I haven't checked into WB in a while. It has about as much charm as wikien-l. I just dropped by and found this thread.


At the moment I stopped by WB had only one member using the board (anonymously) and 4 guests. So the response to this dismal level of activity is to limit the only people who have ever had anything of any value to say. People like Doc don't need a website. A mirror would suit him just fine.

It's the siege mentality that Wikipedians seem so fond of. I think that there are currently three regular posters at WB that are also WR members: myself, Dtobias, and Privatemusings. Two of us never have been banned from Wikipedia, and Privatemusings' ban expires relatively soon. Yet the assumption that we're coming to get them is so strong, many people can't even see this, instead saying "the WR are coming, the WR are coming!"

I've gotta say, Mr. Kohs really brought a lot of activity to Wikback that otherwise would not have been there. Wikback just never picked up any significant motion.

That site needs more subforum diversification, to start with. Having one big forum called "Wikipedia" just is not going to cut it, I'm afraid!

If they want to avoid the sort of thing Doc glasgow is griping about, they should have a separate forum called, I dunno, "Block-related issues" or "Banworthiness," and if Doc doesn't want to read that stuff, he wouldn't have to. But that's just a start - and I hasten to point out that a board frequented by WP'ers who aren't going there to criticize should have at least twice the number of subforums we have here, with specialized subforums for things like content organization, content acceptability, policy issues, ideological issues, yada yada yada.

If anything, I've been impressed by their level of adoption of wikiback.com over this past month or so... It suggests that WikiEN-L really wasn't getting it done for a large number of them. But they've got to "take it to the next level" if they want it to work out in the long term, and the presence of WR members and other "unmutual" types there is probably one of the last things they should worry about, at least for right now.

Well, wikien-l activity was halved judging by the archive kb size. Will it come back, or will Wikipedia become even less reflective than it already is?

A third possibility is a better signal-to-noise ratio, but I don't perceive any trace of that.

The only things that caught my eye were Kelly Martin's garish Prince-circa-1984-avatar, and some crazed Wikipedian who accidentally signed his post with ~~~~. The rest was dry chat among the Mandarins.

Though a few folks put up a good show including PM, DanTobias and some bloke called thekohsher -- who remains so much the star of the show I thought he was running the site! Greg's managed to spin plates on Wikia, Wikiback and The Review since Xmas without missing a beat. He should be knighted for services to online entertainment.

For reasons unbeknownst to me, Wikipedians seem unable to establish a functional process for self-reflective system examination and organizational improvement.

It may be due to the marginalization of those who are also competent at original research, since the skill sets overlap.

It's not about original research, since encyclopedias are not for that.

Wikipediots, on the average, do not have basic, up-to-date textbook knowledge in the areas over which they arrogate control. They are not just untrained, but adamantly untrainable in the norms of sourced research, and many of them act as if they have never seen the inside of a university library. They would not know properly sourced research if it bit them on the arse.

People who have been trained on the model of the reflective practitioner simply fail to grasp the intensity of the horror that Wikipediots manifest on being confronted with the reality of their own ignorance.

Jonny

It seems possible that WB might destroy wikien-l without itself succeeding.

Arrogance combined with ignorance is a reliable recipe for Greek tragedy.

The problem with Wikipedia is that the recurring Greek tragedy is not sufficiently choate to be presented as an operetta.

This is crap from Doc Glasgow. Perhaps the simple fact is that Doc doesn't control the discussion, can't administrate other people's opinions, can't ban for spurious reasons, can't alter history of discussions, can't act as a hired gun for the cabal.

I think he defines "signal" as opinions he agrees with and "noise" as opinions he doesn't agree with. But why does Wikback exist unless some criticisms of Wikipedia have substantial evidence of being correct?

Most people don't particularly mind criticisms of Wikipedia from the inside. They have a problem with people that they view as "outside" criticising them, for reasons I don't really understand.

Perhaps they view any criticism as disloyalty, and define disloyalty as a traitorous offense that calls for hanging.

That doesn't really explain it. They accept most criticism just fine, if it's presented either on Wikipedia or in the various mailing lists considered to be part of Wikipedia. But when it comes from anywhere else, at best they say "pfft, come back and say that after you've gotten experience in Wikipedia". At worst, of course, the site is declared an attack site and is removed from everywhere.

From experience on the policy pages, I don't really agree. Any attempt to refine the explanation of policy for the common man is met by the response that it is a treacherous undermining of WP and the work of troll-enablers, which we know is worse than a very worse thing indeed. All policy is perfectly worded as it is, having been crafted by our "most respected admin", SV, therefore any criticism of policy is a personal attack on SV.

It is a question of who "they" are. The wider community is capable of having rational argument presented to them. Once the chosen ones get involved, you get an immune response. Any criticism that might lead to reform is managed out of the way.

Village Pump, Jimbo's talk page, serious debate is usually squashed, or more effectively, ignored, so that any conclusion of consequence can be set aside as "no consensus" if it is in danger of being taken notice of.

Easy to say if you haven't been placed under ArbCom restrictions for two years, two months, and two weeks (and counting!) for criticism.

I have to agree with Dogbiscuit on this one. It goes beyond just policy pages, but extends also any page that deals with a sensitive subject. Once I was moved to make a "The Emperor Is Nekkid!" post to the talk page of WP's article on the Essjay scandal (wikispeak: "Essjay controversy"). I was pretty much dismissed as an overwrought kook. It will come as a surprise to few here that the wiki-serfs busily working on the page at the time were nearly completely oblivious to the larger, and rather obvious, implications of the scandal.

For whatever reason, the cabalistas did not appear to be paying any significant attention to that talk page at the time, but they were paying attention (as per usual) to Jimbo's talk page. This included (surprise!) our favorite complex investigator and drama magnet Durova. It was actually suggested to me at the time that I should take my concerns to Jimbo's talk page. Fortunately, I knew just enough by that time to decline that dangerous advice. I left WP instead.

Incidental note: As I was finishing this post, I heard a PSA on the radio that Jimbo recorded for the current pledge drive on NPR. He actually has the nerve to compare the "mission" of WP to that of NPR! Sure, the Essjay scandal informed me of Jimbo's mendacity and shamelessness, but still . . .

Funny, in her posts to that section of the page (linked above), Durova cited her "investigation" of Thekohser! For those of you who missed it, her investigation consisted of:

(1) Dream up a lie that Gregory Kohs "has given misleading information to journalists that was published in the mainstream press".

(2) When asked to substantiate the lie, respond with, "I'd have to double check for the exact instance, but it was linked through the Wikipedia Signpost in mid- to late- January."

(3) When shown that the Signpost made no such claim, and in fact hadn't mentioned Kohs at any time in January, go into "fabricate evidence" mode.

(4) After the evidence is fabricated, refuse to issue it in public. Rather, claim that it was sent to ArbCom, and also send it to AP journalist Brian Bergstein.

(5) Bergstein comments:



I am assuming now that Durova's evidence perhaps consisted of an incriminating photo of me picking my nose somewhere. She obviously felt that nose-picking is an offense to my character, and the fact that I never told Bergstein that I am an occasional nose-picker was, indeed, "giving misleading information".

I'm sorry, Durova. You were right. Excellent investigation. I am more careful now to use Kleenex when admins are spying on me.

Greg

If you know what's good for you, never pick your nose in Poughkeepsie.

But my mom lives in Poughkeepsie!

Tell her to keep away from Popeye Doyle.

Wikiback might just be coming back to life... it has a new poster. (Nice avatar by the way Wordbomb)

http://www.wikback.com/forums/ubbthreads.p...r=2199#Post2199

Bah I am not crazed... You'd be surprised how often I start messenger replies with 'r' because I got so used to that playing different MMORPG's. Certain stuff sticks I guess.

Oh yeah first post... yeah yeah I lurk.

Welcome Dureo.

Of course, I merely jest by describing your error as "crazed" for comic impact. However, "so used to that playing different MMORPG's" does concern me.

What is this MMORPG that people keep talking about? I looked it up but I was still none the wiser. Do you people dress up in period costumes or something?

If you wish to answer, please do so here...

http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=15600

I think I beat him to it.

barely... but meh it's a way to boost post count, amg I think this is number 4...

I made that avatar all by myself, I'll have you know.

Word (of course that is reffering to you, "word" as in "true" in the parlance of our urban times, or previous decades):

Put the Samiharris-Mantamoreland proof on ASM blog.

It was a great piece of sleuthing that has Durova thinking "damn, why didn't Jimmy tell me about blogs having traffic meters! I could have been a sherlock contenda!". It should be out there for all too see.

Agreed, and it will be very soon...I just didn't want to step on the surge (kind of shocking, really) of traffic related to Sam Antar and USANA that I put up on Saturday.

Antar as in Crazy Eddie?

Another WP editor by any chance on Team Gary? Goes by surname Harris and crashes on the couch in the House of Weiss? Uncle - nephew redux?

UninvitedCompany, who hosts Wikiback, has hacked away at Wordbomb's posts on WB, and has made such a mess of PrivateMusings's posts that he has actually changed the meaning of several of PMs points.

Ironically, PM's post was praised by one bystander as being the clear, neutral assessment of this whole mess that was badly needed... and then UninvitedCompany felt the need to scribble over it, edit out half the stuff he didn't like and make it incomprehensible.

http://www.wikback.com/forums/ubbthreads.p...r=2215#Post2215

Kato, I think you're exaggerating. What really matters is the fact that the thread is still there at all. How does a reasonable guy like UC land on ArbCom in the first place?

Seriously. My opinion of WB has gone up immensely for the sole reason that WordBomb hasn't been banned yet. I bet UC is taking private flack from SV, Weiss & co. for letting the posts stand. On Wikipedia they aren't satisfied until every word of his has been purged.

UC apparently sees that there are serious issues here which merit discussion.

UC was one of the initially appointed candidates, back in 2004. He took a break from arbitrating soon after, but didn't do all that much, so when he wanted to come back in 2007 people pretty much said "why not?"

Ditto x100.

As long as there are humans involved, there will never be an ideal forum for discussion of anything. UC has managed to walk a tightrope such that both the Wikipedia Exile community (us) and some of the less radical elements of the Wikipedia ruling junta can actually occupy the same ground and engage in some form of discourse.

Having said that, I note that the junta appears to be avoiding my thread, even though I've lowered the threshold from examples of inaccurate information on AntiSocialMedia.net to mere examples of harassment. I suppose that next I'll lower it again and ask for examples of incorrect grammar. Failing that, I'll just ask for examples of prepositional phrases. From there, vowels and consonants.

Kelly Martin pointed out that the thread has been hijacked. WordBomb, you should start a second thread, possibly including parts of Privatemusing's synopsis, and hope it manages to stay on point. It doesn't look like anyone had a problem with your original thread's content, it's more like nobody was discussing it anyway, so it outlived it's usefulness. If you make a second version and it stays on point, perhaps some progress might be made.

I'm not sure most people realize there's a game on ED where you vandalize Wikipedia while pretending to be WordBomb. This probably hasn't helped to clarify things.

if any of those WP cabal snakes give any one any crap about outing WP editors, I got two words.

Mark Devlin


Ask the SlimVirgin lackeys why it was OK to out sparkzilla, then ban him, all for pissing off the Devine Ms. Linda.

who has no problem with the outing of certain editors.

Dan Tobias brought it up again, and its at the heart of the matter: How do you expose COI without exposing the SlimVirgins and Manny Morelands of WP. But when they do it, it's fine.

press wikigotback on that point. Hard.

Someone raise mark dev from the wikidead to argue bout it there too. He did so here and very eloquently.

That's an extention of an issue that's occasionally brought up; how can you tell the difference between someone who's actually a sockpuppet and someone who's actively trying to look like one? On Wikipedia they like to pretend that just can't happen, but it obviously isn't impossible.

This just in:

Register as "Can't Sleep Clown will eat me". Nobody will notice.

If you're not willing to have a Wikipedia account and connect it publicly with your WR account, you clearly have too much to hide. After all, it's inconcievable that anyone on Wikipedia could complain about someone just because they use WR...

While I'm sure nobody would have noticed, I think the WikBack is pretty close to being in a persistent vegetative state. About 3 posts all day today.

I hope you don't mean to discriminate against persistent vegetables, Greg....

...whilst rumours of wikback's death may be somewhat premature, it's certainly true that productive discussion seems to have slowed....

As for Wikback...if it's not dead already, it's now dead to me. Look at this from Uninvited Company, who has apparently been in a coma for the past month.

Founder of a failed discussion board and member of a dishonored tribunal. That is a unique resume.

Nor did he answer the questions I put to him during his brief appearance here to promote the launch of WB.

Well, what's the point of WB?
1) Is it a second Wikipedia Review, distinguished only by the lack of the "attack site" stain? That's not very compelling.
2) Is it a place where banned users can gripe and have their concerns meaningfully addressed? That hasn't happened. Despite getting the better of the argument, all banned users remain banned, save Privatemusings, whose ban expired on its own.
3) Or is it a place where IPs are collected?

All that said, there have been some very interesting exchanges, which were made possible by the first point: neither SlimVirgin nor Morven (for starters) are likely to register here anytime soon. But judging from the flood of respected Wikipedia contributors arriving here in recent weeks, that (perhaps understandable in Slim's case) attitude is on the wane.