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Posted by: EricBarbour

Yet another expert in an obscure field (alternative music keyboards) has fallen afoul of Wiki-Crazy-Time.

http://musicscienceguy.vox.com/library/post/the-wikipedia-blues.html by Ken Rushton.

The Jim Plamondon BLP was http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jim_Plamondon&action=history by that lovely sweet creature, Fram. Even though references abound.

The Peter Davies article will be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Peter_Davies_(inventor), admittedly. Even though Davies is famous in the UK for his custom guitar work, he's not Googly enough for Kool-Aiders.

I've already told Ken that he's not alone, but that the only way to save those articles is to involve the even-crazier ARS. Feel free to send Ken your commiserations.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

Silly Rabbit!

The only way to save those articles is to put them somewhere besides Wikipedia.

Jon

Posted by: milowent

so are you saying its good or bad that his articles were hacked away at? sounds like his primary purpose was to use wikipedia to post "original research" as the lingo goes. i mean, he bemoans not being able to cite his own blog on wikipedia.

that being said, its quite common for articles on actually notable subjects to get prodded and/or sent to AfD because the nom. doesn't know what he doesn't know, and doesn't care to know.

Posted by: victim of censorship

The truth is Wikipedia is a lawless domain, and with out the means to regulate itself in any fundamental way. Wikipedia, instead is the home of pedophiles, social misfits and other petty power drunk sociopaths - a wild west of roving gangs of basement dwelling cretins, like your self.

What wikipedia is, is a cesspool of misinformation.

Posted by: Moulton

Yes. Full stop.

Posted by: milowent

so, its a reflection of the real world then. it regulates itself by social pressure, cultural norms, and underlying vague threats of force.

Posted by: A Horse With No Name

It is a carnival funhouse mirror reflection.

Posted by: Moulton

There is no evidence that I am aware of to suggest that WP has any recognizable form of self-regulation. The evidence that I'm aware of is that the governance model of Wikipedia corresponds to the way primitive tribal cultures operated prior to the advent of the Rule of Law, some 4000 years ago.

Posted by: Emperor

Encyc will take the keyboard articles but not the BLPs.

Posted by: milowent

what about all this consensus stuff and the rules and policies and guidelines and such? its a friggin cacophony of rules and regulations! and just like a real world government the rules are enforced haphazardly and inconsistently. in the real world we have oil platforms explode and mine disasters as a result. on wikipedia we have crappy articles and some porn.

i would suggest that for a primarily volunteer organization, wikipedia isn't that badly run. (heresy?)

Posted by: Milton Roe

Yes. WP exists in the virtual world where many of the worst oil platform explosions can be fixed with a mouse click-- and a lot of "oil slick," too. And yet WP still sucks on the matter of privacy invasion and defamation of living persons, since the one thing that can't be done with a mouse click or server reboot, is clean up personal information, once it's out.

That being true, you would think, therefore, that WP would focus on defamation and privacy, as its worst potential vehicle to cause harm in "meat-space." It doesn't. I see little sign that it even comprehends the various gradiations in problems it can cause, and damage it can do.

So, no, WP is in many ways not that well-run for a private organization. Some of it seems fairly good-- the servers and programming are "down" a lot less than I'd expect for a server farm of its size. But the basic core policies and amount of evil WP does, is more or less in proportion to its ability to DO evil, which isn't saying much for WP. WP can't blow up an oil rig or bring down a space shuttle-- and it doesn't. Big deal! It CAN act as a propaganda and business advertising site that warps values on the net, and it does that. It can also cause personal harm to people who get stopped in customs or have others thinks badly of them after "looking them up" in Wikipedia. It doesn't have to do that sort of stupid and silly thing to people, but it does anyway. It lacks any ethics or notion of the golden rule. As a busness, its morals are totally childish and selfish. It does not exist to serve its readers, but rather its writers and (even more so) its volunteer administrators, directors, and paid executive employees, who run it for fun and profit, not for the public good.

Sorry. I wish it weren't so. Wikipedia could freely choose not to be a tabloid-amplifier. But that would be less fun. And possbily less profitable, though we cannot say for sure on the last, since they've never tried it.

Posted by: milowent

seigenthaler was 5 years ago and the only people who seem to think about it anymore are wikipedians (or ex-wikipedians). i barely remember hearing about it at the time (when i was only an occasional user and not an editor). i really think most editors don't think about these issues, and since wikipedia is immune from defamation suits, nothing is going to change drastically unless the law does, i would think.

bad BLPs can be a problem area. it effects few very people as a % of content, but its critical to those it effects.

But i think that as a primarily volunteer organization, wikipedia is fairly astounding, and amazingly popular. people know things on it can be wrong, but rely on it for billions of things daily.

Posted by: Moulton

Yah, it's an astounding way for adolescents to learn, by direct experience, the bloody lessons of 4000 years of political history.