Observations on Wikipedia Behavior (2008)

61 点作者 salutonmundo将近 6 年前

12 条评论

brigandish将近 6 年前

This list strikes me as a long and not particularly well reasoned way of justifying (to the writer themself, probably, but also to others) questionable past and future behaviour that maintains the status quo and the keeps the "cabal" intact while waving away criticism.Some choice quotes that come with no acknowledgement there are valid criticisms, and no solution to those criticisms other than "keep doing what you're doing":- “attack sites are the whining of the incompetent, who failed to succeed at editing Wikipedia”- "There IS a cabal. It's a core group of editors united by the belief that the encyclopedia must protect itself against jerks, and against people who write junk."- "When someone complains loudly about censorship, you may be certain they are up to no good."- "The only bias it has arises from the self-selection of its members"Could've written "You have a problem with the way we do things? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯" and saved some time.

评论 #20210204 未加载

评论 #20210207 未加载

评论 #20210421 未加载

jchw将近 6 年前

People here seem a bit skeptical, but after reading every single point I have to say, I agree with nearly all of them; but not in relation to Wikipedia. With relation to the internet as a whole.The one that stings the most:>70. It is impossible to love again anything you have truly ceased to love.[14] Editors who return after retirement, or after a wearied or bitter departure, may edit again, but never with the same passion they once brought to the project. Each successive return will be with diminished dedication and shorter duration.Wow. It actually hurts to read this, because it perfectly explains why I’ve left most social media and forums I’ve been a part of, and failed to ever return for more than a month or two at a time.My love of the internet has largely faded, and is relegated to being a tool and a way to waste time when bored. It’s not exciting. I can’t reattach to it.>Many people leaving the project blame either the project or the people working on it for their departure, rather than recognize that it is normal in life for one's enthusiasm to wane. It does with all things that we once found exciting.Indeed, but also, ouch.

评论 #20210735 未加载

Tomte将近 6 年前

I believe the main problem is ownership. Editors feel they own "their" article, don't want other people outside their friend group in the history, and revert clear improvements by newcomers.That happened to me, and after I re-added it once with expanded sources and explanation, a friend of the reverter swooped in, said it amounts to "vandalism", and... I will never contribute anything again.Wikipedia doesn't care. Sure, there are "processes" to appeal. Which are so convoluted and inscrutable that they seem designed to protect incumbents and people with too much time.Edit: oh, and when you're using "just an IP" as an insult, you should re-examine your life choices.

评论 #20210612 未加载

评论 #20212828 未加载

评论 #20210285 未加载

BlackFly将近 6 年前

A bit of a mixed bag, and overly long. Could benefit from some distillation and less back patting.Given point 3, they seem to spend an inordinate amount of time complaining about vandalism, even going so far as to call out sockpuppets and anonymous IPs as a special type of "despicable cowardice" when they are basically the internet equivalent of wearing a hoodie while you spray paint a tag. Don't call out this behavior as particularly egregious, it is just ordinary vandalism and doesn't deserve special outrage.Also, point 21: "There are no fools more troublesome than those with wit," should I find this ironic? That's the mixed bag bit. What is this doing in there? It is hardly an observation on wikipedia behavior but is obviously the author trying to feel superior to clever people they disagreed with. Then again, I'm probably guilty of point 31 and seeing my own arrogance.It started getting samey and I stopped reading further.

评论 #20212956 未加载

mirimir将近 6 年前

> When someone complains loudly about censorship, you may be certain they are up to no good.That attitude is part of the problem. Or at least, it's why I've never wanted to contribute.

评论 #20210101 未加载

评论 #20210382 未加载

评论 #20210945 未加载

metasonix将近 6 年前

Having co-authored a book about Wikipedia's early history, I can tell you more about Wiki administrators and "insiders" then you could possibly absorb. (A book that will apparently never see the light of day, because publishers are terrified of being sued by Jimmy Wales for "libel". We prepared 2 million words of notes to justify everything, plus thousands of weblinks showing what really happened; to no avail.)Antandrus, the middle-aged California music teacher who wrote this prime example of Wikipedia insider lies, is a complete nobody. On Wikipedia or anywhere else. But they like him and he sticks around, because he pushes the status quo and the party line like a good little Soviet apparatchik. We only know his first name, because he went to deeply insane amounts of effort to hide his real identity.

评论 #20213166 未加载

twic将近 6 年前

Everyone always has terrible stories about contributing to wikipedia, and will never give us a link. I don't doubt that the stories are substantially true, but it's a really inappropriate way to criticise a project which values citations so highly.So anyway, here's my story: i added a paragraph about huge earthworms to the page about the Isle of Rum, and it's still there:<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%B9m#Other_fauna" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%B9m#Other_fauna</a>

nisuni将近 6 年前

> When someone complains loudly about censorship, you may be certain they are up to no good.This one has a weird USSR vibe to it.

lifthrasiir将近 6 年前

I had been a Wikipedia administrator in a similar timeframe (--2007), albeit in a different language edition. While some items show the "community" norm that is not necessarily backed by concrete evidences (that's why some got annoyed by the first statement), the entire list is generally an excellent description for any kind of community moderation and matches my personal experience. The problem here is, of course, that most people is not an administrator and it would be difficult to justify the very difficulty of moderation to them. And it cannot be eliminated at all; I've seen the namuwiki, the biggest Korean encyclopedic wiki [1] besides from Wikipedia, falling into this trap and turning itself into a slew of toxic contents.I had been long against a single big wiki model like Wikipedia. It unbelievably works, and it seems that it will thrive even with the insurmountable amount of cracks, but we need alternatives (plural)---fully accountable, easy-to-fork and community-free. And we don't yet have a single alternative taking off (for example I really wanted Infinithree/Thunkpedia to thrive [2]). Every time I ponder about this, I come back to the circle and find myself searching for the Shii's great piece [3]. I don't exactly agree to the suggestion to simply make a personal "wiki", for the lack of forking mechanism, but the entire essay is still surpringly true, and possibly the only viable alternative to Wikipedia because it clearly lacks the community. I'm still waiting for others.[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namuwiki" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namuwiki</a> (I reluctantly describe it as encyclopedic, but it only became encyclopedic after it became popular and has tons of issues as a true encyclopedia.)[2] <a href="http://en.thunkpedia.org/" rel="nofollow">http://en.thunkpedia.org/</a> (HN discussion: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2597881" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2597881</a>)[3] <a href="http://shii.bibanon.org/shii.org/knows/Shii%27s_Solution_to_the_Problem_of_Wikipedia.html" rel="nofollow">http://shii.bibanon.org/shii.org/knows/Shii%27s_Solution_to_...</a>

评论 #20212313 未加载

hokus将近 6 年前

I didn't read the text but have a special approach for this type of writing:You click on user contributions, if/since there are to many talk page entries filter down to article space.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&offset=&limit=500&contribs=user&target=Antandrus&namespace=0&tagfilter=&start=&end=" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contribut...</a>Years and years of arguing without any article writing.

Kopilotus将近 6 年前

Wikipedia destroyed the encyclopedia market and now is the most popular encyclopedic platform for political information.In Germany, a huge admin cabal at Wikipedia has been revealed that influences political topics: <a href="https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://wikihausen.de/" rel="nofollow">https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://...</a>They white-wash politician’s profiles and controversial topics such as 9/11 or Israel-Palestinia conflict, etc. It seems to be a very well-equipped propaganda outlet.Some of the admins are said to post 50,000 and more article edits, literally night and day including Christmas.The admins have a sophisticated method of badmouthing critics (including those who revealed the cabal) on both, Wikipedia and a side-project with heavy backlinks from Wikipedia. It’s called www.psiram.com - They invest a lot of efforts to maintain total anonymity by registering companies and domain in several countries.It is suspected, that this ecosphere (it’s huge) is financed by a secret service. (Not) surprisingly, no main-stream media is covering this topic of amazing importance, or they play it down by looking at irrelevant side aspects of it.I would wonder if something similar does exist on the English Wikipedia.

mekane8将近 6 年前

Point #2 is some deep wisdom. I am better for having read it."Many people leaving the project blame either the project or the people working on it for their departure, rather than recognize that it is normal in life for one's enthusiasm to wane. It does with all things that we once found exciting. This is neither pessimistic nor tragic: one needs always to find new exciting things to do. All things in life change and end, and this includes one's involvement with Wikipedia. "He who kisses the joy as it flies / lives in eternity's sunrise."[1] Enjoy it while you are here, and enjoy what you do after you have gone."