•Labour councillor David Boothroyd caught altering David Cameron's ...
Daily Mail, UK
By James Tozer A Labour councillor has been exposed for changing David Cameron's entry in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. David Boothroyd used a false name as he made regular alterations to the Tory leader's page. Now he has been forced to resign ...

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Get a life.

According to the article, being on Arbcom means you are part of a "15-strong international committee... helping settle hundreds of disputes a day."

hmmmmm..... that's an awful, awful lot of settling....

Heh, good catch. I doubt if they've completely settled half of a hundred disputes in their history. They do attempt to do good work on some level; but the protraction is incredible.

Well, have a look at this thread by thekohser. It's not like articles about Wikipedia get all the facts right.

Yeah, these so-called journalists need to learn about WP:RS and WP:V and, um, WP:ATT. Jesus, we're dealing with amateurs.

Well as I recently posted moderating, or even advocating to improve the level of critique, is not really worth doing. The Wikipedian patriots will take an ordinary comment criticize the arrogance of a WMUK "official spokesperson" as an act like this is beyond the pale of proper discourse. I'm sure that efforts confronting "Barnstarism"will continue to draw this kind of response. I could of course see it coming.

Back to topic. I think we can move past the point of finding much of value in the foibles of ArbCom members or other high offices on Wikipedia. We have already seen a disgraced lawyer with unresolved ethic problems, pro-pedophile (oh wait was Eric ever a on ArbCom?) , pro-bestiality, participants in the pornography industry and now a politician committing petty abuses. It s not like anything is gained by further exposures. They are already pretty much a "jury of the damned." I can't imagine why any credible person would want to a part of that organ. More is to gained by accepting that ArbCom is debased. Focus on the problems of selecting people in authority in a hooded process, the ridiculous processes they use and the bad results they reach.

Except for the very greats, we always have been. But then this dirty, crappy stuff that never was primarily factchecked gets run through the golfball-washer of getting put on WP and "sourced" back to the bad newspaper journalism it came from in the first place, and voila: it's a WP:RS "fact." Citation and all. Remove it, and the journalism-worshipers (Slim and friends) will be all over you like a cheap, um, set of editors.

How cheap? Free.

A 19-year-old. Something else to jeer at, I guess.

Of course a 19 year old who spends time writing Wikipedia articles about IRC would think that breaking Wikipedia's rules is a serious matter.

I guess someone should add that to the Wikipedia article on the Arbitration Committee - it having been published in a Reliable Source and all as we all know that what matters at Wikipedia is not True but the fact that something, true or not, is "verified" by a "reliable source".

That's a mildly funny idea, and I was ready to take you up on it. Unfortunately, the Wikipedia article on Wikipedia doesn't even mention the Committee.

ArbCom arguably settle that many disputes a day if you consider the implications of their rulings. They settle disputes before they begin.

This guy.

Arguably their rulings create as many new disputes as the ones they settle.

Yes, and Wikipedia is the Sum of All Human Knowledge.

And reading about their "UK spokesman", a chubby gamer kid named Paul Williams, made me itch.

Think I'm getting extremely allergic to bullshit--it can be 7000 miles away and it still makes me itch.

As I said in another thread.......

Sooner or latter someone in the press is going to take a hard look at "spokespersons" like this guy or David Gerad in Riff-Raff drag and say to herself "perhaps there is a story lurking inside this 6 million dollar non-profit and top 10 website."

Yeah, but imagine how many disputes they arguably cause, just by their mere existence.

EDIT: Damn you, RHMED!