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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.
... 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.
One of the problems is this bit from TFS:
A bunch of poor people, with limited access to the internet, turn to one of the only sources of information they have.
And it turns out that source isn't trustworthy.
How is the consumer supposed to know otherwise when they have no access to better information?
Yes, we all know that wikipedia isn't always an authoritative source. But for people who only can get to wikipedia through their basic cell phone plans .... that was the only source of information.
Given the available sources of information, I'd like to see you arrive at a better conclusion.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
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.
Look, asshole.
Think about this. The average person in India has very little access to things like the internet. They have cheap ass cell phone plans which give them free access to Wikipedia, and not much else. What the fuck do you think "Wikipedia Zero" is? It costs them nothing to access it, whereas a data plan might be a months pay. Which they might want to spend on food and housing.
There are only so many places to try to glean information, and places to apply effort.
So you can sit in your comfortable first world life and be a smug douchebag, or you can try to accept that people in poor third world countries have access to FAR less sources of information without it costing them dearly. Which means they place far more reliance on the sources they have.
So go shove your attitude up your punk ass, and save me your bullshit.
This notion that people have perfect access to information to make perfect choices is completely bullshit when the only sources they have available to them are dishonest, or would cost far more than they'd be able to afford without a better job like they were trying to find.
Don't me such a smug little prick. Mostly it makes you sound like an idiot who doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
If Wikipedia is a necessary utility for the Indian population, wikipedia should charge or be funded by that government. Otherwise free is what it is, neighbor.
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.