Raejohn Shiplee. Awesome.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Art...Raejohn_Shiplee

One down, just 200,000 to go.

Or is it more, now?

There are currently just over 411,000 in CAT:BLP. There are surely more that are not categorized.

That's a staggering number. So something like 15% of wikipedia's articles are on people nobody will remember or care about tomorrow?

The US government is now mirroring Wikipedia? That's not good.
http://translate.dc.gov/ma/enwiki/en/Raejohn_Shiplee

Well, not exactly mirroring themselves, but redirecting to 500,000 mirrored Wikipedia pages on a website owned by a Nevada LLC that uses a drop box for a mailing address.

Basically. And people wonder what I'm talking about when I say BLP work is overwhelming.

I remember arguing at an AfD, maybe 18 months or so ago, that an article on a glamour model shouldn't be deleted, even though the AfD was initiated by someone who had received an email from the model herself asking for it to be deleted.

I'm now deeply ashamed I did that; her wishes ought to have been respected. In some ways I think what I did in opposing that deletion is far worse than what you, Lara, did in supporting a friend at the RfA bearpit.

But here is something I genuinely don't understand: why does it matter so much to you, Lara? Especially in view of what just took place. Why knock yourself out on a project that is designed to fail, especially a project that is populated by people who will not hesitate to immediately insert their knives between your shoulder blades in the event the opportunity should present itself?

I see a lose-lose situation. Or maybe I am not looking in the right place.

At least you get it now. I'm arguing with people who can't seem to grasp that we're working on an alleged encyclopedia, not some dumpster of tabloid garbage and interesting stories. "Reliable sources determine what's notable." No. What the fuck. We have policies and guides about this crap. Not everything is encyclopedically notable.


Some people, like MZMcBride, work on the BLP problem for the project. Because they want to protect the Foundation. I sure as hell am not one of those people.

So why do you do it, then?



You know, Malley, you are a genuinely nice person.

I am, you're quite right.

For the subjects. Because it needs to be done and there aren't enough people doing it. Particularly not enough loud people. I tend to be noisy.

You need to be an admin Lara. Do you have any thoughts on another RfA?

Of course I am right! I am occasionally usually often always an excellent judge of character!



Look who's talking! I can't wait to see your return to the RfA forums, Malley.

Probably an Easter RFA. Before then is sure to tank. Even then is probably going to tank.

Possibly Lara is into pain. That next RfA....

Horsey, you and she can give each other riding crops for Christmas. If you know what I mean. And I think you do.

I'll go through with the promised RfA, even though I continue to have major misgivings about the wisdom of it. I've already been told what an emotionally fragile wanker I am, and that I ought to stick to the unimportant stuff like writing articles, so how much worse can it get? Should be fun.

That settles it -- these discussions have become too smutty! Next thing I know, you will be telling me that "innuendo" is the Italian word for "sodomy."

I am going to Utah, join the Mormon Church and become a missionary. I see that as my future! Can anyone here help me get into the missionary position?



I would recommend changing your screen name to Pastor Malleus, but I suspect that trick only works once.

Seriously, if you are having doubts about the process, then put it on indefinite hold. Why torture yourself -- for what purpose, to close mindless AfD screaming matches or to unblock Giano for the 900th time?

If you can write, then write -- it is no coincidence that very few admins have any genuine research and writing skills and that very few truly talented WP editors are admins. And if you can get published and paid for it, then pursue that, by all means!

I still can't believe that you fooled me with that Pastor bollocks, I was completely taken in.

Anyway, to answer your question, there's no torture. What can anyone possibly say that I haven't already heard a hundred times before? It may have hurt the first time, but not now.

Here you go: the official Men On a Mission calendar:



I think it has some Mormon positions. There's one called "Behold, I stand at the door and knock" which will really make your dog bark.

Nobody caught it -- Tarantino, if you recall, correctly identified the Mrs. Wolpoff sock, but he didn't see the ecumenical connection. In the period between the desysopping of "Pastor Theo" and the open identification of the "banned" editor behind the farce, I received several e-mails from people (including one from Balloonman, who nominated the dirty vicar for adminship), asking: Who are you? I never answered them. Some people on WP thought the "pastor" was Archtransit.

If you look at the "Pastor Theo" RfA and the fatal Eco 3 RfA, you will notice one very strange thing - Keeper76 gave an almost identical endorsement of the two candidates. The "pastor" never spoke to Keeper76, so there was no way for ol' Keep to know there was a sock afoot (sorry). Someone (I think Steve Crossin) asked Keeper76 about his comment afterward, and he shrugged it off that his advice was just "a hunch." I have no clue if he ever added two and two and got one, or if it was just a bizarre coincidence.

Not that anyone cares, but Mrs. Wolpoff was my ninth grade history teacher and Theo is my dog. And my grandfather bet on Ecole Etage for the 1973 Preakness -- I always recalled that name because it was the one and only time that he bet on a horse race!



Well, if Tarantino weren't so observant, you would've received my votes! Sorry that I cannot help you this go-round!



Uh, not quite the Mormons I was hoping to position. Do you have anything a little more feminine?

Sure. Here's one that pretty much encapsulates my own experience with them.

I wonder if a better strategy would be to enlist the help of about 8 or 12 or 31 conspirators and make as many BLP's fester with ridiculously false, but not defamatory information (referenced, of course, to sources that don't say what the edit claims they say!), so that we speed Wikipedia's downhill descent into an utterly laughable quagmire.

They would then be forced to admit that Wikipedia is an awful way to present BLPs, and/or (finally) introduce sweeping extension reforms (like flagged revisions).

I think constantly helping, helping, helping the victims just makes it easier for the caretakers of the site to say the situation is "good enough".

Have a gestalt moment, and let me know (privately) if you'd want to give that a go. Intelligent people could really put some long-lasting whoppers in these biographies.

I mean, seriously, how hard would it be to change this:

Andy Azula lives in Richmond, Virginia.<citation needed>

...to this:

Andy Azula lives in Richmond, Virginia, where he and his sister participate avidly in a mixed softball league.<ref>No mixed signals: New Kent's Mills, Bauer are on same page with deliveries.
Richmond Times-Dispatch (Richmond, VA); May 25, 2007</ref>

Get 12 people to do something like that once or twice a day from "ripened" accounts at different IP addresses, and within a couple of months, the mainstream media and blogosphere would have to start noticing how ludicrous the biographies on Wikipedia are.

The Wikipediots would give these accounts a lot of leeway since they were, after all, finding sources where citations were needed!

You can't convince people that there's anything wrong with a system if you're sabotaging it; they'll just say: "if it wasn't for the saboteurs, we'd have no problem".

Pretty much my own conclusion. Though it is amusing to see Greg arguing the Ragnar Danneskjöld position (even as a philosophical ploy) when I myself have chosen the more moderate Hugh Axton Way of the Cheeseburger (Oh, just google it; it's an Ayn Rand allusion).

See Milton's 18 Promises About Editing Wikipedia, kindly referenced in Wikipedia Scandles on Wikipedia Review:

http://www.wikipediareview.com/Wikipedia_scandals

http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=18620

I try to find a middle way that works for me. And what it is, is this: I'm not going to move a whisker to save even a bit of Wikipedia, if it's not a bit I'm interested in for other reasons. I don't do vandal cleanup, except where I'm working. I don't go near BLP. The whole rotten ediface can fall down in a giant cloud of dust, as long as the wall I'm doing the fresco on, stays up through it.

"Why, Milton," I hear, "Don't you know that what goes around, comes around?"

Yes, ma'am, but the content of Wikipedia is not Wikipedia. The structure of the thing can indeed collapse and it won't hurt the content a bit, which is still sitting there, waiting to be mined by somebody with the intelligence to use it to build something better. A fool and his money are soon parted. A bunch of fools and their website knowledge-base, also.

So I putter away and don't get involved about structural problems except to ventolate, after which I feel better. But I don't expect it do any good for WP. And of course it never does, so I'm not disappointed. Meanwhile I write what pleases me. If you don't like it, or don't like that I do it, why you can go *&^%% yourself. I say that in a generic non-personal way.

Milton

That explains a lot. Noisy people make others uncomfortable, and they will do what they can to shut them up. Noisy complaining is the worst. Complainers are the enemy, POV-pushers, fanatics, you must be one o them Deletionists I've heard of, right, Lara?

Why, I cant imagine anythin as danerous to the projec as one o them with a meat ax deleshun button, we were lucky she made that misake with that innertow fella, I bet he were onna them too.

Hey, Lara, I'm an inclusionist, but ... I would do it through layers, and most of those articles would be one layer above the Junkyard layer. The encyclopedic project should include the collection of information, but it becomes an encyclopedia when it is categorized and assigned notability in fields. Raw information isn't "knowledge" yet, even if it is verifiable or even if it is verified. It's just data. My banned friend was a proponent of Pure Wiki Deletion (WP:PWD). I proposed that more namespaces be created, and that deletion, with the exception of what's presently and properly oversighted, would be replaced by move to a lower layer of notability, the lowest layer that isn't actually deleted being the Junkyard. People may still find items of use in the Junkyard. The top layer would be the present mainspace, and mainspace would be carefully maintained with true encyclopedic quality and notability. There would be intermediate layers for extended knowledge on topics. So, with all those biographies, they could be quickly moved -- with consensus a bot could be used -- to one of the lower layers.

Much of what is now deleted would be moved to lower layers as an editorial decision. The top layer would be rigorously notable and not only verifiable but verified by multiple responsible editors. The bottom layer would be practically pure junk, and those articles might be routinely blanked, encouraging them to have informative titles! The layer(s) next to the top might be verified/verifiable and notable with lower levels of "notice" qualifying, and "interesting stuff" we call trivia or fancruft might be elevated above the junkyard. Promoting or demoting an article, then, becomes a matter for editorial consensus, as with any other edit.

Completely removing material would be just as difficult as it is now, requiring more discussion. But shifting an article up or down a layer, quite simply, wouldn't be such a drastic step. Fans know that their special interests don't belong at the top, but they are understandably upset when told that what interests them isn't "human knowledge." Uh, what kind of knowledge is it, then?

Different layers would have different guidelines for inclusion/exclusion. The junkyard layer would be wild and wooly. The top layer would be the encyclopedia that the strongest deletionists hope for. Say there are five layers, 0-4. It would be easier to develop objective standards for notability that might relegate entire fields, except for mention in layer 4 articles, to layer 3 or below. And debate would generally be between say, whether a bibliography belongs in layer 2 or 3, rather than whether it should exist or not, and the only strict layer would be layer 4. That your local newspaper mentions you a few times, so there is verifiable information about you, doesn't qualify an article on you for the top layer. If you are notable in a field, then a top layer article might mention you and have a link to your article that is in a lower layer. Hypertext. The flat Wikipedia structure was asking for trouble, it is the most important way that Wikipedia structure didn't match my expectations from decades ago.

It is as if half the encyclopedic project didn't exist. It does exist, of course, and is reflected through categories and such, but it isn't nearly as prominent as it should see.

Lara was fighting for privacy, it seems, and that's a huge can of worms, and what privacy protections would be built in to the expanded hypertext project is an issue that is beyond addressing at this point. Whatever is settled, it should be, it must be, efficient to maintain, and it is insane to debate each instance; rather, guidelines should be debated and resolved, growing as new instances point out deficiencies. Wikipedia, with its primitive dispute resolution and consensus processes, punted, avoiding making the tough decisions and hoping that the chaotic small-scale process would develop a consensus, as it did, sort of, sometimes, kinda, and with any resulting guidelines not binding but trumped by "actual practice," which means that nobody knows, really, what to expect and huge amounts of effort are wasted.

A fork could fix these problems, but Deus is not going to descend from the skies and create it for you, I suspect. What it would take to create a fork which could realize the original vision would be the same thing that it would take for the present Wikipedia community to resolve the WP problems, so that a fork isn't needed. How can large numbers of people find consensus. Is it possible? If not, the WP problem is impossible, mutually contradictory conditions were set up, and people will continue to break themselves against the wall. But I think it's possible, and the path to it is simple: start organizing, on a small scale, in a way that's scalable to preserve small-group interaction facility when the scale becomes large. At least form small groups to study the problem, and experiment with solutions. That's happening already, and it's why there is some expanding interest in the infamous Eastern European mailing list, which could be such an experiment, as if moves from being the exclusive domain of what I call a "caucus" (in my view that is perfectly legitimate, in itself), to a tool for negotiating consensus in a difficult area.


Right on, Milton. The whole post is worth reading, in fact, it's a rational approach for an individual.

O hai.

I'll pass on the one in the skirt, but the other guy... mmm.

You really think the mainstream media and the blogosphere have the depth to take the argument to that second level? No, of course not. That argument would carry only on some buried WP noticeboard page or mailing list that would reach about 200 people already sold on the wonders of Wikipedia.

My idea would work, if we could just get 12 witty people on cycled IP addresses for four months.

On seeing your use of this smiley, I rather assumed it was Horse posting at first - which gave rather the wrong impression

Rather.

Horsey, just for you, here are the Mormon Muffins.

Horsey like!