Has anyone gone to Wikipedia to cause disruption or to prove a point? I've been thinking that there must be some good stories here, and collecting them all in one thread could be worthwhile.

Didn't you start a similar thread not so long ago?

I have tried to prove a point on WP, but I've since given up. I can't go into details without my account there being found, but process wonkery and lack of followup by Wikipedians led me to believe they didn't want to discuss the point I was trying to make. Pity. Maybe if I am no longer concerned about being banned and I get upset enough, I'll go back full-force and make things harder for them.

Well, one time I allied myself with a cause disfavored by ArbCom, got burned out, and joined Wikipedia review. Man, that was some cra-azy shit.

But seriously, why do you want to create a thread to be cited against Lar, Alison, SirFozzie, and anyone who still hopes to improve the site from within? As a sometimes-Wikipedian myself, I must say that I disapprove of this thread (or at least any implication that disruption is useful for "good stories"). allegedly funny drama belongs to ED. There are several collections over there, and I'm sure they can add more.

Look, anything we do to criticize Lar, Alison and SirFozzie, those wonderful people (sniff), is going to be used against them on WP. And has. Whether or not we razz WP is not going to make any difference in the question of whether, or how, Lar and Alison "change it from within". It's not going to change from within. It's going to change from without, as it gets out competed by rival services.

Did you ever see Ford or IBM change from "within"? It happened long ago, but not in our common lifetimes. Today, if they change, it's because they're trying not to die. When they had it good, they changed nothing. IBM never saw the PC coming, then muffed the PC. I saw the president of Ford on TV the other day saying "You know, people want smaller, more efficient trucks." I wonder what gave him the first clue, and when?

The question was if anybody had caused disruption on WP to make a point, in obvious violation of [[WP:POINT]]. Since such things are one of my own favorite ways to make points in life, I'd like to know the answer. I've certainly been frustrated on Wikpedia, where WP:POINT is the catch-all weapon to be used against editors who want to finally make a point in a way that even the pinheads who run Wikipedia cannot ignore. But find they are wrong, as it's perfectly possible for a pinhead and/or narcissist to be able to ignore something when their own tables are turned on them. They simply become angry and defensive. They never are able to see the POINT, because they never are able to put themselves in somebody else's shoes. So that's that.

But it's fun to smoke out narcissists that way. In my experience, it's one of the sure-fire ways. Normal people "get it" when the tables are turned and they are forced to drink their own medicine. Narcissists never do.

I think you misunderstood what One said. It makes our life harder if there are people actively planning disruption runs here out in the open, and we don't do anything about it. Basically, we wouldn't be doing our jobs if we saw plotting happen, and didn't do anything to stop it.

What are going to do to stop these "plots", arrest somebody? Of course that is what we are here for, to make your Wikipedian admin experiences enjoyable.

Yeah. I hope most people only participate in Wikipedia because it's enjoyable on some level. I imagine it's very difficult to have fun as a "WR admin" when there are open WR threads about disruption. That's all.

I agree with Milton. It will take outside pressure to force Wikipedia to change, but it will require organs with more readers than this. In the meantime, it would be nice not to blithely alienate the WR Admins.

For example, if someone (let's say JoeBannedUser) posts a message similar to "JoshuaZ" where "Hey! They ruined this article, cover my back. For Great LULZ!".. and we saw that the article had been so affected, well, it's our job to do the donkey work to clean up after them, block the accounts involved, etcetera, etcetera.

And yes, I know that you're not here to make our "Wikipedian admin Experiences Enjoyable". But at least having folks here listening to what people have to say allows us to look into problems and determine if there's actually fire where folks here are pointing out smoke.

(Just as a personal observation, I speak for myself only) You, and a couple others (Jon A, for example) sound like you want to go back to the "Good Old Days" where WR was the Old-Fashioned Wiki-Haters club, where it was an echo chamber of how irredeemable Wikipedia is, and how all the administrators are evil and liars, and psycopaths. Well, guess what? It's not black and white. Nothing ever is. It's shades of grey.

More like brown, shirts, right now, but I'm sure you'll work your way up to grey someday.

Jon

Case in point. Thanks Jon. Knew I could count on you to make my point for me

Until Wikipedia gets the absolute minimum of website responsibility, a simple basic Terms of Service agreement (ToS) admins and the "community" patriots, even if they are all decked out as the white hat posse, have absolutely no more moral authority than the common vandal, troll or other "disruptive" user. Has it ever occurred to you to ask why WMF does not promulgate a simple ToS?

The choice between the nutters of the past and your ass-kissing vision of WR is a false choice.

Virtually everything I've done on Wikipedia since late 2006 has been to cause disruption.

Hell, GBG, we're not so far away on those issues, seriously. Trying to navigate WP's policies sometimes are like trying to walk through a quicksand covered minefield. Step in the wrong place, and you'll either sink into a morass, and be sucked under, or blown to pieces. I wish that the Foundation would step in and rule from above, but I guess they feels that goes against their vision of community based consensus determining WP's policies.

I'm not calling for WR to be a bunch of no-account ass kissers slavishly following the party line. I'm just thinking that some of the things that get done end up to be counterproductive to what at least a good number of folks here want.. for the things that WP does wrong to be fixed and or changed. That's all.

It's The Year Of Our Dork Lard 2008, Nigh Unto 2009,
And You Are Still Spewing The Same Chunks Of Bull
You Were At The Outset Of The Phreakin Millennium!

When Are You Going To Wake Up!?

Damn Near Everyone Else Has!!!

Jon

That Wikipedia's so-called policies are vague and confusing is desirable; it means that when you need to smite someone, you can always find a policy to do it with, and yet when someone tries to smite you, you can always find a policy to block them.

There are no real policies on Wikipedia; there are policy documents but those are a smokescreen. The real policy is "do nothing that annoys those in charge"; it is, however, difficult to tell who is in charge, or all that easily predict what will annoy them.

(In reply to the Incoherent one)

About the time you start using plain, coherent English without using Excessivele Extreme Acronyms That Make No Sense (EEATMNS) and come up with some fresh material, Jon.

About time you replaced that Jimbot Book Of Quotations Chip in yer head with some fresh puppet meat.

Jon

If I didn't know any better, and I don't, I'd be starting to suspect that this sort of needle-fest argument is exactly what Mr. Emperor had in mind when he posed the question, "Has anyone gone to Wikipedia to cause disruption or to prove a point?"

Besides, to whom would such a person be proving these points? The ability of WP's leadership to ignore what most people would consider "proof," in favor of their own misinterpretations, inaccuracies, and counter-factuals is legendary, to say the least.

The proximate cause of my banning from Wikipedia (and the simultaneous banning of several innocent co-workers as well as several outright strangers), was posting on the Talk page for [[Rachel Marsden]], shortly after I arrived here at WR and in response to SlimVirgin's comment that BLP-violating commentary would be summarily removed:

"Does this apply to [[Daniel Brandt]] as well?"

This comment was enough for Jayjg to instantly ban me and everyone (including those with very different contribution histories) who posted from similar (/8) IPs from Wikipedia forever, a vendetta he carries to this day.

The comment, along with most of the Rachel Marsden history, is now deleted/oversighted.

That is what qualifies as perma-ban worthy disruption. Enough for you?

That's a pretty good banniation story. And they wonder on WP why anybody on WR is angry


Nonsense. Every time Jimbo personally ex-cathedra pronounces something "non-negociable," it gives the clear lie to any idea of "community consensus." It's bullshit, end of story and off.

The many instances of a few clique-ish admins driving out troublemakers, reformers, or merely people with different opinions, merely gives a different and slightly more complicated version of the same. There is no "community." There are just a few people who've gotten into power, and now ride upon and feed upon the rest. I dunno how you can come from there and not see it. We've pointed out many examples, and all that happens is you say: "Oh, those are a few aberrations." Well, they aren't. They are the norm. Any editor who's been on WP for long, has seen it happen.

Previously I asked why anyone bothers to go to Wikipedia. This time around I tried to skip the "why" and just look at what people are doing when they go to Wikipedia.

Some things can be learned more easily by starting an account than by reading a hundred pages of Wikipedia Review posts.

Sure, this is old news to a lot of the 300 club, and maybe that's why they don't like talking about it. Newer people, or the general public just passing through might want to hear some stories. I'm not asking anyone to get themselves banned. Surely there's some stuff that happened last year or earlier that won't hurt anyone.

Jon

Come on, Jon. You put on your dollar store facepaint and your brightly colored feathers, and we have to reach for our plastic badges and six-shooters. We can't have you "whoop-whoop"ing up the street, that would just be embarrassing.

Ditto.

Writing a story with the edit summaries was pretty clever.

What was this?

Check out user: Wit-o-pedia's contribs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contr...ons/Wit-o-pedia

Yes this is what I meant. I guess it was article names rather than summaries.

We may have a Wit-o-pedia style raider at work. Not much evidence to work with, but I'd like to know when in the history of User account creation on Wikipedia has the second edit of the editor focused on Thekohser's User page?

Also, it looks like they don't understand the challenge of "writing in reverse order"... such that their prose is going to have to be read from the "bottom up". How amateur.

Proving a point can be an efficient manner to reach consensus. It is quite silly to have a guideline against it. Of course, the examples given in the guideline should be avoided, but in normal cases proving a point is in no way disruptive.

WP:Point is a typical example of how rules are used as weapons in the Wikipedia MMPORG.

Its amazing what qualifies for instant permabanning of entire IP address ranges on Wikipedia.

This continues to happen to this day. While I seldom visit Wikipedia (and when I do, I use one of several long-established accounts), seemingly random people continue to be banned as "sockpuppets" of my original account. It is eerie that they continue to shadow-box with these old ghosts. What do they think they are accomplishing?

In your case isn't it because User:IronDuke (T-C-L-K-R-D) is still getting lots of Cabal Bonus Points™ mileage out of all that stuff? I think I saw something where he referred to you (indirectly) in highly disparaging terms just a couple of days ago. And he's still an active pro-Israeli edit warrior, so he probably has lots of pals among those folks to keep the drama engine filled with gas and radiator fluid.

Anyway, as Jack Handey once said: "When I think of some of the things that have been done in the name of science, I have to cringe. No, wait, not science, vandalism. And not cringe, laugh."

Wikipedia is irredeemable and full of administrators that are evil, power dunk and sociopaths. Ask those people who have tried to reasons with these clowns...

SlimVirgin (how the mighty have fallen)
JzG (the englishman lost in the fog of hate)
Ryulong (the power ranger manboy)
Durova (the skeret Squirrel with some lost nuts)
Raul654 (The greasy pig of the wiki)


and on and on, the never ending sword matches with th'er dicks, all trying to prove who's tools is better.

Wikipeida is not a shade of black or white, it's the black hole of truth and right.

Me to.... Joehazlton is a popular banning reason, considering the ban log consist of those who have no connection with Joe.

Gamaliel in fact as put half of Dupage County under a long term ip reange block, in order to get at joe.


Wikipeidia is a joke

This looks like the tool I need for hit and run raids.

Coming out

What is the clock in front of the rainbow-colored flag supposed to represent? That it's "time to come out of the closet," or that the template should only be used for "a few days"?

Maybe that's a stupid question...

Two of the three you mentioned have already conclusively demonstrated that they hate Wikipedia.

Ya, that Alison and SirFozzie, what a couple of haters...

I think we'll skip discussion of what you've already conclusively demonstrated.

i thought A went elsewhere to set up house & home

Exactly. Anyone who chooses to decrease their involvement for personal reasons (or any reasons, really) obviously hates wikipedia.

Oh, or increase their involvement. Or keep it about the same. All signs of hating wikipedia.

There is a progression through disappointment, disillusionment, frustration, cynicism, and bitterness that generally precedes outright hatred and contempt.

Of course you can approve of the basic concept of Wikipedia (let's try to keep the capital W) and hate the way things are run. I for one have grave doubts about many things; 90% of the time it's OK but 10% I hate.

I used to feel the same way, and am in no way implying that I am 'enlightened.' I just think that unless you hate it roughly 50%, you may not have seen enough of it from the outside looking in.

I SAY.... Wikipedia is disrupting the internet with is Google juice and its "pit of despair" workings.

The only way to reform Wikipedia is to change US law, regarding section 230 and then sue the shit out of it's principals listed.

I do believe that's a jaundiced view, either that or I've been very lucky. Most articles I've been involved with have had little or no major edit wars or POV pushing, though you certainly get harmless idiots.