How to utterly destroy Wikipedia, Idea needed Options Rating

[Peter Damian]

After comments and emails from a number of 'true' Wikipedians I have come to the conclusion that perhaps the more extreme of us are right: Wikipedia cannot be redeemed. It's not Arbcom, it's not 'Jimbo' it's not the system. It's that the majority of the 'community' are barking mad and are simply not normal people. They need to be hospitalised and cared for, and the place should be blown up and destroyed.

I have some ideas of my own about how this could be achieved in a humane and decent way, but interested in the views of others.

This post has been edited by Peter Damian:

[Peter Damian]

I don't see that happening yet. I have my own ideas but no money to carry it out.

Do you or does anyone else know of the sums of money needed to develop a working project on these lines? The best projects actually start on a very small scale without ambitious investment. In addition, if a sizeable number of the leading contributors to Wikipedia could be persuaded to leave in return for equity in the new project, that would significantly damage Wikipedia's competitiveness.

This post has been edited by Peter Damian:

[Guido den Broeder]

I don't see that happening yet. I have my own ideas but no money to carry it out.

Do you or does anyone else know of the sums of money needed to develop a working project on these lines? The best projects actually start on a very small scale without ambitious investment. In addition, if a sizeable number of the leading contributors to Wikipedia could be persuaded to leave in return for equity in the new project, that would significantly damage Wikipedia's competitiveness.

As long as fairly up-to-date software remains already available, the needed sums of money to start are minimal. Wikisage runs on a few hundred EURO a year, to grow perhaps to a few thousand when we get closer to nl:wikipedia's size. That is currently mainly just a Dutch language version, but you get the picture.

In time, however, when features get added that Wikipedia cannot even dream of, one might envisage a professional organization that is several orders of magnitude larger than the Wikimedia foundation, and it wouldn't need any donations.

[JohnA]

I don't see that happening yet. I have my own ideas but no money to carry it out.

Do you or does anyone else know of the sums of money needed to develop a working project on these lines? The best projects actually start on a very small scale without ambitious investment. In addition, if a sizeable number of the leading contributors to Wikipedia could be persuaded to leave in return for equity in the new project, that would significantly damage Wikipedia's competitiveness.

As long as fairly up-to-date software remains already available, the needed sums of money to start are minimal. Wikisage runs on a few hundred EURO a year, to grow perhaps to a few thousand when we get closer to nl:wikipedia's size. That is currently mainly just a Dutch language version, but you get the picture.

In time, however, when features get added that Wikipedia cannot even dream of, one might envisage a professional organization that is several orders of magnitude larger than the Wikimedia foundation, and it wouldn't need any donations.

That's the point. Its not as simple as setting up a wiki and inviting people to write for it. In fact, I wouldn't use the wiki approach at all as the result is usually 75% drama, 23.2% administrative overhead and only 1.8% actual writing articles.

I think the wiki model is the wrong model. It either produces crap at extremely high volumes or it dies painfully after a feeble and miserable existence.

The greatest problem is that the cost of hosting and bandwidth would quickly overwhelm any similar scheme to Wikipedia unless a new approach were taken to the whole question of the dissemination of articles from trusted sources on the Internet. That's my approach.

But because its innovative and there is no-one doing anything similar, its hard to capture that to make anyone open their checkbook unless they are first convinced that Wikipedia is a steaming pile of crud in the first place, and that a competing product using innovative delivery can outmuscle Wikipedia AND deliver a reasonable return on the money.

That's why the Wikipedia donation drive depresses me - for the money I could make something worth having rather than the rats nest that is Wikipedia.

[Guido den Broeder]

I don't see that happening yet. I have my own ideas but no money to carry it out.

Do you or does anyone else know of the sums of money needed to develop a working project on these lines? The best projects actually start on a very small scale without ambitious investment. In addition, if a sizeable number of the leading contributors to Wikipedia could be persuaded to leave in return for equity in the new project, that would significantly damage Wikipedia's competitiveness.

As long as fairly up-to-date software remains already available, the needed sums of money to start are minimal. Wikisage runs on a few hundred EURO a year, to grow perhaps to a few thousand when we get closer to nl:wikipedia's size. That is currently mainly just a Dutch language version, but you get the picture.

In time, however, when features get added that Wikipedia cannot even dream of, one might envisage a professional organization that is several orders of magnitude larger than the Wikimedia foundation, and it wouldn't need any donations.

That's the point. Its not as simple as setting up a wiki and inviting people to write for it. In fact, I wouldn't use the wiki approach at all as the result is usually 75% drama, 23.2% administrative overhead and only 1.8% actual writing articles.

I think the wiki model is the wrong model. It either produces crap at extremely high volumes or it dies painfully after a feeble and miserable existence.

The greatest problem is that the cost of hosting and bandwidth would quickly overwhelm any similar scheme to Wikipedia unless a new approach were taken to the whole question of the dissemination of articles from trusted sources on the Internet. That's my approach.

But because its innovative and there is no-one doing anything similar, its hard to capture that to make anyone open their checkbook unless they are first convinced that Wikipedia is a steaming pile of crud in the first place, and that a competing product using innovative delivery can outmuscle Wikipedia AND deliver a reasonable return on the money.

That's why the Wikipedia donation drive depresses me - for the money I could make something worth having rather than the rats nest that is Wikipedia.

The only drama that we have is from Wikipedia users complaining that we don't have enough drama, and administrative overhead so far is minimal. Hosting and bandwidth get cheaper at a fast rate, and are not likely to become an issue. The wiki approach is fine for now (better ways are in development though and will definitely arrive). It's the social structure, where Wikipedia is failing, that makes all the difference.

[JohnA]

The only drama that we have is from Wikipedia users complaining that we don't have enough drama, and administrative overhead so far is minimal. Hosting and bandwidth get cheaper at a fast rate, and are not likely to become an issue. The wiki approach is fine for now (better ways are in development though and will definitely arrive). It's the social structure, where Wikipedia is failing, that makes all the difference.

That's where I beg to differ. The wiki approach is simply the wrong way to publish authoritative information. Its a good way to write collaborative technical documents by a project team (I've done this) and its certainly cheaper than using Lotus Notes.

The wiki model is derived from the social structure, and without clear leadership and a division between authorship and editorial control, what you get is Wikipedia, the anarchist's answer to the question "How can we fuck up world history?"

But for all of the Web 2.0 blather, the best way to write an authoritative collection of articles on a subject is still the old way which has been well understood since at least 1768.

In particular I reject the notion that any article is subject to revision at any time and that revision is immediately published without editorial review.

[Peter Damian]

Wikipedia, the anarchist's answer to the question "How can we fuck up world history?"

I think that's a very good definition of Wikipedia.

[aeon]

Wikipedia, the anarchist's answer to the question "How can we fuck up world history?"

I think that's a very good definition of Wikipedia.

When you say something like that, are you sitting at home with a straight face? To assert that Wikipedia, of all things, has fucked up world history is frankly ignorant to the point of being insulting. Nazism and the holocaust, maybe. Persecution of African Americans, maybe. Wikipedia? No chance. Get some perspective.

This post has been edited by aeon:

[Alex]

Wikipedia, the anarchist's answer to the question "How can we fuck up world history?"

I think that's a very good definition of Wikipedia.

When you say something like that, are you sitting at home with a straight face? To assert that Wikipedia, of all things, has fucked up world history is frankly ignorant to the point of being insulting. Nazism and the holocaust, maybe. Persecution of African Americans, maybe. Wikipedia? No chance. Get some perspective.

I really think he is serious you know. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/blink.gif)

[Peter Damian]

Wikipedia, the anarchist's answer to the question "How can we fuck up world history?"

I think that's a very good definition of Wikipedia.

When you say something like that, are you sitting at home with a straight face? To assert that Wikipedia, of all things, has fucked up world history is frankly ignorant to the point of being insulting. Nazism and the holocaust, maybe. Persecution of African Americans, maybe. Wikipedia? No chance. Get some perspective.

I really think he is serious you know. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/blink.gif)

What are you both talking about?

I am not sure what you are misunderstanding here - would it help to say that 'history' has two senses (1) the events themselves (2) the record of those events. Obviously (2) was intended. Quite obviously - how could (1) have possibly been meant????.

This post has been edited by Peter Damian:

[aeon]

Wikipedia, the anarchist's answer to the question "How can we fuck up world history?"

I think that's a very good definition of Wikipedia.

When you say something like that, are you sitting at home with a straight face? To assert that Wikipedia, of all things, has fucked up world history is frankly ignorant to the point of being insulting. Nazism and the holocaust, maybe. Persecution of African Americans, maybe. Wikipedia? No chance. Get some perspective.

I really think he is serious you know. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/blink.gif)

What are you both talking about?

I am not sure of your misunderstanding - would it help to say that 'history' has two senses (1) the events (2) the record of those events. Obviously (2) was intended. Quite obviously - how could (1) have possibly been meant????.

I don't know. I responded based on how I read it, and based on the way you quoted JohnA. Alex saw it the same way, evidently.

[Peter Damian]

I don't know. I responded based on how I read it, and based on the way you quoted JohnA. Alex saw it the same way, evidently.

Well (1) obviously couldn't have been meant - how could Wikipedia, which was invented in the 21st century, have fucked up events which happened long before that, such as the Holocaust. Therefore (2) is the only reasonable sense. Wikipedia is seriously screwing up our record of history, and there is no doubt about that. Do you not agree? If you do, why are you reacting with such horror?

Even the Wikipedia article on history manages to get the definition right. "History is the study (teaching) of the past, with special attention to the written record of the activities of human beings over time."

It is this which Wikipedia has fucked up entirely.

It has fucked up both the teaching of the past - because school students now use it as a source to copy and paste into essays. And it has fucked up the written record by distorting and misrepresenting the past in the way that only mobs know how.

This post has been edited by Peter Damian:

[Alex]

I don't know. I responded based on how I read it, and based on the way you quoted JohnA. Alex saw it the same way, evidently.

It has fucked up both the teaching of the past - because school students now use it as a source to copy and paste into essays. And it has fucked up the written record by distorting and misrepresenting the past in the way that only mobs know how.

And of course, before 2001, school students never, ever copied from other people. And of course, there were no other encyclopedias that made errors. By professionals too.

[Peter Damian]

I don't know. I responded based on how I read it, and based on the way you quoted JohnA. Alex saw it the same way, evidently.

It has fucked up both the teaching of the past - because school students now use it as a source to copy and paste into essays. And it has fucked up the written record by distorting and misrepresenting the past in the way that only mobs know how.

And of course, before 2001, school students never, ever copied from other people. And of course, there were no other encyclopedias that made errors. By professionals too.

In the old days they tended to copy things in writing so that at least the information went in subliminally.

There were no encyclopedias before Wikipedia that have made such spectacular errors as Wikipedia.

But how would you know, 'Alex'. Where actually do you get your information from?

This all reminds me of an Asimov story about a distant future where everyone uses computers and every mathematical result that the computer gives 'must' be right. One of the characters discovers he can 'prove' that 2 x 3 = 6. The other character is very sceptical. Of course the computer does return 6. But perhaps it might return a different number. The computer by definition is right.

[aeon]

This all reminds me of an Asimov story about a distant future where everyone uses computers and every mathematical result that the computer gives 'must' be right. One of the characters discovers he can 'prove' that 2 x 3 = 6. The other character is very sceptical. Of course the computer does return 6. But perhaps it might return a different number. The computer by definition is right.

Um. We seem to have drifted a bit.

[Peter Damian]

This all reminds me of an Asimov story about a distant future where everyone uses computers and every mathematical result that the computer gives 'must' be right. One of the characters discovers he can 'prove' that 2 x 3 = 6. The other character is very sceptical. Of course the computer does return 6. But perhaps it might return a different number. The computer by definition is right.

Um. We seem to have drifted a bit.

Not at all. Right on topic. You don't really understand why I have a difficulty with Wikipedia, do you?

Oh yes and the threats have now started on my talk page.

Comments at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship

Hello Peter. Because this kind of thing is disruptive both in intent and effect, I would ask you to cease making comments of this nature. If you continue then I will block you to prevent further such edits. You should raise your grievances on one of the discussion pages where they can be debated. CIreland (talk) 14:24, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

I would like to lend weight to what CIrland just said. You belief Wikipedia should be blown up and destroyed is not compatible with Wikipedia's goal of producing a collaborative enyclopedia and as such is disruptive. Please keep your attempts to destroy Wikipedia on Wikipediareview and off of Wikipedia. Chillum 14:33, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

I am a member of this dysfunctinal 'community' and I have the right to vote in these 'elections' and I have the right to give any reason I like. It is actions like these that are causing the true disruption. Peter Damian (talk) 14:58, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Peter_Damian"

Please stop threats of blocking on my talk page
Your comment on my talk page was unnecessarily provocative and disruptive. Threats of blocking do not help this situation. Please stop this. Thanks. Peter Damian (talk) 15:01, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

I have now commented on this on Wikipedia Review. Threats like this are counterproductive as they suggest to the large audience now reading this thread that Wikipedia is trying to suppress good-faith and conscientious dissent by those who are wanting reform. But of course you weren't trying to do that, were you? Peter Damian (talk) 15:04, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:CIreland"

This post has been edited by Peter Damian: