How Wikipedia says "thank you" to the slaves

[oscarlechien]

Lots of LOLZ are to be had here : http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Thank_You_All

My favorite (of course) : http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Tha ... _Shankbone

You don't even have to say anything. The parody speaks for itself. (Next time, why not wear long pants, Davie?)

[EricBarbour]

The work of that nice young lady, Megan Hernandez. Evidently no one told her why Shankbone has been keeping a low profile lately.

We're all still learning.

No shit. (I'm amazed he's still allowed to edit. At least he's not fooling with Israel, gay porn, or certain biographies anymore.)

[oscarlechien]

Prolly because that nice Pete Forsyth told her all about his BFF Davie.

Other interesting cases:

• Andreas, the "black metal librarian".
• Adrianne and her cleavage
• Gideon (Father of Eight)

And our favorite poster boy, Jimbo himself!

(Among others. This whole page is a laff riot!)

[Kumioko]

Wikipedia doesn't say thank you, they say fuck you as they throw you out with the trash. Every day the culture of Wikipedia degrades to more of a cesspool of miscreants that seem to only have their own desires in mind. If anyone shows dedication to the project and indicates that the project should come first they are cast out like lepers. The encyclopedia anyone can edit, Ha that's a fucking joke!

[thekohser]

My favorite (of course) : http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Tha ... _Shankbone

You don't even have to say anything. The parody speaks for itself. (Next time, why not wear long pants, Davie?)

"My name is David Shankbone."

No, it isn't.

"In 2006, there were virtually no photographs on Wikipedia articles."



I guess everything about this PR campaign is based on a lie?

[Alison]

Lots of LOLZ are to be had here : http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Thank_You_All

My favorite (of course) : http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Tha ... _Shankbone

You don't even have to say anything. The parody speaks for itself. (Next time, why not wear long pants, Davie?)

Shankbone :/

What's also interesting is there appears to be a disproportionate number of women featured compared to the actual number of editors who are. I know some women featured are WMF employees, such as this woman with the snake-bites and totally awesome hair, but still ....

Corporate spin.

[dogbiscuit]

My favorite (of course) : http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Tha ... _Shankbone

You don't even have to say anything. The parody speaks for itself. (Next time, why not wear long pants, Davie?)

"My name is David Shankbone."

No, it isn't.

"In 2006, there were virtually no photographs on Wikipedia articles."



I guess everything about this PR campaign is based on a lie?

Well, I added photographs for my articles back in 2005, so that statement that implied that he single-handedly kicked off getting photographs into Wikipedia grated with me (and how did I know I could do it - because there were lots of other articles to copy). Kick in the teeth to all the other editors of that era who apparently did not have Shankbone's great insight.

I also thought it was fairly dreadful that the piece was not about Wikipedia, but about David.

[EricBarbour]

Don't complain to us, complain to Megan. Send a printed letter to WMF HQ, pointing out all these inaccuracies and outright lies
in their cute little campaign. Let us know if you get any kind of response.

[roger_pearse]

Being anonymous in WP is a fact of life ... which makes all these photos -- all taken by the same photographer, I infer -- rather strange. Everyone in WP is faceless. Try to identify them, and Bad Things Happen.

[Vigilant]

Lots of LOLZ are to be had here : http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Thank_You_All

My favorite (of course) : http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Tha ... _Shankbone

You don't even have to say anything. The parody speaks for itself. (Next time, why not wear long pants, Davie?)

Shankbone :/

What's also interesting is there appears to be a disproportionate number of women featured compared to the actual number of editors who are. I know some women featured are WMF employees, such as this woman with the snake-bites and totally awesome hair, but still ....

Corporate spin.

That picture of Leslie Carr is sure going to lure more women onto the project...
You might as well put a big sign up that boldly proclaims, "Only the maladjusted contribute here."
Or "Emo doesn't have to end at high school, join wikipedia"

[thekohser]

Personally, I thought "Q" was the most interesting. Ze's vegan! Ze's gluten-free! Ze bakes bread! Ze asks to be identified with gender neutral pronouns!

Gooooooooooo Wikipedia!

[dogbiscuit]

Personally, I thought "Q" was the most interesting. Ze's vegan! Ze's gluten-free! Ze bakes bread! Ze asks to be identified with gender neutral pronouns!

Gooooooooooo Wikipedia!

She also seems to be related to Stephen Hawking listening to that video. Grrr.

[Vigilant]

Personally, I thought "Q" was the most interesting. Ze's vegan! Ze's gluten-free! Ze bakes bread! Ze asks to be identified with gender neutral pronouns!

Gooooooooooo Wikipedia!

She also seems to be related to Stephen Hawking listening to that video. Grrr.

I hadn't actually watched the video...

Weeping Jeebus on the cross. Her voice is like a cheese grater across my exposed frontal lobes.

[Hex]

That picture of Leslie Carr is sure going to lure more women onto the project...
You might as well put a big sign up that boldly proclaims, "Only the maladjusted contribute here."
Or "Emo doesn't have to end at high school, join wikipedia"

Do you live in a very small town? Because that's sure how the above sounds.

People have differing hairstyles. Get over it.

[Vigilant]

That picture of Leslie Carr is sure going to lure more women onto the project...
You might as well put a big sign up that boldly proclaims, "Only the maladjusted contribute here."
Or "Emo doesn't have to end at high school, join wikipedia"

Do you live in a very small town? Because that's sure how the above sounds.

People have differing hairstyles. Get over it.

I live in a large, liberal metropolitan area.
My politics are probably to the left of yours.

Do you think that she represents a good icon to attract more reasonable editors?
How many adult women do you know who dress like this?
Do you suppose that it might be because they've matured away from the, "look at me!! look at me!! I'm SooooOOOooo Random!!" facebook phase of their lives?

[Alison]

Shankbone :/

What's also interesting is there appears to be a disproportionate number of women featured compared to the actual number of editors who are. I know some women featured are WMF employees, such as this woman with the snake-bites and totally awesome hair, but still ....

Corporate spin.

That picture of Leslie Carr is sure going to lure more women onto the project...
You might as well put a big sign up that boldly proclaims, "Only the maladjusted contribute here."
Or "Emo doesn't have to end at high school, join wikipedia"

Seriously??

The Bay Area, where she's based, is teeming with women who look just like her. Smart, 'adjusted', highly-functioning, go-getting, well trained women (and men) who have tattoos, piercings in all the 'wrong' places, strange colored hair, clothes that aren't 'business appropriate', etc. I deal with these people every day as I work in a well-known tech company in the South Bay. People just like her are at the top of their game - make no mistake.

And personally, I think she makes an excellent role model as a young, competent NetOps engineer

(and none of the above is remotely connected to Wikipedia, mm-kay?)

[DanMurphy]

I gave a listen to the one on "Howard, retired journalist."

He spoke about how awesome Wikipedia was because he knew a guy with a self-published book and recruited non-Wikipedia editors to join Wikipedia so the group of them could get the guy's findings included in a Wikipedia article.

I thought that was interesting.

[Alison]

Do you think that she represents a good icon to attract more reasonable editors?
How many adult women do you know who dress like this?
Do you suppose that it might be because they've matured away from the, "look at me!! look at me!! I'm SooooOOOooo Random!!" facebook phase of their lives?

This started with a general comment about the prevalence of women on that page, and an aside remark was made about her hair color. You have now turned this - for whatever reason - into a personalized commentary about this woman in particular.

People look all sorts of way for all sorts of reasons; women and men. Here in the Silicon Valley, it's really no big deal. I think this person in particular, though not an editor, is a perfectly fine human being from reading her dialog. Seriously. Comments like 'My love of computers manifested itself at an early age: preschool' are what I look for when I'm interviewing engineers, not counting how many visible tats they may have

[Vigilant]

Shankbone :/

What's also interesting is there appears to be a disproportionate number of women featured compared to the actual number of editors who are. I know some women featured are WMF employees, such as this woman with the snake-bites and totally awesome hair, but still ....

Corporate spin.

That picture of Leslie Carr is sure going to lure more women onto the project...
You might as well put a big sign up that boldly proclaims, "Only the maladjusted contribute here."
Or "Emo doesn't have to end at high school, join wikipedia"

Seriously??

The Bay Area, where she's based, is teeming with women who look just like her. Smart, 'adjusted', highly-functioning, go-getting, well trained women (and men) who have tattoos, piercings in all the 'wrong' places, strange colored hair, clothes that aren't 'business appropriate', etc. I deal with these people every day as I work in a well-known tech company in the South Bay. People just like her are at the top of their game - make no mistake.

And personally, I think she makes an excellent role model as a young, competent NetOps engineer

(and none of the above is remotely connected to Wikipedia, mm-kay?)

In the vast majority of tech in the bay area, she's an outlier and you know it.
Apple, google, facebook, etc she may fit in.
Do you see people like her at IBM/Microsoft/HP/Agilent/semiconductor industry/telecom industry/on and on and on.

She's does not address the core demographic of even the bay area.

[thekohser]

This started with a general comment about the prevalence of women on that page, and an aside remark was made about her hair color. You have now turned this - for whatever reason - into a personalized commentary about this woman in particular.

People look all sorts of way for all sorts of reasons; women and men. Here in the Silicon Valley, it's really no big deal. I think this person in particular, though not an editor, is a perfectly fine human being from reading her dialog. Seriously. Comments like 'My love of computers manifested itself at an early age: preschool' are what I look for when I'm interviewing engineers, not counting how many visible tats they may have

+1

And that being said, which of the men here found it hot that the WMF included a very young and fetching flight attendant-in-training who lives in Argentina? Rawwr rawwr!

P.S. Vigilant, please give it a rest. The wildly-colored haired, pierced, IT chick is exactly the sort of demographic that Wikipedia wishes to recruit to boost the female ratio goal. They're the low-hanging fruit, and you're making yourself look bad with your comments to the contrary.

[Vigilant]

Do you think that she represents a good icon to attract more reasonable editors?
How many adult women do you know who dress like this?
Do you suppose that it might be because they've matured away from the, "look at me!! look at me!! I'm SooooOOOooo Random!!" facebook phase of their lives?

This started with a general comment about the prevalence of women on that page, and an aside remark was made about her hair color. You have now turned this - for whatever reason - into a personalized commentary about this woman in particular.

People look all sorts of way for all sorts of reasons; women and men. Here in the Silicon Valley, it's really no big deal. I think this person in particular, though not an editor, is a perfectly fine human being from reading her dialog. Seriously. Comments like 'My love of computers manifested itself at an early age: preschool' are what I look for when I'm interviewing engineers, not counting how many visible tats they may have

Alison,

I'm going to tread close to the appeal to authority line here, but bear with me.

I was born in the bay area.
I've been in tech here for my entire life, post 11 years of age.

She is a perfectly fine human being. I don't care how any tattoos she has nor what color her hair is.
She does not represent anything close to the median even in one of the bluest counties in the bluest state in the country let alone the rest of the country.

What percentage of tech companies, let alone the rest of the sectors here, would hire her for a management position?

She's not a good poster child for wikipedia.
That's my point and I may have been to flippant for the general audience.

[Vigilant]

This started with a general comment about the prevalence of women on that page, and an aside remark was made about her hair color. You have now turned this - for whatever reason - into a personalized commentary about this woman in particular.

People look all sorts of way for all sorts of reasons; women and men. Here in the Silicon Valley, it's really no big deal. I think this person in particular, though not an editor, is a perfectly fine human being from reading her dialog. Seriously. Comments like 'My love of computers manifested itself at an early age: preschool' are what I look for when I'm interviewing engineers, not counting how many visible tats they may have

+1

And that being said, which of the men here found it hot that the WMF included a very young and fetching flight attendant-in-training who lives in Argentina? Rawwr rawwr!

P.S. Vigilant, please give it a rest. The wildly-colored haired, pierced, IT chick is exactly the sort of demographic that Wikipedia wishes to recruit to boost the female ratio goal. They're the low-hanging fruit, and you're making yourself look bad with your comments to the contrary.

Since I have a sterling (HA!) reputation here already, I had better listen closely to your advice.

Thanks dad.

[Alison]

Alison,

I'm going to tread close to the appeal to authority line here, but bear with me.

I was born in the bay area.
I've been in tech here for my entire life, post 11 years of age.

She is a perfectly fine human being. I don't care how any tattoos she has nor what color her hair is.
She does not represent anything close to the median even in one of the bluest counties in the bluest state in the country let alone the rest of the country.

What percentage of tech companies, let alone the rest of the sectors here, would hire her for a management position?

She's not a good poster child for wikipedia.
That's my point and I may have been to flippant for the general audience.

Both of us are from very similar backgrounds, that much is clear. That said, we're going to have to agree to differ on this one.

[Vigilant]

Alison,

I'm going to tread close to the appeal to authority line here, but bear with me.

I was born in the bay area.
I've been in tech here for my entire life, post 11 years of age.

She is a perfectly fine human being. I don't care how any tattoos she has nor what color her hair is.
She does not represent anything close to the median even in one of the bluest counties in the bluest state in the country let alone the rest of the country.

What percentage of tech companies, let alone the rest of the sectors here, would hire her for a management position?

She's not a good poster child for wikipedia.
That's my point and I may have been to flippant for the general audience.

Both of us are from very similar backgrounds, that much is clear. That said, we're going to have to agree to differ on this one.

Fair enough.

[thekohser]

I gave a listen to the one on "Howard, retired journalist."

He spoke about how awesome Wikipedia was because he knew a guy with a self-published book and recruited non-Wikipedia editors to join Wikipedia so the group of them could get the guy's findings included in a Wikipedia article.

I thought that was interesting.

The mention of Richard Rhodes was cool -- "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" was one of my favorite non-fiction works, ever.

[Alison]

Both of us are from very similar backgrounds, that much is clear. That said, we're going to have to agree to differ on this one.

Fair enough.

What a very un-Wikipedialike conclusion, eh?

[Malleus]

And personally, I think she makes an excellent role model as a young, competent NetOps engineer

So do I, although I'd be seriously concerned about someone who claimed to have been interested in computers since preschool.

[Vigilant]

Both of us are from very similar backgrounds, that much is clear. That said, we're going to have to agree to differ on this one.

Fair enough.

What a very un-Wikipedialike conclusion, eh?

I thought so.

So... adult.

*shudder*

[HRIP7]

Young trendy techies may be the low-hanging fruit, but they're not the best people to recruit to improve content. The median age of Wikipedia contributors is 22 according to the UNU survey ...

WMF goes for that demographic because they are interested in editor numbers rather than content quality.

[thekohser]

Young trendy techies may be the low-hanging fruit, but they're not the best people to recruit to improve content. The median age of Wikipedia contributors is 22 according to the UNU survey ...

WMF goes for that demographic because they are interested in editor numbers rather than content quality.

The Wikimedia Foundation has never been about improving content -- it's all a numbers racket... but we all know this.

[TungstenCarbide]

What's also interesting is there appears to be a disproportionate number of women featured compared to the actual number of editors who are. I know some women featured are WMF employees, such as this woman with the snake-bites and totally awesome hair, but still ....

Corporate spin.

Or maybe just trying to make the project more inviting to women.

And that being said, which of the men here found it hot that the WMF included a very young and fetching flight attendant-in-training who lives in Argentina? Rawwr rawwr!

If you want to compliment a young lady on her appearance, could you please do it in a respectful way instead of a lecherous way? thanks.

[HRIP7]

Or maybe just trying to make the project more inviting to women.

Indeed; I think that part of it is valid. You wouldn't want to have 90% of these videos featuring men, with half of them under the age of 22 ... you reflect to some extent the demographics you want to attract, rather than those you have.

[thekohser]

And that being said, which of the men here found it hot that the WMF included a very young and fetching flight attendant-in-training who lives in Argentina? Rawwr rawwr!

If you want to compliment a young lady on her appearance, could you please do it in a respectful way instead of a lecherous way? thanks.

Sorry, I'll go back to Wikipediocracy.com. Didn't realize I had stumbled into PoliticallyCorrectWikipediocracy.com.

(Really, seriously? It's disrespectful to make a white-male-oriented joke about an attractive 20-year-old, Latina flight attendant trainee? The whole point of the joke was lechery. The whole thing practically writes itself.)

Don't tell me I'm all alone on this one.


Budget: $5,000,000 ... Box office: $111,289,673

[TungstenCarbide]

Don't tell me I'm all alone on this one.

No, you're not alone and I can think of one hilarious comment I made at WR that I've felt bad for ever since.

[mac]

When looking to see how many women's names appeared on the credits, one surname looks familar: that of Susan Walling. I wonder whether these people were paid for this?

[thekohser]

Don't tell me I'm all alone on this one.

No, you're not alone and I can think of one hilarious comment I made at WR that I've felt bad for ever since.

We'll have to share privately, then. Send me a PM. I could use an ill-begotten chuckle.

I guess I grew up with a bit too much of this:

[Kumioko]

I can't citicize, always liked women with tattoos and colorful hair myslef. For what its worth most people think I sound like a nerd when when I type when in fact I look more like Tom Cruise only a little taller and bigger (not fatter).

[Midsize Jake]

Maybe we're missing the point a little bit here, focusing on the tattoos and hair and stuff. It seems fairly obvious to me at this point that they can't actually attract Facebook-like percentages of female "editors," so they're doing the next-best thing, which is pretending that they do and hoping that the media doesn't follow up and catch them in the usual brazen lie. After all, they often don't follow up, Manti Te'o notwithstanding.

Remember, the reason they want to be perceived as having a larger percentage of women has nothing whatsoever to do with the notion that it's good to have a gender-balanced user base. The reason is simply that the perception of "lots of women!" will attract more men, and therefore increase their active user count. They don't really care what gender the users are; their need for demographic information is based on wanting to tune their sales pitch for more users overall, not on wanting to improve the content or the way it's produced.

[EricBarbour]

Remember, the reason they want to be perceived as having a larger percentage of women has nothing whatsoever to do with the notion that it's good to have a gender-balanced user base. The reason is simply that the perception of "lots of women!" will attract more men, and therefore increase their active user count. They don't really care what gender the users are; their need for demographic information is based on wanting to tune their sales pitch for more users overall, not on wanting to improve the content or the way it's produced.

Agreed. Problem is, too many people on this forum are sitting there and going "poor poor Wikipedia, it's being run badly by all these
crazy people, if only we could get rid of those people then Wikipedia would fly like a happy eagle" or somesuch crap. They think it can
be "saved", which is comical in the extreme.

It's not an "encyclopedia" anymore. How many times have I tried to point out that it's a drug, a wargame, and a fundraising scam?
People just won't admit these things to themselves.

[TungstenCarbide]

Remember, the reason they want to be perceived as having a larger percentage of women has nothing whatsoever to do with the notion that it's good to have a gender-balanced user base. The reason is simply that the perception of "lots of women!" will attract more men, and therefore increase their active user count. They don't really care what gender the users are; their need for demographic information is based on wanting to tune their sales pitch for more users overall, not on wanting to improve the content or the way it's produced.

Agreed. Problem is, too many people on this forum are sitting there and going "poor poor Wikipedia, it's being run badly by all these crazy people, if only we could get rid of those people then Wikipedia would fly like a happy eagle" or somesuch crap. They think it can be "saved", which is comical in the extreme.

It's not an "encyclopedia" anymore. How many times have I tried to point out that it's a drug, a wargame, and a fundraising scam? People just won't admit these things to themselves.

+1
Once a gravy train gets that big there's whole new class of motivation to keep it flowing, to keep the status quo.

[Kevin]

That picture of Leslie Carr is sure going to lure more women onto the project...
You might as well put a big sign up that boldly proclaims, "Only the maladjusted contribute here."
Or "Emo doesn't have to end at high school, join wikipedia"

Do you live in a very small town? Because that's sure how the above sounds.

People have differing hairstyles. Get over it.

I live in a large, liberal metropolitan area.
My politics are probably to the left of yours.

Do you think that she represents a good icon to attract more reasonable editors?
How many adult women do you know who dress like this?
Do you suppose that it might be because they've matured away from the, "look at me!! look at me!! I'm SooooOOOooo Random!!" facebook phase of their lives?

You're not saying you think she looks like an unreasonable editor are you? I know many women who dress in all sorts of ways, and I've learnt not to use appearance as a measure of character.

Edit: looks like I'm late for the stoning. Damn this Eastern time zone...

[Malleus]

Young trendy techies may be the low-hanging fruit, but they're not the best people to recruit to improve content. The median age of Wikipedia contributors is 22 according to the UNU survey ...

WMF goes for that demographic because they are interested in editor numbers rather than content quality.

True.

[Jaranda]

I don't know why any editor would be so "dedicated" to publicly volunteer to do a video asking for donations or to contribute to the project that would be seen by thousands of people. Sounds like pure desperation for me. As for the female editors, notice like 4 of them are probably from the English Wikipedia so it looks like they ignoring the lack of female editors by using the "diversifying" tactic.

[Kumioko]

Unfortunately I agree that its unlikely that we can turn it around at this pint. Too many deviants have rooted themsleves and too much complacency of time by the WMF have allowed things to devolve. Fixing things at this point would require drastic actions by the WMF and they are unwilling and incapable of doing anything just as the Wikipedia community is.

[Hex]

My politics are probably to the left of yours.

That, sir, would very seriously surprise me.

Do you think that she represents a good icon to attract more reasonable editors?

I think that assessing reasonability from hairstyle is a bad idea.

How many adult women do you know who dress like this?

Quite a few. Then again, I live in London.

[Cla68]

I wonder if the WMF would post a profile of an editor saying, "Hi! I'm so-and-so. I'm a factory-farmed meat eater and voted for George Bush in both of his elections. I believe in free-market environmentalism and expansion of nuclear energy to reduce greenhouse gasses. I work as a police officer in New York and helped control the Occupy Wall Street protests last year. I have been a Wikipedia editor since 2008 and love it!"

[Zoloft]

I wonder if the WMF would post a profile of an editor saying, "Hi! I'm so-and-so. I'm a factory-farmed meat eater and voted for George Bush in both of his elections. I believe in free-market environmentalism and expansion of nuclear energy to reduce greenhouse gasses. I work as a police officer in New York and helped control the Occupy Wall Street protests last year. I have been a Wikipedia editor since 2008 and love it!"

I'd vote for her. Just for the medly.

[HRIP7]

I wonder if the WMF would post a profile of an editor saying, "Hi! I'm so-and-so. I'm a factory-farmed meat eater and voted for George Bush in both of his elections. I believe in free-market environmentalism and expansion of nuclear energy to reduce greenhouse gasses. I work as a police officer in New York and helped control the Occupy Wall Street protests last year. I have been a Wikipedia editor since 2008 and love it!"

Heh heh.

[thekohser]

The work of that nice young lady, Megan Hernandez.

Apparently, Megan was so busy with the PR videos, she let her Twitter account get hacked.