Laura in Wikiland

[Moral Hazard]

The decision not to do median was made based on time constraints of the researcher.

Evaluating

Code: Select all

median(x)

would be violate a moron's time-constraint.

[Poetlister]

should we work with someone like Laura Hale to get WP page views on articles related to us.

I don't know how Zoloft or Mr Midsize would react, but quite a few people would throw up their hands in horror at dealing with anyone like Laura Hale. Surely we already have more than enough talent in our own ranks to do something like that.

[Vigilant]

The Best Apps for Life in Spain

Food delivery

There’s Deliveroo, an app which allows you to get food from countless restaurants delivered to your doorstep. “It has all the benefits of a restaurant without dealing with waiters and music I may not like,” Laura Hale from Madrid explains.

Seven Things Americans need to Know before visiting Spain
This entire article is conceited garbage.

Laura Hale is an American living in Madrid. Having witnessed enough Americans doing stupid things here, she has some critical advice for those of her fellow countrymen thinking about paying Spain a visit.

Laura Hale is a Top Writer at Quora where a version of this article was first published. She can be found on LinkedIn and on Twitter,

[Vigilant]

Maria Sefidari is not a smart woman.
Is it thinkable that the human race (and/or it's descendants) have the potential to survive anything?

Is it thinkable that the human race (and/or it's descendants) have the potential to survive anything?
Future of an expanding universe (T-H-L)
1 Answer
María Sefidari
María Sefidari, Human
Answered Sep 5, 2015 · Author has 82 answers and 468.5k answer views
I don't think so. Dinosaurs were bigger and tougher than us, and one well-aimed meteor extinguished them all. For us it could be a lethal virus or some sort of natural catastrophic event on a global scale. Or, heck, a Third World War.

But let's go with the Sun dying scenario. By that time, it is unlikely humans as we know them will exist (or at least, they will have the same relation to us as we have with our cave-dweller ancestors). Personally, I doubt humans of any kind will exist by then. We are not a particularly tough species. Our only competitive advantage against a hostile world is our numbers: an event would have to be terrible indeed to kill off billions of us and make us go extinct. But it's not like we are not killing off the planet bit by bit as a result of that, so we could really die off before our Sun did.

But even if we do not survive, one would hope our legacy would. And a way for that could be... robots. Tough, smart, without biological limits (think spacetravel, saving planetary resources, easy to build, etc). They could inherit our knowledge, and then develop their own solutions to deal with the end of the Universe. Without out limitations or blindnesses (imagine no race, sex, or whatever discriminations, imagine no cultural ethnocentrism but just having all the knowledge of all the cultures of Earth). They could face different challenges (EM pulses?), but hopefully they would have the best of us without the worst of us. We are biologically programmed to want our descendants to be better than us. Robots could play that part. We will never know, of course, but isn't there some confort to that thought?

[Vigilant]

How can one become a Paid Contributor of Wikipedia?

How can one become a paid contributor of Wikipedia?
4 Answers
María Sefidari
María Sefidari, Long-time wiki editor
Answered Sep 3, 2015 · Upvoted by Iván Martínez, Volunteer editor at Wikipedia (2006-present) and Mark Hetherington, Wikipedia administrator for over a decade · Author has 82 answers and 468.5k answer views
You become a paid contributor when someone pays you to contribute to Wikipedia.

Now, payment per se is not necessarily a problem. This is where we distinguish between paid advocacy and paid editing. Paid advocacy is when someone pays you to push a certain point of view on Wikipedia. Let's say a pharmaceutical company hires you to edit the articles of certain drugs they make, taking out the sections about secondary effects and expanding those about the beneficial effects. That will not be tolerated. You are compromising the quality of the articles and the encyclopedia. You will get caught and you will be blocked. Neutrality is one of the pillars of Wikipedia and people paid to violate it are invariably, sooner or later, found out and kicked out.

Now, there is also paid editing. The formula for this for the last few years has been the Wikimedian in Residence. Please note not all WiRs are paid, only some. An institution, let's say a museum, hires an experienced Wikimedian to eg. increase the number of articles of a given topic. That Wikimedian, following the Terms of Use, will proactively disclose they are working for that institution and being paid for such work. Now, depending on the project they will be contributing to, there may be additional policies they have to follow. Some projects like the Swedish and the German Wikipedias have permitted paid/corporate accounts to operate under strict, appropiate procedures for quite a long time now.

tl;dr: Paid editors who are not transparent and fail to disclose, who are not neutral, and who are paid to advocate for a paying customers' behalf violate the sites' Terms of Use and will be blocked.

[Poetlister]

The Best Apps for Life in Spain

Food delivery

There’s Deliveroo, an app which allows you to get food from countless restaurants delivered to your doorstep. “It has all the benefits of a restaurant without dealing with waiters and music I may not like,” Laura Hale from Madrid explains.

Seven Things Americans need to Know before visiting Spain
This entire article is conceited garbage.

Laura Hale is an American living in Madrid. Having witnessed enough Americans doing stupid things here, she has some critical advice for those of her fellow countrymen thinking about paying Spain a visit.

Laura Hale is a Top Writer at Quora where a version of this article was first published. She can be found on LinkedIn and on Twitter,

She has to do something to promote herself now she's no longer a WP editor or at least not overtly.

[CoffeeCrumbs]

The Best Apps for Life in Spain

Food delivery

There’s Deliveroo, an app which allows you to get food from countless restaurants delivered to your doorstep. “It has all the benefits of a restaurant without dealing with waiters and music I may not like,” Laura Hale from Madrid explains.

Seven Things Americans need to Know before visiting Spain
This entire article is conceited garbage.

Laura Hale is an American living in Madrid. Having witnessed enough Americans doing stupid things here, she has some critical advice for those of her fellow countrymen thinking about paying Spain a visit.

Laura Hale is a Top Writer at Quora where a version of this article was first published. She can be found on LinkedIn and on Twitter,

She has to do something to promote herself now she's no longer a WP editor or at least not overtly.

I can't imagine Hale doing a good job at being a secret editor. Like she can go a week without loudly demanding a male changing one of her genius sentences is literal violence.

[Poetlister]

I can't imagine Hale doing a good job at being a secret editor. Like she can go a week without loudly demanding a male changing one of her genius sentences is literal violence.

You may well be right, though possibly Maria would have the sense to keep a strict eye on her.

[Giraffe Stapler]

Laura Hale is an American living in Madrid. Having witnessed enough Americans doing stupid things here, she has some critical advice for those of her fellow countrymen thinking about paying Spain a visit.

Laura Hale is a Top Writer at Quora where a version of this article was first published. She can be found on LinkedIn and on Twitter,

She has to do something to promote herself now she's no longer a WP editor or at least not overtly.

Laura Hale was a "Top Writer" on Quora, but deleted her account. She was doing the same kind of analysis of Quora posts that she applied to Wikipedia and Twitter. Those articles were probably scraped from the web and republished.

[Poetlister]

Laura Hale was a "Top Writer" on Quora, but deleted her account. She was doing the same kind of analysis of Quora posts that she applied to Wikipedia and Twitter. Those articles were probably scraped from the web and republished.

No surprise there! Did all her contributions disappear when her account was deleted? If not, it can't be hard to Google a few quotes from them to see if they are plagiarised.

[Eric Corbett]

Laura Hale was a "Top Writer" on Quora, but deleted her account. She was doing the same kind of analysis of Quora posts that she applied to Wikipedia and Twitter. Those articles were probably scraped from the web and republished.

No surprise there! Did all her contributions disappear when her account was deleted? If not, it can't be hard to Google a few quotes from them to see if they are plagiarised.

Quora is a strange animal. Contributors get paid for asking questions, not for answering them.

[Cla68]

Laura Hale's account is still active on Quora:

https://www.quora.com/profile/Laura-Hale-51

She likely is participating in the paid "Partner" program. Quora partner's questions won't show up in their profile feed but you can tell that she's active by looking at her "activity" feed, which shows that she is "liking" answers and editing questions. The Quora partner program is by invitation only. You have to be active for awhile answering questions and getting upvotes before the company sends you an invitation to be a Partner. This may be one reason she curtailed her activity on Wikipedia, because Quora is keeping her busy.

I would assume she's also involved in at least 2-3 other moneymaking Internet social-media/crowdsourcing ventures, because I doubt Quora pays good enough to live on.

[Vigilant]

<snip>

[Giraffe Stapler]

Laura Hale's account is still active on Quora:

https://www.quora.com/profile/Laura-Hale-51

She likely is participating in the paid "Partner" program. Quora partner's questions won't show up in their profile feed but you can tell that she's active by looking at her "activity" feed, which shows that she is "liking" answers and editing questions. The Quora partner program is by invitation only. You have to be active for awhile answering questions and getting upvotes before the company sends you an invitation to be a Partner. This may be one reason she curtailed her activity on Wikipedia, because Quora is keeping her busy.

I would assume she's also involved in at least 2-3 other moneymaking Internet social-media/crowdsourcing ventures, because I doubt Quora pays good enough to live on.

Fun fact: Laura Hale is the name of a character on a tv show called "Teen Wolf". That "Laura Hale" account on Quora belongs to a teen from Barcelona, not our esteemed Dr Hale.

[Randy from Boise]

Laura Hale's account is still active on Quora:

https://www.quora.com/profile/Laura-Hale-51

She likely is participating in the paid "Partner" program. Quora partner's questions won't show up in their profile feed but you can tell that she's active by looking at her "activity" feed, which shows that she is "liking" answers and editing questions. The Quora partner program is by invitation only. You have to be active for awhile answering questions and getting upvotes before the company sends you an invitation to be a Partner. This may be one reason she curtailed her activity on Wikipedia, because Quora is keeping her busy.

I would assume she's also involved in at least 2-3 other moneymaking Internet social-media/crowdsourcing ventures, because I doubt Quora pays good enough to live on.

Fun fact: Laura Hale is the name of a character on a tv show called "Teen Wolf". That "Laura Hale" account on Quora belongs to a teen from Barcelona, not our esteemed Dr Hale.

I was rolling my eyes about her "dreaming in Catalan" and remembering the percentages of English taught in "our" schools.

A second Laura Hale would explain a lot.

RfB

[Vigilant]

Laura Hale's account is still active on Quora:

https://www.quora.com/profile/Laura-Hale-51

She likely is participating in the paid "Partner" program. Quora partner's questions won't show up in their profile feed but you can tell that she's active by looking at her "activity" feed, which shows that she is "liking" answers and editing questions. The Quora partner program is by invitation only. You have to be active for awhile answering questions and getting upvotes before the company sends you an invitation to be a Partner. This may be one reason she curtailed her activity on Wikipedia, because Quora is keeping her busy.

I would assume she's also involved in at least 2-3 other moneymaking Internet social-media/crowdsourcing ventures, because I doubt Quora pays good enough to live on.

Fun fact: Laura Hale is the name of a character on a tv show called "Teen Wolf". That "Laura Hale" account on Quora belongs to a teen from Barcelona, not our esteemed Dr Hale.

I was rolling my eyes about her "dreaming in Catalan" and remembering the percentages of English taught in "our" schools.

A second Laura Hale would explain a lot.

RfB

Good lord.

One's more than enough.

[Poetlister]

A second Laura Hale would explain a lot.

RfB

Good lord.

One's more than enough.

The second one can't help her name. She's probably OK really. I wonder if she knows what the first one has done and what she makes of it.

[Ada Sinn]

One of Laura's masterpieces - Fifth-wave feminism in Ibero-America (T-H-L) - finally ended up at AFD.

Here --> link

Let's see if she's got any fans left at WP to salvage her magnum opus.

[Vigilant]

One of Laura's masterpieces - Fifth-wave feminism in Ibero-America (T-H-L) - finally ended up at AFD.

Here --> link

Let's see if she's got any fans left at WP to salvage her magnum opus.

Almost everything she ever worked on should be AfD'd under shitty article, paid editing, conflict of interest, failing reliable sources, mass stub creation, copy/pasta, copyright violations.... etc.

[Ada Sinn]

One of Laura's masterpieces - Fifth-wave feminism in Ibero-America (T-H-L) - finally ended up at AFD.

Here --> link

Let's see if she's got any fans left at WP to salvage her magnum opus.

Almost everything she ever worked on should be AfD'd under shitty article, paid editing, conflict of interest, failing reliable sources, mass stub creation, copy/pasta, copyright violations.... etc.

[Poetlister]

One of Laura's masterpieces - Fifth-wave feminism in Ibero-America (T-H-L) - finally ended up at AFD.

Here --> link

Let's see if she's got any fans left at WP to salvage her magnum opus.

Evidently, not so far: just three !votes, all Deletes, all noting "original research".

[Ada Sinn]

One of Laura's masterpieces - Fifth-wave feminism in Ibero-America (T-H-L) - finally ended up at AFD.

Here --> link

Let's see if she's got any fans left at WP to salvage her magnum opus.

Evidently, not so far: just three !votes, all Deletes, all noting "original research".

Deleted now

[Poetlister]

Deleted on the basis of just three !votes other than the nominator. Clearly, the "community" didn't give two hoots.

[rhindle]

Her fan club must not be paying attention anymore or went on to other things. This AfD actually had to be relisted and still didn't get extra input. Even mentioned here where I'm sure many 'pedians lurk and keep tabs on things and still no traction.

[Poetlister]

Her fan club must not be paying attention anymore or went on to other things. This AfD actually had to be relisted and still didn't get extra input. Even mentioned here where I'm sure many 'pedians lurk and keep tabs on things and still no traction.

Her fan club must be dead in the water after all the controversy.

[ArmasRebane]

Her fan club must not be paying attention anymore or went on to other things. This AfD actually had to be relisted and still didn't get extra input. Even mentioned here where I'm sure many 'pedians lurk and keep tabs on things and still no traction.

An observation I've found at many levels is that insofar as people actually have what you could term "fan clubs" (rather than loose clustering of values that lead them to generally be on similar sides of a potential conflict) it rarely extends to actual content. The most cynical view is that people of a more inclusionist interpretation of Wikipedia's mandate rarely actually want to put the work in to improving or maintaining the articles they fight to keep, or in any case people are lazy.

In this case especially, it doesn't help that the author's name is largely obfuscated from the articles in question, and they're on niche topics that aren't going to attract much comment otherwise.

[Beeblebrox]

An observation I've found at many levels is that insofar as people actually have what you could term "fan clubs" (rather than loose clustering of values that lead them to generally be on similar sides of a potential conflict) it rarely extends to actual content. The most cynical view is that people of a more inclusionist interpretation of Wikipedia's mandate rarely actually want to put the work in to improving or maintaining the articles they fight to keep, or in any case people are lazy.

In this case especially, it doesn't help that the author's name is largely obfuscated from the articles in question, and they're on niche topics that aren't going to attract much comment otherwise.

This.

I've had numerous experiences where a worthy article gets nominated at AFD, people go to absurd lengths to oppose the nomination, it gets kept with a rationale that it could be improved, but nobody actually does so.

[rhindle]

In this case especially, it doesn't help that the author's name is largely obfuscated from the articles in question, and they're on niche topics that aren't going to attract much comment otherwise.

True. And the fact she is not around anymore(as far as we know), no white knights will show up either. If a mass deletion of her articles happened, it may be a different story though.

[Vigilant]

Her fan club must not be paying attention anymore or went on to other things. This AfD actually had to be relisted and still didn't get extra input. Even mentioned here where I'm sure many 'pedians lurk and keep tabs on things and still no traction.

She doesn't have a fan club.

She's a user of people and nothing more.

[rhindle]

Her fan club must not be paying attention anymore or went on to other things. This AfD actually had to be relisted and still didn't get extra input. Even mentioned here where I'm sure many 'pedians lurk and keep tabs on things and still no traction.

She doesn't have a fan club.

She's a user of people and nothing more.

I guess I should have put "scare quotes" around "fan club." It was a facetious referencing from the Wikipedia:Unblockables (T-H-L) essay.

The fan club. These users sometimes have a fan club who will leap to their defense no matter what outrageous actions they may take. The offending user and the admin who unblocked them can sit back and let these users shout at you until you are sick of the whole affair. The fan club is only interested in overturning the block and chasing away the admin who dared to impose it. Wikipedia policy, logic, reason, common sense, fair play, all these things are irrelevant to the fan club unless they seem to favor their side. They will twist and turn any statement you make, any action you make, to mean something sinister, and they will defend the unblockable in any way they can, even if it makes no sense.

Although here I'm not applying it to being blocked but having a group fight to keep your nonsense from getting deleted.

[Vigilant]

Her fan club must not be paying attention anymore or went on to other things. This AfD actually had to be relisted and still didn't get extra input. Even mentioned here where I'm sure many 'pedians lurk and keep tabs on things and still no traction.

She doesn't have a fan club.

She's a user of people and nothing more.

I guess I should have put "scare quotes" around "fan club." It was a facetious referencing from the Wikipedia:Unblockables (T-H-L) essay.

The fan club. These users sometimes have a fan club who will leap to their defense no matter what outrageous actions they may take. The offending user and the admin who unblocked them can sit back and let these users shout at you until you are sick of the whole affair. The fan club is only interested in overturning the block and chasing away the admin who dared to impose it. Wikipedia policy, logic, reason, common sense, fair play, all these things are irrelevant to the fan club unless they seem to favor their side. They will twist and turn any statement you make, any action you make, to mean something sinister, and they will defend the unblockable in any way they can, even if it makes no sense.

Although here I'm not applying it to being blocked but having a group fight to keep your nonsense from getting deleted.

I understood what you meant and perhaps my response was too terse.

Laura Hale was never really one of the standard unblockables.
The usual meaning is someone who is part of a tight clique that blends koolaid drinking about 'the mission', in person meetings at the various money wasting trips and a long term, implicit, mutual defense arrangement.
Eric Corbett is a classic example of a ranking member of a nerd cabal.


Laura Hale is a malignant narcissistic and a sociopath.
She's a user of people, not a friend in any sort of sense.
Once you've crossed here, and you may not know what you did(witness poor Hawkeye77), or your usefulness appears to be permanently gone, she turns on you and casts you out, like flicking an unexpected bug off her hand.
Laura is a parasite, a fatal one, on nerd cabals, like a particularly noxious Brood_parasite (T-H-L).

There's a deep sickness to Laura Hale.

[Vigilant]

<bump>

[spartaz]

Porquoi <bump>?

[Midsize Jake]

Porquoi <bump>?

Let's allow it for now, but if nothing substantive crops up in the next couple of days, we'll de-bump it. I was under the impression that things have been fairly quiet on this front, but hey, things happen.

[Zoloft]

Unless something new occurs, I'd advise removing the new posts and locking.

[Poetlister]

Unless something new occurs, I'd advise removing the new posts and locking.

[Vigilant]

Does the extension of the board's term and cancellation of elections look like a power grab to anyone else?

[Zoloft]

Does the extension of the board's term and cancellation of elections look like a power grab to anyone else?

Do we have that info in another topic?

[Midsize Jake]

Does the extension of the board's term and cancellation of elections look like a power grab to anyone else?

Do we have that info in another topic?

Not specifically; there was a thread, but it didn't get much traction. Maybe we could rename that thread or something to try and resurrect it...?

I guess because it looked like it was necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and they pretty much said that was why they did it, most of us decided to give them the benefit of the doubt. And to be fair, it's a little bit hard to imagine what the current board intends to do with the extra year that they haven't done already, but they could have something nefarious in mind.

The most likely thing (IMO) would be that they were worried new board members would try to derail the "Great Steamroller Ride to Total Knowledge Equity" plan, but I suspect COVID-19 will delay that too — and if so, they don't gain much from the extension in that department.

[Poetlister]

Not specifically; there was a thread, but it didn't get much traction. Maybe we could rename that thread or something to try and resurrect it...?

Yes, that would be the place to discuss the issue. It's a bit off topic here.

[eagle]

The draft Universal Code of Conduct has been posted for public comment. I dare any fair-minded person to compare the Code to Laura Hale's conduct discussed in this thread. There is much substance that would be prohibited. However, stuff like "respect people's pronouns" etc. would probably be quickly weaponized by Laura to distract from any attempt to reign in her excesses.

For that reason, the Universal Code of Conduct will be a failure, because of the unwritten rule that the UCoC is not to be enforced in an even-handed manner, but rather to be weaponized by people like Laura Hale against other editors who focus of substance, particularly white, male editors and admins.

[Vigilant]

The draft Universal Code of Conduct has been posted for public comment. I dare any fair-minded person to compare the Code to Laura Hale's conduct discussed in this thread. There is much substance that would be prohibited. However, stuff like "respect people's pronouns" etc. would probably be quickly weaponized by Laura to distract from any attempt to reign in her excesses.

For that reason, the Universal Code of Conduct will be a failure, because of the unwritten rule that the UCoC is not to be enforced in an even-handed manner, but rather to be weaponized by people like Laura Hale against other editors who focus of substance, particularly white, male editors and admins.

Large parts of it seem particularly crafted to protect her behavior.

No following someone around and correcting their edits, even if they're garbage, for example.

[Vigilant]

Laura Hale now listing Manager, International Relations on her linkedin...

[C&B]

Manager of what Exactly? Grifting Griftable Griftologies, Inc[ompetence]...?

[Vigilant]

It looks like Courcelles (T-C-L) has been sneaking back after getting badly burned in the Laura Hale debacle.

[Vigilant]

That’s cute, you think Maria Sefidari has a wiki career ahead.

I'm too cynical to think she won't stay right where she is, or even if she doesn't get reelected to the Board, get hired by WMF for god-knows-what.

Good call.

She's now a festering sore on the body politic.

With Katherine Maher leaving suddenly, this interesting comment, by a much missed mendaliv, seems germane.

[tarantino]

by a much missed mendaliv

I've always wondered what happened to him since he abruptly stopped posting here and editing wp in 2019.

[Vigilant]

To understand why Maria Sefidari Huici is resigning rather than face another board election, read this thread.

[Vigilant]

That’s cute, you think Maria Sefidari has a wiki career ahead.

I'm too cynical to think she won't stay right where she is, or even if she doesn't get reelected to the Board, get hired by WMF for god-knows-what.

Oh, she's still right in the hub of money and power, Vig. You are way, way too optimistic.

RfB

[Vigilant]

I'm certain that the Raystorm quote

If the committee decides to only fund one person, it should be LauraHale. I can later hook up with her and she can relay her experiences.

was intended to be an inside joke.