Wikipediocracy

The Devil's Advocate

I have said this previously, but the COI guideline is essentially an enhancer. Non-paid COI editing has never been explicitly prohibited by any policy. Back in the early days it was freely permitted with it being only strongly discouraged in more recent years. However, the one constant has been that...

The Devil's Advocate

What I find most interesting in the discussion are the number of people jumping on the idea of the COI policies being different years ago, when the basic nature of policy has been the same since the beginning. Undisclosed COI editing itself, save paid editing, is not prohibited by policy. In the dis...

The Devil's Advocate

Rhododendrites wrote:COI editing bad. Yes. But if outing is required to prove it, though, keep it private. Go to the editor, go to arbcom, and let them do what needs to be done.

I tried this approach and all I can say to anyone considering the same:

The Devil's Advocate

Not sure what you all expect ArbCom to do in this situation. He isn't exactly committing an uncommon sin and they rarely take serious action against people for it. Were they to take action it would be a capitulation to public pressure rather than a case of them applying their standards consistently ...

The Devil's Advocate

Someone already did.

The Devil's Advocate

Yes. One is here . You will want to click on "create custom demo" and change the feedback threshold to see ratings less than 70%. The API itself is free, btw. Ah, yes, that tool. I remember it well . Tinkering around, it is still a trainwreck. Well, when I wrote "I am proud to be white" it did do t...

The Devil's Advocate

fiona wrote: ↑
Fri Aug 19, 2022 4:10 pm
"Reply" is the default edit summary now for the reply tool. I don't have an opinion either way about the sock aspect, just pointing out that this isn't really a smoking gun anymore, sadly.

That's not really what I was treating as the smoking gun, but thanks for letting me know.

The Devil's Advocate

Is HappyMcSlappy MjolnirPants ? Seems an likely candidate. Last edited five months ago, a month later Happy shows up. For such a user with limited edits the number of overlaps is highly specific and lengthy. That's a definite. Mjolnir was unblocked on April 7, 2022 at 21:32 UTC time by RickInBaltim...

The Devil's Advocate

Won my bet. This is why I don't gamble . . . Anyway, you got one year wrong and I got one year wrong, so we're even. One interesting reason the guides may have been off this year is that a lot of the guide writers were the wikipolitical types who got involved with the Fram dispute. Could be an indi...

The Devil's Advocate

Randy from Boise wrote: ↑
Tue Nov 26, 2019 3:27 am
So TDA: do we have a bet?

tim

Yes.

The Devil's Advocate

I am curious about the methodology here, if you're giving all the guides equal weight you probably aren't going to get a result that predicts the actual outcome. -Collect's guide is an example of one that looked at how the candidates answered the set of questions Collect asked, and leaves literally...

The Devil's Advocate

While I freely acknowledge that my predictions were off last year, your list of outcomes of “the guides” is actually your own personal prediction wrapped in the guise of a consensus list. Not all polls are equal; some of them are frankly terrible, others are incomplete. Show your math: what weights...

The Devil's Advocate

Final Prediction 1. NewYorkBrad 2. Casliber 3. KrakatoaKatie 4. Worm That Turned 5. Maxim 6. Xeno 7. David Fuchs 8. Beeblebrox 9. Gadfium 10. SoWhy 11. Barkeep49 ===== 12. Bradv 13. llywrch 14. DGG Since last year showed the voter guides have a strong predictive value and Carrite lost out, I think ...

The Devil's Advocate

First major media coverage.

The Devil's Advocate

Abd posted a draft of an amended complaint over at WS. Still a work in progress, obviously, but much more fleshed out than the original complaint.

The Devil's Advocate

I have to say this question (especially when looking at the full WR post) looks more like an accusation. I'm very tempted to just refuse to answer it as it feels an attempt to link my WP account to a reddit account. That being said, the answer is no. I do have a reddit account with a very different...

The Devil's Advocate

The material in question has been un supressed, so that sideshow is over. Frankly, this whole case is over and I don't expect to have much more participation in it. All I ever actually intended to do was submit my proposals but then Fred made his ass-backwards trolling accusations blaming it all on...

The Devil's Advocate

Just noting a back-up forum of sorts was established outside the Proboards system by Auggie back when WS got taken down. Hasn't been used much, but if there is no resolution with Proboards then I imagine discussion will have to move over there.

The Devil's Advocate

Already got a thread.

The Devil's Advocate

Baranof hasn't returned to the Shaun King article for nearly five days. I wonder if that is because he saw my post pointing out that he was repeatedly violating his topic ban for weeks or was tipped off about it and decided to scuttle off lest he get in trouble. Amazing the kind of stuff he has been...

The Devil's Advocate

Content posted on WTLG is not meant to be discussed on this forum. Without going into details, I was rebuked for mentioning one of their discussions here. Sad that there's bad blood between the sites. My "many islands" theory of having multiple Wikipedia criticism communities working alone and toge...

The Devil's Advocate

Do you really think Peter cares more about what the Wikipediots think of him than he does about telling the story of Wikipedia? He's not like you. Just wondering since he did want his ban lifted, in part to clear his name and in part to actually contribute to the site, and he was finally successful...

The Devil's Advocate

By the way, were Davies' actual words at the conference "Fuck off you cunts", instead of "No fucking way you cunts"? It sounds like that might be what he's saying here, in which case I think it would be best to update the blog post in order to get the quote from him exactly right. No, he is apparen...

The Devil's Advocate

So, here's something. NorthBySouthBaranof is, like me, topic-banned per the standard topic ban outlined in the ArbCom case. That topic ban is explained as follows: Any editor subject to a topic-ban in this decision is indefinitely prohibited from making any edit about , and from editing any page rel...

The Devil's Advocate

There is a very interesting and detailed run-down of MoonMetropolis and his socking activities on Wikipedia over at WikiInAction . Seems the guy engaged in quite a bit of trolling and self-referential editing over there using at least one registered account and multiple IPs in addition to his previo...

The Devil's Advocate

I once gave a child a book on how to play chess. Sometime after that, the author went to prison for child molestation. But I was scarcely going to suggest taking the book away; the book itself was harmless. Having a Wikia is a totally different issue. Even if it is not overtly aimed at children, we...

The Devil's Advocate

Perhaps once they get past being upset at us for not working hard enough to publish their book, they can move on and actually do something meaningful. Time will tell, I suppose. I am curious if they have given up on the book or not. For Damian it might create complications for him now that he is ba...

The Devil's Advocate

ok, three words then. Risk. of. grooming. 'nuff said I think you are missing the issue. According to public records Michael points to in his first post, the guy has already been carted off to prison. No risk of grooming involved on his part. Unless there is some specific appeal of his work to peopl...

The Devil's Advocate

Its not like paedophiles suddenly become non-human beings. They are *sick*, not animals. Unless the wikia he created about himself is about his authorship of a popular range of books for children, I dont see what the issue is. And as they point out above, at the point he was contributing to wikia h...

The Devil's Advocate

Fuck off. Explain my link above. Arsewipe. Yeah, sure, you wanted an image that you vectorized for transfer to Commons deleted because you discovered it was used by pedophiles to identify themselves. I said it would be desirable to retain such an image so long as it was plainly noted as being a ped...

The Devil's Advocate

I'm missing something here. Has this man ever been convicted of an offence? If so, it is appalling that Wikia is allowing him to post stuff about himself. If he hasn't been, then the law is that he is entitled to a presumption of innocence. Is there anything on this Wikia that is distasteful or eve...

The Devil's Advocate

Why the hell does it matter that the guy was arrested for child porn? That has nothing to do with there being a wiki about him and his work. If you are going to criticize Wikia for something, how about the creator of the Wiki and its content being the man himself?

The Devil's Advocate

It has been ignored here but I proposed a site-ban for Mathsci in the Race and Intelligence Review case. No-one else supported. Roger You suggested a three-month ArbCom block for him and indefinite site bans for everyone else. Even there is a sign of favoritism. Not even a topic ban was suggested f...

The Devil's Advocate

There was a massive fight over this issue in 2008 during President Obama's first Presidential campaign, due to the very tangential connections between Obama and Bill Ayers. They were hardly "tangential" connections, not that it matters as the whole thing was overblown. Incidentally, Wikipedia's art...

The Devil's Advocate

Well, that's not the post you wrote, nor was it the "elevator pitch" someone ( :wave: ) requested a few weeks ago. That's a little different from the pitch he gave, but I think it is essentially the same idea and it is certainly what I thought was the central point of the piece. Davies bent a lot o...

The Devil's Advocate

Something that I noticed a little after this post was published is an interesting detail from the ArbCom mailing list leaks : Don't let me stop you :) Just keep disruptive or battleground in the headings (for the benefit of hard of thinking onlookers). I'll recuse on Cla68 anyway (including FoF draf...

The Devil's Advocate

it's a pretty transparent hatchet job against the most competent sitting arbitrator. I obviously disagree with characterizing him in such a glowing manner, but even if you were right that he really is the best of them, then what does that say about the rest of them? the (unsourced) sexist comments ...

The Devil's Advocate

We are just over a week into September. Pretty hard to make an assessment at this stage.

The Devil's Advocate

The IP was right on the money with “obnoxious pettifoggery” and “displays of narcissistic rage every time someone calls you on out on your bullshit.” Assuming that's true, I would chalk it up to dumb luck as you can say that about so many Wikipedia editors that just making the accusation at random ...

The Devil's Advocate

Responding to some of the points: 1. Randy, if you want a good political analogy for GamerGate that you could understand, it would be Trotsky vs. Stalin with GamerGate as Trotsky. 2. The problem with Masem is that he actually seems to believe simply providing a comprehensive article based off covera...

The Devil's Advocate

Firstly, regarding the "gaffe" at Wikimania, I was standing beside Roger when he said it. My recollection matched Anthony's (in the blog comments section), he was highlighting the absurdity of having a young man in charge of retaining women. In context, the comment made sense and whilst it was unde...

The Devil's Advocate

I don't think there is much subtle about Mark. There is certainly nothing subtle about repeatedly using some censored version of a person's name. Nor do I consider it subtle to say to someone "I'm just assuming that you think it's OK for victims to object to rape threats, do correct me if I'm mistak...

The Devil's Advocate

It's just like "it's not funny if you have to explain it" - if you have to observe it over the course of months to establish a "pattern," it's not "obvious." Sure it is if you have been observing it over the course of months or are shown what has happened over the course of months. Many of the admi...

The Devil's Advocate

This article, I think, somewhat misses the mark. There are far worse current and past arbs to write articles about. Roger Davies imo is one of the best of that committee. Well, in some of the initial drafts I did of the R&I section, there was a brief and somewhat humorous mention of how Timotheus C...

The Devil's Advocate

Isn't that by definition not blatant and obvious? Keep in mind that on Wikipedia even if something is blatant and obvious, there are still situations where reams of evidence and days, weeks, even months, of argument will be required before anyone in authority will recognize the obvious and do somet...

The Devil's Advocate

Peryglus wrote:Actually, TDA is not an acronym because it has to be pronounced as individual letters, not as a word. This makes it an initialism.

Actually, you pronounce it like "Ta-da!"

The Devil's Advocate

Mark Bernstein's harassment and abusive behaviors are obvious and blatant if you don't view each action in isolation. One of the reasons why Wikipedia fails so regularly at dealing with harassment is that such allegations can really only be validated in certain cases if one has the entire body of pr...

The Devil's Advocate

That's not what Masem says at all. He consistently states that the top quality sources take a more nuanced approach towards gamergate than just harassment. I may be paraphrasing the situation the wrong way, but Masem has definitely conceded when someone said "reliable sources don't cover GamerGate ...

The Devil's Advocate

If Masem was the kind of person to stand his ground hard, he would have been topic banned ages ago. Not the case at all. What I am talking about is that someone will say "there are no reliable sources presenting GamerGate as anything but a harassment campaign or showing sympathy to their views" and...

The Devil's Advocate

Masem's greatest weakness is that he is too wishy-washy about the topic and readily concedes points he shouldn't concede. This AE case is just another example of that failing. He voluntarily offers himself up as a sacrifice in a report he filed regarding Mark's actions, which represent a blatant cam...

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