Some notes on the London ‘wikimeet’ yesterday. Main purpose, to meet Sue Gardner and other people, build some bridges, be in listening and questioning but not arguing mode. Wikipedia is here to stay: it is a like a big corporate with the power of Google, and it is dangerous in a number of ways and that one way (not the only way) to confront its power is to meet with the people who have some authority over it, to ask them if they think there are problems, and to ask how they think these can be resolved.

I met with Richard Symonds (‘chase me ladies’), who was in full uniform after attending a Remembrance day service. He seems genuine, and his fiancee (Panyd/Fiona Apps) is very sweet. Richard is trying to persuade me that the £500,000 WMUK budget was raised by WMUK and was not a grant from the foundation. I am not convinced (yet) but have not had a full discussion either.

Met also with Andreus (JN466) and his wife Maryana (DracoEssentialis), and got on instantly. Andreus is HRIP7 (?) on Wikipedia Review, and is a strong supporter. He had come to talk to Sue about the image filter issue, was quite persistent and had a further meeting after I had left.

Talked to Sue about the gender thing, again in listening mode. She is onside on some things. She disliked the way that they promoted the Human Centipede on the front page on Halloween, and quite strongly critical offline of the way much of Wikipedia (especially Commons) comes across as a smutty men’s locker room, in which women are signally not welcome. Less welcome was her uncritical acceptance of dumbing down the place with pink glittery things in order to attract new editors, as was her implicit view that more articles are needed, rather than better articles. I did not challenge any of this, however.

Met a number of Wikipedians who were frankly and almost objectionably hostile. I couldn’t tell whether this was because they are normally that way, or whether because I introduced myself as PD. I tried to make some 'block' jokes, and even offered a 'G5 deletion tour' around London sites of interest whose articles have been deleted for being written by a banned editor, but didn't get many laughs.

Finally, discussed the BLP issue with Roger Davies. Andreus felt he was sympathetic, I did not. Davies, who looks like the Fat Controller, complete with moustache, said that publishing was ‘not fair’, as though that were a reason for Wikipedia not being fair. I said the usual things – people take the Daily Mail with a pinch of salt, whereas Wikipedia pretends to be an encyclopedia, and some people believe that. Victims of the press are usually people with a high public profile, whereas Wikipedia is able to pick on anyone. Davies did not seem to accept that there are certain editors on Wikipedia who have an BLP agenda, and when I mentioned specific names the shutters went down. I admit to slightly losing my cool at this point, but only slightly. Davies also said that he was only one among many, and what could he do – it was impossible to get consensus on anything. They always say that.

Finally, I met some of the philosophy editors there, who universally agreed that the philosophy coverage on Wikipedia was crap.