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Posted by: Doc glasgow

One of the problems with BLP is that few Wikipedians have actually explored the sheer scale if the problem for themselves. All they see is the one or two that are brought to their attention, and they rightly conclude that such articles can be fixed and monitored to prevent further problems - so they say "what's the problem?"

The problem is scale. The problem is that lurking amongst the 250,000 BLPs are probably several thousand libels and even more total one-sided hatchet jobs maintained by character-assassins. The problem is that articled "BLP fixed" a year ago that simply degenerated in the months that followed.

What is needed is to keep pointing out muck until people realise that it isn't just a few spots here and there, but that they are actually living in a swamp - and that it might be time to drain it.

I probably identify as many bad BLPs in a week as most people - and, since the summer I've been doing it without the aid of ORTS access (which I no longer have), I find them myself rather than tracking subject complaints.

I thought I'd share some of the (pretty obvious) ways I find them, in the hope that others might help out (or find better ways).

*First, some surface at the BLP noticeboard, [[WP:BLPN]]

*Second, Google is my friend
**http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&as_qdr=all&q=%22Living+People%22+-talk+-category+site%3Aen.wikipedia.org&btnG=Search&meta= wikipedia for "living people" articles (I'm not sure why that only finds 150,000 - but never mind)
**http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&as_qdr=all&q=%22Living+People%22+%22does+not+cite%22++-talk+-category+site%3Aen.wikipedia.org&btnG=Search&meta= refine the search by looking for stuff marked as unsourced ("does not cite") - (remember that some bad bios will not be marked as unsourced) - scary that throws up 124,000 bios!!!!!
**then chuck in an intelligent keyword that's likely to be in libels "accused" "criminal" "pederast" "homosexual" "fraudulent" - http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&as_qdr=all&q=%22Living+People%22+%22does+not+cite%22+convicted+-talk+-category+site%3Aen.wikipedia.org&btnG=Search&meta=
**Then it is just click and look time - I average one bad (deletable) bio in 20-30 articles, and far more with unsourced statements that need removed. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=H._Guy_Hunt&diff=cur&oldid=prev clearly violates BLP (whether true or not)

How many can you find today?

(Any improvements on the system would also be welcome)

Posted by: Kato

Scale is everything in this matter.

Whenever acts of BLP badness have been brought up before, Wikipedians have instinctively described them as "exceptions". No matter how many one comes up with.

Always "exceptions".

When I pointed BadlydrawnJeff to http://wikipediareview.com/blog/20080125/wikipedias-museum-of-defamation/ -- the BLP noticeboard archives -- he immediately shot back with the same retort : that these were "exceptions". I think he even claimed they were "hand picked" which gives you an idea of how Wikipedians will reframe the issue to suit their beliefs. They were hand picked only in the sense that they were out there and easy to pick.

It's a bit like being a teacher taking 100 kids on a school trip, and 4 of them dying in incidents of wanton negligence. And when the teacher gets back, he explains to everyone that the 4 deaths were exceptions, everyone else had a great educational experience and a good time so what's the problem? Why highlight and single out the 4 deaths? Why be so negative?

Posted by: Kato

On another thread, I began looking at the WP biographies of the first people that came into my head. Every biography I looked at contained one or more BLP violations in the history. Some of them very serious like this one...

http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=17073&view=findpost&p=90077

For two months WP had a whole section called Wife-Beating on this footballer that was entirely unsourced. Nobody on WP even commented on it when and after it was reverted, until I found it at random.

Posted by: Doc glasgow

Heck, if I commented on every BLP violation I reverted I'd be here all day. But that this stuff hangs about for so long is really worrying. I wish there was statistical way to analyse the size of the problem.

Posted by: Kato

Wikipedians generally aren't interested in analyzing the situation. It doesn't impact on them so why should they try? Especially when the conclusions would likely curtail their undeserved power and put the brakes on their favorite reckless pastime. These are kids in the grip of a fevered Cultural Revolution and all societal norms of rational decency are a nuisance to be rejected out of hand.

Which means that those left to analyse the problem are the critics. And as critics, they're not going to spare Jimbo any blushes.

As Wikipedia is paralyzed by dysfunction and can't get its house in order itself, those nasty critics feel they have carte blanche to stick the knives in at any opportunity. And it's quite feasible that it won't end until someone, most likely Jimbo Wales, ends up in jail over this. Maybe something like that would get people thinking about reform?

Posted by: badlydrawnjeff

The problem is assuming the "scale" is the same across the board. Assuming a well sourced, but negative-in-tone article is equally as bad as a Siegenthaler-type article is simply wrong. Assuming that unsourced = inaccurate is simply wrong. Treating garden-variety vandalism as some sort of major problem with BLPs in general is wrong.

There are many more facets to it than either the haters here or the knee-jerk actors over there are willing to admit.

Posted by: thekohser

<sigh...>

Why is this "challenge" my job to do? Why are we assigned the task of finding and documenting flaws in a flawed system that Jimmy Wales and his cronies put in place and perpetuate every single day with their sense of non-responsibility?

The Wikimedia Foundation's failure to be responsible for their flawed system is not my duty to be responsible for it.

Posted by: Kato

Jeff, you can concoct as many straw man "assumptions" as you like to try and shift the meaning and blame.

But the truth is this : When I looked at a handful of BLP's at random, they revealed numerous published statements that would be considered libelous and actionable in a court of law if Wikipedia wasn't protected by 230.

I have already concluded on another thread that we are not living in the same moral universe on this matter. If you think that to try and prevent this torrent of actionable libel against living people is "a knee-jerk response" then we're not living in the same universe period, it seems.

Posted by: Moulton

The very first bio I looked at was an http://wikipediareview.com/blog/20080405/so-i-am-disgusted-with-wikipedia/. Then I looked at other bios (and related articles) written by the same http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_intelligent_design#Participants. They were all unmitigated hatchet jobs.

Posted by: badlydrawnjeff

This isn't an issue of a "moral universe" as much as a disagreement as to how widespread and problematic the situation is. We're reasonable people, and we can disagree without taking the glasgow route on it with each other.

Posted by: Lar

Jeff:

Doc's given his methodology for concluding that 1 in 20 he finds (after filtering for unsourced, so actually let's posit 1 in 400... 5% are unsourced) are problematic. 1 in 400 of 250K is a big number, it's in the hundreds. That is not what I would call "isolated incidents".

What's your methodology for claiming there is no systemic problem? I'd be delighted to review your analysis, if you have one. But arguing by assertion won't wash.

As for "the glasgow route"... um, what? You mean the methodology of working hard for months using the tools that WP has available to address the problem, doing statistical research, and cogently arguing for change by presenting proposal after well reasoned proposal? Did you actually try to use that term as a pejorative? Me, I think it's high praise.

Posted by: thekohser

The measurement of the problem's breadth and impact will produce different "executive summaries", depending on which court is adjudicating. For example, different outcomes would be produced by:

1. The Wikimedia Foundation
2. The Wikipedia Arbitration Committee
3. The Wikipedia "community"
4. The Wikipedia Review "community"
5. A legislative body of the United States
6. The court of public opinion

Stay tuned...

Posted by: badlydrawnjeff

Actually, that's the textbook definition of isolated incidents. It's a very small amount, and that's assuming that unsourced = problematic, which is hardly the case.



Doc's analysis + the assertion that corrected vandalism = serious problems. I'm simply using the same numbers and stats everyone else is using here.



No, I actually meant the smearing of people who disagree with you in an attempt to run them out of the discussion. I have no problem with Doc using hard research to advance his cause, and I commend him for it, even if he's using the results in an alarmist manner.

Posted by: Kato

I'm starting to seriously doubt your ability to understand basic details Jeff.

You claim:

Doc actually said:



Earlier in the thread you made up a similar bunch of straw man claims. Elsewhere on the site you've been misquoting and misrepresenting people's factual assertions on this so much I thought you just couldn't plain read.

And the last thing, Lar's very low estimate of 600-700 seriously defamatory articles is not a problem to you? Just "isolated" cases? 600-700 living people?

Posted by: Poetlister

Of course there is. Unfortunately, despite his claims to statistical expertise Uninvited Company may not be up to the job, and I'm banned.

Posted by: Kato

Using Doc Glasgow's method, the second BLP I stumbled on was this nightmare of gossip and unsourced tabloid claims:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baton_Rouge_Serial_Killer

Posted by: badlydrawnjeff

And if you look at the source he links, it's obvious people use the {{unsourced}} template or whatever it is liberally, and without actually looking at the references or links.

I'm going off of the statistics cited on-wiki - I can't find the link right now and honestly don't care enough to do your homework on the matter.



Yes.

Posted by: Kato

I mean look at this "biography" of Britta Böhler.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britta_B%C3%B6hler

UNSOURCED:

for a while it stated

UNSOURCED:


The early versions stated simply :


...before going on to list her alleged nastiness. It's taken over two years to get to a basic non hatchet-job. And even the current article fails BLP standards in most part.

Posted by: Somey

Even if the number is below 1,000 (I'd say it's more like 5,000, depending on how you define the term "damagingly inaccurate"), you also have to remember that these aren't just ordinary people - they're people important enough to have biographies in Wikipedia. It's true that some of them are public figures to the point where they've learned to accept whatever gets written about them, but those articles aren't really the problem anyway.

The real problem is that these people are generally somewhat newsworthy and influential. If WP carries something scandalous and inaccurate on someone like that for a significant period of time, that can easily make for some big news, given WP's popularity and Google rankings. It doesn't even matter all that much what the number of affected articles is - it could be as low as ten, if those ten are about the right people. And the solution they need isn't one that fixes those 10 or 600 or 6,000 articles - they need a solution that will make those 10 or 600 or 6,000 people satisfied that it won't happen again.

And they've all got to stop making optimistic presumptions about how people react to them - "I think I'm a trustworthy person, so goshers, why doesn't everyone on the internet trust me implicitly when I operate under this silly pseudonym of mine" doesn't exactly cut it.

All I'm saying is that repeated incidents involving high-profile, influential persons could easily result in legislative or judicial action that will negatively impact everybody, all over the internet. And all because a few WP "biographers" couldn't keep it in their pants.

Posted by: BobbyBombastic

Heh. I agree, but I just tried it for fun. I found http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaginal_Davis and, interestingly, only found one possible instance of vandalism.


The title is actually Beware the Holy Whore, though on her website she does refer to herself as a http://www.vaginaldavis.com/interviews.shtml. That is an article that would make any BLP watcher's head explode! It's difficult to figure out what is vandalism and what isn't.

Posted by: Lar

For the record, I think the actual number of problematic BLPs is quite likely to be higher than 5% of 5%... but I used that number because it's one even Jeff would have trouble refuting. That he doesn't see that as a problem? ...IS a problem.

What makes the problem worse in my view is that the problematic stuff stays around longer in biographies of those who are relatively less notable (and therefore less watched, anecdotally at least, but I bet studies back it), and because they are less notable, it is more likely that their WP bio is the #1 hit on Google.

That George Herbert Walker Bush's article has the unsourced statement "was accused of cocaine use" in it for 39 seconds is relatively harmless (heck, it may even be true, I am not quite sure ). We aren't the number one hit. The article is watched a lot and gets fixed fast. Both pallatives.

That Joe Bloggsmeister, random just barely notable celeb/ceo/murder victim's article gets the unsourced statement "was accused of cocaine use", which doesn't get removed for days, weeks or months.... much more harmful... stayed around longer, and was much more likely to be viewed as authoritative since there isn't much else out there.

We all know this. Some of us even admit it, though. And some don't.

Posted by: thekohser

Until http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:ZPs19zr3hDEJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baton_Rouge_Serial_Killer+Derrick+Todd+Lee&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us.

Posted by: Kato

Right, so Doc G deleted the article.

Much as that article should have been sorted out, I don't like the idea of this site becoming another arm of Jimbo's sweatshop. Saving his ass for no reward.

Posted by: sarcasticidealist

Benefit to living person in question: they don't get libelled any more.
Benefit to Jimbo: debatable. If Wikipedia can be "fixed" by identification and repair/deletion of a few badly flawed BLPs (and I haven't heard that view advanced much around here), then you save his project. If not, it depends on 230 immunity.

Of course, none of you has any obligation, moral or otherwise, to participate in Doc's challenge. But to refrain from doing so on the basis that it would be "helping Jimbo for free" seems kind of silly.

Posted by: Moulton

That's why my objective is not to just fix one bad BLP that I personally care about, but to see through the reform of WP's policies and practices to fix the systemic problems, of which that one BLP was my initial observation.

Using WR to fix individual bad articles one by one is not a good use of this site. We need to discover a way to fix the systemic problems at their root.

Posted by: Doc glasgow

I utterly agree. I do lots of BLP correcting - but I barely dent the problem, a strong structural solution is certainly required.

However, there are two points to doing this:
1) Show the ignorant how many BLP problems we have. (And I like your rouge's gallery's ability to do that). Demonstrate the scale. I humbly believe my essay, and the research of others have helped educate some.
2) Lots of people are being libelled now. So reducing that by one helps that one. Same reason I give to famine relief, whilst knowing that only solutions at the multi-government level will make real differences - I can still help one or two real people now.

Basically, my question is: are we about diss'ing Jimbo, or alleviating suffering? And even if you say the first, what harm is there in doing the second meantime. Have a heart.

Posted by: Random832

_one_ isolated case is an isolated case. Two or three, may each be isolated cases. A hundred, a thousand, ten thousand "isolated cases", and it starts to be a systemic problem. There is no such thing as nearly a thousand isolated cases.

Posted by: Moulton

A structural solution has to start with a strong BLP policy that establishes a sound foundation for crafting BLPs and for governing biographical content in other articles.

I've already stated elsewhere my view that BLPs should only be written by credentialed editors who conscientiously adhere to normative standards of accuracy, excellence, and ethics in media, and who accept responsibility for their work. That would eliminate anonymous editors, casual editors, and those seeking to use BLPs as coatracks for tangential issues which have little or no bearing on the subject of a BLP.

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

The ones that hang around are the ones that are OWNed by admins, like Will Beback for example, who steadfastly defend the use of unsuitable BLP sources, like Chip Berlet/Cberlet for example.

Posted by: taiwopanfob

This would be my concern as well. So I think a better protocol would be to gather the evidence and then publish the observed rate(s). For some veracity, you can release a sample of the evidence.

This would characterize the problem.

The second phase of the experiment is how quick is the rate of discovery, removal, or whatever of the remainder of your sample.

This would characterize the system's response.

The Wikipediots can be expected to (ironically) howl about how "unethical" this experiment would be.





Well, there is one school of thought that says the best way to help victims of a famine is not to send food at all -- this just shorts out whatever remains of the local food market. Why grow food when there is a gravy train arriving by boat?

So:

Your's is a perfectly valid experiment, indeed a necessary one. You should not contaminate the hard-earned sample. If Wikipedia itself had a heart, the experiment would be completely unnecessary: they are the ones 'volunteering' BLP violations, not us. They are the ones ultimately on the hook for any scandalous material they host.

Upon conclusion of the experiment, though, by all means, correct the sample.

Posted by: Kato

Jimbo Wales earns $95,000 for each speaking commitment on the back of his association with the work of unpaid volunteers on Wikipedia.

In 2006, after Siegenthaler exposed WP's poor BLP treatement, Jimbo Wales spearheaded meager reforms of the BLP process. Only Wales had the authority on Wikipedia to do implement these concessions to decency.

I have laid out 3 further proposals which would go some way to preventing the harm Wikipedia continues to cause individuals in society.

1. Semi-Protection of All BLPs (these flagged revisions show no sign of even being debated yet)
2. WP:OPT-OUT / WP:NO ORIGINAL BIOGRAPHIES / WP:DEAD TREE SOURCES Subject can opt-out if not covered by dead tree biographies.
3. Doc Glasgow's deletion debate policy Default deletion for biographical subjects where no consensus to keep has been formed.

Jimbo Wales should go on to spearhead the implementation of these three proposals alongside his reforms of 2006 as soon as possible.

As Jimbo now profits significantly from his involvement with Wikipedia, he should show the decency to continue what he started in 2006. People like myself and DocG, who gain nothing from this personally, should not be obliged to spend hours of our free time pushing this. Out of the goodness of our hearts. While Jimbo continues to pocket vast fees doing nothing.

Posted by: Kato

What is the latest news regarding these so called "flagged revisions"?

They were "a couple of weeks away" some 2 months ago, I think. And were actually supposed to have been implemented a couple of years ago.

Posted by: The Joy

I thought I heard that the developers decided they didn't want to do that? Community consensus means nothing if the developers refuse to do the work.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

More Work For Fools —

Jimbo Invites One Gang O' Fools To Dump Loads Of Toxic Assfault Sewer Sludge On The Plain

Jimbo Invites Another Gang O' Fools To Plow Their Cars Into It And Keep Driving Over It Until It's Flat

Jimbo Dubs It A "Highway" And Cons The Aforesaid Gangs O' Fools Into Donating Money For The Trucks That Bring The Sludge

Think Of It As Job Suckerity …

Jon

Posted by: tarantino

It looks like they're experimenting with a http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Blpwatch&limit=250 on problematic BLPs that'll monitored by a bot or other users.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/BLPWatch

Posted by: Somey

Not bad, but it's still a remedial/band-aid approach, as opposed to a preventative one, which is what flagged revisions would be.

Does anyone think it's possible that they could increase the efficiency of the remedial approach to the point where they removed all BLP vandalism within, say, 15 minutes, 100 percent of the time? And could they keep it up indefinitely?

I'd say no of course, but I don't necessarily want to make it seem like a rhetorical question...

Posted by: Moulton

They aren't going to be able to remove persistent vandalism until they remove the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_intelligent_design#Participants.

Posted by: Amarkov

But it's a lot easier to assume that they can. And since Wikipedia has no mechanism in place to reward actual results over failed attempts, the easier path is going to be repeatedly taken. Even if it doesn't work.

Posted by: Moulton

The path of least resistance is paved with hell-bent footprints.

Posted by: Jacina

Hmm the talk page is pretty interesting for that project... also funny that its titled as "giving ID a fair shake" project and is nothing like that in reality. Anyone that (even slightly) complains about how they are handling it, gets shot at from multiple sources using wiki-acronyms and telling them they are bad faith, ignoring consensus etc...

Ah well...

Posted by: Moulton

Yes. I tossed them a http://moultonlava.blogspot.com/2007/08/scathing-glances.html or http://wikipediareview.com/blog/20080405/so-i-am-disgusted-with-wikipedia/.

Posted by: JohnA

DRAMATIC GERBIL STARE

Posted by: Moulton

I should be so intimidating.

Posted by: Kato

The thing about that template is that all BLPs are at risk of "vandalism, smearing, improper negative or unsourced information being added, or slanting" against an article subject.

...with the exception of Jimbo Wales's bio which is permanently protected in some fashion, and closely watched by cronies and sycophants.

Until Wikipedia gets serious, every other BLP subject is a victim and at the mercy of Wales and crew. The "risk" applies to all, and this template or the creation of some kind of BLP hit-squad is just papering over the cracks.

Anyhoo, no word about "flagged revisions" yet?

Posted by: Milton Roe

With all respect, you're proposing turd-polishing. There really isn't ANY good way of writing a BLP that is anywhere near factual, and that everybody will be happy with. There's no compelling reason to write one at all if nobody is happy with it. The universe won't implode if a general encyclopedia doesn't include BLPs at all. For example, the Britannica started in the time of George III and didn't include BLPs for its first century and a half, nearly, until 1911.

The reason for no BLPs is the simple one we've always given: you wouldn't like it to happen to YOU (unless you had Jimbo's army of asskissers to babytend it, AND you were forced to do it for yourself to avoid reverting a part of your own egoistic ideas-- which would in turn involve admitting you were not the Genius of the Carpathians (okay, the Genius of Madison County).

Posted by: wikiwhistle

Loads of people are desperate for a wikipedia entry- look how many people write their own

Posted by: Moulton

Either WP will tame the BLP monster, or the BLP monster will eat Wikipedia.

Posted by: Milton Roe

Sure, but they've mistaken it for Who's Who. Once they find that anybody is liable to vandalize or add embarrassing stuff to their bio, they want it back, or down. Then they find out--- wups, it's a one-way proposition. Horse. Out. Barn. To paraphase dear Alison.

Man, I should would hate to spend the rest of my life hoping I never get caught in the newspapers or the public record with my pants down (so to speak) in any way. If Jimbo didn't have a private army of little makeup artists following him around on WP, I could use his own bio to make this very WP:POINT. But that won't happen. Thus, Hivemind and other net places where Jimbo and syncophants cannot control things. And those will eventually be the downfall of him. Following which, he will feel persecuted, poor thing.

Bah, I say. As Churchill says of the end of some treasonous upstart in English history: "No mercy did he deserve, and none did he obtain." I trust that one day, for Jimbo, this will also be a fitting epitaph.

-- Milt

Posted by: ThurstonHowell3rd

When a newspaper has an article about a living person the article gets passed through the legal department to insure the newspaper will not get sued. Furthermore, if a newspaper writer does write something that is libellous the newspaper will provide the writer with legal support. No "credentialed" newspaper writer would be willing to contribute to BLP's on Wikipedia without the legal support their newspaper would provide.

Anonymous editing and BLP are incompatiable. Authors of BLP's need to be easily identified so that the subject of the BLP can easily sue the author if necessary.

Posted by: Milton Roe

Any such article be reverted by the subject, as many times as necessary, until some administrator moves in to block for 3R or something. Following which (assuming the subject of the bio has the money to pursue a class-action suit) this short sequence should occur:

"I am the subject and I'm formally asking you to remove this biography."
"Admin: Sorry, no can do."
"You refuse? I'm being libeled. See here. It says x and the truth is y."
"Admin: Sorry, there's a source, and it's verified."
"The source is wrong, and further attempts at verification will show it is in error."
"Well, all I have is your word for it."
"Yes, but now that you've been notified and refuse to act, you're in willing and flagrant disregard for facts. I am sending a certified letter to your corporate offices, naming you personally. And I do know your name, since you're on hivemind."
"Blocked indef for legal threat"

Following which you sue not only WMF, but the administrator by legal name, since he/she is acting in behalf of the corporation to commit libel, just as the editor of an editorial page is acting for the newspaper. It's no longer matter of only the person who wrote the bio being responsible. When the admin stands up for it as an editor of the medium, the administrator is responsible, as is the provider of the medium. Content has here been changed or preserved by the publisher, not just Joe Shmoe.

Now for the fun. WMF now disavows any admin actions, and hang them out to dry. Admin gets served at their work address with civil suit, and goes crying to WMF, which says: "Sorry, we don't have the money to pay for retainer for your lawyer for your personal part in this suit. Good luck. You don't get a salary from us, and what you do on WP is your problemo."

Or else, WP stands up for their admin's actions (something I don't think will happen, but hey, I can't see the future or I'd be rich). But either way, you go after the mob. And make it a class action which anybody with a bio who doesn't want it up, can join. Once news of the suit gets out on the web, it should not be hard to find a few people who've been damaged by having somebody look them up on WP and not like what they found.

We know the names of a LOT of WP admins. It's only a matter of time before somebody goes after one of them by name, and then we find out how loyal WP is to its unpaid workforce. LOL. How much do YOU think they'll legally cover for admin decisions?

Posted by: Giggy

I hang in that channel, and IMO it's not working. Not enough articles watched, not enough people watching the channel (I'm sometimes the only person online and I can't check IRC every minute), and too much irrelevant drama produced (zOMG they let people edit via bot! Let's discuss that endlessly and overlook the epic BLP issues!).

That said, I'm helping where I can (eg http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Donald_Rumsfeld&diff=prev&oldid=214764065 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Glenn_Beck&diff=prev&oldid=214763961 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Eliot_Spitzer&diff=prev&oldid=214752503) but I often feel like I'm doing it alone - having crap stay on articles for half an hour before I check IRC isn't pretty.

Posted by: Gold heart

It's a totally unsustainable situation for Wikipedia to allow BLPs to written at editors or admins whims.

The big problem for Wikipedia is, the more kudos it attains, the more it will become accountable, and accountable they will be sooner rather than later. I predict that within the next two years Wikipedia will be tested on this issue, and the present arrangement regarding BLPs is totally unacceptable by anyone's standard, and Wikipedia will fail.

Imaging Encyclopaedia Britannica producing false and libellous BLPs, never! Well Wikipedia wants to replace Britannica as the "big and great" encyclopaedia. I'm afraid they will have many hurdles to jump in the next couple of years or so. Sparks will fly over the BLP issue, and the underage child porn issue too.

Posted by: JohnA

There's always the Barbara Bauer case already in the system...

Posted by: Kato

Where are these "flagged revisions".

Where are they?

Posted by: thekohser

Maybe they're on the Openserving.com server.

Posted by: Lar

Several wikis are in discussion about how to implement this best, there are apparently technical issues (which I am not competent to speak to since I haven't followed them closely). See, for example the discussion on en: WikiSource's Scriptorium (their version of the Village Pump).

http://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Wikisource:Scriptorium&oldid=676828 should get you a snapshot, this page gets archived, but you may have to walk forward somewhat in the history over time to follow the discussion as it is ongoing as I write this.

Posted by: Kato

Where are these "Flagged Revisions"?

Still waiting.

Posted by: the fieryangel

The last I heard Jimbo was "sleeping on it".

Boy, that guy gets a lot of sleep!

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

Be careful or they will put "Mr. Wales is in a coma" into his article and source it to your post. Of course his article is already closely watched.

Posted by: SmashTheState

How are "flagged revisions" going to stop systemic bias by the Wikipedia hierarchy itself? I'm an activist in Ottawa, so my experience with BLPs has been those article for Ottawa activists, including my own. As an activist and an outspoken anarchist, I am anathema to the ruling Randroid clique, as are my peers and comrades. I've seen my own biography appear as a blatant, libellous smear job, briefly corrected, and then deleted as "non-notable" once the corrections were made -- while the libellous hatchet-job had sat untouched for months. The organization for which I'm known as their spokesperson has been repeatedly attacked, deleted, recreated, and had the article itself make the news after being vandalized by someone using a computer actually inside Ottawa City Hall. I fought a losing battle on the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Rancourt article against outright lies and defamation by several single-purpose accounts until I was finally forced to surrender after being threatened with a ban by JoshuaZ if I continued to revert the defamatory material. (I've since been in contact with the subject of the article, and we're working on a strategy for legal action together.)

Flagged revisions are only going to stop the drive-by slimings. They're going to do absolutely nothing for the deliberate hatchet-jobs by the Wikipedia hierarchy itself.

Posted by: Bottled_Spider

The main problem with "flagged revisions" has to do with the last two words in the following quote :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Flagged_revisions.
Replace those words with a name like JoshuaZ and everyone concerned is in a world of hurt. Be good for some decent drama, though. No wonder Jimbo's all a-flutter about the whole mess.

Posted by: Somey

That's absolutely true, but as they say, perfect is the enemy of good. (Or is it "perfectionism is the enemy of progress"? Or both?)

The solution to deliberate hatchet-jobs by the Wikipedia hierarchy is an opt-out policy for BLP subjects, or barring that, the elimination of civil and legislative protections against website operators who carry user-generated content. Some claim the latter would be a good thing, but those of us who don't would really like to see the Wikipedia hierarchy learn to stop masturbating over their nice little free Google-juiced revenge-fantasy site, and stop victimizing people.

Unfortunately, for some people masturbation is what the internet is all about.

Posted by: JohnA

Look, just stop criticizing my hobbies.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

You can't stop Wikipediots from broadcasting whatever they damn well please over the Internet. And the Mikiwedia Foundation is just a phone company, right?

If encyclopedias were like butter, orange juice, law, medicine, or some kinds of teaching — those products and services have interest groups that enforce standards and get laws passed to back them up.

Maybe there oughta be a law — and maybe there will be someday — that forces the WMF to call its product The Encyclopedia Cocktail That Anyone Can Cock Up.

But in the mean time, the best point of redress is probably to focus on this little bit of fine print:


Jon