Guardian article -- Wikimedia: "Fox News's campaign against us is nonsense", with comments Options

[HRIP7]

Article in the Guardian, with reader comments.

[GlassBeadGame]

Article in the Guardian, with reader comments.

Odd that the article is only about people talking about theoretical pornography with the Guardian not taking the effort to look to see if there is any. That is the difference between the tech press which only covers the self absorbed dramas and inward conversation and Fox journalist, Janna Winters, who for all the flaws in her coverage took the trouble to look, then look after Mr.Wales indicated that the problem was being addressed. What she found was pornography, a whole lot of pornography, both before and after Wales' claim. The result was exposing just how irresponsible and incapable of self policing the WMF community really is. This coverage made liars of WMF Godwin and Wales who all initially made self-serving pronouncements about "vigilant volunteers" keeping Commons free from pornography.

Too bad to see Seth Finkelstein can't get beyond the usual internet libertarian clap-trap about "moral panic."

[Moulton]

Fundamental Design Flaw

The aforementioned words of Seth Finkelstein, the resident Wikipedia expert at The Guardian:

The combination of moral-panic-mongers willing to practice a politics of personal destruction and the ability to anonymously advocate for one's favorite fetish on one of the world's most widely read websites leads to constant low-intensity conflict. Wikipedia trades off quality control for greater production. That same design flaw is manifested in extremely weak and failure-prone mechanisms for determining the boundary between provocative and profane.

[dogbiscuit]

Article in the Guardian, with reader comments.

Odd that the article is only about people talking about theoretical pornography with the Guardian not taking the effort to look to see if there is any. That is the difference between the tech press which only covers the self absorbed dramas and inward conversation and Fox journalist, Janna Winters, who for all the flaws in her coverage took the trouble to look, then look after Mr.Wales indicated that the problem was being addressed. What she found was pornography, a whole lot of pornography, both before and after Wales' claim. The result was exposing just how irresponsible and incapable of self policing the WMF community really is. This coverage made liars of WMF Godwin and Wales who all initially made self-serving pronouncements about "vigilant volunteers" keeping Commons free from pornography.

Too bad to see Seth Finkelstein can't get beyond the usual internet libertarian clap-trap about "moral panic."

The first few comments list a few example categories, with a wonderful rejoinder "Ah, so that's what not safe for work means!" which amply make the point (the news writers do seem incapable of seeing that Jimbo is being deliberately disingenuous on the issue).

I thought Seth's comment at the end was incomprehensible - an awful lot of long words that failed to say what I think he meant which was "If you put a load of idiots on the Interweb together, what do you expect?" but the moral panic was a low blow - there is nothing panicky in pointing out that there is a shed load of very iffy material on Wikipedia and no system to deal with it.

[Moulton]

I'd love to chat with Seth about his thoughts on the fundamental design flaw that fails to map out "a boundary between provocative and profane."

I will grant you that such a conversation can become abstract to the point where it becomes indistinguishable from theology, but I personally think he's on to something significant.

This post has been edited by Moulton: Mon 17th May 2010, 3:34pm

[thekohser]

thekohser

17 May 2010, 3:59PM

I would leave a very cogent and detailed comment here; however, The Guardian in the past has arbitrarily deleted my comments without warning, explanation, or any opportunity to modify them so that they meet Guardian's terms of service. These comments of mine came in response to articles by Seth Finkelstein (who is mentioned in the article above), but the Guardian also threw Seth out to the curb a while back. In sum, I have much to contribute on this subject of Wikimedia Foundation malfeasance, but I refuse to waste my efforts on a Guardian website that, after the work is done, can ball up and trash-can said effort, without any warning.
*


*
CharlesArthur

17 May 2010, 4:22PM
Staff

@thekohser - we did not "[throw] Seth out to the curb". We always found, and still do find, his insights really valuable: that's why we've quoted him here. (There's more on his Infothought blog.) However due to the budget crunch last year we couldn't afford to keep using his columns. I wish we had.

As to comment moderation, we have our community standards (linked below each comment box). Comments that don't meet them are liable to be deleted. Sorry, but we don't have the time or humans to get into a back-and-forth about editing or revising comments (think for a moment what that would involve for a site like this which receives thousands of comments every day).

It must be soooo difficult getting into a "back-and-forth" about arbitrarily censoring content that contains a link to a study of falsehoods in Wikipedia's articles about US senators.

This post has been edited by thekohser: Mon 17th May 2010, 7:55pm

[dogbiscuit]

thekohser

17 May 2010, 3:59PM

I would leave a very cogent and detailed comment here; however, The Guardian in the past has arbitrarily deleted my comments without warning, explanation, or any opportunity to modify them so that they meet Guardian's terms of service. These comments of mine came in response to articles by Seth Finkelstein (who is mentioned in the article above), but the Guardian also threw Seth out to the curb a while back. In sum, I have much to contribute on this subject of Wikimedia Foundation malfeasance, but I refuse to waste my efforts on a Guardian website that, after the work is done, can ball up and trash-can said effort, without any warning.
*


*
CharlesArthur

17 May 2010, 4:22PM
Staff

@thekohser - we did not "[throw] Seth out to the curb". We always found, and still do find, his insights really valuable: that's why we've quoted him here. (There's more on his Infothought blog.) However due to the budget crunch last year we couldn't afford to keep using his columns. I wish we had.

As to comment moderation, we have our community standards (linked below each comment box). Comments that don't meet them are liable to be deleted. Sorry, but we don't have the time or humans to get into a back-and-forth about editing or revising comments (think for a moment what that would involve for a site like this which receives thousands of comments every day).

It must be soooo difficult getting into a "back-and-forth" about arbitrarily censoring content that contains a link to a study of falsehoods in Wikipedia's articles about US senators.

I've had some personal email conversations with Charles Arthur when he was the technology correspondent of the Independent. He might be susceptible to a reasoned discussion. Having fired the shot across his bows, perhaps a copy of GBG's quotes of the statements of the WMF/Jimbo etc. vs the reality might not only stick but might also prompt a little thought, with a little flattery in his direction.

[Ottava]

The article fails to mention that Jimbo was attacked for trying to delete the porn has been called an idiot and more worse vulgarities in open IRC rooms by gmaxwell, Mattbuck, esby, Abigor, and the stewards Drini, Darkoneko, and Laaknor while bullying anyone who bothered to agree with what he did.

Many of these have made it clear that they are very nasty people who would create a poisonous atmosphere without any legitimate reason, and there is strong documentation of it.

[dogbiscuit]

The article fails to mention that Jimbo was attacked for trying to delete the porn has been called an idiot and more worse vulgarities in open IRC rooms by gmaxwell, Mattbuck, esby, Abigor, and the stewards Drini, Darkoneko, and Laaknor while bullying anyone who bothered to agree with what he did.

Many of these have made it clear that they are very nasty people who would create a poisonous atmosphere without any legitimate reason, and there is strong documentation of it.

I'm not usually a fan of IRC logs, but if anyone has any logs of admins abusing The Black Smirking One, it might just help to contradict the WMF chaff of the wonders that their community perform for them. To be fair, he was being pretty openly abused on Wikipedia (whatever happened to NPA?).

[Ottava]

The article fails to mention that Jimbo was attacked for trying to delete the porn has been called an idiot and more worse vulgarities in open IRC rooms by gmaxwell, Mattbuck, esby, Abigor, and the stewards Drini, Darkoneko, and Laaknor while bullying anyone who bothered to agree with what he did.

Many of these have made it clear that they are very nasty people who would create a poisonous atmosphere without any legitimate reason, and there is strong documentation of it.

I'm not usually a fan of IRC logs, but if anyone has any logs of admins abusing The Black Smirking One, it might just help to contradict the WMF chaff of the wonders that their community perform for them. To be fair, he was being pretty openly abused on Wikipedia (whatever happened to NPA?).

If you drop by my user page on Commons, I made it clear that I already released parts of the chat with some of the nastiness and bullying by gmaxwell (Greg Maxwell, of Kat Walsh fame) and others that makes it clear the level of deception and abuse they will stump to in order to promote actions and views that are not only unethical and dishonest but not even acceptable within our rather lenient policy.

As I said before, Jimbo could be a god-king, but these people are giving him a run for his money in terms of blatant abuse of ops and language in order to belittle and destroy those who are standing up for what is reasonable and right. It is wonderful to what extent Greg will go to promote the "free at all costs necessary" point of view that has corrupted parts of the Board and the community.

[NotARepublican55]

I'd love to chat with Seth about his thoughts on the fundamental design flaw that fails to map out "a boundary between provocative and profane."

I think the problem is that Wikipedia is biased in favor of keeping any explicit content out of fear of "censorship". Personally I don't have a problem with explicit content being on WP - I have a problem with useless content (whether it's pornographic or not).

Wikipedia's problem isn't that it contains any graphic images. Keeping porn just because it's porn is where WP fails. The Wikipediots are so afraid of being guilty of "censorship" that they go up in arms any time someone suggests deleting some random guy's homemade penis pics from Commons. And because of this, users can basically use it as free porn hosting service (a violation of WM policy) - if they just shout "censorship!" enough, no admin will be brave enough to delete their porno.

For that matter, this attitude is really a site wide problem (it doesn't just come out when deleting porn is concerned). Any time a person favors removing any type of content that the Inclusionidiots like, they'll ignore the arguments and chant "censorship/WP:IDONTLIKEIT/bad faith/POV" in unison until that person is labeled a "disruptor" and either told to "STFU" or outright banned because they couldn't yell as loudly as the mob.

All in all, the community is a complete joke, and the head haunchos are too afraid of losing members to make an effort to improve the editing standards of the site. I don't see any real incentive for them to crack down on the community either, since moronic editors are a dime-a-dozen compared to serious ones. More editors = more edits = more site hits = more donation money. So where's the incentive for Jimbo to improve site standards (and lose droves of morons in the process?) I don't see it.