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Wikipedia Blocks Hundreds of Accounts Doing Paid Editing
jan_jes writes: After weeks of investigation, Wikipedia has blocked 381 user accounts for "black hat" editing. The reason for the ban is that the accounts were engaged in undisclosed paid advocacy — the practice of accepting or charging money to promote external interests on Wikipedia without revealing their affiliation, in violation of Wikimedia's Terms of Use. In addition to blocking the 381 "sockpuppet" account, the editors deleted 210 articles created by these accounts.
Yes. "Software Patents".
"Wikipedia is the encyclopedia anyone can edit, and its open model makes it a rich and reliable resource for the world."
Or, in reality, a handful of basement dwellers sit on the edit history or every article and straight up harass you for making additions or corrections, because they are "wiki".
It's about as reliable as any web forum or blog at this point, maybe worse because it's as famous as google at this point. It's good to see them cutting out the blatant paid posters, but that's not even the bulk of the issue with wikipedia. It's the little closed circle of editors who believe they own the content and the rest of us peons aren't allowed to join the party.
Case in point, the last time I bothered modifying an article on a subject that I'm quite knowledgeable on. Modified an article to add some relevant information and provided sources and citations.
I was promptly banned from making edits and my changes were reverted. Ok great, whatever right? Well if I bothered to tell you which article I'm referring to, you could go look right now and see the content I added is now back, same source, same citations. The only difference is one of the super special wiki-gods didn't like that I, a lowly peon, posted it, so they banned me, then re-added everything they removed under their own name.
This is wikipedia in a nutshell.
Was there ever a more vile and sociopathic concept than "reputation management"?
Yes. Quite a few of them actually. Reputation management is something we all do to some degree. I don't know how you would exist in a complex society without some amount of effort directed towards maintaining your reputation in the community.
Protecting your reputation is not in principle a bad thing. Sometimes false or misleading information becomes public and can cause problems - sometimes serious ones. Nothing wrong with taking reasonable steps to guard against such things. Of course like most things you can go too far and try to hide wrongdoing but just because something is bad in some circumstances does not make it bad in all circumstances.
Who uses Wikipedia as a trusted source? It's value is in quick information on a number of non contentious topics. Going to Toronto and want to get some quick facts about the city? Wikipedia is great for that. I just wouldn't use it to make any important decisions, and maybe it really doesn't need to be that anyway.
Removing that thimble of water from that ocean is going to make a HUGE difference. Oh wait, no it won't.
Wikipedia has become another little internet fiefdom run by a bunch of backstabbing assholes who use their basement-dwelling power to rule capriciously and for personal gain.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Yes, but most of us do our "reputation management" by, you know, behaving properly rather than going around trying to erase any record of our misdeeds.
You can behave properly all you want and still get screwed by false information or malicious deeds. A service that helps people combat this sort of problem is fine. Some people are just assholes and will try to ruin your reputation out of spite or just because they can. Ask any restaurant if they get nothing but fair and honest reviews on Yelp. Even if people aren't actively trying to ruin you, nobody is perfect and minor mistakes can sometimes cause major problems - problems far out of scale with the deeds.
Get back to me in 7 years, when your then 23 year-old daughter finds it hard to land a job because of her drunk texts and selfies on all the popular social media sites throughout high school and college years...
Or consider this, imagine you are a restaurant owner and your competitor down the street has nothing better to do than create new email accounts and post negative comments about your business every day... What is the proper response?
Reputation management serves a useful function.
Ken