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[blissyu2]

In light of the recent SlimVirgin scandal, and Wikipedia Review's heavy role in exposing the truth, a lot more people have been looking at Wikipedia Review posts, and we have had a number of new people sign up. To those people: welcome.

Signing up is risky, as Wikipedia currently lists Wikipedia Review as an attack site, hence if you join here, then they are well within their rights to ban you for joining here, and/or to use anything that you say on here against you on Wikipedia (including de-sysopping you, as they did for Guanaco, Karmafist and Everyking). Also note that Karmafist was banned because of a post that he made here as well. However, you can get around this by quite simply not revealing your Wikipedia username. This is up to you of course, and if you plan to make volatile attacks against Wikipedia Review, then its probably a good idea to use your Wikipedia username (Snowspinner never got in to any trouble for posting here, because he never said anything nice about Wikipedia Review). Of course, we won't be too impressed if your only reason to join here is to attack us, and we reserve the right to ban you if it gets out of hand. However, if you're already banned from Wikipedia, then you're free! Free to say what your username was, protest your ban, and so forth. The freedom of being banned!

So then why sign up? Over 75% of people who read this forum do not sign up. But one important reason to sign up is that then you can add your story to all of this. In relation to the current story, if you publish it on Wikipedia then it'll be deleted, if not perma-deleted (e.g. Kylu's posts) and in some cases they have even banned people for daring to post it (e.g. Hexrei). But here you can post freely and not worry about it being wiped.

Wikipedia has given Wikipedia Review a Parental Advisory Sticker, and we hope that you take that in the same way that you would if it was on a music compilation. It means that we are so good that Wikipedia has to censor us!

[Julie]

I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself and in an exercise of full disclosure explain my rationale for joining this community. First of all, my name is Julie and I am studying the psychology of subcultures. What does that mean exactly? I study subcultures that exist within imagined communities found on the internet.

I have no association with Wikipedia or the foundation except that I find the WP subculture to be incredibly fascinating and I think that it can be a valuable tool to helping me better understand the dynamics of imagined communities.

One of the hardest things about observing subcultures is that I have to find a way to distinguish the signal from the noise and that’s very hard to do that when most of the noise is disguised as signal. The most effective, but also most difficult way to develop an ethnography is through a combination of observations and self-reporting techniques. The Wikipedia subculture is far too cloistered and insular to be able to accurately observe them and I think that we can pretty much all agree that most self-reporting exercises will be incredibly slanted. I have been reading the forums on Wikipedia Review for about three weeks and finally decided that the only way for me to get an honest view of the Wikipedia subculture is from people who have no vested interest in maintaining a public perception. In other words, I am going to another tribe to learn more about the tribe I really want to study.

Cultural anthropologists must be unbiased, but all that means in regards to this community is that I am not here to judge the Wikipedia subculture.

I will make a few promises to this community and I hope that you will accept them, even if you have no reason to do so. I will not reveal any information that I gather to anyone except for my advisor. If I think that my observations may be of any assistance to this community, I will hand them over to you all (the community as a whole) to use as you see fit. That all being said, I am an incredibly opinionated individual and will probably find myself in a situation where I want to post and just might do so with the understanding that those opinions won’t find their way into my observations. I hope that eventually, after I have earned your trust, you might feel comfortable in sharing some of your experiences with me so that I can better flesh out my ethnography.

If anyone who is part of the Wikipedia subculture wants to contact me, they can do so through this forum and I will be more than happy to incorporate their views as well.

So with that, thank you in advance for letting me tag along with you on what might just turn out to be a ride more wild than Mr. Toad's.

[Somey]

That all being said, I am an incredibly opinionated individual and will probably find myself in a situation where I want to post and just might do so with the understanding that those opinions won’t find their way into my observations.

Sounds like you'll fit right in! (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

I hope that eventually, after I have earned your trust, you might feel comfortable in sharing some of your experiences with me so that I can better flesh out my ethnography.

Well, there was this time when I was dating this really rich girl, and then one night I mentioned the word "abortion," and next thing ya know, she won't return my phone calls... But I'm guessing that's not the sort of experience you had in mind.

So with that, thank you in advance for letting me tag along with you on what might just turn out to be a ride more wild than Mr. Toad's.

But that isn't really saying much, is it? I mean, if it were wilder than Space Mountain, or maybe the Millenium Force at Cedar Point or the The Steel Dragon at Nagashima Spa Land... that would be something.

Agree with Jon. "Julie" is Poetlister, until I see or hear otherwise.

Well, around here everybody is Poetlister, at least until they pass the "oily finger-pull" initiation test.

Sounds promising, though, once proof of identity that resolves somewhere other than London is established.

Western half of the USA for the first two posts, actually... I hope Julie will forgive me for narrowing things down just slightly, but you can never be too careful with those Londoners!

...The definition from Wikipedia is accurate, but doesn't take into consideration social and cultural changes. Imagined communities is a term used in cultural anthropology to describe any community that isn't based on a physical reference group. Yes, there are opportunities to meet participants in an imagined community, but it isn't a regular thing or the normal way to interact with one another. In terms of Wikipedia, it means that most of the interactions happen without being face to face. This past summer I did some research on encapsulated marginals who are part of the online gaming subculture. All of their social interactions took place within the realms of imagined communities on the internet.

You'll definitely want to start a new thread, then. Most of us actually are interacting with each other face to face, as we'll all being held prisoner in the back room of a bowling alley in Cleveland, OH. Luckily the facility has pretty good wireless internet, and a fully-stocked Coke machine...

I'm confused as to what you are getting at and invite you to actually come out and state what you are accusing me of...

Never mind him. Also, if anyone asks you to "send pics," try to just ignore that too.