Press Releases
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by E. A. Barbour
The Wikipedia fan gang and audiophiles are an amazingly similar cohort: man-children with no attention span and plenty of money (audiophiles) or spare time (Wikipedians). People complain about Wikipedia being a man’s world. Audiophilia is far, far worse, yet bears some disturbing similarities.
I know this well, after watching the “high-end audio” scene for 30 years. Audiophiles are unbelievably neurotic and demanding, basically like 13-year-olds with no attention spans and considerable money to spend on toys. The average American audiophile, and probably in all other countries as well, is a white or Asian male, over 40, a semi-successful professional (doctor, lawyer, investment banker etc), with a failing marriage (if he’s not gay, which many of them are) and a wobbling career. He seeks validation, not sound quality. Audiophilia is a disease of middle age, of what they used to call “male menopause” or “midlife crisis”.
 …continue reading Audiophiles and Wikipediots: Nerds of a Feather?
By Larry Sanger (see also Wikipedia’s forgotten creator and What Should We Do about Wikipedia’s Porn Problem?)
Last Wednesday, the Wikimedia Foundation board quietly voted, in person, 10-0 in favor of repealing the “personal image hiding feature”–in other words, a very weak, opt-in porn filter. “Quietly,” I say, because the resolution was not posted publicly until the middle of the weekend. Note that the page mistakenly states that Jimmy Wales voted against it: “That page is wrong,” Wales clarified on his user talk page, “I voted yes.”
The big news
This is certainly news. A brief recap of some related events will help put it in essential context. (Here’s another recap.) You may not know that funding for the early years of Wikipedia came from Bomis, Inc., which made much of its money from what Wikipedians have called “softcore porn.” I’ve always said that Bomis was the fertilizer on which Wikipedia was built.
…continue reading Wikimedia Foundation Board Officially Rejects Porn Filter
By Hersch 
As is sometimes the case with highly insular organizations, Wikipedia has developed an elaborate jargon, incomprehensible to outsiders. It has been made even more bewildering to the uninitiated by being expressed almost exclusively in the form of acronyms. Increasingly, this serves to defend the project against newcomers who actually believe that “anyone can edit”; in content disputes, it gives the advantage to entrenched persons who can selectively cite policy with great facility (and greater selectivity.) Here is a survey of some of Wikipedia’s most popular acronyms, with some jaundiced commentary on the definitions:
AGF (WP:AGF) – Assume good faith.
In theory: come on, people now, smile on your brother. We’re all in this together to provide accurate information to a benighted world. If someone seems to be applying policy in an oddly incorrect and seemingly self-serving manner, it is surely
…continue reading Taking the Alphabet Soup with a Grain of Salt
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