Wikipedia Sucks!

This one slipped though the cracks because it came out on 12-20-19: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/201 ... ditor.html

Quote:

....Luckily for Buttigieg, there is at least one person carefully looking out for his needs on Wikipedia—someone who has followed his political career from its very beginning, and whose interests and connections track his own with eerie sympathy. This Wikipedia user was there to post the site’s first mention of Pete Buttigieg’s political career in 2010, and to write the very first iteration of Pete Buttigieg’s Wikipedia page. They go by the username “Streeling.” Streeling is an old Irish word that means “wandering,” the sort of word that might be familiar to the son of a scholar who studied James Joyce. Joyce uses the noun streel, meaning “a disreputable woman,” in Ulysses, which Pete Buttigieg has cited as the book that influenced him the most.

Is Pete Streeling? If you go to the edit history and click on the account you get this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Streeling
Which says "Wikipedia does not have a user page with this exact name." Was it there and then deleted by Buttchug's staffers?

Not unless it was oversighted and scrubbed from the deletion log, which is unlikely. To answer the question in this topic, probably not. But it is not impossible, more likely a staffer might, or any other supporter. I'd consider that normal on Wikipedia, happens all the time. If there is a problem, it would be from lack of attention. The whole insanity about paid editing was based on the structure being unreliable. Otherwise, one would want to see professional editors working on articles!

I argued on WP that experts should be declared COI. Which was ridiculed because, to them, COI meant Block As Soon As Discovered. But it would really mean that articles should be reliably sourced, and discussed by people who actually know the topic. So COI editors would only be strongly prevented from editing in a controversial way, but COI people tend to know sources and what sources mean better than the average editor. But regular editors should approach any COI ideas with skepticism. Prove it with reliable sources! Prove to whom? Neutral editors without an axe to grind. Wikipedia could have become reliable with reliable structure.

The realpolitik of Wikipedia is that the community is not trusted to reliably field POV pushing, so better block anyone with a POV. I.e., all experts, if one were fair! Damn experts tend to be opinionated! And of course, common editor opinion is not even recognized as POV. It's just "normal."

Looking at the contributions of Pete Streeling, looks to me like someone who might know Buttigieg, or is simply local to him. Perhaps went to the same high school or college.

This is all tempest in a teapot, all based on the idea that someone editing with a conflict of interest is only somewhat better than tossing babies out the window. Compare an editor who loves a candidate (whether or not employed or being a friend -- which also technically creates COI) with one who hates the candidate. Does the latter have a COI? I have never seen that claimed, but it would be just as damaging to Wikipedia process.

Why all this fuss about Buttigeig and Wikipedia? It's obvious. Politics. Searching for mud to toss. Everything that is worthy of disgust about politics. Don't buy it! Yes, if the campaign is lying, that would be a moral issue, of some weight, but look at the effing context! (And "it's the cover-up, stupid." Is Buttigeig stupid? Really? If I were advising them, and Streeling actually was working for the campaign, I'd recommend admitting it ASAP, without hesitation, and dealing with the reality. Most people would think "so effing what?") But "lied" can have legs, if there is a basis, but there is no basis here but a pile of semblances with a far more obvious explanation.

"Pete Streeling" is likely an alias. The last name is at least rare if not absent entirely. But Wikipedia encourages this (one of the unnecessary original Bad Ideas that had a purpose that could have been handled without all the insanities. Quora does very well requiring real name accounts. Wikipedia could have required real name accounts allowing limited privileges for IP editing. I.e, anonymous whistleblowers can blow the whistle, but cannot participate in decision-making other than like any anonymous phone caller and the police. (And in certain special cases, anonymous accounts might be allowed -- with supervision!)

The above is long, but addresses a number of issues of import, I think. An old trolling comment on Wikipediocracy would be to quote an entire long post with "tl;dr" at the end. EVilgent just quoted the entire reply above on WPO, with only this added at the end:

In response to a single sentence.

Nothing has changed, neither in EVilgent nor in WPO.

On the other hand, Giraffe Stapler, the parody account, did point to an error of mine. Somehow I read the above as referring to a "Pete Streeling," when it was actually asking "was Pete Streeling," i.e, was Buttigieg Streeling?

In fact, I had read the Slate article some time ago -- which does thoroughly address the issue, and, no, Pete is not Streeling, trusting the reporter, which is normal first-pass, Streeling was Neehar Garg. (this time I did not research this thoroughly and getting the name wrong misled me. Happens.)

And Buttigieg's campaign could easily be telling the truth as to what they know and his present campaign might not know that Garg was apparently a volunteer back in 2010. (and may have obtained a photo permission almost ten years ago.) For Garg, who allegedly went to the same high school as Buttigieg, to write an article on him, without authorization, is simply and totally unsurprising, and he could also have been telling the truth in claiming no association with the campaign. I.e., no present association with the present campaign. I would strongly recommend that the Buttigeig campaign actively uncover the full truth here, and publish it. The truth is always safer than attempting to avoid looking bad from it. If they made a mistake, admit it! (and do not attack the media! That's for trolls like Trump.)

One more point: in the above post I mention Quora's real-name policy. Giraffe Stapler claims he had a non-real name account on Quora. That happens, but it is a violation of policy and such accounts will be banned if found -- though they will be invited to correct the problem. And, of course, with Giraffe Stapler being anonymous, we can't verify his claim, and so this is just one more attempt to Make Abd Wrong. Boring, to be sure.