Eric Corbett

[CrowsNest]

Ah, memory lane......

. If this category is allowed to remain, then I don't see why others cannot create Category:Wikipedians who have been stereotyped by Malleus Fatuorum or Category:Wikipedians who have been demeaned by Malleus Fatuorum of Category:Wikipedians who have had their intelligence questioned by Malleus Fatuorum. If this project has descended so far that even categories like that would be accepted as 'free speech' and damn the consequences, then it's no wonder so many people are leaving due to the unpleasant atmosphere (24% of all former contributors apparently, with current stats showing over 3,000 people make more than 100 edits a month). Tim98Seven (talk) 01:43, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Anyone of them left because of Malleus? ... I thought so. And someone who posts only porn is a vandal and will be blocked indefinitely. You are free to create those other categories--I couldn't care less. Drmies (talk) 01:51, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

As if he wouldn't have cared. YEAH RIGHT. And nicely done, answering your own question before anyone else has had the chance. Very typical of the sort of absolute pieces of shit who routinely defended Eric.

The silver lining......where did their staunch defence get them? As anyone with half a brain could see, Eric walked away regardless of their efforts, simply because he finally, eventually, realised, that not being a Wikipedian means you will never be happy on Wikipedia. And nobodies ever going to succeed in changing the rules to Eric's satisfaction. You can survive for a decade and have your eventual departure in your own hands, largely because then existing rules are ignored, especially for unblockables like Eric, and that is why Wikipedia is doomed. But they will never be happy.

I guarantee nobody who defended the little ferret fucker is happy on Wikipedia. Drmies quite obviously only stays on Wikipedia for bad reasons. A single encounter with that cunt is enough to make them realise who he thinks is, and is not, a Wikipedian, and it doesn't match the accepted definition.

Drmies is what Eric would have been like, and he been able to pass RfA, and thus he could have stayed on Wikipedia forever. Angry, but truly unblockable, and with real skin in the game, enough to prevent the eventual fatal dissatisfaction he felt as a mere editor, even as a cult hero. I hope that realisation makes him really furious, because that's the Wikipedia he helped create.

[CrowsNest]

Uh oh, he's in mythology mode.....

I would also point out that nobody has seen me begging to be allowed back, and they never would.

Why the fuck would you need to beg to be allowed back to a place you voluntarily left? He can waltz back in at any time.

Story of Eric's life really. Pointing out shit that is totally irrelevant but designed to paint him as a victim, when he could be telling the truth and participating in discussions like a normal human.

I hope he remembers that one of the benefits of his disruption of Wikipedia is that it is now possible for editors to be blocked by ArbCom, or to be more precise by their Enforcement Officers like Sandstein, for things they do off wiki.

It would be a nice touch, for someone to block Eric in absentia. Although you just know a scumbag like Drmies would claim this violates the policy that blocks are meant to be preventive, because Eric has said he's never coming back. That is what passes as sound Admin judgment on the Wikipedia Eric helped create.

There's mystery to understanding what Eric is. The mystery is in why Jake is his new best friend and genial host for this endless stream of tripe. Probably just trying to annoy me.

[CrowsNest]

Wikipedia culture seems to be mirroring the culture of the US at the moment that unless you agree with their opinion and tow the line, you are a bully, misogynist, homophobe, etc. Most of which is bullshit of course but when you have a bunch of admins that will quickly defend each other, you end up with an environment like that on Wikipedia now where all the managerial roles are filled by people with the exact same mentality or those to cowardly to say anything out of fear of risking their "status". But this affects the Wikipedia content in a negative way because so much is under Topic bans, people won't touch it, so much of the content leans a certain way it falsely favors a certain westernized opinion, etc.

I've shared that opinion forever, which is why I took such delight in taking the piss out of their faux horror at anyone using the c-word.

Just posting this here to take the piss out of all those admins who stood up for Eric and claimed he wasn't a bully and a misogynist. To him, you never existed. His brave battle was only ever against a monoculture of evil Admins.

Also to laugh at how Eric has fallen. Years ago, he'd not have considered himself of the same mind as Kumioko. Now he's his new best friend, following him around like a puppy dog. I guess I shouldn't be surprised there is an attraction here, both have always struggled with the details, and prefer mythology way more than fact. Although tbf, Kumioko is at least careful to acknowledge there are admins he does like.

If Kumioko had brains, he should really be insulted Eric wants to be his friend now. I'd wager there's a pretty big crossover between the admins who pursued him to the ends of the world, and those who lifted heaven and Earth to defend Eric from those who wished to see his departure. Guess which one has the better record in terms of actually fighting Administrator misconduct?

Occasionally taking the piss is about all Eric ever did to FIGHT THE POWAH. He left the heavy lifting to all those other mugs, many of whom were Administrators, who thought they were his friends. Which is why Kumioko is globally banned, and Eric is merely on a voluntary holiday.

[CrowsNest]

Related.....

https://www.wikipediasucks.co/forum/vie ... 6249#p6249

[CrowsNest]

Eric on Everipedia......

There are mixed messages on this point. Is it, or is it not, intended as a Wikipedia competitor, as opposed to what it appears to be, a Facebook/Twitter competitor?

I don't really care either way, but do those in charge of Everipedia actually know what it's intended to be, apart from a way for them to make money by jumping on the blockchain wagon?
....
It's a bizarre obsession though. Have you ever seen someone extolling the virtues of another piece of software because it uses a distributed database, for instance? Who really cares how it's built, rather than what it's supposed to do or be?

Eric on Wikipedia......

It seems fairly clear that the wiki model doesn't really work for encyclopedic content, and the least said about that ancient MediaWiki software the better.

What Eric's tiny little mind can't seem to grasp, largely because the lazy fuck clearly hasn't read a single thing about Everipedia, is that their choice to go onto the blockchain is indivisibly linked to their idea of what they are supposed to be (a better encyclopedia than Wikipedia, thorough the use of mechanisms like profit motive and decentralisation).

I mean, they have a FAQ, and he claims some expertise in computing, and he certainly claims to know the flaws of Wikipedia. What more does he want, a personalised telegram?

Eric hates Jimmy Wales, the WMF, Wikipedia Administrators, the exploitative nature of Wikipedia and the fact he couldn't parlay status into influence. As such, the stupid ferret fucker should be absolutely in love with Everipedia. Moron.

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Hey Jake, you think people actually like reading garbage like this? Do you think it appeals to readers looking for informed comment on all things Wikipedia?

It's pure shite. Just like this garbage.....

I've never really thought of pizza as food, more like packaging material.

I know Eric likes to think of himself as a philosopher, but rather than a brilliant observation on the scourge of citogenisis (the ACTUAL subject of that thread), I fear this what it looks like. A comment about his views on pizza.

You silly fucker.

Maybe we need to put Wikipediocracy on the blockchain?

[CrowsNest]

Wikipedia's reputation for poor to non-existent quality control precedes it.

There was me the thinking this was the same Eric Corbett who fiercely defended his invented name of an early computer, who flooded everybody's watchlist with hundreds of pointless edits related to his vanity template, obstinantly refused to use the standard means to address an article subject because he didn't like it, admitted he "couldn't be arsed" to make an article readable on a mobile, and edit warred to retain incorrect financial terminology because he had no clue what he was talking about. And that was just in the last few months of a very long tenure of being all he could be in the encyclopedia any arsehole can edit.

Given his illustrious history of being an awkward and obstinate fuck, it seems obvious that with Eric choosing voluntary exile, Wikipedia's ability to ensure quality has gone up. With the caveat it is still Wikipedia, of course.

Turn it in Eric. You're not a Wikipedia critic. You're a crap Wikipedia editor with a bad case of the sads.

[CrowsNest]

I find the question of whether the adoption of an NPOV policy contributes towards or reduces the volume of crap on Wikipedia to be a lot more interesting than what Sandstein might have done yesterday, for instance. But perhaps I'm in a minority of one.

Perhaps you're not the same Eric Corbett whose entire Wikipedia career seemed to be one long crusade against Administrators like Sandstein? With a bit of article writing on the side, just to avoid a WP:NOTHERE block.

Turn it in Eric, you're not a Wikipedia critic.

[CrowsNest]

I guess what's at the back of my mind is that I'm unclear about what the purpose of these Wikipedia criticism sites really is. There are obviously lots and lots of WP articles that contain errors, perhaps even most of them, but does that make them crap? And in what way is that a criticism of Wikipedia anyway? The interesting thing surely isn't individual errors, but what it is about the editing environment that allows such errors to be introduced and rarely corrected.

What's become obvious to me as well is that the purpose of supposed Wikipedia criticism sites isn't so much to criticise Wikipedia at all, but to criticise individual editors/administrators in some kind of vengeful way for some perceived misdemeanour that may or may not have happened. After all, you wouldn't criticise a religion by slagging off each person who attended your local church/mosque/whatever last Sunday/Saturday/Friday, would you?

Is this the same Eric Corbett who seems to think whining about Jimmy Wales any chance he gets, is Wikipedia criticism?

Someone genuinely interested in understanding what it is about the editing environment that allows errors to occur and persist, need only spend the time to see the marked difference between how Jimmy Wales wishes Wikipedia would operate, and how it does operate. You can guess what Eric thinks about Jimmy's model. But Eric's model has been more than tested - for the last five years at least, Wikipedia has been in the grip of assholes like him, and the Administration has been geared to protecting assholes like him.

Surprise surprise, it has not seen a rebirth in Wikipedia's fortunes, errors are still easily found, and often turn out to be long standing in nature. There is no mass movement to clean it all up and stem the incoming tide of new errors, which is the only way Wikipedia could ever hope to deal with the problem, because nobody wants to volunteer on a site where such work is considered inferior to what the so called content creators like Eric do (and a meagre content creator at that).

And to state the bleeding obvious, an encyclopedia that mostly contains errors, is crap.

[CrowsNest]

Further to the above, this seems to be the only example of Eric Corbett seeking out Kumioko on Wikipedia.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... a_accounts

A sliding doors moment that, definitely.

In another Universe, Wikipedia is but a flaming ruin, destroyed in the mighty battle between the forces of Stupid and Evil.

[CrowsNest]

There seems to be a meme that all I did was improve stuff, added nothing of any real substance myself. But what about The Green Child? Or the Manchester Mummy? Or the Samlesbury witches? Or Peterloo Massacre, to which I contributed the most edits and added the most text?

Challenge accepted......

It appears he only wrote The Green Child because it was based on the legend of the Green children of Woolpit, itself an Eric Corbett labour of love. As the article makes clear, the book is little regarded and considered a curiosity by those who do, and nothing more.

We do see on the talk page, the classic Eric Corbett method of accepting feedback...... "I completely disagree with everything you have written."

Eric presumably wrote the article on the Manchester Mummy because he likes using Wikipedia to do his own research projects on local curiosities. While you are initially misled by the layout of the introduction, this article is indeed meant to be about a mummified body, not the woman it formerly was. What you find on the talk page is that since this particular object has been little studied and has become more of a legend than a piece of history, Eric has done absurd things like examine the woman's will to resolve inconsistencies.

Yet again, we see on the talk page some characteristically vicious and contemptuous reactions from Eric to any critical feedback.

The article on the Samlesbury witches probably has merit, but the introduction was so poorly written it took me three attempts to extract the historical significance of these particular witches. Imagine my surprise when I realised there was a lazy repetition of this basic point at the end of "modern interpretation".

On the talk page, we find the typical dance of people objection to Eric's wording, Eric trying to beat them to death, and finally the wording being changed. It is seeing stuff like that which gives you reason to doubt you are reading properly summarised material, as opposed to Eric's desired interpretation of it. He chased at least one editor off with a pretty blatant accusation about their supposed anti-Catholic bias, which is bad enough in of itself, but also suggests Eric has an agenda too.

Peterloo Massacre is undoubtedly a merit worthy article, but it is for that reason I have my doubts Eric is the sole author. There is something that does mark it out as an Eric article - there's only one reference used in the Political aftermath section which was published this Century, and even then it is 12 years old. One is a good fifty years old.

The talk page here is surprisingly devoid of typical Eric nastiness. Indeed he seems quite happy and collaborative, although it is perhaps relevant he was working with a tight knit group of Manchester mafia, whose loyalty was more than evident in later years. Later on, in 2014, we see classic Eric as he is highly dismissive ( "It's staying. Live with it." ). Before that, when someone else not in the mafia (Farry) raises an issue, Eric is nowhere to be seen, even though another mafia member specifically requests his presence to confirm the content of one of his offline sources. He was around, just evidently busy with his other interests, which by that time included severe bitterness over his second failed RfA. There's a ton of other unanswered posts there too, the mafia seemingly cast to the winds now.

Highly relevant is the fact that while these are all Featured Articles, the most recent promotion was way back in 2010. It's debatable whether all four would survive a review today.

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In conclusion, if these four articles were what jumped into Eric's mind when trying to think of his own personal contribution to Wikipedia of "real substance", then he has arguably failed to prove his case. And this was just a brief review, a more in depth look will find much worse, as has been seen when other critics have examined his work in detail.

What he has done though, is give plenty of examples of why people think he was wholly unsuited to the sort of collaboration Wikipedia is (one where you don't really get to choose who your colleagues are) or the sort of encyclopedia it is supposed to be (neutral summation of stuff people actually want to read, not a platform for your personal research studies to advance your own agendas).