What do Gary Weiss and Rachel Marsden have in common?
On the surface, absolutely nothing. But glance at their articles' admin logs (RM) (GW), and you see that, given their status as WP:NPF, they've both seen a lot of high-level admin action.
I wonder if there's a relationship that can be found via a database query that could produce a quotient, which might, if above some threshold, serve as a reliable "funny business" flag.
I'm thinking about something like: (deleted edits)/(total edits) or (days protected)/(days in existence), etc.
Given my access to several mySQL-indexed WP database dumps, once we establish the query, it's easy. The results could then be posted in a place where we might try to figure out why the article was deserving of so much attention.
Any suggestions?
Full Version: Predicting COI
This is much the same question I asked on this thread back in the day
http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=13379&hl
From my point of view, this is similar in some ways to the latest LaRouche case. Where certain figures (King, Berlet) are given strange protection by admins in large part due to the participants, not due to the content. If these naive protectors actually read or understood the content disputes, they'd be appalled. The ongoing Weiss case is probably more shifty and corrupt because the orders to protect Weiss come directly from Jimbo, and relate to the presentation of dubious practices on the U.S. markets.
These episodes are clearly corrupt.
You couldn't get better examples of how corrupt WP has become and you'd have to be so ignorant or unworldly not to realise this. It is bewildering to see how group think is spiralling WP off into newer more destructive realms. And every action Wales himself makes now seems to be another blow to his own project.
The key questions to ask are:
Q. Why are the Naked Short Selling/Weiss and LaRouche articles such a mess?
Q. What do these two areas have in common?
Q. What is the root problem here?
Answer: They have both been heavily edited by notable individuals (Gary Weiss, Chip Berlet, Dennis King) with a clear Conflict Of Interest to promote a particular view from near inception. Protected by a small group of the same WP admins. The rest is history.... including the increasingly desperate and aggressive efforts of a growing number of others to stop this....
http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=13379&hl
QUOTE(Kato @ Sun 21st October 2007, 1:40am) 
From my point of view, this is similar in some ways to the latest LaRouche case. Where certain figures (King, Berlet) are given strange protection by admins in large part due to the participants, not due to the content. If these naive protectors actually read or understood the content disputes, they'd be appalled. The ongoing Weiss case is probably more shifty and corrupt because the orders to protect Weiss come directly from Jimbo, and relate to the presentation of dubious practices on the U.S. markets.
These episodes are clearly corrupt.
You couldn't get better examples of how corrupt WP has become and you'd have to be so ignorant or unworldly not to realise this. It is bewildering to see how group think is spiralling WP off into newer more destructive realms. And every action Wales himself makes now seems to be another blow to his own project.
The key questions to ask are:
Q. Why are the Naked Short Selling/Weiss and LaRouche articles such a mess?
Q. What do these two areas have in common?
Q. What is the root problem here?
Answer: They have both been heavily edited by notable individuals (Gary Weiss, Chip Berlet, Dennis King) with a clear Conflict Of Interest to promote a particular view from near inception. Protected by a small group of the same WP admins. The rest is history.... including the increasingly desperate and aggressive efforts of a growing number of others to stop this....
SandyGeorgia, one of the very few Wikipedia editors who actually commits to doing decent work, and a genuine "protector of the Wiki" (forget JzG, MONGO and those other loons) wrote this on WP about the Conflict of Interest mess, after the Mantanmoreland arbitration stumbled on.. (bolding mine)
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=195187417
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=195187417
QUOTE(SandyGeorgia)
::::: I'm still trying to keep up with and overcome the stun factor at everything that has been posted so far, but I think I can sum up the frustration and concern I'm hearing by saying that a ''large number'' of undesired roadmaps forward will be provided if this decision stands. Not only are future standards on sockpuppetry, classes of editors to whom different standards apply, and admin actions set by this proposal: of equal concern is the Conflict of Interest editing that is becoming so prevalent and accepted throughout Wiki. This has become the norm: from vendors pushing their products on [[anti-stuttering devices]] to practitioners promoting themselves at [[social stories]] to politicians who are said to "own" their Wiki articles and are claimed to have set up subnet IP masks in several countries to evade Checkuser, to persons employed by advocacy organizations editing articles to insert POV and openly stating as much. Wiki has increasingly failed to take a strong stand on COI editing, and this decision only weasles even further on the matter. Ignoring that a clear double standard is set, that we're undermining future sockpuppetry investigations, and that categories of users are established to whom different rules will apply, we are asking users – who apparently a significant number of other editors believe have already gamed the system and can't be trusted – to declare conflicts of interest, rather than simply banning them from those pages and stating that Wiki simply won't be part of this, period. Which part of this proposal will reassure the good faith editors who keep their noses clean, stay out of dispute, edit neutrally and without COI, and work to generate Wiki's best content that the buck stops at ArbCom, that when a light is shone on problems they are addressed, and that their efforts to improve Wiki are worthwhile? [[User:SandyGeorgia|Sandy<font color="green">Georgia</font>]] ([[User talk:SandyGeorgia|Talk]]) 21:18, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia is an experiment that asks the question:
Just How Dumb Can People Be?
The only thing that's been stunning about all of this is the inability of anyone to guess a lower bound on collective intelligence.
Jonny
Just How Dumb Can People Be?
The only thing that's been stunning about all of this is the inability of anyone to guess a lower bound on collective intelligence.
Jonny
QUOTE(WordBomb @ Sat 1st March 2008, 4:18pm)
Given my access to several mySQL-indexed WP database dumps, once we establish the query, it's easy. The results could then be posted in a place where we might try to figure out why the article was deserving of so much attention.
Any suggestions?
Why yes, I have one. With all due respect WordBomb, this idea merely signals that there is a problem. At best it can only indicate where band-aids might once have been applied to stop early bleeding.
Now it's too late for Wikipedia. We have a situation where we aren't even privileged to pursue suspicions about real or potential conflicts of interest at the level of ArbCom. We don't know the real-life identities of all ArbCom members, and it's none of our business according to the accepted rules of Wikipedia.
COI and anonymity are two words for the same Wikipedia problem. If you are not allowed to address the anonymity issue, then you will never get anywhere with the COI issue.
The solution is to keep kicking Wikipedia in the teeth on this issue, as well as any and all other issues that opportunity provides, whether or not they are related to this issue, until such time that Wikipedia is nothing more than a bad memory, and Wikipediareview fades away naturally because there is nothing left to do.
It's time to put that Newyorkbrad thread I started back where it belongs, in a forum that is indexed by the search engines, complete with the pictures of him from three Wikipedia meetups. I regret now that I asked to have it removed because of all the gratuitous, off-topic, anti-Brandt trolling that the thread provoked during the course of 4,600 views in three days. I'll just have to learn to grow a thicker skin for the coming battles.
Andrew Keen (and for that matter, Larry Sanger) have been right all along. Anonymity is the huge, number-one problem, the elephant in the room taking a dump in the corner, that everyone pretends isn't there. I wish more participants on this Board would set an example by revealing their real names.
I'm thinking that we need a Board something like WR, but one where there's an "identity verified" badge like Amazon uses for its reviewers. Then once a new member is verified as using his or her real name, they would gain automatic access to a more restricted administrative forum within that Board. All moderators and admins would have to use their real names, since they would all be recruited from this pool of real-name users. Also, every post on the entire Board would display the originating IP address of the poster in the corner of that post, with no exceptions.
QUOTE(Daniel Brandt @ Sun 2nd March 2008, 11:37am)
Also, every post on the entire Board would display the originating IP address of the poster in the corner of that post, with no exceptions.
And we block suspected open proxies on sight?
QUOTE(Daniel Brandt @ Sun 2nd March 2008, 6:37am)
It's time to put that Newyorkbrad thread I started back where it belongs, in a forum that is indexed by the search engines, complete with the pictures of him from three Wikipedia meetups. I regret now that I asked to have it removed because of all the gratuitous, off-topic, anti-Brandt trolling that the thread provoked during the course of 4,600 views in three days. I'll just have to learn to grow a thicker skin for the coming battles.
I'm glad you now see this. Yes, each new wave of wretched wrefuse that spills over from that tag-teeming shorehouse repeats the same storied pimpitudes that they learned to wikiparrot there. We're all fed up to here with that — he puts his hand above the level of his head — and I know that I personally have far less patience now with all their rot than I had a year ago. But the end of education is not that there shall be no more frosh or sophmorons, only that a fair percentage of them will one day wise up and move on.
Jonny
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