Wikipedism As Social Movement (WP:ASM), In A Halfway Sane World It'd Backfire, But … Options

[Jon Awbrey]

Sue Gardner's latest rallying cry that poses Wikipedism as a social movement — aside from the fact that it insults everyone from the Hippies of the Sixties and Martin Luther King, Jr. to the CIA, FBI, and the Quakers — doesn't it seem to you that an e-posture like that would be guaranteed to backfire, that is to say, if the world were the least bit sane anymore?

Jon

[Jon Awbrey]

Possibly related posts (zombiatically ∂generated) —

• “Social Movements and Zombies” @ OrgTheory.Net

[Cock-up-over-conspiracy]

Sue Gardner's latest rallying cry that poses Wikipedism as a social movement

I’m kind of a categorization geek, so I liked Marx’s crisp table of the ways in which folks have aimed to covertly undermine the movements that they found threatening. By investigating and harassing participants, and discrediting leaders. Fomenting internal conflict: encouraging jealousy, suspicion, factionalism and personal animosity. Spreading damaging misinformation. Undermining morale and thwarting recruitment efforts. Undermining activities that generate revenue. Encouraging hostility between the movement and its potential allies and partners. Creating similar organizations that compete for resources and public mindshare. Sabotaging events and projects. And so forth.

Of course, the potentially useful thing about her article is that she even gives us good idea on "How to Hurt It" ... but I think the "they found threatening" bit is a bit twattish.

Why does she say, "Wikimedia, which is of course a sort of social movement" instead of "Wikipedia is a sort of social movement"? Is it some kind of branding thing? Is there a specifically Wikimedia-ist way to do things (that does not involve upload pictures of oneself ejaculating and doing dirty things to other people?) "Free of bias" ... ha ha ha.

Sue is space cowboy, and I dont mean that as a compliment. It is pure Kool Aid stuff. Imagining the Porno-pedia as some magical revolutionary movement of obsessively driven, fact-finding librarians to relinquish and sense of responsibility to them. OK, so she say the best way to hurt Mother Wikipedia is to:

to subject users other to relentless scrutiny - check
to criticize its leaders and supporters and activities - check
to monitor, speculate, worry, and poke and prod each other - check (and is that some reference to Amsterdam?)
and, especially, to do any of the above in public - check

So, I guess that means business as usual for us? Frankly, she is lacking in imagination and does not go far enough. What about:

flame warring on blogs
respond to PR shot in non-Wiki media
publishing firey critiques
phoning, letter writing and email campaigning funders and other concerned entities
Never mind keep up a constant level of guerilla war on the site itself etc etc etc

Larry Sanger gets the "Slum of all Human Knowledge" dig in as the first comment. Kudos for her not removing it.

Sue writes about the "fussy, fastidious, fact-obsessed obsessive" individuals and another commentator replies regarding "depressed or dysfunctional" individuals.

Perhaps someone should note that

• There are numerous references on her website of suicidal contributors, contributors having issues with their medication, or even non-prescription drugs.
• There is considerable evidence of her unpaid workers doing extensive shifts well beyond any reasonable health and safety or union agreed limitations.
• There is inarguable evidence that these unpaid worker are minors, child laborers.

And ask,

• Has her foundation ever done any survey about the extent and effects of mental illnesses amongst its volunteers, including the costs to individuals and others?
• Has it ever consider whether its effect is good for and healthy for those individuals?
• Does it consider itself entirely without any responsibility towards the well being of its unpaid workers, e.g. allow individuals to do continuous 18 or 24 hour shift, 7 day weeks?
• Has it ever reviewed the longer term effects on young individuals?

And, lastly, as a bona fide 501 © registered not for profit organization, why does it allow its volunteers to upload hard core pornographic images of themselves at work and into the public domain?

This post has been edited by Cock-up-over-conspiracy: Fri 20th August 2010, 4:11pm

[tarantino]

Wikipedian \ˌwi-kē-ˈpē-dē-in\ – See Infornographer

[GlassBeadGame]

Wikipedian \ˌwi-kē-ˈpē-dē-in\ – See Infornographer

Or I-baggers to catch the reactionary (libertarian, affluent, white, socially irresponsible) "social movement" aspect.

[victim of censorship]

Sue Gardner's latest rallying cry that poses Wikipedism as a social movement — aside from the fact that it insults everyone from the Hippies of the Sixties and Martin Luther King, Jr. to the CIA, FBI, and the Quakers — doesn't it seem to you that an e-posture like that would be guaranteed to backfire, that is to say, if the world were the least bit sane anymore?

Jon

Sue Gardner cry to crack open the grape Kool aid jug and drink up.

Wikiedism is a cult as dangerous as any around. When will this be realized.

This post has been edited by victim of censorship: Fri 20th August 2010, 8:22pm

[Somey]

...See Infornographer...

Eek, yet another article about a totally manufactured buzzword that never caught on despite having a Wikipedia article about itself which, in turn, never got deleted when it should have become clear that the word wasn't catching on.

Perhaps we should adopt this word as an epithet for Wikipedians and "Wikipedianism" - is that what you're suggesting here, Mr. Tarantino? It might work...

Anyway, I couldn't help thinking that some of what Sue Gardner's blog contains indicates a whole new marketing strategy for WP, emphasizing how "well-established" it is - it's a part of YOUR life! "Everybody likes it!" Imagine how desolate and depressing life would be without it! ...and so on.

And it's definitely not a "social movement" in any realistic sense of the term - I might even go so far as to say it's self-destructive to suggest such a thing.

[Subtle Bee]

Larry Sanger gets the "Slum of all Human Knowledge" dig in as the first comment. Kudos for her not removing it.

Anyway, I couldn't help thinking that some of what Sue Gardner's blog contains indicates a whole new marketing strategy for WP, emphasizing how "well-established" it is - it's a part of YOUR life! "Everybody likes it!" Imagine how desolate and depressing life would be without it! ...and so on.

She's completely deluded.

[...] the FBI attempts to discredit Martin Luther King Jr. by painting him as a womanizer. Or the CIA’s 1967 project Operation CHAOS, designed to monitor the student antiwar movement. Or the FBI’s attempts under COINTELPRO in the late sixties to undermine what it called “black nationalist hate groups” by inciting rivalries among them.

So wikipedia's the new black? It's opposed by shadowy government conspirators?

Marx posits a world in which detractors work against a social movement, and supporters work in favour of it.

That seems simple enough.

At Wikimedia, we’ve had our share of detractors. But I’ve found myself more surprised by the other side — surprised that Wikimedia’s most articulate and passionate supporters –its core editors– don’t do more to promote its success.

Here are some of the things Marx says people can do to support social movements:

■ Work to create a favourable public image for the movement
■ Support participants and help recruit new participants
■ Help with effective communications
■ Support revenue-generating activities
■ Build and sustain participant morale
■ Build and support leaders
■ Encourage internal solidarity: support kindness, understanding, generosity and a sense of common purpose
■ Encourage external solidarity: support the development of common cause between the movement and its potential allies and partners
■ Support movement events and projects.

So basically, it's amway or the highway. Can anyone differentiate this from what people can do to support cult movements?

We don’t want to shill for anybody, including, LOL, ourselves.

lol

And it's definitely not a "social movement" in any realistic sense of the term [....]

True. But as a metaphor for a bunch of constipated, self-congratulating misfits getting together to foul the common information supply, it's pretty spot-on.

[Cock-up-over-conspiracy]

She's completely deluded.

She's paid to be very good at being deluded and pump those memes and PR shots out.

Either she is genuinely dewy-eyed deluded and she was chosen by Guru Jimbo as his leading handmaiden specifically for that reason ... or she is smarter than we think - but as immoral as we suspect they are - and able to play it for the money.

I don't know which one it is.

I mean, some people are really good at lying, even lying to themselves, when big money or big status promotion is involved. And, let's remember folks, the Guru's handsome handmaidens are paid handsomely and pull in side benefits.

Eek, yet another article about a totally manufactured buzzword that never caught on despite having a Wikipedia article about itself which, in turn, never got deleted when it should have become clear that the word wasn't catching on.

Oh, wow. Right, we need ANOTHER buzzword just for that too even if an idiom would be easier. If you or Greg says it, I'll quote you and write a page on the Wikipedia.

"The Used Condoms of Infornography" ...? "Inforrhea" has already picked up a few references.

“Readers in this Wiki-culture will believe anything that isn’t too lengthy. A blog is so short and ill-informed that it doesn’t give the unfortunate, ailed recipient of inforrhea time to realize and digest the bullshit.

The basic problem, of course, is that the Internet lacks good centralized directories and subdirectories of available information through which to route search requests. Accordingly, the result of many information searches for data on the World Wide Web ends up as "inforrhea at your fingertips" rather than "information at your fingertips."

[tarantino]

Perhaps we should adopt this word as an epithet for Wikipedians and "Wikipedianism" - is that what you're suggesting here, Mr. Tarantino? It might work...

The definition used in the article does fit many wikipedians. The creator of the article seemed to think so too.

Infornography is used to define an addiction to or an obsession with acquiring, manipulating, and sharing information. People "suffering" from infornography are generally people that greatly enjoy receiving, sending, exchanging, and digitizing information.

[EricBarbour]

She's completely deluded.

She's paid to be very good at being deluded and pump those memes and PR shots out.

It's easy--Sue is the Guy Kawasaki of Wikipedia. She is tasked with ranting with deeply irrational, psychotic joy about the company's "products". (Sadly, she doesn't seem to be as good at it as Kawasaki was.)

[jayvdb]

...See Infornographer...

Eek, yet another article about a totally manufactured buzzword that never caught on despite having a Wikipedia article about itself which, in turn, never got deleted when it should have become clear that the word wasn't catching on.

Perhaps we should adopt this word as an epithet for Wikipedians and "Wikipedianism" - is that what you're suggesting here, Mr. Tarantino? It might work...

I've never heard of Infornographer either, but it is quite apt. Infomania is another buzzword WP article with very little about the important aspect, being the psychological condition. I have heard of a similar mental disorder, where the subject goes a bit nuts because they want to know all the options and they become incapable of making decisions as a result. I cant' remember the name I heard, but I don't think it was 'Infomania'.

[Cock-up-over-conspiracy]

I've never heard of Infornographer either, but it is quite apt. Infomania is another buzzword WP article with very little about the important aspect

It is a crap neologism, no wonder it did not catch on. User Dataphile (T-C-L-K-R-D) certainly seems to suffer from Dataphilia ... look at dem userboxes go! No wonder "This user wishes he had a girlfriend."

There was a bit of a splurge of similar words during the "New Media" boom just around the time of the dot com bubble ... anything beginning in cyber-, for example.

Funny to think that soon most of the Wikipedia will probably have been born after that happened.

Needless to say, infopath ... as in socio- or psycho- ... is owned by Microsoft.

This post has been edited by Cock-up-over-conspiracy: Sat 21st August 2010, 11:24am