Vanity Fair Article, page 122, July 2008

In the midst of a number of internet wunderkinds, they put in sage words from the beneficent Sole Flounder. (or was it "Dictator" - 'member that?)

QUOTE

Jimmy Wales: How do you innovate a social community - social rules and norm that allow or good-uality work to take place? What you have to balance there are, on the one hand, if a Web site is essentially a brutal police state where every action could easily result in random blocking or banning from the site and nobody can trust anything - that doesn't work. Complete and total anarchy, where anyone can do anything, also doesn't work. It's actually the same problem we face off-line. It's the problem of living together. It's the problem of good city government.

Jimbo! I thought all we need was to get away from the red tape! Isn't that what you told us at the WEF Middle East?

Wow, that's dense. Complete and total anarchy results in essentially a brutal police state where every action could easily result in random blocking or banning from the site and nobody can trust anything. And Wikipedia is a perfect example of that principle.

This Wikipedia accident sure got to Jimbo's head. It's sad, really.



No, it's a much different problem, because online communities are completely voluntary. You aren't subject to the rules of Wikipedia at birth, you choose to participate and become a part of them.

Oh I know - this is simply more retarded Jimbo-dom. I find it amusing that he'd mention "police state" though. Because that's what Wikipedia is, in essence. It's so revealing, and SUCH bad NLP.

NLP would be Jimbos thing. He's one of those "I'm above psychology as I'm objectivist" types.

Back to the Police State comment: How many people here belong to other chat boards or websites? I've belonged to several. They were "policed by volunteers" and none of them were *ever* as abusive as Wikipedia.

NOT a one.

Oh! Oh! Newsflash - now he's calling Wikipedia a "social community" not an encyclopedia. A smidgen of honesty........ so "Freudian Slip", Jimbo.

Ok, repeatedly calling Wikipedia a police state is absurd hyperbole, and there's no point to it. As noted, the comparison is inapplicable from the get-go because it's a voluntary community.

Moreover, I don't think it's even that "oppressive" as online communities go. What makes it different and troubling is that it impacts the lives of non-voluntary real fucking people who can't choose to ignore its capricious decisions.

Point of fact, Wikipedia would be significantly more ethical if it were more "totalitarian" about treating people--non-members, even--with respect.

Besides, if you want to compare it with a government, it's a group of territorial warlords emerging from anarchy. There's no central authority to qualify as any kind of unified state. If it's a police state, it's one with no ideology, no border control, a crippling respect for anonymity, and rogue agents who can do almost anything they want with impunity. In other words, it suffers from too little control, and Jimmy's paranoia about becomeing a "police state" demonstrates how it got this way.

But hey, tell us more about the WP brownshirts. I'm sure that'll help your cause lots.

Dear Mr. "Duh" ONE

Jimbo brought up to topic of "police state" in an statement in a recent article in Vanity Fair (July 2008).

"Police State" were Jimbo's words. Ergo, if you have a "brownshirt beef™", please, DO visit his freaking talk page to discuss.

Thank you.

Warmly,
DL

You say, "back to the police state comment" then call wikipedia the most abusive site you've ever visited. If you didn't mean to analogize wikipedia to a police state then you must be babbling. Sorry, I won't take your remarks so seriously next time.

You twisted my words - which is bullshit.

• I wrote that I've belonged to communities before, for years. None functioned in such an abusive manner as does Wikipedia. PERIOD. I again refer you to the READING IS FUN-DAMENTAL website.
• I noted that Jimbo mentioned "police state" - which is an indicative Freudian slip. Learning what a Freudian slip is might take a bit of study for you too. I suggest you give it a try.
• I implied that Jimbo's mention of police state was ironic, given current practice. You missed that nuance entirely.

I frankly find it hard to believe you to be capable of taking anything seriously, with such a low level of substantive reading comprehension.

If you don't like what I write, then don't read it.

In a pm, DL calls this criticism of him "frankly purile." He sure uses a lot of literally colorful words and blunt instruments ("Mr. Duh") for what he claims to be a simple misunderstanding on my part.

I'm really not interested in insulting people here. Wikipedia suffers from shockingly little control and should actually be much more aggressive. That's my only point, and it stands.

If anyone is butthurt by that, I can't really help that, but it was not my intention. Calling Wikipedia a police state is absurd, whoever might say it.

A metaphor of "police state" could be used. WP is not a democracy. Put it like this, the admins are the police, and when in trouble, they secretly email each other, as in recent Elonka case where Lar and herself were emailing. I have witnessed it so often on WP where admins were secretly emailing each other, making policy behind closed doors. Maybe not call it a police state if you like, but it works very much like one indeed.

I repeat (as I have about 20 times) Jimbo brought up the verbiage. I commented on the irony. You continue to have a hissy fit.

What is it about the words "police state" that bother you?

Why not ask Jimbo why he used them in a benchmark-manner to analogize the wikipedia webspace?

What's the big deal?

Let it go. Seriously.

(eyeroll again and again)

"Hissy fit"? I re-read my comments, and they seem well-measured to me. I'm not coining derisive monikers and inlining patronizing links, for example.

I'm not here to attack people; it's not interesting.

I post to this site to discuss Wikipedia, so there are two things I would like to know before continuing:

1. Do you, in fact, compare Wikipedia to a police state? Your initial posts suggest that you do but you're the expert of your own beliefs, so I'll deffer to you. Yes, I get that Jimbo first brought up the word, but he didn't compare the site to a police state, so I've got no beef with that particular non-analogy. I'm not chastising it because the term is somehow offensive in a vacuum, but because it's a common mistake. Like Larry Sanger, I believe wikipedia suffers from insufficient authority. So, do you think it's like a police state or not? Your comments imply that you do; I figured that you thought Jimbo's mention was ironic, probably because you actually think the analogy is apt. But I could be wrong, and I seem to have hit a nerve (unless you're just trolling).

Which brings me to 2: Do you want to discuss ideas, or just exchange insults? I'm not interested in the latter. It's fine if that's your cup of tea, but it's not for me.


EDIT: OK, I've looked into your tarpitted piss fights (top-notch comment by Piperdown) and I have concluded that you're not here for the same reasons I am. Not a judgment against you as a person, or your intelligence, or anything else. And it's most certainly not Jimbo's fault. It's just not worthwhile for me to talk to you, DL.

I sincerely hope you find what you're looking for.

Not to be an "accuracy Nazi," but Jimbo seems to be speaking in the conditional. "If a Web site is essentially a brutal police state," he says, which a website is not, obviously, nor is it anarchy. I've never heard of a website referred to in this fashion.

I don't follow the context of his question, though. Is he being asked this, or is he just blathering? If you were to take him seriously, he would seem to be saying a police state must be balanced with anarchy, and that WP is a successful product of this. Or he is rejecting both and saying the problem of WP is the problem of municipal government, which it it not either... but which probably would be a better metaphor for it were it not for WP:NOT.

I agree wholeheartedly.

I thank you.
My intelligence thanks you.
Everything else thanks you.
True. There's some things that Jimbo cannot be blamed for, as hard as we all *do* try. (giggle)
(whispers 'thank god')


I hadn't realized this was a dating site. But I accept our breakup.

Now.. What was the article again? Oh yes.

Wikipedia has nothing on abusiveness compared to just dozens of websites I can think of off the top of my head, starting with, oh, 4chan. However, Wikipedia differs from those seething cesspools in that they're immediately obvious as cesspools. Wikipedia, on first glance, appears to be a meaningful resource with some degree of respectability. It's only after significant investigation that one breaks through the crust and discovers the cesspool lurking beneath. That's what makes it so much more insidious than 4chan: real people (who are unlikely to undertake that investigation) will take it seriously, and as a result real people will be injured as a result.

Kelly, that's spot on. I think that you should expand on this as a blog post for the WR blog.....

Yes. A few days into the cruise you say: "Holy shit, I'm surrouded by nuts!"

There are even worse cases than WP in the real word, of course (one of them being the above). I can think of whole areas of academia at certain Universities where you can spend years getting your ticket to the ball, only to realize you're surrounded by nuts. The walled gardens on WP are pale imitations of the versions of them in the real world.

It's just that WP is so pervasive. I can't think of any academic area, even the crazy ones, that are controlled by so few people and have such a far-reaching influence on the daily life of developed english-speaking countries in 2008. Hopefully we've hit some kind of peak of this, and the various WP alternatives will releave the oppressiveness, soon.