The absurdity of Wikipedia

[Peter Damian]

After reading this arbitration page I am reminded again of Larry Sanger’s discussion of the ridiculousness of Wikipedia.

Admins and even rank-and-file contributors go around making high-sounding declarations and announcements, as if they were government officials dispensing court orders. And then, if you really want to keep working on the wiki, nothing is stopping you from making a new account and getting back to work, instantly, as everybody knows. It's ridiculous. In fact, the complexity of the ridiculousness is mind-boggling, and would take a very complicated essay to tease out.

Larry refers to the ‘ridiculous’, from the Latin ridiculus meaning ‘laughable’. This is inches away from the philosophically interesting concept of the absurd, from the Latin absurdus ‘out of tune’. The absurd, like the ridiculous, involves the discrepancy between pretension and reality.

The ordinary conception of absurdity is, [Nagel] claims, one on which “there is a discrepancy between pretension or aspiration and reality” (ibid.), and he offers the famous example to illustrate this of being knighted just as one’s trousers fall down.

The source of this discrepancy is the “collision between the seriousness with which we take our lives and the perpetual possibility of regarding everything about which we are serious as arbitrary, or open to doubt.” That is, there is “always available a point of view outside the particular form of our lives from which the seriousness [in which we live our lives] appears gratuitous.” link

If life itself is absurd, can there be degrees of absurdity? If there are, how does Wikipedia measure on that scale? Why is that so? Is it the number of lawyers who are involved on the project? Brad is a lawyer, as we know. Salvio probably is. The law involves much discrepancy between pretension and reality. The very nature of a courtroom commands gravity and seriousness. Yet the dress and demeanour is theatrical: the actors wear 14th century wigs.

Do these people realise how comical they are? They passed a motion that “The conduct and editing patterns of the accounts User:The Rewarder and User:Spotting ToU (e.g. [5][6]) made clear that these accounts were operated by banned editor User:Thekohser”. Brad says things like “they are outside the purview of this Committee, and the misconduct has not yet risen to the level at which I would recommend pursuing them”. If they don’t realise this, why not?

[greybeard]

A trenchant observation, but not a new one. Wikipidiots take themselves far too seriously. Yep. This has its roots, at least partly, in Jimbo's bombastic "sum of all knowledge" bullshit.

One must be careful, however, when criticizing Wikipedia, not to fall into the same trap, and take oneself too seriously in the process. Wikipedia may be a blight on scholarship, but it's not Ebola.

[Triptych]

A trenchant observation, but not a new one. Wikipidiots take themselves far too seriously. Yep. This has its roots, at least partly, in Jimbo's bombastic "sum of all knowledge" bullshit.

One must be careful, however, when criticizing Wikipedia, not to fall into the same trap, and take oneself too seriously in the process. Wikipedia may be a blight on scholarship, but it's not Ebola.

But you refer to scholarship particularly. Schools can adopt safeguards, like "don't cite Wikipedia." The real damage Wikipedia does is just generally to human knowledge, the laypeople and children and so forth who are steered to it by Google and believe they are accurately informed.

I'm told that Mr. Sanger's "Admins and even rank-and-file contributors go around making high-sounding declarations and announcements, as if they were government officials dispensing court orders" quote was prompted substantially by observation of New York Brad. Neved claimed that. It does seem an apt criticism of that pompous windbag.

[Peter Damian]

More absurdity.

Banned editors are prohibited from editing Wikipedia in any way, from any account or anonymously, and all contributions made in defiance of a ban are subject to immediate removal.
Banned editors

Prohibere: “to hold back, keep away, check, restrain, hinder, prevent, keep off etc”. Of course. Prohibition means restraint, and restraint means the ability to restrain, and they have none.

if you really want to keep working on the wiki, nothing is stopping you from making a new account and getting back to work, instantly, as everybody knows

Note the ‘as everyone knows’ rider. It would not be so absurd if there were secret and hidden ways to avoid the ban order, known only to a select few, as with Frodo’s passage to Mordor. But no. Everyone knows, even the people making these ridiculous high-sounding pronouncements, that there is nothing to stop the ‘banned user’ coming back.

[Jim]

Note the ‘as everyone knows’ rider. It would not be so absurd if there were secret and hidden ways to avoid the ban order, known only to a select few, as with Frodo’s passage to Mordor. But no. Everyone knows, even the people making these ridiculous high-sounding pronouncements, that there is nothing to stop the ‘banned user’ coming back.

But it does still deter some. Sad but true. Like the "do not walk on the grass" sign, if it stops some, the grass is less damaged. I think that's the mentality.

I wish I could annotate the essay with your excellent comments. That would be amusing. Not the "done thing" though.

[Poetlister]

The danger is that Wikipedia is accepted as accurate by a "reliable source" and the stream of knowledge is polluted. Some of the errors thus propagated might never be uprooted completely because people too often just copy others blindly without really checking.

[Textnyymi]

Everyone knows, even the people making these ridiculous high-sounding pronouncements, that there is nothing to stop the ‘banned user’ coming back.

Those who choose to become invisible have the potential to inflict both the most damage and to provide the most accurate improvements, as you certainly know by now.

[KendriaP]

A trenchant observation, but not a new one. Wikipidiots take themselves far too seriously. Yep. This has its roots, at least partly, in Jimbo's bombastic "sum of all knowledge" bullshit.

Google is also partially to blame, as well. If they didn't rank Wikipedia articles so highly, we wouldn't have to worry about draconian polices like BLP.

[Andrew]

A trenchant observation, but not a new one. Wikipidiots take themselves far too seriously. Yep. This has its roots, at least partly, in Jimbo's bombastic "sum of all knowledge" bullshit.

Google is also partially to blame, as well. If they didn't rank Wikipedia articles so highly, we wouldn't have to worry about draconian polices like BLP.

The really sad thing about Wikipedia is the loss of all those expert blogs in the old days. Its days as a social media site clearly numbered, who can be arsed with that shit these days? Whether it will survive that I'm not sure. ~~~~

[greybeard]

A trenchant observation, but not a new one. Wikipidiots take themselves far too seriously. Yep. This has its roots, at least partly, in Jimbo's bombastic "sum of all knowledge" bullshit.

Google is also partially to blame, as well. If they didn't rank Wikipedia articles so highly, we wouldn't have to worry about draconian polices like BLP.

WTF? Do I correctly interpret what you're saying to mean: "If it weren't for Google, we could slander people to our heart's content, because our slander would be more obscure"?

It is reasonable to state that Google is, to some degree, a part of the Wikipedia problem, but the Wikipedia chicken came before the Google egg. But to link it to biographies in particular is ... peculiar, and to suggest that BLP policy, such as it is, is "draconian" is hard to stomach. Would that Wikipedia had zero biographies of living people, or for that matter, people born after 1899 who haven't also been the subject of 10 or more articles in the New York Times or equivalent.

[Poetlister]

It's certainly true that if Wikipedia were not picked up by Google, few people would ever see the BLPs so the BLP problem would be far less severe. People are always going to say nasty things about others; the Wikipedia issue is of degree, not kind.

[Peter Damian]

It's certainly true that if Wikipedia were not picked up by Google, few people would ever see the BLPs so the BLP problem would be far less severe. People are always going to say nasty things about others; the Wikipedia issue is of degree, not kind.

There is also the issue that, for better or worse, Wikipedia is regarded as a reliable source by many.

[Poetlister]

It's certainly true that if Wikipedia were not picked up by Google, few people would ever see the BLPs so the BLP problem would be far less severe. People are always going to say nasty things about others; the Wikipedia issue is of degree, not kind.

There is also the issue that, for better or worse, Wikipedia is regarded as a reliable source by many.

Very true. So is the Daily Mail. "Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens."

[Textnyymi]

Very true. So is the Daily Mail. "Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens."

Peter Damian insists in believing his illusions regarding the possibility to educate those who are unwilling to be educated, a portion of which are unrepentant idiots who don't want to listen. Just let them go, if they are able to understand that Wikipedia is unreliable they will do so at a later time.

WTF? Do I correctly interpret what you're saying to mean: "If it weren't for Google, we could slander people to our heart's content, because our slander would be more obscure"?

People lie to others and insult other people quite frequently during a typical day, the discriminating factor is that real people in flesh and bones tend to have a short memory and forget things, while things that get archived online last for a very long time and can be searched and found rapidly, which isn't always a good thing because not everyone can be trusted which certain chunks of data. I mean, you can't trust the Foundation, since it has appointed a bunch of Check Users who revealed confidential data time and time again, right?

[lilburne]

WTF? Do I correctly interpret what you're saying to mean: "If it weren't for Google, we could slander people to our heart's content, because our slander would be more obscure"?

People lie to others and insult other people quite frequently during a typical day, the discriminating factor is that real people in flesh and bones tend to have a short memory and forget things, while things that get archived online last for a very long time and can be searched and found rapidly

People are also capable of determining the veracity of gossip between drunks waiting outside the pub for it to open, and commentards sounding off on some blog.

When it comes to something that reputes itself to be an encyclopaedia with a neutral point of view. The natural implication being that it is factual and unbiased. When in fact what they mean is that the WMF is has a neutral position as to whether the content it hosts is true or untrue, completely made up nonsense, and cares not whether it is defamatory and libellous unless it happens to be getting bad PR as a result.

[KendriaP]

Wikipedia propping itself up as an "free-culture encyclopedia" means that what's said on there matters as far things like defamation and libel go. If WP didn't take itself so seriously, it would put a lot of pressure off the editors, admins, and the WMF's backs.