Legitimacy and efficacy: The blackout of Wikipedia

[HRIP7]

First Monday: Legitimacy and efficacy: The blackout of Wikipedia

The hallmark of the successful online protest against SOPA was the blackout of Wikipedia for a day. This paper tracks the internal dynamics that led to Wikipedia’s blackout and focuses on the place that legitimacy and authority had in crafting the debate.

[lilburne]

Interesting take on how the power systems work. It would have been better if the author had waited a bit (it was written in April 2012) by which time he might have discovered the extent of the manipulation of the Community. You can still see that on the SOPA page there. For example 1) 'Weakening of "safe harbor" protections' SOPA could never have weakened safe harbor protections as those do not apply to non US websites. 2) 'Users uploading illegal content' US citizens that upload illegal content are already infringing the current laws, SOPA had nothing to do with students in US universities, it was aimed at operators of websites outside of US jurisdiction, that had no purpose other than to infringe, and had refused to deal with infringing content on their site. And so it goes on. There is no NPOV in the article at all. It is pure political polemic propagating untruths.

[Peter Damian]

First Monday: Legitimacy and efficacy: The blackout of Wikipedia

The hallmark of the successful online protest against SOPA was the blackout of Wikipedia for a day. This paper tracks the internal dynamics that led to Wikipedia’s blackout and focuses on the place that legitimacy and authority had in crafting the debate.

A laughably stupid article. Everything is a description of the process, rather than a careful analysis of the ideas and slogans involved, and the logic and rhetoric used to persuade the 'community' to take the action. It's as though I had written about a debate on the ethics of euthanasia as conducted in Chinese, hardly understanding anything except the process involved in the debate, and a list of who voted.

[Peter Damian]

At such times I always return to Gustave Le Bon's great work on crowds. http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/pu ... nCrow.html

For example, on how leaders lead crowds. http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer ... ision=div2

"Affirmation pure and simple, kept free of all reasoning and all proof, is one of the surest means of making an idea enter the mind of crowds. " "It was Napoleon, I believe, who said that there is only one figure in rhetoric of serious importance, namely, repetition. " If you follow any of the votes in a Wikipedia discussion, you will note the same thing endlessly and stupidly repeated.

The section on ideas which appeal to crowds is also instructive. http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer ... ision=div2 "Whatever be the ideas suggested to crowds they can only exercise effective influence on condition that they assume a very absolute, uncompromising, and simple shape. " For example, SOPA will destroy the internet.

Hitler studied Le Bon's work carefully, and his ideas originally formed the basis of modern advertising and marketing. Perhaps it's no coincidence that the major force behind the SOPA protest was the massive and powerful advertising industry. "A chain of logical argumentation is totally incomprehensible to crowds, and for this reason it is permissible to say that they do not reason or that they reason falsely and are not to be influenced by reasoning. Astonishment is felt at times on reading certain speeches at their weakness, and yet they had an enormous influence on the crowds which listened to them, but it is forgotten that they were intended to persuade collectivities and not to be read by philosophers. "

[lilburne]

At such times I always return to Gustave Le Bon's great work on crowds. http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/pu ... nCrow.html

For example, on how leaders lead crowds. http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer ... ision=div2

"Affirmation pure and simple, kept free of all reasoning and all proof, is one of the surest means of making an idea enter the mind of crowds. " "It was Napoleon, I believe, who said that there is only one figure in rhetoric of serious importance, namely, repetition. " If you follow any of the votes in a Wikipedia discussion, you will note the same thing endlessly and stupidly repeated.

The section on ideas which appeal to crowds is also instructive. http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer ... ision=div2 "Whatever be the ideas suggested to crowds they can only exercise effective influence on condition that they assume a very absolute, uncompromising, and simple shape. " For example, SOPA will destroy the internet.

Hitler studied Le Bon's work carefully, and his ideas originally formed the basis of modern advertising and marketing. Perhaps it's no coincidence that the major force behind the SOPA protest was the massive and powerful advertising industry. "A chain of logical argumentation is totally incomprehensible to crowds, and for this reason it is permissible to say that they do not reason or that they reason falsely and are not to be influenced by reasoning. Astonishment is felt at times on reading certain speeches at their weakness, and yet they had an enormous influence on the crowds which listened to them, but it is forgotten that they were intended to persuade collectivities and not to be read by philosophers. "

I present to you the Wisdom of Crowds:

http://www.adequacy.org/public/stories/ ... .2147.html

I'm sure that a few of you will have seen it before, but for those that haven't delve into the comments. All of them came with pre-conceived ideas based on how the article had been presented to them (yes the gamers, the linux fans, and associated freetard communities had been trolled), hardly any of them realized that it was a parody of the Brady Bunch, 1000s of them ranted and spat rage, at what was a joke. IIRC it featured on mainstream tech news programs as serious.

[Peter Damian]

At such times I always return to Gustave Le Bon's great work on crowds. http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/pu ... nCrow.html

For example, on how leaders lead crowds. http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer ... ision=div2

"Affirmation pure and simple, kept free of all reasoning and all proof, is one of the surest means of making an idea enter the mind of crowds. " "It was Napoleon, I believe, who said that there is only one figure in rhetoric of serious importance, namely, repetition. " If you follow any of the votes in a Wikipedia discussion, you will note the same thing endlessly and stupidly repeated.

The section on ideas which appeal to crowds is also instructive. http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer ... ision=div2 "Whatever be the ideas suggested to crowds they can only exercise effective influence on condition that they assume a very absolute, uncompromising, and simple shape. " For example, SOPA will destroy the internet.

Hitler studied Le Bon's work carefully, and his ideas originally formed the basis of modern advertising and marketing. Perhaps it's no coincidence that the major force behind the SOPA protest was the massive and powerful advertising industry. "A chain of logical argumentation is totally incomprehensible to crowds, and for this reason it is permissible to say that they do not reason or that they reason falsely and are not to be influenced by reasoning. Astonishment is felt at times on reading certain speeches at their weakness, and yet they had an enormous influence on the crowds which listened to them, but it is forgotten that they were intended to persuade collectivities and not to be read by philosophers. "

I present to you the Wisdom of Crowds:

http://www.adequacy.org/public/stories/ ... .2147.html

I'm sure that a few of you will have seen it before, but for those that haven't delve into the comments. All of them came with pre-conceived ideas based on how the article had been presented to them (yes the gamers, the linux fans, and associated freetard communities had been trolled), hardly any of them realized that it was a parody of the Brady Bunch, 1000s of them ranted and spat rage, at what was a joke. IIRC it featured on mainstream tech news programs as serious.

8. Is your son obsessed with "Lunix"?

[lilburne]

At such times I always return to Gustave Le Bon's great work on crowds. http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/pu ... nCrow.html

For example, on how leaders lead crowds. http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer ... ision=div2

"Affirmation pure and simple, kept free of all reasoning and all proof, is one of the surest means of making an idea enter the mind of crowds. " "It was Napoleon, I believe, who said that there is only one figure in rhetoric of serious importance, namely, repetition. " If you follow any of the votes in a Wikipedia discussion, you will note the same thing endlessly and stupidly repeated.

The section on ideas which appeal to crowds is also instructive. http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer ... ision=div2 "Whatever be the ideas suggested to crowds they can only exercise effective influence on condition that they assume a very absolute, uncompromising, and simple shape. " For example, SOPA will destroy the internet.

Hitler studied Le Bon's work carefully, and his ideas originally formed the basis of modern advertising and marketing. Perhaps it's no coincidence that the major force behind the SOPA protest was the massive and powerful advertising industry. "A chain of logical argumentation is totally incomprehensible to crowds, and for this reason it is permissible to say that they do not reason or that they reason falsely and are not to be influenced by reasoning. Astonishment is felt at times on reading certain speeches at their weakness, and yet they had an enormous influence on the crowds which listened to them, but it is forgotten that they were intended to persuade collectivities and not to be read by philosophers. "

I present to you the Wisdom of Crowds:

http://www.adequacy.org/public/stories/ ... .2147.html

I'm sure that a few of you will have seen it before, but for those that haven't delve into the comments. All of them came with pre-conceived ideas based on how the article had been presented to them (yes the gamers, the linux fans, and associated freetard communities had been trolled), hardly any of them realized that it was a parody of the Brady Bunch, 1000s of them ranted and spat rage, at what was a joke. IIRC it featured on mainstream tech news programs as serious.

8. Is your son obsessed with "Lunix"?

Lunix (Little UNIX) was a system written for the Commadore 64. Most of the Linux users didn't know that and assumed it was being used in a derogatory fashion (it was, but not in the way they thought). There are a lot of in-jokes in the article, not the sort that some ignorant of the audience and what they would kick back at, would have made.

EDIT: The article pushes all the buttons of the target audience, its the equivalent of the "removal of 'safe harbor'", "jailing college students', and "breaking the internet" of the anti-SOPA campaign, the audience is the same the difference being that this was written by the 'father' of the Brady Bunch and the object was to get the unthinking geeks to rant and rave for amusement.

[EricBarbour]

BSD, Lunix, Debian and Mandrake are all versions of an illegal hacker operation system, invented by a Soviet computer hacker named Linyos Torovoltos, before the Russians lost the Cold War. It is based on a program called "xenix", which was written by Microsoft for the US government. These programs are used by hackers to break into other people's computer systems to steal credit card numbers. They may also be used to break into people's stereos to steal their music, using the "mp3" program. Torovoltos is a notorious hacker, responsible for writing many hacker programs, such as "telnet", which is used by hackers to connect to machines on the internet without using a telephone.

Your son may try to install "lunix" on your hard drive. If he is careful, you may not notice its presence, however, lunix is a capricious beast, and if handled incorrectly, your son may damage your computer, and even break it completely by deleting Windows, at which point you will have to have your computer repaired by a professional.

If you see the word "LILO" during your windows startup (just after you turn the machine on), your son has installed lunix. In order to get rid of it, you will have to send your computer back to the manufacturer, and have them fit a new hard drive. Lunix is extremely dangerous software, and cannot be removed without destroying part of your hard disk surface.

Yep, that pretty well summarizes adequacy.org.

[HRIP7]

The paper now has a (fairly negative) review in the Signpost:

Wikipedia and Sandy Hook; SOPA blackout reexamined (section title "SOPA blackout decision analyzed")

It was written by Piotrus (T-C-L), who originally posted it with some added comments to the talk page of Tbayer (WMF) (T-C-L).

Piotrus' reasons for disliking it seem to be opposite to the ones here: i.e. he objects to the author's putting too much emphasis on WMF staff's actions, and casts doubt on the author's assertion that people countered the illegitimacy argument ("Wikipedia must not take sides because of its commitment to the Neutral Point Of View") with the claim that SOPA threatened Wikipedia itself, saying the paper does not present enough data to verify that claim.

[lilburne]

The paper now has a (fairly negative) review in the Signpost:

Wikipedia and Sandy Hook; SOPA blackout reexamined (section title "SOPA blackout decision analyzed")

It was written by Piotrus (T-C-L), who originally posted it with some added comments to the talk page of Tbayer (WMF) (T-C-L).

Piotrus' reasons for disliking it seem to be opposite to the ones here: i.e. he objects to the author's putting too much emphasis on WMF staff's actions, and casts doubt on the author's assertion that people countered the illegitimacy argument ("Wikipedia must not take sides because of its commitment to the Neutral Point Of View") with the claim that SOPA threatened Wikipedia itself, saying the paper does not present enough data to verify that claim.

And here we have Kaldari on your talk page:

A guy from Chicago-Kent College of Law is currently writing a book about the SOPA protests. He extensively interviewed all the people involved at the Foundation back in October. When that book comes out, I sincerely hope you'll read it so that you can get a better idea of what actually transpired at the WMF. It involved lots of people volunteering their time (often until the wee hours of the morning) to fight for something they believed was worth fighting for. You can call that naive or idealistic or misguided, but you cannot call it "crony capitalism" as John does.

So sweet, and yes such idealism so misused. Truth is a lot of people were suckered. A lot of people were lied to. The likes of Moeller knew exactly what was transpiring, Kaldari probably not.

Advice from this old Anarchist plotter, manipulator, and cynic. If you find yourself in a situation where everyone around you thinks the same thing, where you are led to believe that the end of the world is nigh, then you need to step outside and reassess the situation, look at who is the real beneficiary, hiding in the background.

[Anroth]

To condense that - follow the money.

[lilburne]

To condense that - follow the money.

The late singer and drummer had been able to live off the record royalties from his music until the advent of pirate sites such as LimeWire and Pirate Bay, Taplin said. But in recent years, despite suffering from throat cancer, Helm was forced to go back on the road to pay his medical bills. Some nights he couldn't sing more than a single song.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/en ... 0606.story

Of course Google denies that it is a major placer of ads on pirate sites.

To the extent [the study] suggests that Google ads are a major source of funds for major pirate sites, we believe it is mistaken

But then we know that they are criminal liars.

http://thetrichordist.com/2013/01/02/fi ... de-1/#main

[lilburne]

[lilburne]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXmk8dbFv_o
It seems that some people don't like it up em.

[eppur si muove]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXmk8dbFv_o
It seems that some people don't like it up em.

Or, to link your two allusions, "So who do you think you are kidding Mr [insert name of Wikipedian here]?"