[X] My Assistant

[radek]

When I keep saying that a lot of Wikipedia's articles on Economics need to be simply deleted and written back from scratch, rather than "fixed" this is the kind I'm talking about:

Jobless Recovery

It's not quite up to Wyandanch, New York level of bloat (and not quite as endearing either) but it's up there.

[A Horse With No Name]

It's not quite up to Wyandanch, New York level of bloat (and not quite as endearing either) but it's up there.

Damn, we hit the bottom with that one. I nominate that for the worst article on Wikipedia.

[Peter Damian]

That was so juicy and good I started a new page on MWB just for economics http://wikipediareview.com/Directory:The_Wikiped..._View/Economics . More nominations please. (What was the article that Greg higlighted a few months ago - consumer economy or something like that?).

Wow it goes on doesn't it? Some parts are really stinky.

Escapism

Increasing escapism, whether mild and adaptive like watching a bit more funny media or exercising a little more, or more serious and dysfunctional like alcoholism, drug addiction, internet addiction, or other problems, may keep the individual out of the work force and create jobs tending to them.

Most of this is the work of someone called 'Freevolution'. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...et=Freevolution

On the talk page:

Meandering economically-illiterate rant
I'll be blunt; to me, this article looks like a meandering economically-illiterate rant. It does at least use some references in places, although at the fringes of economics it's usually possible to find a source who agrees with any claim at all, including one generated by the roll of a dice. This article seems to be a big unstructured pile of what can best be described as non-mainstream economic arguments. Is it fixable? Going through it line by line is likely to be very time-consuming. bobrayner (talk) 11:12, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

I would describe this as a big unstructured pile of something else. However, Bob Rayner seems to heading for an incivility block. The reply is worth reading, I've seen this sort of thing many times before. 'Freerevolution' comes back with a very polite but longwinded and incomprehensible rant about nothing, including many references to Wikipedia policy. Rayner gives up and starts the page afresh in his own user space. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bobrayner/Jobless_recovery


This post has been edited by Peter Damian: Wed 2nd June 2010, 5:41pm

[Cock-up-over-conspiracy]

It's not quite up to Wyandanch, New York level of bloat (and not quite as endearing either) but it's up there.

Wow ... 32,684 word for a hamlet with only 10,546 population.

3 words per person ... it make me wonder if everyone in Wyandanch has not got their own story to tell!

Why, I remember when that old grouch Barnie Feckless in Dunwikying Aveune told me about his great great grand pappy who ... blah-blah-blah ... zzz-zzz-zzz.

And are there really NO PREVERTS or PORN STARS who came from there to add a little filth!?!

[Text]

Large chunks of text like that are usually copyright violations.

[Zoloft]

There were simpler days...

[radek]

It's not quite up to Wyandanch, New York level of bloat (and not quite as endearing either) but it's up there.

Damn, we hit the bottom with that one. I nominate that for the worst article on Wikipedia.

It's actually one of my favorite Wikipedia articles, for a variety of reasons.

[EricBarbour]

It's not quite up to Wyandanch, New York level of bloat (and not quite as endearing either) but it's up there.

Wow ... 32,684 word for a hamlet with only 10,546 population.

Meanwhile we have Ukiah.
Far more colorful history than Wyandanch, 15,000 people,
"home of Masonite", and it gets only 20,000 bytes.

Jobless recovery is a mess primarily due to the endless ravings of a nut called Freevolution (T-C-L-K-R-D) .
Great example of one obsessive flake, pwning an article to death. Bobrayner (T-C-L-K-R-D) is wasting his time trying to fix it.

[radek]

That was so juicy and good I started a new page on MWB just for economics http://wikipediareview.com/Directory:The_Wikiped..._View/Economics . More nominations please. (What was the article that Greg higlighted a few months ago - consumer economy or something like that?).

Wow it goes on doesn't it? Some parts are really stinky.

Escapism

Increasing escapism, whether mild and adaptive like watching a bit more funny media or exercising a little more, or more serious and dysfunctional like alcoholism, drug addiction, internet addiction, or other problems, may keep the individual out of the work force and create jobs tending to them.

Most of this is the work of someone called 'Freevolution'. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...et=Freevolution

I'll try to point out some more when I have a bit more time but there's a plenty. More or less almost any economics article, aside from the really specialized ones, has its resident nutcase a la Freevolution. Most of the time it's "standard" craziness; commies and randoids or Austrians (in fairness, there's some econ articles that do deserve a good bit of stuff about the Austrians in'em, but they also tend to go nutzoid with it and make EVERYTHING about something that Hayek or Von Mises once said. Same can be true for Marxians (not Marxists) but they calmed down in the past two years or so)

Then there's more mundane stuff, like everyone and their mother offering their own explanation for the recession or rambling about "China". And a lot of "freshman" confusion between concepts and ideas that you typically see in basic principles classes (the article on Purchasing Power Parity is a good example as it mish mashes several different concepts into one)



This post has been edited by radek: Thu 3rd June 2010, 2:07am

[radek]

It's not quite up to Wyandanch, New York level of bloat (and not quite as endearing either) but it's up there.

Wow ... 32,684 word for a hamlet with only 10,546 population.

3 words per person ... it make me wonder if everyone in Wyandanch has not got their own story to tell!

Why, I remember when that old grouch Barnie Feckless in Dunwikying Aveune told me about his great great grand pappy who ... blah-blah-blah ... zzz-zzz-zzz.

And are there really NO PREVERTS or PORN STARS who came from there to add a little filth!?!

I think Rakim was born there but somehow that got lost in the "Wyandanch Residents Block Proposed Town of Babylon Highway Dept. Gravel Pit: May 1973", the "Wyandanch School Board Approves Bonds for Additional High School Classrooms and Track and Football Field: 1987" and the " Thousands Flock to the Town of Babylon's First Soap Box Derby Race: 1957" sections.

BTW, I did check if these were copyvio when I first saw it (while I think the article as is is pure perfection, copy right violations be serious business) - if so it's not from an online source, probably from some town council brochure or something.

[EricBarbour]

I think Rakim was born there but somehow that got lost in the "Wyandanch Residents Block Proposed Town of Babylon Highway Dept. Gravel Pit: May 1973", the "Wyandanch School Board Approves Bonds for Additional High School Classrooms and Track and Football Field: 1987" and the " Thousands Flock to the Town of Babylon's First Soap Box Derby Race: 1957" sections.

BTW, I did check if these were copyvio when I first saw it (while I think the article as is is pure perfection, copy right violations be serious business) - if so it's not from an online source, probably from some town council brochure or something.

Most likely this is the work of a local who owns a bunch of old newspapers or other town records.
Nearly all the additions were by a few IP addresses, especially 24.184.230.106.

They should ban that fool. (but of course, they won't.)

If there's ever an award for bad, overcooked WP articles, Wyandanch will have to win something.
I've seen a lot of utter crap but that one is beyond amazing.

Compare it to, say, Syosset. Twice the population, far more "notable" people produced, and yet it's a miserable little article.

[papaya]

There were simpler days...

It used to be even bigger, until someone split off 70,000 bytes into History of Wyandanch.

There's no policy defense against this kind of garbage accumulation, because there's no "just enough information so that the reader isn't a complete ignoramus on the subject" policy.

[ulsterman]

There's no policy defense against this kind of garbage accumulation, because there's no "just enough information so that the reader isn't a complete ignoramus on the subject" policy.

If a few admins really wanted to tackle this sort of article, they could. First, they'd demand comprehensive reliable, verifiable references for every jot and tittle. Second, they'd start blathering about undue weight. Third, if there's any reference to a living person they'd excise it under WP:BLP. Quite easy really.

[Moulton]

Wretched excess is one of the defining features of WikiCulture.

If it isn't wretched excess in terms of article content, it's wretched excess in terms of WikiPolitics (e.g. gaming the system for fun and profit).