The biggest problems with Wikipedia Policies?

[Archer]

A word about WP:NO X essays -

These essays share a common pattern, so with little loss of generality, we'll choose WP:NO CONFEDERATES. The subject of this essay is not Wikipedia per se nor guidance for editors, but rather a stock character - the confederate. The body paragraph of the essay reads "The main (but not only) aspects of the neo-Confederate worldview are:", followed by a laundry list of beliefs supposedly held by character. It represents a conflation of many different ideas under an (allegedly notable) ideology. Once the public is primed with this association, it is then used as an ad hominem attack against one who might argue one (but not all) of those points, or even against those who fail to observe the pavlovian ritual of denunciation. Likewise, critics may also have to deal with the facile combination of ad hominem and question begging afforded by various non-arguments that boil down to "you're only criticizing WP:NO X because you are an X". It would be a non-argument even if it were true.

WP:NO CONFEDERATES is hardly very subtle about the specific falsehood it promotes, it's right in the lead: "The secession primarily occurred over the issue of slavery, and directly resulted in the Civil War. Claims that the secession had some other fundamental cause (or cornerstone) than slavery are a historical whitewash." It is a matter of public record that Tariffs were a primary cause of the civil war:

https://www.britannica.com/video/245851/Tariff-of-1828
https://northcarolinahistory.org/encycl ... civil-war/
https://www.marottaonmoney.com/protecti ... civil-war/
https://www.marottaonmoney.com/jefferso ... reactions/

Why is there such a fanatical insistence that slavery was the singular cause? The article is desperate to create an association between "far right extremism" and this specific historical fact, so that they can attack those who would point out that it is a fact.

[ericbarbour]

While the first point (about propaganda laundering) is mostly relevant for political articles, I'm sure many other editors with expertise in STEM fields have been repelled through various abuses of Wikipedia's policy. Most of Wikipedia's articles on computer science and math are astonishingly bad.

It has nothing to do with "expertise". They use WP content as a false flag to purge anyone like Ditlevsen, who isn't a "Wiki-insider" by dint of sucking up to certain other Wiki-insiders. Asses must be kissed or the content you write will be declared "in violation of policy", destroyed no matter how accurate or verfiable, and your account will be banned. Stupidly--because the Wiki-insiders are NOT as smart or as well educated as they commonly think they are. The encyclopedia is just an attractant; it provides raw human material for the autism-prone bullies to harass them.

Articles I saw some years ago are a PERFECT example of WP:OWN and of an "expert" successfully generating virtually all the content. Extreme ultraviolet lithography, Electron-beam lithography, Multiple patterning, and Immersion lithography are completely controlled by Guiding light, who is obviously a PhD-bearing expert in microelectronics and nanotechnology. He (practically guaranteed to be a "he") has been on Wikipedia since 2005, doing whatever the goddamn hell he wants, because he's been sucking up for 19 years, and because they don't have anyone else "trustworthy" (meaning, a suck-up) who knows as much about microelectronics fabrication. These aren't political hot-potato articles so Guiding light is "tolerated". See his talkpage for examples of him fighting with insiders, mostly over the images he posted/used.

[Archer]

It has nothing to do with "expertise". They use WP content as a false flag to purge anyone like Ditlevsen, who isn't a "Wiki-insider" by dint of sucking up to certain other Wiki-insiders. Asses must be kissed or the content you write will be declared "in violation of policy", destroyed no matter how accurate or verfiable, and your account will be banned. Stupidly--because the Wiki-insiders are NOT as smart or as well educated as they commonly think they are. The encyclopedia is just an attractant; it provides raw human material for the autism-prone bullies to harass them.

Articles I saw some years ago are a PERFECT example of WP:OWN and of an "expert" successfully generating virtually all the content. Extreme ultraviolet lithography, Electron-beam lithography, Multiple patterning, and Immersion lithography are completely controlled by Guiding light, who is obviously a PhD-bearing expert in microelectronics and nanotechnology. He (practically guaranteed to be a "he") has been on Wikipedia since 2005, doing whatever the goddamn hell he wants, because he's been sucking up for 19 years, and because they don't have anyone else "trustworthy" (meaning, a suck-up) who knows as much about microelectronics fabrication. These aren't political hot-potato articles so Guiding light is "tolerated". See his talkpage for examples of him fighting with insiders, mostly over the images he posted/used.

Fair enough then. This does not seem to contradict what I've said.

Asses must be kissed or the content you write will be declared "in violation of policy", destroyed no matter how accurate or verfiable, and your account will be banned.

I have caution about writing off the hypocrisy and abuse of Wikipedia's administration as mere pettiness, or accepting it as a matter of course - not that I think you meant to do either but consider the point I made in the quote below. It seems unlikely that any amount of sucking up or ass-kissing would suffice to make Wikipedia's administration accept the policy fixes that I've outlined (or which follow naturally from my critique), even though most are practical improvements that could (and should) be implemented right now.

Generally, I think Wikipedia policy should be the critic's main target. Unlike nebulous, intangible things like Wikipedia's culture, all of the policy issues I have described in this thread could be fixed today. It wouldn't be hard in the least to sharpen up Wikipedia's policy; I'd do it myself if they'd actually consider accepting these improvements. They have no excuse to leave it as it is.

[Archer]

A word about WP:NO X essays - Part 2

While most essays are do not explicitly contradict the letter of official policy, WP:NONAZIS fails to meet even this pitiful standard; WP:NPA forbids "Comparing editors to Nazis, terrorists, dictators, or other infamous people." Much of what I wrote about WP:NOCONFED (which also arguably violates WP:NPA) applies to WP:NONAZIS, WP:NOQUEERPHOBES, WP:NORACISTS, etc. These essays each commit a motte-and-baily fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy. The first editor on the WP:NONAZIS talk page to make a similar observation was blocked shortly thereafter, and Tamzin hatted the conversation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... ns#HATTING, for those unfamiliar). I don't have much more to say about them right now. They should all be moved to userspace. As de facto policy, they are subversive and have a chilling effect upon discourse. Besides reinforcing these tropes and thereby providing mud for subversives and propagandists to sling at people, they add nothing that isn't already covered by official policy.

Tangentially related: Midsize Jake concedes the point after Zoloft banned me for no particular reason. Other editors ignore the point entirely, coming out of the woodwork to defeat the conservapedia strawman and posture, expostfacto. https://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewto ... 57#p359757 A critics' forum, is it? And what cause did Zoloft have to be angry in the first place?

[Archer]

I should probably cover WP:BLUDGEON, though much of the critique has already been said.

Incidentally, the user Valjean seems like a nutcase but that doesn't make https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... 1237262932 any less valid a suggestion. They're tittering about this diff on WPO (https://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewto ... 24#p360324) and feigning concern on ANI (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... al_attacks). I haven't read the whole thing and probably won't but they could just as easily say "here are the reasons it's a BLP violation" or "the problem is that your material violates [some other policy], not WP:BLP" and put the issue to rest. It must take a special sort of cretin to put on a show like this, or rather a group of them.

A couple other discussions that caught my eye:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... r:Dimadick
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... overturned

The whole place is gross.

Back to WP:BLUDGEON though. Just as WP:NOCONFED is part of a larger group of essays that apply similar, less-than-honest rhetoric, WP:BLUDGEON belongs to a class of essays. Broadly, I suspect these are cited either to preempt or terminate open discourse and debate, particularly when it impinges upon Wikipedia's bogus facade of consensus (covered in one of my earlier posts) in one way or another or poses some other inconvenience. They also seem to debase the editor's expectations. This set of essays is very large, ridiculously so. A conservative selection just from those enshrined within the template {{wikipedia essays}} would include

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... ain_silent
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... se_carcass
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Keep_it_concise
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... n_business
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... withdrawal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... p_too_much
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... objections
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... _consensus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Desist
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Concession
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... xperienced
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... us_editing

Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

[boredbird]

It has nothing to do with "expertise". They use WP content as a false flag to purge anyone like Ditlevsen, who isn't a "Wiki-insider" by dint of sucking up to certain other Wiki-insiders. Asses must be kissed or the content you write will be declared "in violation of policy", destroyed no matter how accurate or verfiable, and your account will be banned.

I think you guys missed the significance of the ban rationale here as quoted.

You appear to be one of the authors involved in the work cited and as such should not be editing the article. Also the use of "we" in the edit summary indicates that more than one person is using the account.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... ns/Pditlev

For writing "we", meaning Peter Ditlevsen and the coauthor of the paper, he is banned because "more than one person is using the account."

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... 1201456889

The paper was coauthored with his own wife Susanne Ditlevsen.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-39810-w
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?

CambridgeBayWeather has been an administrator since 2005. His user page gives his name and date of birth in a roundabout fashion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... 7034#About

Alan Sim
born February 20 or February 27, 1944 or 1956 in Purley, UK

And links to his really lame website.

http://www.alansim.com

His earliest userpage says 1956.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... d=15217794

And photo.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... eather.jpg


He says he is a weather observer in Kitikmeok region of Nunavut, hence the username..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitikmeot_Region

Here he is on the Ikaluktutiak fandom wiki.

https://ikaluktutiak.fandom.com/wiki/User:Alan_Sim
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/9edbe ... 135a6455b5

He is quoted here.

The bus still runs but is not safe to use. The repairs would eat most of the budget given to the DEA. The problem there is that we could repair it and we would have very little left to pay a driver and supervisors. On top of that, after making the repairs, the engine may fail and all the money would have been wasted.

https://www.nunavutnews.com/nunavut-new ... ce-7278433

Could be talking about Wikipedia, right?

This is probably him:

https://www.goc411.ca/en/170186/Alan-Sim

Alan Sim
(203) 983-4934
alan.sim@canada.ca

Phone number shared though.
https://www.goc411.ca/en/59444/Shannon-Kaya

What's the chance that Mr. Sim has his own axe to grind here?

All this reminds me why I resigned my membership in the AMOC.

[Archer]

I think you guys missed the significance of the ban rationale here as quoted.

So it was a COI violation? Fair enough, but it's beside the point I'm making.

[ericbarbour]

CambridgeBayWeather has been an administrator since 2005. His user page gives his name and date of birth in a roundabout fashion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... 7034#About
Alan Sim
born February 20 or February 27, 1944 or 1956 in Purley, UK
And links to his really lame website.
http://www.alansim.com
His earliest userpage says 1956.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... d=15217794
He says he is a weather observer in Kitikmeok region of Nunavut, hence the username..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitikmeot_Region
Here he is on the Ikaluktutiak fandom wiki.
https://ikaluktutiak.fandom.com/wiki/User:Alan_Sim
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/9edbe ... 135a6455b5
https://www.nunavutnews.com/nunavut-new ... ce-7278433

Well done. My question is: do the people in Cambridge Bay know that their DEA's director is spending an enormous amount of time fucking with people on Wikipedia? Running broadband to the high Arctic was a VERY costly endeavour and it's hilarious that the head of the school system in this extremely isolated town is using it to heel Wikipedia content and abuse Wp editors.

That story about the district's school bus just sitting, because they don't have the money to run it, makes one wonder what other questionable things are going on in the Cambridge Bay education system. And which ones are the doing of Alan Sim.

So many of these early insiders (Sim was sysopped 19 years ago and was a very early vandalism patroller) are getting OLD. His website is 20 years old and cringey; his WP history is obsessive/ADHD and focused on Canada; and I'm not sure he's really an "important figure" on WP. Never bothered to put him down for the book wiki.

But like the US Supreme Court, they don't leave until they physically can't do the job anymore.

[ericbarbour]

And oh, by the way, it turns out that two other papers were published recently. They show a very similar conclusion to what the Ditlevsens reached the year before. It is feeding the already-boiling media hellstorm over AMOC collapse.

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-envir ... m=referral
https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/02/climate/ ... index.html
https://phys.org/news/2024-08-day-tomorrow-climate.html
https://archive.ph/kwSrt

This is going to make Mr. Alan Sim look even more pathetic. IMO, the little shit owes the Ditlevsens an apology. But as usual, Wikipedians never apologize or admit anything--unless someone with more power is threatening to destroy them on-wiki.

(I just discovered another charming little dirty trick. The Xtools "Edit Count" function, at the bottom of each user's contributions page, still works for "common users". But to examine the edit counts for admins and bureaucrats and a few other insiders now requires a valid Meta login. Creating a new one is almost impossible because they have almost every possible IP address range blocked--except the IPs of insiders. Thus does Wikipedia slowly become the "Encyclopedia No One But We Special People Can Edit".)

[boredbird]

Alan Sim's linkedin doesn't mention the DEA.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-sim-20a46b70/

But the photos on his flickr and ikaluktutiak fan wiki prove that they are the same person.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cbweather ... 8/sizes/l/
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/ikalu ... an_Sim.jpg

He's aged a lot since joining Wikipedia.