Outsiders beginning to catch on: "Wikipedia's Deep Ties to Big Tech" by Michael Olenick

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Outsiders beginning to catch on: "Wikipedia's Deep Ties to Big Tech" by Michael Olenick

Post by Strelnikov » Sat Apr 10, 2021 5:07 am

I found this one yesterday, made a blog post out of it. Michael Olenick and Yves Smith are catching on to what a conflict of interest the Google-WMF thing is, and how Wikipedia is a screaming monopoly.

http://wikipedia-sucks-badly.blogspot.c ... nk-in.html
Still "Globally Banned" on Wikipedia for the high crime of journalism.

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Re: Outsiders beginning to catch on: "Wikipedia's Deep Ties to Big Tech" by Michael Olenick

Post by Strelnikov » Mon Apr 12, 2021 5:17 am

And now it turn out that the actual author has been here the whole time and this thread is redundant.
Still "Globally Banned" on Wikipedia for the high crime of journalism.

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Re: Outsiders beginning to catch on: "Wikipedia's Deep Ties to Big Tech" by Michael Olenick

Post by michaelo » Mon Apr 12, 2021 6:37 pm

I've been a lurker doing background research on that article and, thanks to help from countless insiders, beginning to get more visibility into what's going on and even creating a hypothesis about why. Wikipedia/media is unique in the raw amount of work volunteers do and their (your) impact on the core product. Some charities have volunteers do most of the work -- ex: Habitat for Humanity has volunteers building houses. But it's a very part-time thing. And even there I suspect there are more paid people making sure the houses are habitable; I doubt they have volunteers checking the building skills of other volunteers.

One piece still missing is ... why? I'm meeting all these smart people - why do they volunteer what seems to be enormous amounts of time to building Wikipedia? Why fight Wiki wars when you can just write whatever you want on your own blog? I've made a very few changes to Wikipedia over the years, some rolled back and some left in place but none I was ever especially emotionally tied to. Even my example with Archie McCardell I wouldn't have noticed (and didn't, for months) if the editor hadn't accused me of conflict then a different person brought up conflict at Wikipedia that set me digging deeper.

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Re: Outsiders beginning to catch on: "Wikipedia's Deep Ties to Big Tech" by Michael Olenick

Post by Jake Is A Sellout » Tue Apr 13, 2021 7:58 pm

michaelo wrote:
Mon Apr 12, 2021 6:37 pm
One piece still missing is ... why? I'm meeting all these smart people - why do they volunteer what seems to be enormous amounts of time to building Wikipedia?
Well, for a start, people who edit Wikipedia in a big way, and by that I mean enough to have figured out how it works, and then decide to still do it at as one of their main hobbies, well, they are manifestly not smart. Smart people can easily diagnose the basic problem with Wikipedia - it's not (and never could be) an encyclopedia. This is why people who simply engage with Wikipedia to make corrections, aren't even very smart.

A big reason people edit Wikipedia, is sheer boredom. It's more interactive than watching Netflix or doomscrolling the news, and people can easily kid themselves it's more worthwhile than spending hours on social media. But the basic purpose of the activity is still the same in all cases - wasting time.

Addiction is also a huge component that keeps the hardcore editors coming back time and again. In the same way Facebook keeps you hooked with updates and likes, Wikipedia keeps you hooked with alerts and notifications and changes to articles you have edited.
michaelo wrote:
Mon Apr 12, 2021 6:37 pm
Why fight Wiki wars when you can just write whatever you want on your own blog?
Building on the addiction problem, in many respects, Wikipedia is configured as an MMPORG, which are of course, hugely addictive. As well as the basic combat aspect between users (where they can not just literally edit war but also succeed in wounding or killing them to remove them from the field of battle entirely) it has all the other elements of gameplay, such as experience points, user levels, armour and weapons upgrades, special rooms/missions, etc, etc.

Also, writing for a blog, well, you're rightfully presumed to be just a nobody, really. You get your Google ranking by convincing other people you're worth it. The miracle of Wikipedia, for these particular nobodies, is that in their minds, and sadly in the minds of a very ignorant public, being a Wikipedia editor is seen as somehow almost equivalent to actually being an editor, or a qualified writer, or heaven forbid, a researcher.

You can get instantly published on a page that is invariably the top Goolge result for the topic. That's insane. That's a power ordinary no marks just can't get, not unless they go viral. That's literally why there even was a war between deletiionists and inclusionists. The more allowable topics, the more chances to be published. Wikipediots can get this lasting power with every single edit they make, just by following a few simple rules.

And they get this awesome feeling of power, bizarrely even if literally nobody gives a crap about what they wrote, and they never even read it. It is on Wikipedia regardless, they know it's there, and that's all that matters. Indeed, writing about obscure stuff nobody will care enough about to even fact check, it just about the most effective way to keep yourself on that high.

Cas Liber, the man who was famous for writing a couple of the landmark X millionth articles, did so only by creating a hundred articles in a row, at about the right time. All pages on obscure species nobody will ever really read. As such, he got the credit of creating a hundred articles, a drop in his ocean, but also the glory of being a sort of famous editor, for creating one article that was briefly subject to quite a lot of interest. The other 99, not so much.

Why does anyone do that sort of craziness, if they don't somehow feel powerful off the back of it? It's not what people who set out to edit Wikipedia with only the desire to bring knowledge to the world, would ever do. Cas Liber is actually a pretty horrible person, someone who would probably get off on the sort of power Wikipedia gives him. He also gets this feeling of power by being a high up in the Wikipedia governance system.

All of these notions of competence becaude you edit Wikipedia are nonsense of course, since there is no Wikipedia school, at least not one run by Wikipedia. There is there reason you can't get a degree or a certificate in Wikipedia editing, except from Wikipedia. It is not a competency, it is a hobby. The only thing a Wikipedia editor can authoritatively blog about, is being a Wikipedia editor.

The only reason a Wikipedia editor's handle is even discoverable in an article history, the only reason you can even identify who wrote which piece of text, in which edit, is to satisfy copyright law, and perhaps identify the source of a serious libel, so they can be sued. In all other respects, the idea they are authors or editors, is laughable, but if you point this out to them, they tend it get mad, furious even. This shows where much of their personal investment in Wikipedia comes from.

There are other ways people can get credit too, which keeps them personally invested. Jess Wade is renowned in the media as the creator of over a thousand Wikipedia biographies. Why? There's no reason to believe, after a year or two, any of her creations wikl be at all recognisable as her work, and given how sloppy she is as an editor, it's likely they get totay rewritten in due course, assuming it was a biography anyone has any interest in anyway.

Last but by no means least, is the very real problem that people who just write a blog, are well aware others might dismiss it as just something they, like, think, man. Just their opinion. You write something on Wikipedia, and you use your mad Wikipedia skillz to defend it, well, you get the ultimate prize, don't you? What you wrote, is now knowledge. It is The Truth. That matters to a lot of people. That is the real reason hard core griefers like Guy Chapman and David Gerard edit Wikipedia, day after day, year after year.
michaelo wrote:
Mon Apr 12, 2021 6:37 pm
I've made a very few changes to Wikipedia over the years, some rolled back and some left in place but none I was ever especially emotionally tied to. Even my example with Archie McCardell I wouldn't have noticed (and didn't, for months) if the editor hadn't accused me of conflict then a different person brought up conflict at Wikipedia that set me digging deeper.
Your approach to Wikipedia editing is typical of the casual user, and ideally, should be the ideal way an editor behaves - make a change, and instantly forget about it. Thus would, in theory, be how you crowdsource an encyclopedia. But Wikipeida is not and never has been, crowdsourcing.

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Re: Outsiders beginning to catch on: "Wikipedia's Deep Ties to Big Tech" by Michael Olenick

Post by ericbarbour » Wed Apr 14, 2021 6:13 am

PS: I've sent Michael a copy of the book wiki. Hope he's "amused".

(Also heard back from KC Cole. Doesn't want a copy of the book wiki but wishes us the best. Probably realized what an ugly and unintelligible mess the "Wiki community" is.)

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