Comments for The Wikipedian

Comment on Verifiability and Truth: What John Siracusa Doesn’t Get About Wikipedia by Matt

Matt — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 20:38:29 +0000

Great response to Hypercritical, which is also a favorite podcast of mine. But this episode was, hands-down, Worst Episode Ever. I was just astonished at how incoherent and misinformed it was. But it’s also sad that Siracusa’s frustrating experience is likely common for many new users who try to use it and get burned.

Comment on Verifiability and Truth: What John Siracusa Doesn’t Get About Wikipedia by Niklas B

Niklas B — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 17:18:10 +0000

I threw away my Wikipedia account after one skirmish too much with an editor with an axe to grind on a topic where I knew more (and had sources) could not get through and get my edits to stick. I have tried to contribute to some obscure topics regarding translations, language and some technology but more often than not have my contributions been deleted fist by some editor and when I protested a long-time administrator friend of said editor would step in and side with the older, more well-connected, editor.

Some of my experiences are similar to those of Siracusa’s and I found myself nodding and agreeing with what he said. I have been told again and again that a printed source is more desirable than an internet source. So YES, Wikipedia editors DO in fact believe that to be true.

It is sad that ignorance can trump knowledge and sources on Wikipedia. It is poison for our beloved resource.

Please, keep defending Wikipedia, but be advised that not there are many editors with power and an agenda that are trying to undo your work on this blog, you would perhaps do better by explaining to them what you wrote here, because if you did and they accepted it, that would improve the quality of WIkipedia. A lot.

If not, I hope Wikipedia will someday include this in their footer “The content of this article is the sole point of view of a handful of Wikipedia editors and may or may not be truthful. Wikipedia’s goal is verifiability, not truth.”

Comment on Wikipedia Gets on its SOPA Box by Sal Lucanto

Sal Lucanto — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 03:51:20 +0000

I think SOPA and PIPA are 2 more disgusting bills being pushed through taking away our constitutional rights, including the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012(NDAA) taking away our 5th constitutional right to due process! I agree with Wikipedia to oppose this act, if we don’t stand up for our rights soon we’ll have none left. RON PAUL FOR PRESIDENT 2012

Comment on Wikipedia Gets on its SOPA Box by Brandon

Brandon — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:12:54 +0000

I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head. I’ve got to ask: what do the organization and all of these volunteers hope to accomplish by taking the encyclopedia offline? “Raising awareness” is fine and dandy but plenty of people are already doing that elsewhere. This isn’t an obscure cause. The topic is all over the place as it is.

My prediction: all Wikipedia will actually accomplish is to irritate the hell out of its users and those who rely on it. This is obviously not a choice they would make if they were operating within a for-profit enterprise.

Comment on How to Stop the Next Bell Pottinger by Gregory Kohs

Gregory Kohs — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 21:10:35 +0000

Bill… first, your comment system is awful, in that I typed in a
thoughtful, multi-paragraph response, but when I logged in via Facebook, my comment was erased, with no way to retrieve it. So, I then typed it over again, only to find that it still wouldn’t post, so I signed out of Facebook. However, your site would then not recognize that I was signed out of Facebook. In short, your comment system is probably driving away many displeased readers.

My note about this article was that I am a bit confused why you would prominently mention both me and my enterprise by name in your blog post, but you did so without contacting me for comment, nor did you notify me as a courtesy upon publication. Perhaps one of the reasons why the “subversion” technique of dealing with Wikipedia remains prevalent is just this issue — Wikipedians cannot even properly document what happened with MyWikiBiz in 2006, and they’re not interested in hearing the truth.

I founded a paid editing service that operated under two key tenets:

1. That all the edits would be fully disclosed, and
2. that I welcomed heightened review and critique of my edits, being that they were paid for and could be susceptible to bias.

Jimmy Wales agreed to this in August 2006, and he publicly announced the accord.

However, because Jimmy Wales is an untrustworthy hypocrite (if you
look at the public evidence, you’ll see this is not really subject to argument), he betrayed that agreement in October 2006. Somehow, I emerged the “bad guy”, even though everything I did was part of an earnest attempt to comply with the Wikipedia community, of which I had been a participant for over a year.

Anyway, Wales did teach me one important lesson — don’t believe one iota of the PR prattle that the Wikipedia faithful and the Wikimedia Foundation churn out about the “nature” of their “community”. Wikipedia is not the “assume good faith” love fest that they like to imagine it being.

Also, I believe King (above) is wrong about the FTC’s “Reverb” position applying to earnest professional editing of Wikipedia. The FTC issue applies to endorsements and advertising, neither of which Wikipedia even allows.

Really, enough is enough. Let’s drop the phony frame-up of how PR
firms ought to acquiesce all control to Wikipedia, and let’s roll back the clock and re-examine how Wikipedians ruined the framework in the first place. Are you willing to have that discussion? Maybe we could put it on YouTube.

Comment on The Top 10 Wikipedia Stories of 2011 by Ron Millican

Ron Millican — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 21:39:16 +0000

Great job on Q & A with Brian Lamb….

Comment on How to Stop the Next Bell Pottinger by David King

David King — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 13:45:17 +0000

Hey William. I’ve shared your grande guide prolifically with marketers. I like this one as well http://enwp.org/WP:PSCOI.

Ethics is my key differentiator as a paid consultant, but I feel like the system makes a lack of ethics cheaper and more effective. With a better carrot & stick program, we can do a better job distinguishing between good & bad COI editors and motivating COIs to follow the rules.

Wikipedians complain that corporations lack ethics, but we should never expect them to. We should expect them to do what’s in their own best interest, but salvaged advert, an overly friendly community, inadequate punishments, etc. encourage bad behavior. Today corporations are more motivated to break the rules than follow them.

One of the things no one seems to realize is that the FTC forbids marketers to take on the identity of a disinterested volunteer (See the Reverb Communications case last year). I’m no lawyer, but I believe disclosure isn’t just a Wikipedia policy, but a basic legal requirement of online marketing.

I’d like to encourage anyone who finds bad faith anonymous COI editor on Wikipedia to report it to the FTC, until they take a stance on this and our legal requirement to disclose becomes common knowledge.
https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/FTC_Wizard.aspx?Lang=en

-David King

Comment on How to Stop the Next Bell Pottinger by Douglas Carnall

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 11:22:42 +0000

It is difficult to achieve a professional level of knowledge about any subject without also developing an economic conflict of interest. For example, a professor of pharmacology who is a world expert on a certain drug class is likely to attract funding from pharmaceutical companies interested in marketing drugs from that class. Per se, I would argue that this is not a problem **providing the conflict of interest is transparently stated.**
Having briefly reviewed the antics of “Biggleswiki,” the problem here is the fundamental dishonesty in creating “ordinary” wikipedia editors who are in fact shills for a PR agency. **If** Bell Pottinger had created a wikipedia editor profile fully declaring their interests, then surely their contributions should be regarded as welcome, and could be subject to the keenest scrutiny by other editors fully cognizant of the potential for conflicts of interest. The resulting synthesis would be more valuable for everybody.
Bell Pottinger have acted dishonestly in the complete opposite of good faith. Hopefully the fact that their entire clientele is smeared by association will deal them appropriate economic consequences.

Comment on Can UI Changes Transform Wikipedia from Call Center to Community? by Ioannis Anthymidis

Ioannis Anthymidis — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 23:58:02 +0000

Finally… someone realised! I still don’t think that Wikimedia and the other developers are actually improving the usability of MediaWiki with the Vector theme (Wikia is pretty closed-source) from what I read in The Wikipedia Signpost on the English Wikipaedia.

But I thought the official excuse was that this would keep away 13-year olds and trolls? Nevertheless, I hope this is changed and fast, to most people the syntax seems more of a coding language that a useful tool for editing precisely.

Comment on Can UI Changes Transform Wikipedia from Call Center to Community? by Veronica S.

Veronica S. — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 20:58:36 +0000

Brilliant, friend! I am proud to say that you have guided me in my Wikipedia editing. I enjoyed the article very much and am happy to see you sharing your wisdom with others. Thank you, Mr. Bedford.