Where the Wiki fails..., This has been deleted once....Saving this for posterity. Options

[Carruthers]

An IP contributor makes a thoughtful point on Jimbo's talkpage :

James,

all respect and gratitude to what you have created. Please do not feel that I am in anyway denigrating it in what I wish to post today. If I did not passionately support the project, I would not waste my time doing so.

You and the Wikipedia have had, and deserve, all your praise but, after several years and countless hours of involvement, I would like to briefly address the matter of "Where the Wikipedia Fails" because, in my documentable experience, I can honestly say there is a dangerous vein of unaccountable systemic failure that appears to run right the way up even to the bureaucrat level. And one, specifically, that in any other more accountable environment, such as academia, would be racial hate crime. Given the responsibility of the Wikipedian community as a provider of education to entire generations of world internet users, I wish to put this very seriously to you, purposefully knowing that it will be read by many including those currently abusing its open, goodwill system. To do so, I am going to require some degree of amnesty as since June I have been working on a project Documentingabuse which has incurred me considerable wrath. I am also going to have to ask for "good faith" from certain admins that certain histories are not "disappeared" in the meanwhile ... as I have seen happen.

In June of this year, after watching the scenario going on the highly political Korean-Japanese related topics for over a year, I decided to engage with one of the main proponents, a Korean-American Caspian blue (talk · contribs), and document the modus operandi of control and manipulation that is being fairly widely used across more fringe, nationalistic or passion inducing topics. I am neither Japanese nor Asian. I have no reason to have any anti-Korean bias but it does seem arise often as a Korean issue which I cant understand from a cultural perspective. After 4 years or more involvement, and having "cut my teeth" working on a topic about a cultic religion which wished to engage in concerted media control, I have encountered in the broadest manner how the system can be abuse by "skilled" individuals or small "tag teams", how content can be easily manipulated and, ultimately, not just how powerless the system is against such dedicated efforts but how probably over stressed admins actually support it.

Given Google's love affair with the Wikipedia, and hence its influence upon the young and future generations, I feel that it is seriously failing in its responsibility in such contentious areas. By allowing willfully abusive practises to go not just unchecked but even to be rewarded, especially those which have an inherent race hate element, the Wikipedia is spreading not knowledge but planting and encouraging seeds of racial hate for the future.

What I set out to do was to document the experience of a new and reasonably balanced and informed individual coming to the Wikipedia to contribute. What I think I have now sufficiently documented is how such individuals go about destroying the goodwill the Wikipedia depends on from not just newcomers but also exactly the type of contributors it needs, informed individuals with access to academia and other archives rather than just Google and blogs. In my opinion, the Wiki should be academic and rise above racial disputes not be used for propaganda. Your response is welcome. Despite being an adult with responsibilities, I am willing to put in more of my time and effort documenting and discussing such cultural obstacles at the slightest evidence of reasonableness.

Thank you, --118.16.163.13 (talk)

First posted 18:11, 1 September 2008 (UTC) - censored and removed from talk page history.

(Please note, as stated often before, my ISP gives out dynamic address, I am neither puppeting nor hiding my identity.) --58.94.56.252 (talk) 18:56, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

This post has been edited by Carruthers: Wed 3rd September 2008, 8:06pm

[Cock-up-over-conspiracy]

Thank you for archiving the post above that I left on Jimbo Wales talk page.

In June of this year, I started a project to document the abuse of the Wikipedia system by small groups of edits whose actions, or knowledge or how to game the system, were all to often supported by admins. Even leading admins.

I put myself in the position of new editor with an IP address but documented the reasons why as I was sure the shit would hit the fan at sometime. As my ISP gives out dynamic IP address, I linked back any new user pages to the original one for some reason incurring the wrath of certain admins.

I now note that talk page has been deleted as an "(G10: Attack page or negative unsourced BLP)" but have kept archives as I go, see; User_talk:222.150.193.35 and the quote below.

Personally, I have suffered on more than one occasion the waste of weeks of my life or works due to the actions of small, very deliberately self-interested or even organization sponsored and, frankly, academically ignorant individuals or tag teams in a number of fields where I am actually reasonable well informed. As a rule I work heavily from academic papers which I have access to, a largely futile exercise where one's opponents limit their prejudices to whatever they can net off of Google.

In this case, I chose to look at the MO of Korean anti-Japanese editors in particular Caspian blue on a contentious topic such as the Comfort Women. I want to state clearly from the beginning, as I did on the Wikipedia, that I am neither Japanese, nor a nationalist, nor "denier" of any hue.

These were rough notes that I documented on that talk page.

Purpose and intent

Although I stand by and defend my edits on Comfort Women as being reasonable and in many case utterly neutral, I am doing this to document and evidence nationalist tendencies at play on the WIkipedia and how contributors are willing to use their knowledge and experience of the mechanism of Wikipedia to promote their ideologies on sensitive topics. And to do so contradictory to Wikipedia policies to the point of irrationality.

As I progress, I will note the various commonly used strategies of control

• 1) Intimidation of newcomers though number threatening warnings placed on user pages
  2) The strategy of identical block reversion by identical or sympathetic contributors in the knowledge that it will provoke a new user to falling for WP:3RR
  3) Gaming the system behind the scenes on numerous admin pages that a newcomers will not know about nor be able to track.
  4) Not engaging in any discussion but demanding discussion
  5) Ignore ANY discussion the newcomer might put forward EVEN when it is far more comprehensive than the majority of editors will even do.
  6) The suggest of discussing issues point by point in the full knowledge that progress in that manner is likely impossible.
  7) Playing the race card derived from user IP addresses.
  8) Deleting perfectly neutral edits and those perfectly in line with established policy and guidelines to discourage collaboration
  9) Collusion conscious or not by sympathetic parties who may or may not be in contact with each other openly on talk pages or privately via email. Known as meatpuppetry.
  10) Gambling on the prejudices, maturity or dependability of a supportive voluntary and unaccountable admins to defend the knowledgable user's gaming in full awareness of the futility of investing energy into alternative dispute mechanism.
  11) If all else fails, you can always Blame the victim. Its a 50:50 chance of which way it will do.
  12) Throw every and any kind of accusation at the other person's edits including any infractions that you regularly perform yourself even if they are entirely false.
  13) NEVER, NEVER, NEVER EVER - UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES - READ ANY OF THE OTHER CONTRIBUTOR'S REFERENCES IN CASE THEY ARE REASONABLE.
  14) Never go further than Google for research.
  I will provide more detailed analysis with diffs as we progress.

Noto bene, on the hostile environment of the Wikipedia, openness is generally not rewarded even by admins and hours of works can be erased in a second by any individual.

Stressed but ultimately unaccountable voluntary admins are much more likely to make the easiest decision rather a good one".

At this point, I am going to make one more edit on the topic, talk and admin page only. -- (talk) 16:42, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

This post has been edited by Cock-up-over-conspiracy: Sun 7th December 2008, 6:12am

[Derktar]

Welcome to the Review.

[Cla68]

I've encountered groups of editors who often behave like Korean nationalists in a wide range of articles, many seemingly unrelated such as Apollo Anton or Ichiro Suzuki. They are very persistant, dedicated, and seem to have a persecution complex. Of course, some of the pro-Japanese editors are just as bad. If you have documented the way one or more of these groups of POV-pushers operates, I'd be interested in reading it.

[EricBarbour]

As I progress, I will note the various commonly used strategies of control[list]
[*]1) Intimidation of newcomers though number threatening warnings placed on user pages
2) The strategy of identical block reversion by identical or sympathetic contributors in the knowledge that it will provoke a new user to falling for WP:3RR
3) Gaming the system behind the scenes on numerous admin pages that a newcomers will not know about nor be able to track.
4) Not engaging in any discussion but demanding discussion
5) Ignore ANY discussion the newcomer might put forward EVEN when it is far more comprehensive than the majority of editors will even do.
6) The suggest of discussing issues point by point in the full knowledge that progress in that manner is likely impossible.
7) Playing the race card derived from user IP addresses.
8) Deleting perfectly neutral edits and those perfectly in line with established policy and guidelines to discourage collaboration
9) Collusion conscious or not by sympathetic parties who may or may not be in contact with each other openly on talk pages or privately via email. Known as meatpuppetry.
10) Gambling on the prejudices, maturity or dependability of a supportive voluntary and unaccountable admins to defend the knowledgable user's gaming in full awareness of the futility of investing energy into alternative dispute mechanism.
11) If all else fails, you can always Blame the victim. Its a 50:50 chance of which way it will do.
12) Throw every and any kind of accusation at the other person's edits including any infractions that you regularly perform yourself even if they are entirely false.
13) NEVER, NEVER, NEVER EVER - UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES - READ ANY OF THE OTHER CONTRIBUTOR'S REFERENCES IN CASE THEY ARE REASONABLE.
14) Never go further than Google for research.
I will provide more detailed analysis with diffs as we progress.

Good summary. Thanks. Stick around, and read the threads under Notable Editors.

[Cock-up-over-conspiracy]

Good summary. Thanks. Stick around, and read the threads under Notable Editors.

Thanks guys. I promise you those were only rough notes scattered over a few IP accounts (the main one deleted) that I wanted to lay down JUST to document what was going on and why I was doing what I was doing. My ISP hands out dynamic IPs and there was a limit to how much time I could afford to invest in it.

I broken my teeth on the Wikipedia facing off the concerted efforts of a number of members of an IT PR team of a cultic religion who were seeking to take control of the Wikipedia topic, removing not just the well documented academic exposé of all their hidden teachings but also links and information that would help exiting members and their friends and family. They were attempting to turn it into a whitewash PR version that matched their website and current cover-up historical revisions.

It probably took a year works to defend the page which was highly referenced from an academic point of view. My user account was dragged through every type of crap possible. It became a bad joke in the end (... especially as the culties ended up cc me into their email discussions thereby identifying themselves) but I learnt the hard way what a waste of time any of the remedial functions of the Wikipedia are, how corruptible the administration system is and how easy it is to game.

I have access to academic journals through an august national library, of which I am a reader, and online networks such as JSTOR etc and so I am feel fairly secure in contributions ... but my experience is that it is all a complete waste of time. As soon as you step outside of trivia, depth and acuity count for nothing. What matters most are your gaming skills, your established relationships and your willingness to stoop low to obstruct, discredit and neutralize other editors ... especially informed editors.

Its very depressing as it waste a tremendous amount of others people's resources - that they have to pay for - that could be invested usefully.

I've encountered groups of editors who often behave like Korean nationalists in a wide range of articles, many seemingly unrelated such as Apollo Anton or Ichiro Suzuki. They are very persistant, dedicated, and seem to have a persecution complex. Of course, some of the pro-Japanese editors are just as bad. If you have documented the way one or more of these groups of POV-pushers operates, I'd be interested in reading it.

If it is possible to images here I have some interesting screen shots from;

http://en.wikichecker.com/

that suggest some of these individuals are actually teams. I base that on their records of apparently editing 20 hours a day, 7 days a week with a clear pattern of breaking the same 4 hours a day, as if they are on shifts.

This is on an account where there had been clear, evidenced sockpuppetry and tag teaming going on before.

I decided to get stuck in and evidence it all as many, many individuals are having their time and energy wasted by these people. I am glad to find somewhere to document it.

This post has been edited by Cock-up-over-conspiracy: Sun 7th December 2008, 9:45am

[JohnA]

Why can en.wikichecker.com not see Slimvirgin's edit history?

[Cock-up-over-conspiracy]

Why can en.wikichecker.com not see Slimvirgin's edit history?

Careful ...

You need to capitalize the V., see; SlimVirgin's edits

What is worth doing with this tool is adjusting the number of edits over a period of time, e.g. one week, to identify their pattern. It does not as yet identify to and from period which would be helpful.

I have some an interesting screenshots of a single individual who is apparently online for 20 hours of the day, 7 days a week.

[EricBarbour]

I have some an interesting screenshots of a single individual who is apparently online for 20 hours of the day, 7 days a week.

LOVE to see some. Please?
If you don't feel secure posting their Wiki login, feel free to censor it.