The sites I find irritating to use are the commercial ones that pop up annoying ads at you every chance they get, even managing to do it in Firefox with popups disabled through various devious coding. Wikipedia is a breath of fresh air in comparison, with pages that aren't full of things flashing, moving, and popping up at you, and articles that you can read by scrolling down without having to keep clicking "next" to go to another slow-loading page with a bite-size chunk of text surrounded by lots of ads.

I mean real political - like the good work Greg has been doing highlighting Wikipedian irresponsibility to the senators, and the little glitch they had in Britain when there was the minor Scorpion scandal which was badly mishandled even though the action of the net nannies was not as inappropriate as suggested by That Man in the Leather Trousers.

To make inroads on that, the main argument of Wikipedia that needs to be undermined is the "responsibility == censorship" where any suggestion of common sense controls, including self-control is poo-poo'd as old fashioned reactionary twaddle.

The meme that should be being worked up is that Wikipedia is a resource of the people, by the people, and it is an international disgrace that such a potentially useful resource is being squandered and undermined by a bunch of irresponsible oiks. If this was a banking system or the motor industry, Obama and Brown would have already intervened

Get off the Wheel, Peter. Stopping caring about whether Wikipedia "succeeds" with or without your silly "contributions." It is not about you. Criticize Wikipedia for the harm it does to innocent persons outside itself. Accept that your precious content contributors are as much a part of the problem as anyone else. They only deserve the care you might have for anyone else whose addiction is exploited. Care about the pornography and lack of child protective measures on the site whether you are on the outs or not.

You sound like a junky desperately trying to get a free fix from his dealer by threatening to turn him in to the police.

It would seem that Peter Damian and (perhaps) JohnA are on a track that I was on, back in February 2008.

Maybe there is something to be considered in a coalescing movement to create "the next Wikipedia". The key differences might be:

• Copyright, rather than copyleft; or non-commercial re-use only
• Free to read*, not free to edit
• Editorial attribution to real-named individuals
• Advertising and sponsorship revenues
• Revenues distributed to the most influential editors
• Endorsement by academia, news-gathering organizations, and NGO's

I used to think I don't have the reputation capital or clout to launch such an initiative, and I probably still feel exactly the same way. But, maybe a group of "nobodies" like us could collectively recruit the necessary "somebodies" who might make this work. It would have to be a combination of venture capital and a knowledge-celebrity spokesperson on the notability level of Al Gore or at least Neil deGrasse Tyson.


*Possibly, a business model might be that the lead paragraph of every article is always free to anyone, but access to the rest of the article is opened by a micro-payment of 25 cents. Or, universal access to all articles is opened by a yearly subscription of $10 (we'd have to undercut Britannica's $69.95 per year fee).

Agree with you Greg and you are the one person who knows how to run such a site (Sanger's model was an improvement but sadly Larry never acquired the gentle art of making people feel welcome). But will a fee-based model work? Why can't subtle, targeted advertising work just as well? Even the philosophy pages on Wikipedia get a readership of millions. As for Britney Spears ....

Reply to the initial request:

Pray. I sometimes insert in my prayers the words "destroy Wikipedia's corrupt power structure." I'm not kidding. At first it was a joke but now it's become a nervous habit. So far it hasn't produced results.

You own a goat?

But as Peter says, this actually is outrageous. It's certainly not weak or cowardly, and as for being two-faced, there's certainly nothing wrong with trying to reform, improve, criticize, or subvert the system both from within WP and from here at the same time - "to each his own," as they say. Some of us clearly believe that Peter should give up trying to reform WP from within, but that's almost entirely for his sake, not theirs.

Two years ago, I concluded that the English WP was firmly into its "maintenance phase" and that this phase would last another 4-5 years, possibly longer if administrative reforms were made. So far those reforms haven't been made, and while it isn't too late for WP to make them, the fact is they're not going to. That means the next phase, after another year or two, will be Dissolution/Attrition - and we're seeing the first signs of that now.

However, if they were to make those reforms - and by this I mean things like applying the kinds of content and behavioral standards we'd normally associate with traditional reference publishing - then the next phase would be Lockdown/Stabilization, which is when we might start seeing some real improvements that casual readers can actually see. As it is now, I don't think they'll ever get to that point, even if Flagged Revisions is enabled someday.

So don't blame Peter here for noticing the first signs of impending dissolution and thinking something should be done about it. If anything, he's in the vanguard of an ultimately doomed endeavor, and if he now realizes that the endeavor is doomed, so much the better for him.

For the most part I think we should just leave it alone and let it destroy itself. And I'm pretty much convinced that's going to happen. Not that it's going to blow up and go away in a blaze of glory. That *probably* won't be the exit. Its destruction will be more gradual, slowly it'll become more and more unreliable until Wikipedia is just as useless as the Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Faster than Britannica though, because they'll probably hold on to "anyone can edit" until the bitter end.

Wikipedia will either die in a puff of smoke caused by a nonrecoverable server crash (it'll be brought back up, sure, but any significant downtime will cause a loss of the addicted), or else with a whimper as its content is inexorably reduced to gibberish as vandals increasingly outnumber those who work to stop them.

I think I'd agree with that. Although I take part in the reform discussions, I do so in the full knowledge that no reforms will result. I'm a fool to myself really.

I'm glad that at least one person has said that. I compare Wikipedia to a country that I know and love, but whose administration is fundamentally corrupt and ruled by a despot who is badly advised by a crowd of unsavoury hangers on. Many of the people are good, but many are also afraid to speak out. Many others have fled the country altogether and are loosely organised like the Free French in London in the 1940's. Some choose to travel between the countries to fight a losing battle to persuade the good people to speak out against the despot.

But there seems no point in doing this because in Wikipedia country one is despised and hated and insulted. And because travelling to Wikipedia country is seen by the Freedom Fighters as somehow treacherous and cowardly, one is insulted by them as well.

What's the point I wonder. And who is Aeon anyway? He seems happy to speak out without revealing his identity.

[edit] And on my latest turn of thought, I had always believed that the majority of the inhabitants of Wikipedia country were fundamentally good, and that the evil lay with the dictatorship. I am now realising that this is not true at all. Most of those in the home country seem happy with the dictatorship, and support it wholeheartedly. So, nuke the lot I say.

PS I still think it is potentially a wonderful country. I have always loved encyclopedias, I have collected them all my life, and I love the idea of one that is free and on the internet and which potentially could bring the sum of all human knowledge to every one on the planet. Some of the people in Free London seem against the idea altogether.

As long as fairly up-to-date software remains already available, the needed sums of money to start are minimal. Wikisage runs on a few hundred EURO a year, to grow perhaps to a few thousand when we get closer to nl:wikipedia's size. That is currently mainly just a Dutch language version, but you get the picture.

In time, however, when features get added that Wikipedia cannot even dream of, one might envisage a professional organization that is several orders of magnitude larger than the Wikimedia foundation, and it wouldn't need any donations.

Gag. The analogy of occupied France is not apt. Wikipedia is a menace that harms it innocent neighbors and Wikipedians sign up to inflict this harm freely of their own volition. It has not been "occupied" by foreign forces or "stabbed in the back" by something disloyal within. Its participants are responsible for the harm they cause. I'm not a "freedom fighter" just another guy with a little microphone. I'm not concerned with the internal dramas or careers of the bringers of the Blitz. I want to make the world aware of the harm they do. This is London Calling.

In answer to the original question, I have long been of the opinion that Wikipedia is well into the process of destroying itself by slowly, but surely, damaging its reputation. However, I believe EricBarbour is right in thinking that this will take years to play out (it has already taken at least two).

I suppose if you wanted to take things into your own hands to hasten this process, you could try what I call the "Uriah Heep Solution". That is, register an account and start hanging out on the talk pages of WP's worst cabalistas. Shower them with loads of unctuous praise and play to all their worst behaviors and desires. Do little favors for them as well, like placing nasty block warning messages on the talk pages of editors they don't like or have conflicts with. Never miss an opportunity to sneer at experts, sing the praises of Jimbo and "free culture", and extol the wisdom of "banned means banned". In time, you might get nominated in a RFA. If you pass, then you can really do some damage.

Personally, I think that is all way too much work. I think that just sitting back and observing the natural process of decay is far less stressful and more instructive. However, I cannot eliminate the possibility that there are some undercover Uriah Heeps at work on WP already. We cannot be sure that there is no one within the current Cabal that is consciously attempting to bring WP down.

(Dreamily) Oh, Peter, and I thought you were against fighting vandalism...?

there seems to be no point in "destroying" it. simply give Internet users what they want in a better way at a different location

it is just like market share it seems. consumers are using the site because it meets a need. fill that need in other ways and it seems that consumers of information will gravitate there.

Anyone remember Alta Vista? ..... I thought so.

Or to quote Frank Zappa: "Some say the world will end in fire or ice, but I think there are two other possibilities: paperwork and nostalgia."

That would be another advantage of my proposal. Whod want to admit involvement with a site officially declared to be unsuitable?



Thats very true. If it werent for the good contributors who produce reasonable and even excellent articles wikipeida would be too ridiculous for anyone to bother with. But of course even if we could wean them all away (no easy task) the good articles would still be there.

I think it more likely that Wikipedia will be made irrelevant by a commercial entity. They'll help themselves to all Wikipedia's free content and follow its general model only with advertising and the addition of cash incentives to content contributors and admins.

Greshams Law. The bad drives out the good.

Or, something might change with Google. Wikipedia is utterly dependent on Google juice.

We're getting there, amigo.

Ask Mr.Ryan Jordan. if his life was helped by the concept of Wikipedia?

Make no mistake, Wikipedia is a not a positive force in the world or the internet. Ask some of the those hurt, abuse and/or have be victim of Wikipedia theft of IP property, and reputations.

It's delusional to think Wikipedia has an positive value and to read the stories on WR should be enough to put that to rest.

Yes weve established you have one good article.

But look at wikinfo. Thats making no headway and if it cant I doubt any wikiclone can. We need a completely fresh approach.

cancerous tumor works for me. The Term "Canker Sore" is from the Play "Man of all seasons" by Robert Bolt.

For how many minutes?

I think that seems like an increasingly likely scenario.

WoW — Signs & Wonders — Prophecy Lives!

Bonus Question —

Anyone want to guess the name of the commercial entity and who will (co-)own it?

Hint. "A profit without honor …"

Ja Ja

Wikia?

Wikia couldn't find its ass with both hands and a flashlight.

Yes, Wikia is purely amateur hour when it comes to commercial muscle or nous.

No the commercial entity will not be anything to do with Jimmy Wales, It'll be run by hard nosed business pros, not a confused pseudo hippo randroid benevolent well-meaning chap.

Makes about as much sense as non-alcoholic beer. But hey, they manage to sell that, so who knows.

I'm not so sure. For that to be successful, the majority of users would have to value better quality information over what is on Wikipedia so much that they are willing to pay for it (by paying or viewing ads), and also would need to understand the difference between good and poor quality. When you look at the types of mass media that are popular, tabloid news etc, it is unclear that the masses are interested in the distinction. At the moment I doubt also whether much of the general readership of Wikipedia understands it's flaws at all.

Is the idea that the commercial entity is going to improve the quality?

I think that's a pipe dream. A pipe dream I once believed, but a pipe dream nonetheless. The work it'd take to fact check a Wikipedia article, to confirm that it wasn't plagiarized, to ensure that it was neutral, etc. would be about as much effort as just hiring someone to write it from scratch. And in the latter case you don't have to deal with the problems of copyleft.

Flashlights and asses, you say? I think there's a Wikia wiki devoted to that.

Does it have boy scouts as well?

Bam! There it is!

http://naked.wikia.com/wiki/Special:NewFiles





http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Featured_Wikia/Spankingart/Blurb

Oh and Wikia has a new spanking wiki up. No Boy Scouts, thankfully.

http://spankinghelp.wikia.com/wiki/Spanking_Wiki

What difference does it make if he "leaves"? I mean, sure, he should leave, just like everybody else, but I don't see why failing to do so (or do so decisively) should preclude him from espousing anti-Wikipedia sentiments. (Unless of course you're a hardcore WP'er and you just want to "get rid of" people who espouse such sentiments.)

Again, I agree with you that he (and most other WP folks) should "leave." But there's no single "correct" cookie-cutter approach to the WP problem for everyone, is there? It really depends on the person - I myself have never made a single edit on WP, for example, so if anyone could get away with insisting on total disengagement as the only path to integrity, it would be me. But I wouldn't say I'm known for promoting that as the solution for all people in all cases. (Though I'll admit, it often is!)


It can't be both things? Stark binary thinking is a sign of you-know-what, Im afraid. And all this talk of "loyalties" makes me a little uncomfortable...

Personally, I would have to say that some sort of editorial board actually would be a requirement for a responsible, quality encyclopedia-like website of WP's size and internal complexity. I understand why they don't think they need one, and it's fairly obvious that most of them don't want one, but I don't blame him for suggesting something of that nature - pointless though it may be.


How about fighting the bad fight, then? Or the not-morally-aligned fight?

And suggestions for how to "fight" more correctly or effectively are always welcome, within reason of course.

That's the point. Its not as simple as setting up a wiki and inviting people to write for it. In fact, I wouldn't use the wiki approach at all as the result is usually 75% drama, 23.2% administrative overhead and only 1.8% actual writing articles.

I think the wiki model is the wrong model. It either produces crap at extremely high volumes or it dies painfully after a feeble and miserable existence.

The greatest problem is that the cost of hosting and bandwidth would quickly overwhelm any similar scheme to Wikipedia unless a new approach were taken to the whole question of the dissemination of articles from trusted sources on the Internet. That's my approach.

But because its innovative and there is no-one doing anything similar, its hard to capture that to make anyone open their checkbook unless they are first convinced that Wikipedia is a steaming pile of crud in the first place, and that a competing product using innovative delivery can outmuscle Wikipedia AND deliver a reasonable return on the money.

That's why the Wikipedia donation drive depresses me - for the money I could make something worth having rather than the rats nest that is Wikipedia.

Please do not engage in personal attacks -- rats behave with far more sincerity and intelligence than the average Wikipedia administrator.

Peter Damian, you are expressing the same sort of agitation that led several of us to launch Akahele.org, where contributors of lead content are required to be real names, with real reputations, because people who persistently cast trouble from behind pseudonyms are not trustworthy, and most often their contributions to society are minimal.

Why don't you write a short guest post for us at Akahele, expressing your frustrations with this particular situation? Because, I can assure you, you will not find resolution or much comfort for your woes here at Wikipedia Review.

Yes why not. By 'this particular situation' do you mean Wikipediots being idiotic, or the more general issue that Wikipedia is a problem in the sense of being a public health issue, and should be dealt with accordingly?

Whatever you want. The "particular situation" could even center on the idiocy of our tolerance for Aeon's so-called "contributions" here at Wikipedia Review, and how his presence makes the level of discussion here so much more juvenile and acrimonious than it could otherwise be without him.

Mod note: Various posts now live in the tar pit.

The only drama that we have is from Wikipedia users complaining that we don't have enough drama, and administrative overhead so far is minimal. Hosting and bandwidth get cheaper at a fast rate, and are not likely to become an issue. The wiki approach is fine for now (better ways are in development though and will definitely arrive). It's the social structure, where Wikipedia is failing, that makes all the difference.

That's where I beg to differ. The wiki approach is simply the wrong way to publish authoritative information. Its a good way to write collaborative technical documents by a project team (I've done this) and its certainly cheaper than using Lotus Notes.

The wiki model is derived from the social structure, and without clear leadership and a division between authorship and editorial control, what you get is Wikipedia, the anarchist's answer to the question "How can we fuck up world history?"

But for all of the Web 2.0 blather, the best way to write an authoritative collection of articles on a subject is still the old way which has been well understood since at least 1768.

In particular I reject the notion that any article is subject to revision at any time and that revision is immediately published without editorial review.

I think that's a very good definition of Wikipedia.

When you say something like that, are you sitting at home with a straight face? To assert that Wikipedia, of all things, has fucked up world history is frankly ignorant to the point of being insulting. Nazism and the holocaust, maybe. Persecution of African Americans, maybe. Wikipedia? No chance. Get some perspective.

I really think he is serious you know.

What are you both talking about?

I am not sure what you are misunderstanding here - would it help to say that 'history' has two senses (1) the events themselves (2) the record of those events. Obviously (2) was intended. Quite obviously - how could (1) have possibly been meant????.