Wikipediocracy

roger_pearse

Talk:Hillary Rodham Clinton/April 2015 move request Today I had the misfortune to be involved in an idiotic edit war, all stemming from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AHillary_Rodham_Clinton%2FApril_2015_move_request&type=revision&diff=659948769&oldid=659943907,this comment by DD2...

roger_pearse

If you want to see an article that *must* have been written for self-promotional purposes, take a look at the article on Tim Rice. The wretched thing reads like a CV!

roger_pearse

There is very little of that 1911 content still around. I'm sure there are nest here and there. That is not my impression, I must say. Probably the kinds of articles that I look at do not attract the attention of many editors, of course. But if WP actually was focused on producing good content, the...

roger_pearse

You've got real people with horrible, horrible articles. You've got pedo/creeps like DemiUrge1000 wandering loose. You've got Fae/Russavia/Wnt/Mattbuck/etc, etc running stupid on commons. You've got Sue Gardner and Jimmy Wales pretending to be in charge. You've got the WMF on a series of engineerin...

roger_pearse

Normal encyclopedias do not include articles on living persons. I wonder when this particular thought will cross the hive-mind? Really? So, sitting heads of state, even if they had been in office for decades, were omitted from Britannica until they died? I believe so. Autocrats tend to be unforgivi...

roger_pearse

As has been remarked often before, the policies don't mean anything. The reality is power; the powerful enforce (or suspend), capriciously, whichever "policies" they wish when they find it useful. They do whatever they believe that they can get away with (with respect to others with power) and lie a...

roger_pearse

Does this anonymous little sociopath actually think that even 1% of Wikipedia readers know what "WP:NOT" is? Nice example. Only a question of time before WP manages to do something actionable to someone with the money to punish them. Hate the idea of lawsuits against websites; but the arrogance of ...

roger_pearse

The question is not whether it should be changed, but -- given what we know about Wikipedia -- whether you want to dedicate your life to trying to fix it. For free. It's worth one go, but no more. Unless, of course, you have nothing else to do with your life than fight with some ignorant troll. Whic...

roger_pearse

What about Robin Hood, and Hereward the Wake? Hardened criminals both, of course, and with many convictions against them for theft and violent crime. And then there's the Jews; many of whom were convicted by legitimate German courts of all kinds of things. We shouldn't overlook that, surely, just be...

roger_pearse

Wikipedians are mostly trots. So the thing to do is to add that template to a whole load of leftie icons, the majority of whom have convictions of one sort of another - often for serious criminal offences, and often well deserved - and see what happens. Start with Mandela, Castro, and a good few 60'...

roger_pearse

Stumbled upon another fantastic way to malign people on Wikipedia: Template:Infobox criminal . What a great little template that is! Particularly for political or religious dissidents in states that criminalise some political or religious opinions (a policy making gains in the UK and US and Europe ...

roger_pearse

The infobox does not actually put the word "criminal" on a page. It merely provides space for "charge", so indicating that the subject has been charged with something, which is an NPOV fact. The issue is whether the text makes clear that it was a trumped-up politically motivated charge. Just imagin...

roger_pearse

Stumbled upon another fantastic way to malign people on Wikipedia: Template:Infobox criminal . What a great little template that is! Particularly for political or religious dissidents in states that criminalise some political or religious opinions (a policy making gains in the UK and US and Europe ...

roger_pearse

Zoloft wrote:
Lukeno94 wrote:I was never interested in the Power Rangers, personally. Just a bunch of mediocre actors in brightly coloured suits, with mediocre special effects.
It was that generation's 'Batman (TV series).'

And let that be a lesson to them. Pow! Zap! Holy Copycat, Batman!

roger_pearse

The WMF can't do anything, Jimbo can't do anything, and the Wikipedia Community can't do anything. The whole system is constipated. Without moral guidance, decisive leadership, and a clear goal and direction, Wikipedia shall truly perish. Who or what could be the metaphorical laxative to solve this...

roger_pearse

People under the age of 16 shouldn't be admins, let alone 'crats. From 16 onwards, it needs to be a case of how mature they are, rather than how old they are - as we've all seen, some 16 year old editors are much more mature than those double their age. What, one wonders, does a child of 16 have to...

roger_pearse

It would be most interesting to know who legally owns what.

roger_pearse

So, it looks like we can assume that CapBasics359 protected himself by posting edits from public Wi-Fi, ... As you do, when honestly editing Wikipedia in good faith. How, erm, very forward-thinking of this editor, eh? once subpoenaed, the WMF gave up the IP addresses of both users without objection...

roger_pearse

I read the Another editor lost through bullying material at WikiProject Editor Retention with recognition. Good to see some recognition that the bullying is not just administrators; and also that the difference can be simply whether bystanders intervene. The loss of Smerus is the kind of incident th...

roger_pearse

I've worked in places where we have had oddballs, and they are tolerated because they are highly productive, but on the other hand their potential for disruption is recognised. ... For example, the way to deal with Andy would be to leave him gnoming away on his co-ordinates and have someone else on...

roger_pearse

Maybe a member retention/recruitment strategy is needed? Start of with a snappy slogan like... Wikipediocracy: they're not all douche-bags! Maybe ask for volunteers to be WPO's on-wiki ambassadors and such like? Issue helmets and protective groin cups for the ambassadors... Bit like sticking a sign...

roger_pearse

Not having a go at anyone. Just ... feeling that it all got out of hand.

The frustrations of hearing someone come out with some daft idea that we have rebutted a thousand times are entirely familiar to me. :-(

roger_pearse

May I suggest that people reflect on what just happened here, in this thread? A wikipedian came here, who was unhappy with what WP was doing and hoping for sympathy. (In fact she was wrong on points of law, and so needed to be better informed, in a sympathetic way). But the response was not a gentle...

roger_pearse

Perhaps Wikipediocracy should aspire to the be Lords to Wikipedia's Commons.

In more senses than one, perhaps.

roger_pearse

I looked at the article, and it is written neutrally with the sources that it uses. The critical response section of the article is very fairly presented. iii, apart from the notability issue, your problem with the article seems to be that it doesn't include viewpoints from people who criticize Chr...

roger_pearse

Oh come on. Here is the article on Thomas in the Catholic Encyclopedia (itself hardly an unbiased source). There is simply no comparison in style and comparison with the drivel in that Wikipedia article. Erm, the suggestion was that no devotional literature should be mentioned. What do we call Thom...

roger_pearse

The objection that all comments on the article are from within that community seem curious to me as well; the book is probably only of importance to members of that community (a large group, may I point out). Non-members have nothing to say, beyond their general disagreement with the community as a...

roger_pearse

The teachers (all of whom were clergy) were openly contemptuous of what they called 'devotional' literature ... If so, what business had they teaching theology, or being ordained? Weird. Liberal catholic wing of CofE, diocese of Southwark. Does that help? 'Alpha' theologians would probably have a d...

roger_pearse

But if I were editing WP, I'd wonder how notable it is. I don't see anything in the article that explains why the book is more notable than hundreds of others published on the subject of dating. If it is notable, why does an encyclopedia need more than a short article on it? Here is our common grou...

roger_pearse

Peter Damian wrote: The teachers (all of whom were clergy) were openly contemptuous of what they called 'devotional' literature ...

If so, what business had they teaching theology, or being ordained?

Weird.

roger_pearse

When God Writes Your Love Story was featured on the main page today. The article might as well be a hack piece written by a PR company. Essentially every source that the article uses is by American Evangelical Christians offering either effusive praise or light-touch criticism. Meanwhile, the fact ...

roger_pearse

Gorgeous.

roger_pearse

neved wrote:Why so many wikipedians are so idiotically vicious?

Because they can? And that's why normal people don't need to be involved in this project.

roger_pearse

CoachFastball wrote:.... What we need to figure out is how to not lose good admins. ... We only continue to have the shitty admins.

Quite so. And likewise with contributors; because the good ones leave in disgust.

I wonder if anyone at WP is listening yet?

roger_pearse

People assume that the Wikimedia Foundation's aim is to create reliable content. It isn't. Their aim is to generate page views and draw in "editors". Page views and edit counts, not quality, are their validation. Biased articles are perfect for the Foundation, because they draw in new contributors....

roger_pearse

In fact, as far as I can tell, it probably affects the political right even worse than the left. I'm sure Roger is right. Can you imagine the celebrated "Santorum" incident with Santorum replaced by "Billclinton" or "Obama"? Especially Obama. But if an encyclopedia is any good, it must have mechani...

roger_pearse

Allow me to interject here and state that the mere fact that someone espouses an extreme or even outlandish ideology, right-wing, left-wing or otherwise, doesn't mean that everything they believe or express is wrong. If anything, the fact that a moderately liberal/progressive person such as myself ...

roger_pearse

MINAL but discrimination laws deal with excluding people based on class membership (sex, race, etc.). Reasons outside those are fair game, as a rule. "Discrimination" law makes most sense if you stop thinking of it as having any consistent logic, and instead think of it as a system of variable priv...

roger_pearse

Mass Collaboration or Mass Amateurism? http://massamateurism.blogspot.com/p/synopsis.html#_ftnref2 "One explanation for the success of Wikipedia can be found in the altruism of individuals who come together around themes they share the same passion for, and it is expected they have remarkable knowl...

roger_pearse

I remember when Guiness stopped accepting certain kinds of "record" for the Guiness book of records, because they were obviously destructive, horrible, etc. Wikipedia needs a similar principle. After all, is someone only notable for (e.g.) shoving the largest recorded number of crayons up their nose...

roger_pearse

I dunno - I can imagine he never intended blanking and leaving but once the argy-bargy began, just thought, "y'know, fuck it". It's funny how much more horrid these situations are when the venom is aimed your way. This seems right to me. This is how people are. We all have lives to live, which don'...

roger_pearse

INeverCry did the right thing... The right thing would have been to wait all of one more week to let the block expire on its own instead of causing another outbreak of numbskull drama and then throwing his toys out of the pram. We're all human beings, and I am sure he felt - rightly - that he deser...

roger_pearse

Outsider wrote:Suppose someone from Wikipedia came here and said that he/she could swing a change there, not something huge like deleting all BLPs or having pending changes on all articles but enough to make a worthwhile difference. What would people here suggest?

An anti-harassment panic button.

roger_pearse

And now the admin who unblocked him is gone, like the admin who unblocked him a couple of rounds ago. INeverCry is not the first admin to sacrifice the bit to unblock Eric, and he probably won't be the last. INeverCry did the right thing: why spend valuable time on someone else's project when you c...

roger_pearse

These proposals look very sound. Post them on his talk page and see what response it gets.

roger_pearse

However, the principle of there being a general widespread belief in a flat earth in the past at certain times is not a fiction. Not meaning to jump down your throat: I'd want to see some actual evidence for such a "general widespread belief". Guys, all I am trying to point out is that consensus do...

roger_pearse

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10193346/Shadow-Health-Secretary-Andy-Burnhams-staff-deleted-negative-Wikipedia-references.html Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham's staff deleted 'negative' Wikipedia references Staff working for Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham have been removing nega...

roger_pearse

Thank you all for a very interesting discussions! I agree The consensus view is frequently very wrong indeed But, of more interest, 364 economists signed a letter to The Times stating that there was "no basis in economic theory or supporting evidence" for Sir Geoffrey's policy and that it threatene...

roger_pearse

DanMurphy wrote:... a group of people who apparently learned their social skills in a petri dish.

ROTFLMAO! Nice turn of phrase.

(And quite right too).

roger_pearse

Beeblebrox states: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AFuture_Perfect_at_Sunrise&diff=564837881&oldid=564814486 We work by consensus here and consensus is clear '''You are wrong and you need to stop what you are doing. Now.''' Could consensus in general and consensus on Wikipedia ...

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