Wikipediocracy

An unfortunate event recently (I'd appreciate it if those who know about it don't bring it up here) led me to a whole nest of articles about people who have been killed. Some examples in this search http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... ext=Search

There are some ghouls on Wikipedia who, presumably not having made it into journalism in the usual way, i.e. getting training, leading to paid employment, relieve their frustrated ambitions on the great encyclopedia that anyone can edit. There are many issues connected with this.

1. Having an article on Wikipedia is different from being written about in the tabloid press. Google ranking reflect current newsworthiness, which it soon loses once interest dies away. But the Wikipedia article always remains, forever, top of the search.

2. Sometimes the Wikipedia ghouls find pictures of the deceased. See e.g. this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Jill-Lyn_Euto . Have the relatives consented to this? Were they consulted? Sometimes the photos were issued by the police for identifying missing persons. Not for the purposes of illustrating Wikipedia.

3. There are sometimes there are public interest issues. But nearly all these articles go beyond the issue, and include a detailed biography.See e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Ian_Tomlinson . Given the public interest issue, i.e. presumed police brutality, why is there all this other stuff on there that is unrelated to the issue of interest? E.g. there is a whole section on Tomlinson life and supposed alcoholism, that he is a Millwall supporter and so on. Or this one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Joanna_Yeates . Why is there an extensive biography?

3. Often there is no public interest issue. E.g. this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_ ... ls-Westley is simply there due to the horrific manner of the killing. It may be of interest to the readers of the very lowest kind of publication, but what is it doing in an encyclopedia? Do the relatives of the person know the article is there? Were they ever asked? Or how about this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_ ... awn_Hirons "Although her official Death Certificate shows her first name as Brenda, she was most commonly known as Dawn at work and in private."

4. The ghouls have formed a mutual support club where they 'keep' an AfD. Obviously few other editors know of its existence. So, when it is a keep at 4-1, they say there is 'overwhelming consensus', and that 'the community' wants the article. Ahem, what community?

5. A lot of these articles seem to be about promoting some cause http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_ ... dner-Quinn . Hard to know who wrote them or why, but the key question is why they are in an 'encyclopedia'.

5. Closing administrators do not seem to understand the principles of fair use of photos, of 'Wikipedia is not news' and so on. Pretty much all the articles I have looked at are in violation of one policy or another. For example, there is a policy that 'breaking news', much of which is pure tabloid speculation, should not be included

Another not-surprising case of Wikipedia being used as a platform to be exploited by the editors, not as a service to readers. And of "policies and guidelines" not being executed in an evenhanded manner.

That said, I think there's something to be said (considering the history of newspaper and television content, right on back to the Books of Judges and Joshua in the Bible) that "the people" are drawn to stories of the gruesome, so it's not altogether shameful that Wikipedia can't resist either.

thekohser wrote:That said, I think there's something to be said (considering the history of newspaper and television content, right on back to the Books of Judges and Joshua in the Bible) that "the people" are drawn to stories of the gruesome, so it's not altogether shameful that Wikipedia can't resist either.

...and is thus the excuse for taking a low or no moral standpoint.

I think this is all very Star Trek - the premise in TNG is that the human condition is to strive to be better people. This, of course, is shown to be fiction.

I find murder of...articles to be the most irritating type of AfD to participate in. All the keepers do is tally up the newspaper articles and claim the magic "significant coverage in reliable sources" threshold to be reached.

Oh, and try to get a murder article deleted from a battleground topic? Good luck, brother.

* Nava Applebaum (T-H-L) - Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nava Applebaum (T-H-L)

Peter Damian wrote:See e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Ian_Tomlinson . Given the public interest issue, i.e. presumed police brutality, why is there all this other stuff on there that is unrelated to the issue of interest?

Because SlimVirgin wrote the article?

thekohser wrote:Another not-surprising case of Wikipedia being used as a platform to be exploited by the editors, not as a service to readers. And of "policies and guidelines" not being executed in an evenhanded manner.

That said, I think there's something to be said (considering the history of newspaper and television content, right on back to the Books of Judges and Joshua in the Bible) that "the people" are drawn to stories of the gruesome, so it's not altogether shameful that Wikipedia can't resist either.

The old TV adage is "If It Bleeds, It Leads."

I wish the energy dedicated to converting minor news matters at WP was channeled elsewhere, towards more productive things. Not much chance of that happening, though... People will work on what they want to work on, after all, and flitting around current newspaper stories on the web to produce pages that generate lots of ephemeral page views is what stokes some people's fire, apparently.

I don't see this propensity as a minor failing of WP, just a minor annoyance.

RfB

Randy from Boise wrote:People will work on what they want to work on, after all, and flitting around current newspaper stories on the web to produce pages that generate lots of ephemeral page views is what stokes some people's fire, apparently.

The exception, of course, being a biographical article about Carolyn Doran. People are not allowed to work on that.

Looking to spice up the tragic death of a young woman (hit by a speeding car) for your encyclopediaing? You can call it the Lee Zeitouni affair. (It's no Lavon affair -- a terrible article on a worthy topic).

thekohser wrote:

Randy from Boise wrote:People will work on what they want to work on, after all, and flitting around current newspaper stories on the web to produce pages that generate lots of ephemeral page views is what stokes some people's fire, apparently.

The exception, of course, being a biographical article about Carolyn Doran. People are not allowed to work on that.

Or Jeff Merkey

I'm honestly quite surprised that the photographs at the center of the Nikki Catsouras photographs controversy (T-H-L) are not actually in the article. Not that I think they should be, but rather it seems like the sort of thing that the fair-use crowd would fight for.

Note: I strongly suggest you do not google for the images themselves.

Tarc wrote:I'm honestly quite surprised that the photographs at the center of the Nikki Catsouras photographs controversy (T-H-L) are not actually in the article. Not that I think they should be, but rather it seems like the sort of thing that the fair-use crowd would fight for.

Note: I strongly suggest you do not google for the images themselves.

I recall there was a big controversy at the time about providing external links to the images. In the end, consensus was against it.

Peter Damian wrote:2. Sometimes the Wikipedia ghouls find pictures of the deceased. See e.g. this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Jill-Lyn_Euto . Have the relatives consented to this? Were they consulted? Sometimes the photos were issued by the police for identifying missing persons. Not for the purposes of illustrating Wikipedia.

Not to mention the copyright of the photographers. Death of Lisa McPherson (T-H-L) is illustrated with a photo credited to her estate.

I made a deletion request http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commo ... 11-big.jpg - Cirt provided the OTRS ticket for photos of this adherent of scientology. But it seems that permissions were given by others than the photographers.

piku wrote:I made a deletion request http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commo ... 11-big.jpg

That's a top-grade example of Cirt doing his obsessive-compulsive act. He's the "best"/worst.
If anyone ever successfully sues the WMF, it will probably be as a result of the activities of Cirt, or someone similar.

Tarc wrote:I'm honestly quite surprised that the photographs at the center of the Nikki Catsouras photographs controversy (T-H-L) are not actually in the article. Not that I think they should be, but rather it seems like the sort of thing that the fair-use crowd would fight for.

Note: I strongly suggest you do not google for the images themselves.

An IP tried to get links to the photos on the article, but he was overruled by the consensus at the time on moral grounds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Nikki ... rsy#Photos

Another sick article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_of_Amanda_Todd currently under discussion.

The delete votes are even more insensitive than the keeps.

Delete Delete this page, this girl has had no significant impact on the world and therefore doesn't deserve her on wikipedia page. I mean, everyone dies every day, so why is she so special? 75.90.125.189 (talk) 02:39, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

The place is repulsive. What they need is a simple directive. "No encyclopedia articles written about 'events' until at minimum one year later." This they will never do.

And see our little friend Activism1234 (since renamed hisself after he got slammed around ANI for his username) voting "Strong keep". Why? Because he wants to have precedent for lengthy articles on every single Israeli child killed by Palestinians.

Strong keep - for reasons above, plus this article is properly referenced and the media coverage on this topic is extensive. There are similar articles on suicides, this is a notable one. --Jethro B (T-C-L) 00:49, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Now on the BBC website:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/19960162# ... icRSS20-sa

I'll bet you guys didn't know that Amanda's Facebook bully has a Wikipedia account.

He was "doxed" by Anonymous yesterday. I'll let you find that yourselves. Bonus: he was a Facebook employee.

The group claims that he is a 32-year-old from British Columbia, but MailOnline has chosen not to identify him for legal reasons.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z29VUbqBAF
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Ahem... the Google search suggests that the MailOnline had originally chosen to name him.("XXXXXX a 30 year old former Facebook employee").

If he's that old it's rather shocking. The account made less than 10 visible edits to Wikipedia. The one I looked at was to change the name of a mayor in a Canadian town I'd never heard of to "Adolf Hitler." I would have assumed a young teenage boy.

EricBarbour wrote:I'll bet you guys didn't know that Amanda's Facebook bully has a Wikipedia account.

He was "doxed" by Anonymous yesterday. I'll let you find that yourselves. Bonus: he was a Facebook employee.

How is his employment by Facebook proven? Reason I ask...

Soon after the publication of information from Anonymous, its validity began to crumble. On Monday afternoon — a day before most outlets picked up the story about Maxson — CKNW in Vancouver reported that the address Anonymous had published was not Maxson’s. The woman who lived there had called the police, and asked that people stop sending her threats.

Seeing the crack in Anonymous’s case, we got in touch with Facebook to find out if Kody Maxson had ever worked for the social network. As suspected, he hadn’t.

“This is absolutely NOT true,” a Facebook spokeswoman told Digital Trends via email this morning. “No individual with that name works or has ever worked at Facebook.” During a follow-up phone conversation, she exclaimed that Facebook “doesn’t even have an office in British Columbia,” and couldn’t understand why anyone would take the Anonymous dox seriously. She thanked us for getting in touch — nobody else, it seems, tried to sort out this particular detail.

So now we knew both Maxson’s alleged address and employment information were incorrect. We called the phone number provided in the Pastebin doc. It didn’t work — shocker.

thekohser wrote:

EricBarbour wrote:I'll bet you guys didn't know that Amanda's Facebook bully has a Wikipedia account.

He was "doxed" by Anonymous yesterday. I'll let you find that yourselves. Bonus: he was a Facebook employee.

How is his employment by Facebook proven? Reason I ask...

Soon after the publication of information from Anonymous, its validity began to crumble. On Monday afternoon — a day before most outlets picked up the story about Maxson — CKNW in Vancouver reported that the address Anonymous had published was not Maxson’s. The woman who lived there had called the police, and asked that people stop sending her threats.

Seeing the crack in Anonymous’s case, we got in touch with Facebook to find out if Kody Maxson had ever worked for the social network. As suspected, he hadn’t.

“This is absolutely NOT true,” a Facebook spokeswoman told Digital Trends via email this morning. “No individual with that name works or has ever worked at Facebook.” During a follow-up phone conversation, she exclaimed that Facebook “doesn’t even have an office in British Columbia,” and couldn’t understand why anyone would take the Anonymous dox seriously. She thanked us for getting in touch — nobody else, it seems, tried to sort out this particular detail.

So now we knew both Maxson’s alleged address and employment information were incorrect. We called the phone number provided in the Pastebin doc. It didn’t work — shocker.

A think a few lightbulbs out are finally flickering on in realization that the "Anonymous" angle is not quite what it was claimed to be.

Tarc wrote: A think a few lightbulbs out are finally flickering on in realization that the "Anonymous" angle is not quite what it was claimed to be.

But it's crowd-sourced, it must be right - all those experts are wrong. Stupid woman doesn't know what goes on in her own house.

dogbiscuit wrote:

Tarc wrote: A think a few lightbulbs out are finally flickering on in realization that the "Anonymous" angle is not quite what it was claimed to be.

But it's crowd-sourced, it must be right - all those experts are wrong. Stupid woman doesn't know what goes on in her own house.

Notice that the traditional journalist, working carefully and methodically gets it right (the reddit creepshot guy). The crowd-sourcers' get it wrong. (Again, just looking at the wikipedia account it smells like a 13-year-old boy).

Again, you have to read the book We Are Anonymous so you can get the full effect. Anon has always been semi-competent
to incompetent, they have always been dishonest, they have repeatedly published "information" that they knew to be wrong, but
covered it up and proceeded as if it were correct.

I would not be surprised if "Maxson" or whatever, the guy who harassed Amanda Todd on Facebook, turned out to actually
work for Facebook, possibly as a subcontractor or volunteer. And Facebook is lying about his connection to them. Funny, how
both corporations, and anti-corporate protest groups, commonly use similar dishonest methods to achieve their goals.

EricBarbour wrote:Again, you have to read the book We Are Anonymous so you can get the full effect. Anon has always been semi-competent
to incompetent, they have always been dishonest, they have repeatedly published "information" that they knew to be wrong, but
covered it up and proceeded as if it were correct.

I would not be surprised if "Maxson" or whatever, the guy who harassed Amanda Todd on Facebook, turned out to actually
work for Facebook, possibly as a subcontractor or volunteer. And Facebook is lying about his connection to them. Funny, how
both corporations, and anti-corporate protest groups, commonly use similar dishonest methods to achieve their goals.

Eric, the way you speak about any of this reminds me of the way congressmen in the 90's spoke of the "Information Superhighway". Please...stop.