Did anyone read this book yet?

The fact that "unauthorized and objective" are the first words that appear on the cover, and that Slim Shanky appears to recommend it, is enough reason for me not to pick it up. Still, there is some indication that this book is not as fluffy and puffy as Andrew Lih's book.

Note also that Dalby has had a Wikipedia account since February 2006, and he has a BLP which he has edited himself many times.

I was planning to purchase a copy. It appears to be self-published, which usually suggests the amateur hour, and I sincerely hope the book doesn't waste time circling about the inevitable chair throwing that increasingly passes for adult conversation and academic discussion.

When I last looked at him, I was impressed by his authorship of many articles in quite good Latin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Andrew_Dalby/Begun



Cheese is solid food made from the milk of cows, goats, sheep or of other mammals.

Some interesting material in his user space here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Andrew_D...d_and_Wikipedia

where he mentions the Law incident.

Law is not in the book, but ChildofMidnight and his weirdly funny food obsessions are.

This is a riot, considering who gets into the book: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Andrew_D...ned_in_the_book

I especially like that Keeper76 is in the book. What has he ever done except complain about how boring it is to be an admin?

No mention of User:Wikipedia Review or User:Thekohser? Can't be a very informative book, then.

Welcome to WR, sappho. This your book, perchance?

Actually it's not my book; I just happened to think it was rather good and was interested to see what a bunch of other editors thought.
Seems to be a bit of rivalry happening?





Funny, Dalby only mentions Keeper76 for closing a debate - one he didn't take a part in.

Ah. So just "living in The Aquitaine in a very similar way", then.

I'm rather skeptical of a book only held in eight libraries in the whole world and evidently self-published. I also hesitate to read anything that David Shankbone calls "an excellent resource" The one review on Amazon also suggests that it may be even more fanboyish than the Lih book.

It's really time for someone to step up and write a serious, scholarly account of Wikipedia (complete with reference to the peer reviewed literature) and release it through a major university press.

Having now read Slim Shanky's full review, even if I take it at face value (always a leap of faith with Slim Shanky), I would still have to give the book a rating of "UB".

Shankbone needs a proofreader:

No understand "UB"

Great research, Mr. Dalby.

Actually, Keeper could get a brief mention for the period in 2008 when his talk page became a mini-MySpace with every nutty character dropping in for jokes, complaints, baseball talk and (my favorite) a barnstar competition. It was a lot of fun for awhile, and it showed that Wikipedia could foster a positive atmosphere. But that kind of stuff was later discouraged.



And not make money on the book, or get any serious promotion or proper commercial distribution? Thanks, I know about the university press system in the US -- wrong way to go on this subject, sadly.

Ullan Bataar I think.

That or utter bollocks.

Nope.

Correct.

It was subtle, but did I detect a hint of self-serving argument from Shankbone in the section entitled "Default to keep when no consensus to delete"? I guess he hasn't given up on having his own WP article yet.

And he won't, ever.

As for the Dalby book, I guess I'll have to read it to be strictly fair about it, but by all accounts it appears that the vast preponderance of the "research" he did on it was purely based on his own interactions with, and reactions to, other Wikipedians on Wikipedia. If there's any negative criticism in it, that's probably due to the fact that some forms of negative criticism are increasingly appearing on Wikipedia itself due to the fact that more and more WP'ers are finally figuring out how messed up it all is.

The book doesn't appear to have any substantive outsider perspective to it at all, and therefore any attempt to sell it as "objective" is probably just false advertising.

It seems much worse than Lih's book. Lih only lightly touched on any topics relating to criticism of Wikipedia but when he did he was fairly even handed.

As I learn more about the book, I am becoming increasingly convinced that GBG and Limey are correct, and that I was being too generous initially. This thing may indeed be fluffier and puffier than a Hello Kitty plushy.

However, the only way I could be sure is to read it. Although there are two college libraries less than an hour's drive from my house, it appears unlikely the book will show up at either. It is the first release from a startup publisher in deepest, darkest Somerset.

The domain name siduri.co.uk is owned by [redacted per author's request -- HK].

Andrew Dalby's bio was created by Charles David Douglas (T-C-L-K-R-D) , whose wikicareer consisted of 13 edits and lasted 2 hours and 8 minutes. Andrew Dalby (T-C-L-K-R-D) joined in in editing it 10 minutes after creation. I wonder how many other accounts he has? I bet Everyonehasashare (T-C-L-K-R-D) is one.

Clicking on the last link produces nothing because that user has no userpage, and has made only 8 edits:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contr...eryonehasashare

However, you're probably right that it's a sock (and having edited Andrew Dalby, an illegal one, too).

I am rather sorry to have bothered you all - my intention was simply to discuss a book. I guess that's not going to happen here. Sock puppets are not among my interests.

If the insinuation above is correct -- that Dalby authored his own bio on WP and maintained it with sockpuppets -- don't you think that might be relevant to the book? I haven't read it, but these types of issues are discussed, aren't they? Is Dalby writing objectively or from a self-interested point of view?

If he's playing games on WP and condemning the gameplayers in the book, it doesn't say much for his veracity. On the other hand, if he isn't pointing out that these types of things go on all the time on WP, he's leaving out a large part of the story.

No bother, really. Even if you really are Dalby (as I still suspect), this has been an interesting and revealing thread-- most certainly when compared with a lot of recent threads here involving little or nothing more than tales of personal clashes between wiki-celebrities that no one in the wider world gives a toss about, or has any reason to.

In fairness to Dalby, it has to be noted that the book selling market is a very rough one for new authors to break into, and can still prove rather rough on authors who are established but not yet well known to the book-buying public, and that are not already proven money-makers. Smaller publishing houses run on rather thin margins and cannot be expected to expend as much as one thin dime beyond their fixed costs to promote the book of an author in that position. As I understand it, the major houses are not much better in this regard. Such authors are then naturally left in the position of flogging their own work the best way they how.

So, while sockpuppetry may be considered some sort of major felony in the narrow world of wiki, to the rest of the known universe it is a piffle hardly worthy of mention. Indeed, sockpuppetry on WP and creating an account here in order to flog a book is pretty small beer when compared to the japeries that many authors have gotten up to in the past to get their books noticed.

For the most part, they cannot – that’s where PR professionals come in. I used to run a company that did PR for smaller indie publishers and we never had problems getting our clients media coverage – from “The Today Show” and People Magazine to Wired and the Associated Press. So what if the publishing company was in some lady's garage instead of Fifth Avenue? With the right pitch and the right connections, you can promote anything in major media.

If Dalby is reading this, here is my professional advice: if you are doing this yourself, prepare to spend at least six-to-eight months in active promotion of your work. As an example, my latest book came out in June and I am still doing outreach to the media – some new reviews/interviews were just published and I am a guest on a Las Vegas talk show later this week. You have to keep blowing your own horn – once you stop, there’s only silence.

But I am lucky because I know how the U.S. media works and how to pitch stories. If Dalby has no PR experience, however, he better get himself a good publicist ASAP. Otherwise, no one outside of the WP clique will know this book exists.

My commonest complaint against Wikipedians is that they are unable to recognise how poor some of the encyclopedia is. The encyclopedia can be good when it comes to subjects are essentially a list of facts, especially when the list comes in a predetermined order such as a biography (you work through the subject's life in order). It is often good in scientific subjects where there is little disagreement about the facts.

In subjects where a degree of organisation and summarisation is required, and especially where the subject is one that people think they are good at, but experts know they aren't, the result is nearly always poor. My bemchmark is the article on existence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence which I have tried to tidy up in the past, but which always degrades. In its current state it is a complete mess, and bears no comparison with the corresponding article in SEP: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existence .

Taking another example, which is superficially much better, Romanticism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism.

1. The first paragraph is good as an overall summary, except it uses the word 'complex' which says nothing (which major intellectual movements aren't complex?).

2. The second is not bad, except for the bit about 'natural epistemology of human activities' which is vacuous.

3. In the third ('our modern sense ...' the Wikirot has already set in. One of the important ideas of Romanticism has been added in as an afterthought, probably by someone who knew that it was important, but could not see how to integrate it into the introduction.

4. By the fifth paragraph it has turned into a personal essay, entirely unreferenced (some of it is correct, but little of it belongs in an intrdoction).

5. Two areas where the impact of Romanticism was most profound, music and nationalism are hardly mentioned in the introduction. The latter is so important there is even a separate article on the subject http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_nationalism .

6. The first section ('characteristics') begins with the awful 'In a basic sense'. Even good writers will suffer this verbal equivalent of a tic as they struggle to bring their thoughts together to surround the entirety of their subject. But a good writer is aware of this and always goes back and removes such meaningless phrases.

7. The first two sentences of that section are a longwinded attempt to say that no one has a good idea what Romanticism really is. The quotation from Baudelaire is good, but this should have begun the section. The last paragraph of the section 'Many intellectual historians ...'. is pure OR. Note the telltale word 'key' which like the word 'theme' is a mark of the amateur writer. It occurs 3 times in the article.

8. Next a section on music, even though music wasn't mentioned in the intro. The section is poor and patchy, and reflects the problem of summarising what is important in an area which is so large and varied. There is too much detail on Beethoven and not enough on other Romantic giants. Nothing on the late Romanticism that began the modern school (e.g. Schoenberg), which would have neatly closed the section, as well as connecting the subject to the modern era.

9. Nothing written about Caspar David, even though an his wonderful 'Wanderer ...' accompanies the introduction.

10. A disproportionate amount on American Romanticism, even though it was not central to what was essentially a European movement.

11. An entire section on 'Influence of European Romanticism on American writers' - but no section on its influence on other countries?

12. Hardly anything on Byron, who was central to the movement.

And this is one of the better articles.

Well, I think you have to define and rank your alternatives here, bearing in mind that the rankings are going to be subject to personal opinions based on personal values. In my case, I'd say that an article collaboratively written by two experts is better than an article written by one expert, but an article written by one expert is still better than an article written by any number of people who don't really know much about the subject at all. But at the same time, that basic presumption doesn't apply equally to all topic areas, and certainly not all individual articles.

In this specific case, comparing the vagaries of English usage to whatever the generally-preferred best practices are for encyclopedic content development is like comparing apples to cheese blintzes. Even if you compare English to, say, French, you'll see significant differences in the ways the two languages have been developed and shaped; French is (relatively speaking) a "controlled" language for which there have long been efforts to maintain "purity," while English is practically the opposite, taking in words and usage from all over the place. So, you probably could be an expert on French and be considered definitively right or wrong on any given question, but for English, ehhh, maybe not so much.

For further reading, Simon Winchester wrote a book about the development of the OED called The Meaning of Everything that should be required reading for all high-level WP'ers - it could give them (you?) a fairly good idea of the long-term advantages and disadvantages of all-inclusive collaborative content development. The gist of it is that the OED took over 70 years to complete, and it wouldn't have been completed at all if it hadn't had competent leadership and a well-defined chain of command; it didn't always have those things and during the periods when it didn't, it was at serious risk of becoming a dead project. Meanwhile, Wikipedia has never really had those things, IMO.

Ultimately, I'm not saying that quality articles can't be produced by amateurs and tyros. What I am saying is that it's not such a good way to do it, and also that this digression, which came about because of a typo made by Shankers that you tried to defend as "acceptable usage," is silly.


I have to agree with Greg on this one, actually - that really is kind of a moronic assertion...


Indeed, it would be good to get this thread back on track - Mr. Dalby just registered an account here, presumably to participate in this thread. (Though at the time I write this he hasn't yet validated it with an e-mail confirmation.)

I have yet to see you give any argument that Wikipedia gets anywhere near the result of a carefully planned and executed work by experts.

[Moderator's note: All of the player-vs-player stuff in this thread has been split and put here in the Tar Pit.]

Once again: I have Dalby's book.
It appears to be poorly written and very fanboyish, despite the promotional blubs claiming it to be some kind of exposé or critique.

It's a freak-show, basically. I just can't take seriously a book that makes statements like this:



Knowing the histories of those "brave" people, this statement is either totally insane, or was intended to be satirical--and failed.

Cast of characters, or the usual suspects?

But did his book get a glowing foreword from Jimbo? Given his inclusion of Danny and Anthere in his pantheon of "heroes", I'm guessing NOT.

No, that doesn't surprise me, and you know perfectly well why.

When you publish a ®Real™ book that makes ®Real™ assertions about ®Real™ persons under their ®Real™ names, then you have to take certain ®Real™ professional precautions.

Precisely why the Wiki-Φiction that we know as Wikipedia will provide such Wiki-Φertile material for an endless supply of Derivative Satellite Sub-Φictions for as long as it exists.

Jon

That's part of why that book is such a joke.

He does not mention Jayjg at all, and the Israel-Palestine editwars rate a few paragraphs (pp. 182-183).

He gives Mantanmoreland only the briefest mention (p. 183).

The editwarring that involved Barack Obama and Sarah Palin articles got plenty of play (pp. 181-182, 209-213), yet the long, ongoing and extremely nasty Armenian-Azeri editwar got only about one page (pp. 170-71).

There's plenty about the Essjay mess, but Poetlister got a short dismissal, and there's not a peep about FT2 or Carolyn Doran.

He even talked about the JHK vs. H. Jonat editwar, which was in late 2001 and which very few people even remembered.

Why doesn't he mention recent (major) AN/I pests like Ottava Rima or Jehochman or Will Beback? Where's JoshuaZ?

And there's a lot of talk scattered everywhere about the French Wikipedia, which I guarantee is of virtually no interest to any en-wiki users, especially on WR.

In short, this is not a book. It's a blog smeared onto dead trees.

Some of the people on the list seem like peculiar choices to write about: J.delanoy, Johnbod, Keeper76, Aleta, Kelapstick, Kevin, Kingturtle and Pickles4u (who?).

Eric, how did those characters get cited? And why are they there?

Various reasons. As far as I can see, some of them seem to have been involved in editing things that Dalby himself was interested it. Plus he talks about a number of disputes that happened long ago. (Did I not say it is a blog smeared onto paper?)

He gives a LOT of mentions to Anthere. Go figger.

I could answer you with my own question: Why are there now three poorly-written happy-talk
fan books about Wikipedia, and hardly any outright criticisms of it in print? Why is Andrew Keen
all alone in the desert?

Maybe because WP isn't as life shattering as we think it is?

Because, despite what some people here seem to think, there is far more to praise than to criticise? Nobody (other than David Gerard) says Wikipedia is perfect and flawless, but I think at least 3 to 1 is right.

I thought I'd look in ...



We decided you'd be right! Hence, although those words appeared on a draft of the cover (maybe still visible on some websites), they don't appear on printed copies.



It is relevant. The book discusses how important it is for anyone whose living depends on publicity to be on Wikipedia. I try to be honest about it, because of course this imperative applies to me as a writer:





I'm sorry you have that impression (especially because you write well). People tell me that I write well: if it's true at all, it's true when I write slowly. We wanted to get this book out fast, and the publishers managed it extremely well: it was being distributed less than eight weeks after I completed the final chapter. Believe me, that's rare. But not enough time devoted to re-reading, I guess.



On this you're very wrong. I don't say that these or any Wikipedians do everything right. I say that these and some others, because of their work on the site, face personal attacks, harassment, public verbal abuse -- over long periods -- that might well be more than you or I could stand up to.

Do you mention those who face personal attacks, harassment, public verbal abuse and worse because of their efforts in criticizing Wikipedia?

For that matter, is Wikipedia Review (where the Essjay scandal started), Hivemind, Wikipedia Review and other criticism sites even mentioned in your book?

If they're not given significant coverage, I'd hardly call that an "objective" treatment....

I'll answer that one ahead of Eric. The book's real aim is to make non-Wikipedians think about how this resource, used by them every day, gets to be the way it is. All the 220 users in the index of usernames are in there as examples. They did something, good or bad, to an article whose history I want the reader to follow: created it, improved it, categorised it, vandalised it, unprotected it, added irrelevances to it, talked endlessly about it, etc.

I decided at the outset that when I discussed any Wikipedia contribution I should attribute it to its author. The book would have been written faster if I hadn't chosen to do that, but it would certainly have failed to make Wikipedia come alive to non-Wikipedians. (It may still have failed, of course!)

I never interacted with any of these 220 users before they went into the book. And yet ... I have to admit ... the choice isn't mathematically random. Most of the names are of people who made some contribution (whatever it is, good or bad) more than once: they typify an aspect of the site, or an aspect of their own work on the site. Their name passed in front of my eyes two or three times during my research, and I said to myself: go back, use that first example (where the hell was it?), it'll link in here and it gives me another (virtual) personality.



Tell me who you mean and I might tell you whether they are in. Here's the first mention of Wikipedia Review. This comes in a survey of criticism sites:

And of course the Review is mentioned at the crucial moment in the Essjay story:

Hello Andrew. I am intrigued to learn that there is at least one other person who reads medieval Latin (Andrew claims to read it in bed). Welcome, Andrew. I am puzzled our paths never crossed. I made considerable contributions to the medieval philosophy and theology sections of Wikipedia. You specialise in Medieval history, yes?

I was impressed by the quality of your contributions to the Latin Wikipedia.

I see. Further research suggests it was changed to "confessions of a contributor".

You may want to call your publisher-- it would appear that theirs is among the "some websites" that are still displaying the earlier draft image.

As long as you're Reviewing The Situation, Mister Wiki-Φagin, you might think of changing the title, too, to something like this:

• The World OR Wikipedia — Can You Choose Wisely?
• The World OR Wikipedia — Take Your Pick, Jimli …

Maybe the Review should start a Name That Book contest?

Jon

Ha!



I'm puzzled too. I haven't yet explored the full story of your struggles on Wikipedia, but I've made a start.

I usually avoid philosophy, though I encounter occasional marginal figures, such as John of Garland. I'm trying to improve Vicipaedia, and my Latin, at the same time. There's plenty to do, and fewer content disputes ...

COMMENT:
And yet, in your mention of 220 users there is no mention of Kintetsubuffalo (T-C-L-K-R-D) , a fellow English sinophile and orientalist like yourself, who shares your passion for Burma and who collaborated so notably with you on the bio of James George Scott. And who was busy editing your own BLP within a day of you starting it. Now, that's personal attention.

I'll bet poor Kintetsu's heart is downcast. He has contributed 10 times your content in the time you've both been on WP since the end of 2005, and typifies the kind of editor who actually builds WP rather than participates in its drahma. His userpage says:



Good for him. He shares an amazing number of mainspace articles with you in editing, mainly due to your shared interests. So this is one of the better examples of how WP actually works correctly-- the shared work between yourself and him, with no bickering and no edit wars going to RfC and ArbCom. But it doesn't make it into your book.

SlimVirgin, Durova, and Essjay do.

You do see where I'm coming from with this criticism, do you not? If your editor choices are meant to be illustrative, you missed one of your better chances to illustrate something. Wikipedia doesn't have to be the drama-factory that it is. It's the drama-whores and bullies there that make it so. And the vandals and POV-pushers. Some editors fit none of these categories.


-- Milton