All We Are Saying …, Is Give Truth A Chance … Options

I woke up this morning with variations on this old tune running through my mind, but holiday preparations kept me from writing out the rest of the buzz.

We get ourselves so wound up in the mind-boggling tangles of Wikipedia at times that I think we tend to lose sight of the fact that this really isn't rocket science.

It all boils down to the extremely simple fact that if Wikipedians want Wikipedia to become a respected information source then they will need to quit telling such

Big Fat Lies !!!

Now really, is that so hard to understand?

I ask you, is that too much to ask?

And as the day wore on I began to think that it was all too obvious to bother saying all over again one more time …

And so I thought I'd give it a rest …

And then — and then — I had to go and ruin it by clicking on this.

But, Gee Wikilures, Ma! It's so much more fun to tell each other our bare-assed lies in a Kiddie Kartoon Klubhouse all our very own where people can't come in and try to say otherwise!

¤ sigh ¤

Happy «Screw The Natives» Day To You And Yours …

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Thu 22nd November 2007, 6:12pm

Where is you arbitration case, or were you community banned?

Where is your arbitration case, or were you community banned?

Here is the entirety of the Kangaroo Kourt Kase.

Jon Awbrey

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Thu 22nd November 2007, 6:10pm

Looks like I've run out of anything new to say for a while.

The fact that Wikipedia is run by a pack of pathological liars is pretty much obvious to anyone who ever got in the habit of checking bald statements against bare facts.

The fact that Wikipediots are training a whole population of witless wonders out of that habit is something that I cannot help but regard as a threat to society, but the danger of that seems to be one of those lessons that everyone has to learn the hard way.

The fact that The Wikipedia Review is far too focused on a rotting corpse to help create the future is something that saddens me, but I feel like I gave it the old college try and I don't see anything more that I can do right at the moment.

Tomorrow, etc.

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Mon 26th November 2007, 5:16am

During my brief existential meltdown, I feared that there were no good learning communities out there. I learned though that was not true as there are wikis and communities out there that haven't fallen victim to WP's serious flaws.

My biggest fear is though that WP is serving as something of a Mother Country in which young learning communities like on Wikia and elsewhere see WP as a role model with its dystopia society and bad information. Bad ideas on community values and goals are being exported. Even if WP does fall, will its successors have learned anything?

Part of the reason I panicked was that I have never really looked into what would be a good role model for a wiki learning community.

Maybe in order to move away from this rotting corpse, WR needs to see some actually good role models?

Smaller communities seem to do well and keep focused, but large communities like WP go off on tangents. Without forking or breaking off into smaller communities, how can the primary mission go forward?

The biggest lesson I've learned from WP is that those in founder/leadership need to have a heart. The lack of some ethics and no clear goals have let many come to WP with agendas far more than just building an encyclopedia and they have caused irreparable damage to the project by banning and mocking those that were trying to do what WP claims it is trying to do: build an encyclopedia.

I don't know the way forward. Citizendium is under the radar of most people and has few resources. It's community may become as insular and backward as WP's. So I don't know what project will succeed and be far better than WP. Whatever it is, the farther it takes itself away from the WP model, the better.

Where is your arbitration case, or were you community banned?

Here is the entirety of the Kangaroo Kourt Kase.

Jon Awbrey

I't more like a "STAR CHAMBER" if you ask me...

During my brief existential meltdown, I feared that there were no good learning communities out there. I learned though that was not true as there are wikis and communities out there that haven't fallen victim to WP's serious flaws.

My biggest fear is though that WP is serving as something of a Mother Country in which young learning communities like on Wikia and elsewhere see WP as a role model with its dystopia society and bad information. Bad ideas on community values and goals are being exported. Even if WP does fall, will its successors have learned anything?

Part of the reason I panicked was that I have never really looked into what would be a good role model for a wiki learning community.

Maybe in order to move away from this rotting corpse, WR needs to see some actually good role models?

Smaller communities seem to do well and keep focused, but large communities like WP go off on tangents. Without forking or breaking off into smaller communities, how can the primary mission go forward?

The biggest lesson I've learned from WP is that those in founder/leadership need to have a heart. The lack of some ethics and no clear goals have let many come to WP with agendas far more than just building an encyclopedia and they have caused irreparable damage to the project by banning and mocking those that were trying to do what WP claims it is trying to do: build an encyclopedia.

I don't know the way forward. Citizendium is under the radar of most people and has few resources. It's community may become as insular and backward as WP's. So I don't know what project will succeed and be far better than WP. Whatever it is, the farther it takes itself away from the WP model, the better.

Don't put your hopes in Citizendium, they are all morons. They are so caught up in rules and principles that they never get anything done. Larry Sanger is incompetent.

It's hopeless on a technical level as well. With account creation disabled they'll never get the membership they need to compete. And they can't enable account registration because then I'll get back on and trash their wiki, and their lack of experience renders them powerless to stop creative vandals. They still haven't cleaned up some of my more enthusiastic attacks properly. It's not just lack of experience either, it's lack of wiki categorization; nothing, for example, designates that some of the articles are still copied from Wikipedia with no attribution.

I was reading the Citizendium article on WP. Apparently their biggest thing recently is that they've survived in some form for a year now.

That's a very sad thing to hear.

I do fear their powerful hierarchy. It just seems too convoluted to me and the potential for a "us" vs. "them" mentality to develop. And, as Miltopia points out, it apparently has done little to create a respectable editing process where only accurate information gets through.

A good learning community from what I've gathered from Jonny and Moulton is that a mission with clear goals has to be made up front. Members must be dedicated to the mission and its goals. Members must be willing to collaborate to met these goals. Disagreement is fine as long as it is over whether a course of action is appropriate to the mission or goals, not for navel-gazing or narcissistic wounding.

Uncyclopedia has a mission: to be humorous for a large, diverse audience. Its community works together to meet the goal of humor. It's hard to tell if it has power-crazed admins. Still, from my observations, there's a camaraderie between noobs, regulars, and admins that can transcend hierarchical barriers. Forgive-and-forget is very common and most move on to continue the mission. Narcissistic wounding does happen but it doesn't seem to last long and everyone goes about their business.

Any other good communities out there?

ED was actually a very effective wiki community until it got overrun by 4chan types. And the head, Girlvinyl, stupidly STUPIDLY gave some 4chan guy sysop access because he gave ED money. Increased 4chan influence led to trashy articles and stupid members, but they're trying to roll that back as I understand from those I still keep in contact with.

But one of the reasons that community functions (for its purpose) so well is that its members are experienced in online interaction. They know how to communicate, recognize counterproductive members, and manipulate the opinions of outsiders.

ED was actually a very effective wiki community until it got overrun by 4chan types. And the head, Girlvinyl, stupidly STUPIDLY gave some 4chan guy sysop access because he gave ED money. Increased 4chan influence led to trashy articles and stupid members, but they're trying to roll that back as I understand from those I still keep in contact with.

But one of the reasons that community functions (for its purpose) so well is that its members are experienced in online interaction. They know how to communicate, recognize counterproductive members, and manipulate the opinions of outsiders.

Well, I was going to mention ED as an effective online community, but its core mission seems to be to document online "drama" of which some here, least to say, take issue with it. ED is something like a mixture of a tabloid and a dark version of Uncyclopedia. It's Durova article at least at a glance didn't cause my eyes to melt as most articles there do.

Still, ED does have the elements of an effective community with a clear mission. But I'm guessing that Jonny didn't start this thread just to see it divert to goatse.

I guess we need to ask if making an online comprehensive encyclopedia, which WP and CZ have tried to do, can be done and what kind of policies and community is needed? Is there any project out there that seems to be doing this effectively and how?

I guess we need to ask if making an online comprehensive encyclopedia, which WP and CZ have tried to do, can be done and what kind of policies and community is needed? Is there any project out there that seems to be doing this effectively and how?

It seems to me that this sort of thing would work much better if the goal was not "the sum of all human knowledge" but rather creating open-source references on specific subjects, using small work groups to accomplish certain tasks. The redaction/correction process would be much more streamlined, less "drama"-oriented and the whole procedural aspect of things would be kept to a minimum. Once you have enough of these small communities churn out these collections of open-source material, then you can think about putting it all together and creating some sort of "sum of all human knowledge"-type thing.

The Wikipedia Way is simply insanity. It cannot work....and doesn't.

Any other good communities out there?

I find that the various message boards surrounding the topic of poker (namely, twoplustwo.com) are very well-run, thriving communities that exhibit equal talents in expertise and in humor.

Greg

And they can't enable account registration because then I'll get back on and trash their wiki, and their lack of experience renders them powerless to stop creative vandals. They still haven't cleaned up some of my more enthusiastic attacks properly.

Saying stuff like that (admitting that you come onto wikis for the purpose of doing creative vandalism and enthusiastic attacks) doesn't exactly help your cause for ever being un-banned from Wikipedia, you know.

There have been some good outcomes with open source social contract communities such as those developing Linux systems.

One of their most hilarious phrases has got to be:

If so, please provide diffs as evidence.

And they can't enable account registration because then I'll get back on and trash their wiki, and their lack of experience renders them powerless to stop creative vandals. They still haven't cleaned up some of my more enthusiastic attacks properly.

Saying stuff like that (admitting that you come onto wikis for the purpose of doing creative vandalism and enthusiastic attacks) doesn't exactly help your cause for ever being un-banned from Wikipedia, you know.

I have never planned to ask for an unblock. I was even told via email that there was some support for one and that I would have a better chance of getting it if I posted a request on my talk page, but I have never once even considered it.

ED was actually a very effective wiki community until it got overrun by 4chan types. And the head, Girlvinyl, stupidly STUPIDLY gave some 4chan guy sysop access because he gave ED money. Increased 4chan influence led to trashy articles and stupid members, but they're trying to roll that back as I understand from those I still keep in contact with.

But one of the reasons that community functions (for its purpose) so well is that its members are experienced in online interaction. They know how to communicate, recognize counterproductive members, and manipulate the opinions of outsiders.

---empahasis added.

ED at one time pointed to the humor of Ambrose Bierce as it's model. It has long since, to paraphrase it's own mask head, been writen for and by retarded Klansman on crack, heroin, and meth all at once. Your friends are a sad case of not knowing when to call it quits.

They need to up the deletion and blocking. And lost a couple sysops...

They shut down the IRC channel recently. Apparently that's done some good. But I don't think it'll ever be up to the level of humor there was in like mid-2006 or so.

One of their most hilarious phrases has got to be:

If so, please provide diffs as evidence.

Yeah, that one gets the Wikindustry Award for High Yield Yucks Per Byte Ratio Of The Year (HYY/BROTY). Of course, YYMV depending on your level of insider knowledge, so let me provide a bit of Xoteric Xegesis.

That comment was added by WAS 4.250 after my initial posting above. So what I have to wonder is — WAS IST DAS !? R U Talking 2 Me !?

Joke 1. Speaking as he does from behind the Ironic Curtain of Wikiputia's pukatively "Free" and "Open" Sosighety, WAS must be very wary about letting anyone know whom in Heaven or Earth or That Other Place he might be addressing, and so he is proscribed from doing what any normal e-citizen these days would do and post a link to the comments that he is answering. Now I imagine his Imaginary Friends are rather complimented being addressed in the hushed apostrophes normally reserved for Dei Absconditi and Eavesdropping Eumenides, but somehow it all seems slightly comical in this day and age, dontcha think?

2 b continued …

Jon Awbrey

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Mon 26th November 2007, 6:30pm