Is this any good? It apparently has useful historical material, but apart from that ... ? Has anyone actually bought it?

Haven't got it...might be a bit old hat now....I read Dalby's...

Peter, I haven't got it, but I browsed sections I was familiar with and while it seemed to be reasonably even-handed, it didn't seem to me that Andrew did as much archival research as you're doing. Also, I did a couple long interviews with him but rather little of it made that into the book. Andrew is (or was) very much in the fold and so he wouldn't have said anything that embarrassed anyone much.

Thanks Larry. I have ordered the book, simply because Lih seems to have interviewed a few of the people that I have interviewed, or propose to interview, for my book, and I may even have a section devoted to the things written about Wikipedia, most of them inaccurate, credulous and uncritical. Reagle’s is the worst by a very long shot.

It’s fairly safe to say that Wales will not be writing a foreword.

Andrew Keen's "The Cult of the Amateur" and James Boyle's "The Public Domain" may be some good reads as well.

I have read Lih's book now (skipping some of the very tedious details about programming languages and Perl and suchlike).

Much to say about the book - it is fairer to Larry than I had orginally expected, but omits important details about the post-Slashot Wikipedia. More about that later.

The most striking thing was the 6 pages about Essjay. It omits the true causality, and I am not certain even the chronology was right.

It omits to say that Brandt and Wikipedia Review were covering the case from mid 2006 onwards. In fact, there is only one mention of Brandt at the end of the chapter, sourced from the Wikipedia Signpost of all places. The only mention of Wikipedia Review is briefly in an appendix.

In particular, it says (p.196) "The New Yorker found out, and had to publish an embarrassing editor's note". No mention of the fact that Brandt had been urging the New Yorker to publish a correction since 21 January. Lih could have easily found this out by checking the Wikipedia Review thread (or Brandt's own website).

Nor does he mention that the issue was brought up by Brandt on Jimmy's talk page on Feb 28.

Then he says (p.197) "Wikipedians, usually quick to circle the wagons to protect their own from media distortions, didn't come to Essjay's rescue". This is totally untrue, as a cursory look at the mailing lists suggests http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikie...date.html#start . The Wikipedians are falling over themselves to rescue him. E.g.

* "I do not think it lies within Wikimedia's "jurisdiction" " Moeller, Mar 1
*""I find myself looking on it as "foolish" rather than "unacceptable"." (Stan Shebs, 1 Mar)
* "I was most amused to see Daniel Brandt ranting about it, considering that avoiding Brandt's blatant stalking and harassment of editors was one of the main reasons for Essjay doing it. " (David Gerard, 1 Mar)
*""I will consider criticism of Essjay particularly valid when it is accompanied by a general call to eliminate pseudonymous editing of Wikipedia. The vast majority of editors on Wikipedia are anonymous, and I'm sure they have their various reasons, but anyone whose persona is not congruent with their real personality is doing exactly what Essjay did, on one level or another." (JP Gordon)
*""What if my user page said my favorite color was green, when it's actually blue? What if somebody from WP Review calls up a family member on the phone (that being their style), and then reveals my dastardly color deception? " (Stan Shebs 2 Mar)
*""Yeah, sad people have to get bashed. This has nothing to do with fraud, he didn't try to get a teaching position with his "invented persona". Apparently people think his contributions are worth less if he's not a professor, which is utter nonsense. Mgm" MacGyverMagicMar 2

Then Gwern Branwen posts a long timeline that clearly shows the extent of Ryan Jordan's deception. William Pietri discovers that the deception predated the 'stalking' by Brandt'

Lih says "Most seemed offended by Essjay and started to dig into his detailed history of editing". On the contrary, most did not bother to investigate the issue at all. It was only a handful of Wikipedians who truly bothered to do any research.

Even when it became blatantly clear what had happened, there were still people falling over themselves to defend him. Including our old friend Sam Blacketer, saying on Mar 4 that "The really depressing thing about the episode is that so many editors did seem to want a public lynching, and thought it would be for the good of us all"

Wales finally made a statement on March 3. Lih mentions that Wales who was travelling in India at the time "and likely working off imperfect information, defended Essjay in public". Wales said "I have been for several days in a remote part of India with little or no Internet access."

This is unlikely to be true. Certainly Wales was in Chennai, India from 25 February to March 2, but he could not have replied to Brandt's post without internet access. In any case, Sanger got it absolutely right when he commented on March 1: http://blog.citizendium.org/?p=133 , responding to Jimmy statement that it was just about using 'a pseudonym'.



Jimmy knew about this back in January when Essjay came clean about the 'pseudonym'.

The most fantastical bit is at the end of the chapter, where Lih says It was a big strike against the vaunted fact-checking operation of the New Yorker. Does anyone else find that incredible? And then he says "The WMF's employee Danny Wool disagreed with the New Yorker's statement, and was keen to emphasise that the nonprofit foundation never endorsed the authenticity of Essjay, ever".

The Wikipedians rushed to Essjay's defense because they realized (or didn't want to realize) that Brandt just showed the world that anonymity / pseudonymity on an encyclopedic project was seriously flawed. An attack on Essjay's online persona was basically an attack on all of their online personae. They were afraid of someone doing some research into all of those or losing the right to create a false identity. They reacted the way they did out of denial, fear, and perhaps naivety (ie. not knowing, or failing to grasp the lesson / reality of the episode).

The Foundation Wool worked for may not have endorsed the authenticity of Essjay, but the for-profit Wikia, Inc. that Jimmy Wales co-founded close to the time he founded the Foundation certainly did vet Ryan Jordan's credentials, and they must have concluded that his utter lack of online authenticity on Wikipedia was no barrier to his hire as an employee of Wikia.

I come back to the point made by Sanger, about Jimmy's confusion between 'pseudonym' and 'misrepresenting qualifications'.

Also, it is my suspicion that Ryan still works at Wikia Inc., to this day. I'd call them and ask, but of course, it's almost impossible to contact Wikia by any means other than internet.....


Quite frankly, I would not trust very much about Lih's book, or of his account of past history, despite its apparent evenhandedness. Just remember, Lih was one of the first educators to use Wikipedia as an "educational tool". Of course he would not upset the apple cart, the apple cart is a major part of his CV.

Again, we know that. But it is in 'Bamber Gascoigne's best 6 books list'.

Well, then Gascoigne ought to be sent a free copy of this book as soon as it's ready.

Sadly, whenever someone says "University Challenge" to me, this is the first thing I think of.

Not so much, no and no. The historical material is fairly strong on the tech side, but is weak otherwise. There are also whole sections containing no notes at all where you would usually expect to find them, as if he was simply writing from memory. He devotes rather little space to criticism of WP (no surprise there), but is not arrogantly dismissive of critics like Reagle (who seems to think we're mostly a bunch of technophobic graybeards typing out our rants at the Old Folks' Home*).

Other than certain details on the tech side of WP's history, it's a waste of time.





* On our Royal manual typewriters, presumably. Anyone know where I can order a two-color ribbon for mine?

The book is a lie

Lih's is a decent book, not great. Definitely pro-Wikipedia.


tim

You do realise that to the Establishment around here, those two statements are obviously contradictory.