Charles Sanders Peirce, Who Trashes My Steels Options

[Jonny Cache]

Our blissèd holidays from the vine-withering attentions of Certain Desecrative Individuals have permitted a few aficionados and brave aficionadas to thaw the once proud Wikipedia article on Charles Sanders Peirce from its eldritch and gellid grave.

Now I think you all know — this Critic has grown too much the Cynic to be shouting in the streets and springing for hope eternal, not at the expense of disbursing boons from the depths of his own private peirce, er, purse, just yet. But it does behoove him — and you know how much Old Teχians love to be behooved — to keep one Eye of Texas on the ensuing developments, whichaway they go.

Reference Materials

• Charles Peirce
• Talk:Charles_Peirce
• Edit History for Article
• Edit History for Talk Page
• Talk:Charles_Peirce/Archive_1
• Talk:Charles_Peirce/Archive_2
• Talk:Charles_Peirce/Archive_3

And For All You "Not To Be Confused Wits" Out There —

• Charles Pierce
• Charlie Pierce

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Mon 10th September 2007, 12:38pm

[Jonny Cache]

When It Comes To Wikipedia, The Question Is Always —

Can You Be Cynical Enough ?

After a few days of people who actually know and care anything about the subject peaceably working through their assorted perspectives on the main and talk pages, Jossi, who is evidently vying to be The New Jayjg™, reinflicts the massive vandalism that SlimVirgin and Jayjg ⊥etrated on the article.

Same Old Wikipedia (SOW) …

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Sun 9th September 2007, 6:16pm

[Nathan]

There is no such thing as too much cynicism. :-)

[Jonny Cache]

There is no such thing as too much cynicism. :-)

Not when it comes to ∑ People, ∑ Places …

I am not by nature a Cynic, but I've sure been taught by Masters at Wikipedia.

If WikiVarsity ever gets kranking, maybe I can get a Doctorate in Cynic Divinity?

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Sun 9th September 2007, 6:28pm

[Jonny Cache]

Reference Materials

• Charles Peirce
• Talk:Charles_Peirce
• Edit History for Article
• Edit History for Talk Page
• Talk:Charles_Peirce/Archive_1
• Talk:Charles_Peirce/Archive_2
• Talk:Charles_Peirce/Archive_3

Well, Sports Phans, yet another glimmer of hope dashed into the dirt, but I'm guessing most of you know what sordid sort of game to expect from the Wikiputia Wiknees by now. Yeah Team !!!

But let me lay out the latest play-by-play, blow-by-blow, suck-by-suck, as the case may be, for any of you who are too timorous to tackle the tangled terrible tale.bak yourself.

I should probably pre*ramble by saying that I regard the Sad History of the C.S. Peirce article , the Tragedy of its Time on Wikipedia, to be the very epitome, the near-perfect microcsom of everything that's most glaringly spit-in-the-face wrong with Wikipedia. I know it's a bit of a stretch getting anyone else all worked up over yet another dead white guy, when there's The Only Living Bio In Wikipedia (This Week) to go to the mat for one more time — but I truly believe that a careful grokking of the grope dynamics in this tiny microworld would give us invaluable insite into the ins and outs of that sore-eyed, sore-head site.

But first, a cup o' wake-me-↑ from our friendly local caffeinator …

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Tue 11th September 2007, 2:06pm

[Kato]

The Charles Pierce history on WP looks really strange. Even by WPs standards.

All content discussions seem out of the question. There's not even a vague pretence of anyone playing by the guidelines.

Also, I can't immediately see why their version is preferable to yours, Jonny. It's not like they've tidied it up with laboured footnotes or any of the other trinkets to make the article meet guidelines. If their alternative was a shiny, pocket sized, beautiful summary of Pierce, albeit without your additional analysis and visual examples, then then they'd have some sort of a case within WPs idiosyncratic structure. But it isn't. And all reverts seem to stem from an irrational fear of... well... you.

Very odd. And one for the watchlist.

**Update**
Yesterday, I had a look at one of the many articles I made scores of edits to, adding footnotes, working on the text, checking for accuracy, adding pictures, combing for vandals, reworking prose, weighing up POV issues etc. Since my exit, it now looks likes someone shat on the page. I won't say what article it is, but it is possibly the most significant deterioration of any article on the site. I'm not even using hyperbole here, but it has completely collapsed! Every section has some bit of comedic vandalism - a large part of it is now incomprehensible - and some joker has added a vast, misplaced template halfway down the page - mid sentence - relating to the wikicommons! I can't imagine a better testament to the failures of WP. And it's not even an obscure article.

[Jonny Cache]

The Charles Peirce history on WP looks really strange. Even by WPs standards.

All content discussions seem out of the question. There's not even a vague pretence of anyone playing by the guidelines.

Also, I can't immediately see why their version is preferable to yours, Jonny. It's not like they've tidied it up with laboured footnotes or any of the other trinkets to make the article meet guidelines. If their alternative was a shiny, pocket sized, beautiful summary of Peirce, albeit without your additional analysis and visual examples, then then they'd have some sort of a case within WPs idiosyncratic structure. But it isn't. And all reverts seem to stem from an irrational fear of … well … you.

Very odd. And one for the watchlist.

**Update**

Yesterday, I had a look at one of the articles I made scores of edits to, adding footnotes, working on the text, checking for accuracy, adding pictures, combing for vandals, reworking prose, weighing up POV issues etc. Since my exit, it now looks likes someone shat on the page. I won't say what article it is, but it is possibly the most significant deterioration of any article on the site. I'm not even using hyperbole here, but it has completely collapsed! Every section has some bit of comedic vandalism — a large part of it is now incomprehensible — and some joker has added a vast, misplaced template halfway down the page — mid sentence — relating to the wikicommons! I can't imagine a better testament to the failures of WP. And it's not even an obscure article.

To get a sense of what's going on with the Peirce article, you would have to go back a year and a summer in a longer trace of the article history, to the onslaught of WikiPuppet War 1, that began with a Sneak Attack on D-Day 2006. The first few edits were light-packing scouts just testing the waters, but then …

I have to go dig up some bodies …

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Tue 11th September 2007, 3:02pm

[Jonny Cache]

To get a sense of what's going on with the Peirce article, you would have to go back a year and a summer in a longer trace of the article history, to the onslaught of WikiPuppet War 1, that began with a Sneak Attack on D-Day 2006. The first few edits were light-packing scouts just testing the waters, but then …

I have to go dig up some bodies …

Jonny

You can track forward from the innocent enough looking pawn opening of the ostensible newbie Epistemologist on D-Day 2006, and you'll see that I was far too naive in those days to know what was coming. I had probably heard the word sockpuppet used somewhere before but I know for certain that I had no clue what the devil was going on — as 7 or 8 proudly self-declared novices began to slash and burn the article and toss whole sections of endlessly discussed and thoroughly referenced collaborative work into the dumper — until another editor posted a Sockpuppet Alert on the talk page.

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Tue 11th September 2007, 4:48pm

[Joseph100]

There is no such thing as too much cynicism. :-)

Not when it comes to ∑ People, ∑ Places …

I am not by nature a Cynic, but I've sure been taught by Masters at Wikipedia.

If WikiVarsity ever gets kranking, maybe I can get a Doctorate in Cynic Divinity?

Jonny

I think Million Chimps at wiki can come up with better articles then
the punks that now run the wikifarm.

[Jonny Cache]

I think Million Chimps at wiki can come up with better articles than the punks that now run the wikifarm.

That all depends. If those 10^6 computer chimps were highly motivated, let's say by means of carrots, er, bananas and sticks and (monkey-)suit-ably trained to write high quality encyclopedia articles, then I reckon they could duit, 'cause when you get write down tuit, the wikipunks on the wikipharm are really playing @ a whole nuther Online Game (OG) than trying to write high quality encyclopedia articles. That's the least of their aim.

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Tue 11th September 2007, 6:01pm

[Kato]

You can track forward from the innocent enough looking pawn opening of the ostensible newbie Epistemologist on D-Day 2006, and you'll see that I was far too naive in those days to know what was coming. I had probably heard the word sockpuppet used somewhere before but I know for certain that I had no clue what the devil was going on — as 7 or 8 proudly self-declared novices began to slash and burn the article and toss whole sections of endlessly discussed and thoroughly referenced collaborative work into the dumper — until another editor posted a Sockpuppet Alert on the talk page.

Jonny

So you're working on the article, and then these obvious sockpuppets start tampering with the thing. These are Epistemologist, AnnMBake, Logic Man, WylieMan, MengTheMagnificent. These are clearly socks.

Who was the puppeteer, and what did you do then?

[Jonny Cache]

You can track forward from the innocent enough looking pawn opening of the ostensible newbie Epistemologist on D-Day 2006, and you'll see that I was far too naive in those days to know what was coming. I had probably heard the word sockpuppet used somewhere before but I know for certain that I had no clue what the devil was going on — as 7 or 8 proudly self-declared novices began to slash and burn the article and toss whole sections of endlessly discussed and thoroughly referenced collaborative work into the dumper — until another editor posted a Sockpuppet Alert on the talk page.

Jonny

So you're working on the article, and then these obvious sockpuppets start tampering with the thing. These are Epistemologist, AnnMBake, LogicMan, Wylie Ali, MengTheMagnificent. These are clearly socks.

Who was the puppeteer, and what did you do then?

Obvious? Sure — now !!!

You must understand that I simply had no clue about the possibility of sockpuppets — and I know for sure that I'd never even heard the term meatpuppet before this incident. For six days — from the initial edit by Epistemologist on 06 Jun 2006 until FranksValli posted his sockpuppet alert on 12 Jun 2006 — I simply, simple-mindedly supposed that this was a bunch of editors who had suddenly taken a newfound interest in CSP. I tried to work with their edits when it was at all possible, and I tried to rewrite and trim the sections they said were too hard to understand or too long to bear reading.

I have to go dig up some more links now …

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Tue 11th September 2007, 10:44pm

[Jonny Cache]

Dynamic List of Critical Diffs in the Six Day Puppet War on the CSP Article —

1. Revision as of 10:59, 06 Jun 2006 by Epistemologist
   — Enter Puppet 1
2. Revision as of 02:20, 08 Jun 2006 by AnnMBake
   — Enter Puppet 2
3. Revision as of 19:41, 10 Jun 2006 by Blainster
   — Blainster restores the initial edit of Puppet 1, despite much discussion on talk page about its inaccuracies, perhaps by way of encouraging a "newbie"
4. Revision as of 23:51, 10 Jun 2006 by LogicMan
   — Enter Puppet 3
5. Revision as of 01:49, 11 Jun 2006 by Wylie Ali
   — Enter Puppet 4
6. Revision as of 08:12, 12 Jun 2006 by MengTheMagnificent
   — Enter Puppet 5
7. Revision as of 08:13, 12 Jun 2006 by MengTheMagnificent
   — Last Non-Anonymous Puppet Edit
8. ∑Δ 11:24, 04 Jun 2006, Jon Awbrey → 08:13, 12 Jun 2006, MengTheMagnificent
   — Sum of the Diffs over the Course of the Six Day Puppet War. All told there were 44 edits, reducing the article length from 78 kb to 51 kb, a difference of 27 kb.
9. Revision as of 15:22, 16 Jun 2006 by Jon Awbrey
   — The First Restoration
10. Revision as of 01:01, 17 Jun 2006 by 67.168.70.83
    — Enter Puppet 6 (Anonymous IP of Nathan Ladd)
11. Time passes …
12. Revision as of 07:18, 18 Jan 2007 by 24.16.98.241
    — Enter Puppet 7 (Anonymous IP of Nathan Ladd)
13. Revision as of 09:54, 10 Mar 2007 by SlimVirgin — SlimVirgin reverts 3 months worth of work by many editors based on mere charges of sockpuppet edits, later proven false.

Saltanic Verses from the Cryptkeeper's Archive : Puppet Masters Ain't Just A Novel By Heinlein —

1. Initial Sockpuppet Alert
2. Last Week I Couldn't Even Spell CONCENSUS
3. Voting, and Limits on the Power of Consensus

Believe it or not I actually have other work that I will have to get down to doing today, so give me a while to collect a sequence of critical incidents and I will try to add annotations as I get the time.

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Sun 16th September 2007, 5:20am

[The Joy]

I looked at some of those sock accounts and those I saw weren't blocked although I saw some warnings from you, Jonny. Why didn't any administrators intervene to stop the puppeteer when it was obvious what was happening? Why did this go on as long as it did?

I know you've mentioned other Pierce academics appalled at the article. Have they tried to rescue it or have they looked at your WP experiences and are not willing to try?

You may have answered some of these questions before and I apologize if you find yourself repeating things over and over. I just don't see why things deteriorated the way they did when other Wikipedians could have intervened to stop the madness.

[Kato]

I just don't see why things deteriorated the way they did when other Wikipedians could have intervened to stop the madness.

I agree. I knew JC had this big controversy with the article, but didn't pay much attention to it before. The more I look, the worse it seems. You can see JC was making reasonable efforts and polite posts all over the place at this stage - to no avail.

And as yet I fail to see how the preferred version - now surrounded by a cordon of enforcers - is so coveted.

[Jonny Cache]

I looked at some of those sock accounts and those I saw weren't blocked although I saw some warnings from you, Jonny. Why didn't any administrators intervene to stop the puppeteer when it was obvious what was happening? Why did this go on as long as it did?

I know you've mentioned other Peirce academics appalled at the article. Have they tried to rescue it or have they looked at your WP experiences and are not willing to try?

You may have answered some of these questions before and I apologize if you find yourself repeating things over and over. I just don't see why things deteriorated the way they did when other Wikipedians could have intervened to stop the madness.

I didn't now diddley about this whole sockpuppet bizness back then. Another editor, I believe it was Kenosis, with whom I was on pretty friendly terms at the time, emailed an Administrator, I think either FeloniousMonk or KillerChihuahua, about the problem. I did not get the rest of the emails, but the Admin supposedly wrote back saying that he would look into it, then later wrote again saying that he couldn't follow up on it because of "privacy concerns". I doubt if I had ever heard of CheckUser back then. I looked up the link that somebody posted about WP:SOCK and it looked like an extremely intimidating procedure to j'accuse anyone of being a sockpuppet — I know yer laughing, but I used to believe all the policy pages back then — so I gave up that tack and did what most ediot n00bs do, WP:AGF and WP:DBN and WP:GFY till I was blue in the face.

The probable ringleader of the puppet gang — meat or sock who gives a R's A — was Nathan Ladd. He's the very one who was mentioned in earlier discussions on the Peirce List in 2004 or 2005, I forget, because of all the nonsense he was putting into one of the Wikipedia articles on Truth or maybe Consensus Theory of Truth, and no one who knew the first thing about Peirce could get him to look at the sources and see reason about it.

There are at least three other denizens of the Peirce List — some academics, some avid independents — who have tried to work on the main Peirce article and other Peirce-related topics over the years, but all but The Tetrast (Ben Udell) have given up the geist, and most of them, like most academics and IT professionals, have come to recognize that the Wikipedia Way is hopelessly, unfixably flawed at its very root, namely, the whole pseudonymaniac obsession of it. Like … Duh.

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Wed 12th September 2007, 8:46am

[Jonny Cache]

I just don't see why things deteriorated the way they did when other Wikipedians could have intervened to stop the madness.

I agree. I knew JC had this big controversy with the article, but didn't pay much attention to it before. The more I look, the worse it seems. You can see JC was making reasonable efforts and polite posts all over the place at this stage — to no avail.

And as yet I fail to see how the preferred version — now surrounded by a cordon of enforcers — is so coveted.

When we understand this, the life and death of this microcosmic e-:, we will have understood the lyin's share of what's taking Wikipedia down the wiki-loo.

The wikipolice state wikipaddy-wagon-circlers are basically defending the work of a gang of wikipuppet vandals from a year and a turd ago. I sincerely doubt if most of these Admindless Vandalbots even know the state of destruction that they are fighting to preserve, since none of them would even think to stop and look at the historical facts that their wikiprecious software stores. If they do get around to looking at the history, they will find it so e-barrassing that they will have to destroy it on the wiki<pre>txt of some all too fami-liar Xcuse. Oh, they may be a little more careful now, if some of them have read my prediction, but even then they won't be able to resist the compulsion to repress the truth, making some e-laboured excuse so absurd that only a Wikipediot could wikiwash its lame Xcuse for a brain into sucking it up.

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Wed 12th September 2007, 6:24pm

[Jonny Cache]

I will keep working on this chronology as I get time, but here is the first pass at documenting the sequence of events in the Six Day Puppet War on the Charles Sanders Peirce article:

Dynamic List of Critical Diffs in the Six Day Puppet War on the CSP Article —

1. Revision as of 10:59, 06 Jun 2006 by Epistemologist
   — Enter Puppet 1
2. Revision as of 02:20, 08 Jun 2006 by AnnMBake
   — Enter Puppet 2
3. Revision as of 19:41, 10 Jun 2006 by Blainster
   — Blainster restores the initial edit of Puppet 1, despite much discussion on talk page about its inaccuracies, perhaps by way of encouraging a "newbie"
4. Revision as of 23:51, 10 Jun 2006 by LogicMan
   — Enter Puppet 3
5. Revision as of 01:49, 11 Jun 2006 by Wylie Ali
   — Enter Puppet 4
6. Revision as of 08:12, 12 Jun 2006 by MengTheMagnificent
   — Enter Puppet 5
7. Revision as of 08:13, 12 Jun 2006 by MengTheMagnificent
   — Last Puppet Edit
8. ∑Δ 11:24, 04 Jun 2006, Jon Awbrey → 08:13, 12 Jun 2006, MengTheMagnificent
   — Sum of the Diffs over the Course of the Six Day Puppet War. All told there were 44 edits, reducing the article length from 78 kb to 51 kb, a difference of 27 kb.
9. Revision as of 15:22, 16 Jun 2006 by Jon Awbrey
10. Long time passing …
11. Revision as of 09:54, 10 Mar 2007 by SlimVirgin — SlimVirgin reverts 3 months worth of work by many editors based on mere charges of sockpuppet edits, later proven false.

Saltanic Verses from the Cryptkeeper's Archive : Puppet Masters Ain't Just A Novel By Heinlein —

1. Initial Sockpuppet Alert
2. Last Week I Couldn't Even Spell CONCENSUS
3. Voting, and Limits on the Power of Consensus

Thanks for listening — I am finding it very therapeutic to work this through.

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Fri 14th September 2007, 4:12am

[Kato]

Fig 11. The Slim Virgin revert is simply outrageous. She (re)introduces all kinds of vandalism, misplaced notes, poorly formatted paragraphs, wrong page numbers etc that presumably were loose shrapnel from the sockpuppet attack. And they're clear to see! But not only does she do that, but she then protects the article in that state!

I don't know the ins and outs. But I suspect that this was revenge for some tangle you had on another page?

[Nathan]

Looks like m:The Wrong Version again.