Stephen Colbert Causes Chaos on Wikipedia, And, predictably, gets banned for it Options

[Somey]

Colbert later made some comments about Wikiality and changing the universe just by editing Wikipedia, which evidentally were not well received at WMF. They resulted in all but the above two edits being NUKED. Including the edits which created the user:StephenColbert userpage and all the rest. Gone.

My guess is that at the time, they were hoping he wouldn't have any staying power on Comedy Central. At this point it's clear that he does have that, of course... As I recall, they were also upset about his calling on viewers to edit the WP "Elephants" article so as to misrepresent their population numbers, which was considered "disruptive." (OH NOES!) However, that should have been a simple matter of protecting the article for a few days.

So yes, disappearing these edits is more of an embarrassment to WP than anything else, but only if we assume there's some legitimate historical importance to the events in question.

[Milton Roe]

Colbert later made some comments about Wikiality and changing the universe just by editing Wikipedia, which evidentally were not well received at WMF. They resulted in all but the above two edits being NUKED. Including the edits which created the user:StephenColbert userpage and all the rest. Gone.

My guess is that at the time, they were hoping he wouldn't have any staying power on Comedy Central. At this point it's clear that he does have that, of course... As I recall, they were also upset about his calling on viewers to edit the WP "Elephants" article so as to misrepresent their population numbers, which was considered "disruptive." (OH NOES!) However, that should have been a simple matter of protecting the article for a few days.

So yes, disappearing these edits is more of an embarrassment to WP than anything else, but only if we assume there's some legitimate historical importance to the events in question.

Disappearing the edits amounts to oversighting them. Why oversight the edit that somebody (some newbie, whether it was or wasn't Colbert, are we not agreed?) used to create their own userpage?? This is completely beyond the pale, and there's nothing even remotely in any WP policy which explains or justifies this. Or the indef block, either. (Where's the warning to the newbie about his unacceptable username, eh?) So do we have any WP admins on WR who want to explain to me how this went down, per WP guidelines?

So this is just one more example of how WP doesn't follow its own policies.

My own guess is that Wales actually DID call up the Colbert show, and tried to pull an Alpha Dog of the Week on them. Probably asked or demanded to be on the show. Or threatened them. And Colbert or his people told Jimbo to piss up a rope. So the word went from Jimbo to his admin lackey of the week, who I suppose was AmiDaniel (do we have a subforum for him?) and somebody with Nukepower (surely a limited list of 'crats) nuked newbie user:Stephencolbert's first bunch of edits. Except for those two. And then indef blocked him, no appeal.

WP:BITE. We'll show you who's alpha dog.

[Cedric]

My own guess is that Wales actually DID call up the Colbert show, and tried to pull an Alpha Dog of the Week on them. Probably asked or demanded to be on the show. Or threatened them. And Colbert or his people told Jimbo to piss up a rope. So the word went from Jimbo to his admin lackey of the week, who I suppose was AmiDaniel (do we have a subforum for him?) and somebody with Nukepower (surely a limited list of 'crats) nuked newbie user:Stephencolbert's first bunch of edits. Except for those two. And then indef blocked him, no appeal.

WP:BITE. We'll show you who's alpha dog.

Actually, Jimbo did appear on The Colbert Report, but it was nearly a year after "the tripling elephants controversy" and Colbert's original block.

[danielaword]

On Monday night's episode of The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert addressed the online resource Wikipedia, that anyone can read or edit. Colbert praised Wikipedia for "wikiality" the reality that exists if you make something up and enough people agree with you, it becomes reality.



http://spring.newsvine.com/_news/2006/08/0...ocked-from-site

: THANX COLBERT, KEEP UP THE GOOD JOB! WILL SEND U ADDITIONAL INFO!

[thekohser]

Mods, why is this story "pinned" in the folder?