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Roger Davies: Wikipedia’s Imperial Arbitrator

Posted on August 30th, 2015 9 comments - (Comments closed)

By Agahnim and TDA

Unlike other ‘Top Ten’ websites such as Google and Facebook, Wikipedia has no corporate hierarchy to maintain control. The well-funded Wikimedia Foundation exerts no authority over its content, instead leaving the site’s loose-knit community to govern everything. Wikipedia’s editors create and control its content through a continual series of conflicts and wars of attrition, governed by a system of inconsistent and vague policies and rules where one rule may be negated by another rule. Should these factions fail to settle their differences, then Wikipedia’s highest authority, known as the Arbitration Committee, settles disputes based on its evaluation of the parties’ conduct.

The Arbitration Committee, also known as ArbCom, is officially leaderless and its membership is changed in part every year by elections and resignations, leaving its longest-serving members with substantial influence over its operations. Its cases are decided by discussion on the Committee’s secretive mailing list and the Committee is kept functioning as a cohesive unit by a “Coordinating Arbitrator”, who may serve in that position as long as he or she remains on the Committee.

So, who is the longest-serving Arbitrator? Who runs the mailing list? Who is the Coordinating Arbitrator? All three positions are currently held by the same man, possibly the most powerful leader in Wikipedia’s chaotic power structure, who has authored many of the Arbitration Committee’s important decisions.

His name is Roger Davies.

Who is Roger Davies? How did he become so become so influential? More importantly, how has he wielded this influence over Wikipedia’s community? Unfortunately, just as Richard Nixon used his influence as President of the United States to protect supporters and to crush dissent from undesirables, so has Roger Davies used his power to aid his cronies and be

…continue reading Roger Davies: Wikipedia’s Imperial Arbitrator

Tags: , , , , | Category: Admins, Bureaucracy, Meet the Wikipedians, Uncategorized

A Compendium of Wikipedia Criticism

Posted on August 16th, 2015 57 comments - (Comments closed)

Once upon a time, Gomi of the late great Wikipedia Review compiled an introductory survey of criticism that is intended to provide the public with a range of different reasons to shun Wikipedia as an authoritative source of information.

Wikipedia Content

1. Wikipedia contains incorrect, misleading, and biased information. Whether through vandalism, subtle disinformation, or the prolonged battling over biased accounts, many of Wikipedia’s articles are unsuitable for scholarly use. Because of poor standards of sourcing and citation, it is often difficult to determine the origin of statements made in Wikipedia in order to determine their correctness. Pursuit of biased points of view by powerful administrators is considered a particular problem, as opposing voices are often permanently banned from Wikipedia. Wikipedia’s culture of disrespect for expertise and scholarship (see below) makes it difficult to trust anything there.

2. Wikipedia’s articles are used to spread gossip, abet character assassination, and invade the privacy of the general public. So-called “Biographies of Living Persons” are often the result of attempts by powerful but anonymous editors and administrators at humiliating or belittling those real-world people with whom they disagree. Wikipedia’s “anyone can edit” culture has allowed baseless defamation of various individuals to spread widely through the Internet. When the family, friends, associates, or subjects of these biographies attempt to correct errors or insert balance, they are often banned from Wikipedia for “Conflicts of Interest”. Subjects of these hatchet jobs usually must resort to legal action to get the articles removed or corrected, a course not available to all.

3. Wikipedia over-emphasizes popular culture and under-emphasizes scholarly disciplines.Wikipedia contains more articles, of greater depth, on television shows, toy and cartoon characters, and other ephemera of popular culture than on many prominent historical figures, events, and places. Massive effort is spent on documenting fictional places and

…continue reading A Compendium of Wikipedia Criticism

Category: Admins, BLPs, Bureaucracy, Reliable Sources, Uncategorized

Jimmy Wales shames PR editors

Posted on July 27th, 2015 5 comments - (Comments closed)

By Gregory Kohs

 

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Some companies, like General Motors, Procter & Gamble, and Apple, spend many millions of dollars in promotional advertising campaigns. Other companies, like Rolls-Royce, Krispy Kreme, and the makers of Sriracha hot sauce, allocate no money toward traditional ad marketing. According to Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, we can add his new wireless telephony firm to the list of “no advertising” operations. Ever since its principal financier Andrew Rosenfeld met an unexpected and untimely death, cellular start-up The People’s Operator has put its hopes in Wales’ hands, relying on him to enhance their “no ads” public relations campaign. While the company’s recent initial public offering on the London exchange raised about £20 million for the company’s bottom line, The People’s Operator (TPOP) share price has remained stuck below its initial 130 pence peg, with very little trading activity. Expenditures at the mobile virtual network operator are outpacing revenues by a factor of sixty percent, and its P/E ratio is negative 63. Perhaps desperate for new life, what better way to spike awareness and boost consideration than to send Wikipedia’s co-founder on a media tour to announce TPOP’s new social media platform and its pending entry into the U.S. market? If there’s anything Jimmy Wales is good at, it’s getting his mug in front of consumer eyeballs.

But then there’s the matter of the things that come out of his mouth once he’s on camera. As The Register recently quipped, “How can you tell Jimbo is lying? His lips are moving.” On Monday, July 20, Wales appeared on HuffPost Live, with Caroline Modarressy-Tehrani. Wales talked for a while about how TPOP was unique because cellular customers will see 10% of their monthly bill redirected to a charity of their choice.

…continue reading Jimmy Wales shames PR editors

Tags: , , , | Category: Conflict of Interest, Uncategorized
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