The World and Wikipedia - Andrew Dalby Options Rating

[sappho]

Did anyone read this book yet?

[Peter Damian]

Some interesting material in his user space here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Andrew_D...d_and_Wikipedia

where he mentions the Law incident.

[A Horse With No Name]

Some interesting material in his user space here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Andrew_D...d_and_Wikipedia

where he mentions the Law incident.

Law is not in the book, but ChildofMidnight and his weirdly funny food obsessions are.

This is a riot, considering who gets into the book: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Andrew_D...ned_in_the_book

I especially like that Keeper76 is in the book. What has he ever done except complain about how boring it is to be an admin?

[grievous]

This is a riot, considering who gets into the book: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Andrew_D...ned_in_the_book

Cast of characters, or the usual suspects?

This post has been edited by grievous: Fri 6th November 2009, 7:59pm

[EricBarbour]

Cast of characters, or the usual suspects?

That's part of why that book is such a joke.

He does not mention Jayjg at all, and the Israel-Palestine editwars rate a few paragraphs (pp. 182-183).

He gives Mantanmoreland only the briefest mention (p. 183).

The editwarring that involved Barack Obama and Sarah Palin articles got plenty of play (pp. 181-182, 209-213), yet the long, ongoing and extremely nasty Armenian-Azeri editwar got only about one page (pp. 170-71).

There's plenty about the Essjay mess, but Poetlister got a short dismissal, and there's not a peep about FT2 or Carolyn Doran.

He even talked about the JHK vs. H. Jonat editwar, which was in late 2001 and which very few people even remembered.

Why doesn't he mention recent (major) AN/I pests like Ottava Rima or Jehochman or Will Beback? Where's JoshuaZ?

And there's a lot of talk scattered everywhere about the French Wikipedia, which I guarantee is of virtually no interest to any en-wiki users, especially on WR.

In short, this is not a book. It's a blog smeared onto dead trees.

This post has been edited by EricBarbour: Fri 6th November 2009, 8:40pm

[A Horse With No Name]

Cast of characters, or the usual suspects?

That's part of why that book is such a joke.

Some of the people on the list seem like peculiar choices to write about: J.delanoy, Johnbod, Keeper76, Aleta, Kelapstick, Kevin, Kingturtle and Pickles4u (who?).

Eric, how did those characters get cited? And why are they there?

[Andrew Dalby]

Cast of characters, or the usual suspects?

That's part of why that book is such a joke.

Some of the people on the list seem like peculiar choices to write about: J.delanoy, Johnbod, Keeper76, Aleta, Kelapstick, Kevin, Kingturtle and Pickles4u (who?).

Eric, how did those characters get cited? And why are they there?

I'll answer that one ahead of Eric. The book's real aim is to make non-Wikipedians think about how this resource, used by them every day, gets to be the way it is. All the 220 users in the index of usernames are in there as examples. They did something, good or bad, to an article whose history I want the reader to follow: created it, improved it, categorised it, vandalised it, unprotected it, added irrelevances to it, talked endlessly about it, etc.

I decided at the outset that when I discussed any Wikipedia contribution I should attribute it to its author. The book would have been written faster if I hadn't chosen to do that, but it would certainly have failed to make Wikipedia come alive to non-Wikipedians. (It may still have failed, of course!)

I never interacted with any of these 220 users before they went into the book. And yet ... I have to admit ... the choice isn't mathematically random. Most of the names are of people who made some contribution (whatever it is, good or bad) more than once: they typify an aspect of the site, or an aspect of their own work on the site. Their name passed in front of my eyes two or three times during my research, and I said to myself: go back, use that first example (where the hell was it?), it'll link in here and it gives me another (virtual) personality.

Do you mention those who face personal attacks, harassment, public verbal abuse and worse because of their efforts in criticizing Wikipedia?

For that matter, is Wikipedia Review (where the Essjay scandal started), Hivemind, Wikipedia Review and other criticism sites even mentioned in your book?

If they're not given significant coverage, I'd hardly call that an "objective" treatment....

Tell me who you mean and I might tell you whether they are in. Here's the first mention of Wikipedia Review. This comes in a survey of criticism sites:

"Wikipedia Review is a forum populated by Wikipedia editors, whose attitudes range from fairly happy to extremely disgruntled. Like all forums you aren't involved in, the Review is penetratingly boring; which must be why I scan it and, as you'll see, cite it."

[Milton Roe]

Cast of characters, or the usual suspects?

That's part of why that book is such a joke.

Some of the people on the list seem like peculiar choices to write about: J.delanoy, Johnbod, Keeper76, Aleta, Kelapstick, Kevin, Kingturtle and Pickles4u (who?).

Eric, how did those characters get cited? And why are they there?

I'll answer that one ahead of Eric. The book's real aim is to make non-Wikipedians think about how this resource, used by them every day, gets to be the way it is. All the 220 users in the index of usernames are in there as examples. They did something, good or bad, to an article whose history I want the reader to follow: created it, improved it, categorised it, vandalised it, unprotected it, added irrelevances to it, talked endlessly about it, etc.

COMMENT:
And yet, in your mention of 220 users there is no mention of Kintetsubuffalo (T-C-L-K-R-D) , a fellow English sinophile and orientalist like yourself, who shares your passion for Burma and who collaborated so notably with you on the bio of James George Scott. And who was busy editing your own BLP within a day of you starting it. Now, that's personal attention.

I'll bet poor Kintetsu's heart is downcast. He has contributed 10 times your content in the time you've both been on WP since the end of 2005, and typifies the kind of editor who actually builds WP rather than participates in its drahma. His userpage says:

I don't want to be an admin and I'm not everybody's buddy. I work well with those actually working, I revert vandals, and I check edits by anonymous users just on general principle. I'm right more often than I am not, and I am a positive force on Wikipedia. I am proud of what I do here, I have learned much along the way, and it's one of the things that have kept me sane.

Good for him. He shares an amazing number of mainspace articles with you in editing, mainly due to your shared interests. So this is one of the better examples of how WP actually works correctly-- the shared work between yourself and him, with no bickering and no edit wars going to RfC and ArbCom. But it doesn't make it into your book.

SlimVirgin, Durova, and Essjay do.

You do see where I'm coming from with this criticism, do you not? If your editor choices are meant to be illustrative, you missed one of your better chances to illustrate something. Wikipedia doesn't have to be the drama-factory that it is. It's the drama-whores and bullies there that make it so. And the vandals and POV-pushers. Some editors fit none of these categories.


-- Milton