Here is what the first couple paragraphs of the Honey trap article looked like in late 2005:



And here is how the article looks in June 2008:



If this weren't actually what happened to [[Honey trap]] between 2005 and 2008, you would be laughing like it's some kind of a joke!

Well, it is Wikipedia, so we know it actually is an elaborate joke. And it happened.

Remember everyone, what the Wikipediots tell us: "Wikipedia is always improving!"

Greg

That all looks suspicious, but it's a result of two bad redirects, both probably made in good faith. Lar or Alison can fix, I'm sure. [[Honey trap]] really should now redirect to the Honeypot dab page (where there should be a law enforcement definition as well as the standard spycraft one). Instead, it got redirected to the spycraft type of honeypot, which in turn got changed when that article got redirected to a section of the general spy article, which for some reason is now under HUMINT. God knows we can't call it spying; that would be far too obvious. The government has got hold of the idea now ( ) and it's been acronymized and abbreviated.

What happens now is that some Wikipedians will fix it, and then say that Wikipedia is always improving.

And they will be right. Had Greg complained on WP, the answer would have been [[WP:SOFIXIT]].

I don't think we can infer a giant meta-problem from this minor indexing screwup, due to two similar but non-identical slang terms in use in various fields (honey pot and honey trap) getting conflated. I learned a lot from the honeypot dab page: why doesn't this count?

However, had their been some admin war and banning over how to do all this, that's WOULD be another story. And we've all seen edit wars over issues at least this lame: WP:LAME. So the point remains that wikipedia sucks in many ways. Did I ever say it didn't?

But if WP sucks in ALL ways, it cannot be improved. We're wasting our time to do anything but call for its complete destruction, and the articles, too. Sort of like crashing Skylab. It smells bad and we're tired of it. And the Saturn V-- who needs those old blueprints when we have a shiney new space shuttle and we'll never need those dinosaur boosters to do anything, ever again....

On the other hand, the article was an unreferenced stub of dubious notability in 2005 and is now a redirect to more referenced article of much more certain notability. My cursory Google search has not brought up any websites which have anything to do with the technique described in the 2005 article. More content does not always equal a better encyclopedia. This "Wikipediot" sees nothing wrong with what happened to honey trap.

Every agency would have a term. Bait car (note Wikipedia article here with link to honey trap, now a mal-link) "setup car", "decoy car," whatever, are common. The technique is in use, but usually by other names. Honeypot is more common than honeytrap. A retired cop I just asked told me he had heard the first but not the second, and neither was as common as bait or setup.

So you may well be right.

Redirected to honeypot. I've seen it used outside espionage myself. Though I am partially to blame for the redirect; stupid bot.

Thank you for the nice turd polish. Don't worry if you get no other feedback; this is a sullen bunch which sometimes enjoys leaks in roof of City Hall.

Me, I'm the type of personality who likes garage sales.

Maybe we should change the name of the site to WikipediaPraise.com?

Some of you are really, really bloated on the JimboJuice. You may need to be lanced.

Google " 'honey trap' ". You get 86,100 results.

Google " 'honey trap' police". You get 17,800 results.

Google " 'honey trap' crime ". You get 13,300 results.

Google " 'honey trap' sting ". You get 5,540 results.

Google " 'honey trap' spy". You get 13,300 results.

Google " 'honey trap' espionage". You get 585 results.

Now, Google " 'honey trap' HUMINT ". You get 68 results.

Anyone who says the current situation on this article is better than it was in 2005 is a complete dolt. I would prefer that they go create a message board called WikipediaPraise.com, and they can circle jerk over there, all they want. Seriously.

Yes, Greg, we all know that everyone but you is an idiot. I'm sure with that attitude you'll get along swimmingly with the rest of the board, too.

I only clicked on this thread because I thought it'd be about Victorian Pornography.

Nevermind …

Jon

Thank you for confirming my victory in the election.

"Honey trap" now redirects to the "honey pot" dab (disambiguation), and this will do better in Google as the crawlers catch up. The original fairly short "Honey trap" article you're moaning about was barely more than a glorified dab page anyway. So now, it really is one. Big deal.

In all of those searches the WP HUMINT article already comes up in the first 20 and usually the first ten, due to its linking of honey trap with "spy" and "espionage." So it's not as though the Google searcher won't find what Wikipedia has to say on the subject because Wikipedia "hid" it under a bad term (except possibly as used in police stings). Google finds it anyway. Note that a lot of the google hits even for crime and police are using the term as related to espionage.

Now, Wikipedia decided to put all of its historical stuff on spying in the Espionage article. And for whatever reason, it decided to put most of its spycraft stuff (how to recruit and run assets, etc) in the HUMINT article. I suppose because the everyday business practices of spying are a big subsection of HUMINT (the clandestine part, which is most of it, since often HUMs tend to be sticky about privacy regarding INT about them).

Now that meant that strictly police "honey trap" activities as mentioned briefly in the 2005 article had no place to go. This would include stings, particularly those related to sex (roundups of Johns, etc).

Okay, so? That's probably the lesser part of the term, as you see from the fact that the google hits for it in police work include spying, yet are still only about as large as the searches that specifically ask for "spy." That's a clue.

If you know something about the non espionage sting operation side, the proper thing to do is write such an article. The 2005 article was short, and all the stuff in it about espionage has gone into the HUMINT article (referenced and linked from the honey pot dab page), and the computer stuff into a separate article, which is also referenced from the honey pot dab page. Should there be one more reference to police use in the honey pot dab (which you now get to with any reference to honey trap also?). Probably. But the only use of forensic honey traps the old article mentions is the Bait car use, and that's already an article. So that use is now the only information that WAS in WP that is lost to ordinary search on honey trap NOW. Solution: one more ref to Bait car, and (generally) police Sting operation in the honey pot dab, recovers all the 2005 info on this term, completely. It doesn't specifically cover other types of police sting uses, such as fake hookers, but then the original didn't, either. That info is still to be added to WP. Feel free using one of your wonderful socks.

MILTON ROE

ROTIN MOLE

Jon

Sounds like you're suggesting I do a lot of work that will likely get reverted, or worse (such as was the case with JzG and Arch Coal) stolen and attributed to the thief.

You said quite a bit above, but that still doesn't solve for the problem that, had I not opened my mouth, there wasn't any disambig "solution" happening for at least several months. It probably would have continued redirecting to a page with three giant headers disclaiming the quality of the content, which addressed only the most arcane of the three possible uses of the term "honey trap".

Here, Milton... tell us what you think about the quality and "correct match" characteristics of this page about [[Conjoint]]. Do you think most people looking for information about "conjoint" are pleased with what they find there?

Really Greg, as someone about to be on WMB you should think more strategiclly and ignore trivia like this.

"Honey trap" I thought that was the name for a woman who is used to wheedle into groups?

Are you sure? I think most of the voters are drawn to someone who speaks to their trivial concerns. Once I'm elected, then I can switch more appropriately into strategic mode. Surely, you know that the candidate during his candidacy speaks a different message than the actual agenda that will be pursued once elected?

Besides, I think 90% of those who are going to vote have already voted.

Greg

Ah-ha! I have no vote so it's safe to ignore my trivial concerns.

Oh, for *&^% sakes, Greg.

This is all sort of the same problem. Earth to Greg: Dab pages are useful, and should be used when they are appropriate . In many cases, things become horribly awkward if they are missing, or some damn fool has tried to do what should be dab work, using another format. Which in this case, would be whoever first started that page on Honey Traps, which was in 2005 basically a concatenated list of stubs on the ways in which the term "Honey trap" is used in various fields of human endevor by various people. Hmmm

Duh, when you see an article like that, an experienced Wikipedian says: "Wups, here some fool wrote a little disjointed article, when instead somebody really wanted to make a dab page directing to a bunch of stubs, both of which could later be expanded."

That was the case with Honey Trap. It now IS a dab page called Honey pot. It still needs a bit of work, but in 2005 it suffered from starting out as a turd which really needed replacement, instead of polishing. You haven't helped. You're not helping now.

Now look at Conjoint, you say. Okay, now YOU look at it. See anything there that is discussed above?? Yep, here the implied and needed dab page is missing also. It needs creation. And a bunch of things added to it. WP:SODOIT. If you want to know what the [[Conjoint]] dab page should look like, you can search for [[Conjugal]] which redirects you to an excellent Conjugation dab. That's what [[Conjoint]] wants to be. And one day will be, as people work on it.

Holy shit, Greg. You want to be in the WMF board, now, do you? Lar, for all of his infuriating blandness, appears cabable of "learning behavior." Johnny Cache, by contrast, apparently gave up this uncomfortable process, some years ago. How about you?

M.

Okay, Milton, I think I see what you're saying. You're saying I'm really talented at finding pages that have been less than useful for two or more YEARS, and then when I bring them to people's attention, they get LOTS better, thanks to the miracle of disambiguation. I feel bathed in a soothing, all-knowing luminescence. (It's too bad someone like me with a limitless power within to perform such miracles is banned from the project I could help achieve the utter glory it is destined to achieve.) Thank you for helping me see the truth, my friend!

Greg

Infuriating blandness? WTF??!!?!?! I'll get you for that, and your little dog too!!!! I beg your pardon, whatever do you mean by that?

I'm confused. I thought we decided I was in MI6 (way better than MI5... say! does this thing go to 11??) or the NSA or something?

But I gotta ask you, what is "cabable" ?? It seems a conflation of "cabal" and "babble" rather than, say, "capable".

Hey, I consider Lar to be an e-friend of mine. He's not bland, he seems easy-going and not pretentious, qualities rare on WP and related sites. And yes I'm sure he's cabable. (whatever that means )

Thanks for sticking up for me, but I think Milton was taking the mickey. I could be wrong but that's how I responded, right back at him...

You're welcome. Remember A little dab'l do ya © and things will be okay.

Will you find weedy and cramped places on WP where nobody has gotten this idea for years? Sure. Wikipedia articles grow like arthropoda and Serpentes. Nothing seems to happen for a long time, then wham, a molt. And the creation of spinoff articles, and red links that turn blue, are much the same way.

And yes, this happens when somebody pays attention and realizes that something needs to be done. Golly, you're catching on fast.

And yes, it's a crime that you're banned. But you know my opinion about Trogbo the Banniator. He also is completely clueless about how to organize an encyclopedia. His minions do it for him, and he does nothing. He does worse than nothing, by insisting on policies which make everybody work harder to build Egyptian pyramids by hand. I never said otherwise.

I don't do Cache style sliding puns (well, hardly ever). Cabable here is just a typo for capable. Which I'd fix, except now there's a question on it.

As to the other: real spies generally have a certain blandness which makes people look elsewhere, perhaps for the SlimVirgin type:

Hey, a Venture Brothers visual reference! I think that might be our very first one...

Anyway, I'd just like to point out that Greg is smarter than the rest of us. We all took one of those fancy-schmancy tests a while back, and he scored higher than everyone except Lamont, who until yesterday I thought had died or something - so he (Lamont, that is) doesn't really count until his posting volume returns to "full-eligibility level."

Welcome back, Lamont!

I thought Greg wanted to be banned so he couldn't be tricked into editing WP?


Indeed, he's earning a fortune while the rest of us are editing WR for nothing! We all envy him.

Well, at the moment I'm actually cleaning my oven, which is almost as good... right?

This is just terrible, terrible, horrible writing. By far the worst experience of writing for Wikipedia is not the facts and the sourcing, it's working with people who simply cannot see it is horrible writing.

Ah, so I was arguing with somebody smarter than me, and that's what the stickiness was. Well, if I'd been smarter I would have realized it right off.

You can subtract 5 IQ points for fanboiness of the V. Bros., but I can't help it because I was imprinted by Jonny Quest in my youth. And take off 5 more for ATHF, and don't ask how that happened, because I don't know.





No, another complete waste of time. Any splattered stuff on the walls dries quickly as you use it more, and doesn't interfere with the microwave standing mode pattern at all. Stick another frozen dinner in, and see. Trust me.

I assumed it was a gas oven.

A whaaaa....?

A cooker where the heat is provided by the burning of gas. Is that one of those terms Americans don't understand?

Nobody wants to hear my opinion on this and I don't want to hear *that* so I won't say it.

Other than that a honeypot is also used to catch hackers - but there I go again.

Ummm, is this some English thing, like boiling everything to mush? Anyway, it sounds dangerous.

Nicely addressed in the dab and the computer use it directs to.

And yes, the HUMINT writing is attrocious. All the more so for being in an unencyclopedic style. WP:SOFIXIT, if it pleases you. And if it doesn't, then don't. If you can TELL that it's bad writing, you're enough of a writer to improve it. Only when somebody won't LET you improve it, because they OWN it, and it's bad, is there a metaproblem. And there are certainly enough of those to go around at WP.

I am reminded of a story my grandfather used to tell, of a very rich man who was taking a train ride across the country (back when people did that to get across the country), and the rich guy wanted tutti-fruity ice cream. None was to be had on the train. None was to be had in the small whistlestops the train passed every so often. No other flavor found (and there were many), would satisfy. For a whole day, there was nothing but howls from the rich man about how terrible the service was, on what was supposedly the best car of the train, which he had all to himself. Finally, the company officials wired ahead, and a special airplane with ice was used to deliver a single pint of tutty fruity ice cream to a trainstop in the middle of nowhere, which was duly decanted, put into a crystal, impaled with a silver spoon, topped with a cherry, and finally delivered with a flourish to the outraged man.

He looked at it, then turned away and continued with the massive pout:

"I'd rather have my grudge."




I'd urge all to save wikisniping for things less easily fixable.

You missed the second sentence, about the difficulty of people of working with people who cannot write. Some time ago I used to work in a team of writers, and it was very collegiate, and there was nothing like the pleasure of working on a bit of paper or at the computer, and discovering a nicely-polished phrase, and hearing the murmurs of pleasure at bursting the boundaries of language. You rarely get that pleasure at Wikipedia, no murmurs or ripples of praise. On the contrary, it all gets turned back into some horrid 'enyclopedic' prose.

You will say this is just me. To prove it is not, here is a nice essay by the strangely-named 271828182, whose work on Wikipedia I admire. I don't understand 'Continental philosophy', but he presents it in a readable and entertaining way that makes his contributions valuable. And here is Skoojal changing it :

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=219672716

I.e. from "Deleuze, for his part, said Foucault's comment was "a joke meant to make people who like us laugh, and make everyone else livid."". Skoojal removes the 'for his part' because the personal turn of phrase looks unencyclopedic to him ("context makes clear Deleuze was speaking for himself"). Even worse, he has second thoughts, and changes it to 'speaking for himself'...

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=219672716

271828182 rv's back here

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=219681136

but the experience of dealing with this clod must be painful, and I fear losing another good writer.

[edit] In fact he left this note on my page.



That captures it beautifully. 'A lumberjack's collection of axes to grind', 'stylistically clumsy', the strategy of heavy citation leaving "a piecemeal string of references, with the spirit and style washed out". Murmurs and ripples from the writers gathered round the 1948 Remington.

Actually, it's a name that's eminently natural.

Jon

OMG how clever of you to spot that.

You guys know that HUMINT means human intelligence, i.e. people as sources of intel, right?

This is major spook-speak, and whoever wrote this --- well it looks as if were lifted out of the KUBARK manual, or Dod or something link taht.

And I wish to God I didn't know this. Four freaking months ago, I'd have though HUMINT was a brand of honey.

First thing I thought of, too, when I saw the term

Well, yes, but if you want to be part of the Lost Generation in Paris, and then later put it down on your Remington while the gulf breezes of Key West blow through your upstairs writers' studio, you've sort of come to the wrong place with Wikipedia. It was never meant to evoke a subtle sense of anything-- it's a blunt and well-used forging tool. The unique writer's voice should almost be gone from an encylopedia. It detracts from the flow of information. Or course, there's a debate on what counts as "information" in the humanities, and there's the rub.

If it will make you feel any better, it's not just Wikipedia. I had a book chapter not long ago returned to me for approval by a New York publisher, after having been through several levels of the editing which is done for the larger houses by English lit majors that they hire to do copyedit work. The results were as bad as Wikipedia. One expects blue pencil, but that was before WORD allowed copyedits in a rainbow of colors, with snide remarks found like Easter Eggs as you walk over them with a cursor. Not only had my essay been expurgated of all but the basic punctuation marks, but the language had been completely blandified. And not because I insisted on using words like that last one. Ms. Manners had not stopped at the choice of words, but had decided to venture from language into content in order to politically correct my understanding of human evolution (the very idea of the division of labor between the sexes-- it's sexist!). And for good measure I had to deal with things like the spelling-out of all numbers below 100; it being understood that the general public might need it, and would be frightened by two numerals together bumping uglies.

But I put up with it, and it's been published and people are reading it and it's been well-reviewed (probably mostly due to the other contributors). So you do what you have to. I'm not about to sacrifice myself for my art, dynamiting the house I designed because somebody wants to put a Greek facade on it. I write to be read, so I'm like those shameless English actors who don't care what billing they get, or if it's a major film, or a cleaning product commercial.

M.

It sticks out about as badly as pi. Feynman said some sizable fraction of physicists' locked filing cabinets at Los Alamos opened to simple math and physical constants like e, ln2, and the fine-structure constant, that they had to memorize anyway (in the days before the internet). Give a chemist a computer and he's going to use the password krypton, ha. If you were security, you'd have to disable it.

No, this didn't make me feel any better. And I never had such a bad experience from a publishing house. Their readers are generally very good, in my (limited) experience.

US/UK differences maybe? I think the US is more blandified-er than the UK. Could be wrong.

That's because you live in the middle of the country.

j/k

sort of

More seriously, its a grass is greener issue. There's plenty blandy about the UK. You only see the cool mod stuff from abroad. Same as for the US - from the outside it looks to be the hottest coolest 'xciting place ever, whereas the subjective experience isn't necessarily that, neither for every US person, nor everwhere in the US.

The sad fact is, that every country is full of grandmas with attics full of old fashioned weird smelly stuff , arrogant people who think they know everything , and suspicious people that think foreigners are out to get them .

Once you figure that out, the rest is all sort of easy.

Milton, could you provide a link to your chapter? I would like to read some of your handiwork.

Greg

Oh, I know the UK has bland. I've been to Ipswitch, after all.
Ya but it's DIFFERENT smelly stuff and DIFFERENT furriners. But I take your point.


Wouldn't that, um, out him?

I thought he recently told us that "Milton Roe" is his actual name, in real life?