Should valued contributers be treated differently? Options

[Eppur si muove]

Content authors, cantankerous or not, do not add much value to Wikipedia. Sure, they need some content in order to maintain the appearance of an encyclopedia, but they've already got that. At this point, what matters most to them is how many people they can suck in, and cantankerous content editors don't help at all in that regard. Getting rid of them is a no-brainer.

Content authors don't mean much to the WMF, but they do mean more to Wikipedia than how many new users there are. Wikipedia has a bazillion shitty articles - we point them out on WR all the time - and it should be more useful to improve them rather than suck in more people. Of course, they're trying (and sometimes failing) to do both at once with the university outreach programs.

I might be mistaking, but I got a feeling that the most profound contributors are usually too bright to spend the time on improving "shitty articles" written by somebody else. I believe the most profound contributors spend most time writing new articles or improving their own old ones.

I believe Kelly made some valid points. Even, if valued contributors are good for wikipedia, admins who block them seldom care about wikipedia. They mostly care what is the best way to demonstrate their power without loosing their tools.

I find it easier myself to work alone on a relatively small subject and create a good article. A larger subject may either need the perspective of more than one person or at least will require working around other people who may be invested in the current version. Also what I can write about is influenced by what references I have at home and what I can get for free. For other subjects I would have to reach out to other people and this involves finding someone I am happy to work with.

In the case of Richard Wagner (T-H-L-K-D) I had the advantage of the article being written by some knowledgeable mature adults. I was also happy to acknowledge that Smerus (T-C-L-K-R-D) has a doctorate in a related subject. I therefore concentrated on proof-reading and on what was necessary to meet the GA criteria but was able to notice factual errors and could still do things such as rebalancing the lede. Whilst a lot of what I did was gnomish, I also took the role of a more conventional second author in being able to comment on the whole and adapt it.

Now, if I was to wade into a subject like the politics of Northern Ireland, I would find that it has so many watchers who have been brainwashed since birth into thinking one particular perspective is the one and only right one that it would be impossible to work productively. And many of them would resist change for political reasons how many reliable sources I produced. In the I/P area I have experienced and observed far too much nonsense of that sort. In articles on food items such baklava (T-H-L-K-D), hummus (T-H-L-K-D), falafel (T-H-L-K-D) various nationalists of different hues interfere so that any good article would be likely to degrade in the face of nonsense.

So many content developers have learnt to keep away from existing articles and work on their own stuff. But if Malleus were ever to change his views on further participation, then I would be happy to take up a long-standing offer he made askign for a collaborator to make ferret (T-H-L-K-D) a GA or better.

[Eppur si muove]

Wikipedia's treatment of valued contributors reminds to me a Russian poem (sorry for my translation)

Nuggets are thrown off a cliff,
Our gold is dullness.
We need no talents,
we only need dullness.

Good quote. Very Russian. I can imagine Shostakovitch or Mussorgsky setting it for bass voice.

You would laugh, but this "very Russian" quote, and it is Russian, was taken from a poem about Robert Kennedy, it was USA the author wrote about that they do not need talents.

Of course this author could not have written such poem about Soviet Union without risking being send to a mental hospital, but knowing this author, I am sure this poem was about Soviet Union much more than it was about USA. In Soviet Union every smart person was able to read between the lines. This ability often helped us to cope with the regime.

The year before JFK's death Shostakovitch did set some similar material in his Symphony No. 13 (Shostakovich) (T-H-L-K-D) but that was during the Kruschev thaw and still got criticised. By the time that Bobby was shot, it was the Brezhnev era.

[Ottava]

People who don't work on the encyclopedia have no business there. That should be rule number one and, if enforced, 80% of the people would be instantly banned and the rest would be sorted out.

[Malleus]

People who don't work on the encyclopedia have no business there. That should be rule number one and, if enforced, 80% of the people would be instantly banned and the rest would be sorted out.

Dumping all the administrators and removing the God-king's rights would be a start, but that's obviously not going to happen any time soon.

This post has been edited by Malleus: Mon 26th December 2011, 7:47pm

[EricBarbour]

Simply put, Wikipedia doesn't really want good articles. They want lots and lots of middling and even bad articles, with just enough good articles that they can make a show about quality. If overall quality rose too high, too many people would be scared off from participation ("There's no way I could ever write anything that good"). Wikipedia isn't about educating poor children in Africa or anywhere else, or even about knowledge generally. No, indeed, the main mission of Wikipedia is spreading WikiLove.

Yep. They don't care about anything but maintaining the illusion of an "encyclopedia", while they
wargame in the background. They've got 3.8 million articles, mostly crap with a few good bits,
and they've got the nerd-culture drivel that keeps the nerds coming back. So it's no wonder they
don't give a hang about "commentary" or "criticism" or even "facts".

Like Facebook, they're "invincible". (So they fool themselves.)

[victim of censorship]

Simply put, Wikipedia doesn't really want good articles. They want lots and lots of middling and even bad articles, with just enough good articles that they can make a show about quality. If overall quality rose too high, too many people would be scared off from participation ("There's no way I could ever write anything that good"). Wikipedia isn't about educating poor children in Africa or anywhere else, or even about knowledge generally. No, indeed, the main mission of Wikipedia is spreading WikiLove.

Yep. They don't care about anything but maintaining the illusion of an "encyclopedia", while they
wargame in the background. They've got 3.8 million articles, mostly crap with a few good bits,
and they've got the nerd-culture drivel that keeps the nerds coming back. So it's no wonder they
don't give a hang about "commentary" or "criticism" or even "facts".

Like Facebook, they're "invincible". (So they fool themselves.)

Thats right, Wikipedia is just a MMORPG. The little good that Wiki gives back is overshadowed the massive amount of evil it spreads all over the internet. Between the Lies, Defamation, The flooding the internet and chocking it with Misinformation. The Wikipedia as show it's unworkable model and should be scraped.

Below is a mental picture of what I think of House of Wiki...


This post has been edited by victim of censorship: Mon 26th December 2011, 9:20pm

[mbz1]

People who don't work on the encyclopedia have no business there. That should be rule number one and, if enforced, 80% of the people would be instantly banned and the rest would be sorted out.

Dumping all the administrators and removing the God-king's rights would be a start, but that's obviously not going to happen any time soon.

Malleus, in the last few days you commented on jimbo in a different threads here, at WR. Could you please tell me, if you ever made a similar comments about jimbo on wiki? If so, could you please link to them, if not, why not?
Thanks.

[jd turk]

Dumping all the administrators and removing the God-king's rights would be a start, but that's obviously not going to happen any time soon.

And then what?

"The police and government aren't doing enough to curb crime here in our town. Let's fire all of them."

Until Wikipedia gets a Batman, that's not a solution.

[Kelly Martin]

"The police and government aren't doing enough to curb crime here in our town. Let's fire all of them."

Until Wikipedia gets a Batman, that's not a solution.

Except that Wikipedia's administrators are not particularly much involved in "stopping crime".

[jd turk]

"The police and government aren't doing enough to curb crime here in our town. Let's fire all of them."

Until Wikipedia gets a Batman, that's not a solution.

Except that Wikipedia's administrators are not particularly much involved in "stopping crime".

Right. But throwing out the entire lot of them, as Malleus is suggesting, isn't going to help either.

You can't really say "all admins are bad," especially when by Wikipedia terms, what they're doing is exactly what's expected. If you change the responsibilities, you change the expectations. Until then, no point in blaming volunteers for doing what they want to with no supervision.

[mbz1]

"The police and government aren't doing enough to curb crime here in our town. Let's fire all of them."

Until Wikipedia gets a Batman, that's not a solution.

Except that Wikipedia's administrators are not particularly much involved in "stopping crime".

I could have lived with administrators that are not particularly much involved in "stopping crime".
I cannot live with administrators who block valued contributors to satisfy the trolls and the hounds.

[Tarc]

"The police and government aren't doing enough to curb crime here in our town. Let's fire all of them."

Until Wikipedia gets a Batman, that's not a solution.

Except that Wikipedia's administrators are not particularly much involved in "stopping crime".

I could have lived with administrators that are not particularly much involved in "stopping crime".
I cannot live with administrators who block valued contributors to satisfy the trolls and the hounds.

What about when valued contributors are also trolls and hounds?

[Ottava]

Until Wikipedia gets a Batman, that's not a solution.

I thought Mr. Kohs was Batman.... or was I not supposed to tell everyone that?

[thekohser]

Until Wikipedia gets a Batman, that's not a solution.

I thought Mr. Kohs was Batman.... or was I not supposed to tell everyone that?

Alfred, you can stop folding my t-shirts. They're on to us.

[jd turk]

What about when valued contributors are also trolls and hounds?

Nicely put.

Who's the best "valued contributor" who's not also a drama magnet? Because generally speaking by saying one, we're implying the other. No one is described as a "quality content contributor" unless it's in relation to the amount of disruption surrounding them (whether their fault or that of other editors).

[Wikifan]

What about when valued contributors are also trolls and hounds?

this.

secondly, who the hell is Malleus? And if he is such an awesome fuck, can his contributions be enumerated (mathematically) to show he is actually more valuable than a dozen or a "hundred" admins? Seems very hyperbolic.

Difficult to edit when users create a climate of hostility, and calling another user a cunt is pathetic. I imagine that person banging their head on the keyboard in a fit of rage.

wikipedia isn't going anywhere. if you can't deal with some internet asshole without using profanity against the rules then perhaps you should consider doing something else with your time.

[melloden]

wikipedia isn't going anywhere. if you can't deal with some internet asshole without using profanity against the rules then perhaps you should consider doing something else with your time.

You assume that profanity is bad. Some people use the term "cunt" often and very loosely, and to them it might not be much more than "bastard" or "dumbass" or whatever people call each other these days. Just because Malleus thinks someone is a cunt doesn't mean he's bashing his head into a keyboard out of frustration.

It's difficult to do a lot of things when users create a of hostility, but that can't always be bad, otherwise, why does WR bother existing?

[jd turk]

You assume that profanity is bad. Some people use the term "cunt" often and very loosely, and to them it might not be much more than "bastard" or "dumbass" or whatever people call each other these days. Just because Malleus thinks someone is a cunt doesn't mean he's bashing his head into a keyboard out of frustration.

I see this line of reasoning on WP used as well, and no offense, but it makes no sense.

Malleus used words he knew would be inflammatory. Whether it's "cunt," or "asshole," or "Cubs fan," or whatever, he used it knowing full well it would be taken in an aggressive manner. And when it was pointed out to him it could be taken that way, I don't recall seeing any kind of apology. If I missed it I apologize, but all I've seen is basically "it doesn't mean what you think it does, so fuck off, cunts."

Whatever the word used happened to be, it was used for a certain purpose and there doesn't seem to be any regret it was taken in a hateful manner. Disagreement over the exact connotation of the term doesn't excuse the intent, or the lack of regret if it was taken incorrectly.

It's all a part of the "Valued Content Contributors Circle of Drama."

[Wikifan]

wikipedia isn't going anywhere. if you can't deal with some internet asshole without using profanity against the rules then perhaps you should consider doing something else with your time.

You assume that profanity is bad. Some people use the term "cunt" often and very loosely, and to them it might not be much more than "bastard" or "dumbass" or whatever people call each other these days. Just because Malleus thinks someone is a cunt doesn't mean he's bashing his head into a keyboard out of frustration.

It's difficult to do a lot of things when users create a of hostility, but that can't always be bad, otherwise, why does WR bother existing?

that's total bullshit. we all know what cunt means and it doesn't mean bastard or dumbass, it means cunt.

nobody can read mallaeus' mind. if he intended to call someone a dumbass, he should have said "dumbass", and not cunt which is considered to be one of the most offensive words in the english language. and in any case, when editors are using that kind of language it is fair to assume there is a much deeper behavioral problem. if his only violation was a bad word, that by itself isn't such a huge deal. he'd probably get hit with a block of some kind.

anything beyond that and it is cruel and unusual punishment.

[Tarc]

What about when valued contributors are also trolls and hounds?

this.

You do realize that my statement was about Mila, right?