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_ Meta Discussion _ Wikipedia as Soviet Union
Posted by: Amarkov
Once upon a time, there was a young idealistic revolutionary named Lenin Jimbo. Countries encyclopedias were all based on a system that allowed smart people to have more influence, and stupid people to have less. Lenin Jimbo didn't like this too much, and dreamed of a world where all people were treated as equals.
Suddenly, an opportunity came along, and the Russian Revolution Wikipedia began. Despite some questionable things, for a while it ran pretty smoothly, and the ideal of everyone being equal was reached somewhat decently.
But then the problems came. Human society simply does not work without some hierarchy in place, so if you strip that away, a new one will show up; probably not one that will be all that good. Thus, the young Stalin cabal came along. They built up the positions they occupied until the formerly rather insignificant positions were the most powerful in Russia Wikipedia.
Then, of course, came the mass killing banning. People who disagreed with the new power began to be removed for little reason, and the people who used to run the country site just kinda went along and tried not to get punished.
If this is the wrong place, sorry. But I wanted to put this somewhere.
Posted by: Piperdown
Once upon a time, there was a young idealistic revolutionary named
Suddenly, an opportunity came along, and
But then the problems came. Human society simply does not work without some hierarchy in place, so if you strip that away, a new one will show up; probably not one that will be all that good. Thus, the young
Then, of course, came the mass
Reminds me more of 1950's/60's Mao China than Russia, in that it's mostly over-excited minors and other gullible volunteers turning their elders in to the supreme leader.
Ryulong http://antisocialmedia.net/?p=118 Mao-era people's revolutionary. You ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow...:
G-Dett : “Would it be fair to say that Wikipedia’s current working definition of a WordBomb sockpuppet is anyone whose edits focus (either wholly or in part) on naked-short-selling -related articles, and who opposes User:Mantanmoreland and User:Samiharris?â€
RyÅ«lóng: “They would be common traits as far as I know.â€
G-Dett : “Of course they’re common traits; my question was whether they’re enough for a positive ID.â€
RyÅ«lóng: “I would say so.â€
Posted by: Derktar
You forgot to mention the Cominform Arbcom.
Posted by: Amarkov
You forgot to mention the
Meh. Arbcom doesn't really serve an active role in corruption, they just kinda parrot what more cabal-like people want to happen.
Posted by: Nathan
That's pretty good, actually.
Posted by: alienus
Meh. Arbcom doesn't really serve an active role in corruption, they just kinda parrot what more cabal-like people want to happen.
Arbcom does serve an active role in corruption since it runs the kangaroo court where the politiclaly undesirable get to go through the motions and be declared officially guilty prior to their exile to Siberia. Jayjg, sitting on ArbCom, is not only personally corrupt but a supporter of various cabals, including his pro-circumcision Snippies (Team Foreskin?), and of other corrupt admins, including our very own SV.
Hmm. Frankly, this Soviet communism analogy isn't particularly apt. One thing I do agree about from the analogy is that, by pretending there is no power structure, it only guarantees that the power structure that naturally forms will be a corrupt one. Anarchy doesn't exist, except as a transitory state from one form of government to the next. By pretending that anarchy is stable, we only doom ourselves to petty despotism.
Al
Posted by: Moulton
The dysfunctional society that predated the Russian Revolution was the political society that Fyodor Dostoevsky caricatured in his novels, Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov.
A distinguished literary analyst at Stanford University by the name of http://www.google.com/search?q=Rene+Girard, who specialized in Dostoevsky, extracted a succinct model of the socio-cultural dynamics of Dostoevsky's insights into those troubled dynamics. Girard's Model of contagious intrigue can be applied to the case of WikiDrama...
http://ultra.musenet.org:8020/media/WikiDrama.html
Wheel-Warring in WikiDrama, like political give and take everywhere, follows an oft-observed model. The model presented here applies in general to all WikiDrama at any level of intensity, from a simple reversion to clamorous kerfuffle and brouhaha. It has 5 stages.
1. Mimetic Desire for One's Point of View
One editorial clique establishes their Point of View as an editorial objective and other editors react with a countervailing drive for their complementary Point of View.
2. Mimetic Rivalry for More Prominence
Now the editorial cliques begin competing for prominence. Whatever winning strategies emerge, the less experienced editors copy them. To survive in Wikipedia, an editor must become deft at gaming the labyrinthine rules of the system.
3. Skandalon
Skandalon is a Greek word that means "taking the bait." It's the root of "slander" and "scandal." In the rivalry for editorial dominance, if one side can goad the other into committing a foul, the opposing editor can be neutralized or even eliminated from the game. Thus begins a Wiki-War, fought on the editorial chessboard, in which the goal is to demolish and disempower the other side. Skandalon is what makes it so hard not to take the bait, so hard just to walk away. It's so easy to bicker and goad. The give and take escalates.
4. Scapegoating and Alienation
Eventually one editor crosses some arbitrary threshold of civility where another Admin referee feels compelled to intervene. It's essentially random which side crosses first, but often it's the more disgruntled minority, which uses harsher language to maintain parity. Whichever side goes over the arbitrary line becomes singled out, and the others who kept their trolling below threshold are sorely offended. They rudely chastise the miscreant, sending him or her to the Oblivion of Indefinite Time Out.
5. Consensual, Irrevocable, and Sanctioned Banishment
To appease the rabble, the ArbCom determines the standards of civility and visits banishment and page-blanking on the outcast. Then everyone left behind issues a sigh of relief. This escalates the polarization to the next higher level of examination in online culture.
The 5-stage pattern repeats at all levels of WikiDrama and for all rivalries and editorial competitions. The most vicious attacks are reserved for people highest up in the power structure. Jimbo Wales, ArbCom, and Wikipedia Review all follow this model. Well, actually, almost everyone on the planet follows it.
At every point in a battle of WikiWits, the dynamic is somewhere in the 5-stage model, which repeats endlessly.
Posted by: Kato
Welcome to the Review Moulton! An auspicious opening.
By the way, I just checked your talk page to find a http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Moulton&diff=prev&oldid=157314123#No_One_Expects_the_Spammish_Inquisition worthy of our own Jonny Cache himself! 
If I had been present in the time of Pope Urban's Inquisition, I'd like to think I would have stood up for Galileo, even though all the reliable sources kept assuring the Pope that the Sun went around the Earth.
If I had been there at the trial of Socrates, I'd like to think I would have stood up for the principle of skeptical examination of the evidence, principles of ethics, and critical thinking.
Moulton 23:42, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
Love it!
Posted by: Moulton
Evidently Odd Nature and MastCell didn't share your amusement as they saw fit to blank my talk page and indefinitely protect it. I'm still trying to figure out what's so problematic about http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Moulton&oldid=165096240 on that page.
Posted by: Eva Destruction
You're all http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Archive_104#Yet_another_essay_from_me...
Posted by: Moulton
You're all http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Archive_104#Yet_another_essay_from_me...
Hrmmm.... Walton One http://moultonlava.blogspot.com/2007/09/blathersburg-address.html by five measly days.
Posted by: Jonny Cache
You're all http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Archive_104#Yet_another_essay_from_me …
Hrmmm … Walton One http://moultonlava.blogspot.com/2007/09/blathersburg-address.html by five measly days.
I hope you realize that you have both just managed to wik'n'criminate yourselves as meat-or-sock-puppets of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Spaghettisburg_Address.
Welcome to the Club !!!
Jonny
Posted by: Moulton
Welcome to the Club !!
Perverted minds think alike, eh?
Posted by: Jonny Cache
Welcome to the Club !!!
Perverted minds think alike, eh?
Ø ν
I once started a WikiProject — salt o' the earth that it is today — that aimed to explain to the wiki-brain-washed masses the differences in assertion-warranting that exist between mathematics and other disciplines. It was entitled 0NUTS, for Nothing New Under The Sun.
It was deleted by ∑1 named KillerChihuahua, I think, or maybe FeloniousMonk.
Jonny
Posted by: Moulton
I have the feeling that KillerChihuaha, FeloniousMonk, and their Cabal-Mates don't care for academics who promote the http://underground.musenet.org:8080/utnebury/FirstBook.html to problem solving.
Posted by: Jonny Cache
I have the feeling that KillerChihuaha, FeloniousMonk, and their Cabal-Mates don't care for academics who promote the http://underground.musenet.org:8080/utnebury/FirstBook.html to problem solving.
I hesitate to speculate on the measure of their apathy, but I'm preterite convinced they don't know http://forum.wolframscience.com/showthread.php?threadid=498.
Jonny
Posted by: Moulton
I don't think their alacrity in ridding Wikipedia of the likes of us is driven by apathy.
I think it's driven by fear of revelation.
Posted by: Jonny Cache
I don't think their alacrity in ridding Wikipedia of the likes of us is driven by apathy.
I think it's driven by fear of revelation.
Which Chapter?
Which Verse?
Jonny
Posted by: Moulton
See Daniel Berrigan's http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Nightmare+of+God%22+%22Daniel+Berrigan%22 with illustrations by Tom Lewis-Borbely. Berrigan, a political actÂiÂvist and lay Episcopalian, offers a fresh and idiosyncratic reading of the Apocalypse as political tract. You can find a brief discussion of Berrigan's analysis in http://www.johndear.org/articles/apostle_of_peace.html by John Dear.
Posted by: Jonny Cache
See Daniel Berrigan's http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Nightmare+of+God%22+%22Daniel+Berrigan%22 with illustrations by Tom Lewis-Borbely. Berrigan, a political actÂiÂvist and lay Episcopalian, offers a fresh and idiosyncratic reading of the Apocalypse as political tract. You can find a brief discussion of Berrigan's analysis in http://www.johndear.org/articles/apostle_of_peace.html by John Dear.
Yes, I remember many stories about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Dark_Knight_Of_The_Soul.
Jonny
Posted by: Moulton
The Berrigan Brothers, John Dear, and other members of the http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Prince+of+Peace+Plowshares%22 are an interesting lot. Among other things I learned from them is the seminal work of http://www.google.com/search?q=Rene+Girard.