Inactive Wikipedia administrator survey hoax Options

[TungstenCarbide]

<edit> looks like a hoax, see tarantino's post below

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewfor...EU3RuX2RoREE6MA

"...a statistical analysis revealed a 96% chance that administrator inactivity is causing the decline in active English Wikipedia editors as a whole: "

Looks like the survey is being run by Steven Walling and "a Community Health Task Force volunteer who wishes to remain anonymous".

----

related thread; The "holy shit" slide on editor retention, Sue Gardner on Wikipedia's death spiral

This post has been edited by TungstenCarbide:

[TungstenCarbide]

Timeline of an inactive admin;
1- edits Wikipedia and finds it fun, creates a user account
2- creates content and feels good about a new hobby
3- becomes an administrator, but is troubled by a childish culture. thinks maybe he can improve it.
4- slowly realizes that the obvious path toward creating a quality encyclopedia will never happen (no quality system, no release system, no culture of competent editing, no meritocracy of project leadership, glorification and protection of all things obscene ...)
5- looks around and sees despicable worms of all types in positions of leadership, none of whom create content, few even capable of it.
6- leaves in disgust once he's better acquainted with the company there.

[No one of consequence]

5- looks around and sees despicable worms of all types in positions of leadership, none of whom create content, few even capable of it.

5- looks around and sees that those in leadership who are generally thoughtful and well-intentioned have no hope of bringing about meaningful change


Otherwise, +1

[everyking]

5- looks around and sees despicable worms of all types in positions of leadership, none of whom create content, few even capable of it.

5- looks around and sees that those in leadership who are generally thoughtful and well-intentioned have no hope of bringing about meaningful change


Otherwise, +1

I suppose that does sound better than "despicable worms". (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/rolleyes.gif)

[No one of consequence]

I suppose that does sound better than "despicable worms". (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/rolleyes.gif)

I didn't mean to indicate that there aren't also despicable worms in leadership. Only that the good people are powerless against them.

If Wikipedia were important, it might be worth it to stay and fight the worms, even in a losing effort. (And if donuts were health food, I'd be a marathoner.)

This post has been edited by No one of consequence:

[tarantino]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewfor...EU3RuX2RoREE6MA

"...a statistical analysis revealed a 96% chance that administrator inactivity is causing the decline in active English Wikipedia editors as a whole: "

Looks like the survey is being run by Steven Walling and "a Community Health Task Force volunteer who wishes to remain anonymous".

The survey wasn't approved by Walling or the WMF, and it was run by long-term puppetmaster Nrcprm2026.

00:13, 14 February 2012 Philippe (WMF) (talk | contribs) deleted "User:James Salsman/Inactive administrators survey" ‎ (OFFICE action. Per WMF Legal team.)

[TungstenCarbide]

The survey wasn't approved by Walling or the WMF, and it was run by long-term puppetmaster Nrcprm2026.

00:13, 14 February 2012 Philippe (WMF) (talk | contribs) deleted "User:James Salsman/Inactive administrators survey" ‎ (OFFICE action. Per WMF Legal team.)

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/laugh.gif) - that's a funny hoax, someone went through a lot of effort to make it - thanks tarantino. Nrcprm2026 has been socking for over 5 years it look like. I wondered of he's a disgruntled ex-administrator.

This post has been edited by TungstenCarbide:

[tarantino]

The survey wasn't approved by Walling or the WMF, and it was run by long-term puppetmaster Nrcprm2026.

00:13, 14 February 2012 Philippe (WMF) (talk | contribs) deleted "User:James Salsman/Inactive administrators survey" ‎ (OFFICE action. Per WMF Legal team.)

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/laugh.gif) - that's a funny hoax, someone went through a lot of effort to make it - thanks tarantino. Nrcprm2026 has been socking for over 5 years it look like. I wondered of he's a disgruntled ex-administrator.

Though he's been banned for years on enwp, he just ignores it. For whatever reason, he takes wikimedia and himself seriously and wasn't intending for this to be a hoax.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cas...nia_Chapter.pdf
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?titl...t=James+Salsman

Also, if you see an IP from the SF Bay area on the noticeboards or reference desk, chances are it's him.

[EricBarbour]

I will email Salsman and ask him if he would talk about any results he's obtained.

In case you didn't know, Salsman is a serious player in the educational software field.
How utterly typical of Wikipedia insiders to treat him like a common vandal.

This post has been edited by EricBarbour:

[TungstenCarbide]

In case you didn't know, Salsman is a serious player in the educational software field.

in the email he invoked Walling's name in a way that implied it was a WMF survey.

"If you have questions, please reply by email to surveyrole@gmail.com or the Wikimedia Foundation Community editor retention point of contact for this survey, Steven Walling: swalling@wikimedia.org. ..."

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[EricBarbour]

Yes, and you should read the Nrcprm2026 SPI. This is another example of how editing Wikipedia sometimes causes serious, experienced academic people to lose control and start editwars with others.

Denied. User:RadTek is using phrasing and quotations of banned user User:TDC a/k/a User:Hempbilly and is unlikely to "always" misspell the name of his alleged employer. There appears to be no interaction between James Salsman a/k/a User:Nrcprm2026 and anyone from Exelon on the RadSafe mailing list and no posts by James Salsman to RadSafe in the past year. RadTek is deleting secondary peer-reviewed sources from Depleted uranium (the only secondary sources in that entire article) and Uranium. KeepinReal (talk) 01:26, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Mr Salsman, your harassing emails to my supervisor was a few years ago, late 2006. A coworker of mine and member of the RadSafe list informed of this truly sad charade you put on here.

I dont know who tdc or hempbilly are and frankly I could care less.

Normally I wouldn’t waste my time, but considering how widely used a reference Wikipedia has become, I cant sit back. Your continued antics both here and on other sites make you look positively pathetic. I suggest you seek professional help. RadTek (talk) 01:35, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

This is sort of weird to have my name come up here. I have no idea who RadTek even is. To the best of my knowledge I have never interacted with him/her at all. I don't believe that I have ever edited any of the pages he/she lists above, nor their talk pages.

I also have no idea who User:Noren is below, but my one and only ever edit to Cold Fusion is here, [2], where I fix a problem with the bibliography. I have edited the talk page for Cold Fusion but never to address any significant content questions, although I may have weighed in on a few points here and there. My involvement there was mostly tangential at best and had to do with procedural issues related to the purported topic ban of User:JedRothwell, which I later described here: [3].

Feel free to run your checkuser on me if you wish and report the results back here. I have nothing to hide. --GoRight (talk) 20:51, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

"Harassing emails to supervisor"? Another strange little inside story that we will never learn more about (probably, judging by past experience).

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[Kelly Martin]

I will email Salsman and ask him if he would talk about any results he's obtained.

In case you didn't know, Salsman is a serious player in the educational software field.
How utterly typical of Wikipedia insiders to treat him like a common vandal.

See also this G+ thread.

[EricBarbour]

See also this G+ thread.

That bears repeating here.....

Pat Gunn - I left over the weakening of the consensus against advertising, in the wake of the VirginMedia donation and corrisponding "thank you" advert, although as I poke around now it looks like Erik Möller is the deputy director of the WMF. If I were to ever come back I would be high profile again, and there is no way I will consider going back until Erik is completely gone. I find it extraordinarily regrettable that GerardM escorted such a malignant person into power.
Feb 12, 2012

James Salsman - +Pat Gunn I share some of your concerns about +Erik Moeller because he has been absurdly contradictory in his communications to me and he seems to be very aggressive in some circumstances, E.g., lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2012-February/071769.html I know when I spoke with him at the 10th anniversary unconference he was very aggressive and unfriendly towards me. He also gave me his word that he would speak with +Jimmy Wales about admin attrition at the first Foundation Open House in San Francisco but I have been unable to determine whether he actually did.
Feb 12, 2012 (edited)

Pat Gunn - When I was running for the board, I and several of the other candidates had very negative experiences with him (he was also running for the board); these continued with other community members and were very worrying.

While I think Jimbo's neglect of the community while retaining theoretical leadership is unfortunate, Erik is actively harmful to it, or at least he was when I knew him.

One of the best, most important community members, Danny Wool, was essentially driven from where he needed to be to keep things together. (I also think it's unfortunate that Wikipedia's actual founder is long since gone, but that ship sailed before most people were involved; I lurked on the NuPedia mailing lists way back when).
Feb 12, 2012

Even Sandifer admits Wikipedia has a real problem. Though as usual, he doesn't blame the admins for any of it.

[Kelly Martin]

It should also be noted that Pat Gunn is Improv (T-C-L-K-R-D) , one of Wikipedia's early users and, significantly, a devoted (armchair) communist. He was a major importer of communist ideology into Wikipedia's early zeitgeist, and left when it became obvious that it would not continue to be a communist haven.

[EricBarbour]

Salsman's been talking about WMF people on his Google+ for some time now. And we're supposed to sit here and pretend they don't know who he is? And even more disturbing, why is he still such a big Jimbo-juice drinker, even after being abused by Jimbo's BFFs for years and banned from Wikipedia?

[tarantino]

Now in addition to the accounts he used to send 300 emails, his Selery and Tashir accounts are blocked on enwiki and meta, and his real name account is also blocked on meta.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?titl...7#James_Salsman

[HRIP7]

Now in addition to the accounts he used to send 300 emails, his Selery and Tashir accounts are blocked on enwiki and meta, and his real name account is also blocked on meta.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?titl...7#James_Salsman

What legal basis could they possibly have for directing Salsman to delete the respondents' data off his hard disk? Surely none whatsoever?

Are they getting completely power-mad? Do tell me if I am missing some legal nicety here, but last time I looked, the law allowed people to e-mail other people, including Wikipedians, and to keep or delete any e-mail replies they received as they wished.

I honestly am beginning to wonder whether some Wikipedians have lost touch with reality. It's like they believe they have created an alternative universe where their rule is absolute, and society, the real world, and whatever laws might apply there, have ceased to exist.

[iii]

I don't know what's wrong with Mr. Salsman, but he's clearly obsessed with Wikipedia in a pretty destructive way. The contributions of his various accounts run the gambit from deranged and paranoid to obsessive to the point of lunacy. It looks to me like the fellow hasn't met an anti-establishment conspiracy theory he hasn't liked.

The style of his accounts' interactions are a real throwback to the rough-and-tumble times of 2005 to 2006 when it looked for a while like Wikipedia might adopt something like Ed Poor/Fred Bauder vision of accommodating all comers and letting them have free reign of top-level articles. This guy is really the epitome of Randy in Boise and remains a hanger-on probably in hopes of getting himself ingratiated back into the fold so that he can make sure the world knows about those sword-wielding skeletons.

[EricBarbour]

I don't know what's wrong with Mr. Salsman, but he's clearly obsessed with Wikipedia in a pretty destructive way. The contributions of his various accounts run the gambit from deranged and paranoid to obsessive to the point of lunacy. It looks to me like the fellow hasn't met an anti-establishment conspiracy theory he hasn't liked.

a) I don't get that impression from looking at Salsman's contribs, so you'd better offer some evidence.

b) I am in contact with him, and I don't get the impression he's "obsessed" with Wikipedia. He tried a high-risk scheme, got blocked for it, but also elided some useful information.
(as usual, they are censoring the record.)

c) Tiptoety is still a slimy little bastard. In my personal opinion, mind you.

d) are we supposed to take an anonymous poster on WR seriously? How do we know YOU'RE not Philippe Beaudette, engaging in psy-ops warfare?

This post has been edited by EricBarbour:

[TungstenCarbide]

I don't know what's wrong with Mr. Salsman, but he's clearly obsessed with Wikipedia in a pretty destructive way. The contributions of his various accounts run the gambit from deranged and paranoid to obsessive to the point of lunacy. It looks to me like the fellow hasn't met an anti-establishment conspiracy theory he hasn't liked.

a) I don't get that impression from looking at Salsman's contribs, so you'd better offer some evidence.

b) I am in contact with him, and I don't get the impression he's "obsessed" with Wikipedia. He tried a high-risk scheme, got blocked for it, but also elided some useful information.
(as usual, they are censoring the record.)

c) Tiptoety is still a slimy little bastard. In my personal opinion, mind you.

d) are we supposed to take an anonymous poster on WR seriously? How do we know YOU'RE not Philippe Beaudette, engaging in psy-ops warfare?

I keep trying to read up on this whole debacle but after a few paragraphs my eyes glaze over...

Salsman's email led the recipient to assume it was a WMF sanctioned survey. He tried to do right by keeping the WMF in the loop, and nudging them into participation, but the lazy slugs there don't like ideas unless they are their own.

Is that about right?

And then, while trying to read further, I stumbled across references to 'cold fusion' and gave up. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/bored.gif)

This post has been edited by TungstenCarbide: