QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Thu 24th January 2008, 4:58pm)
QUOTE(Kato @ Tue 15th January 2008, 4:42am)
5 Ways You Can Help Your Wikipedia Review- Scour the search engines for interesting blog posts or news articles on Wikipedia that our bots may have missed. There are often online pieces that pass this site by. If you find anything of interest, add it to the appropriate forum.
- Register on digg.com. If an article out there on Wikipedia criticism catches your eye, then digg.com it. The Wikipedia Review has a digg.com account and you can scan through the list of articles dugg by that account if you wish. You can also digg The Review's own editorials if you like them, as they come up, to give other readers an opportunity to discover them.
- Browse through The Review's vast back catalog for thoughtful or plain interesting stand-alone posts that could be future Wikipedia Review editorials. It doesn't matter how old the posts are, nor even whether they are embedded within a thread or the lead post in a thread. Just identify posts you like and pass them on to Somey or a moderator. Also, keep an eye on new posts. If anything is particularly eye catching, make it known.
- Spend some time working on an editorial of your own. If you'd like to make a point about something important, it may be worth taking that bit of extra time to get it right. When you've got something you are happy with, pass it on to Somey or a moderator, who can add a bit of mark-up if needed.
- Make comments on external articles. If you come across an article that makes an astute point about Wikipedia, or carries something you disagree with, make sure they know about it in their comment section. Direct them back here if you wish. Thekohsher is the demon of the post article comments section. If you want to make a comment yourself, you'll probably find him already there! Join him!
Really now, why bother?
Jonny (IMG:
smilys0b23ax56/default/cool.gif)
Looking back over the time since these suggestions were posted, I can say that I have tried at least a couple of these strategies, but I continue to experience a sense of futility about the future of
The Wikipedia Review, especially when it comes to the quality of the criticism exercised here.
As a person who hardly ever bothered with the usual brands of e-journalism on the web, it took me a while to develop a style for commenting on blogs that seemed to work fairly well, and I posted a lot of links back to WR in the process. Frankly, though, I frequently end up kicking myself for having issued such invitations under my real name. Posting a link back to the
Review is the kind of act that induces me to view this place as it might be seen with the eyes of others — and a large percentage of the time I am honestly embarrassed by the level of discussion that I find myself seeing here from that perspective.
The Meta-Discussion Forum looked like it might be a way to retrospect on the
Review's back catalog and, more importantly, to look beyond the spellbound delusion of so many observers that Wikipedia is The Only Game In Town. But the condition of paralysis and transfixation is far too refractory for a small number of critical reflectors to break.
I would have to say that 95% of the discussion at
The Wikipedia Review conveys no information, much less insight. Most of it consists of the same population of infantile minds that we find at Wikipedia repeating the same infantile fantasies that we find there. Most of the messages that pass for concrete data and news of the day are completely predictable on general principles already well-established — for instance, the rule that
Every Abuse That Can Occur Does Occur (EATCODO). Indeed, many participants who I once regarded as having some modicum of insight into the social phenomena and the systematic problems presented by Wikipedia appear to be undergoing a regression into cluelessness.
Not a pretty picture but, I think, an accurate one.
Jon (IMG:
smilys0b23ax56/default/cool.gif)
Meta-Templates For Meta-Con-Templation, If I've Said This Once, I'll Say It 10³ Times
Jonny Cache Meta-Templates For Meta-Con-Templation 
