Infogalactic, Metapedia, Conservapedia contrasted with WP

[Flip Flopped]

Welcome to the Wikipedia of the Alt-Right by Alexis Sobel Fitts for Wired on June 21st.

On first glance it looks like they got a detail or two wrong about Nupedia and the founding of Wikipedia.

[ericbarbour]

Doesn't matter--when things like this start to appear in the media, it's no longer deniable that WP has a perceptual problem. Forking is the one thing WP insiders fought and lied and manipulated to try to prevent, because it will weaken their precious "branding" and make them look biased. They should have gotten the clue that they failed the instant Conservapedia went up in 2007, but noooo. Instead they went to Conservapedia and started vandalizing it. (The book wiki has an item about that. It was more popular with Wikipedians than you might realize.)

Lol

So a few years in, Sanger and founder Jimmy Wales opened it up to masses of editors. The plan worked, and the number of entries exploded. To everyone’s surprise, the power of the crowd propelled Wikipedia to something shockingly close to objectivity.

What shit. Nupedia wasn't even a year old before Wikipedia was started. And WP didn't really "take off" until 2005, after years of Jhimboo and his supporters plus selected digerati assholes like Yochai Benkler pumping the thing and lying and manipulating in the background. I personally didn't even notice it until 2004. And I'm friends with John Atwood, who was an original Nupedia contributor. Even HE thought Wikipedia wasn't successful--until 2005.

That comment about Mike Cernovich's WP article is classic. Anyone who tried to make it more neutral today would be attacked instantly--the bulk of it was written in 2016 by only two editing addicts, Neptune's Trident and BoogaLouie. They are both obviously left-wing, the former looks like a paid editor to me (works on articles about obscure actresses and other entertainment trivia), and the latter is usually fighting over articles about Islam, making them as negative as possible....

This Wired item is part of Steven Levy's backchannel.com blog. Apparently he sold it to Conde Nast last year and they recently merged it with Wired. I've got very little to say of a pleasing nature about Levy. He has always struck me as a smug egomaniac and know-it-all. And he's guilty of mushmouthing about Wikipedia in the past.

[Graaf Statler]

This is what Larry Sanger has to say about it. In my opinion is Wikipedia Sangers idea, and Jimmy a cuckoo in nest who claimed to be the only founder of Wikipedia. A cuckoo in the nest who created the biggest boondoggie out if the history, to be exact.