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Yet Another Wikipedia Scandal
AngelHedgie
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...but this time, the stakes are much higher. Where as the infamous Essjay scandal was just about a moron who lied about his credentials, this one strikes a lot deeper, and is a lot darker - it seems that there is some questions that a top admin may be a spook. And considering how Wikipedia's handling this (not well at all), this could get really ugly.
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Except that the person in question purportedly works for MI5, a British organization.
You get an F-- in Reading Comprehension.
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It may be a shocking thought, but these people do have lives and interests beyond their jobs...
The problem is that she's a notoriously aggressive admin - she's well known for forcing her views into several articles, and banning anyone who even thinks of opposing her. When the two are put together, the question comes up of whether or not her work in Wikipedia was at the direction of a foreign power.
Supposing it's true, I'd be angry but not entirely surprised.
Edit: Also, the above. I've seen the way proper edits work in Wiki and there's no room for aggressiveness. The whole thing's hippy passive.
But I guess the question people really want answers to is 'Did MI5 place her there on purpose?'
Personally, I'd say probably not. It's likely this is just her personality shining through on a project which interested her because of its relevance to her work. I imagine MI5 has more important things to occupy itself with like trying to gather intelligence on Iraqi guerrillas before they kill British troops than wasting time editing Wikipedia articles.
Of course, people have been known to do some exceptionally stupid things before, so it could be that MI5 is also being run by morons.
Or am I?
Or about how there's idiots who claim to know more about what happened with the USS Liberty then the actual survivor's themselves?
Ah well. Not shocking.
You don't say.
I'm sorry, but this really doesn't change my view on Wiki... nice place to visit, horrible place to base your college paper sources on. If anything this kind of reinforces the fact that my sociology professor isn't the prick everyone made him out to be ("No Wiki referencing").
no dude, it used to be the best possible source of information about EVERYTHING, but then this one lady screwed it all up and only now is it a bloated and ultimately useless open-source online information repository.
Boo hoo I can't cite it in my research paper.
This is not a subjective statement, but a reflection of the unquestionable objective truth that this does not matter at all.
God, i wouldn't cite wikipedia for anything legit if you tied me up, poured barbeque sauce on me, and threw me into a komodo dragon exhibit
using any sort of encyclopedia as a reference is generally a bad idea, but an online open-source encyclopedia? uuugghhhhhhhh
and the citation thing has merit because seriously, it's one thing to look something to the get the general gist of a subject, but no real understading is going to come from reading a wikipedia article. you're not an "expert" because you read a bunch of online sources, you're just some dude who has read some online sources. wikipedia is nice and shiny and a good place to find out about stuff you may not have known about before. as a place to create a base of knowledge though, it's utter crap.
there's an article on "glomping" for fuck's sake
Shit, man. And me with my Master's thesis coming up. Just my luck.
Are the articles about the background stories of random video game characters still accurate? I'd really hate it if someone were lying about Tails.
IOS Game Center ID: Isotope-X
I hear he has two tails, but there's no source on that in the article.
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(I went there for the exact reason everyone else did)
Is this true?
Where'd you hear about it from?
(Both points, I mean)
I don't think anyone is saying that it ought to be ignored, but I wouldn't quite call it a scandal.
I'd say it goes with the territory. we've known... well anyone who knows shit about wiki has known that you can't trust everything on it. anyone can edit it. ideally, people don't (edit - as in, edit in false information), but it's hard to have a website that works on ideals. I mean, this is the internet we are talking about.
but yes, it certainly should be dealt with. it needs to be shown that wiki promotes honesty in its users and moreso its admins.
It would be a scandal that MI5 were doing such a piss poor job of hiding their identities.
Anyone who uses the word 'glomping' to describe an action that they themselves perform is someone I probably do not want to be friends with.
Here's the USS Liberty Incident discussion.
Here's the thing about the 13 year old kid admin.
The 4chan wiki is probably not a great place for information
I approve of your sources.
Just because it happens to be from ED dosen't make it any less true.
At least in this case.
I'm not doubting you, just I never heard this before and this doesn't exactly put me over the top.
edit - plus as far as I'm concerned colbert should be banned. he's funny, I like him, but he doesn't get/respect wikipedia. why should he be allowed to publicly fuck with it when that is far from the purpose? If he gets on the show, he can make this point.
Please, tell me why Schrodinger's Encyclopedia merits respect?
Especially when the head pretty much came out and openly supported fraud? (Remember, he only dismissed Essjay after the story was really gaining traction in the MSM.)
I think Colbert "gets" Wikipedia - and the mentality of those running it - perfectly.
The Liberty thing, fair enough, it's a direct link, but I'm not convinced about the kid thing. Come on, this thread's about not believing stuff from the Internet, what am I supposed to do? The 13 year-old boy claim is a meme on that thing as well, chances are that's wrong (and he seems far too articulate for one), and checking out Wikipedia, it's true he locked the Stephencolbert account, but I can't find anything about him demanding to be on the Colbert Report (although apparently he could hide any references anyway)
I'm not expecting you to come up with additional evidence, I'm just saying I think it's more likely to be untrue
Bernard, I'd really recommend you read up on the Essjay scandal. Yuo'd be amazed at how high a position he was given (up to being placed on, not elected to, the Arbitration Committee (one of the highest ranking bodies in the Wikipedia power structure) when his duplicity was KNOWN by Wales.