A Wikipedia Dissenter's Credo

Milton Roe

I swear by Zeus and Apollo and all the old gods who we don't believe in anymore (which is doubtless why the world is so screwed up) that I will make the following changes, as regards my further use of my longstanding, and still active, Wikipedia name-user account.

These vows for action I take in protest of the way Wikipedia is handled. Wikipedia runs without any acknowledgement of any accountability by its board of directors at the WikiMedia Foundation (WMF) for its content, particularly its content regarding biographies of living people. At the same time, WMF continues to retain effective power over any of Wikipedia's content, by means of retaining the ability to make any change whatsoever in the site's policy, or its present content, or its records of past content.

WMF also continues to retain ownership of all software and hardware in connection with Wikipedia, making the issue of final responsibility in any long-contested question of content or policy, physically obvious. WMF does have the plugs and connectors and programmers, and thus they do have complete power, on all timescales longer than ordinary human-organization reaction time. And they will say so, in any ultimate contest of strength, except when temporarily legally convenient to claim otherwise. This is the problem.

This level of hypocrisy has become untenable to me. Even if the legal system of my country, the United States, has not (yet) recognized it in terms of libel law.

THERFORE, henceforth, I will take more honest steps toward my own Wikipedia editing, to ensure that I myself do not follow the hypocrisy which I criticize in Wikipedia. I do not ask others to do the same, but provide my own thinking, in the hope that it may save others some time if they happen to be upon the path that I am on.

[1] I swear by Zeus to make no further edits to Wikipedia, other than those which give me artistic pleasure and/or please my ego in creating something which pleases me by its very existence, for its own sake. I will edit for the same reason I may play the piano or violin, when I am alone. I will henceforth edit for no other reason.

[2] If accused of editing merely for myself, to please my own ego or aesthetic sense, I will keep quiet. I may say to myself "Quel était le premier indice pour vous, M. Poirot?" [What gave you your first clue, Sherlock?], but I will not argue with Wikipedia. Let them think what they will.

[3] I will attempt to make editorial changes on Wikipedia that appear by comparison so necessary, and are so clear and pure in language, that it will not even occur to future readers to change them. I find this goal worthy, and I do it because it is interesting and difficult. I do what pleases me. Your mileage, as to what work on Wikipedia pleases you (if any), may vary.

[4] I abjure and renounce any belief that editing Wikipedia is necessarily an altruistic enterprise. This remains an open question. To what extent it may be, is impossible to tell. In any case, I wish to hear no more about poor children in Africa. I observe that the altruism of contributing to a third-world-helping project can be used as a stick, to beat guilty Western volunteers with, to get them to work for somebody else's gain, for free. I swear that I will never let this argument as regards world poverty and Wikipedia, influence me, ever again.

[5] Because of Wikipedia's deliberate policy of encouraging and coddling anonymous vandalism ("anyone can edit"), in part by simply failing to require emailed password protection to ensure that name-users have traceable email accounts, I swear I will never revert another Wikipedia vandalism. The exception is as they happen to occur coincidentally as byproducts in the course of making an edit in which I am interested in for its own artistic sake. Likewise, in a similar way, I swear I will not fix isolated spelling or grammatical errors, or copyedit Wikipedia, again except as happens in the course of making some change more interesting to me personally.

Vandalism problems are largely the result of poor choices by Wikipedia and those who run it. By helping to fix their consequences, I realize that am helping to enable folly. After proper warning, "enablers" in some sense deserve what they get, and that is (as a rule) that they find themselves used for someone else's selfish purposes. I acknowledge that many enablers (of Wikipedia and in other spheres) work from love, which is not to be belittled. But a person may love the mountains without the mountains loving them back. Wikipedia, as an artificial and somewhat fluid and sociopathic enterprise, has some of the same characteristics of inanimate objects. It is wise not to invest in "relationships" with inanimate objects.

[6] Because of Wikipedia's encouragement of allowing nonprofessionals and the ignorant to edit academic subjects, I hereby swear I will no more edit articles on which I am a formal and citable academic expert. This leads only to conflict and no lasting pleasure for anyone. It has led to infuriation for me. I therefore leave these articles to those who would deface them. Editing Wikipedia is a Buddhist exercise in learning to let go of that which one inappropriately is attached to.

[7] I will made edits which I know to be true and worthy of citation, but unless citation is easily at hand, I will not bother to add it. This is unproductive. If an edit of mine is obviously true, or better worded, or both, a citation will be found by someone else quickly, or the statement will stand without a citation indefinitely. If the statement is not
popular, a citation rarely helps. In any case, I will not waste the time to try to prove that which people do not want to believe, by this means. This wastes time, and causes unpleasantness.

[8] Nor do TALK page arguments convince fools. I will therefore not argue on talk pages. If one argues with a fool, chances are that he is then doing just the same. I vow to avoid arguing with fools on Wikipedia, but will let them have their way. I will instead go on to find, and perhaps work on, other articles of less general interest. Nothing, time-wise, is worth an ArbCom hearing, or even RfC. These procedures, in a semi-democratic setting of anonymous entities protected in their anonymity by Wikipedia policies, are so deeply flawed in so many ways, that it is best to keep away from them altogether. In a game such as Wikipedia where power is held by those without responsibility, the only way to win is not to play. I will not play at power games on Wikipedia.

[9] I will not criticize bad administrators or their actions on Wikipedia, nor even vote "no" for RfA candidates I do not like. This only generates vendettas which last for months or years, and are not worth it. Most bad administrators on Wikipedia are not bad people--they are simply bad administrators. Bad administrators tend to self-destruct, and those that don't, have social connections outside of Wikipedia which make them impossible to get at, with Wikpedia tools anyway. In few cases is getting involved a productive use of my time. I will limit my participation in RfCs to simple one-line support votes for candidates I very much like of reasons of my personal noting of the quality of their work.

[10] I reserve the right to criticize, ridicule, or otherwise satirize Wikipedia and those who run it, in other media, where the time penalty is small, and vendettas to punish such criticism are not mobsterish. Time doing this on other websites, such as Wikipedia Review, is also possibly wasted in terms of changing Wikipedia. However, criticism is an art form also. I do it for the pleasure of it, even if perhaps it changes nothing. The odds that criticisms made about Wikipedia in other venues will be effective is much higher, since Wikipedia defends itself against criticism posted on Wikipedia itself. Do not write in water.

[11] I will not attempt to change Wikipedia policy by arguments on Wikipedia; after seven years of sameness, I have learned this is a particularly fruitless exercise. In particular I will stay away from anything on the "perennial proposals" list, realizing that it is perennial because usually it is a good idea suggested by many people before me, but yet still a proposal because shot down by an eternal cadre of incompetents or the socially-challenged, many times before. Why should I repeat this cycle again, but this time wasting my own time?

[12] Realizing that web-biography of unwilling living people, at least those who are not already exceedingly world-famous, is immoral, I will have nothing to do with it, in any way. I will not attempt to fix these bios, since this leads to reactionary wars, and wasted time. I will not start or contribute to such articles, and will not support those who do.

I will, however, support unauthorized biographies of Wikipedia living-biography editors THEMSELVES, in other venues, as an exercise to open their minds, regarding the difference between giving and receiving pain.

[13] Perhaps it is needless to add that, given the above, I will not request administrator-ship on Wikipedia nor accept any Request for Administratorship, if a nomination is offered me. Nor have I ever done so, and I realize now, why not. Administration of Wikipedia involves so many automatic chores of a completely unnecessary nature, that I believe it is deplorable, and unworthy of sapient human beings. To be sure, the same may be said of whittling, playing video games, or staring into a log fire. But these things rarely have the hold on life which Wikipedia can take.

It is true that even without being an administrator and while making edits which please only me, I may enable WMF and Jimmy Wales, to some extent. However, since I also enable myself aesthetically and emotionally with such edits, as in the production and reproduction of all art, I am in no danger of being used, and there is balance from the outset. I do not wait for a reward, for the reward has been given at the time I edit. All administrators, by contrast, are in severe danger of being used, for few of them spent most of their time contributing artistic content for the sake of seeing the content remain.

[14] That said, I refuse to belittle those who, with open eyes, take more of a role in administrating WIKIPEDIA, cleaning up vandalism, fixing spelling errors, moving pages, making templates and adding them, and the like. If this truly makes them happy on the spot, and not for the sake of future reward of promises of a future world-changing enterprise, then let them do it. But likewise, if it makes people happy to be bound in leather and fitted with an inflatable rubber mouth gag, then let them do that. I urge only that all people connected to Wikipedia not to let themselves be used. I advise all persons not ever to sacrifice themselves for any person or cause, unless they have the expectance of a long and permanent relationship, which is reciprocated. Most people and causes are not worth the effort, and when they turn out not to be, the person who has invested in them finds they have sacrificed part of your lives for nothing, on behalf of something which never cared about them. Therefore, in most cases, edit Wikipedia only when you wish to be alone for other reasons. Wikipedia is not your friend and will not substitute for a friend.

[15] Likewise, I will refuse to criticize those who go farther than I have, and will have nothing at all to do with editing Wikipedia. If these people don't like to edit, or else they DO enjoy it, but are protesting in the manner of a "hunger strike," then whatever pleases them, is fine with me. But do me the same courtesy as regards my own editing, please. All of us will face the future of our time choices eventually.

[16] I reserve the right to change my mind when Wikipedia's policies eventually change, as eventually they must. Since I now have some thousands of edits over more than several years on Wikipedia, I expect to have many of my old former edits still surviving in what is the new Universal Online Encyclopedia, when it appears many years in the future. A good edit should transcend authorship and should transcend the media and the many users of it for one reason or another, for many years. And if this does not happen for many of my own edits, then it may well be that I'm not the writer that I think I am, and that learning experience will be useful, too. Life is education and entertainment, and I am willing to take the first with the second. But entertainment rules my editorial involvement with Wikipedia, from this day forward.

[17] In all cases, I swear by all the gods that from now on, the minute I don't enjoy being logged into Wikipedia, is the minute I log off and move on to something else. I have not always done this in the past--- this I confess! But this is part of the reason for this credo. Bad experience teaches, and it is never too late for learning and change.

[18] Reminder to self: get a life.

M.R.
SoCal
June 8, 2008

And I thought I was the loquacious one here.

Had to get it all out. Very entertaining to me. Hope also to you, but if not, skip it.

No it's fine. HK will be happy that I'm am no longer the dominant long-winded pedant here.

Longwindedness I plead guilty to. But there's not a lot of pedantry in this one. I'm mainly just pissed off, and say plainly why.

The gain in pain stays mainly in the plain.

I have felt for sometime that you are the master of the short winded but exasperating post. In fact I have noticed that your longer posts are often thoughtful and sometimes even right-minded.

I have to meter those. HK can only digest so much of me at a gulp.

Pretty much any of your post complaining about HK fall into the short winded but exasperating category.

Which reminds me...

Nobody here has solved the riddle...

If "Arrgghhh!!!" is an Exhalation of Exasperation, what would be the exact opposite phase from that?

Inhalation of inspiration, dum spiro, spero. SSSssssssspppp!

Of course all of these are not good puns, as all the words for breathing and breath are connected to the words for spirit in many languages, including Gk, Latin, and Hebrew. The "Gesuntheit" blessing is based on the idea that you've just sneezed out all your own spirit, and might next inhale a demonic one.

Correct. And the verbal interjection that is the opposite of "Arrgghhh!" is ... ???

The problem with Milton's loquaciousness is that it fails to mask the extreme poverty of his reasoning.

Thus, the fact that Milton resolves to edit Wikipedia only for artistic reasons means thaty Milton carries on editing Wikipedia IN PROTEST AT WIKIPEDIA.

Yes of course.

No, it's very selective editing, and only that which benefits me as much as them (which, by the way, is not the kind of arguing and fighting that most people sucked into the place find themselves doing). And no, I'm not so angry at them as to hold my breath until I turn blue, in protest. I do enjoy writing some things which don't really belong to WMF, but in a sense belong to everyone.

Its crapwork for the WMF that I refuse any longer to do. If you can't tell the difference, or think there is none, then fine. As I said, this is matter of taste. Don't edit at all if you feel that way. Be my guest.

That's a sophisticated argument. Unfortunately I call "bullshit" on sophistry

Who is John Galt?

(that's such an obvious rejoinder I can't believe I'm first to say it)

Nobody likes Ayn Rand.

Is it? I don't agree with everything that was said, but I think you're missing the point: it's not about what a selfless individual would do, had he infinite resources of time and patience.

It's about what a volunteer does when he knows his efforts will not only go unrewarded, but may well draw one into a sink of tiresomely insincere and interminable discussions before spiralling into a pit of organized flame-warring, both of which are built into the system. Why should anyone be expected to bear this burden?

The problems are well known, and by now are so many that it's often impossible to pin down the cause of any given dysfunction. But here is, in my view, the most systematic:

What Wikipedia does is invite cats to enter a bag, thereby doing all cats who enter it a disservice. It then invites the cats to blame one another for the scratches they inflict upon one another, and some of the cats are truly blameworthy. But every time you come across one, ask yourself: who invited this cat in the bag with me?

The time when you really wake up and see this is when you're dealing with people who you know to operate on good faith, follow or mostly follow the rules, etc., and yet you're still faced with the constant problem of allowing the articles to get massacred, or devote a significant time commitment to make sure that they don't.

This would all be true even if what poses as the leadership weren't so often hopelessly incompetent and/or corrupt.

Where's point [3]?

I'm not sure if this is the appropriate thread for this, but not too long ago I had a nightmare in which I unthinkingly corrected something on Wikipedia, just using whatever IP address I was on at the time. I immediately realized what I had done, and went into paroxysms of self-directed anger for having made an edit on Wikipedia - my very first one, and all because of some stupid lapse in attention. But rather than wake up screaming, the nightmare went on... "in for a penny in for a pound," I apparently thought, because next thing ya know I was making more edits, registering user accounts, writing articles, getting involved in "WikiProjects," attempting to become an administrator, and so on.

I woke up before any RfA's were attempted at least, but it was a profoundly disturbing experience. It was almost as bad as the nightmare I had in which the world's entire population was housed in one gigantic cube-shaped building, hundreds of miles on each side, and the whole thing was totally controlled by a small group of professional plumbers. (Which sort of made sense, under the circumstances.)


It's over there, under the table, in a box...

Is this "Meaningless Metaphors Week"?

It doesn't matter why someone is editing Wikipedia, for no-one gives two hoots about motivation. Its about whether or not such energies should be directed at Wikipedia or somewhere else. If its at Wikipedia, then its wasted, wasted, wasted.

Actually it sounds like the desperate cry of someone addicted to editing, who resorts to the most inane reasons possible to justify the addiction.

Milton makes a very simple point: if you want to edit Wikipedia for your own reasons, that is fine. Just don't get suckered into any obligations.

That's about where I am. I have made a handful of edits recently, and I have it in mind that I'd like to sort out the guide dogs article which is something of a travesty, being written by someone who seems to think that you can just pluck a stray dog off the street and train it. Motivation: I am interested in guide dogs, being a puppy walker (COI!!) and Wikipedia makes a good platform to disseminate information - and mis-information. Demotivation: most of the information I have is in the first-hand information from presentations of the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association and the manuals associated with it so I can't really be bothered with the potential debates over reliable sources.

So if your "expertise" is going to be rapidly reverted by idiots, you're heading for nothing but abuse, heartache and a trainwreck at the end.

My recommendation still stands. Don't get on the train. It has no brakes, no driver and no reverse gear. Unless you like being in a trainwreck in which case there's no hope.

To be fair, in uncontroversial areas, things do stay fairly stable if they are uncontroversially written.

If you can go in, edit and walk away, then fine. Just plan to walk away - which of course implies you should not invest too much effort otherwise you will feel compelled to get suckered in.

Milton: Thank you for that, which I just spotted. See my proposal for a sort of ‘Wikipedia de-tox’ rehab virtual centre on the ‘Philosophy’ thread here. A lot of these rehab courses involve some sort of list of things that help you recognise your problem. Perhaps the proposed centre should adopt this list.

Only one problem: all addiction involves denial and classic rehab involves the participant recognising or confronting their denial. In your case you say you will only edit WP when you enjoy it. But that is a classic form of addiction denial. I’m not going to drink a drop more unless I really am going to enjoy doing it. Hmm, I would really enjoy a drop of malt RIGHT NOW.

You see the problem. Classic rehab involves recognising that you are never ever going to drink/pop pills/sniff powder EVER AGAIN.

Not even Daniel Brandt, er I mean Nathaniel Branden.

But you don't have to like her to get the reference. I thought it was surprising no one had trotted it out and therefore amusing. YMMV.

Asking "Who is John Galt?" is like asking "What is the name of this problem?" or "What is the name of 'the way we do things around here'?"

Oh, shit. RENUM.

(The preceding was a BASIC joke dating from the paleocomputer age).

Except I must be in denial, because I think an addition to something (or everything) I like is a bad metaphor. Am I a sex addict? A food addict? A piano addict? A running addict? A reading addict?

The problem with using food addiction in the same sentence as alcohol addiction, is that we're then doomed to suggest we treat the two differently. Unless you're one of those "controlled drinking" people. Well, is selective Wikipedia editing like attempting controlled drinking, as you suggest? Or is it like attempting controlled eating or running or reading or piano practice, as I suggest?

I think you have the wrong metaphor about Wikipedia. First, it's not a single thing. It's a bunch of useful things (the articles), taken care of, in a bad system.

Is it like a Cult, where nothing you do for them, from give them money to man their phone lines, will do the world any good? No. I say it's more like the Red Cross or Pets in Need. Good comes out of the organization in some way or other, even if you don't like the organization's methods or its people or its culture. Can you completely screw up your life volunteering for the Red Cross or Pets in Need? You bet! And if you did, can you reassess and go back to a sort of controlled-volunteering? One with balance? One hopes so. If not, you DO have a serious addiction problem. Get a life.

Metaphors, metaphors. The Kingdom of Wikipedia is like a Mustard Seed....

No. Restart. Here is Jimbo's Metaphor: Wikipedia is like a great ship (which I invented) full of wonderful product, bringing knowledge to the world. It's also full of wonderful volunteers. Some volunteers clean the decks, some clean the toilets, some maintain the engines, some must sleep in the captains' cabin with the hot babes (okey, that's my special burden), but yet, all contribute! And if you don't, the ship may sink! Taking all with it! And it's your fault, so look at those dirty floors and get out your mop! You said you'd be willing to put your back into it at your RfA, so KEEP YOUR WORD, lackey!

Bzzt. No, wrong metaphor again.

Wikipedia is more like a combination natural history and art museum. If you saw "Night at the Museum" you get the idea. The stuff is alive. It grows. Even the museum guards, of which there are too few, are wary of it. But it's independent of the museum. Once a diorama or a art or animal piece is finished and mounted (or even before), it can be duplicated for anybody, and then the museum no longer has control of it.

But the WikiMuseum has no curators, except people wandering in, off the street. People come in any time, grab a mummy or a Guttenberg manuscript out of the basement, and start unwrapping. Actually, they start only with a copy. The results vary. Guards are under strict orders not to check ID's, and people aren't really dealt with, unless they call the guards dirty names or are found burning or defacing something. In which case the vandals are bounced, only to climb in one of the many open windows. Not a very good system, but no damage is done to orignals or the museum structure itself, so it's tolerated. The guards aren't paid, so what the hell.

The guards know vandals are only working on copies, and the museum originals never leave the basement, so they defend the system. Still, it take guard time, and a lot of the museum is filling with copies of van Goghs with mustaches painted on them. And people are having fistfights about putting a Speedo on the statue of David, if there are children in the room. It's a bit of a madhouse, and some people wonder where is the good product?

Like the steamship Wikipedia, the Wikipedia museum is also full of boilers and machinery in the basement. And its halls and toilets need cleaning. Volunteers do must of this, but the doors to the boiler room are locked. No people off the street here! The Museum Director is a lot more careful about his heating machinery and fire machinery than he is about the museum content, so you can see where his values lie. And by the way, he spends very little time in the museum, but rather can be found in his penthouse across town. Visit him, and he shows up bleary-eyed at the door in a Kimono or smoking jacket, like Hugh Hefner of old. Screams of feminine laughter in the background. "What do you want?" "Don't bother me, call Erik." "Have somebody else fix it." "Go away, with love, please." He's not much more use than the captain of the mythical Wikipedia Valdez, of the story above.

But now, what about you, dear citizen? You actually know something about Italian rennaissance art, and you have some Dosso paintings in a little museum room that you're carefully restoring. You know the museum itself is doomed, but you know your work will outlive it. The vandals haven't found you, and they're not bothering you. So you go in, every so often, and do a little cleaning. Gradually, a masterpiece becomes clear. Then, another. Ah, the old image of a bone in the corner-- you got the right piece. You think about the doofus director. Doesn't matter. You think about the vandals. So long as they're not bothering you with your works, who cares? And every night when you leave, you take a perfect copy of your latest progress with you. You wave at the guards. They check to see that you don't have a history of spraypainting Dossos, and let you by...

On your way out, you see that somebody has put a Chester Cheetah sign on a mounted Thylacine skin. The hallway is dirty, and the bathrooms stink of shit. To be expected. You ignore them, and you're out the door. Not your problem, but a problem of the system. You could complain to the doofus Museum Board about the doofus Museum Director, but you know very well that if you did, nothing would happen except the guards really would lock you out, and then you'd have to use windows to get in, too. And you still have some work on that last painting to do....

Milt

I think someone needs a nap …

Jon

Had a good night sleep. Middle of the day where I am. Pay no attention to the timestamp-- I never set it.

Klaatu Barada Nikto.

The correct solution is:

3. There is no point #3.

That's the zen answer. The correct answer is that you can't RENUM or you end up with points 10, 20, 30, 40...

STOP
END

You have no idea how angry I was when I discovered that QBASIC didn't require line numbers for every line, and that you could insert lines of code between existing lines simply by moving the cursor up and typing them in. This anger subsided over time while I realized that this was clearly an improvement. I even used the included remline.bas to remove superfluous line numbers from programs I'd brought over from GWBASIC. In summary, I used to be a much better nerd than I am now, when simple wikimarkup is the most complex stuff I can manage.

As for your pledge, I'm currently compliant with 3, 4, 10, 14, 15, 16, and 17, and mostly with 1. 6 doesn't apply to me, as I'm essentially without any formal credential in any field. The rest I violate to varying extents, ranging from slightly and occasionally (8 and 11) to rampantly (18).

No Milton, Peter Damien was right. Its an addiction.

• You know fine well its wasted
• You know fine well that you're going to get sucked into an edit war with one or more idiots backed by one or more idiot admins.
• You know fine well that the good doesn't justify the bad
• Yet you continue to edit Wikipedia if it pleases you to

Irrelevant.

You are like an alcoholic who swears that he's going to stick to only the fine wines that he really enjoys, and then gets pissy when its pointed out that its still alcohol and you're still feeding the addiction.

Here's a challenge to see whether you're addicted or not: don't edit Wikipedia for 3 months. Nor any other wiki.

Just leave it alone for three months without correcting so much as a comma. If you can manage that without tearing the walls down, then I would take it all back.

But I doubt it.

Er, and explain to me why I should give up something I enjoy for 3 months, just to prove something to a total stranger? Who wouldn't know if I was lying or not?

I don't take a computer on vacation out of the country, and don't miss it except that I have used internet cafes to catch up on email when traveling in various foreign lands, so you could make a better argument that I'm addicted to that.

Say, here's a thought, now that we've both seen the South Park where internet disappears, and causes mass DustBowl-style migration of Coloradoans to get online in Silicon Valley, "Californee." It's pitiful-- right out of Steinbeck. Why aren't you here (on the internet) arguing that that THAT is the one true fundamental addiction: email, chat, porn, shopping, BBS's, newfeeds, newsgroups, MMORPGs and all? How come Jimbo comes in for special criticism?

So how come I wrote an 18 part manifesto? But I could turn out a similar one for most kinds of writing and for most kinds of reading. However, I'm not going to give up books for 3 months to prove anything to you (or myself) either. Life's too short.

Your "theory of mind" is unsupported by my edit history.

Lately it seems that this forum has devolved into a arena of pointless bickering and personal attacks. There was nothing about Milton Roe's post, or about my discussion ofit, which merited these kind of accusations. Whatever your reasons, it strikes me as not dissimilar to trolling.

If I criticize someone's jusitification for editing Wikipedia, even though they know a) that editing it is futile that editing it inevitably leads to conflict and c) that editing Wikipedia constructively is like trying to sweeten a sewer, that's trolling?

Bullshit.

I'm not positing a "theory of mind". I'm saying that motivation is irrelevant to the result.

Perhaps you should read what people have actually written before replying -- but then if you did that, you wouldn't be editing Wikipedia then, would you?

Trolling or not, it needs justification. If it's true, we'll hardly be able to find any WP articles on basic subjects taught in (say) the required part of an undergrad curriculm, which don't stink like shit.

So you start. Pick three typical undergrad college subjects and then I'll pick a few representative articles from them, and you can point out the stinkers. If you're right, I won't EVEN be able to FIND any. And you can go on to rub by nose in it, by pointing out with diffs how they've gotten worse over time, which is just as important to your argument that you can't sweeten a sewer by editing Wikipedia.

Or, I'll pick some general subjects (say natural sciences) and you pick out the articles.

Ready set, go. You've made your sweeping generalizations, now let's see you back them with some specifics.

I've suggested encylopedias should have articles on atoms to zebras. Have you had a look at the article on zebras? Or the one on atoms?

You're not proving it to me, you're proving it to yourself. If this was an AA meeting, then I could not prove that you're not drinking alcohol between meetings. Only you would know that.



No I wouldn't. My wife would say that I'm addicted because when on holiday I like to check my e-mail. I would say I'm just making sure I'm not missing an important message.

But could I go without it? Sure. Do I worry that I'm addicted to being online? Sure.



You could be right. But we're not talking about addiction to the Internet, we're talking about the esoteric addiction to editing Wikipedia.

False reasoning: "I drink lots of fluids during the day. Alcohol is a fluid. Therefore if I drink lots of alcohol, I'm not addicted, I'm just drinking fluids in a pleasureable form."

False reasoning: "Editing Wikipedia is futile. I know that my best work will be reverted by the next idiot. I know that my expertise will be twisted into a COI. I know that admins won't back me. But I like editing Wikipedia and from now on I do it to please myself"



I'm not asking you to give up books. I love books. Or the Internet.

I'm asking whether the fact that you have written a manifesto to justify continuing editing Wikipedia even though you know it is futile, is an indication that at some level, you know that those aren't the real reasons.

You haven't written an 18-part manifesto on reading books, accessing the Internet or even drinking alcohol. You've written a personal manifesto ON A PUBLIC INTERNET FORUM to justify something, and I respond that your actions and your defensiveness are indicating something else.

I stopped editing Wikipedia and it wasn't easy to stop. For the longest time I thought I could change Wikipedia by adding truthful statements that I could back up from the source but then I discovered that Wikipedia was changing me, making me lazy about facts, historical evidence and the process of scholarship.

I was accepting statements on Wikipedia not because I could trace them back to the source or that I knew the source was reliable or that I knew that the person relaying the facts was trustworthy, but because it was easy.

Unplugging from feeding from Wikipedia, even more than stopping editing it, requires an act of will. Wikipedia's version of history is becoming all pervasive without anyone, other than a few recalcitrants, even analyzing it.

Without knowing anything about your personal case, it's my hypothesis that Wikipedia editors are far less likely than the average person to accept statements on Wikipedia. Otto von Bismarck probably didn't blindly trust laws or sausages either, no matter how easy.

To which of my thousands of edits over the past nine months do you object? Evidently you haven't bothered to fact-check that fundamental premise.

I don't believe people need a justification for editing Wikipedia, but even if you believe they do, what has it to do with anything I wrote?

I would think that anyone who's edited Wikipedia would realise that it has quality problems in the areas in which the editor has off-wiki knowledge.

Testing the quality of an iceberg requires only a small sample to tell you about the iceberg. You only need a spoonfull of soup to tell you about the quality of the entire pot.

In this case, if you have actual expertise in a subject, then you know that the Wiki articles tend to be crap. In attempting to fix the crapness. you then discover that your expertise is a hindrance to the project and you will, sooner or later, leave (how many times has that happened?) or be forced out.

Testing Wikipedia just from the limited areas that I have good knowledge, leads me to the same conclusion as others - that Wikipedia is not to be trusted to be factually or historically correct from one sentence to the next.



You are asking me to justify something I have not written. Now go away.

Milton, with your manifesto you have highlighted a many points that were behind my decision to quit WP. So while I don't agree with your decision to continue editing, I appreciate that you have articulated many of the thoughts that I (and many others, i'm sure) have had when it comes to wondering why we do what we do and if it is really worth continuing.

When I was active, various things came to annoy me about Wikipedia: the bullying/racist POV-pushers (just look at any article even remotely related to European history, for some fine examples), the drama, the bear pit, the need to satisfy the lowest common denominator, deliberate propagation of disinformation and so on. I thought that if I followed the rules of common sense and participate with a sense of open-mindedness and professionalism, then others might do the same. Silly me.

In the end, it was clear to me that no matter what I do, it just wasn't fun anymore. That was the day that I quit. I thought it would be difficult to go cold turkey, but whenever the temptation arises to make an edit, I just have a quick look at my watchlist and see the Second Law of Thermodynamics getting a good strong push by the people still there. These temptations come with ever-decreasing regularity, but they're still there. But I've remained inactive since quitting over a month ago, so I'm happy.

The idea of collaborative contributions and shared knowledge is something I still believe in. Knowledge is the best tool against ignorance, but it just doesn't work at Wikipedia with the structure currently in place there and with many of the people involved. Sure, there are lots of good people there, but their efforts are usually drowned out in the mess of others.

Instead, I'm waiting to see how the Britannica system works. If that doesn't work out, then maybe I'll have a look at Citizendium. But I strongly doubt that I will return to Wikipedia in its current form.

So your manifesto, to me, is not an acknolwedgement of the problems that one must keep in mind when editing, but a detailed and concise list of reasons to simply walk away.

Spot-on. Absolutely spot-on. And if you were to successfully write about something where you personally have expert knowledge, how is the next person to know that what you wrote is any good? Without any sort of indicator system, you either have to trust everything there or nothing. And one of these options is clearly not possible.

Mr. A., you wrote:


You assumed that I am "addicted to editing Wikpedia". But my contribution history doesn't support that, does it?

Checking your facts before posting generic accusations will save us all time and trouble.

Yes checking facts is good. I was characterizing Milton's responses as indicative of addiction not yours. Since you failed the remedial English grammar class let me show you exactly how it was done.

The quote



referred to Milton's manifesto and the inadequate responses to it.

For some reason which escapes me entirely, you decided to interject yourself into a discussion which was about Milton. Thick or what?

The second quote:



Now we have to watch the ellipses because the full quote says:



So the quote ripped from its context made it clear that your comprehension was at fault, and my response was that it seemed typical of Wikipedia editors to fly off the handle at what their first impression must be rather than reading it properly.

Let's take those points again

1. In the first quote, I was characterizing Milton in response your weak interpretation of his manifesto
2. I was referring to your kindergarten comprehension skills as being typical of Wikipedia editors.

So in no occasion was I referring to your actual editing of Wikipedia. Got it?

Now fuck off because I'm talking to Milton and not you.

Fun With Hillel -or- It's Now or Never

To paraphrase Hillel, "If I am not for having fun, who will be? But if I am only for having fun, what am I?"

Or, to invert my paraphrase of Hillel, "If I am not for being serious, who will be? But if I am only for being serious, WTF?"

It's good that you're classified as an intellectual. Otherwise someone might get the idea that you're just an ordinary person who likes to talk bollocks on message boards.

I was thinking about a 3-axis model with the following three axes:

X-Axis: Political Demeanor — Scientific Demeanor

Y-Axis: Serious Demeanor — Playful Demeanor

Z-Axis: Ethically Challenged Demeanor — Ethical Demeanor

This would yield eight orthants; each individual would nominally reside in one of the eight orthants, although occasional excursions to adjacent orthants would not unexpected.

I would like to think of myself as a Playful, yet Ethical, Scientist with a serious side (or perhaps a Serious, Ethical Scientist with a playful side).

I think you need a confused/delusional Demeanor - rational Demeanor axis too