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_ Wikipedia in Blogland _ Blogs on WP and women

Posted by: EricBarbour

I especially liked http://www.amerika.org/social-reality/overthinking-wikipedia/.

QUOTE
Our established media treats Wikipedia as if it were an outpouring of all of humanity, but in reality, it’s not only the product of a lonely group of nerds, but it’s a business instrument of Google, Inc. Google reached a point where it could not refine its search results further to remove crap; language is intensely context-sensitive, so a typed phrase often creates ambiguous results and is open to forgery. Google wanted to ensure that its top link at least returned basic information and a links list, and it couldn’t do that through automation. Instead, Google funded a free public initiative whose goal was to use legions of alienated people to clone existing encyclopedias.

QUOTE
If you have ever dealt with Wikipedians, you will note that they are many things, but “professional” is not one of them. They bicker. They backstab. They engage in lengthy political battles. They don’t mind wasting the time because they plan to do this forever, since it’s what gives their life meaning, not their jobs or lowly social status. They flare up when their dignity is insulted and go ballistic over simple disagreements.

Normally this behavior would cause us to put them in asylums, but since they’re using computers, we assume the computers are to blame. What makes more sense is that this audience self-selects by their opposition to society at large, and as a result of that find computers as a medium where they feel comfortable. No actual interaction, you see, so no criticism for who they are or how disorganized, chaotic and/or pointless their lives are.


Also: http://jezebel.com/#!5747740/why-wikipedia-needs-more-ladies, and http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/44856.

Geek Feminism blog comments on it http://geekfeminism.org/2011/02/11/im-a-woman-and-ive-edited-wikipedia/, in predictable fashion yecch.gif .

Plus, the anti-feminist blogger Spearhead http://www.the-spearhead.com/2011/01/31/wikipedia-pleading-for-female-contributors-without-success/. (Unintentionally funny.)

Know what else? I have found very few posts about this on personal blogs, whether on Blogspot or Wordpress or Tumblr.
Only the "MSM" outlets and professional journalists seem to be talking about this stuff, in general. Perhaps because it's not important to average people, hmm?

Posted by: Alison

QUOTE(EricBarbour @ Fri 11th February 2011, 11:15pm) *

Plus, the anti-feminist blogger Spearhead http://www.the-spearhead.com/2011/01/31/wikipedia-pleading-for-female-contributors-without-success/. (Unintentionally funny.)

The comments section is even more LOL laugh.gif I'm fighting back an urge to troll, but have better things to do on a Friday night (which sure don't include Wikipedia happy.gif )

Posted by: Casliber

QUOTE
If you have ever dealt with Wikipedians, you will note that they are many things, but “professional” is not one of them. They bicker. They backstab. They engage in lengthy political battles.


Yeah, professionals never engage in this type of behaviour..... XD

QUOTE
Know what else? I have found very few posts about this on personal blogs, whether on Blogspot or Wordpress or Tumblr.
Only the "MSM" outlets and professional journalists seem to be talking about this stuff, in general. Perhaps because it's not important to average people, hmm?


What did you expect? No sex, no-one died...in fact nothing dramatic happened at all....it'd be like finding out another subset of the American/Australian /some first world country were obese....