A very good article about why experts leave WP, ...yet another one leaves... Options

Well-argued and funny piece about yet another former WP fan who finally gives up....

Sand Castles of Knowledge

I've seen the light on Wikipedia, and I feel like a fool. I've used it, praised it, and, determined populist that I am, extolled it here as a model. I'm probably one of the few professors who has talked it up to his students and allowed them to cite it as a reference - carefully, with outside confirmation if possible, and judging the quality of an entry carefully. I started contributing to Wikipedia as a kind of spare-moment hobby, and I guess I was lulled into complacency by the fact that most of the entries I worked on were obscure ones, not likely to attract attention. But I had the temerity to do a little badly-needed clean-up on the dismally confused "Minimalism" entry, and learned more than I wanted to know about how the site operates. The articles that a lot of people think they know something about, it turns out, are a nightmare. I take back everything: Wikipedia is a playground for belligerent adolescents.

It's a good read.

This post has been edited by the fieryangel: Sat 5th May 2007, 3:24pm

An excellent article.

An excellent article.

Thanks to Jon Awbrey and Wikipedia Reviewer for encouraging linkages to like minded folk.

And muchas gracias to GK for that epithet, Hodgepodge Of Angry Critics (HOAC !?), which I'm definitely putting on my CV, and maybe on a T-shirt.

Jonny

And muchas gracias to GK for that epithet, Hodgepodge Of Angry Critics (HOAC !?), which I'm definitely putting on my CV, and maybe on a T-shirt.

At the very least, "The Best Little Hodgepodge in Wikiland" would make a good tag-line for a few days...

Anyway, this blog here makes some very good points, particularly about how it only takes one determined person to ruin an article, driving off experts and non-experts alike in some cases... and at least one pro-WP comment was fairly typical - "waah, you're condemning us because of one isolated incident!" When in fact, this is simply not the case. These "incidents" happen quite regularly, and they'll only get worse as the out-flight of experts further emboldens the POV pushers, axe-grinders, and so on.

And muchas gracias to GK for that epithet, Hodgepodge Of Angry Critics (HOAC !?), which I'm definitely putting on my CV, and maybe on a T-shirt.

At the very least, "The Best Little Hodgepodge in Wikiland" would make a good tag-line for a few days...

Anyway, this blog here makes some very good points, particularly about how it only takes one determined person to ruin an article, driving off experts and non-experts alike in some cases ... and at least one pro-WP comment was fairly typical — "waah, you're condemning us because of one isolated incident!" When in fact, this is simply not the case. These "incidents" happen quite regularly, and they'll only get worse as the out-flight of experts further emboldens the POV pushers, axe-grinders, and so on.

Yes, a really good Mythos is like a blackboard eraser, constantly wiping away the data of experience so that each new disconfirming instance seems like the exception instead of the rule.

I'd be tempted to go with "Best Little Karma Whorehouse" — with all due epologies to Jimbo's pet phrase — 'cept I have no bluddy idea what that means.

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Sun 6th May 2007, 3:18pm

For the benefit of future arc-e-ologists, I am copying here my altered ego's comments on Kyle Gann's blogicle, Sand Castles Of Knowledge (SCOK?).

Comment 1

One of the more pernicious features of the software that Wikipedia uses is the ability that it gives Wikipediots to re-write history in ways that are far from transparent and even wholly untraceable. For instance, the pseudo-policy page on "Expert Retention" that you mention actually began as a discussion among a growing number of more experienced scholars, who created a page called "Expert Rebellion", which was quickly hijacked by the Usual Suspects and converted into its own antithesis.

Some traces of the original history can be found in the thread on Editile Dysfunction at The Wikipedia Review.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey at May 5, 2007 12:00 PM

Comment 2

On to the bigger picture. I spent a year of my life working on Wikipedia and another 6 months working on the Digital Universe, Textop, Citizendium complex of projects. It's fair to give Jimbo Wales and Larry Sanger credit for their skills in advertising, fund-raising, and PR. But it's also fair to say that these strife-born twins have all but killed the dream that many once had that Wikis would be the place where genuine learning communities might spring up on the Web. The flaws in Wikipedia and Citizendium are deep and beyond repair. They go right to the bedrock of the philosophical foundation that Sanger and Wales jointly poured. As fortune would have it, there is not enough space in this margin for a full discussion, so I will simply refer you to the marginalized crew at The Wikipedia Review for the possibility of more relaxed dialogue on the host of issues involved.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey at May 6, 2007 10:32 AM

Comment 3

Mclare's comments about the validity and verifiability of sourcing in Wikipedia point to a can of worms that is once again far too big to get into here. When I fell down the Wikipedia rabbit hole late in 2005, Wikipedia's Big Three content-ruling policies would have made rough sense to most folks who are accustomed to the practices of sourced research. Three or four gyres of devolution later, that is no longer the case. Wikipediots are actually discouraged from consulting primary sources, the main way of correcting the all too familiar cargo cult mythologies that the pop faces of most any field will accrue over time. See My Wikipedia Year for some account of my personal trials and tribunations with this issue.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey at May 11, 2007 11:44 AM

His Nibs, Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Mon 14th May 2007, 2:10pm

Thanks to Jon Awbrey and Wikipedia Reviewer for encouraging linkages to like minded folk.

Yes, but like he said, he has books to write.

I like the part about how he said that he didn't enjoy arguing with 7th grade bullies, who also assumed that he was also in the 7th grade. Perfecto.

His comments on COI are correct. He wrote the book. So what? Why can't he quote it. It was a peer-reviewed (in the normal way) university-press published book.

The history of the little drama is played out here. Took place April 11-27, at which point Pf. Gann (who has his own WP BLP page, which is why he got bare-minimum respect on WP, and not totally harassed), though after wading through the rules on [[Expert retention]], [[COI]], and [[original research]], he finally gave up.

The most creepy part was the (now-banned) editor T-1, who commented (right before Pf. Gann quit):

You added a citation to yourself. I don't call that an improvement. ](1)

He was responding to Pf. Gann's comment here:

+ ::::Thanks for your reassuring words. If you look up and down this page, though, at the number of paragraphs I've had to write (ten) to justify the number I altered (two or three), I don't think I'm overreacting in saying that I don't have time to both work on the article and also defend my changes at a 4-to-1 word ratio. Nor will I volunteer to waste my time polishing sentences that youngsters can then peremptorily delete. I'm flexible about everything I write at Wikipedia, and I try hard not to step on others' toes. For instance, I took pains to preserve the "figures, motifs, and cells" distinction in the first 'graph, which I find pedantic, but I thought someone might be attached to it. I'd like to expect the same consideration. In any case, it is not my responsibility to rewrite a sentence that someone has taken an objection to (especially on the basis of what appear to be, in the "that is nonverifiable" argument, historically illiterate grounds). According to Wikipedia's [[Resolving Disputes]] page, that responsibility rests with the reviser. The paragraph needs a climax sentence to sum up the movement's significance. I read some of Wikipedia's smooth, informative, detailed articles on other historically important subjects, and think, "Minimalism could be like that." But it's not going to happen at this rate. [[User:Kylegann|Kylegann]] 15:30, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

If we're quoting Wikipedia policy, let's not omit rules inconvenient to bring up (Professor GANN WE FEEL YOUR PAIN) "When someone makes an edit you consider biased or inaccurate, improve the edit, rather than reverting it." I made an improvement in the case of every alteration I made; this anonymous T-1 person did not. I also discussed changes I wanted to make on the talk page before making them; "T-1" did not. [[User:Kylegann|Kylegann]] 21:58, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Apparently, Badagnani is some WP virtuoso , who spends his life on WP, and was able to override Gann's serious professional inputs - as was the 5th grader, T-1 and others. That must have really made Badagnani, a Phd candidate at Kent State, really proud.

This post has been edited by wikilove: Mon 14th May 2007, 2:41pm

I talked myself red-linked in the face alrite alreddy on this subject when I was passing through Wikiputia, so I will try to be briefer here.

This whole bizness about auto-citation — not to be confused with auto-x-citation, something in favor of which Wikipediots obviously are — is just one more of those sites where the rash contradictions of Wikiputative Policies break out rather flagrantly.

Peer-reviewed academic journals either (1) allow self-citation or (2) do not allow self-citation — no ifs, ands, or buts. Wikipedian Management is perfectly free to institute either one of these two editorial policies. But no, that would spoil the wikipunk fun of beating up on anyone who actually knows enough about a subject to have published an article in a peer-reviewed journal about it.

As usual, the Wikipediot mentality wants the whole cake without the stomach ache — that is, they want to exercise the Power side of Authority while somehow avoiding like a wikiplague the Responsibility side of Authority.

So time and time again you will hear the Good Li'l' Wikipediot recite the doctrine that We Pass The Buck To Professionals When It Comes To Professional Judgments.

And having so wikipretentiously cast out the Badder Twin Responsibility by the front door, they just as quickly sneak in the Funner Twin Will2Power by the bak door, arrogating to themselves the right to decide which peer-reviewed publications are good enuff for them.

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Mon 14th May 2007, 6:22pm