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_ The Wikipedia Annex _ The holy shit slide into off-topic land

Posted by: Maunus

QUOTE(timbo @ Fri 25th November 2011, 8:19pm) *

We definitely differ on this... In my view there needs to be what John Kenneth Galbraith called "countervailing force" to the current system in which quality control inspectors (administrators), often of severely deletionist temperament, control the proverbial "front gate" and make use of automated tools that discourage and drive away new content creators. Wikipedia needs more expert participation, not less. When experts are blown away with a lame 20 second page assessment by a New Page Patroller with an itchy trigger finger who is playing some twisted form of a First-Person Shooter game, something needs to be done to change the culture.

I'm not an anarcholiberal into kittens and cookies while the A7 carnage continues. It's gonna take organization and directed effort.

The only way to do that, I think, is for the people seriously dedicated to writing in mainspace to be identified, to be organized, to make demands, and to work together to DRIVE a change of "company culture."

Step one is the identification of those who are "the people seriously dedicated to writing in mainspace."
I am convinced that volume of content contributed to mainspace (in terms of kilobytes added) would be the best metric for separating the sheep and the goats. Ultimately that information is going to have to come from the Foundation... So there will have to be allies at the top...

t


So how would you label me then? And what would be gained by it?

Posted by: thekohser

QUOTE(Maunus @ Fri 25th November 2011, 2:32pm) *

@Kohser: So you say I should implement flagged revisions - now how would I do that exactly?


You're the admin, not me. Your kind drove me off the project... and now you're asking me for advice?

That's rich.

Posted by: Maunus

QUOTE(thekohser @ Fri 25th November 2011, 9:13pm) *

QUOTE(Maunus @ Fri 25th November 2011, 2:32pm) *

@Kohser: So you say I should implement flagged revisions - now how would I do that exactly?


You're the admin, not me. Your kind drove me off the project... and now you're asking me for advice?

That's rich.


Ok, I didn't realize that you prefer to interact with labels instead of persons. I think yopu forgot to read the bit that says that adminship does not come with any special powers to "implement" anything other than blocks and deletions. Even if I blocked everyone who doesn't want flagged revisions and deleted all their arguments - I don't see that this would in fact move us closer to the objective.

Posted by: Detective

QUOTE(thekohser @ Fri 25th November 2011, 9:13pm) *

Your kind drove me off the project.

Aren't you being a bit too self-effacing, Greg? When did you ever leave the project. biggrin.gif

Posted by: thekohser

QUOTE(Detective @ Sun 27th November 2011, 6:45am) *

QUOTE(thekohser @ Fri 25th November 2011, 9:13pm) *

Your kind drove me off the project.

Aren't you being a bit too self-effacing, Greg? When did you ever leave the project. biggrin.gif


Touché.

I guess I should have said more accurately, "Your kind drove my primary User name account off the project."

biggrin.gif

Posted by: SB_Johnny

QUOTE(Maunus @ Fri 25th November 2011, 3:51pm) *

So how would you label me then?

If I'm not mistaken, you're being labeled as yet another Jimmy-juice-slurping wikipediot admin, probably just trolling around on the Review to score some street cred.

Posted by: Detective

QUOTE(SB_Johnny @ Sun 27th November 2011, 9:16pm) *

QUOTE(Maunus @ Fri 25th November 2011, 3:51pm) *

So how would you label me then?

If I'm not mistaken, you're being labeled as yet another Jimmy-juice-slurping wikipediot admin, probably just trolling around on the Review to score some street cred.

hmmm.gif As opposed to admin SB_Johnny, whose trolling around on the Review obviously has an utterly different purpose.

Posted by: Maunus

QUOTE(Detective @ Sun 27th November 2011, 10:24pm) *

QUOTE(SB_Johnny @ Sun 27th November 2011, 9:16pm) *

QUOTE(Maunus @ Fri 25th November 2011, 3:51pm) *

So how would you label me then?

If I'm not mistaken, you're being labeled as yet another Jimmy-juice-slurping wikipediot admin, probably just trolling around on the Review to score some street cred.

hmmm.gif As opposed to admin SB_Johnny, whose trolling around on the Review obviously has an utterly different purpose.


This is amusing. I wonder in which hoods exactly the street cred I gain from participating in this circus holds any currency.

Posted by: SB_Johnny

QUOTE(Detective @ Sun 27th November 2011, 10:24pm) *

QUOTE(SB_Johnny @ Sun 27th November 2011, 9:16pm) *

QUOTE(Maunus @ Fri 25th November 2011, 3:51pm) *

So how would you label me then?

If I'm not mistaken, you're being labeled as yet another Jimmy-juice-slurping wikipediot admin, probably just trolling around on the Review to score some street cred.

hmmm.gif As opposed to admin SB_Johnny, whose trolling around on the Review obviously has an utterly different purpose.
Bingo! laugh.gif
QUOTE(Maunus @ Sun 27th November 2011, 6:35pm) *

This is amusing. I wonder in which hoods exactly the street cred I gain from participating in this circus holds any currency.
I sometimes get the impression that some 'pedians come here mostly to take up the cause of defending WP from its mortal enemies, or to score points against other 'pedians without the shackles of CIVIL and other acronymous policies.

Not that you're necessarily doing that (beats me, not knowing you at all), but I suspect that's the label being applied.

Posted by: radek

QUOTE(Maunus @ Sun 27th November 2011, 5:35pm) *

QUOTE(Detective @ Sun 27th November 2011, 10:24pm) *

QUOTE(SB_Johnny @ Sun 27th November 2011, 9:16pm) *

QUOTE(Maunus @ Fri 25th November 2011, 3:51pm) *

So how would you label me then?

If I'm not mistaken, you're being labeled as yet another Jimmy-juice-slurping wikipediot admin, probably just trolling around on the Review to score some street cred.

hmmm.gif As opposed to admin SB_Johnny, whose trolling around on the Review obviously has an utterly different purpose.


This is amusing. I wonder in which hoods exactly the street cred I gain from participating in this circus holds any currency.


The Wikipedia hood obviously. To switch metaphors on you (and SBJ), what you're basically doing (or are being accused of doing) is "diversifying your portfolio". Any decently diversified portfolio will include even some high-risk assets, like WR, in it.

Posted by: Maunus

QUOTE(radek @ Mon 28th November 2011, 10:02am) *

To switch metaphors on you (and SBJ), what you're basically doing (or are being accused of doing) is "diversifying your portfolio". Any decently diversified portfolio will include even some high-risk assets, like WR, in it.


There may be something to that.

I am not here to defend wikipedia - I am here more to know more about the kinds of critiques non-wikipedians have of it. And perhaps to try to amleiorate some of them. I am a wikipedian because I am currently convinced its best. That changes every few months and I retire or take a wikibreak. I am certainly not a "true believer", but I do believe that its more good than bad, most of the time. I do take issue with a certain ambince I perceive here that wikipedia is pure evil - that seems like an exaggerated conspiracy theory to me. I am very interested in substantive criticisms, and in thinking about ways to address them.

Posted by: thekohser

QUOTE(Maunus @ Mon 28th November 2011, 2:05pm) *

...I am currently convinced its (sic) best. That changes every few months...


You may need to look up the definition of "convinced".

Posted by: radek

QUOTE(Maunus @ Mon 28th November 2011, 1:05pm) *

QUOTE(radek @ Mon 28th November 2011, 10:02am) *

To switch metaphors on you (and SBJ), what you're basically doing (or are being accused of doing) is "diversifying your portfolio". Any decently diversified portfolio will include even some high-risk assets, like WR, in it.


There may be something to that.

I am not here to defend wikipedia - I am here more to know more about the kinds of critiques non-wikipedians have of it. And perhaps to try to amleiorate some of them. I am a wikipedian because I am currently convinced its best. That changes every few months and I retire or take a wikibreak. I am certainly not a "true believer", but I do believe that its more good than bad, most of the time. I do take issue with a certain ambince I perceive here that wikipedia is pure evil - that seems like an exaggerated conspiracy theory to me. I am very interested in substantive criticisms, and in thinking about ways to address them.


The thing is the "critiques of wikipedia" don't necessarily come in a single Reader's Digest concise post - actually, at one point someone WAS making a list. A lot of that is because they tend to unfold in threads over time. Even big things like Essjay or whatever didn't happen with a single post. Of course a lot of threads go off-topic, hit dead-ends, get hijacked by Ottava, etc. And of course, different people have different critiques, some of which clash with each other. So you got to work a bit and read around and be patient and figure out the culture of the site.

And the ambiance must be cultivated carefully - otherwise people like you wouldn't come here in the first place.

Posted by: communicat

QUOTE
EricBarbour Mon 21st November 2011, 3:01am They (WMF) don't want to do anything (about newbie killers), because they would have to ban some very powerful admins. There would be chaos and endless bitching. Plus, I've seen a rumor that a couple of those "evil patrollers" are Anonymous members who do a lot of hacking on the side. The fear is if they were kicked out, they would mount a series of DDOS attacks on the WMF servers, try to crack server passwords and then trash the hard drives, etc.

Eric has a valid point. Many of these admins are simply techno geeks with severely retarded content-related capabilities. Which is the main cause of many acrimonious content disputes arising in the first instance. WP is top-heavy with techno geeks, to the detriment of worthwhile content contributors.

Posted by: Kelly Martin

Very few of Wikipedia's geekileet are competent hackers. A few have access to botnets, but they're using tools they got from someone else, they're not writing the tools themselves. Very few "hackers" really deserve the name; most of them are "scriptkiddies", using tools they got from someone else but do not understand. The ones who do know their stuff don't waste their time on Wikipedia; they have much better things to do.

Wikimedia considers itself immune to DDoS attacks, in no small part because, well, they pretty much are. They've been hit fairly hard on several occasions, without any consequence other than to show a blip on the traffic charts. You'd have to be *really* big to have a measurable impact on the firehose that is Wikimedia's content stream. It's improbable that any scriptkiddie's botnet would present a serious concern.

Posted by: iii

QUOTE(Maunus @ Mon 28th November 2011, 2:05pm) *

I do take issue with a certain ambince I perceive here that wikipedia is pure evil - that seems like an exaggerated conspiracy theory to me. I am very interested in substantive criticisms, and in thinking about ways to address them.


Does "systemically corrupt" = "pure evil" to you? I don't begrudge people who have faced the arbitrary, mealy-mouthed, arrogant, and ignorant actions of what passes for governance at that website their chance to blow-off some steam and say things like, "Wikipedia is pure evil." After all, doing such on the pages of Wikipedia is liable to get one in big trouble with the powers-that-be unless one has some powerful allies. Even then, the so-called "community's tolerance for such behavior" can only be counted on for as far as one's allies have social capital. After that's used up, those self-same allies tend to throw one joyfully under the bus and grave-dance. It's "best", to be sure.

Posted by: SB_Johnny

QUOTE(Maunus @ Mon 28th November 2011, 2:05pm) *

I do take issue with a certain ambince I perceive here that wikipedia is pure evil - that seems like an exaggerated conspiracy theory to me.

Well, that would be an exaggeration, but I don't think you'll actually see any but one or two outliers saying anything like that (if you read carefully). There are of course a good number of folks at the Review who see pure evil (or at least out-of-control narcissism and megalomania) in certain aspects of WP's management and "culture", myself included.

In general, and however it got that way, most folks here are fully aware that joining the ranks of the WP admins tends to entail some serious MMPORG-ish gaming, so people like you (and apparently me as well) will not necessarily be given the benefit of the doubt until people get to know you.

Posted by: EricBarbour

QUOTE(Kelly Martin @ Mon 28th November 2011, 2:49pm) *

Very few of Wikipedia's geekileet are competent hackers. A few have access to botnets, but they're using tools they got from someone else, they're not writing the tools themselves. Very few "hackers" really deserve the name; most of them are "scriptkiddies", using tools they got from someone else but do not understand. The ones who do know their stuff don't waste their time on Wikipedia; they have much better things to do.

Granted, but there's some real concern there. It's not often discussed but always in the background.

QUOTE
Wikimedia considers itself immune to DDoS attacks, in no small part because, well, they pretty much are. They've been hit fairly hard on several occasions, without any consequence other than to show a blip on the traffic charts. You'd have to be *really* big to have a measurable impact on the firehose that is Wikimedia's content stream. It's improbable that any scriptkiddie's botnet would present a serious concern.

Again granted. They have yet to endure a real attack, mostly because the place is somewhat hacker-friendly, and because (as all that ED content will attest) hardcore hackers regard Wikipedia as a somewhat bizarre joke. The only involved parties who haven't gotten the memo yet--members of Wikipedia's hardcore elite. They're so arrogant, they don't know how lame they really are.

Posted by: gomi

QUOTE(Kelly Martin @ Mon 28th November 2011, 2:49pm) *
Wikimedia considers itself immune to DDoS attacks, in no small part because, well, they pretty much are. They've been hit fairly hard on several occasions, without any consequence other than to show a blip on the traffic charts. You'd have to be *really* big to have a measurable impact on the firehose that is Wikimedia's content stream. It's improbable that any scriptkiddie's botnet would present a serious concern.

Agree on the scriptkiddie part, but disagree more broadly. I think that en.wikipedia.org is potentially vulnerable to a number of different attack types, just not the same ones that target small- and medium-volume commercial and government websites.

I'm not going to detail my suspicions, but I think they center not on the user interface of the wiki, which is pretty lightweight, but on the underlying database system. To take an example, it was once the case that if a page had more than 10k revisions, it was essentially impossible to delete (or more to the point, the deletion of it brought the database to a screeching halt). This has since been remedied, but I suspect that there are other vulnerabilities out there that are not exploited because Wikipedia is such a low-value target for hackers. It would be worth some lulz, but not much more.

Wikipedia is in some ways more vulnerable than some other db-driven sites, as it exposes certain of its interfaces to the public.

To take another example, a botnet that simply tried to DDOS WP through page reads would, as Kelly points out, probably fail. But a sufficiently-sized botnet that 1) created accounts; 2) made small and initially innocuous edits; 3) round-robined these edits around an IP-dispersed botnet; 4) and then targeted some editor, some set of pages, or some process within WP using that infrastructure would be very difficult to stop.

In fact, this would be the way to make Wikipedia full-protect all BLPs -- write a botnet that would persistently zero them out from logged-in accounts. Such a botnet would be barely noticeable on the host computer, but would wreak havoc on WP and have the lovely side-effect of getting tens or hundreds of thousands of IP addresses blocked.

Posted by: Kelly Martin

QUOTE(EricBarbour @ Mon 28th November 2011, 5:21pm) *
Again granted. They have yet to endure a real attack, mostly because the place is somewhat hacker-friendly, and because (as all that ED content will attest) hardcore hackers regard Wikipedia as a somewhat bizarre joke. The only involved parties who haven't gotten the memo yet--members of Wikipedia's hardcore elite. They're so arrogant, they don't know how lame they really are.
The reason, Eric, why Wikipedia has not suffered a serious attack is because it's not vulnerable to the usual approaches that you can get scripts for. If you want to attack Wikipedia, you're going to have to write a customized attack vector, and there just aren't enough hackers with both the interest and the skill for this to have happened yet.

Wikipedia is certainly vulnerable, as gomi points out, but it's not vulnerable to a DDoS-style attack. They're far more vulnerable to carefully-crafted attacks based on their fairly stupid internal architecture; such attacks only require a handful of attack vectors, not thousands as are typically employed for a DDoS.

Posted by: communicat

The apparent ease with which some admins and/or their accomplices are able to secretly manipulate and/or falsify or otherwise interfere with article edit histories -- without anything at all showing on the record -- leads me to suspect their technical capabilities may go beyond mere scriptkiddie stuff.

Posted by: EricBarbour

QUOTE(Kelly Martin @ Mon 28th November 2011, 3:57pm) *

If you want to attack Wikipedia, you're going to have to write a customized attack vector, and there just aren't enough hackers with both the interest and the skill for this to have happened yet.

That's basically what I was saying. They don't attract the interest of the really dangerous ones--
mostly because there's no money in cracking the WP database. I've seen a lot of alleged "1337
h4xors" over the years. Almost all of them are like WP admins, smug teenaged boys with ADD
and "authority issues". Usually more interested in pirating game warez than in any real "hacking".
Legends in their own minds etc. They could write one of those reformatting bots (which helps
explain why there are so damn many on WP today), but serious Linux server cracking will always
be beyond them.

One of the few favorable things that WP can claim, and I've said before: it is one of the largest
successful uses of open-source software for a major website. It didn't cost hundreds of millions of
dollars to assemble, it just took several years, and a lot of fooling developers into being enthusiastic
about the "mission". That enthusiasm is slowly evaporating.

Posted by: Maunus

QUOTE(radek @ Mon 28th November 2011, 8:57pm) *


The thing is the "critiques of wikipedia" don't necessarily come in a single Reader's Digest concise post - actually, at one point someone WAS making a list. A lot of that is because they tend to unfold in threads over time. Even big things like Essjay or whatever didn't happen with a single post. Of course a lot of threads go off-topic, hit dead-ends, get hijacked by Ottava, etc. And of course, different people have different critiques, some of which clash with each other. So you got to work a bit and read around and be patient and figure out the culture of the site.

And the ambiance must be cultivated carefully - otherwise people like you wouldn't come here in the first place.


Of course not, that's why I registered as a user to keep following the news as they come in - but perhaps you are right that I should have stuck to lurking for awhile. Perhaps I ought to go back to lurking now...

Posted by: mbz1

QUOTE(Maunus @ Tue 29th November 2011, 4:08am) *

QUOTE(radek @ Mon 28th November 2011, 8:57pm) *


The thing is the "critiques of wikipedia" don't necessarily come in a single Reader's Digest concise post - actually, at one point someone WAS making a list. A lot of that is because they tend to unfold in threads over time. Even big things like Essjay or whatever didn't happen with a single post. Of course a lot of threads go off-topic, hit dead-ends, get hijacked by Ottava, etc. And of course, different people have different critiques, some of which clash with each other. So you got to work a bit and read around and be patient and figure out the culture of the site.

And the ambiance must be cultivated carefully - otherwise people like you wouldn't come here in the first place.


Of course not, that's why I registered as a user to keep following the news as they come in - but perhaps you are right that I should have stuck to lurking for awhile. Perhaps I ought to go back to lurking now...

No, you ought not. I believe you were attacked unfairly. I am sure that you came here not to get popularity, but to make a difference on wikipedia.
Some people here dislike wikipedia so much that they want it dead, but with all it's problems wikipedia is probably to be around for a long time, and the more wikipedians will be trying to understand the problems and to fix them, the better.
So, welcome to you, Maunus!

Posted by: communicat

QUOTE(EricBarbour @ Tue 29th November 2011, 2:57am) *

QUOTE(Kelly Martin @ Mon 28th November 2011, 3:57pm) *

If you want to attack Wikipedia, you're going to have to write a customized attack vector, and there just aren't enough hackers with both the interest and the skill for this to have happened yet.

That's basically what I was saying. They don't attract the interest of the really dangerous ones--
mostly because there's no money in cracking the WP database. I've seen a lot of alleged "1337
h4xors" over the years. Almost all of them are like WP admins, smug teenaged boys with ADD
and "authority issues". Usually more interested in pirating game warez than in any real "hacking".
Legends in their own minds etc. They could write one of those reformatting bots (which helps
explain why there are so damn many on WP today), but serious Linux server cracking will always
be beyond them.

One of the few favorable things that WP can claim, and I've said before: it is one of the largest
successful uses of open-source software for a major website. It didn't cost hundreds of millions of
dollars to assemble, it just took several years, and a lot of fooling developers into being enthusiastic
about the "mission". That enthusiasm is slowly evaporating.

An attack in the form of serious hacking is IMO somewhat beside the point, in the context of what might happen in retaliation if certain, troublesome admins are kicked out. Fiddling anonymously and off the record with article edit histories, which doesn't require any hacking expertise as such, can (and does, in my experience) result in endless acrimony, disruption, battlefield conditions and editorial chaos. Certain existing, troublesome admins together with their accomplices know very well how to accomplish that, without anything ever showing on the record. I know this for a fact, and so do a number of other disenchanted/disenfranchised former wikipedians. It is common practise.

Posted by: thekohser

QUOTE(mbz1 @ Mon 28th November 2011, 11:21pm) *

No, you ought not. I believe you were attacked unfairly. I am sure that you came here not to get popularity, but to make a difference on wikipedia.
Some people here dislike wikipedia so much that they want it dead, but with all it's problems wikipedia is probably to be around for a long time, and the more wikipedians will be trying to understand the problems and to fix them, the better.
So, welcome to you, Maunus!


But, Maunus... if you do stay and keep chiming in here, I would like for you to promise us one thing... when (not if, but when) you become discouraged with Wikipedia and decide to quit it altogether, will you please publish here in big, green letters...

QUOTE
You guys sure were right about Wikipedia. It's evil!

Posted by: Maunus

QUOTE(thekohser @ Tue 29th November 2011, 8:04pm) *


But, Maunus... if you do stay and keep chiming in here, I would like for you to promise us one thing... when (not if, but when) you become discouraged with Wikipedia and decide to quit it altogether, will you please publish here in big, green letters...

QUOTE
You guys sure were right about Wikipedia. It's evil!



That happens every four or five months...

Posted by: Ottava

QUOTE(thekohser @ Tue 29th November 2011, 3:04pm) *

QUOTE(mbz1 @ Mon 28th November 2011, 11:21pm) *

No, you ought not. I believe you were attacked unfairly. I am sure that you came here not to get popularity, but to make a difference on wikipedia.
Some people here dislike wikipedia so much that they want it dead, but with all it's problems wikipedia is probably to be around for a long time, and the more wikipedians will be trying to understand the problems and to fix them, the better.
So, welcome to you, Maunus!


But, Maunus... if you do stay and keep chiming in here, I would like for you to promise us one thing... when (not if, but when) you become discouraged with Wikipedia and decide to quit it altogether, will you please publish here in big, green letters...

QUOTE
You guys sure were right about Wikipedia. It's evil!




I don't think that is possible - Maunus was gleefully part of the "evil" of Wikipedia. I love http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&diff=312007024&oldid=312006472 where a person decides that the Persian Empire no longer exists, turns it into a redirect, and 9 people wanting to keep it as it was (i.e. a 60k page) were not proof of a "consensus" to not defacto delete the page. 64% of people area against a proposed change and that isn't enough to stop the change. A real wacko reinterpretation of standards in order to defend some friends in their absolute insanity.

Posted by: communicat

With all this talk of WP’s predestined failure, I have a rather more sceptical approach to the idea of organizational progress or failure. It is a fallacy to hold that progress is unmixed; that technological progress goes along with moral progress, or to postulate there can be measurable progress in the quality of human endeavour in the world of knowledge, of which WP is ostensibly a part. In the world of knowledge as in any other, growth and decay are inextricably linked. There is no composition without decomposition: not just a rearranging or falling apart, but a rotting to the bone to bring to light the essentially dysfunctional elements of the structure.

Speaking of which, and given the toxicity and extent of interpersonal abrasiveness here at WR, I wonder if this site is not doomed to become an imitator of the very people and modus operandi that WR presumes to be combating? Is WR justified in overlooking its own human costs? I think not. There’s clearly something amiss in a forum that claims to have more than 1000 members while in practise it’s dominated by only a comparative handful of combative “regulars”, each competing against the other to demonstrate how witty or “educated” they are. This to the hypocritical detriment of any real solidarity in exposing and opposing the WP malpractises WR claims to abhor.


Posted by: Vigilant

QUOTE(communicat @ Wed 30th November 2011, 5:00pm) *

With all this talk of WP’s predestined failure, I have a rather more sceptical approach to the idea of organizational progress or failure. It is a fallacy to hold that progress is unmixed; that technological progress goes along with moral progress, or to postulate there can be measurable progress in the quality of human endeavour in the world of knowledge, of which WP is ostensibly a part. In the world of knowledge as in any other, growth and decay are inextricably linked. There is no composition without decomposition: not just a rearranging or falling apart, but a rotting to the bone to bring to light the essentially dysfunctional elements of the structure.

Speaking of which, and given the toxicity and extent of interpersonal abrasiveness here at WR, I wonder if this site is not doomed to become an imitator of the very people and modus operandi that WR presumes to be combating? Is WR justified in overlooking its own human costs? I think not. There’s clearly something amiss in a forum that claims to have more than 1000 members while in practise it’s dominated by only a comparative handful of combative “regulars”, each competing against the other to demonstrate how witty or “educated” they are. This to the hypocritical detriment of any real solidarity in exposing and opposing the WP malpractises WR claims to abhor.

Which is in no way a reflection of your contributions here, I'm sure.

Posted by: Maunus

QUOTE(Ottava @ Wed 30th November 2011, 4:22pm) *


I don't think that is possible - Maunus was gleefully part of the "evil" of Wikipedia. I love http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&diff=312007024&oldid=312006472 where a person decides that the Persian Empire no longer exists, turns it into a redirect, and 9 people wanting to keep it as it was (i.e. a 60k page) were not proof of a "consensus" to not defacto delete the page. 64% of people area against a proposed change and that isn't enough to stop the change. A real wacko reinterpretation of standards in order to defend some friends in their absolute insanity.


Yes, I remember how that comment made you call for me to be desysopped immediately - for disagreeing with you. I really am very happy that you are gone from wikipedia never to come back. That indeed is glee...

Posted by: SB_Johnny

QUOTE(Maunus @ Wed 30th November 2011, 4:09pm) *

Yes, I remember how that comment made you call for me to be desysopped immediately - for disagreeing with you. I really am very happy that you are gone from wikipedia never to come back. That indeed is glee...

I've had to remove "glee" from my vocabulary, since it invariably makes me think of whatever Journey song they converted to a cappella. In general, the smart people here have long since put Ottava on ignore.

I'm open to suggestions about what portions of this thread should be thrown in the annex, because it started out as an interesting topic.

Posted by: cookiehead

I've recently edited a few articles. I can't help it, I'm a compulsive proofreader, and can't stand to read half of the shit I find on WP without editing it. The copy is horrible in almost every article I find.

So after a few years of getting frustrated with Wikinazi's, I tried to stay away. Came back recently, and find it's more frustrating than ever to edit Wikipedia. You're constantly reverted by people who have no idea how to write a proper sentence, let alone a coherent paragraph. Most of them are obviously running up "edit counts" (even see them update their profiles with it).

Reverts are made to a series of edits that greatly improve on grammar, coherence, etc, because some article "owner" doesn't like their original crap being improved.

Actually had one multi-alias clown try and frame me as an anti-semite yesterday over someone else's editing. Next I'll be accused of Scientology.

Who really wants to improve Wikipedia when these Wiki Nazi's are intent on playing social media games over ensuring that articles are written above a retarded child's level?

There. Steam let off. Thank you, WR.

Posted by: cookiehead

Here's what started some WP Twat and his other alias after my ass. While this despicable human being was trying to remove WP:RS (Espn) from Bernie Fine's article, I restored another editor's edit of a very reliable, and very applicable fact about Bernie Fine.


http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bernie_Fine&diff=prev&oldid=461206269

This Baseball Bugger must be a Syracuse grad or a pedo himself.


Posted by: Alison

Annex!

Posted by: Ottava

QUOTE(Maunus @ Wed 30th November 2011, 4:09pm) *

QUOTE(Ottava @ Wed 30th November 2011, 4:22pm) *


I don't think that is possible - Maunus was gleefully part of the "evil" of Wikipedia. I love http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&diff=312007024&oldid=312006472 where a person decides that the Persian Empire no longer exists, turns it into a redirect, and 9 people wanting to keep it as it was (i.e. a 60k page) were not proof of a "consensus" to not defacto delete the page. 64% of people area against a proposed change and that isn't enough to stop the change. A real wacko reinterpretation of standards in order to defend some friends in their absolute insanity.


Yes, I remember how that comment made you call for me to be desysopped immediately - for disagreeing with you. I really am very happy that you are gone from wikipedia never to come back. That indeed is glee...



Instead of saying "I was a total douche for completely lying about all the rules and policies to try and support a few friends who wished only to destroy pages in an unwarranted manner" you just keep up with it. The thing is, my contributions are far superior to anything you would have produced and you have no defense above. You basically are worthless.

Posted by: EricBarbour

yecch.gif Yes, someone please remove the whining above.......

Posted by: Maunus

QUOTE(SB_Johnny @ Wed 30th November 2011, 9:17pm) *


I've had to remove "glee" from my vocabulary, since it invariably makes me think of whatever Journey song they converted to a cappella. In general, the smart people here have long since put Ottava on ignore.


Thanks for the idea! I've never been on a forum where that option existed before - that is sooo useful!

Posted by: communicat

QUOTE(thekohser @ Tue 29th November 2011, 10:04pm) *


QUOTE
You guys sure were right about Wikipedia. It's evil!



Nah, the real evil is the deficient education system that produces supposedly "educated" wackeypedians and the warped thinking that underlies WP's so-called policy of consensus. It is a policy that is diametrically opposed to what is known as divergent thinking, which in turn is an essential prerequisite for creative thinking. For more on divergent thinking -- or the absence thereof -- take a look at Changing Education Paradigms
http://www.facebook.com/l/HAQGjhz0LAQFIX2S6121lUFo8ioTx7hht763CVQ_2l26DeA/www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

Posted by: cookiehead

According to this Barnstar Genius, I've made a personal attack on my user page....on no one. Tough to do, but I did it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:The_Bushranger

Posted by: EricBarbour

QUOTE(cookiehead @ Thu 1st December 2011, 11:41am) *

According to this Barnstar Genius, I've made a personal attack on my user page....on no one. Tough to do, but I did it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:The_Bushranger

Your talkpage is full of win. Carry on. Don't forget to create tons of sock accounts. evilgrin.gif