Like everyone else, I was once oblivious to the byzantine and often bizarre inner workings of Wikipedia. I had assumed, if I thought anything, that Wikipedia was operated by the same random assortment of marginally competent peons of mediocrity which make up any civil service anywhere. Then I actually started to pay attention and had an experience roughly equivalent to shoving my dick into the platen of an old, rusty typewriter while someone typed out the entire text of "Atlas Shrugged."

I started asking my friends, comrades, and acquaintances about their experiences with Wikipedia and discovered that there are only three types of people: those who have never tried to edit Wikipedia, those who loathe Wikipedia, and those who have just started editing Wikipedia and are filled with the sort of desperate, naive, and slightly psychotic zeal generally found in multi-level-marketers.

I began to wonder about what sort of future Wikipedia could possibly have. I can't help but see the parallels between Wikipedia and MLM schemes such as Amway and Herbalife. People get sucked into the world of multi-level-marketing and have sunshine and lollipops blown up their ass by those who are higher on the steps of the pyramid than them. Because these people are also generally the victim's friends, neighbours, or coworkers, they are given the benefit of the doubt, and the victim buys into the scheme in a sort of half-hearted way. A few months later, sadder, poorer, and (one hopes) wiser (and with a closet full of overpriced diet aids or cleaning supplies of dubious quality), the newcomer quietly cuts her or his losses and moves on to more useful enterprises. Given that the kind of people who prosper inside MLM pyramid schemes are not the kind of folks who tend to attract a lot of friends to begin with, the whole structure begins to feed on itself until it all implodes, leaving a handful of people rich and the vast majority bitter and busted.

I have yet to encounter a single person who has come away from contact with Wikipedia with a positive opinion of the project. Not one. I'm sure there is selection bias here, since the kind of people who prosper inside Wikipedia are not people with whom I would ever care to associate, but it's a fair assumption that my experience is far from unique. Like a MLM scheme, Wikipedia seems to feed solely on that initially very large -- but non-renewable -- group of people who have never had a previous awakening to its nature. Furthermore, a small but significant number of people who have been brutalized by the decaying cogs and wheels of Wikipedia bureaucracy become actively hostile to the project, willingly spending their time warning others to steer clear and trying to bring the machinery to a crashing halt. As time goes by, this group grows ever-larger while the pool of unsuspecting victims grows smaller with each passing day.

Given that Jimbo Wales seems to be exactly the sort of sleazy, New Agey, ultra-capitalist, mealy-mouthed cult leader one usually finds atop an MLM scheme, one is forced to assume one of two things: either Jimbo has willingly blinded himself to all of this with a blindfold of Randian bullshit and has cheerfully consumed his own Kool Aid, or he is a cool and passionless cynic, ready to scoop off all the cream and stroll away when the structure collapses, leaving his foremen, factotums, and feldwebels to lie crushed behind him in the rubble.

All of this seems pretty clear to me, but there is one thing which honestly mystifies me. It is understandable why those who have no knowledge of Wikipedia choose to become involved, for however short that period is. Likewise, the low-level enforcers, gate guards, and such, the ones who generally end up featured here in Wikipedia Review in their own forum, are either just too stupid to understand, or they're getting such a huge boner from their penny ante sadism that they don't care. The ones who confuse me are Jimbo's inner circle, the onces he's dragged with him to Wikia. They've got to be able to see that Wikipedia is doomed as well as I can. They can see the declining user base and the growing percentage of edits dedicated solely to internal bureaucracy (some 25% the last time I checked). Do they think Jimbo is going to take them with him when it all falls apart? Do they really believe there will be enough cream to go around? Do they really think Jimbo is going to care that their futures will burn with Wikipedia, leaving them poisoned by contact with its demise and professionally untouchable?

Smash,

I'm guessing MLM must be Canadian for Pyramid Scheme?

If so, you'll find numerous old threads hereabouts on Wiki-Pyramid Scheming and Viral Marketing Campaigns. There is even — or used to be — a WP article on a combination Alternate Realty Game + Viral Marketing Campaign called … wait 4 it … I Love Bees!

Wiki = Xtreme Viral Markupping Language (XVML)

Jon

Nice post, but don't you know that Jimbo is independently wealthy? He made his millions speculating on foreign currency fluctuations, according to his own biography. He doesn't need all this.

Enough is never enough for the rich. That's why they're rich. To quote The Hobbit, "His rage passes description -- the sort of rage that is only seen when rich folk that have more than they can enjoy suddenly lose something that they have long had but have never before used or wanted." Wealth is a sort of mental illness which feeds on itself until a person becomes what the Buddhists refer to as a hungry ghost, a blind and hollow and desperate creature of nothing but unending hunger, consumed inside and out by their own desire.




MLM = Multi-Level Marketing



Yes, I'm sure I'm far from the first person to put the connection together. Odd that outsiders can see it, but those actively involved with it cannot.

Sorry, it's a bit of an inside joke around here. Jimbo is not independently wealthy, despite the impression you might get reading his biography. See: Jimbo biography to get white-wash, Most protected article on WP to receive more loving.

An insight that was key to Max Weber's analysis of the forces that drive Continuous Production.

Another thing we have a shelf full of dusty old threads about.

Jon

You are not alone. I found the same thing.

I think many of the people who are obsessed with Wikipedia are trying to fill empty voids in their lives. Based on the obnoxious behavior that is rampant among many Wikipedia editors -- especially among the admin class -- I suspect these people have very few offline friends and may have serious problems in dealing with the real world.

The funny thing I found is that almost everyone who writes for Wikipedia has absolutely no writing talent. There are a few people who know how to knit sentences together, but you can count them on your fingers. But, then again, professional writers don't give away free articles without byline credits. This is the Amateur Hour.

Nice post STS. Mr. Awbrey was the first, in his Jonny Cache incarnation to point out to me the Ponze scheme nature of Wikipedia. I would draw on Mr. Twain's description of Tom Sawyer inducing his friends and neighbors to pay him to whitewash his Aunt Polly's picket fence, except without the charm or pastoral innocence.

I know no one, outside of Wikipedia or WR who has ever had any substantial editing experience other than myself. Among my cohort I am often a "first adopter' of technology who tend to be teachers, social workers or lawyers. I never recruited others because at first I was perhaps a bit embarrassed by the geekiness and then shortly later disillusioned. I believe that within the wider community contact with Wikipedia, other than looking something up, is rare and over-estimated by Wikipedians.

That Wales, commodity trader nee internet pornographer brought much "gotcha capitalism" to Wikipedia is no surprise. What is more surprising is how the likes of the EFF, open source advocates, the techie press and shallow technophiles have lapped up the hucksterism.

Moved some OT Post to "Off Topic Economic Posts"

Goddamit, this is why I try not to read WR; 50% decent criticism, 30% slander and stupidity, 20% insane conspiracy theories, This falls into the 30%, and it's also one hell of a generalization. I'm a wikipedia editor, and I mainly write articles. Am I brilliant? No, certainly not. I'm a History student doing an MA, so I have some idea how to write, but I'm not yet a professional and thusly am amateur. Yet, and I imagine like the majority of editors I know, I edit and write on wikipedia as a hobby. I find it relaxing, good writing training, and if someone can learn something from what I write, then all the better.

But I'm not trying to 'fill an empty void in my life', nor am I bereft of offline friends. I don't have a huge amount, but I have more than a few - certainly more than online, especially since I keep forgetting to re-install MSN Messenger. Serious problems dealing with the real world? I can't see how; I've done a History BA and now doing an MA, I have a fiancee and I go out more than occasionally. So could you please stop the slandering? I realize I don't speak for all Wikipedia editors, but I'd like to think I represent a great many of them.

And eventually you'll write something from your expertise that one of the tyros on Wikipedia disagrees with, and when you can't convince him and his gang that you're right, you'll either get fed up and leave Wikipedia on your own, or you'll get battered into submission by the mob and forced to leave Wikipedia.

The only ways to avoid this are to learn to not care if your editing gets turned into gobbledygook by Wikipedia's teeming ranks of idiot editors, to become one of the mobsters yourself, or to leave. One of these three will happen to you eventually. Most reasonable people simply leave, and either stop editing entirely or edit very infrequently.

You've tried all three of these strategies yourself, haven't you, Kelly? But you get tired of it after a while and switch to a different one.

Well, fortunately I've yet to become so bitter about wiki, and I've also yet to see one of these 'teeming ranks of idiot editors' turn any of my articles into 'gobbledygook', and I've been on wiki nearly a year now.

I give you 9 more months.

Hell, I'll be there longer than that; I estimate it'll take at least a year more just to get all the articles done for just one topic.

Tagged for Web Searches under ☼ Sigh ☼

Have you ever thought of working, truly volunteering, in some area of your budding expertise? WMF considers you not a volunteer but merely a person who uses their software and facilities. So no selection, vetting, training, mentoring, review, retention, evaluation etc. You are just some guy wandering in to dump content on their servers. Same as a common vandal as far as they are concerned.

You could tutor kids or volunteer in a museum (I know, Moulton, like you), historical society or a thousand other things that would form real relationships, help people, and earn recognition and contribute to your growth a person and professional. Instead you're just whitewashing somebody else's fence. Believe it or not for every 10,000 edits you make you are forgoing some real opportunities.

Do you think it is at all common among real volunteers in actual non-profits that help people that they flame out in hissy fits? Ask yourself why.

I firmly believe I've done more to benefit society in my three VE sessions testing candidates for ham radio licenses than I did in all my time editing at Wikipedia. And made more real relationships with other people, to boot.

Outside of Daniel Case, I am unaware of any professional writers on Wikipedia (and ol' Danny isn't exactly top of the line). Content wise, the Wikipedia articles run the gamut from mediocre book reports to barely concealed plagiarism to pure shit.

As for you, Mr. Skinny -- if you can write for Wikipedia, you can just as easily write for a real publication -- and get a byline and get paid. If you want training as a writer, join a writer's workshop and get feedback from professional writers -- not a bunch of British teenagers on a block button kick or (God forbid) Guy Chapman on a bad hair day.

The only thing a person learns from Wikipedia is the importance of professional reference texts. When I need facts, I will deal with the pros -- not some hobbyists trying to kill time or (even worse) spending weeks in pursuit of the "FA" icon (woo woo!).

I've been on for two years yesterday (I only remember this because, by happenstance, February 23 is also a significant date in my life for other reasons), and my experience echoes Skinny's. A lot of it's about article selection: the mob just doesn't care much about the biographies of long-dead politicians from Alberta. Of course, I'm well-aware that at any point it *could* become a topic of great interest to POV-pushers and the like, but it seems unlikely. If it does, I'm well aware that I'll either have to abandon the articles or drive myself insane trying to protect them (I like to think I'd take the first route, but that remains to be seen). It is quite possible to edit happily on Wikipedia for years without running into the place's more frustrating elements, provided that you choose sufficiently uninteresting subject matter. I believe Cla68 made a similar suggestion in his advice on FA writing.

Sorry, Sarcey, it doesn't always work that way.

I used to have a strategy of leaving articles that got too hot — yes, that happens even if you avoid Politics and Religion and stick to Math and Dead White Apolitical Philosophers (DWAPs) — retiring for the duration to ever obscurer chambers of Khazad-dûm.

Some of you will know what happens …

Some of you will find out what happens …

Maybe not today … maybe not tomorrow …

Jon

It's like I always say, Skinser - we're here to help each other with intractable problems like what you have. My advice, on the trying not to read WR front, is simply to close your eyes every time it mysteriously pops up on your screen and maybe cruise some decent porn instead (remember to open your eyes again, though. Porn is pointless if you can't see it). And as for the forgetting to re-install MSN Messenger thing - what I did was I tacked a huge notice on the wall above my monitor with "Remember to re-install MSN Messenger!!!" written on it. Worked like a dream. Hope this helps. Hugs.


I like to kick other people too, which is probably why I don't have any friends.