Effective Vandalism -- Experimentation Results Options

[karmafist]

While I don't think it's a good long term strategy, vandalism is a good way to chip away at the credibility of Wikipedia, thus chipping away at the power of the corrupt people who control it.

I did some experiments with another sock, Broad Street, and here's what I found( the contribs are at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contr...s/Broad_Street)



-Make It Fake, and Plausible: Remember Seigenthaler? While that wasn't true, there it wasn't inplausible -- looking at it, you wouldn't say at first glance "this is fake"

-Don't use cultural memes: Everything went swimmingly until I started to use the Colbert Elephant Meme.
People know that's false, so the plausibility goes out the window.

-Make edits slowly: Two days I had three edits, and nobody noticed. The next day I had five, and they caught on.

-Don't have edit summaries: They tend to draw attention, but that's not a hard and fast rule.

-Press the random button and go for lesser known articles: The reversion will be alot faster at say, George W. Bush, than some count from the 18th Century or some long lost theory.

-Remember the IP you're using: They can check that.


Best case scenario -- several new Siegenthaler Crises are made, thus destroying the credibility of Wikipedia, and its funding, forcing it to either become a corporate shill or charging users for an account(thus removing any pretense of being a "free and unbiased encyclopedia") or forcing them to reform.

Worst case scenario -- the majority of articles on Wikipedia are either protected or abandoned(again, removing the "free" pretense), and all new users are seen as potential suspects, creating an atmosphere where they are unlikely to become wiki-addicts and possibly spread the word of the poor behavior of the Cabalists.

[EuroSceptic]

Humm, what would you change on a wikifork?

[karmafist]

Humm, what would you change on a wikifork?

The biggest thing is a clear method of establishing policy, most likely a legislature.