Proof Jimbo Wales is the internet's #1 troll Options

[LamontStormstar]

Sure this is kinda like the proof that George W. Bush is the world's #1 terrorist. There's a video somewhere on Youtube of that proof.


Anyway, Wikipedia administrators always call anyone who disagrees with them or dislikes them a troll. And then on critic sites, people point out proof that many of their administrators are internet trolls.

Jimbo Wales himself also is a bit into the whole troll-calling thing and he even did a lecture on it.



Well, consider: Jimbo Wales himself is a troll.

Jimbo Wales got wikipedia going, funded it, and helped to get it popular. Wikipedia has now severely disrupted the internet, which is what trolls aim to do.

Again, like a true troll, Jimbo Wales provokes and then sits back to let others do the fighting. He has a wiki where about anyone can edit and so all these editors constantly are in conflict with each other. Yes, Jimbo Wales's actions have provoked millions of people into fighting each other on his website. The fighting will never ever end as long as Wikipedia remains up.

So is this not proof that Jimbo Wales is the internet's #1 troll?

[Cedric]

Sure this is kinda like the proof that George W. Bush is the world's #1 terrorist. There's a video somewhere on Youtube of that proof.


Anyway, Wikipedia administrators always call anyone who disagrees with them or dislikes them a troll. And then on critic sites, people point out proof that many of their administrators are internet trolls.

Jimbo Wales himself also is a bit into the whole troll-calling thing and he even did a lecture on it.

What do you mean by "a bit into"? I thought he was the very definition of it.

[Rochelle]

He has a wiki where about anyone can edit and so all these editors constantly are in conflict with each other. Yes, Jimbo Wales's actions have provoked millions of people into fighting each other on his website. The fighting will never ever end as long as Wikipedia remains up.

Yes, people fight on Wikipedia. On almost every website this is true, so why single out Wikipedia? I have made many friends on Wikipedia, and very few (if any) enemies. People say kind things to each other as well as nasty things. But because people fight doesn't mean Jimbo created the site just for them to do so.

[dtobias]

Fighting goes along with just about any online site or forum. Fighting has always been part of Usenet since it started in the 1970s. Fighting was a big enough part of the dialup bulletin board system network Fidonet in the 1980s that it was sometimes nicknamed "Fight-o-net". There is nothing unique about Wikipedia for that.

[Kato]

Fighting goes along with just about any online site or forum. Fighting has always been part of Usenet since it started in the 1970s. Fighting was a big enough part of the dialup bulletin board system network Fidonet in the 1980s that it was sometimes nicknamed "Fight-o-net". There is nothing unique about Wikipedia for that.

You people seem to be under the impression that wikipedia is a kind of online hangout for lonely people to meet up, to agree and disagree about topics, and then move on.

I neither know, nor care what Usenet, Fidonet or any other of these haunts for veteran computer geeks are all about. None of these things impacted on the collective consciousness and educational development of the wider world.

Wikipedia is completely different. There is no community, and it is purporting to be an "encyclopedia containing the sum of human knowledge".

The more I read on these boards and elsewhere, the more I understand that most of the participants in this unholy mess are lonely nerds who have been going from "online community" to "online community" looking for a home. Motivated by a compulsive need to get into tedious, narcissistic, adolescent scraps with strangers. They're not really interested in the content of an encyclopedia. WP might as well be an online kitchen warehouse for these people.

I got dragged into WP because yes, the idea was novel, but mostly because I thought I had the skills and background to improve the wider world's understanding of specific topics. Which I think I did. Probably better than most. However, having seen the damage WP is inflicting on the world - on multiple fronts - I'm now on this board trying to help bring WP down. This is the first board I've ever been a regular poster to, and that is my motive for being here.

What the hell is yours?

[dtobias]

My motive? Probably largely the "lonely nerd" stuff you guessed... plus a desire to keep Wikipedia from being torn down by its enemies both within and without (the power freaks inside Wikipedia, and the bashers outside it).

Actually, a wide variety of "geek projects" have bandied about rhetoric about wanting to change the world from the dawn of geekdom. (Ted Nelson's "Computer Lib / Dream Machines" book, published in 1975, was full of utopian dreaming.) However, only a small handful have actually succeeded in doing so, and Wikipedia happens to be one of them.

[Jonny Cache]

My motive? Probably largely the "lonely nerd" stuff you guessed … plus a desire to keep Wikipedia from being torn down by its enemies both within and without (the power freaks inside Wikipedia, and the bashers outside it).

Actually, a wide variety of "geek projects" have bandied about rhetoric about wanting to change the world from the dawn of geekdom. (Ted Nelson's "Computer Lib / Dream Machines" book, published in 1975, was full of utopian dreaming.) However, only a small handful have actually succeeded in doing so, and Wikipedia happens to be one of them.

{{↑DELUSIONAL↑}}

Jonny (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/cool.gif)

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:

[WhispersOfWisdom]

Fighting goes along with just about any online site or forum. Fighting has always been part of Usenet since it started in the 1970s. Fighting was a big enough part of the dialup bulletin board system network Fidonet in the 1980s that it was sometimes nicknamed "Fight-o-net". There is nothing unique about Wikipedia for that.

You people seem to be under the impression that wikipedia is a kind of online hangout for lonely people to meet up, to agree and disagree about topics, and then move on.

I neither know, nor care what Usenet, Fidonet or any other of these haunts for veteran computer geeks are all about. None of these things impacted on the collective consciousness and educational development of the wider world.

Wikipedia is completely different. There is no community, and it is purporting to be an "encyclopedia containing the sum of human knowledge".

The more I read on these boards and elsewhere, the more I understand that most of the participants in this unholy mess are lonely nerds who have been going from "online community" to "online community" looking for a home. Motivated by a compulsive need to get into tedious, narcissistic, adolescent scraps with strangers. They're not really interested in the content of an encyclopedia. WP might as well be an online kitchen warehouse for these people.

I got dragged into WP because yes, the idea was novel, but mostly because I thought I had the skills and background to improve the wider world's understanding of specific topics. Which I think I did. Probably better than most. However, having seen the trail of wreckage WP is increasingly causing to the world - on multiple fronts - I'm now on this board trying to help bring it down. This is the first board I've ever been a regular poster to, and that is my motive for being here.

What the hell is yours?

Amen.

Maybe we can bring some wisdom, experience, strength and hope to the internet world; where age and time tested ways of living actually produce great and meaningful results that do not have to default to the mediocre and / or average.

Consensus rule and the foundation of a wiki model fails every time.

Change the Wikipedia model or it will have start over.

[Rochelle]

Fighting goes along with just about any online site or forum. Fighting has always been part of Usenet since it started in the 1970s. Fighting was a big enough part of the dialup bulletin board system network Fidonet in the 1980s that it was sometimes nicknamed "Fight-o-net". There is nothing unique about Wikipedia for that.

You people seem to be under the impression that wikipedia is a kind of online hangout for lonely people to meet up, to agree and disagree about topics, and then move on.

I neither know, nor care what Usenet, Fidonet or any other of these haunts for veteran computer geeks are all about. None of these things impacted on the collective consciousness and educational development of the wider world.

Wikipedia is completely different. There is no community, and it is purporting to be an "encyclopedia containing the sum of human knowledge".

The more I read on these boards and elsewhere, the more I understand that most of the participants in this unholy mess are lonely nerds who have been going from "online community" to "online community" looking for a home. Motivated by a compulsive need to get into tedious, narcissistic, adolescent scraps with strangers. They're not really interested in the content of an encyclopedia. WP might as well be an online kitchen warehouse for these people.

I got dragged into WP because yes, the idea was novel, but mostly because I thought I had the skills and background to improve the wider world's understanding of specific topics. Which I think I did. Probably better than most. However, having seen the trail of wreckage WP is increasingly causing to the world - on multiple fronts - I'm now on this board trying to help bring it down. This is the first board I've ever been a regular poster to, and that is my motive for being here.

What the hell is yours?

Doen't know about anyone else, but I'm not a geek, no matter how much I joke around about being one. Not very many people the know me know I edit Wikipedia.

Interesting, though, that you should bring up geekiness. D&D is a featured article today. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/tongue.gif)

[everyking]

Wow, this argument crashed in a ball of flames as soon as you made your first point: "Wikipedia has now severely disrupted the internet, which is what trolls aim to do." Kind of a trollish argument anyway, isn't it?

[Somey]

Personally, I think it goes without saying. Remember, Jimbo's most famous quote is "We make the internet not suck." Which implies that he thinks the rest of the internet sucks, and that he has the solution for it.

If you showed up on Wikipedia with that attitude, of course most of the regulars would call you a "troll." And why not? "Trolling" is exactly what you'd be doing, right?

I'm not so uncharitable as to say that someone saying those things on WP would be immediately banned or even immediately dismissed, as they do occasionally give such people a reasonably fair hearing... But you have to look a little deeper than the attitude, too. Dedicated Wikipedians, generally speaking, believe that their site provides information in ways that the rest of the internet does not, or even cannot, and in terms of sheer volume, far more than other websites. All quality issues can be fixed, and all community issues can be managed. By comparison, the rest of the internet is too chaotic, unmanaged, and unpredictable. In short, it lacks a working control structure.

By holding up Wikipedia as some sort of "shining example" of user-driven quality and organization amidst so much dross, they might actually be providing a pretext for governments and perhaps even corporate groups to "take control" of the internet in order to "improve" it.

That would be the supreme irony, of course....

[LamontStormstar]

Wow, this argument crashed in a ball of flames as soon as you made your first point: "Wikipedia has now severely disrupted the internet, which is what trolls aim to do." Kind of a trollish argument anyway, isn't it?

That's pretty illogical and your statement offends me a lot so perhaps it is trolling.

Remember, Jimbo's most famous quote is "We make the internet not suck."

That should have been the Bomis motto.

I'm not so uncharitable as to say that someone saying those things on WP would be immediately banned or even immediately dismissed,

They usually get dismissed. Recent example: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=157900899

Yes, people fight on Wikipedia. On almost every website this is true, so why single out Wikipedia? I have made many friends on Wikipedia, and very few (if any) enemies. People say kind things to each other as well as nasty things. But because people fight doesn't mean Jimbo created the site just for them to do so.

Fighting goes along with just about any online site or forum. Fighting has always been part of Usenet since it started in the 1970s. Fighting was a big enough part of the dialup bulletin board system network Fidonet in the 1980s that it was sometimes nicknamed "Fight-o-net". There is nothing unique about Wikipedia for that.

These two quotes above kind of disprove my theory. Too bad. I was so close to proving Jimbo a hypocrite like George W. Bush has been proven so.


This post has been edited by LamontStormstar:

[Firsfron of Ronchester]

Personally, I think it goes without saying. Remember, Jimbo's most famous quote is "We make the internet not suck." Which implies that he thinks the rest of the internet sucks, and that he has the solution for it.

But... the internet did suck; at least a large portion of it did. For example, back in the late 1990s, I recall, my cousin was diagnosed with "Wet Brain". We (his extended family) tried to look it up on-line using those late 90s search engines (Hotbot, Go.com, etc) without satisfying results. We still didn't know what it was after quite a few searches. The ability to look up information quickly and easily on-line has improved; Wikipedia's article on Wet Brain may have inaccuracies (I don't know if it does), but it gives me a quick overview on what it is and where to find more information on-line.

Popular culture depictions of the Internet in the 1990s often depicted it as a vast storehouse of information where just about anything could be found. But the search engines sucked, the web sites always seemed to be GeoShitties or other banner-infected crap, and --aside from a short period when InfoSeek was decent-- I couldn't find jack.

Much as I'd like Wikipedia to improve its content, adopt an opt-out policy for marginally notable people, and remove parties with vested interests from having an editorial voice on the encyclopedia, I wouldn't go back to those GeoShitty/HotBot years for anything. I do think it's an improvement... even a vast one. I know that's not what people want to hear, though.

[BobbyBombastic]

That's a good post Firsfron. But there were some decent geocities sites! The good ones were difficult to find and required the patience of Yoda to browse, due to the pop up ads and all, but some were good. Not to mention, a lot of those geocities folks probably abandoned their posts and went on to create articles and edit Wikipedia.

I guess the internet did suck then. I do remember using it in a more utilitarian way than I do now, but that probably has more to do with connection speeds and the vast amount of content that there is now. I can't say how much Wikipedia has influenced the rise (and type) of content, but I guess they probably did have a hand in inspiring some of it. I can appreciate Wikipedia as a place to look up thinks like what "Wet Brain" is and the like, but then there are other things about it that are sickening. I still think a lot of that revolves around the unfortunate choice of the word "encyclopedia" to describe it and users assigning an importance to themselves because of that word. But then again, I am fairly geeky. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/unsure.gif)

[Somey]

Actually, I'm not disputing what Firsfron says above - the internet very much did suck, and I might even go so far as to say it still does, though obviously less than it did.

The issue with Jimbo and Co. is, quite simply, hubris. Hubris leads to arrogance, which leads to insularity, which leads to cultish behavior... If you start with the idea that your solution to a problem is the one that will work, and you can then produce metrics (in this case, Alexa rankings and hit-count) to prove that it does, in fact, work - then the process towards insularity is completely predictable. And yet, most of WP's supporters (if not most people in general) would say this is almost absurd, given the near-total openness of the content-generation model.

It's an interesting problem - explaining to an outsider how a website that "anyone can edit" can actually be moving in the direction of a closed-loop, hierarchical authority structure isn't easy. I think they used to call it "top-down management," but even that isn't easily demonstrable anymore, given Jimbo's increasing distance from day-to-day operations and decisionmaking.

So you can only really describe it in terms like "hive-mind" and "cultishness" and such... You have to look at patterns and tendencies among groups, and that takes time and effort, which most people don't have the patience for. And so the worst ones, those who deliberately operate in a manipulative fashion, mostly get away with it.

I should come up with an analogy for this...

[Emperor]

The more I read on these boards and elsewhere, the more I understand that most of the participants in this unholy mess are lonely nerds who have been going from "online community" to "online community" looking for a home. Motivated by a compulsive need to get into tedious, narcissistic, adolescent scraps with strangers.

So does this mean you won't be attending the Wikipedia Review picnic?

[Jonny Cache]

Actually, I'm not disputing what Firsfron says above — the internet very much did suck, and I might even go so far as to say it still does, though obviously less than it did.

The issue with Jimbo and Co. is, quite simply, hubris. Hubris leads to arrogance, which leads to insularity, which leads to cultish behavior … If you start with the idea that your solution to a problem is the one that will work, and you can then produce metrics (in this case, Alexa rankings and hit-count) to prove that it does, in fact, work - then the process towards insularity is completely predictable. And yet, most of WP's supporters (if not most people in general) would say this is almost absurd, given the near-total openness of the content-generation model.

It's an interesting problem — explaining to an outsider how a website that "anyone can edit" can actually be moving in the direction of a closed-loop, hierarchical authority structure isn't easy. I think they used to call it "top-down management", but even that isn't easily demonstrable anymore, given Jimbo's increasing distance from day-to-day operations and decisionmaking.

So you can only really describe it in terms like "hive-mind" and "cultishness" and such … You have to look at patterns and tendencies among groups, and that takes time and effort, which most people don't have the patience for. And so the worst ones, those who deliberately operate in a manipulative fashion, mostly get away with it.

I should come up with an analogy for this …

I've warned you about that before —

Jonny (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/cool.gif) I-BOSA-U Local # 61396

Speaking ex officio, though, the way of it is really quite simple. You can ∑ it ↑ on the following two principles:

• Wikipedia — we don't edit articles, we edit people.
• Consensus Is Just Another Word For Nobody Left To Ban

Then again, maybe that's only one principle after all.

Jonny (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/cool.gif)

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:

[Firsfron of Ronchester]

But there were some decent geocities sites! The good ones were difficult to find and required the patience of Yoda to browse, due to the pop up ads and all, but some were good. Not to mention, a lot of those geocities folks probably abandoned their posts and went on to create articles and edit Wikipedia.

Good point. There were (and probably still are) many good Geocities pages. Hidden behind all the pop-ups, banners, right-hand advertising bar, and that awful watermark thing. I had a Geocities page myself, back in '97 before their big advertising kick began, and I'm sure thousands of other Wikipedia editors are former Geoshitties people. I think I left around the time they added that hateful watermark thing.

I guess the internet did suck then. I do remember using it in a more utilitarian way than I do now, but that probably has more to do with connection speeds and the vast amount of content that there is now. I can't say how much Wikipedia has influenced the rise (and type) of content, but I guess they probably did have a hand in inspiring some of it. I can appreciate Wikipedia as a place to look up thinks like what "Wet Brain" is and the like, but then there are other things about it that are sickening.

Absolutely, Bobby. I think that goes for the rest of the Internet, too.

[Firsfron of Ronchester]

Actually, I'm not disputing what Firsfron says above - the internet very much did suck, and I might even go so far as to say it still does, though obviously less than it did.

There are several governmental entities which maintain great databases of information on-line. As you probably already know, the state of Iowa has awesome collections of population records, maps, historic photographs, etc, going back to 1900. It is really impressive, and it is free to anyone with internet access. This is the sort of thing I was hoping for when I first went on-line in 1997: these on-line databases of free, easily-accessed information. It took a decade of suckitude, though, for it to happen, and only a few government entities, in my experience, offer the amount of information that Iowa provides. And even Iowa doesn't maintain on-line information on unincorporated and disincorporated communities, etc.

So, like you Somey, I think the situation is slowly improving. I'm not sure how much Wikipedia can be given credit for this change (if it can be at all!), but it's clear people were tired of searching for information and coming up with absolute junk. "Wikipedia: we're better than GeoShitties!" is hardly a ringing endorsement...

The issue with Jimbo and Co. is, quite simply, hubris. Hubris leads to arrogance, which leads to insularity, which leads to cultish behavior...

[/Yoda] (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/tongue.gif)

If you start with the idea that your solution to a problem is the one that will work, and you can then produce metrics (in this case, Alexa rankings and hit-count) to prove that it does, in fact, work - then the process towards insularity is completely predictable. And yet, most of WP's supporters (if not most people in general) would say this is almost absurd, given the near-total openness of the content-generation model.

It's an interesting problem - explaining to an outsider how a website that "anyone can edit" can actually be moving in the direction of a closed-loop, hierarchical authority structure isn't easy. I think they used to call it "top-down management," but even that isn't easily demonstrable anymore, given Jimbo's increasing distance from day-to-day operations and decisionmaking.

So you can only really describe it in terms like "hive-mind" and "cultishness" and such... You have to look at patterns and tendencies among groups, and that takes time and effort, which most people don't have the patience for. And so the worst ones, those who deliberately operate in a manipulative fashion, mostly get away with it.

I should come up with an analogy for this...

Don't listen to Johnny, Somey! (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif) Analogies are good! Let's hear it...

(edited to fix the quotes)

This post has been edited by Firsfron of Ronchester:

[Proabivouac]

I think the proper analogy is Lord of The Flies.

There are still many decent administrators there, but (as is often the case with decent people) they tend to avoid conflict and aren't aggressive enough to control the process. They are being shoved aside by thoughtless and unprincipled IRC-based types like Ryulong and Krimpet, who make up for what they lack in personal depth and talent with back-channel agitation and naked aggression.

This post has been edited by Proabivouac: