Is Jimbo ever going to say he's sorry for this concept. that never flew?

Greg

Being in WikiWub (with yerself) means never having to say you're sorry.

Jonny

We disagree here, because I thought, in the abstract, it was a good idea.

Maybe Greg is merely saying that Jimbo should go back to the media, who ran all those nice post-Essjay-scandal stories quoting Jimbo as reassuring everyone that he was going to fix everything, and tell them that in fact, he couldn't fix any of it at all.

I'm not saying Jimbo lacks a sense of honor, though I do suspect that... but to promise things one can't deliver is at best, hucksterism, and at worst, fraud.

Still, what's he gonna do? Finally tell the world the truth, that Wikipedia is broken beyond repair? That might seriously cut into his bottom line.

he's probably visiting Antarctica with limited internet access disseminating knowledge to penguins or something, give him a break.

I love this message board.

Actually, he signed on to an expedition that he heard was banning penguins ...

No, Mr. Wales, that's banding penguins — banding penguins ...

Jonny

well he's not going to be far away from that ... he'll be in australia in the outback talking to aborigines ... with no internet connection.

PS. Jimbo appologize? ... thats laughable. He still hasnt appologized to me for wading into a situation where he was uninformed and bitching at me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=103792424

He hasn't apologised to anyone that he's bitched at, to my knowledge.
Jimbo is the almighty "God-king", why would he admit he's wrong?
(Well, unless there's negative publicity involved)

I totally agree that Jimbo was fast and loose with the facts during that scandal. Right now, the wider media isn't savvy to these types of simple deceptions on his part. If this was a congressional matter, the reporters would be all over it. I would suggest that someone contact one of the reporters who initially reported the story, such as that NYTimes guy that quoted Jimbo on the above. A follow-up story on how this measure failed and that Wikipedia is still vulnerable to these types of abuses is informative. One could even bring up the case of (the now banned) Asucena who claimed to be a representative of HAMAS, and went around editing saying that certain edits were against the PNA's official policy, but it is (almost) impossible given the current system for anyone to know one way or the other whether this was true or whether it was just some kid having fun in his spare time.

If you want to understand why Jimbo's credentialing efforts went down, take a look at these:

Wikipedia:Ignore all credentials
Wikipedia:Credentials are irrelevant which came out when people thought that WP:IAR wasn't strong enough

and while we're at it, this one:

Wikipedia talk:Protecting children's privacy

Much Wikipedia bad policy culture derives from the need of teenagers to protect their precious right to edit articles about their favorite bands and video games.

I'm still waiting for "WP:Credentials Are Evil!".

Is it just me or was this proposed guideline/policy/whatever aimed in large part at disrupting efforts of law enforcement to protect children on WP? Although not touched in the discussion look at the plain language:

• "forestall the drama associated with interactions between naive children, adult predators, and sting operations by law enforcement"
• "Note that self=identified children may in fact be adults posing as children for a variety of reasons."

When are they going to get the news? Protection of children is a board function. This whole discussion makes WP look irresponsible. They could have got NAMBLA to endorse this piece of work

Well, I pointed that out to them (not referring to the specific language) in responding to the first attempt at this, Wikipedia:Protecting children's privacy.

Yes and then you had to put up with crap from a wiki-lawyer.

This article at Wikitruth about Section 2257 discusses a similar issue. Jimbo and the Foundation and the former general counsel, Brad, all know that they are essentially naked in front of the law if someone ever comes after them with a well-constructed defamation case or invasion of privacy case (Florida law), or child protection case (federal law), or whatever. But they have to keep the "immunity myth" alive in order to discourage complaints from victims who lack determination, and/or the lawyers consulted by these victiims who don't do their homework and fall for the myth. That's exactly why we need more clarity on Section 230 as it applies to entities such as Wikipedia. It's also why Jimbo is interested in pushing a code of conduct for bloggers.

As Seigenthaler has been arguing all along, once Congress gets into the act of clarifying 230, we all stand to lose a little bit more of the First Amendment. And Congress will act eventually, at the rate things are going.

The essential hypocrisy in Jimbo's position on blogging conduct is that civility should begin at home for Jimbo. Home would be Wikipedia. Instead of talking about blogs, he should be talking with the Foundation about new structures for Wikipedia: screening of new articles, edits are done on draft versions and subject to approval before getting published, cutting back on scrapers and bot access, effective sanctions against rogue admins, BLP opt-outs, lock down on finished articles, no porn at all, and so forth. In short, be a responsible publisher.

Jimbo is trapped. If he does this stuff, he is basically admitting that Larry Sanger is right. Jimbo cannot do that because it might deflate Wikia, Inc. To put it bluntly, it's too late because there's money involved.

It's like Jimbo created this big self-perpetuating, automated, defamation and privacy-invading machine in the form of Wikipedia. Now the sorcerer's apprentice is out of control. It's going to turn around and bite Web 2.0 if Congress decides to act. By talking about bloggers and not about the embarrassment of Wikipedia, it's rather like the magician's trick of distracting the attention of the audience to some fake activity, while it's really happening somewhere else.

Wikipedia will be affected with any revision of Section 230, and so will bloggers. Any comments added to a blog will probably have to be screened by the owner of the blog, or the owner might be liable. The same might be true with message boards and moderators.

Larry Sanger is doing the responsible thing with Citizendium in terms of imposing a structure of accountability on the editing process. He sees the writing on the wall — not because he's a legal eagle, but because he sees what happened to Wikipedia, and has applied some common sense to the problem.

Jimbo is forever — well, as long as he can get away with it — blowing bubbles.

He blew these same bubbles before — anybody who knew diddley about it knew they would burst again — and, if Wikipedia is still around in a couple of years, he'll be blowing them again.

And bursting them again ...

What it all depends on is finding ever-new audiences who haven't yet seen the bubble-blowing machine in full-blowin' operation before.

Or maybe just a public with chronically challenged LTM.

We'll see ...

As for Larry Sanger, he's well aware that Wikipedia is FUBAR, since he's the constantly self-proclaimed co-F-er of the whole shebang. Citizendium may fix one problem by requiring real names, but it does it at the price of an even more Ironclad Cabal Constabulary (ICC) that will enforce the Myth Of Objectivity (MOO) like never before.

You'll see ...

Jonny

Consider it done. I just e-mailed the "public" editor of the NY Times with the following:

I knew when I read the NY Times article:
After False Claim, Wikipedia to Check Degrees, by NOAM COHEN
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/12/technolo...e7b8f26&ei=5070

...that this was another clumsy attempt by Jimmy Wales to distract the media and subdue criticism, until things blew over and the long-term memory slipped away.

The NY Times surely has a responsibility to follow up on this story, and report that while Jimmy Wales tried to implement a policy of "credential verification" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jimbo_Wa...l_Verification), the Wikipedia Community has shot it down multiple times:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jim...ation/Archive_1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jim...ation/Archive_2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jim...ation/Archive_3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jim...ation/Archive_4

...and even overwhelmingly voted down key elements of the measure in a recorded straw poll:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jim...ion/Straw_polls

Wales' response has been to keep "re-booting" the discussion. An interesting euphemism for "I don't like that everybody disagrees with me, plus I promised the media that we'd do something about this, so I'm just going to archive all of the criticism, and I ask that you start over again and again until you finally agree with me."

Certain critics believe that Wales was fast and loose with the facts during the Essjay "professor" scandal. Right now, the wider media isn't savvy to these types of simple deceptions on his part. If this were a congressional matter, one would think reporters would be all over it. A follow-up story on how this "credential verification" measure failed, and how Wikipedia is still vulnerable to these types of abuses, would be informative.

Greg

Send the same thing to Brian Bergstein ( BBergstein AT ap.org ) from the Associated Press. Jimbo told him directly that he was going to do this credential thing. I talked to Bergstein for about 30 minutes a week later, and said that it would never happen. Bergstein asked if I had a mailing list, which I don't, but this means he wants new leads on Wikipedia stories. Don't mention the NYT in your message to Bergstein — reporters prefer to pursue a "scoop." Keep in mind Jimmy's busy travel schedule, because reporters need to contact him for a comment if they're going to write about him. If he's out of the country, they may not get a comment as quickly as they'd like.

One passage that was prominent while reading "Credentials are irrelevent",



Hmmm...

That's a terrible construction. It should be "contravene the principles of," not "destroy the concept of." Simply stating something like that in an RfA obviously doesn't "destroy" anything, and certainly not the actual concept, since (last I heard) concepts can't be destroyed in any real, tangible sense.

Putting all that aside, though, at least someone is admitting that anonymity is fundamental to the WP ethos. I probably wouldn't use the word "ethos," though - "rules of engagement" seems more appropriate...

But the fact is, a lot of them are so utterly Kool-Aid™ (or "FlavorAid™" if you prefer) -addicted they seem to think anonymity makes no difference at all, among other weird or just-plain-stupid beliefs such as "our Google rankings don't matter," "vandalism isn't allowed," and "if you don't want an article about you on WP then you should stop being so notable."

Might be too late, since Bergstein has told me that he's a reader of Wikipedia Review. (He's also the one who wrote the big story about Wikipedia Review, so we're already cordial.) I'll let him know about this.

Greg

Maybe we shouldn't point that out - I wonder if the WP people will label the Associated Press as an "attack site" now, because one of their reporters occasionally reads things posted here?

Well, how do you know I wasn't lying about what Bergstein told me?

Or, that I'm not actually Lyndon LaRouche?

Signed,

Lynd oops! Greg

We have confirmation fron a reliable source, namely Wikipedia Review.

I think I had to put up with a child. I mean, how many adults are there spending significant time in the Pokemon project?