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.

[Somey]

If I'm not mistaken, since posting that sewage-analogy business on the 10th, Mr. Karmafist has had something of a change of heart, agreed to be more "constructive" and so forth on Wikipedia, and has even been unblocked... That isn't to say he's sold out, of course. But maybe he was coming off a bit negatively, even by WR standards, and he decided to give the whole "engagement strategy" thing one more shot.

I often wonder - what would happen to me if I started editing Wikipedia? Probably nothing particularly bad, to be honest, since I'd probably avoid controversial subjects and be a stickler for accuracy and grammatical correctness. (I might even become a "Cite Nazi"... Wouldn't that be fun...)

I guess what I'm trying to say is that there's constructive activity on Wikipedia, and destructive activity on Wikipedia, but I'm against both kinds. The best advice I can (and generally do) give people is to just avoid like the plague!

Just my $0.02, as they say.

[karmafist]

If I'm not mistaken, since posting that sewage-analogy business on the 10th, Mr. Karmafist has had something of a change of heart, agreed to be more "constructive" and so forth on Wikipedia, and has even been unblocked... That isn't to say he's sold out, of course. But maybe he was coming off a bit negatively, even by WR standards, and he decided to give the whole "engagement strategy" thing one more shot.

Actually, no. A friend of mine made me make a promise not to vandalize again, and like many active Wikipedians; he's got great potential clouded by this addiction and he looks up to me -- If I betrayed his trust, I don't know what the consequences of that would be in reality(Wikipedia seems to be the center of his life right now), and I couldn't live with that.

To me, vandalism is nothing compared to letting this friend of mine down.

The first stage in beating addiction is realising you have a problem

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

-Gandhi


I'll beat the addiction after I finish step 4.

[LamontStormstar]

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

-Gandhi

I remember that quote from a Taurin Fox artwork.


Anyway, so Karmafist whatever happened with you on Wikipedia? They banned you forever for the whole spreading your manifesto and that's that?