Royal Society Wikimedian-in-Residence

[Mancunium]

Royal Society appoints a Wikipedian-in-Residence
Boing Boing, 20 December 2013 link

Richard writes, "I work for Wikimedia UK - the UK charity that supports Wikipedia - and we just managed to get the Royal Society to hire a Wikipedian! The job description is here and the person chosen is Johnbod - a rather long-term Wikipedian from the UK. Thought you might enjoy this. He'll be talking at Wikimania 2014, in London in August, with a bit of luck!"

“I’ve already been planning an exciting programme with Royal Society staff, including plenty of events. Some of these will be aimed at Royal Society staff while others are intended to meet the needs of scientists and the general public. Following our very successful training and editathon on women scientists in, held at the Royal Society in October in conjunction with the Medical Research Council, we plan a similar event in early March, around International Women’s Day. “The Royal Society Library and archives have wonderful resources, with a good deal already online, and I’ll also be looking at what we can achieve with these.”

Wikimedia UK announcement: link

Wikimedia UK is pleased to announce that John Byrne (User:Johnbod) has been appointed Wikimedian in Residence at The Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of science. The residency will begin in January 2014 and run for six months, on the basis of working one day per week. Wikimedia UK is providing the core funding for the project.

It is a pilot exercise, aiming to learn the best way for Wikimedia and the Royal Society to collaborate in future. The main intended outcomes are: improving access to information about scientists from underrepresented groups, opening up the Society’s historical collections, and improving the quality of scientific articles on the Wikimedia projects. John is an experienced Wikipedian who was named as Wikimedia UK’s first UK Wikimedian of the Year in 2012, and previously served as a trustee of the charity. He has extensive content experience, including many Featured Articles. [...]

Royal Society announcement: link

[...] The Wikimedian-in-Residence will help to organise further events to improve information about women in science as well as information about scientists from other underrepresented groups - such as those who are black or minority ethnic, disabled or gay. [...] The Wikimedian-in-Residence will help to train library staff and users in editing Wikipedia and liaise with Wikimedians [...] The Wikimedian-in-Residence will run workshops with Fellows, grant recipients and conference delegates to help them to contribute to Wikipedia and use it more effectively. [...]

John Byrne, Wikimedian of the Year 2012

[enwikibadscience]

Royal Society appoints a Wikipedian-in-Residence

He does not appear to be involved in many science articles; does he have any qualifications?

I do think that most of the science articles on Wikipedia, over well over 99%, could be written well by someone with a ninth-grade education in the fundamental sciences. Unfortunately this is not the case for the WikiCup culprits writing the bad science I blog about. However, Johnnod (T-C-L) appears to restrict his science fact sourcing to Britannica. Maybe I will find some bloggable material in his edit history.

[Bielle]

Royal Society appoints a Wikipedian-in-Residence

He does not appear to be involved in many science articles; does he have any qualifications?

I do think that most of the science articles on Wikipedia, over well over 99%, could be written well by someone with a ninth-grade education in the fundamental sciences. Unfortunately this is not the case for the WikiCup culprits writing the bad science I blog about. However, Johnnod (T-C-L) appears to restrict his science fact sourcing to Britannica. Maybe I will find some bloggable material in his edit history.

User:Johnbod (T-C-L) with a b", not an "n".

[Mancunium]

Royal Society appoints a Wikipedian-in-Residence

He does not appear to be involved in many science articles; does he have any qualifications?

I do think that most of the science articles on Wikipedia, over well over 99%, could be written well by someone with a ninth-grade education in the fundamental sciences. Unfortunately this is not the case for the WikiCup culprits writing the bad science I blog about. However, Johnnod (T-C-L) appears to restrict his science fact sourcing to Britannica. Maybe I will find some bloggable material in his edit history.

User:Johnbod (T-C-L) with a b", not an "n".

Mr Byrne does not appear to have a background in science.

John Byrne stands down as the Treasurer and a trustee of Wikimedia UK
Wikimedia UK Blog, 3 February 2013 link

John said: “Today I’m announcing, with regret, my resignation from the Board of Trustees of Wikimedia UK. I hope to pursue Wikimedia-related employment opportunities in the near future, and it is clear that in order to do so I should step down from the Board sooner rather than later.

Duedil Limited, Company Director Check, &c., tell us he was Accountant at Mertoncare Ltd., a company he co-founded with Sylvia Lynn Byrne, and with his parents, on 2 December 1991, and which was dissolved 7 September 2010 ("The latest accounts filed cover the period of 12 months to Thursday, December 31, 2009 and show a net worth of £-2").

He was Accountant at Bodkin Prints Ltd from 13 October 1997 until it was dissolved 14 February 2012 ("Dissolved after 14 Years, Financial Year End: 31 Oct, Capital: £2.00 on 11 Nov 2010").

From 15 September 2000 to 27 September 2002 he was Secretary at Feelgood Publications Ltd.

His mother ran Mertoncare during its first year of existence, in addition to her regular employment at Care Alternative Nurses Ltd., so I presume its business was healthcare; his father was also employed by Mertoncare during its first year, as Teacher of English, in addition to his regular employment at Baggins Book Bazaar Ltd.

I am always surprised by how much information is readily available online about citizens of the UK. I felt somewhat guilty about learning all these things so easily, and then I remembered that Wikipedia says of my own late father:

After preparatory school in Wales, he was educated at Gordonstoun School. Thereafter followed three years in the Royal Marines. He had occupations in the oil industry and in tourist-related activities, and was variously engaged as a clothes salesman, a barman, and a “crocodile wrestler”.[2]

[Cedric]

Royal Society appoints a Wikipedian-in-Residence

He does not appear to be involved in many science articles; does he have any qualifications?

He's a woomookie. He needs no other qualification.

[enwikibadscience]

Royal Society appoints a Wikipedian-in-Residence

He does not appear to be involved in many science articles; does he have any qualifications?

I do think that most of the science articles on Wikipedia, over well over 99%, could be written well by someone with a ninth-grade education in the fundamental sciences. Unfortunately this is not the case for the WikiCup culprits writing the bad science I blog about. However, Johnnod (T-C-L) appears to restrict his science fact sourcing to Britannica. Maybe I will find some bloggable material in his edit history.

User:Johnbod (T-C-L) with a b", not an "n".

Thanks.

[Mancunium]

Stop female scientists being written out of Wikipedia history
The Royal Society is urging people to help it shine a light on the achievements of women in science in a forthcoming 'edit-athon'
The Guardian, 23 February 2014 link

[...] Many "female scientists are either not there at all on Wikipedia or just [have] stubs," said Dame Athene Donald, fellow of the Royal Society and professor of experimental physics at Cambridge University. "It's not just the historical characters, it's the current ones, and these very eminent women just somehow get overlooked." [...] raising the profile of pioneers is a priority. And Wikipedia is the perfect arena in which to do it. "It is almost always going to come top of Google search results and it will get higher readership than almost any other source," said the Royal Society's Wikimedian-in-residence, John Byrne, who will lead the event. Studies by the Wikimedia Foundation suggest that as few as 9% of Wikipedia editors are female, so it is hoped that the edit-athon will encourage women to share their interests and expertise online. "There is the hope that by training more women not only will they do a good job of [creating] new entries but they will also become more confident about doing this more generally, and that will change the sorts of things that are done," said Donald. [...] "There will be a page on the wiki that will have the suggested articles and links to tutorials if you have never edited before," said Byrne. So you too can make sure women's achievements are written up, not written off.

[Mancunium]

Royal Society Hosts Wikipedia Edit-athon To Add Information on Female Scientists
Bustle, 23 February 2014 link

No matter what you tell your college professors, we all know that Wikipedia is everyone’s go-to source for basic information about pretty much everything. So when women are massively under-represented on the site – both in terms of editors and in terms of subjects – it’s a big problem. Which is why Britain’s Royal Society, a 350-year-old institution dedicated to science (not that I got that off Wikipedia or anything), is working to fix this problem by hosting an edit-athon to bulk up entries for female scientists. [...] The organizers also hope that simply by training more women in the ins and outs of Wikipedia editing that these women will feel more confident making edits and that, slowly, the gender imbalance among Wikipedia editors will become smaller. [...]

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Royal_Society/Women_in_Science_Wikipedia_Edit-a-thon_at_the_Royal_Society,_March_2014 (T-H-L)

'Bustle' understands that a Wikipedia BLP can't just present a few dry facts about a person's professional career. For instance: "Marie Skłodowska-Curie won the Nobel Prize in Physics and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry"; that's just boring, and we can find that kind of information anywhere. Wikipedia, in contrast, gives us all the facts we need to judge Mme Curie as a woman:

In 1911 it was revealed that in 1910–11 Curie had conducted an affair of about a year's duration with physicist Paul Langevin, a former student of Pierre's.[45] He was a married man who was estranged from his wife.[43] This resulted in a press scandal that was exploited by her academic opponents. Curie (then in her mid-40s) was five years older than Langevin and was portrayed in the tabloids as a foreign Jewish home-wrecker.[46] She was away for a conference in Belgium when the scandal broke; upon her return, she found an angry mob in front of her house, and had to seek a refuge, with her daughters, at a house of a friend.[43]

So 'Bustle' has helpfully included some model BLPs of Wikipedia's women of distinction, to show the scientists to be newly included in "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" what their biographies might look like after a week or two.

Martha Stewart
“Stewart dated Sir Anthony Hopkins, but ended the relationship after she saw ‘The Silence of the Lambs.’ She stated she was unable to avoid associating Hopkins with the character of Hannibal Lecter"

Megan Fox
“Fox has revealed that she is not too social, stating, ‘You won’t believe this, but I never go out. I don’t like drunk, sweaty people whose only goal is to have sex. I stay home and play computer backgammon. Every once in a while, I go to Color Me Mine to do pottery.’”

Charlize Theron
“During her early months there, she went to a Hollywood Boulevard bank to cash a check her mother had sent her to help with the rent. When the teller refused to cash it, Theron engaged in a shouting match with him. Upon seeing this, talent agent John Crosby, in line behind her, handed her his business card and subsequently introduced her to casting agents and also an acting school. She later fired him as her manager after he kept sending her scripts for films similar to ‘Showgirls’ and ‘Species.’”

Beyoncé
“Her pregnancy announcement earned a Guinness World Record for ‘most tweets per second recorded for a single event’ on Twitter, receiving 8,868 tweets per second, and ‘Beyonce pregnant’ was the most Googled term the week of August 29, 2011.”

Emma Stone
“Stone’s low-pitched husky voice is a result of having baby colic, a condition of frequent screaming as an infant, resulting in the development of nodules.”

Miley Cyrus
“Francois Navarre, the proprietor of the X17 photo agency, said Cyrus’s market value had picked up considerably after the Vanity Fair photo controversy: ‘She’s started to sell more. […] It used to be $300, and now it’s $2,000 for a picture.’ Estimates for a picture of the then-15 year old’s first kiss ranged from $30,000 to $150,000.”

[Mancunium]

Wikipedia 'edit-a-thon' seeks to boost number of women editors
Royal Society event involved volunteers expanding and creating articles about women in science and engineering
The Guardian, 4 March 2014 link

[...] Faced with a paucity of female editors on Wikipedia, one of Britain's oldest institutions is stepping in to help fill the gap. The Royal Society, founded in 1660 to promote excellence in science, hosted a Wikipedia "edit-a-thon" on Tuesday in conjunction with the Royal Society of Engineers in an attempt to right the imbalance. [...]

"We've actually run out of female fellows of the Royal Society that don't have articles," says John Byrne, the Society's "Wikimedian in Residence". Byrne was seconded to the society from Wikimedia, the US charity behind Wikipedia, with the express intention of improving access to information about scientists from underrepresented groups. "So we're widening what we're looking at this time."

The number of editors on the English-language version of Wikipedia peaked in summer 2007 at 51,000, and has been in steady decline ever since. What's more, there have only ever been a small fraction of those editors who are female; estimates range between 8 and 13%. "We are short of editors, we're declining slowly," Byrne said. "And particularly editors with expertise, and also female editors. The idea is to get new editors, and to expose people to editing even if they're not going to continue, which some of them – most of them – won't." [...]

What you see as you walk through the society "are a lot of portraits of bewigged gentlemen, often 200 years old," said Athene Donald, a fellow of the society and the chair of their education committee. "It is trying to do a complete rethink about its imagery across the board … but it's unfortunate that the few women we have aren't more prominently displayed. "With the success of the earlier edit-a-thons, attention in the third iteration focused on earlier women, who frequently laboured behind the scenes while men took the credit. Keith Moore, the society's librarian, points to examples like Sarah Stone and Maria Sibylla Meriam, two 18th century illustrators whose work adorned the pages of biology books even as the artists behind it remained anonymous.

Damn those bewigged gentlemen! How dare they strut around 200 ago! Deface their portraits! Burn their manuscripts! Desecrate their graves!


John Byrne lecturing to grateful female Fellows of the Royal Society


Isaac Newton, Fellow of the Royal Society and male chauvinist pig

[Malleus]

I wish Johnbod well in his new role, even though I think he's a pretentious twat who basically knows fuck all about anything.

[thekohser]

I wish Johnbod well in his new role, even though I think he's a pretentious twat who basically knows fuck all about anything.

It appears that he knows a thing or two about ingestion.

[tarantino]

I wish Johnbod well in his new role, even though I think he's a pretentious twat who basically knows fuck all about anything.

It appears that he knows a thing or two about ingestion.

He also knows how to stick links to his business website in wikipedia.

[Mancunium]

I wish Johnbod well in his new role, even though I think he's a pretentious twat who basically knows fuck all about anything.

It appears that he knows a thing or two about ingestion.

I thought this site had renounced the criticism of others based on their physical appearance, which represents their god-given right to make themselves grotesque parodies of the human form. link

Mod. note: Some posts and replies thereto removed. Men aren't fair game for comments that focus purely on their physical attributes either. Let's stick to more substantial issues than mere personal appearance, please, if you would, gentlemen.

[Malleus]

I wish Johnbod well in his new role, even though I think he's a pretentious twat who basically knows fuck all about anything.

It appears that he knows a thing or two about ingestion.

It does indeed, or as we say "oop north" he's a fat bastard.

[Hex]

The one time that I encountered Byrne at an article, it became apparent that he's the kind of man that thinks he can push other people around online. It was an unpleasant experience. However, from this thread I can draw a more accurate picture. He is clearly a man large in neither mind nor import - just gut. A risible character. I feel sorry for the people at the Royal Society who will find themselves having to deal with him.

[thekohser]

I thought this site had renounced the criticism of others based on their physical appearance...

My comment wasn't criticism. It was wry praise.

[Mancunium]

The Mission to Get Women Scientists on Wikipedia
Motherboard, 4 March 2014 link

It’s no secret that women have long been underrepresented in science—and still are—but the oversight goes beyond workplace equality. Even when women make it to the heady ranks of their male peers, they can still be overlooked by the history books, a case in point being Rosalind Franklin’s contribution to our understanding of DNA, which went frustratingly under-recognised until much later. Ahead of International Women’s Day on Saturday, the London-based Royal Society is today holding an event to help address the balance in the unrivalled font of modern knowledge: Wikipedia. They’re holding an edit-a-thon dedicated to promoting diversity in science, particularly on the gender front.

It’s being run by John Byrne who holds the brilliant title of “Wikimedian in Residence” at the Royal Society, which is the UK’s national academy of science.

I spoke to Byrne just before things kicked off, and he told me that he didn’t think underrepresentation of women was a problem specific to Wikipedia. “I think to some extent Wikipedia reflects the general culture, but actually I remain to be convinced that it’s particularly a Wikipedian problem; I think it’s a problem in the culture,” he said. [...] “We’ve actually run out of female FRSs [fellows elected to the Royal Society], probably really through previous events like this!” he said when I asked for examples of pages people might add today. “But there’s a Science Council list of 100 leading scientists from 2012, I think, and there’s actually quite a few women on that that don’t have articles.” He added that, “although there are fewer women FRSs, all the female FRSs that have ever been have a biography on Wikipedia and that’s certainly not true for the men.”

The Science Council list Byrne referred to contains the 100 leading UK practicing scientists, so it’s a little dismaying to learn that some of those elite women still aren’t getting the recognition they deserve. In today’s world, who are you if you don’t have a Wikipedia page? Possibly one of the top 100 scientists in the country, it transpires. Wikipedia’s been plagued with sexism in the past likely stemming from the fact that those who decide how its information is ordered largely belong to the same group (white men), such as when women writers suddenly found themselves added to the “American women novelists” category, an act that wouldn’t have been problematic except for it meant they were removed from the “American novelists” page, which, for the record, was not renamed “American men novelists.” [...]

He suggested several reasons for this, including the imbalance of men and women in IT, and women being put off by an online culture than can be “quite rude.” I’d add that it’s not just rudeness, but more specifically misogyny—targeted rudeness—that can dissuade women from getting involved in online communities. There’s a difference between a general “rude” atmosphere and having abuse lobbed in your own direction. [...]

"What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty!
in form, in moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!"

[Anroth]

When you resort to mocking someone based on their appearance it just shows how limited, small minded and petty you are. Granted when it comes to Corbett thats hardly a surprise, but it cheapens this place. Frankly unless any of you are willing to take a full frontal naked picture and post it up so everyone can dissect your appearance, fuck off with that shit. Take a pop at his editing, his lack of professional qualifications for the role, but not his shape.

Not that I really expect the mods or trustees here to make more than a token nod at the concept of treating others as you would have them treat you, but it is getting tiresome to read threads about prominent wikipedians and have to wade through crap like that.

[Mancunium]

When you resort to mocking someone based on their appearance it just shows how you are. Granted when it comes to Corbett thats hardly a surprise, but it cheapens this place. Frankly unless any of you are willing to take a full frontal naked picture and post it up so everyone can dissect your appearance, fuck off with that shit. Take a pop at his editing, his lack of professional qualifications for the role, but not his shape.

Not that I really expect the mods or trustees here to make more than a token nod at the concept of treating others as you would have them treat you, but it is getting tiresome to read threads about prominent wikipedians and have to wade through crap like that.

Is this accusation of being limited, small minded and petty addressed to me or to Shakespeare? I have made no comments about any individual's appearance in this thread. In fact, I drew another commentator's attention to the no-personal-comments policy, and I see no reason to submit a full frontal naked picture of myself for your consideration, nor to accept your suggestion to fvck off with that shyt.

"And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?"

[Malleus]

When you resort to mocking someone based on their appearance it just shows how limited, small minded and petty you are. Granted when it comes to Corbett thats hardly a surprise ...

Would care to explain that observation? In which universe is it permissible to mock someone based on what you perceive their mental abilities to be but not on their appearance?

[Anroth]

Well if you want to wear a badge that says 'I'm an idiot, treat me kindly!' go ahead. However its not mocking you to show contempt for your treatment of others.

And Mancunium, wasnt aimed at you. You just had the bad luck to have the post before mine.

[Malleus]

Well if you want to wear a badge that says 'I'm an idiot, treat me kindly!' go ahead. However its not mocking you to show contempt for your treatment of others.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

[Mancunium]

Of Mr Corbett, I've never seen anyone here, "take a pop at his editing, his lack of professional qualifications for the role".

[lilburne]

When you resort to mocking someone based on their appearance it just shows how limited, small minded and petty you are. Granted when it comes to Corbett thats hardly a surprise, but it cheapens this place. Frankly unless any of you are willing to take a full frontal naked picture and post it up so everyone can dissect your appearance, fuck off with that shit. Take a pop at his editing, his lack of professional qualifications for the role, but not his shape.

I call my carb baby Tummithy.

[Bottled_Spider]

Not that I really expect the mods or trustees here to make more than a token nod at the concept of treating others as you would have them treat you, but it is getting tiresome to read threads about prominent wikipedians and have to wade through crap like that.

You could always try wearing a nice pair of wellies while reading. And perhaps drink some extra-strong coffee for the tiredness. Hope this helped.

[Zoloft]

Not that I really expect the mods or trustees here to make more than a token nod at the concept of treating others as you would have them treat you, but it is getting tiresome to read threads about prominent wikipedians and have to wade through crap like that.

You could always try wearing a nice pair of wellies while reading. And perhaps drink some extra-strong coffee for the tiredness. Hope this helped.

About as much as it usually does. Try to be less wry and more genuine.

I've always tried not to participate in the gibes here at people's appearances. We here at Wikipediocracy seem to have times when they are more prevalent, and times when we act more mature. I'm no Adonis. I gained 70 pounds a few years ago from steroid treatments and it took forever before I lost the bloat. I am a stocky pouchy fellow, bespectacled, just shy of sixty, balding, with a ruddy face and British teeth (T-H-L).

If you see poor behavior, balance it by calling it out. If it's really bad, email me at support @ wikipediocracy, and I'll smite it. If I'm unavailable, the 'report post' button works, albeit more slowly.

[Anthonyhcole]

I wish Johnbod well in his new role, even though I think he's a pretentious twat who basically knows fuck all about anything.

He knows more about medieval art than I do. But everybody knows more about medieval art than I do. He doesn't read what others write in discussion with him - he hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. If he takes that practice into his job, he'll have problems.

[Ceoil]

I wish Johnbod well in his new role, even though I think he's a pretentious twat who basically knows fuck all about anything.

It appears that he knows a thing or two about ingestion.

It does indeed, or as we say "oop north" he's a fat bastard.

Thats cheap, even by your standards Eric. Among humanaties editors, I'd say John is among the most widely respected, and is quite apart from the more usual in resident WMF types. Its a glimmer of hope, frankly. As apposed a source of unremitting self serving negativity; local history boy.

[EricBarbour]

How pathetic. Tarantino already mentioned that Bodkin spam-promoted his business on Wikipedia, and you'd rather argue about his waistline.

[Malleus]

I wish Johnbod well in his new role, even though I think he's a pretentious twat who basically knows fuck all about anything.

It appears that he knows a thing or two about ingestion.

It does indeed, or as we say "oop north" he's a fat bastard.

Thats cheap, even by your standards Eric. Among humanaties editors, I'd say John is among the most widely respected, and is quite apart from the more usual in resident WMF types. Its a glimmer of hope, frankly. As apposed a source of unremitting self serving negativity; local history boy.

You're entitled to your opinion, but I stick to mine, which is that's he's a pompous, know-it-all fat bastard.

[enwikibadscience]

When you resort to mocking someone based on their appearance it just shows how limited, small minded and petty you are. ....

It also indicates you don't have any real Wikipediocracy critiques about the person. If you did, that would take up the focus of the threads. So, if we can't really criticize this Wikimedian in Residence, who is using en.Wikipedia to promote himself, let's move on to actual problem editors. There are plenty of "Am I pretty?" websites to post pictures of people you find unattractive. They tend to have a mean age of 11, but, if that's where you want to be....

In my opionion....

[enwikibadscience]

Here is a post of hisar Wiki Project Medicine:

It would be hard to do so fully without massive breaches of WP:NOT and MOS:MED. The "study aims to assess whether Wikipedia can be considered a reliable source for professional updating [updating instructions for medical professionals], concerning Healthcare-associated Infections (HAI)", using 15 articles including Necktie. We are criticised for (somewhere) mentioning or recommending signs reminding about hand-washing routines, apparently not included in the 173 professional recommendations, and for not giving all sorts of detailed guidelines about procedures for the use of catheters and the like by medical staff. Another scientific paper that misunderstands the basic nature of Wikipedia, and one that couldn't be bothered to find a native speaker to look over their English. Since the sources of the 173 professional recommendations are not detailed, it would be hard to use the paper itself when adding to the articles, or even to locate the original sources item by item. Johnbod (talk) 05:14, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

If the article is a reliable source, you don't have to know the original sources. What is even on about, here?

He is apparently critiquing a featured article in the String Theory series, one of the biggest assortments of worthless mathematical insider jargon on Wikipedia. Written by the mathematical insiders, the "I am writing math for college grad students and prospects you moron" crowd, they can't even read their own articles and keep their own jargon straight. Johnbod (T-C-L) is pretending to understand what is written. I can't find his other science contributions, but still looking.

Hidden dimension (T-H-L). (Hint, it's hidden.)

[Kelly Martin]

The comments on the study are typically Wikipedian-whiny. The correct response should be "We are unsurprised that Wikipedia was not found to be an appropriate resource for this purpose as Wikipedia's audience for medical information is the general public, and therefore Wikipedia articles will generally not contain as much specific detail as a practitioner or researcher would find useful or desirable, and may contain information that is irrelevant or even distracting to a practitioner's purpose." However, this would require that Wikipedia recognize that authorship depends on audience, which is something Wikipedia refuses to acknowledge. Instead, our erstwhile jackass whines about how the study authors are incompetent for having performed the study in the first place, showing that he also does not understand the purpose of studies of this sort, which is (of course) simply to have on the record that Wikipedia is not a suitable source; even if this is supposedly patently obvious there is benefit to having a study that says so and gives details as to why. He seems to think that the only reason to study Wikipedia is to provide Wikipedia with advice on how to improve itself.

I hate to generalize from one example, but if this is the sort of behavior that he presents with, he's a poor choice for someone whose job is to interface between Wikipedia and scientists. Scientists are generally not interested in studying Wikipedia for the purpose of improving Wikipedia. They're interested in studying it to see if it's a useful tool for whatever they're doing (and most will find that it is not), and to to understand how it works, how it fails to work, and what it does. I suspect our dear friend here will find such studies bothersome. The fact that he does not appear to understand science bodes poorly for the success of his appointment.

[Hex]

I wonder if the Royal Society are paying any attention to the on-wiki behavior of their in-house know-it-all?

If that report is opaque, try looking at the history of Yixian glazed pottery luohans (T-H-L).

[enwikibadscience]

I wonder if the Royal Society are paying any attention to the on-wiki behavior of their in-house know-it-all?

If that report is opaque, try looking at the history of Yixian glazed pottery luohans (T-H-L).

[Silent Editor]

It seems John Byrne has picked up another four days a week as a paid wikipedian in residence... this time at Cancer Research UK, and funded by the Wellcome trust.

I bet Fae is envious.

[Larkin]

The one time that I encountered Byrne at an article, it became apparent that he's the kind of man that thinks he can push other people around online. It was an unpleasant experience. However, from this thread I can draw a more accurate picture. He is clearly a man large in neither mind nor import - just gut. A risible character. I feel sorry for the people at the Royal Society who will find themselves having to deal with him.

Yes. With you and Malleus 100% on this. His recent performance at Power of Women (T-H-L) is contemptible. That was actually quite an enterprising, if rather inconsequential, start from Drmies. Byrne took it over with a lot of stuff from museum sites and Google books, plainly without studying any of the sources. A recent bright young editor was eventually blocked by Drmies, perhaps not entirely unreasonably, and Byrne took the opportunity to revert all her good work at the article. The article in his hands is piss poor.
[CENSORED]