<img alt="" height="1" width="1" />Critical Point of View: A [b]Wikipedia Reader[/b]
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For millions of internet users around the globe, the search for new knowledge begins with Wikipedia. The encyclopedia's rapid rise, novel organization, and freely offered content have been marveled at and denounced by a host of ...
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Wow, over 300 pages of "critical" points of view about Wikipedia, all for free, and not a speck of Awbrey, Finkelstein, or Kohs.
Well, I guess there's one speck, from pg. 13 in the Introduction:
QUOTE
The contributions we bring together do not form an overarching harmony. Indeed, some are
in more or less direct conflict with one another. Some are more critical than others; some
are penned by active Wikipedians, others by people who want nothing to do with the project.
Famous Wikipedia critics, some known for their troll status, such as Jon Awbrey and Gregory
Kohs, who initially participated in the CPOV discussion mailing list, were approached to
contribute to this reader but declined the invitation.
in more or less direct conflict with one another. Some are more critical than others; some
are penned by active Wikipedians, others by people who want nothing to do with the project.
Famous Wikipedia critics, some known for their troll status, such as Jon Awbrey and Gregory
Kohs, who initially participated in the CPOV discussion mailing list, were approached to
contribute to this reader but declined the invitation.
Seth Finkelstein is really taking it to the Wikipedia Signpost:
This touches on another important point -- has Examiner.com been blacklisted on Wikipedia, or is Seth mistaken about HaeB's decision to spell out the link? Could someone please check that? I don't see Examiner listed on the official blacklist.
QUOTE
The CPOV quote strikes me as a gratuitous slam. Even more so because those attacked can't reply on Wikipedia. Yes, I do have a POV of my own here, but that makes me sensitive to the point, not invalidates it. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 04:57, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
I don't think it is "gratuitous" at all to note something about the relationship between the critical approach to Wikipedia that this book represents, and proponents of another critical approach to Wikipedia which many Wikipedians might be more familar with. Here in the "In the news" section we mostly just summarize what has been written elsewhere, and the "can't reply" argument would prohibit doing so for any reports about blocked or banned users. In other words it seems that you should complain to the quoted editors first. Still, I'll note here that Kohs has described his own perspective of the banning of himself, yourself and Awbrey from the CPOV mailing list in posting at Examiner.com: www.examiner.com/wiki-edits-in-national/wikipedia-criticism-group-purges-three-critics
Regards, HaeB (talk) 08:14, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
Indeed, the issues about reply would argue for great sensitivity when reporting on matters about blocked or banned users. And ironically, you could not make the link live due to a blacklist - here: "Wikipedia criticism group purges three critics". Key passage
"The CPOV organisers have decided to remove you from the list. We feel that your contributions are working against the kind of dialogue we would like to see flourish on our list. Our intent is not to nit pick about Wikipedia, show our disdain for it, or to reveal its members to be evil or cult-like, etc. etc. Moreover, we do not wish to alienate people who participate in Wikipedia in our discussion."
Given such an earlier disdainful message from one of the book editors, I believe it was quite unfair for them to write what at least looks like a cheap shot in the book introduction, for declining to then do free work for them. And putting it in Wikipedia's newsletter compounds the attack. Don't deny the choices you make, when it is clear they are choices. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 17:19, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
I don't think it is "gratuitous" at all to note something about the relationship between the critical approach to Wikipedia that this book represents, and proponents of another critical approach to Wikipedia which many Wikipedians might be more familar with. Here in the "In the news" section we mostly just summarize what has been written elsewhere, and the "can't reply" argument would prohibit doing so for any reports about blocked or banned users. In other words it seems that you should complain to the quoted editors first. Still, I'll note here that Kohs has described his own perspective of the banning of himself, yourself and Awbrey from the CPOV mailing list in posting at Examiner.com: www.examiner.com/wiki-edits-in-national/wikipedia-criticism-group-purges-three-critics
Regards, HaeB (talk) 08:14, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
Indeed, the issues about reply would argue for great sensitivity when reporting on matters about blocked or banned users. And ironically, you could not make the link live due to a blacklist - here: "Wikipedia criticism group purges three critics". Key passage
"The CPOV organisers have decided to remove you from the list. We feel that your contributions are working against the kind of dialogue we would like to see flourish on our list. Our intent is not to nit pick about Wikipedia, show our disdain for it, or to reveal its members to be evil or cult-like, etc. etc. Moreover, we do not wish to alienate people who participate in Wikipedia in our discussion."
Given such an earlier disdainful message from one of the book editors, I believe it was quite unfair for them to write what at least looks like a cheap shot in the book introduction, for declining to then do free work for them. And putting it in Wikipedia's newsletter compounds the attack. Don't deny the choices you make, when it is clear they are choices. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 17:19, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
This touches on another important point -- has Examiner.com been blacklisted on Wikipedia, or is Seth mistaken about HaeB's decision to spell out the link? Could someone please check that? I don't see Examiner listed on the official blacklist.
Phew⢠I'm glad I'm only famous …
QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ Tue 10th May 2011, 4:25pm) 
Phew⢠I'm glad I'm only famous …
Careful. Words like "famous" connote notability, you know!
QUOTE(thekohser @ Tue 10th May 2011, 8:34pm)
This touches on another important point -- has Examiner.com been blacklisted on Wikipedia, or is Seth mistaken about HaeB's decision to spell out the link? Could someone please check that? I don't see Examiner listed on the official blacklist.
It's not on the Meta blacklist, but it is on the local enwiki blacklist:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist
QUOTE(Michaeldsuarez @ Tue 10th May 2011, 2:55pm)
It's not on the Meta blacklist, but it is on the local enwiki blacklist:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist
Know what? I've been trying some random URLs from that list--and haven't stumbled across one currently existing website.....
Oh wait: there are some tinypic.com addresses that are valid. This one is a pic of an aquarium.....
yes, looks very dangerous and anti-Wikipedia.......
That place is getting more Stalinistic every day.
I should comment: if Jon and Greg and Seth want to really criticize Wikipedia, they need to write a 300-page volume
full of horror stories and abominations in the en-wiki database. You could just list some Wikiprojects, show whether they're
dead or active, and list some of the article percentages (a-class, b-class, c-class, stubs etc). I will hazard a guess: that will
be all you need to show to make Wikipedia look bad. Because you will find that Wikiprojects in some important academic fields
have been dead for months or years; while things like Wikiproject Comics and Wikiproject Warhammer 40,000 are still chugging along.......
QUOTE(EricBarbour @ Wed 11th May 2011, 2:37am)
QUOTE(Michaeldsuarez @ Tue 10th May 2011, 2:55pm)
It's not on the Meta blacklist, but it is on the local enwiki blacklist:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist
Know what? I've been trying some random URLs from that list--and haven't stumbled across one currently existing website.....
Silly question, but you did take away the leading "b" on the site domains, right?
Hey, if you wanted to be helpful, you could look at the blacklist log, find the original discussions and the web sites that are intended to make a match with the Regex in the blacklist, and see if those domains still exist. My guess is that a lot of them don't, and therefore the entries in the blacklist could be removed. It could be a little project.
I'm sure that lots of old entries are not needed at all. You can't necessarily tell from the raw regex, because it's designed to match specific sites as well as related sites started by the same people. You could create a removal topic on the MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist, for these, and blacklist admins would probably respond, mostly helpfully. Sometimes they aren't helpful.... It's their private domain, after all.
If someone spammed a link two years ago, their position is commonly that the blacklisting must be maintained, and they will say that if there is a need for the link, that, why, it's simple: any editor can request whitelisting of a link.
Sure. You can also jump through hoops, do a hundred jumping jacks, present absolute proof that a particular link is Reliable Source, show notarized certificates that the site is hosting all material with permission, and that the views of the site owners are fully wholesome and poifecly neutral. And then your request may sit there for two months with no response, because nobody wants to read that crap. If you don't put up the evidence, your request will be denied because you didn't. By the time you get a response, you have completely forgotten what you wanted the link for. Your edit that triggered the blacklist was rejected, and you don't have a copy.
Sometimes you can get whitelistings. And then, get enough of them, you can ask for delisting. And you will be then told, "but it was spammed." Look back, what was the "spamming"? People added links, at a rate that was considered "too fast." Sometimes not fast at all, and I've seen non-links asserted as if they were links, i.e., an IP editor signed, my most famous case, "Librarian, lenr-canr.org." That was the evidence of "promotion." It wasn't a link at all.
I finally took that case all the way through, and was topic-banned for my efforts. With a successful delisting request at meta (Too long! Obviously, this editor is tendentious!) This is what I took to ArbComm last month, the case was rejected (Rejection reason 237B: Request by Abd). And that's why I'm an outlaw now, I finally had enough with cooperation.
I wouldn't have wasted my time with an RfAr/Clarification request if there weren't something very solid behind it.
But my request was too long, for sure. This was my problem: it took me a day to write it, collect the evidence, and boil it down to what it was, and I realized that if I spent another day boiling it down further, it wouldn't contain the evidence it needed, maybe, or even if it did, they still wouldn't read it, because it was Making Trouble. So why waste the time on presenting more perfect political polemic, which is what it becomes if reduced to sound bite? Not worth it. Easier to just test the system, which, after all, could easily handle "too long." It only takes one person to read it and pass on what they think is important.
Until ArbComm understands this, they will continue to ignore the reality that comes before them.
I'm sure that lots of old entries are not needed at all. You can't necessarily tell from the raw regex, because it's designed to match specific sites as well as related sites started by the same people. You could create a removal topic on the MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist, for these, and blacklist admins would probably respond, mostly helpfully. Sometimes they aren't helpful.... It's their private domain, after all.
If someone spammed a link two years ago, their position is commonly that the blacklisting must be maintained, and they will say that if there is a need for the link, that, why, it's simple: any editor can request whitelisting of a link.
Sure. You can also jump through hoops, do a hundred jumping jacks, present absolute proof that a particular link is Reliable Source, show notarized certificates that the site is hosting all material with permission, and that the views of the site owners are fully wholesome and poifecly neutral. And then your request may sit there for two months with no response, because nobody wants to read that crap. If you don't put up the evidence, your request will be denied because you didn't. By the time you get a response, you have completely forgotten what you wanted the link for. Your edit that triggered the blacklist was rejected, and you don't have a copy.
Sometimes you can get whitelistings. And then, get enough of them, you can ask for delisting. And you will be then told, "but it was spammed." Look back, what was the "spamming"? People added links, at a rate that was considered "too fast." Sometimes not fast at all, and I've seen non-links asserted as if they were links, i.e., an IP editor signed, my most famous case, "Librarian, lenr-canr.org." That was the evidence of "promotion." It wasn't a link at all.
I finally took that case all the way through, and was topic-banned for my efforts. With a successful delisting request at meta (Too long! Obviously, this editor is tendentious!) This is what I took to ArbComm last month, the case was rejected (Rejection reason 237B: Request by Abd). And that's why I'm an outlaw now, I finally had enough with cooperation.
I wouldn't have wasted my time with an RfAr/Clarification request if there weren't something very solid behind it.
But my request was too long, for sure. This was my problem: it took me a day to write it, collect the evidence, and boil it down to what it was, and I realized that if I spent another day boiling it down further, it wouldn't contain the evidence it needed, maybe, or even if it did, they still wouldn't read it, because it was Making Trouble. So why waste the time on presenting more perfect political polemic, which is what it becomes if reduced to sound bite? Not worth it. Easier to just test the system, which, after all, could easily handle "too long." It only takes one person to read it and pass on what they think is important.
Until ArbComm understands this, they will continue to ignore the reality that comes before them.
Did anyone try reading it? Shit. The first article is by Reagle, which is the usual vacuous stuff, banal platitudes backed up by citations. The second article is about encyclopedias in general. The second one reminded me of the cheaper variety of 'auction' where the stooge in buys something genuinely good but at an enormously inflated price, to give the marks the impression they are bidding with the high rollers, then they put the rubbish on for sale.
QUOTE(thekohser @ Tue 10th May 2011, 3:34pm)
Seth Finkelstein is really taking it to the Wikipedia Signpost:
QUOTE
The CPOV quote strikes me as a gratuitous slam. Even more so because those attacked can't reply on Wikipedia. Yes, I do have a POV of my own here, but that makes me sensitive to the point, not invalidates it. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 04:57, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
I don't think it is "gratuitous" at all to note something about the relationship between the critical approach to Wikipedia that this book represents, and proponents of another critical approach to Wikipedia which many Wikipedians might be more familar with. Here in the "In the news" section we mostly just summarize what has been written elsewhere, and the "can't reply" argument would prohibit doing so for any reports about blocked or banned users. In other words it seems that you should complain to the quoted editors first. Still, I'll note here that Kohs has described his own perspective of the banning of himself, yourself and Awbrey from the CPOV mailing list in posting at Examiner.com: www.examiner.com/wiki-edits-in-national/wikipedia-criticism-group-purges-three-critics
Regards, HaeB (talk) 08:14, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
Indeed, the issues about reply would argue for great sensitivity when reporting on matters about blocked or banned users. And ironically, you could not make the link live due to a blacklist - here: "Wikipedia criticism group purges three critics". Key passage
"The CPOV organisers have decided to remove you from the list. We feel that your contributions are working against the kind of dialogue we would like to see flourish on our list. Our intent is not to nit pick about Wikipedia, show our disdain for it, or to reveal its members to be evil or cult-like, etc. etc. Moreover, we do not wish to alienate people who participate in Wikipedia in our discussion."
Given such an earlier disdainful message from one of the book editors, I believe it was quite unfair for them to write what at least looks like a cheap shot in the book introduction, for declining to then do free work for them. And putting it in Wikipedia's newsletter compounds the attack. Don't deny the choices you make, when it is clear they are choices. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 17:19, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
I don't think it is "gratuitous" at all to note something about the relationship between the critical approach to Wikipedia that this book represents, and proponents of another critical approach to Wikipedia which many Wikipedians might be more familar with. Here in the "In the news" section we mostly just summarize what has been written elsewhere, and the "can't reply" argument would prohibit doing so for any reports about blocked or banned users. In other words it seems that you should complain to the quoted editors first. Still, I'll note here that Kohs has described his own perspective of the banning of himself, yourself and Awbrey from the CPOV mailing list in posting at Examiner.com: www.examiner.com/wiki-edits-in-national/wikipedia-criticism-group-purges-three-critics
Regards, HaeB (talk) 08:14, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
Indeed, the issues about reply would argue for great sensitivity when reporting on matters about blocked or banned users. And ironically, you could not make the link live due to a blacklist - here: "Wikipedia criticism group purges three critics". Key passage
"The CPOV organisers have decided to remove you from the list. We feel that your contributions are working against the kind of dialogue we would like to see flourish on our list. Our intent is not to nit pick about Wikipedia, show our disdain for it, or to reveal its members to be evil or cult-like, etc. etc. Moreover, we do not wish to alienate people who participate in Wikipedia in our discussion."
Given such an earlier disdainful message from one of the book editors, I believe it was quite unfair for them to write what at least looks like a cheap shot in the book introduction, for declining to then do free work for them. And putting it in Wikipedia's newsletter compounds the attack. Don't deny the choices you make, when it is clear they are choices. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 17:19, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
This touches on another important point -- has Examiner.com been blacklisted on Wikipedia, or is Seth mistaken about HaeB's decision to spell out the link? Could someone please check that? I don't see Examiner listed on the official blacklist.
It would appear that those who use the Foundation's Signpost property to torment critics of Wikipedia will be rewarded amply with employment.
Oh, and...
QUOTE
Tilman will be known to many in the English Wikipedia community as editor-in-chief of the Wikipedia Signpost, where over the past year (after picking up the reigns from another current WMF staffer, Sage Ross) he has led the publication’s dedicated crew of volunteers and increased the depth and breadth of stories about Wikipedia, our projects, and the movement as a whole.
--
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
--
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
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