FORUM WARNING [2] Division by zero (Line: 2933 of /srcsgcaop/boardclass.php) FORUM WARNING [2] Division by zero (Line: 2943 of /srcsgcaop/boardclass.php) Jimbo causes Blofeld to quit -
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I don't know why so many "long-time editors" seem very surprised and indignant to discover that Jimmy Wales is a horrible manager of communities, and that he's basking in success and fame on the thankless labor served up by grunts who don't realize that Jimmy Wales keeps the architecture deliberately labor-intensive, because it's so addictive.
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QUOTE(thekohser @ Wed 2nd February 2011, 5:20pm)
I don't know why so many "long-time editors" seem very surprised and indignant to discover that Jimmy Wales is a horrible manager of communities, and that he's basking in success and fame on the thankless labor served up by grunts who don't realize that Jimmy Wales keeps the architecture deliberately labor-intensive, because it's so addictive.
''Me'' pay attention to the facts of reality? That's coming from you who makes claims in the public every week about our "efforts to improve quality" and your naive claims that you aim to dramatically increase the number of female editors. You expect things to happen which are beyond your control and you expect people to go out of their way to get things done for you. Maybe if you actually offered decent incentives to editors to get much needed work done for you you'd attract better contributors and more female editors instead of expecting everybody to pussy foot around you while you reap all the rewards. As a leader I'd expect you to respect people's viewpoints instead of dismissing them like you have done here. As a leader you are often very narrow minded and often shockingly ignorant of people's viewpoints to develop the project. I've often had good ideas which I think will dramatically improve the project and proposed them to you in the uttermost good faith as I want to see the project grow and you and Sue have been about as helpful as goldfish.♦ [Dr. Blofeld] 14:55, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
I don't have much of an opinion yet on the underlying topic, but Jimbo is certainly thin-skinned about criticism. That said, the "listen to me, listen to me!" nature of the comment is a little shrill.
''Me'' pay attention to the facts of reality? That's coming from you who makes claims in the public every week about our "efforts to improve quality" and your naive claims that you aim to dramatically increase the number of female editors. You expect things to happen which are beyond your control and you expect people to go out of their way to get things done for you. Maybe if you actually offered decent incentives to editors to get much needed work done for you you'd attract better contributors and more female editors instead of expecting everybody to pussy foot around you while you reap all the rewards. As a leader I'd expect you to respect people's viewpoints instead of dismissing them like you have done here. As a leader you are often very narrow minded and often shockingly ignorant of people's viewpoints to develop the project. I've often had good ideas which I think will dramatically improve the project and proposed them to you in the uttermost good faith as I want to see the project grow and you and Sue have been about as helpful as goldfish.♦ [Dr. Blofeld] 14:55, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
I don't have much of an opinion yet on the underlying topic, but Jimbo is certainly thin-skinned about criticism. That said, the "listen to me, listen to me!" nature of the comment is a little shrill.
Jimmy defines "trolling" as any opinion he takes a dislike to.
Blofeld will be back very shortly, he's given too much to Wikipedia, there's no easy way out for an addict like him.
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QUOTE(Ottava @ Wed 2nd February 2011, 3:02pm)
Jimbo never accused me of being a sexist or a troll. Maybe a troll behind my back. I feel left out. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/unhappy.gif)
So? Did you ever go to his TALK page and write: "Maybe if you actually offered decent incentives to editors to get much needed work done for you you'd attract better contributors and more female editors instead of expecting everybody to pussy foot around you while you reap all the rewards."
I think if you had, it probably would not have stayed long.
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QUOTE(thekohser @ Wed 2nd February 2011, 10:20am)
I don't know why so many "long-time editors" seem very surprised and indignant to discover that Jimmy Wales is a horrible manager of communities, and that he's basking in success and fame on the thankless labor served up by grunts who don't realize that Jimmy Wales keeps the architecture deliberately labor-intensive, because it's so addictive.
Good luck on the "outside", Blofeld!
Consider the rather pathetic sweetness and social cluelessness of Blofeld thinking that he can somehow change Jimbo's mind, or Wikipedia, by showing up on Jimbo's TALK page and complaining. As though Jimbo would pay any attention. As though the comments would be allowed to stay long enough for anybody ELSE to pay attention. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wacko.gif) It's even funnier when you consider the username Blofeld has chosen for himself. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif) (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/confused.gif)
Hey, Blofeld! Would-be Bond-villain! (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif) Wikipedia Review exists as a separate website, and not as a TALK page of Wikipedia, for a very good reason. No really pointed criticism of the S.O.P. at WP, or management at WMF, will ever be hosted by WP. They can't abide it.
That's why we do it all from our secret lair, here under this fake volcano. And Alison: that helmet-suit you're wearing in the lair doesn't fool us one bit. You walk like a girl!
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QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Wed 2nd February 2011, 5:13pm)
QUOTE(Ottava @ Wed 2nd February 2011, 3:02pm)
Jimbo never accused me of being a sexist or a troll. Maybe a troll behind my back. I feel left out. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/unhappy.gif)
So? Did you ever go to his TALK page and write: "Maybe if you actually offered decent incentives to editors to get much needed work done for you you'd attract better contributors and more female editors instead of expecting everybody to pussy foot around you while you reap all the rewards."
I think if you had, it probably would not have stayed long.
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QUOTE(Ottava @ Wed 2nd February 2011, 11:12pm)
But yes, anyone else think it is odd how Blofield thinks his "contributions" are anything more than what a bot could do?
Much as it pains me to do so, I'm going to defend Blofeld on that score. Don't let the flood of bot-generated substubs he created hide the fact that he did a lot of substantive work on important-but-unfashionable topics which went generally unnoticed, as they're neither in English-speaking countries nor ever mentioned in The Simpsons—Deforestation in Brazil, Sharabha or Maiden Tower (Baku) for instance. If Wikipedia is ever going to become a credible reference work, those are just the kind of significant-but-not-covered-by-Britannica topics which it ought to have.
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QUOTE(Eva Destruction @ Wed 2nd February 2011, 8:03pm)
QUOTE(Ottava @ Wed 2nd February 2011, 11:12pm)
But yes, anyone else think it is odd how Blofield thinks his "contributions" are anything more than what a bot could do?
Much as it pains me to do so, I'm going to defend Blofeld on that score. Don't let the flood of bot-generated substubs he created hide the fact that he did a lot of substantive work on important-but-unfashionable topics which went generally unnoticed, as they're neither in English-speaking countries nor ever mentioned in The Simpsons—Deforestation in Brazil, Sharabha or Maiden Tower (Baku) for instance. If Wikipedia is ever going to become a credible reference work, those are just the kind of significant-but-not-covered-by-Britannica topics which it ought to have.
Okay, okay, I'll grant you that, but still - those super stubs are still mind boggling.
(As a note, not Blofield but Blofield did do a lot of work on the article).
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QUOTE(Ottava @ Thu 3rd February 2011, 1:13am)
Okay, okay, I'll grant you that, but still - those super stubs are still mind boggling.
They are indeed. Dr. Blofeld and I recently had a little spat after I called him the king of the micro-stubs, but to be fair he's done a lot more than that, and a lot more than many others, including Jimmy Wales.
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A few notes: To Blofeldt: Of course Jimbo has nothing but contempt for Blo´s contribution.....but then Jimbo has nothing but contempt for any of us suckers who works for free (for him, he hopes). I thought that had been quite obvious for years?
And the question at hand: I, for one, was completely dumbfounded by the ...the...., let us say "shortness of vision" that Gardner showed in her now infamous and much repeated statements about lack of women in wikipedia. (But, that maybe because I am not very interested in the articles about Jimmy Choo & Manolo Blahnik. Or even their shoes.)
Being female, and contributing in the Israel/Palestine-area....where Wikipedia has a reputation of matching Göring and Goebbels output of hate and propaganda (hi, Goodwin!)....is a slightly more troublesome aspect, I would have thought. And the same problem is present in several other areas. And Jimbo just doesn´t get it.
(And I´ll leave Gardner´s total over-sell of her own "achievements" on wikipedia: just a typical "climber" self-promotion that few would have reacted against if she had been a man (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif) )
Ah, but the pair of Gardner and Jimbo: where did you ever see such a fine pair of intellectual .. pygmies?
There is some good stuff on wp, (to quote Leonard Cohen: there are flowers on the garbage-heap), but apparently the current leadership does not see any need to weed out the garbage. And with their self-serving attitude, I do not expect much from them in the future.
The only solution, I think -sometime- in the future, someone else will develop the idea of online encyclopedia...hopefully taking the "good" stuff from wp.
That would leave wikipedia behind; sort of letting wikipedia be to online encyclopedia what altavista has become to online search engines: "the great new thing" one day.... totally forgotten 15 years after.
(Note to self: spend more time on licensing-issues.)
PS: I could say a lot about Blofeldt...but since this thread is about Jimbo (Thanks, Greg)..I´ll leave it for now. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/tongue.gif)
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I've caused Blofeld to "retire" at least twice. He seems to do it often. Whether or not a lack of validation is the straw that breaks the camel's back in this instance is another question.
To Blofeld, I can only recommend that if he really feels as he does on his user page, there are plenty of other places to write and numerous places to get money and/or cash at the same time. <If I were Kohs, ad goes here>
Contributing to a freely editable reference work out of some expectation of validation is not a great motivation. Some are ignorant, others just don't care about Jimmy and the WMF because the sausage is more interesting than how its made.
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QUOTE(The Adversary @ Thu 3rd February 2011, 7:52am)
(And I´ll leave Gardner´s total over-sell of her own "achievements" on wikipedia: just a typical "climber" self-promotion that few would have reacted against if she had been a man (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif) )
Have to disagree, there. Resume-padding may be common, but any male-dominated or technical organization has a way around it. There's a bull session, and it doesn't involve how many women you've slept with (or how many grandchildren you have). It's to find out if you can be trusted to hold up your end. So inquiry is made to see if you speak the lingo, how many base jumps you have, how many logged dives, how many hours of flying time and in what sorts of aircraft, what weapons have you qualified with, what is your batting average, how many class 5 climbs have you done, and where, did you ever lead anything above 5.1, and so on. Whatever the honest metric of competence is, in the task at hand. In this world-- the world of competence-driven authority, not formal organization-assigned authority-- Sue wouldn't last 10 minutes before being pegged as a poseur.
Does all of this correspond with "formal rank" in human organizations? No, indeed! The biggest friction in any organization is the basic friction between people who have the assigned authority to tell others what to do, and those people who SHOULD have it, by way of competence and experience. Wikipedia has not solved this problem, either. However, most volunteer organizations and recreational organizations (especially those involving dangerous activities like climbing, diving, etc) do a far better job of solving it than Wikipedia has (and indeed, than WMF has).
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QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Thu 3rd February 2011, 7:01pm)
QUOTE(The Adversary @ Thu 3rd February 2011, 7:52am)
(And I´ll leave Gardner´s total over-sell of her own "achievements" on wikipedia: just a typical "climber" self-promotion that few would have reacted against if she had been a man (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif) )
Have to disagree, there. Resume-padding may be common, but any male-dominated or technical organization has a way around it. There's a bull session, and it doesn't involve how many women you've slept with (or how many grandchildren you have). It's to find out if you can be trusted to hold up your end. So inquiry is made to see if you speak the lingo, how many base jumps you have, how many logged dives, how many hours of flying time and in what sorts of aircraft, what weapons have you qualified with, what is your batting average, how many class 5 climbs have you done, and where, did you ever lead anything above 5.1, and so on. Whatever the honest metric of competence is, in the task at hand. In this world-- the world of competence-driven authority, not formal organization-assigned authority-- Sue wouldn't last 10 minutes before being pegged as a poseur.
Does all of this correspond with "formal rank" in human organizations? No, indeed! The biggest friction in any organization is the basic friction between people who have the assigned authority to tell others what to do, and those people who SHOULD have it, by way of competence and experience. Wikipedia has not solved this problem, either. However, most volunteer organizations and recreational organizations (especially those involving dangerous activities like climbing, diving, etc) do a far better job of solving it than Wikipedia has.
Are we not talking about two different things, here? One is the internal "pecking-order" in an organization. Wikipedia equivalent of # of base jumps or logged dives is to ask how many DYK, FA, and FAs have you achieved, your edit-count, your articles created, your barnstars, block-record (or lack of it), bla, bla bla. (And yeah; much can be said of the merit, or lack of it, of these "measurements", but, as this Blofeld -case shows: all the "normal" wikipedia "measurements" counts for absolutely nothing if you do not kiss the behind of The Great Leader.)
However, another thing is the "spin" presented to the "outside"...which is what Gardner is/was guilty of. Note the forum: she isn´t presenting herself as a great editor inside the organization...that would be too stupid. No, she is presenting her spin to the (gullible) outsiders (read: newspapers).
Which is, to me, completely unsurprising.
Now; what is more interesting is that her lack of logged dives wikipedia-edits, and/or a lack of ...shall we say, "intellectual stature", gives her such a shallow insight into fundamental problems of wikipedia. But that is something she shares with Jimbo.
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QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Thu 3rd February 2011, 12:01pm)
The biggest friction in any organization is the basic friction between people who have the assigned authority to tell others what to do, and those people who SHOULD have it, by way of competence and experience.
I know someone (working for a large US corporation) whose job largely consists of, whenever there is a problem to be fixed, finding out who is responsible for getting it fixed, finding out who can actually fix it, and making sure that they don't talk to one another, so that the problem will actually get fixed in a timely manner.
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QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Thu 3rd February 2011, 1:01pm)
QUOTE(The Adversary @ Thu 3rd February 2011, 7:52am)
(And I´ll leave Gardner´s total over-sell of her own "achievements" on wikipedia: just a typical "climber" self-promotion that few would have reacted against if she had been a man (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif) )
Have to disagree, there. Resume-padding may be common, but any male-dominated or technical organization has a way around it. There's a bull session, and it doesn't involve how many women you've slept with (or how many grandchildren you have). It's to find out if you can be trusted to hold up your end. So inquiry is made to see if you speak the lingo, how many base jumps you have, how many logged dives, how many hours of flying time and in what sorts of aircraft, what weapons have you qualified with, what is your batting average, how many class 5 climbs have you done, and where, did you ever lead anything above 5.1, and so on. Whatever the honest metric of competence is, in the task at hand. In this world-- the world of competence-driven authority, not formal organization-assigned authority-- Sue wouldn't last 10 minutes before being pegged as a poseur.
Does all of this correspond with "formal rank" in human organizations? No, indeed! The biggest friction in any organization is the basic friction between people who have the assigned authority to tell others what to do, and those people who SHOULD have it, by way of competence and experience. Wikipedia has not solved this problem, either. However, most volunteer organizations and recreational organizations (especially those involving dangerous activities like climbing, diving, etc) do a far better job of solving it than Wikipedia has (and indeed, than WMF has).
I wish I could frame this post.
QUOTE(Kelly Martin @ Thu 3rd February 2011, 1:42pm)
QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Thu 3rd February 2011, 12:01pm)
The biggest friction in any organization is the basic friction between people who have the assigned authority to tell others what to do, and those people who SHOULD have it, by way of competence and experience.
I know someone (working for a large US corporation) whose job largely consists of, whenever there is a problem to be fixed, finding out who is responsible for getting it fixed, finding out who can actually fix it, and making sure that they don't talk to one another, so that the problem will actually get fixed in a timely manner.
Is that a local policy at your acquaintance's office? Or is it a corporate policy at all locations?
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QUOTE(Kelly Martin @ Thu 3rd February 2011, 12:42pm)
I know someone (working for a large US corporation) whose job largely consists of, whenever there is a problem to be fixed, finding out who is responsible for getting it fixed, finding out who can actually fix it, and making sure that they don't talk to one another, so that the problem will actually get fixed in a timely manner.
Interesting - does the person in question act as a mediator, or actually as a form of interference? I mean, if a person like that simply reduced the number of meetings and memos by half, or even less than half, that could justify a full-time salary right there, for some companies. Maybe lots of companies.
That's the thing about Wikipedia too, of course - they're hierarchical and bureaucratic when they should be flexible, and chaotic/disorganized when they should have clear lines of authority. That's because people are drawn to whatever is the most fun when tangible incentives and disincentives are taken away, and anything that involves dealing with real people in the real world is unusually no fun at all.
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QUOTE(gomi @ Wed 2nd February 2011, 1:24pm)
QUOTE
''Me'' pay attention to the facts of reality? That's coming from you who makes claims in the public every week about our "efforts to improve quality" and your naive claims that you aim to dramatically increase the number of female editors. You expect things to happen which are beyond your control and you expect people to go out of their way to get things done for you. Maybe if you actually offered decent incentives to editors to get much needed work done for you you'd attract better contributors and more female editors instead of expecting everybody to pussy foot around you while you reap all the rewards. As a leader I'd expect you to respect people's viewpoints instead of dismissing them like you have done here. As a leader you are often very narrow minded and often shockingly ignorant of people's viewpoints to develop the project. I've often had good ideas which I think will dramatically improve the project and proposed them to you in the uttermost good faith as I want to see the project grow and you and Sue have been about as helpful as goldfish.♦ [Dr. Blofeld] 14:55, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
I don't have much of an opinion yet on the underlying topic, but Jimbo is certainly thin-skinned about criticism. That said, the "listen to me, listen to me!" nature of the comment is a little shrill.
Well, absolutely, and at the risk of boring people with my usual pat diagnosis, it's standard-issue online narcissism. Blofeld is a classic case - he's always been like this, but at least in this particular instance he seems to have a fairly clear view of what's going on now, even though he naturally tends to define the problems in self-referential terms.
I should say, though, that while it probably depends on the nature of the "incentives," I doubt that any sort of meaningful incentive program would increase the percentage of female WP users. What's more, it's pretty clear that the WMF leadership understands that, and that their recent talk has been almost solely for the purpose of sounding like they care, because that's what Big Donors want to hear. (The Big Donors don't really care either, of course, other than for the PR value.)
As for Blofeld, you never know - maybe this time he'll stay away for more than a couple of days. If he could just get to a full week, preferably two or three weeks, he might have a real shot. The real psychological withdrawal doesn't start for at least a week or two.
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QUOTE(Somey @ Sat 5th February 2011, 12:58am)
As for Blofeld, you never know - maybe this time he'll stay away for more than a couple of days. If he could just get to a full week, preferably two or three weeks, he might have a real shot. The real psychological withdrawal doesn't start for at least a week or two.
There's that, which I would put down to an addictive/obsessive personality type of some kind... and there's also misery-loves-company, where other WP'ers try to get you to come back, so that you feel like Al Pacino in that "'dey pull me back in" speech from Godfather III. And then there's just simple boredom and loneliness, not knowing where else to go.
I guess what I'm saying is that the person in question has to really want to quit, and (depending on the degree of addiction) needs some sort of plan. It's pretty clear that Blofeld doesn't really want to quit, and has no plan. Even though at this point, it seems like for him, Wikipedia could be a significant factor in a closed-loop of repressed self-loathing, which isn't healthy at all - even (or maybe especially) for a narcissist.
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What I think you are missing here Somey is that I actually choose to edit wikipedia because I want to see it improved and move towards certain topics which I think we should cover and get away from focusing on US culture. If I need to stop editing or want to, I really have no problems with stopping. At the end of the day it is just a website so talking about me having this incurable disease is absurd. Yes , I agree that I've spent way too much time editing wikipedia but I have many days when I am very enthusiastic and probably overedit and others, especially recently where don't really care about wikipedia and I've dedicated more time to learning jazz, spanish and working out. In fact I'm sure if you did an "analysis" of my editing history you'd find my edit count and number of article creations way down on what it was in 2007-2008.
I really don't think it is important what Jimbo thinks. What infuriated me was the way he has never shown support yet was quick to pass me off as a "troll". Sort of a kick in the teeth really. Most of the time I try to focus on what editing the site gains for me as a resource, not what Jimbo is getting paid...
As for
"Wikipedia could be a significant factor in a closed-loop of repressed self-loathing, which isn't healthy at all - even (or maybe especially) for a narcissist."
Somey. You really have a strange perception..... Sure I like people to approve of things I do and to make myself feel that I'm doing something worthwhile. If I was really a "self-loathing narcissist" I think wikipedia would be the last website I'd turn to...
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Jazz and flamenco is my passion. Try Larry Carlton, Joe Pass, Barney Kessel, Tocuardo Mariano, Bireli Lagrene, Neil Schon, Santana, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, oldies like Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, Dave Brubeck etc and flamenco/classical like Paco de Lucia, John McLaughlin, Al Di Meola, John Williams, Paco de Pena, Andres Segovia and the gorgeous Ana Vidovic. All of them are the true musicians unlike most of today's "artists". Naturally I'm heavily into blues and rock too. I'm a guitarist but I'm learning jazz piano.
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QUOTE(Dr. Blofeld @ Tue 8th February 2011, 4:07pm)
Jazz and flamenco is my passion. Try Larry Carlton, Joe Pass, Barney Kessel, Tocuardo Mariano, Bireli Lagrene, Neil Schon, Santana, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, oldies like Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, Dave Brubeck etc and flamenco/classical like Paco de Lucia, John McLaughlin, Al Di Meola, John Williams, Paco de Pena, Andres Segovia and the gorgeous Ana Vidovic. All of them are the true musicians unlike most of today's "artists". Naturally I'm heavily into blues and rock too. I'm a guitarist but I'm learning jazz piano.
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OK then, who are the administrators who most agree have most lost the plot in terms of what wikipedia is really about? Because a lot of the "pretend policemen" I've encountered don't seem to have actually edited an encyclopedia article in five years...
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QUOTE(Dr. Blofeld @ Tue 8th February 2011, 1:34pm)
Out of curiosity who is the most hated wikipedia administrator amongst you lot? Who are the ones people really detest on here?
Check out Wikipedia WP:DICK of Distinction awards pageant, and the history of that award, and you'll get a statistically valid answer, within the margin of error for Internet forums.
Other than Jimbo himself, SlimVirgin, Cyde, JzG, Jayjg, FT2, and especially David Gerard seem to have attracted the most negative scrutiny here, varying over the years. Ryulong, Elonka, Will Beback, and Rual654 are also (or once were) frequently mentioned. In other words, about who you'd expect.
As an aside, you won't get very far with the "you lot" business. Membership here is pretty diverse, ranging from multiple sitting WP Arbcom members, admins, and checkusers to banned and ardent despisers of Wikipedia and everything it stands for -- and everything in between. Not much unanimity of opinion, except perhaps that Jimbo is a dick.
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QUOTE(Dr. Blofeld @ Tue 8th February 2011, 1:52pm)
OK then, who are the administrators who most agree have most lost the plot in terms of what wikipedia is really about?
You, but then you're not an admin.
Look thru these subfora. Eeny, meeney, miney, moe. Or have a look at past winners of the DICK Award.
Short answer: the more powerful they are, the less plot they have.
I'm curious....did you ever finish university, or are you one of those "professional student" types, who can afford to spend 16 hours a day logged into Wikipedia because you have no intention of graduating? And just how much do you enjoy being exploited by Jimbo and Sue?
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QUOTE(Dr. Blofeld @ Tue 8th February 2011, 3:52pm)
OK then, who are the administrators who most agree have most lost the plot in terms of what wikipedia is really about? Because a lot of the "pretend policemen" I've encountered don't seem to have actually edited an encyclopedia article in five years...
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QUOTE(Dr. Blofeld @ Tue 8th February 2011, 2:06pm)
What I think you are missing here Somey is that I actually choose to edit wikipedia because I want to see it improved and move towards certain topics which I think we should cover and get away from focusing on US culture.
Surely you'll forgive us for thinking there's a reason for your astonishingly extensive editing (and stub-creation) activity that goes beyond mere "wanting to improve..."?
QUOTE
What infuriated me was the way he has never shown support yet was quick to pass me off as a "troll". Sort of a kick in the teeth really.
But do you know why he did that? I believe I do, and if so, it has very little to do with the quality of your WP contributions, perceived or otherwise.
QUOTE
Somey. You really have a strange perception..... Sure I like people to approve of things I do and to make myself feel that I'm doing something worthwhile. If I was really a "self-loathing narcissist" I think wikipedia would be the last website I'd turn to...
IMO there's really no such thing as a "self-loathing narcissist." Once you turn to self-loathing, you cease to be a narcissist - sure, there are people who would argue that nearly any combination of psychological characteristics are possible within such a broad classification, but I'm not one of them.
Bearing that in mind, my point was that if you're a narcissist, with all that entails (craving praise and attention; ascribing powers and knowledge to oneself that are at least partially imaginary; inability to handle criticism; inaccurately invoking authority/history as being "on your side," etc.), you can eventually get to be so beaten down by things like social rejection and harsh peer criticism that you just snap - your ego-facade crumbles, you might even have a kind of nervous breakdown, and you can become very depressed as a result. True, it's less likely to happen as a result of Wikipedian interaction than as a result of problems at a real-life job or among one's immediate family, because the personal stakes are so much lower. But it does occasionally happen - we've seen it happen.
This is why I'm rooting for you to get out (of WP) and stay out. This website we're on here, WR, is actually a healthier place for you than Wikipedia is, even with all the people who think you're a general-purpose menace. (Admittedly though, that's not saying much!) (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)
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OK, thanks for your replies Somey. Now Mr. Fuchs (sorry for being an A-hole to you on wikipedia, the system tends to do that sort of thing to people) any ideas about websites which pay editors to write for them and actually reward them for their efforts? I've done a fair bit of paid work myself for music related forums but nothing much beyond that of late. Most of the others have been shitty we'll pay you 2 cents for 100 page views type schemes and only eligible for US citizens...
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QUOTE(Dr. Blofeld @ Tue 8th February 2011, 6:01pm)
OK, thanks for your replies Somey. Now Mr. Fuchs (sorry for being an A-hole to you on wikipedia, the system tends to do that sort of thing to people) any ideas about websites which pay editors to write for them and actually reward them for their efforts? I've done a fair bit of paid work myself for music related forums but nothing much beyond that of late. Most of the others have been shitty we'll pay you 2 cents for 100 page views type schemes and only eligible for US citizens...
I am not Mr. Fuchs, but I might be able to help you in regard to getting writing gigs. It all depends on the subject you are interested in covering and your talent/background as a writer. You can send me a private message if you want to have a serious talk about that.
SlimVirgin? Never had any beef with her I don't recall but would the opposite I suppose would be User:FatLardSlapper. That would be quite a username, now why does Kerry Katona come to mind...
There's something about guitar playing that I never got my head around, so instead I invested in a synthesiser, which I absolutely love. My ambition though is rather modest, just to be able to play reasonably competently one well-known piece, perhaps a Chopin prelude. For the rest I just enjoy producing the loud rock noises and church organ stuff. Especially the church organ stuff.
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Well I learned classical piano from age of 7-14 I think. But I never learned to play without music until recently. Yeah I love Chopin, absolute genius. Easily my favourite composer. Ballade no.1 is possibly the most astounding piece I've ever heard in terms of technical quality. Who plays it best, mmm I'd say Zimmerman just edges Horowitz on that one. Liszt and Bach are also my favourites. Admittedly Mozart doesn't really do it for me, I prefer Beethoven. For somebody who never used to like classical and was solely a rock fan for many years I've come to appreciate it in recent times. A lot of classical music doesn't float my boat and a lot of jazz I find too avant garde. I generally like very melodic "emotional" sort of music.
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QUOTE(Malleus @ Tue 8th February 2011, 6:39pm)
I enjoyed that. A little hesitant in places, but if I could play even a tiny fraction as well as that I'd be well pleased.
I don't know if Charo ever made any impact in the UK, but in the US during the 1970s and early 1980s she was a ubiquitous TV presence -- her strength was primarily in her comic fracturing of the English language and her wonderfully blatant sex appeal (which she emphasized by shaking her body while chanting "Cuchi-Cuchi!"). Although flamenco and classical guitar is part of her act, she is mostly known in the US for her sexy comedy.
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QUOTE(Malleus @ Wed 9th February 2011, 10:39am)
I enjoyed that. A little hesitant in places, but if I could play even a tiny fraction as well as that I'd be well pleased.
Is she actually playing that? How come her Spanish guitar has no visible acoustic pickups or leads? You can also hear a second guitar reinforcing the notes of the first. Hmmmmm
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I can definitely say that Jimbo and the Wikimedia Foundation is a subject I can rant about for quite some time. Could there really be a more incompetent leader? I mean, I know most presidents of France are in the running, but still.
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Yeah I fully agree Silver Siren. The impression I get is that he is not at all passionate about actually promoting knowledge and likes to see himself as some sort of moral leader.
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QUOTE(Dr. Blofeld @ Wed 9th February 2011, 11:45am)
Yeah I fully agree Silver Siren. The impression I get is that he is not at all passionate about actually promoting knowledge and likes to see himself as some sort of moral leader.
Gentlemen, your criticism is too little and too late, sorry to say. You should have been knocking Jimbo back in 2004, when Jimbo's favorites, the "Cabal-thingy" bunch, was tightening its screws on the project.
David Gerard, JzG, Jayjg, Fred Bauder, Erik Moeller, Raul654, Kat Walsh, Charles Matthews, and many others. You can thank them for the mess, and you can thank Jimbo for personally installing most of them on the first versions of Arbcom. Go thru this if you don't believe me. Instead of getting "professionals", or even capable amateurs......he got crackpots and ass-kissers and backstabbers.
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QUOTE(EricBarbour @ Wed 9th February 2011, 8:15pm)
QUOTE(Dr. Blofeld @ Wed 9th February 2011, 11:45am)
Yeah I fully agree Silver Siren. The impression I get is that he is not at all passionate about actually promoting knowledge and likes to see himself as some sort of moral leader.
Gentlemen, your criticism is too little and too late, sorry to say. You should have been knocking Jimbo back in 2004, when Jimbo's favorites, the "Cabal-thingy" bunch, was tightening its screws on the project.
David Gerard, JzG, Jayjg, Fred Bauder, Erik Moeller, Raul654, Kat Walsh, Charles Matthews, and many others. You can thank them for the mess, and you can thank Jimbo for personally installing most of them on the first versions of Arbcom. Go thru this if you don't believe me. Instead of getting "professionals", or even capable amateurs......he got crackpots and ass-kissers and backstabbers.
It is your claim that Wikipedia would have turned out good if it had not been for some administrators and editors you don't like? You must be kidding. Given the defective structure of WP, it is difficult for me to see how it could have turned out much better even if none of the users on your shit list had ever made a single edit.
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QUOTE(Kwork @ Wed 9th February 2011, 9:31pm)
It is your claim that Wikipedia would have turned out good if it had not been for some administrators and editors you don't like? You must be kidding. Given the defective structure of WP, it is difficult for me to see how it could have turned out much better even if none of the users on your shit list had ever made a single edit.
Surely he was saying that there was a weakness at the very top, and that this led to certain types gaining power that they shouldn't. Had it not been them, but Wales had still been there, I'm sure another bunch of creepies would have moved in. But if someone else had been in charge at that critical point? Someone who could judge character, e.g.?
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QUOTE(Peter Damian @ Wed 9th February 2011, 9:43pm)
QUOTE(Kwork @ Wed 9th February 2011, 9:31pm)
It is your claim that Wikipedia would have turned out good if it had not been for some administrators and editors you don't like? You must be kidding. Given the defective structure of WP, it is difficult for me to see how it could have turned out much better even if none of the users on your shit list had ever made a single edit.
Surely he was saying that there was a weakness at the very top, and that this led to certain types gaining power that they shouldn't. Had it not been them, but Wales had still been there, I'm sure another bunch of creepies would have moved in. But if someone else had been in charge at that critical point? Someone who could judge character, e.g.?
Admittedly Jimbo and his crew are not be the equals of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay, and James Madison. But if the American revolution had been a wiki-revolution, lead by anonymous users, there is good reason to think it would have turned out worse than it actually did.
Basically all the problems found on WP that can be replicated on WR are replicated on WR. That suggests the problem is not the result of a few problematic users on WP only.
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QUOTE(Dr. Blofeld @ Wed 9th February 2011, 6:00am)
Well I learned classical piano from age of 7-14 I think. But I never learned to play without music until recently. Yeah I love Chopin, absolute genius. Easily my favourite composer. Ballade no.1 is possibly the most astounding piece I've ever heard in terms of technical quality. Who plays it best, mmm I'd say Zimmerman just edges Horowitz on that one. Liszt and Bach are also my favourites. Admittedly Mozart doesn't really do it for me, I prefer Beethoven. For somebody who never used to like classical and was solely a rock fan for many years I've come to appreciate it in recent times. A lot of classical music doesn't float my boat and a lot of jazz I find too avant garde. I generally like very melodic "emotional" sort of music.
Exactly my own taste. All you left out is Rachmaninoff and Brahms, but I suppose those are given if you like melody.
Harmony, melody-- if I can get those, I'm fine. That includes rock and roll and pop. I even absorbed the blues-y shock when Barry Gibb went falseto in 1975. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif)
Jazz is music, but as with you, not my favorite. Of course there is some old melodic jazz that I enjoy very much-- Gershwin, Cole Porter, The Dave Brubeck Quartet, Nat King Cole, a lot of Louis Armstrong, and so on. None of this is considered very advanced, but the more advanced it is, the more I wish for something else. Coltrane excepted. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)
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Ja Milton. Rap and hip hop is a pile of shit... Ye have good taste amigo...
In regards to Jimbo, I do think there are far more equipped people to deal with the job but the reality is that even if somebody replaced him I doubt the functioning of the foundation would be any different. Its easy to blame everything on him but a lot of the problems have to do with the way the foundation operates and cowboy adminship. It seems that it is mostly those who are not interested in developing wikipedia as a resource that have the most power and seem to do little about actually promoting quality. For instance how many language schools exactly are aware of the millions of articles needing translation and sourcing from foreign language sources? We have potential vast pools of new editors but the foundation as far as I can see do very little to actually seek editors. They just expect everybody to do everything for them and wave a wand and magically the articles are improved.
"I don't understand the people who feel that content is more important than anything else " - Wikipedia administrator.
Eaxactly. That sums up many people who have power on wikipedia. They think its a law court not an encyclopedia.
Oh I'd have to say I'm mostly into rock and blues music. But melodic jazz as you say I'm passionate about and I see it as more sophisticated and complex. Its more complex than rock and blues so it appeals to me to figure it out! I must admit though a lot of the avant garde jazz which is completely off key and just sounds like a weird noise I really dislike.
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QUOTE(Dr. Blofeld @ Wed 9th February 2011, 6:00am)
Well I learned classical piano from age of 7-14 I think. But I never learned to play without music until recently. Yeah I love Chopin, absolute genius. Easily my favourite composer. Ballade no.1 is possibly the most astounding piece I've ever heard in terms of technical quality. Who plays it best, mmm I'd say Zimmerman just edges Horowitz on that one. Liszt and Bach are also my favourites. Admittedly Mozart doesn't really do it for me, I prefer Beethoven. For somebody who never used to like classical and was solely a rock fan for many years I've come to appreciate it in recent times. A lot of classical music doesn't float my boat and a lot of jazz I find too avant garde. I generally like very melodic "emotional" sort of music.
Both Rocky himself and Horowitz do this one stightly better, but you can't see their technique as we have mostly sound recordings.
This piece itself is appropriately dark and only the Russians use E-flat minor for keyboard. This one to me always sounds like old boarded up Russian mansions full of prerevolutionary furniture, ala Dr. Zhivago. You can hear the melancholy of the artist for his lost homeland. It has a buildup to a nice satisfying climax 2/3rds of the way through (for you, Horsey), and a spooky wind-down, all with a listenable theme.
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QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Wed 9th February 2011, 11:39pm)
Harmony, melody-- if I can get those, I'm fine. That includes rock and roll and pop. I even absorbed the blues-y shock when Barry Gibb went falseto in 1975. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif)
It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing.
QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Wed 9th February 2011, 11:39pm)
the Internet Review Corporation is watching you...
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QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Thu 10th February 2011, 7:25pm)
QUOTE(Dr. Blofeld @ Wed 9th February 2011, 6:00am)
Well I learned classical piano from age of 7-14 I think. But I never learned to play without music until recently. Yeah I love Chopin, absolute genius. Easily my favourite composer. Ballade no.1 is possibly the most astounding piece I've ever heard in terms of technical quality. Who plays it best, mmm I'd say Zimmerman just edges Horowitz on that one. Liszt and Bach are also my favourites. Admittedly Mozart doesn't really do it for me, I prefer Beethoven. For somebody who never used to like classical and was solely a rock fan for many years I've come to appreciate it in recent times. A lot of classical music doesn't float my boat and a lot of jazz I find too avant garde. I generally like very melodic "emotional" sort of music.
Back in music school, when somebody practiced this, everybody smoking outside the practice rooms would all chime in at the beginning with "THIS...IS THE PIECE OF DEATH!"
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QUOTE(the fieryangel @ Thu 10th February 2011, 2:15pm)
Back in music school, when somebody practiced this, everybody smoking outside the practice rooms would all chime in at the beginning with "THIS...IS THE PIECE OF DEATH!"
You wouldn't have had a god damn clue that A half diminished (A minor 7 flat 5th) works with a frickin E flat augmented chord... The flat 5th of A though is an E flat so I guess that makes some sense...
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Fuck you Eric.
"I blog, you suffer". What a fucking moron. At least I have more constructive things to do with my time than paint art a cap onto a picture of Clint Eastwood and advertise "Penis Plugs And More" you fucking prick.
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QUOTE(the fieryangel @ Thu 10th February 2011, 2:15pm)
Back in music school, when somebody practiced this, everybody smoking outside the practice rooms would all chime in at the beginning with "THIS...IS THE PIECE OF DEATH!"
sing along and see if that doesn't work....
Damn, damn. Now I can't play the bit of this that I know without thinking that.
Think of how many fairly nice pieces of music are diminished as cliches by association with something else, often films. For me:
William Tell --- The Loooone Ranger Flight of the Bumblebee -- The Green Hornet 1805 Overture --- The only cereal that's shot from guns! Meditation from Thais-- one dozen boring weddings (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/bored.gif) Guadalcanal March from Rogers Victory at Sea --- Garg, Richard Nixon's favorite march. Der Landesvater bit of Brahms' Academic Festival Overture-- Animal House Rachmaninoff 2nd piano concerto-- Full Moon and Empty Arms That Handel Sarabande (noooos! Barry Lyndon/O'Neal (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/tearinghairout.gif) It means having to say I'm sorry!) Also Sprach Zarathustra -- Man-apes and tapirs and man-apes and tapirs... Copeland Rodeo Hoedown -- Beef (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/yecch.gif) Beethoven's 6th-- Soylent Green euthanasia. A satyr or too from Fantasia. Dance of the Hours-- Hippos in tutus, Camp Grenada Anything else from Fantasia: Fantasia (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/mad.gif)
Hmmm, I see two Stanley Kubrick films up there, and it comes to me that besides the musical "synesthesia," there are quite a lot of images and associations from Kubrick films that I sort of wish were not stamped forever into my brain. All the way from the evil French army in the Paths of Glory to Strangelove ("We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when.."), Sparticus, Clockwork Orange.
(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wacko.gif) All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/confused.gif)
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QUOTE(Dr. Blofeld @ Thu 10th February 2011, 6:09pm)
"I blog, you suffer". What a fucking moron. At least I have more constructive things to do with my time than paint art a cap onto a picture of Clint Eastwood and advertise "Penis Plugs And More" you fucking prick.
Oh, excuse me. Instead of posting hundreds of useless stub articles on WP servers, I'll just go back to running my company. Having trouble keeping up with demand.
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QUOTE(Dr. Blofeld @ Thu 10th February 2011, 8:09pm)
At least I have more constructive things to do with my time than paint art a cap onto a picture of Clint Eastwood and advertise "Penis Plugs And More" you fucking prick.
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@Eric. You think I'm this OCD freak who can't bare to live without wikipedia. Well I'm formed an opinion of here that you Eric clearly have issues. You fit the bill of somebody suffering from Autism or Asperger syndrome in that you have the inability to treat others as you'd yourself like to be treated. All you do here is bad mouth people and find it very difficult it seems to actually communicate with people. You come across as a bully which reveals much inadequacy about your strength of character; it clearly makes you feel better about yourself to take swipes at others and mock them. While I know there are many decent editors on here (and with good musical tastes) who comment on this site because they really care about the running of wikipedia or are reasonable people, I find it incredibly double standards that you are passing me off as some sort of compulsive freak when between you and Somey you can make over 15,000 posts on this site which is arguably not much more than a forum for complaining. What I find amusing here is that you two think you are too "cool" to edit wikipedia or to say a good word about the sad people who edit it and bad mouth those who have genuinely been passionate for increasing its scope but are clearly obviously mentally disturbed by something which happened in the past on wikipedia which obsesses you enough to keep on posting here in a disgruntled manner day after day. If you truly did not care about wikipedia or thought you were above it you would not comment and be compelled to do so. If you truly could not give a shit about wikipedia, Jimbo or any of its pathetic contributors why do you give a shit to spend so much time commenting here? What motivates you to post here then? What exactly do you have to gain on here notching up 15,000 comments between you and being so unpleasant other than having some serious personality flaws and inability to communicate with others in a half decent manner without attacking them or being sarcastic?
I've edited wikipedia because I am a very creative person and see big potential in it as a resource. However much certain people here seem to detest wikipedia, it does have potential. Sure, I've created lots of sub stubs at times when I've perhaps been overly passionate about the project and too enthusiastic that others will develop them article as (even I it would seem) don't have the time to write them all, but I've also created a lot of worthwhile content which I'm proud to have contributed. My relationship with wikipedia believe it or not blows hot and cold and actually I find it very hard to actually stay on the website for too long without going elsewhere. Some days I love wikipedia to bits, other days I really wonder why we bother and it seems incredibly bland... Given that I work out first thing in the morning for at least an hour and have RL things to do in the morning I generally do not even log into wikipedia until late morning or midday and I rarely am on the internet beyond 11pm (with the exception of today). So even if potentially I was editing wikipedia for 12 hours or even an extreme 16 hours you'll find a lot of time gaps between my edits when I get bored and you'll often see half hour or more between my edits when I'm not actually on the website even if you look at the overall day and it seems I've been there all the time. Completely untrue. I actually don't read very much on the site because although I've read some excellent content, I generally come across such shitty articles in browsing that it prompts me to edit again or (more often) causes me to despair at how much work needs doing and try to forget about it. Think what you like about me, but anybody who truly knows me is aware that I am a very creative person and a passionate one which is what drives me. I'm not OCD, or if I am then you suffer from Asperger's. That true? I agree I've spent way too much time editing wikipedia and should spend more time on me and developing more projects to benefit me personally. But no amount of you ranting on about me is going to change my interests. You have no right to tell me what I should be doing or cite whatever musical hobbies and other interests I might have as being part of some "disease". As for you being this "successful businessman" Eric and wikipedia contributors "suffering", I hardly get the impression of you having much success if that blog is all you have to brag about. Maybe you are more successful than the nature of that blog would let on... But its not my business what you do with your time and efforts in the same way it is none of your business what I actually do and how I spent my time. But all I know is that however much time you believe I spend editing wikipedia I have time to devote to other interests and to get by financially. Anyway I'm done with posting on here.....
It actually seems like a cool product and I have been meaning to get a drum machine for some time to record my own music. I would have wished you well on it, but given your nasty attitude to me and everything in general I won't bother. You clearly are still disgruntled at the way you were treated on wikipedia and your block and take everything out on anybody who has had influence on the site. Either that or you are pissed off at losing your hair. Anyway I wish you the best of luck.
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So where can I order a "Butt probe" or a "Scrotum Smasher " Eric? I bet it's way better than my Boss GT-10 processor. After all the more digusting the distortion, the more people want them eh?
the Internet Review Corporation is watching you...
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QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Fri 11th February 2011, 4:22am)
QUOTE(the fieryangel @ Thu 10th February 2011, 2:15pm)
Back in music school, when somebody practiced this, everybody smoking outside the practice rooms would all chime in at the beginning with "THIS...IS THE PIECE OF DEATH!"
sing along and see if that doesn't work....
Damn, damn. Now I can't play the bit of this that I know without thinking that.
Here's another one that I've always enjoyed, because it's so perverse :
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QUOTE(Dr. Blofeld @ Fri 11th February 2011, 4:18am)
If you truly could not give a shit about wikipedia, Jimbo or any of its pathetic contributors why do you give a shit to spend so much time commenting here? What motivates you to post here then? What exactly do you have to gain on here notching up 15,000 comments between you and being so unpleasant other than having some serious personality flaws and inability to communicate with others in a half decent manner without attacking them or being sarcastic?
Where did you get the idea that I/we "don't give a shit" about Wikipedia, Jimbo, et al? I think you're making that up. If we didn't think it was such a menace to world culture, civilized discourse, education, and society in general, then maybe we would have stopped bothering long ago. "We're here because we care"...
QUOTE
As for you being this "successful businessman" Eric and wikipedia contributors "suffering", I hardly get the impression of you having much success if that blog is all you have to brag about.
I suspect you're only saying that because you don't appreciate all the hard work that goes into building popular guitar-distortion stomp-boxes with all-vacuum-tube circuitry that are covered with vaguely obscene cartoon imagery.
Regardless, this is "classic" stuff, reaction-wise. I'm sorry to have to say it, but a non-narcissist understands the difference between one or two people in a group bashing him and everyone in the group bashing him, and (not coincidentally) that's how the non-narcissist copes with being bashed. There's less need to bolster the ego-facade because the ego-facade isn't based on what other people think, at least not as much, nor is it based on a self-image of near-perfection supported by elaborately exaggerated claims of ability and experience.
You're probably not a bad person, maybe not even close - but I believe that if you had those things, you would never have gotten involved in Wikipedia in the first place, or certainly not to anywhere near the extent you have.
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Well said. Thank you.
All I want to see is for Blofeld to admit he was possibly wrong; that at least some of the thousands of hours he spent editing WP may have been a waste of time. And maybe even that Jimbo isn't the Gandhi of Huntsville.
Not much to ask. But instead I get ad-hominem abuse.
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QUOTE(Dr. Blofeld @ Wed 9th February 2011, 8:00am)
Well I learned classical piano from age of 7-14 I think. But I never learned to play without music until recently. Yeah I love Chopin, absolute genius. Easily my favourite composer. Ballade no.1 is possibly the most astounding piece I've ever heard in terms of technical quality. Who plays it best, mmm I'd say Zimmerman just edges Horowitz on that one. Liszt and Bach are also my favourites. Admittedly Mozart doesn't really do it for me, I prefer Beethoven. For somebody who never used to like classical and was solely a rock fan for many years I've come to appreciate it in recent times. A lot of classical music doesn't float my boat and a lot of jazz I find too avant garde. I generally like very melodic "emotional" sort of music.
La Pianista would probably lurve you, fyi. You should come to IRC sometime and say hi to her. She is a piano fiend.
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QUOTE(Somey @ Sat 12th February 2011, 7:40am)
You're probably not a bad person, maybe not even close - but I believe that if you had those things, you would never have gotten involved in Wikipedia in the first place, or certainly not to anywhere near the extent you have.
Not speaking for Blowie but people all make mistakes Somey. If I had my time again from 2001, I would never had contributed any articles to Wikipedia that's for sure.
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Oh I've admitted I've spent way too much time on wikipedia and have certainly wasted my time with lots of articles on there and people. a] Its a waste of time creating tons of sub stubs about obscure countries and topics as very few are likely to expand them even if its a way of trying to increase scope and contributors. b] Its a waste of time having to explain myself to people who complain or try to delete things without bothering to do the research. c] Its a waste of time questioning the behaviour of admins or objecting and complaining as they always get their way, being Jimbo's allegiance. I'm proud of the good work I've done on wikipedia and don't see a problem with wanting to improve it. I actually enjoy writing articles like Chamba, Himachal Pradesh for example. My articles like Clint Eastwood etc are read by thousands of people every day and a lot of people have benefited from the information in the articles I've written. It is a shame of course that we personally don't receive any compensation for editing which is the biggest issue I think. If I thought the project as a whole was a waste of time I would never have contributed, I think it has massive potential. But I think unless the foundation give incentives to certain editors to edit/improve untouched/stale topics then it will remain very uneven in quality. I think most of us can agree here that Jimbo is not the ideal leader of wikipedia and it sucks that people do the work and he reaps the financial benefits. But wikipedia does have a great deal to offer from a learning point, even if it is severely lacking in many areas and most articles need improvement. But at the end of the day its just a website and I've spent way too much time on there.. Should I feel like returning in the future I will certainly try to reduce my input and time spent on the project and concentrate on things that bring me personal benefit...
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On a positive note, Eric, have U2 and that really used the Scrotum smasher? I think that's awesome!! Although personally I would prefer to kick The Edge in the balls myself for being so impertinent as to wear a hat indoors and during the hot summer.... LOL :
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QUOTE(Dr. Blofeld @ Sat 12th February 2011, 10:06am)
But I think unless the foundation give incentives to certain editors to edit/improve untouched/stale topics then it will remain very uneven in quality.
Oh, but they do - a Board Member proxied for a banned user to put up two pages on some of the most important poems in the English language that had stubs before. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)
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QUOTE(Dr. Blofeld @ Sat 12th February 2011, 7:11am)
On a positive note, Eric, have U2 and that really used the Scrotum smasher?
Okay, I'll humor you. Yes, U2 bought a huge pile of stuff a few years ago. Dunno what they did with it.
Trent Reznor is still a big fan--buys everything we make the instant it hits the dealer's shelf. Listen to recent NIN albums like Ghosts and The Slip, plus things he produces for others, like Saul Williams's album Niggy Tardust--they are all full of Metasonix noises. And this guy is obsessed with our products.
It's all vaudeville. Musicians are fond of being insulted, believe it or not--because almost all other gear manufacturers cater to their insecurities, and also tend to copy each other's designs, thus all sounding the same as each other. So much cowardice. Just by being a bit rude and an innovator, you can get attention.
Metasonix is now so famous we don't have to do any substantial advertising--we just put out a new product, and people talk about it and buy it.
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Dr. B, I'll be frank with you and I hope you don't take it too personally. For the most part, we're saying "Wikipedia is a waste of your time" because we believe that any other approach won't really appeal to you. What people like me (and I would venture to say a few others in this thread) would rather be saying is, "look at how these activities of yours have affected others" - and in fact, this is the approach we took before you registered here. You could say that we're just trying to be nice, but that's a whole 'nother issue, really.
Let's take the three points you've made above:
QUOTE(Dr. Blofeld @ Sat 12th February 2011, 9:06am)
a] Its a waste of time creating tons of sub stubs about obscure countries and topics as very few are likely to expand them even if its a way of trying to increase scope and contributors.
This, in particular, demonstrates an exceptionally self-serving, and almost blinkered, mindset. Red links are what keeps Wikipedia alive, because they attract new users. (If you can stomach the Blofeld-bashing, read this thread, esp. starting here.) Stubs don't attract new users at all. This is exactly why Jimbo dislikes you, because recruitment (and to a lesser extent, retention) is his primary concern, as would be true of any cult leader/figurehead.
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b] Its a waste of time having to explain myself to people who complain or try to delete things without bothering to do the research.
And yet, the more articles you create, the more responsibility you give yourself for having to explain precisely those things. And if someone challenges you and you don't explain yourself, even when the person has no idea what he's talking about, you come off as hostile, opening yourself up for a civility/behavior violation. I believe this has already happened, in fact.
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c] Its a waste of time questioning the behaviour of admins or objecting and complaining as they always get their way, being Jimbo's allegiance.
Personally, I wouldn't give Jimbo so much credit when it comes to supporting admin behavior. They're perfectly capable of circling their own wagons, with or without Jimbo to help them. What I think you have to ask yourself is, have you ever involved yourself in a situation in which an admin acted abusively, but that didn't already involve you intrinsically? In other words, a dispute (or whatever) that occurred on an article or topic area you never touched or had anything to do with? Or have you been worried that you'd be seen as a "busybody" and lose valuable goodwill points with the other admins?
The thing you can learn from someone like Eric Barbour, IMO, is not merely that a person can make a decent living by building signal-processing gear with vacuum tube technology in boxes emblazoned with obscenities. Rather, it's that there are people in the world who can say "I don't really care what other people think of me," and actually mean it, and still succeed in spite of that. It's not easy, but you could be that way too - I mean, why not? Moreover, when you don't care what other people think of you, your definition of "success" usually changes to something a lot more manageable and attainable.
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It is a shame of course that we personally don't receive any compensation for editing which is the biggest issue I think.
And yet it's clearly not the biggest issue from a more general perspective, because Wikipedia is already far larger and more extensive than any professionally-produced (and traditionally-published) informational reference, all without paying the actual editors a dime. This fact is used time and again to "prove" that crowdsourcing is the best (or at least fastest and cheapest) way to acquire encyclopedic content on a massive scale. Concerns about quality are easily dismissed by pointing would-be critics to the roughly 5 percent of articles that are actually good - and given the numbers, even 5 percent (between 100K and 200K articles) is far more than any one person could critique in any sort of coherent fashion.
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QUOTE(Somey @ Mon 14th February 2011, 4:55pm)
And yet, the more articles you create, the more responsibility you give yourself for having to explain precisely those things. And if someone challenges you and you don't explain yourself, even when the person has no idea what he's talking about, you come off as hostile, opening yourself up for a civility/behavior violation. I believe this has already happened, in fact.
And yet it's clearly not the biggest issue from a more general perspective, because Wikipedia is already far larger and more extensive than any professionally-produced (and traditionally-published) informational reference, all without paying the actual editors a dime.
In my field, if you get paid for editing it is a miracle. Just an fyi. That is why I have no qualms about producing content on wiki. The wider distribution and accessibility is also a bonus.
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There are much less wealthy online operations than Wikipedia actually paying editors and contributors. Wikipedia could be improved immeasurably if editors and/or contributors, screened for basic competence, were paid for their contributions (and subject, therefore, to some kind of serious management).
But of course that means recognizing that, while anyone "can" edit, not everyone should.
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QUOTE(Somey @ Mon 14th February 2011, 9:55pm)
Let's take the three points you've made above:
QUOTE(Dr. Blofeld @ Sat 12th February 2011, 9:06am)
a] Its a waste of time creating tons of sub stubs about obscure countries and topics as very few are likely to expand them even if its a way of trying to increase scope and contributors.
This, in particular, demonstrates an exceptionally self-serving, and almost blinkered, mindset. Red links are what keeps Wikipedia alive, because they attract new users. (If you can stomach the Blofeld-bashing, read this thread, esp. starting here.) Stubs don't attract new users at all. This is exactly why Jimbo dislikes you, because recruitment (and to a lesser extent, retention) is his primary concern, as would be true of any cult leader/figurehead.
I've been rather critical in the past of Dr. Blofeld's "micro-stubs", or rather the sheer volume of them, as most will never be anything more. But you do raise an interesting point; creating an article is far easier than expanding or improving one, but far more highly valued, presumably because of its perceived attraction to new editors.
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Well I've always created new stubs on the basis that if you create new articles they stand a much better chance of being expanded and containing some info then if they didn't exist. I agree with pretty much what you said Somey but I'd have to say that the majority of minor wikipedia editors and ips feel the prospect of creating an account and starting a new article daunting and are either afraid of it being deleted or don't feel confident enough to do it. People who've supported my stubs in the past have said that at least I start the stubs consistently and cleanly which could reasonably be expanded by anybody (many sporadic new articles by newbies are often even worse in needing cleanup/categories reference fixing etc), in fact a number of editors have actually thanked me for batches I've started as it makes it easier for them to work off and wouldn't have done it otherwise. I think probably at least a thousand of stubs I've created are now full length or half decent content articles. Some like Xinjiang Medical University are surprise expansion ones. The truth though is the we don't have the amount of editors or interest to expand them ALL. So in principal unless the articles is expanded then at this moment in time it has been a waste of time... I'd have to say though Malleus that with the expection of some of the obscure "third world" villages the vast majority of stubs I start have some information on the Internet which could be added to them. For instance Burmese villages like Gwebin and Shwenyaungbin I started increasingly have info on them beyond the xxx is a stub. These are the valuable sort of articles I want us to have on parts of the world never covered in a general encyclopedia before and was my intention with any sub stubs i started that i want them written eventually. Of course I'd rather start the articles with knowledge like this but in the past I've been so aware of the scope of missing topics that I've tried to get them onto wikipedia, jeopardizing quality. Its finding a balance I think between starting new articles which are actually useful and contain some sentences of factual information and developing articles to GA quality. You'll find that most of my new articles in the last year or two have been useful stubs or start class articles, although I did create a lot of village stubs a while back.
Of course from a neutral point, quality and content is the most important thing. Of course there are problems with paid editing with multiple editors editing at the same time and potential squabbling over who is owed what etc but i think the articles which are core and nobody is improving and which REALLY need improving then I don't see why the foundation couldn't raise a certian amount each year to pay accomplished editors in certain fields a small amount to get the job done.
I think the most important things on wikipedia are a] increasing its scope and venture into poorly or uncovered areas of knowledge, like agricultural industries in African countries etc and b]Developing articles to GA level which have been reviewed and have been assessed as approved articles. It always comes down to the quality vs quanity thing. I agree I want every article to be GA but I've always found it difficult to ignore the vast topics which are not even started. Given that I don't have tine to write them all and given that wikipedia is visited by millions of people its my way of trying to do something towards it, and hoping that somebody can add to it later, which they often have but more noticeably have not... I believe I've mostly started articles which an encyclopedia of wikipedia's scale "should" have but we need more editors to help expand... That's why opinions of me and my intentions are divided is that some see the idea of promoting new topics and their long term potential and others like yourself Somey which regard the stubs as useless and a waste of time and creating a maintenance problem...
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Stubs don't attract new users at all. This is exactly why Jimbo dislikes you, because recruitment (and to a lesser extent, retention) is his primary concern, as would be true of any cult leader/figurehead.
I'd have to disagree with that though Somey and I'd say the reason why Jimbo doesn't like me is because I tell him what I think of him and the way the project is run and he doesn't like that or my sarcastic sense of humour on his talk page. Let's not forgot that I have written more decent articles that most people have on wikipedia too which attract a lot of visitors daily. I am certain that thousands of people have google searched for articles on major towns or their villages or films/actors and have found the wikipedia entry at the top and entrered the site. I think you are underestimating that at least some of the articles I've started have created new traffic. I'm certain of that. But I'd agree with you that the stub is by no means a way of actual getting these new visitors to join and build it.
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Jimbo causes Blofeld to quit
