First off, I wasn't sure where to put this .... Wikipedia has long been a source where I grab information on just about anything, but often about games I'm thinking of buying, or have heard about here in Games and Technology.
The online encyclopedia has been a major "revolution" in my eyes at least in the way we can go get information about anything .... and it's always been a site I regarded as truly democratic ... run by the people for the people.
Grim Reaper posted something in the thread about Jeff that got me doing some digging ... it appears that Wikipedia isn't as democratic as we once thought:
Slashdot
"Wikipedians are up in arms at the revelations that respected administrators have been discussing blocking and banning editors on a secret mailing list. The tensions have spilled over throughout the 'encyclopedia anyone can edit' and news agencies are sniffing around. The Register has this fantastic writeup — read it here first."
The article says that some Wikipedians believe Jimbo Wales has lost face by supporting the in-crowd of administrators and rebuking the whistle blower who leaked the existence of the secret mailing list.
The Registar article can be found here:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/04/wikipedia_secret_mailing/
The article is kind of long but basically it outlines how a "ruling clique" of super admins at Wikipedia kept a secret list of users they felt were "troublemakers/trolls". Except "traitors" kind of got added to the list as well and the lines between legitimate "trolls" and those that just didn't agree with certain wikipedia policies got blurred.
The reason I posted this here is that it feels kind of relevant (we often cite wikipedia here in G&T) ... looking at the way technology has changed the way information is processed and the power granted to the gatekeepers of that information. Normally I'd put this in Debate and Concourse, but with the heavy "technology" angle and the explosive nature of the scandal I thought G&T might be intersted in discussing this too (if I was wrong about this please move to D&D)
Posts
Don't know why, but he was super pissed about the article for Mario 128. User thought it shouldn't have been there, period. It was an okay article, just not up to article standards. Eventually someone had it redirect to Super Mario Galaxy. To start things off, I reverted the redirect to the old page.
Immediately the article was locked for discussion. User claimed that the information in the article was independent research, and didn't come from the original source, an expert, or a legitimate source of information. To clarify, the references in the article pointed to the YouTube video of the Mario 128 demo, interviews with Miyamoto, IGN, Wired, and CNN. Professional research, information from the original source, experts, and legitimate sources all together. Another point was that Wiki doesn't have pages for technical demonstrations. Dunno where he got that idea. I just posted links to the pages for idTech, Quake Engine, etc.
So, eventually, enough people chimed in with strong support for the article.
I finally got it cleaned up a bit earlier today. Still have to go through and finish the job off, but I think it will do for now.
Regardless, in the end, it definitely seemed like the guy had different motives for wanting the deletion than the reasons cited.
More like, "FOUR LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS BETTER!"
call me a commie or some other bad name... but isn't this a step in the right direction?
eventually college students will be able to use wiki as a actual source for papers, and it will gain respect as a source of information.
People look down on wiki for its open-source nature, i like it, but i know a lot of people that hate it.
maybe i'm just evil..
But the way it's being spun around by the media (at least in my eyes) is that Wiki is for the people by the people.
Problem is, a bunch of idiots are letting it all go to their head, thinking themselves more important than they really are. I let that happen to me once, and it wasn't pretty in the end.
Really, all that needs to happen here is a massive ego check for all the super mods/admins. This getting out to the mainstream media should be enough.
The removal of pages from Wikipedia is one of its biggest issues, IMO. The wording of the requirements to be in there is FAR too vague, allowing the mods essentially to make sole disgression as to what is allowed, which goes COMPLETELY against the idea of having an encyclopedia which contains the information that the PEOPLE want to provide. I undestand the desire to prevent self-promotion, but even when faced with a variety of individuals, the mods are more likely to accuse the originator of creating alts than to they are to see their own mistakes.
I'm curious; did this list thing actually come as a surprise to anyone?
but the "Super admins" have been chosen to be so for a reason, its not like the heads at wiki just threw darts at a board and went "oh these are gonna be them, i guess".
I sure hope not.
Wikipedia isn't supposed to be the authority on things, it is supposed to be a one stop collection of information, with links to allow you to see where the info came from.
As long as Wikipedia is open to be edited, it should NEVER be allowed as a citable source for academic works. Follow the damn links at the bottom of the page, and cite those.
So, because they were chosen, anything they do is acceptable?
I have $100 that says Wikipedia won't become widely accepted at a college level in our lifetimes because of dumb shit like this.
Um, the whole point is, Wiki is supposed to be an open project which anyone can edit. What happens when you get a small clique of editors who block out others with admin powers, is you get certain views forced upon the whole superstructure, which is totally against the spirit of the whole thing. Political and current topics are particularly vulnerable to this, think about the power you have to present issues or topics a certain way, and at the same time, pretend that its NPOV (non point of view, objective, agreed upon by consensus)? Think about how many people are reading your topics on a controversial issue like abortion or environmental issues, the power you have to influence them, and then if a clique of editors does take control, the ability to (even unconsciously) tilt such articles towards your views?
Its very deceptive to subtly or even overtly enforce your views on articles and at the same time pretend that theyre open for editing by people with any viewpoints who are bringing information to the table.
Furthermore, wiki will never be an acceptable academic source. The idea is laughable because even if everyone can't edit it, you have no idea about the academic credentials of those who CAN edit it. Academic citations have to be credentialied organizations or authors.
Unless the fundamental focus of Wikipedia changes drastically, this will never happen. One of the first rules of research papers is that you NEVER cite a general encyclopedia, regardless of whether it's an online collaborative effort or a good old-fashioned edited book.
Because this scandal suggests that Wikipedia is operating in the opposite of how Wikipedia is purported to run.
I'm not saying that by any means, I'm just saying that Wikimedia knows that for it to work, it has to be adminned. I personally dont have a problem with "stubs" or movie entries that are from a "in world" standpoint. But it has to be looked over by someone, and its WikiM's job to appoint people and make sure they aren't abusing their power. We all know Wiki is amazing, but the methodology still needs to be hammered out. Bottom line is this kind of stuff happens all the time, its the way of the world.
I remember reading about an experiment a guy did.
He decided to try and get his Webcomic article on Wikipedia deleted.
He created about half a dozen alts, aka: "Sock Puppets" to do this.
Not one was investigated.
Wikipedia will never be accepted at a college level for the same reasons you're not allowed to cite Brittanica or Encarta at a college level: you're in fucking college now, you don't cite shit straight out of an encyclopedia for college-level research papers.
2) I had to grade some first-year essays this week. One of them had wikipedia as a source. I stopped right there, failed the paper and threw that shit in the bin. Something has gone wrong is people actually think Wikipedia is a valid academic source. Oh well.
They can ban people, perma-delete articles, lock pages from being edited by mere mortals, and edit pages thus locked.
Basically, the issue here is that there's a secret mailing list cabal where ultra-paranoid admins hang out, and one of the most paranoid banned somebody for being a) a new user and b) good, because he figured that since he was new AND was contributing, he MUST be just getting ready to gain everyone's trust and vandalize Wikipedia. Which clearly shows that that one admin probably belongs in a padded room somewhere, but I'm not sure what it says about Wiki as a whole.
This.
Wikipedia is all about being a self-editing communal entity. I can understand that there is a need for some authority figures to, say, issue bans. However, there has to be a system in place to deal with the inevitable problems that will arrive with these admins. Since Wikipedia is a place supposed to be based on communal collaboration, one would assume that all administrative goings-on with regard to content would be conducted out in the open, where everybody can have their say, so as to keep the admins in check and avoid a tyranny (such as what happens when someone gets paranoid and bans an innocent user).
My question is, out of all of the people viewing this topic, how many have gone into a discussion for a locked article and joined in it.
Just once, though. In general, I don't edit anything -- maybe once a year, when i realize I can correct a fact that almost nobody else can, due to very specific experience in whatever field.
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Take that mob of villagers that chased Frankenstein through the streets. Now, wouldn't it have been smarter for Frankenstein to pick up the torch and help the villagers hunt down some other freak?
I'm not trying to single you out or insult anyone at this wonderful forum(because I've never added anything to wiki either), but its like, what good is a community when half of the community wouldn't "help out" if WikiM offered to give each person a gold-plated monitor(and I'm talking about the lizard, not what your staring at right now). It is really creepy thinking about people trolling wikipedia though, just imagine what THAT guy looks like..lol
They want to bring us down, and I have proof:
Pointeth the First: They are good samaritans! Subterfuge and sabotage!
Pointeth the Second: They know how to edit Wikipedia! Clearly, we're in trouble!
Pointeth the Third: They contribute to the community! Trying to gain our trust, so that one day they will be able to take us down from the inside.
Irrefutable! Soon, you will recognize the signs as well!
She says the user does 'wikignome' work far too early for him to be genuine. 'wikignome' work is minor editing - fixing typos, links and things. There's huge numbers of wikipedians who do those edits and those alone; I know it's the only sort of editing I ever do on Wikipedia.
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