciary.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I've got some former friends who were always mad at the world because they couldn't pay their bills.
They had decided to take up expensive habits which drained their money, and they decided to rend an apartment they couldn't afford, and get the top cable TV and internet packages, and two of the latest smart phones, even though they didn't make enough money to pay for the lifestyles they'd committed to.
They were mad at everyone: They were mad at their parents for not paying their way, they were mad at their landlord for insisting they pay their rent every month, they were mad at the cable TV and Internet companies for insisting they get paid every month. Hell, they were mad at *me* for not giving them free money every month.
So I've seen people who make bad decisions when given all the data required to make a good decision.
It's one step from there to making bad decisions by not spending enough time gathering data to make a good decision.
Fraud is obviously wrong. I don't think anyone would dispute that. However; in a world where there's always someone looking to exploit you, there's a duty to yourself to make sure you do everything in your power to make the right decisions.
The statement from the Wikimedia Foundation is amazing. My, how they wash their hands so cleanly of any responsibility. "We will continue to work to support our editors and administrators in serving as a vigilant defense against such incidents and in hopes that they can prevent future incidents like this from occurring." This would be like your house being robbed, you calling the police, and the police saying that while they cannot assist you with the robbery currently in progress (because, after all, there may not be enough evidence that an actual robbery is taking place), they *are* going to host a "Safety Awareness Barbecue Picnic" in your neighborhood next week, and won't that be really special? Why clueless people donate actual money to this Wikimedia Foundation is beyond comprehension.
This, right here.
Certainly there's fraud involved. But caveat emptor is still the ultimate law of buying into anything that is as life-changing as what post-secondary schooling you go to.
A classic parallel is the military. A military recruiter will bullshit you nine ways from Sunday, and they spend a lot of attention on PR, brand recognition, and similar buzzwords, long before those buzzwords existed. You only get to find out after you step off the bus at boot camp. You know, when you're immediately greeted by screaming burly mofos wearing smokey-the-bear-hats who are credibly threatening to enlarge the size of your rectum by hand (or in an approximate time reference: when it's way too late to do something about it. )
So what do you do? Forget the Internet - find some folks in the area who graduated from this school, and ask them directly how useful their degree is. Seems pretty effing simple, doesn't it? Even if you have to travel a little or call long distance to do it, a little money spent now saves a ton of cash spent later.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
you are morally ignorant
if a woman walks butt naked into a cell block full of hardened convicts, she is well beyond stupid and into the realm of insanity
but if a convict touches her he is the one has chosen to transgress against another
it is possible for a butt naked woman to walk up to a sex starved man, and the man to know he has no right to touch her without her consent, and to simply not touch her. if he chooses to touch her without her agreeing then he, and he alone, has committed a crime. she has committed no crime. none
you are responsible for your choices and what you do. no matter the temptation. no matter the context
the actions that come out of you is your fault only. 100%
welcome to basic fucking morality
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I like how Reagon got that phrase from the Soviets :D
thank you, well said
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'm mad at you, too. It's a wonder you have any friends.
interesting
thank you, TIL
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Why EXACTLY is this a troll post mods? We are talking about poor people whose only access to online info is a Wikipedia under the control of scammers...I don't see how they can be seen as anything BUT innocent victims...
Because if you think about it, there are more ways than just the Internet to research a school. Granted there's a lot of ignorance in the equation, but it wouldn't take too much effort to call a few prospective future employers and ask their opinion. It wouldn't take too much effort to find at least a couple of people in the locale who graduated from that school and get their opinions. None of this takes much of an education or wit to discover and perform.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
I don't think that blaming the victim is inherently immoral. There are several moral codes, including the Abrahamic faiths, that include some aspect of blaming the victim. For instance rape victims are supposed to be stoned to death, under most circumstances. Basically, if they are within earshot of others, then obviously they didn't yell loud enough, so they should be punished. There's an allowance for a woman who is outside walking around beyond where others can hear her. I disagree with this specific rule, but there is obviously room for debate on whether or not blaming the victim is immoral.
I happen to think it is perfectly reasonable for those who have not done due diligence to bear some of the burden when they get scammed. For instance, if I give money to somebody soliciting at my doorstep for a charity I've never heard of, I share some of the responsibility for my loss. Worse, I have given a scammer funds with which to propagate their misdeeds to more victims. I think this position is perfectly moral.
Saying somebody is not moral just because they don't share the same morals as you is fallacious at best, and quite possibly hypocritical. I think it's immoral to cut off the hand of a thief. I think it's immoral to commit adultery. I think it's immoral to pay CEO's 100x what their laborers make. But if you happen to think that these things are A-OK, it doesn't make you an immoral person. It just means we have different values.
you are completely incorrect
there is right and wrong
then there is stupid and smart
those are completely and utterly different. and yet you mix them up as if they are the same topic on the same measure! incredible. all you are doing is self-identifying as morally ignorant
you really can't tell the difference between a smart person doing something evil and a dumb person fucking up? that's really the same weight in your moronic "understanding" of the world?
what the fuck is wrong with people?
it's rather disturbing, not that there are evil people in the world, but that so many people seem to have weaker moral reasoning abilities than some intelligent animals like chimpanzees and parrots
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Whether or not something is morally right or not doesn't change the fact that it may not be a really bad idea given the reality of the situation.
I doubt that even you would decide to walk alone through a bad neighborhood at night while advertising that you have valuable items in your possession. In an ideal world there wouldn't be a problem with that, but we don't live in such a world. The people who will do you harm do not care about your rights, the morality of the act, or your feelings on the matter.
As a rational individual you should be able to recognize that many other individuals are not moral based on your definitions and that it's utterly, utterly foolish of you to suspect them to act in accordance with your moral code. So while you might argue that it would be wrong for you to be accosted on the street at night and deprived of your property, you still know damned well that you shouldn't put it to the test. If you knowingly do something foolish, you'll have a hard to convincing people that you're completely blameless in the matter.
Pontificating on the matter doesn't actually do anything to address the problem, regardless of how sound your principles may be. I'd rather avoid bad situations entirely than worrying about attributing blame after the fact.
Those that enrolled without verifying their expectations to some unspecified degree made poor choices, or possibly good choices that went bad due to sheer bad luck, as any might.
Wikipedia made the lazy choice of not bothering to verify its contents, despite being a Power That Be in its own right nowadays, likely more influental than most nations.
Indian Institute of Planning and Management made a morally represensible choice of purposefully lying in order to commit fraud.
Do you honestly see these as equivalent in any way? A fool, a slightly irresponsible "dude" and a fraudster don't have a common type of blame they could share.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
IIPM has been known as a rogue B-School for more than a decade. UGC (University Grants Commission), the statutory body governing Universities in India has issued advisories, many newspapers have exposed the sham nature of the school, Courts have censured the School's practices, IIPMs founder has been banned from running the school...and the list goes on. If people still get admitted to this school, it just proves that Stupidity is Infinite. Why blame wikipedia?
The problem with your perspective is that you want one party to carry all the blame. Pointing out that someone made a stupid decision (your label of "blaming the victim") does not mean that the other parties do not have responsibility.
Spread the blame to everyone that made poor choices: Indian Institute of Planning and Management, Wikipedia and those that enrolled without verifying their expectations.
Victim idolizing has got to stop.
We know that Wikipedia is unreliable. When we grow to about 3 or 4 years old, we start to develop what is called "theory of mind", when we start to recognise that other people might not know things that we know, and that they might know things that we don't. E.G. a two year doesn't know what's in the box, and when asked if mummy knows what's in the box says "no". A five year old would say "maybe" or "I don't know".
It is not "victim idolizing" to apply theory of mind to facts such as "Wikipedia is unreliable". We have ample evidence that people don't know this in our own part of the world. We can reason that people who have just acquired their first internet access device are unlikely to know as much about the internet as we do. I mean, you wouldn't expect someone from out of town to know which neighbourhoods to stay out of at night, would you?
Furthermore, in this case, you are ignoring the fact that Wikipedia was actively marketed to them. Have you seen the adverts? I haven't, but I'm assuming they talk about "the world's greatest information bank" or somesuch. This sort of hyperbole comes naturally to the Wikimedia Foundation. (Well, it's actually true, but still misleading.) Do you remember some of the glowing, noncritical press coverage of the early years of Wikipedia? Don't you think that India will be getting the same "lovebombing" right now from their press? You cannot blame people for believing if all the information they have says Wikipedia is the greatest thing ever.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Unlike all these people who got fucked over, they didn't know their money was on the porch. You have the right idea, but your analogy is broken add it is stupid.
You knew the value and the risk, that makes you culpable, they did not.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
There's a difference between calling someone naive and/or ignorant and calling them stupid. The latter is a negative judgement of the person. Stupidity strongly implies "it's your own fault" -- naivety implies lack of appropriate information, which is exactly the situation we have here.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
And that doesn't change the fact that not everyone in the world knows that.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Perhaps that's because all of the blame naturally falls on one party. Remove all stupidity from the world and there will still be crime. Remove all the crime from the world and there is none.
Stupidity is contextual anyway and accurate judgments of it don't cross cultural and social barriers readily. In some places, leaving your door unlocked is not at all stupid. Locking your door borders on criminal in some places. In some places wasting your time and energy locking up your tools at the end of the day is stupid. In others, not doing so would be stupid. The constant though is that the person who steals your stuff is in the wrong.
Consider, in small places, that is places where you can actually know everyone there and where communication with the outside is limited, caveat emptor often does not really apply. No merchant in that situation is going to risk being run out of town over a few small items. Just imagine one day that small place gets a connection to the internet. To you and me, actually responding to a spam is stupid. There's no way you won't get ripped off. But to the people in that small place, there is nothing stupid about it. It's simply a novel situation they are ignorant of.
Spoken like someone who can't even begin to imagine living somewhere that doesn't have ubiquitous communication with the outside world.
because you further victimize the victim
We also teach the victim ways to avoid the issue in the future.
Except the victims in this case aren't reading this thread so aren't learning anything from the people so "generously" calling them fools.
In this case a little more research could have avoided the issue.
In this case a little more reading of TFS could have explained why that wasn't possible:
"India is one of the countries where tens of millions of Internet users have free access to Wikipedia Zero"
Considering WMF's hyperbolic promotional materials, it's fair to say that not only had many of the victims done all the research they could, but they also had been led to believe that they had researched by drinking from the unerring fountain of all human knowledge.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Why EXACTLY is this a troll post mods?
Because it is trollish? Did we blame Kevin Bacon and other Madoff victims that lost everything? Yes, because they should have been blamed for being greedy (note the scope of whome we're blaming here). Do we blame Madoff? Absolutely, he broke several laws and is a reprehensible person to boot.
We are talking about poor people
Obviously not....
want to blame them for being dirty and brown
Why, does it have any bearing on whether they behaved foolishly?
As for TFA...if Wikipedia has any kind of morals at all they would demand their name be taken off of Wikipedia Zero and the site shut
On this we agree fully to the action needed for our satisfaction, but you're mistaken about the morals aspect.
Forget the Internet - find some folks in the area who graduated from this school, and ask them directly how useful their degree is. Seems pretty effing simple, doesn't it? Even if you have to travel a little or call long distance to do it, a little money spent now saves a ton of cash spent later.
India:
Surface area 3,287,590 km2
Population 1,210,193,422
[Source]
If a young university/school teaches 1000 students a year and has been going (for example) for 10 years, that's around 10,000 alumni in total. In a country of over a billion people, that's just over 0.0008% of the population. One in every 121,019 people. What are the chances of finding people who graduated from the school?
Imagine you're sitting in Guin, Alabama, and you want to know about the reputation of Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston, Idaho. Are you going to just "find some folks in the area who graduated from this school"? That's what you're talking about here.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Bullshit. From the article: "Students paid up to $15,000 for IIPM’s courses."
So they can plunk down $15,000 in fees but can't "afford data charges" to do a tiny bit of non-wikipedia research on what that $15,000 is going to get them?
Again, bullshit.
Wikipedia Zero has not been launched in India. Check the map.
The article does not say that Wikipedia Zero is their only connection to the internet just that it is free. If one has enough money to spend on tuition to a business school one probably has enough money to do a Google search to verify a Wikipedia entry.
they also had been led to believe that they had researched by drinking from the unerring fountain of all human knowledge.
Anyone who still believes that needs help.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W... July 2013: India, with Aircel. From 2 March 2015, subscribers of Aircel no longer can access Wikipedia Zero. They will be charged as per their data plan if they access Wikipedia. http://m.wikimediafoundation.o... Fact checking is good.
"Impoverished people in rural areas" likely have ZERO Internet access. And poor people especially might be hit: Because they are the ones with that limited Internet access, and they often try to gather the last dime to send the kids to get a better education then they themselves did.
For example, the people coming to Europe illegally via Mediterranean Sea routes pay several thousand Euros per person for the trip. Does that mean your conclusion is those are the "rich people of Africa"?
it is possible for a butt naked woman to walk up to a sex starved man, and the man to know he has no right to touch her without her consent, and to simply not touch her. if he chooses to touch her without her agreeing then he, and he alone, has committed a crime. she has committed no crime. none
you are responsible for your choices and what you do. no matter the temptation. no matter the context
the actions that come out of you is your fault only. 100%
The problem I have with such a view is that it completely absolves the "victim" of any blame whatsoever. Now, that doesn't mean that in your scenario that the person who touches the woman is not at fault. He is. Absolutely, he is. But is it not also morally wrong to put someone into a situation where you know they're going to have a hard time doing the correct/legal thing?
Of course, that requires that the "victim" be fully aware of the potential dangers of what they're doing, and in the larger context of this conversation that's just not the case. However, my point still stands. Just because one is a victim does not mean that one can be wholly absolved of any wrongdoing. Naturally, the culprit holds full blame for their actions, however in the larger context the victim can also hold at least some part of the blame for putting the culprit in such a situation.
If you go look at Wikipedia's Gamergate article, it is just as bad.
SJWs controlling the narrative, with corrupt administrators backing them up, handing out bans for people daring to voice an alternative opinion.
Now the article is completely one sided and many people use it as an example of the corruption of Wikipedia.
...then how did they find out about the school in the first place? If there's Internet in the neighborhood, there's certainly going to be a telephone or two.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Another quote from the article:
if a woman walks butt naked into a cell block full of hardened convicts...
The phrase is "buck naked." The analogy is to the male deer, a woodland creature not known for wearing clothes. Also, please learn how to use the shift key on your keyboard.
they also had been led to believe that they had researched by drinking from the unerring fountain of all human knowledge.
Anyone who still believes that needs help.
Yes, and that help is called "education". The problem with Wikipedia Zero is that it's a walled garden. You can climb over the walls, but it's easier to stay inside -- that's the problem with Wikipedia Zero.
In fact, Wikipedia Zero's own publicity video says "students will do their homework and research careers", which is horrendously bad, because everyone who's been through a degree in a developed country in the last 15 years knows that Wikipedia should only be used as a jumping off point, and that you need to go elsewhere to verify the sources... but if you can only access Wikipedia, there's no way of verifying those sources.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
More ways that you must know about in order to use, you mean.
Wikipedia Zero is an agreement between Wikimedia and certain carriers to not charge for data coming from certain IPs/URLs. It is far from a walled garden.
It's not a walled garden in the sense that iOS, but there's a very real barrier between Wikipedia and the internet proper, and it's a hell of a high cost to surpass it.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
WOW, you didn't even finish reading the summary!
The barrier is a data plan or a data link that does not use cellular bandwidth. The only difference between Wikipedia Zero and the rest of the web is that you don't get charged data rates for Wikipedia Zero in some countries. India is not even one of those countries.
You have OBVIOUSLY never been there or even known anybody who lived there, otherwise you'd know that many villages are in the middle of BFN and if you are REALLY lucky? You have a bicycle...which your ass will be pedaling 6 days a week to scrape by.
So let us hear it, oh wise one....how EXACTLY is a person in BFN without a motor vehicle in an area where a single month's of Internet access can cost a year's wages gonna do research? I really wanna hear this.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Not according to TFS. Or this article.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Attitudes like this are the problem. No man should ever had a right to tell women what to wear and when. It is their prerogative to walk naked if they wish, and men's duty to respect them and look away if they can't control their animal side. You seem to be suffering from male privilege syndrome. Your generation needs to die off for the world to be a better place.
Do not trust and dont bother to verify
Funny, you seem confident you not only know who the victim is, but that it's always a woman.
Get your life together, man. The reason nobody likes you is that everyone else is moving on with their lives, and you're stuck acting like an idiot 18 year old.
After some quick searching on the subject looks like it's just a newer form of slang.
Man blir trött av att gå och göra ingenting.
My point is still valid no matter the victim or the culprit. I was merely using the previous scenario as an example. It's just as true if the roles were reversed or in any other number of scenarios.
For example, let's say that a parent has told their child that they're not allowed to eat any candy until after dinner because it would spoil their appetite. The parent then proceeds to pour a bowl of candy onto a nearby table and then walks out of the room. And of course, the child takes and eats some candy once the parent leaves. Now, is it the child's fault for taking the candy? Absolutely. However, the parent should have known better than to leave such a temptation for the child in such an accessible place and then walk away. The parent should also carry some blame because it was a foolish thing to do.
My prior example was not meant as a commentary on telling women (or really anyone) what they can and cannot wear. Rather, it was meant to show that in certain situations it is unwise (and I posit even immoral) to do things that would be an obvious temptation to another party to do wrong. Not that that would make the culprit any less blame worthy.
Did you look at the map from Wikimedia. I would give much more creedence to a map from the company involved with Wikipedia Zero than a two year old article.
Just like the one-laptop-per-child and other swindles invented by "well-meaning" rich bastards.
When comcast or such is prioritizing some preferred content-delivery network over another, everybody is crying about network neutrality and such. But with "developing countries" everything should go, no matter how disgusting.
I reference the Just World Hypothesis all the time and nobody ever mods me up. You add a wikipedia link and suddenly you're Score:4 Interesting?
Lazy savages.
Now, with their shiny new MBA's, they now have a license to defraud the public at large.
The world is not a black and white as you seem to see it. In most cases both parties carry some blame with the majority going to the perp.
From there it's a short step to the professional criminal's view of (non-criminal) people as "mug punters". I suppose it helps soothe what little conscience you have, if you're not particularly bright or possessed of self-awareness.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I can only guess that it is something to do with the whole Ayn Rand/superman philosophy beloved of software developer libertarians.
"I make a few hundred thousand a year because I got a Computer Science degree and work in silicon Valley, therefore so can anyone else, and someone who is not at least reasonably rich is just a loser responsible for their own poverty, stupidity and poor choice of career and domicile."
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Fair enough. Ironic that this [citation needed] was resolved with a link to a wiki* site... ;-)
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Let me see, the Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM) deliberately and for years on a row cheats and bend information in their favour on Wikipedia and probably elsewhere. Wikipedia takes action. Wikipedia is to blame for having messed up the lives of 15k students. Right.
If only India would have had a Second Amendment, the victims would have been able to prevent this tragedy.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
This is a business school, after all. These students have gotten a very good education in the very basis of business, corporate style.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
I'm sorry but that's a really stupid example. A woman deliberately walking naked into room with a bunch of male lifer prisoners would be acting as agent provocateur. A prisoner could argue that her being naked in that position is an open invitation to sex or even suicide. They might face charges, she almost definitely would - or face sectioning to a mental hospital.
Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
Yeah, this sure proves the validity of the small government/libertarian case. After all, look, the free market has solved the problem!
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Remove all stupidity from the world and there will still be crime.
I disagree. All crime is inherently stupid to some degree. If everyone were perfectly intelligent there would be no crime.
Farmers who sell their land to send their kids to business school are a good example of the intersection set, if you read TFA.
There is too much "victim" mentality in the world defined as the "I am a victim. Some bad person did something bad to me. There is nothing I could do. I am helpless". That mentality leads to inaction and depression. An alternate view is "Some bad person did something bad to me. What could I have done or could do in the future to not have that happen again. I can make a difference". The second view is much more uplifting and empowering than the first.
There is an old saying "Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me". People need to take responsibility for dealing with things when shit happens.
if you're not particularly bright or possessed of self-awareness.
I am very self-aware. I am aware that I can only control myself and I need to deal with and protect myself from the bad stuff other people do.
Seems to me Wikipedia is edited by children, biased spiteful children. They'll do a "Speedy Deletion" on you if they simply don't like the person or entity you're writing about, despite having valid references and significant information. They themselves also "vandalize" in areas they think most Wikipedia officials may not notice. Wiki claims there are no designated "editors" or "monitors" in the Wikipedia site. But you just try to add a new article or edit an existing one... At least a couple editors (who were watching) will jump all over you, practically call you names, change your article around (a lot), then even threaten you that you'd "better not violate the site's protocol" again or you'll be banned from making contributions. This has happened to me more than once. Note: My contributions were right on point and inoffensive in every way. (Then they dare to ask us for donations!) - Wikipedia wants to have an encyclopedia without the hassle of actually collecting information, so they encourage readers to do all the work (while they collect the donations). - Well... The one thing i can personally attest from experience: Wikipedia is a load of horse crap, edited by text-doctoring idiots who simply want to feel 'powerful' as an "information illuminati". Example: http://www.newser.com/story/20...
if a woman walks butt naked into a cell block full of hardened convicts...
The phrase is "buck naked." The analogy is to the male deer, a woodland creature not known for wearing clothes. Also, please learn how to use the shift key on your keyboard.
http://www.rhapsody.com/artist...
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Certificates issued by https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... are NOT recognized by https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...
Why you've exclusive 'dislike' towards to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...
Casteism