Kings instructor top 50 Wikipedia editor

[HRIP7]

Kings instructor top 50 Wikipedia editor

An instructor at the University of King's College in Halifax is one of Wikipedia's top 50 editors worldwide.

(Video interview)

[thekohser]

Wow, they let kids be instructors at Kings College?

[DanMurphy]

A print article. It looks like Purdy is a graduate student. And he's either an idiot or a bullshit artist, while also promulgating some really, really bad ideas:

David Purdy earned an Master of Arts in literature from Acadia University. He now teaches the history of science and technology tutorial at the University of King’s College in Halifax.

Purdy estimates he spends a couple of hours every day editing on Wikipedia, and he hasn’t earned a cent for it. So why does he contribute? “A lot of my dedication to Wikipedia comes from a belief that people should have access to all human knowledge,” he says.

... The administrators’ symbol is a mop, for two reasons. First, because of the extra tools they have to clean up things that most people can’t, for example deleting or moving articles or editing locked pages. “But also [the mop] is to keep us humble,” says Purdy. Wikipedia co-founder Jim Wales says it’s not a big deal, “and really it isn’t."

... Besides editing, Purdy also volunteers his time with the Ambassador Project, which will allow students to publish final papers on Wikipedia. Instead of being tossed in the garbage or stored in a box, student work could be “forever out there for people to benefit from,” he explains.

As far as I can tell he isn't listed as one of the Campus ambassadors.

[Moonage Daydream]

As far as I can tell he isn't listed as one of the Campus ambassadors.

But he has the hoodie! It says Wikipedia Ambassador right on it!

He is listed as an online ambassador.

[DanMurphy]

As far as I can tell he isn't listed as one of the Campus ambassadors.

But he has the hoodie! It says Wikipedia Ambassador right on it!

I would like to know the account Mr. Purdy controls. It's telling of how little the press understands Wikipedia, even at this late date, that they don't provide the account name (or explain that he refused to disclose it, if so).

Only a masters degree and he spends "hours" playing Wikipedia every day? I don't see a first class PHD or a tenure-track job in his future.

Having now read to the bottom of that article, I think he's more likely to be an idiot than a bullshit artist:

Interestingly, Purdy says that the goal isn’t to present truth. “Wikipedia aims to present all views on a subject,” he says, adding that they are not to be presented equally, but instead “proportionally.”

“It’s really how society works,” he adds. Purdy says our society decides collectively what is true and accurate through discussion and debate. This, he explains, is also how accuracy is established on Wikipedia. “I think if we trust our society it would be inconsistent not to trust Wikipedia.”

[Moonage Daydream]

As far as I can tell he isn't listed as one of the Campus ambassadors.

But he has the hoodie! It says Wikipedia Ambassador right on it!

I would like to know the account Mr. Purdy controls. It's telling of how little the press understands Wikipedia, even at this late date, that they don't provide the account name (or explain that he refused to disclose it, if so).

Only a masters degree and he spends "hours" playing Wikipedia every day? I don't see a first class PHD or a tenure-track job in his future.

Having now read to the bottom of that article, I think he's more likely to be an idiot than a bullshit artist:

Interestingly, Purdy says that the goal isn’t to present truth. “Wikipedia aims to present all views on a subject,” he says, adding that they are not to be presented equally, but instead “proportionally.”

“It’s really how society works,” he adds. Purdy says our society decides collectively what is true and accurate through discussion and debate. This, he explains, is also how accuracy is established on Wikipedia. “I think if we trust our society it would be inconsistent not to trust Wikipedia.”

Neelix (T-C-L). We've discussed the print article here.

[DanMurphy]

Oh, it turns out Mr. Purdy came up briefly here in late November (I missed that thread).

Our "Mason" deduced that Purdy operates the Wikipedia account Neelix (T-C-L). From a brief scan of his editing patterns, he seems more to be self-medicating a form of ADHD through Wikipedia editing, rather than contributing to the "sum of all human knowledge" in any meaningful fashion. The vast majority of "articles" that he has "created" appear to be disambiguation pages (judging by the first 100 on this list).

I now learn that Mr. Purdy's Wikipedia handle is borrowed from an obscure Star Trek character. But of course.

[Anroth]

Hardly 'obscure'.

Lieutenant Barclay would be obscure. Neelix was a major char in Star Trek Voyager throughout its run.

Here, this may help you.

[DanMurphy]

Well, I'm procrastinating today (have to write a sprawling "future of American foreign policy" year-ender. Not my favorite kind of task).

There is much to learn about the whole screwed up place by examining the people held up as model Awesome Wikipedians.

Consider Mr. Purdy's vast array of edits at Wikipedia over 6 years now. Much of it is like this series of edits:

14:34, 10 December 2012 (diff | hist) . . (+34)‎ . . N Black stripe cardinal fish ‎ (←Redirected page to Apogon nigrofasciatus) (top)
14:33, 10 December 2012 (diff | hist) . . (+34)‎ . . N Black-stripe cardinal fish ‎ (←Redirected page to Apogon nigrofasciatus) (top)
14:33, 10 December 2012 (diff | hist) . . (+34)‎ . . N Blackstripe cardinal fish ‎ (←Redirected page to Apogon nigrofasciatus) (top)
14:33, 10 December 2012 (diff | hist) . . (+34)‎ . . N Black stripe cardinal-fish ‎ (←Redirected page to Apogon nigrofasciatus) (top)
14:33, 10 December 2012 (diff | hist) . . (+34)‎ . . N Black-stripe cardinal-fish ‎ (←Redirected page to Apogon nigrofasciatus) (top)
14:33, 10 December 2012 (diff | hist) . . (+34)‎ . . N Blackstripe cardinal-fish ‎ (←Redirected page to Apogon nigrofasciatus) (top)
14:32, 10 December 2012 (diff | hist) . . (+34)‎ . . N Black stripe cardinalfish ‎ (←Redirected page to Apogon nigrofasciatus) (top)
14:32, 10 December 2012 (diff | hist) . . (+34)‎ . . N Black-stripe cardinalfish ‎ (←Redirected page to Apogon nigrofasciatus) (top)

(all of those redirects are to a bot-generated article from the far superior entry at Fishbase of course).

Got me wondering how much deep encyclopedia building Purdy has done. This shows he has made 136,788 edits in his six years there to 102,834 different pages. He has averaged 1.33 edits per page he has touched (by comparison the outcast Peter Damian (T-C-L) averaged 8.79 edits per page touched).

That is the exact opposite of diligent, careful, writing and research (while it's possible he does a lot of drafting and revising offline, I would bet large amounts of money against it).

And yet he was consistently praised as a "content contributor" in his RFA. You only have to scratch the surface to find the deep, institutional incompetence. It's everywhere.

[EricBarbour]

That is the exact opposite of diligent, careful, writing and research (while it's possible he does a lot of drafting and revising offline, I would bet large amounts of money against it).

And yet he was consistently praised as a "content contributor" in his RFA. You only have to scratch the surface to find the deep, institutional incompetence. It's everywhere.

We also discussed Neelix on WR last year. He is one of the worst gnomes on the whole thing--no personality, no thoughts. Writes virtually no content whatsoever, not even Star Trek fancruft. Could be a piece of AI software for all we can tell.

He is the sort who will grind Wikipedia into paste, after the last of the actual content writers has quit in disgust.

[Mancunium]

In their shoes: Documentary will change your life
Truro Daily, 12 November 2013 link

Prostitution is the destination for trafficking and, by legal definition, forced prostitution is slavery.

David Purdy, and advocate, researcher and well-respected Wikipedia writer, has a license to screen the documentary. ...

“I have been consuming as much media on the subject as possible since then, having watched several human trafficking-related films, I have found Nefarious to be the best documentary on the subject by far,” said Purdy.

When I saw this I thought, "well-respected Wikipedia writer"?

Yes, it is Neelix (T-C-L) again.

I consider myself an academic and love working in academia, but I choose to spend more time writing Wikipedia articles than submitting articles for publication in scholarly journals ...

Here is a picture of him pretending to read a book in a library:



This photo was used by Maclean's magazine in their article Meet the man who edited 130,000 Wikipedia articles, a title later corrected, in the online version of the magazine, to Meet the man with 130,000 Wikipedia edits: link

Surprisingly, this prodigy is not listed in Truro,_Nova_Scotia#Notable_natives_and_residents_of_Truro (T-H-L). However:

This user has been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian and was awarded his own day.

[SB_Johnny]

This user has been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian and was awarded his own day.

I'm guessing that award will turn out to be rather effective as birth control.

Wikipedia: doing their part to help prevent overpopulation.

[EricBarbour]

No one noticed that he's associated with the film Nefarious: Merchant of Souls (T-H-L), as a promoter, and performed hundreds of edits on its Wikipedia article?

Look at his top ten edited articles. They mostly involve sex slavery, or Christian musicians. And he messed with When God Writes Your Love Story (T-H-L), which we discussed before. He tried to push all of them for FA status, some successfully.

This is either saintlike of him, or else it's creepy. Or perhaps both. And if Purdy is not being paid to edit articles like those, we might as well shut this website down and give up. He's getting away with it. Do you see Jimbo waving the "Bright Line" at him?

[Randy from Boise]

Kings instructor top 50 Wikipedia editor

An instructor at the University of King's College in Halifax is one of Wikipedia's top 50 editors worldwide.

(Video interview)

Ironic that the rather hysterical CAN WE TRUST WIKIPEDIA!?!?! tone of the piece starts with two flat fuck-ups by the CBC in the first 60 seconds...

1. "If you've ever clicked on a Wikipedia article, chances are you've read something David Purdy wrote." (130K edits, 4500 articles out of 4.3+ MILLION articles).

2. Voice over: "...and made over 130,000 edits" / Graphic: "130,000 articles"

So, I ask........ CAN WE TRUST THE ACCURACY OF THE CBC?!?!?

Of course, if the CBC were Wikipedia, they could go back and fix those flubs...

RfB

[EricBarbour]

Betcha didn't know the ever-lovely Ottava accused Purdy of plagiarism.
And now for today's episode of Schmuck Vs. Schmuck.

[DanMurphy]

I find it more than a little amusing that 11,000+ of Mr. Purdy's "article creations" - held up as wondrous additions to human "knowledge" in various press articles a few years ago - have now been deleted and Purdy himself is persona non grata on Wikipedia.

The denouements of these stories never get a smidgen of the press the overhyped and inaccurate beginnings do.