I had never seen this article before, but found it quite interesting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Wikipedia

Particularly the controversies section:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Wi...a#Controversies

Perhaps someone needs to add the SlimVirgin scandal and the Wiki Scanner to the list of controversies. They seem to have left that bit out.

Or to point out the details of what the April 2006 "resignations" were and what really happened. That was a case when Daniel Brandt and Wikipedia Review were blamed after it was discovered that Katefan0 was a Congress reporter and had a conflict of interest, and then subsequently Amorrow stalked her, along with Musical Linguist, Woggly and Flo Night (I think that's it), and then Wikipedia Review banned him, while Wikipedia did absolutely nothing to protect their own administrators, the admins themselves gave WR a lot of praise, while people on Wikipedia liked to pretend that we were the bad guys, when actually they were the bad guys. Oh and SlimVirgin used that as an attempt to regain some credibility, as she fake left Wikipedia, even though she wasn't stalked at all, then got some much-needed sympathy, and returned stronger than ever. I mean we've got all the information here on Wikipedia Review, for them all to look at. Why don't they add it? To protect privacy? There's nothing about that issue that we have that is private. They seem to want to use it in that form so that they can then lie about it, and make out that the whole issue was that Daniel Brandt and Wikipedia Review had exposed people's real names.

They also missed out the Snowspinner scandal.

Or the Wikitruth scandal.

I wonder how many others they've missed out from their history?

It sure is tempting to just go in there and correct it, isn't it?

As a general consideration in evaluating testimony, accounts that are closer to being contemporaneous are considered more reliable. Below is the opening paragraph from the first recorded edit of the History of Wikipedia article:



Looks like Sanger and this Kovitz guy where the brillant Teslas, one of which just happened to work for the over-reaching Edison/Wales. Kovitz has since been red linked out of existience on the article namespace of WP. He doesn't even appear in the current article until well under the fold created by Jimbos smug ass official Sole Flounder photo. The article current links Kovitz to this site. Ben is also a WP editor. I don't know how be has managed to dodge the banhammer.

Well that settles it. I will never refer to TOW except by Kovitzpedia.

Good catch, GBG!

So it seems that the primary founder of Wikipedia was in fact Ben Kovitz, the secondary founder was Larry Sanger, and Jimbo Wales in fact had nothing to do with it.

So much for being the sole founder!

Actually, Ben Kovitz doesn't want to say too much. On his user page he says the whole story:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:BenKovitz

"I had a tiny role in the early history of Wikipedia."

Why doesn't he want to say more? Perhaps he is scared of the almighty banhammer?

And he is the author of the Green Light wiki

http://greenlightwiki.com/

This is really fascinating stuff! As I wrote in a different thread, there are rarely just a few cockroaches.

This doesn't really have anything to do with any recent scandals. Indeed, this is an old scandal that had been forgotten about, and nobody here had been involved in Wikipedia long enough to have uncovered it.

Indeed, in my initial post, I was complaining about them failing to mention many of Wikipedia's main scandals. Glassbeadgame, as he so often does, found a gem by looking at the early version of Wikipedia's history page. And indeed we are lucky that those early edits weren't oversighted.

Indeed, it seems that that was NOT the first ever version of the history of Wikipedia article, as it said that it was transferred from somewhere else. Where, I don't know. I don't know if we can access the early-early versions.

Yes, but cockroaches are cockroaches. Some are the latest scandals, others are earlier scandals. Others are details in numerous postings on this site about this article or that administrator. The more I read about Wikipedia, the more it comes across to me as a sort of roach motel. I think that's the impression that's forming in the world at large, too. If it's not one thing, it's another. There are two carcasses in the basement at Wikipedia that nourish all those roaches. One is Wikipedia's implicit assumption that consensus = truth, and the other is their corrupt, incompetent, and unethical administration.

Actually, I can remember that it wasn't really until I first joined this site (Wikipedia Review) that I discovered the scandal that Jimbo Wales wasn't the founder of Wikipedia! That was through Lir, who hated Larry Sanger more than anyone else. Indeed, not only wasn't Jimbo Wales the founder, but it was Larry Sanger's idea. Right up until Larry Sanger quit Wikipedia (soon after his paid job ended, and he was fired), Larry Sanger was officially regarded as a co-founder. Indeed, even for a while after he left, Larry Sanger was regarded as a co-founder.

But all the time really it wasn't either of them that had the idea. The guy that had the idea was really Ben Kovitz, who wasn't even mentioned.

This is all a "history is written by the winners" scenario.

Actual truth = Ben Kovitz's idea, given to Larry Sanger, approved by Jimbo Wales. Ben Kovitz primary founder, Larry Sanger secondary, Jimbo tertiary.

Altered truth = Larry Sanger and Jimbo Wales were co-founders, it was Larry Sanger's idea.

Further altered = Larry Sanger and Jimbo Wales were co-founders.

Further altered = Jimbo Wales was the sole founder, and Larry Sanger simply worked there.

Realistically, this kind of thing just demonstrates how Wikipedia changes truth, which in turn is the number 1 most serious criticism of Wikipedia. The only reason that Jimbo Wales is officially listed as the sole founder is because he is the only person who is there now. If Ben Kovitz had become an administrator, he would have got listed as a co-founder, but he decided to go focus on other things, so he lost that right. If Larry Sanger had stayed on as a volunteer after his wage was scrapped, then he'd get to be listed as a co-founder.

It makes you wonder about the whole truth of everything.

I mean, if Wikipedia Review liked, we could pretend that we started in January 2006 (or February 2006 if you like), that Igor Alexander didn't exist, Blu Aardvark never ran the site, and those pesky WR admins who mutinied and tried to take over the site mid 2006 didn't do it, that nobody had ever been accused of being a neo-nazi and we've never banned anyone. Some people here would like us to write that kind of thing, and indeed it'd be good for our image. I've always tried to get everyone to know the truth, because I think that the truth is important, even if it makes you look bad. Hence it looks to some like Wikipedia Review has a harsh history. But the reality is that everywhere does. Its just that we've been a bit more honest about it than, say, Wikipedia.

For the record, I e-mailed Ben Kovitz about this, and also invited him to post. This was his reply:



He may begin posting here to clarify any issues about this, and may generally post on other things too. I look forward to it.