Comments on: Wikipedia’s Doubleplusgood Editing Practices

By: web dev

web dev — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 17:56:43 +0000

They are disconnected to the general audience or drunken with power that some of them think it's their own business to play around with wikipedia.

By: sbspalding

sbspalding — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 11:48:33 +0000

The problem as I see it is that there are "creepy whackjobs" on both sides of the fence, and that does not need to be the case. Wikipedia grants true oversight to a small minority of editors. I have spent my share of time reading the up for deletion threads to know that it is pretty difficult for your average reader to parse why anything does or does not make it into the encyclopedia. This kind of obfuscation does two things,

1. Makes it easy for "normal" people to draw incorrect conclusions about the editorial process.

2. Creates a perfect storm of fear and paranoia backed by precedents and edicts that makes it really easy for Wikipedia editors to overstep the bounds of rationality.

I have no doubt that there is a contingent of malcontents out to harm the encyclopedia. I just believe that greater transparency is a much larger deterrent and much more in line with what Wikipedia is supposed to stand for.

By: Ford MF

Ford MF — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 10:01:08 +0000

I spend hours editing Wikipedia every day, but I only hear about this stuff when I read it in the news, so I'm not entirely convinced it's evidence of any wiki "disease". There are tons of editors like me (7500+ edits) with harmless and apparently non-controversial interests who just chug along in their own corner of the world.

I mean, okay, I was banned for life once by Wikipedia's legal counsel (it only lasted a few hours), but it was maybe a weird case and I bear no grudges.

Site members of Wikipedia Review, on the other hand, sought out my personal information (which was not on Wikipedia) and posted it in a thread there, with the personal information of other Wiki editors. I'm not a secret agent or anything, my identity isn't a secret, but the posting of that stuff I can only imagine is some strange bullying tactic? Or something. Anyway it irritates me when people describe Wikipedia Review as a humble, scrappy electronic watchdog site, when it's also a major collection of creepy whackjobs and e-conspiracy theorists (and it's not like they can claim it's a small minority; there's less than fifty registered users I think).

By: sbspalding

sbspalding — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 05:44:38 +0000

Like I said above, transparency is really needed.

By: sbspalding

sbspalding — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 05:43:58 +0000

That's a really good point. It seems that a lot of these so called democratic sources of news end up becoming increasingly editorial as they scale. Of course, this is to combat spam but it does beg the question as to whether you can have a truly democratic news source when people are involved.

By: sbspalding

sbspalding — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 05:42:37 +0000

They still have a fighting chance, there just needs to be a return to what made Wikipedia the power that it is.

By: sbspalding

sbspalding — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 05:42:05 +0000

I think that someone needs to step in to add transparency back into the equation. The admins feel that they can do anything because they have become disconnected from the masses who actually use the product.

By: Martin's Improvement Ideas

Martin's Improvement Ideas — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 00:40:54 +0000

This seems to be a growing trend amougst big information sources, take digg for example, they have been known to ban certain news stories reaching the front page. google are also guilty of banning or deleting certain videos. But i think it will backfire on them if they continue to do it, as people will no longer trust them.

By: James Anderson

James Anderson — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 23:50:59 +0000

It does make the site look pretty bad, and here's why. The admins' attitudes are the main thing people dislike about wikipedia. How many academics have you met who speak of the site like it was a porn page or something? Hell I like wikipedia and have contributed (mostly minor corrections) but on the one time i dealt with admins they were pretty lame. if i'm right then nobody is going to sympathise with the admins on this, because the general opinion of most people who care is that wikipedia admins are jerks and that the site is run by people who are unfit for the job.

By: gus

gus — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 23:27:59 +0000

It's seems this corner of the digital revolution has just entered the 'reign of terror'. There will be blood on the carpet and eventually some Napoleon will step in and order will be restored. But I now declare this experiment in web democracy…closed.