Mark Bernstein on Wikipedia Biographies

Very topical.

It was in relation to Kathryn Cramer's run in with User:SlimVirgin. She quickly understood SlimVirgin's mentality... check it out:



From the end of her blog post which is referenced by Mark Bernstein's post above.

I was wondering when someone else would realise the parallels between Wikipedia and "Animal Farm"

BTDT --

Jon Awbrey to Citizendums, "Aediles of the King", 24 Sep 2006.

Jonny

It's an interesting piece, actually. I'd like to think that the subtext, if not the main point, is that specialized topics - in this case, bios about SF writers - should be moved off into specialty wikis, where people (i.e., specialists) can more accurately determine what's proper to include and what isn't. But I might be deluding myself somewhat - that isn't stated categorically.

I did notice they mentioned Harlan Ellison, though - we don't talk about him much, but he's another person who doesn't want a bio of himself on WP:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Harlan_E...on.27s_Comments

...And far more "notable" than Daniel Brandt, of course, particularly since his notability isn't mostly due to Wikipedia's treatment of him, and his reaction to it. If anything, Daniel has been a model of decorum compared to Ellison:


And this coming from the editor of Dangerous Visions, so you know he's aware of what the word "dystopia" means. Yikes!

I think Ellison is correct, although of course he's talking to people who won't hear. They think they're involved in some great movement rather than willing slaves on Jimbo Wales' Animal Farm. Certainly Ellison trying to correct inaccuracies in his own biography and having them reverted by anon trolls is pretty much par for the course.

Just because Ellison is correct doesn't mean that anything will happen. I think if Daniel Brandt were to win his case on the principle of privacy for living people, then Wikipedia would then find itself besieged by living people who wish their biographies be removed.

As well it should.

Try to imagine that somebody posts your name on a bulletin board at the Maul Of America, inviting passersby to attach whatever bits of fantasy or pieces of gossip may come into their minds in free association with it. That is all that Wikipedia can warrant -- that is all that the Wikimedia Foundation is willing to war-rant -- under the names of "Biography" and "Encyclopedia". They should all have their mouths washed out with SOAP for even daring to use those words.

Jonny

Besieged? This is something I've been meaning to bring up, actually - the only reason I haven't is because I don't want to seem like a one-issue guy...!

If I had to guess, I'd say the first two months or so of the "post opt-out era" would see about 50 people, and no more than 70 or 80, asking for take-downs. After that, you'd get stragglers - maybe an average of a dozen per month for the next six months, then dwindling down to three or four per month. So after a year, I figure they'd have maybe 150 fewer biographies - 250 tops, and hardly any of them would be genuinely famous people (I think Ellison is probably something of an exception, as he's widely known for his ill temper).

I would think the number of people wanting to opt out after Year One would be almost negligible - and mostly for newly-posted biographies only. The number might stay at around 3-4 per month, but I doubt it would even be that many, personally.

Coincidentally, there isn't likely to be much help from Citizendium on this issue - looks like Larry Sanger has officially copped-out on opt-out.

A Cloud Of Dust ...
And A Hearty O-Hi-O Citizender, Away !!!

Jonny

And deceased people's families.

I just approved Kathryn Cramer as a forum member, so firstly I'd like to welcome Ms. Cramer to the forum - welcome to the forum, Ms. Cramer! - and secondly, I suspect she'll give us another good "subject's perspective" on the whole BLP situation in general. (Irrespective of any run-ins she may have had with SlimVirgin, of course! )

That's not the way I read his blog, so I just sent this email to the designated address:

> Also, if you wish Wikipedia didn’t have an article about you, and you don’t want
> the Citizendium to start an article about you, this is the address to say so.

I wish Wikipedia didn't have an article about me, and I don't want the Citizendium
to start an article about me.

-- Daniel Brandt

I suspect Mr. Brandt will find many supportive of his arguement. For example, there are numerous instances of young people every year, say 18 year old girls who make porno films. At the age of 25 they wish to settle down, get married, raise children and have normal lives. Someone in Wikipedia feels the necessity, however, to create a bio with an external link to purchase one of their film credits. I don't see how Congress can fail to act here, precisely for the reasons Mr. Brandt stated above.

It's a start, I'll admit - but as long as they're deciding how to define the term "public figure," won't the same sorts of things happen?

IOW, if they're going to make exceptions to this rule, then they have to come up with a very well-defined, documented list of those exceptions, and it has to be part of their charter, not just another wiki page that can get changed later to suit their whims and dislikes. Otherwise, people are back to having to depend on strangers, some of whom may be openly hostile, to do the right thing.

Hi there. SlimVirgin, for all her "don't you know who I am" attitude did more good than harm, though perhaps it was an illusion and I was being bad-cop-good-copped. She did have some really impressive lines. Oooh. It was the mob effect that was impressive, and how fast they were to mob me.

In the backgroud, I was corresponding with Cory Doctorow on the matter and his opinion was that no one really runs wikipedia regardless of the lip I was getting. So I stopped reading my incoming messages and went about my business. That just made them enraged.

As it happens, I'm listed in Who's Who in America and just discovered that they now offer a service where you can pay them (it doesn't come cheap) to publish your listing online on their site. I chuckle it the possibility of being declared non-notable by Wikipedia and linking to the Who's Who entry. But I don't think they're going to go that direction.

Kathryn

Hi there to you too!


SlimVirgin is the quintessential gamesmanship expert. She's been advocating more humane opt-out rules for quite some time now, but that was probably more because of her affinity with (fellow Canadian neo-con) Rachel Marsden than any desire to bring Wikipedia kicking and screaming into the world of civilized discourse. Have a look at this thread - in effect, if you're "in good graces" with someone like SlimVirgin, the rules don't really apply to you! And of course, at least one editor we know of has been perma-banned from WP for daring to suggest otherwise.

Either way, though, somehow getting rid of the Daniel Brandt article would remove a major personal black-mark for her, since she's the one who initially created it, there's been no end of trouble for them over it, and her motives in starting it have been questioned practically since Day One.


I was looking at some of his stuff at Borders yesterday, coincidentally. The lead story of one of his collections (the latest?) is entitled, When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth... It's not like I know anything much about him other than what's in the "public record," but I suspect he's rather pro-Wikipedia, or at least more than he lets on...?


If you're posting here, I'm afraid it's much more likely they'll go in the opposite direction of whatever it is you'd prefer!

There is a significant diversity of opinion on Wikipedia Review.

SlimVirgin isn't evil, she's just pretentious and rules with an iron fist unnecessarily. A lot of Wikipedia is about giving meaning to one's life, thus drama attracts attention. The best way to ensure you have a long article is to keep making a fuss about it, because that will attract more people to edit it. Boring people, even boring people with a lot of accomplishments, rarely get long articles unless their accomplishments/publications highlight a particular issue an editor is trying to push or make more prominent throughout Wikipedia. But combative scandalous or scrappy people often get long pages. It has to do with the self-selected nature of the editors and where they focus their attention.

You and your article gained the notice of two allied administrators Jossi and SlimVirgin. It is smart not to make them enemies as a lot of decisions on Wikipedia are subjective and are often highly influenced by an assertive opinionated administrator such as SlimVirgin. It is a fact that the many rules are applied and interpreted quite different across articles, and one's social interactions with others is a large determinant as to how strictly or loosely such rules are applied to an article and to specific aspects of it.

Kathryn,

It's not really an issue about being notable or not. It's a matter of having a widely-distributed dynamic blog listing attached to your name, one that for the time being has a vastly undeserved credibility, that can change in a flash -- maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon ... and for the rest of your life ... not to mention thereafter.

It's the sort of thing that you would need to pay a clippings service -- who knows? maybe Jimbo will sell you one -- to keep an eye on from the date of its "not-really-a-publication" forward. Maybe you can afford that, but most folks would not wish that sort of notoriety on their poodles.

Jonny

Cory is correct insofar as no one runs all of Wikipedia, except perhaps Jimbo, whose heavy hand is stayed by the knowledge that the minions would scatter in a moment if it was wielded.

However, it is very true that certain groups of people run parts of Wikipedia. Try making a meaningful contribution to the domain of Animal Rights (sic) or certain sub-fields of Judaica, and you will find SlimVirgin all over your case.

Using a common SF trope, Wikipedia is a quintessential post-apocalyptic warlord society. The warlords (admins) reign over subdomains of a generally anarchic space. The periodically fight each other (wheel wars), and participate in planned or ad hoc campaigns against each other. At the same time, they prevent the rise of additional opposition through exile (blocking) and assassination (banning), or cultivate acolytes and sycophants with privileges and rewards (tolerated rule-breaking, barnstars, admin status).

The warlords trade and jockey for status among themselves using a variety of mechanisms, including ritual combat -- often with proxy fighters (ArbCom), denunciation (RFC), and whispering campaigns (IRC, off-wiki in general), and when one is weakened, they will ruthlessly turn on him/her (cf. Kelly Martin, Tony Sidaway).

I could go on, but you get my drift. I haven't read "Overclocked" yet, but if Cory has already fleshed this out, my apologies. On the other hand, if this turns into a story, I want to be taken to dinner :-) Now I just need to get the opening scene of "A Boy and His Dog" out of my head.

This supports the evidence and conclusions I've presented -- Brandt was an innocent victim of a drive-by smear -- the real targets, the "problem users" had been banned or driven off when SlimVirgin flipped-flopped. There nolonger was a need to impugn Brandt.

The problem users got to close to a sacred cow using Wikipedia's stated policies. Something had to be done to protect the sacred cow.

That was an amazing post Gomi! If only I could give you a Barnstar... ...

You got that right !!!

Jonny

PS. My sociologist brother tells me that they study these phenomena under the headings of shogunates and sultanates.

Ah, yes. We clearly need more ronin.

What I found especially interesting about the dynamic is that the editors quickest on the draw had no knowledge of the subject areas in question and that this lack of familiarity with the subject matter didn't seem to bother them.

Nor do they seem to have much knowledge of bibliography so their ability to judge whether something was properly sourced seemed pretty questionable to me.

Congratulations, you have just discovered the Wikipedia Secret Policy known as the WikiWaffle. It is corollary to the Wikipedia Guideline known as Don't Upset Novices With Any Mention Of Their Obliviscence (DUNWAMOTO).

Jonny

Unless I myself am your sociologist brother, I'd say he pretty much agrees with me then!

http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showt...598&#entry12598

The real target being you, I suppose? But I thought you said the whole thing was just an "error in procedure"!

And that would also mean, presumably, that the flip-floppery had nothing whatsoever to do with, just maaayyyybe, the fact that over 100 previously anonymous admins and editors had their real names, locations, and ages publicly exposed by the innocent victim in question, entirely as a result of her posting that one article?

Well, I have suggested that he should write a book on Sockiology, but let's not go there now.

Yes, I agree with about two-thirds of what you say. I am less hesitant to call a fasces a fasces through, and I don't find myself needing to invoke any new paradigms just yet, as I find the whole Wikipedia culture rather painfully reminiscent of Junior High School -- now that was a feudal experience!

Jonny

A huge amount of WP is explained by the simple fact that the dominant demographic are teenagers. Literally for the most part, but intellectually across the board. Sadly, from the individual to the entire political structure, WP as a social phenomena can be modeled accurately by digesting the contents of Kruger and Dunning's landmark analysis "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1999, Vol 77, No. 6, pp 1121-1134. (online at http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf)



Again, "teenagers". If you've never written more than a paragraph of text at any given time -- in some cases, barely a sentence -- nor have you formulated an argument and defended it from start to finish, this is to be expected.

I can't remember where I read it, but in one of the non-official histories of WP it was revealed that in some proto-version, straight from the primordial soup, the encyclopedia was in fact to be written by anyone, but with editorial oversight by People With A Clue. In this story, it was written that none other than Jimbo Wales sat down and got to work on some economic theory article or something ... and then, if I remember this right, he started to get that unusual sensation one gets while writing a test or doing homework or, in general, just plain educating oneself. He though "Damn, someone is going to mark this!", and Jimmy didn't like that. So instead he invented a system where the TA's are less educated than he is. Bullshit baffles brains, and intuitively he realized that the more BS, or the less brains, the easier the job is. Thus Wikipedia, where as soon as you demonstrate you are transcending the system, you are kicked out...

Alright already, I am duly punished for having used any words with the slightest hint of geopolitical connotations, so I'm going to go put my feet up on the ottoman and retire for the remainder of the afternoon.

I did have a followup on the matters of sourcing and the things that SlumVirgin and all of her SlumVestals have done over the course of the last year to warp Wikipedia policies in the direction of an utterly degraded quality thereof.

Maybe after a change of title ...

And maybe after some not so slim victuals ...

Jonny

Kathryn,

I wanted to highlight another aspect of the observation that you have made here, one on which, not too coincidentally, the person or persons whom we know as SlimVirgin has had a considerable and deleterious impact.

This time a year ago, the espoused content-governing policies of Wikipedia -- WP:No Original Research, WP:Neutral Point Of View, and WP:Verifiability -- would have been more or less familiar to people who already knew the rules of the road in sourced research.

Beginning very gradually about this time last year, but building to a frenzy by August of 2006, all of these policies became altered in ways that guarantee an ever lower quality of sourced research. The person or persons whom we know as SlimVirgin has been one of the principal instigators of this decline and without a doubt the most relentless eliminator of any other editors -- and there were many -- who objected to these revolting developments.

As I made a special study of the Devolution in WP:NOR, I can supply quite a bit of detail on the impact that these changes have had on the main article front, and none of it has been good, so far as I can see.

Jonny

I did Google her. You can't make this stuff up.

Suggested further reading: Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work by Paul Babiak & Robert D. Hare, Regan Books, 2006, which I reviewed HERE.

Also Seth Finkelstein: Wikipedia - Debate with me, Bureaucratic system based on China, Secret police. (Love his last paragraph!)

-K

Likewise, some e-friends and I have begun to assemble a bookshelf here, many readings among which are collected in our efforts to understand the dynamics of web-&-wikinquiry, not to mention the rather surprising blocks in the way thereof.

Jonny

Heh... If only there could be an "abandonment phase" between Slimmy and the entire World-Wide Web...


Power-tripping is definitely a feature, IMO - and it's almost comical to see how some of them desperately want to become admins, only to find out how much of a tedious and unsatisfying chore it is. There's also the bit about how Philip "User:PhilWiki" Lenssen claims his interview with his de-wiki friend/admin Mathias Schindler is an "actual and factual inside view." (Also, note how he refers to Finkelstein as an "activist," when in fact, Finkelstein is a "journalist.")

Lenssen has a personal agenda, of course, like many of them - he's a Google expert, his blog is called "Google Blogoscoped," and he makes his money as a consultant doing "advanced search-engine optimizations." In my opinion he's well aware of the symbiotic relationship between Google and WP, but probably doesn't want anyone to think it exists. Also, he might honestly not know the difference between objective truth and what amounts to Wikimedia Foundation propaganda... a lot of them don't.

Of course, that's the very nature of the Wikipedia concept - present everything as objective truth, even if it's on a horrendously controversial subject, or even if the "facts" are in constant, bitter dispute.

And here is where the cloven hoof comes straight from the mouth of Larry Sanger. It is none other than his very own pet NPOV policy that forces an unending series of turf battles on what was once a real hip crowd of pluralistic surfers, happy to muse and let muse. Not to mention the fact that it falsifies the facts as to just how distributed opinion really is, as if we could jump to the end of ongoing inquiries with wiki-patent-leather seven-league boots. None of this worries those divines who gaze on the world from their God's Eye View, of course.

Jonny

I don't mean to insult your intelligence by stating something so blindingly obvious, but I think it bears repeating here that the most dangerous people are those who believe their own propaganda.

Question: And maybe this is a separate topic and maybe it's already answered here somewhere.

Much is made in outside discussions of Wikipedia of a financially based synergy between Wikipedia and Google. Is there a documented flow of donations from Google's foundations to Wikipedia? Have people had a look at either Wikipedia's tax returns or those of the various Google charitable branches? Or is it thought that donation are flowing from the rather wealthy Google executive level? What is the financial argumentation?

It has practically nothing to do with donations, or direct "charitable" support of any kind, actually. It has everything to do with AdSense and "scrapers." Wikipedia just happens to benefit enormously from the way its pages are ranked - with the PageRank algorithm probably tweaked deliberately in their favor, or at least many people suspect so.

It's explained better on Wikipedia Watch, though you'll find some explanations here, buried in the thread-bins of history...

Basically, the way it works is that literally hundreds of scraper sites (such as answers.com) copy Wikipedia content, and plaster ads all over it, and those ads almost always include Google AdSense boxes. Those pages also rocket to the top of the Google rankings, along with the WP versions... The scrapers get paid by their own advertisers and also by Google for carrying the boxes, but Google gets paid even more by people who buy AdWords space in those boxes. Ultimately, everyone gets paid except for the people who actually produce the content - namely, the Wikipedians. And Wikipedia itself, meanwhile, becomes little more than a gigantic spam engine, at least as far as the rest of the internet is concerned.

Daniel Brandt will no doubt correct me on any particulars, and/or add additional details - he's studied this issue a lot more than, well, just about anybody!

I wanted to return to the key insight expressed at the end of K's blog posting -- note to K : your horrorscope says to stay away from castles today -- and to add a few observations about the inciting incident that most familiars and grateful ex-familiars of Wikipedia will find rather obvious.

But I wore myself out just trying to get all the source links right, and I'm overdue for that 3rd cup of coffee, so back in very slow flash ...

Jonny

I like the horoscope. My horoscope for today also says something about assembling a bunch of info about Antarctica (seriously) and delivering this intel to those who corrupt my integrity by sending me paychecks.

Your Wikiopoly card says:


Jonny

Good advice about staying away from the castle. I see Madame Christine Dolan has made a dramatic appearance over there. Now it emerges why I had the audacity to do my own entry: so I could get there before the conpiracy theorists in whose fantasy life I figure so richly. I didn't wish to be Harlan Ellisoned. There are no real soures for the conspiracy theorists to cite, so portraying me as, say, someone who helped put Jack Idema in jail (sadly not true) wouldn't wash on a closely watched page.

It was a win-win situation. If I was declared non-notable, such page would get deleted. But a self-authored page would be closely watched and therefore whole cloth fantasies would have a problem with longevity.

Oh, did I forget to mention trials and cockroaches?

Yes, you must avoid them, too.

Jonny

Good point, but in all likelihood, it'll still mean fairly regular monitoring. Some "hostile edits" are more subtle than others, if you know what I mean...

You do seem to have a rather, shall we say, strained relationship with the right-wing lock 'n' load crowd, don't you! I wonder if User:MONGO is already familiar with you?

FWIW, I think even covered in mud you look a lot better than Lynn Thomas.

Well, I won a blogwar with Little Green Footballs. But on the other hand, the non-wingnut milbloggers think highly of me because I sometimes get the real stuff about private military contractors.

I did not set out in life to develop an expertise in the mercenary/bounty unter subculture. It just sort of happened. The secret is that if you write about them, they don't show up on your doorstep with a gun. Sometimes people whom I would even classify as serial killers don't even dare send email.

There's an interesting phenonmenon: the private military contractor/bounty hunter/ mercenary guys are really used to their intimidating physicallity playing a role in their social interactions. And here I am, the proverbial 98 lb. weakling blonde in her dining room, in of all places <i>Pleasantvile</i>, and somehow I seem to find out what they are up to. They don't get it that their muscles don't matter over the Internet.

So far I've only heard from three people's lawyers: Richard Slowe (lawyer for Sandline/Aegis/and what's left of Executive Outcomes); Jack Idema's lawyer (essenialy demanding the right to "document inspection" meaning they wanted to intimidate me into just letting them letting them read all my email); and Christine Dolan's, who is a much better human being than his client.

The death threats I've gotten all came from the Little Green Footballs crowd. Real serial killer mercenaries are to chicken to threaten. They have their freinds call and email and leave comments instead. What's the big difference? I know the serial killer's real name. That puts a bit of a damper on things.

One of the things I learned on my summer vacation is that I can get into much more trouble over the Internet from my dining room than I ever imagined. he Northbridge Wikipedia entry, which I looked up for someone in a 3rd world country today,isn't great. But I don't want to be the one to try to source the infghting between the ex-Execuive Outcomes guys. But Pasquale DiPofi is an interesting character.

Well, it's still a lot more dangerous than what I do for a living!

Getting back to the whole Wikipedia thing, though, I noticed one of the articles you'd been working on was Joseph_A._Cafasso, apparently another disreputable right-wing sort of person...? That article is now <understatement>somewhat smaller</understatement> than it once was.

It also looks like User:Jossi was the admin who started putting the kibosh on your editing activities, along with User:Will_Beback and Slimmy. Was it that article that started the mobbing, or your own bio? I'm just curious about the chain of events... You don't have to tell us if you don't want to...

Jossi, meanwhile, is a follower of "Maharaji" Prem_Rawat, the master of inner_peace. I'm sure Prem's a very nice guy, of course... and when you think about it, that's probably a lot better than dealing with the Wiccan priest from Ohio who implied that Daniel Brandt might be manufacturing plagiarism cases, or that British-expatriate Rastafarian dude living in Honduras who thinks deleting the Brandt bio will bring about a global economic cataclysm that will destroy civilization!

It's a big world, filled with all sorts of people, but I'll betcha dollars to doughnuts that anybody who happens to make any sort of innocent little edit to the Cafasso article from now on will be accused of being a "Kathryn Cramer sock puppet."

The wiki entry on Executive Outsomes says this:
The use of anonymous sources, rumour, speculation and innuendo is unencyclopedic, isn't it?

Do you know who User:Phase4 is, Nobs? That passage used to read:


That was removed in this edit, and replaced with the more vague (but also unsourced) paragraph that's there today, or at least it's there until someone comes along and changes it again.

Whether or not it's "encyclopedic" depends on how you define the term "encyclopedic," presumably.

Why do you do this to me, Somey?

User:Phase4 page reads,
directly related to citation at A3-e,
Now, after I perform the research, (using properly the historical method, and not Wikipedia's "encyclopedic standards"), under which thread am I to post findings so as not to be misconstrued as some sort of personal vendetta by me against a WP "valued contributor"?

Full citation: Purkitt, Helen E. 1950- "Correspondence: South Africa's Nuclear Decisions", International Security - Volume 27, Number 1, Summer 2002, pp. 186-194 -- discusses covert relationship between Union of South Africa and Isreal in the developement of nuclear weapons for both nation states.

Because you can't expect me or anyone else to have followed and memorized every detail of your ArbCom case. Just because said case contains a reference (among many) to a subject - namely SA's nuclear program - that's also been worked over by another editor in the past, I can't just assume there's a direct relationship between you and that editor. I couldn't even be expected to know why it would be relevant. But given that you're questioning that editor's wording specifically, is it not a fair question to ask if you're familiar with him?

Admittedly, I probably worded it wrong - "Do you know who he is" might imply that I'm wondering if you knew his real identity, which isn't what I meant (unless you do, in fact, know, or suspect).


If we're talking about why someone, in this case User:Phase4, is editing an article in a certain way that's relevant to the thread, then it's on-topic, as far as the thread is concerned. But if we're talking about how User:Phase4's changes to that article simply mean that he's doing the same thing as some other, probably unrelated editor, that's off-topic.

Off-topic is okay, though, as long as you're not doing it in such a way as to hijack threads for your own purposes. You might not even realize you're doing that - or at least I'm willing to accept the possibility that you don't realize it.

Thank you. OK. There is a coincidental overlap. And the question largely surrounds (coincidentally the same question which led to my Mediation break-down), "What is a covert relationship?" Let us return to the original unencyclopedic entry, Executive Outcomes says:
This is a discussion of covert relationships. Let's review the posting from Phase4's user page,
Again, in extensio, a discussion of alleged covert relations. Now, a casual disinterested reader may dismiss all this as conspiratorial bullshit. An experienced researcher may dismiss it as conspiratortial bullshit -- however then, the same researcher who begins an examination of sources and detail, would be prejudiced. By examing sources, I refer to the credibility of sources, not the verifiability of sources (a minority view I hold regarding intellectual honesty vs Wikipedia policy).

Few researchers involved with WP are willing to undertake an independent examination of these sources. I am willing to pursue this principally because the covert relationship between Israel and South Africa is not mentioned anywhere on the page, South Africa and weapons of mass destruction#Nuclear_strategy.

Let's put this to bed -- my "purposes" involve a disagreement with Official Wikipedia Policy allowing the deliberate use of intellectual dishonesty, principally in WP:V, and even in the WP:ATT. I believe departure from the historical method to establish disputed facts in history is very troubling. Wikipedia allows for interpretation of "facts", (actually really means "views") before "facts" are discoverd or established.

As to personal purposes, I believe I've pursued that about as far as processes will go, and anything further is redundant.