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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.
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.
I think the problem is that there is a lose affiliation. Wikipedia is responsible for what its employees, paid or unpaid do. The administrators are not just members of the general public, wikimedia gives them special privileges. The administrator in this case seems to have had an affiliation with the school, and was doing things at wikipeida to lie for/about the school.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
There are lots of Wikipedia admins who are social entrepreneurs of one form or another. This should be clear if you think about the fact that they are not getting paid for this. Sure there are idealists; but there are also lots of admins who get their reward out of the fact that they can use Wikipedia to influence public opinion – via the top Google search result – in line with their social, commercial or political agenda, and do so anonymously. No one should be surprised by this. You get what you pay for.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Spoken like someone who can't even begin to imagine living somewhere that doesn't have ubiquitous communication with the outside world.