Zakynthos, or the Greek tragedy that Wikipedia has become

[CrowsNest]

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =842257477

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... etail,_etc.

Feast your eyes on this brilliant example of how and why Wikipedia is dying, and will die.

Note the aggressive and arrogant, yet remarkably easily offended, nature of the admins. These precious flowers really do need to find jobs that better suit their personality.

Note the utter denigration of this person's effort and work, the utter lack of appreciation of the fact that whatever they think of the end product, here is someone who decided it was a good use of many hours of reading and typing, to at least try to improve the content of the shithole they call an encyclopedia.

Note the conform quickly or die attitude, and specifically how difficult it is to actually avoid death, since conforming to expectations which are nebulous and being continually redefined, and being issued by people who won't do you the simple courtesy of answering a question, is actually pretty difficult.

Note how they genuinely seem to think anyone out there believed the content of that article before this enthusiastic guy got involved, was of any kind of quality at all, something worth defending at all costs.

Note this bizarre belief there is some kind of universally understood and accepted measure of how long an article should be, and that amazingly, for geographic places steeped in ancient history, they think present day population size is the major determining factor even for slapdash ad hoc comparisons, which I kid you not, even included "History of the Universe" as a metric.

I can't see how anyone remotely normal can read any of that sorry episode, and conclude the experienced parties involved were remotely interested in the big picture. Elements of it definitely resemble bullying and harassment.

Perhaps the most hilarious aspect of all - the block reason. They ultimately kicked him off the site for not being there to contribute to the encyclopedia. Sure. Why not? It's not like they don't have actual policies which they claim he violated, that they could have pointed to. He was at various times, supposedly guilty of promotion, copyright violation, not citing sources, not listening, and edit warring. But no. Why don't they just do everyone a favour and make that the default, and only, available block reason? I'm also pretty sure I only ever see Huon's name at the conclusion of one of these car crashes.

Actually, to be honest, the most hilarious thing of all, was the presence of saner voices prepared to call out the idiotic bullies. As always, they were far fewer in number, often less 'experienced' or not Admins, and so were easily ignored or steam rollered.

The real reason he was blocked, is because he didn't cower in fear, he didn't take any bullshit, and he wasn't remotely impressed by their claims of expertise. That's how Wikipediots define a collaborator, it's got fuck all to do with showing a willingness to compromise or learn. It's pretty common for newcomers to Wikipedia to have that reaction to their obvious bullshit - only those who stay too long, eat too much shit, take too many beatings, end up willingly taking it as the apparently reasonable and fair price of entry, as collaboration in action.

Pro-tip Wikiepdiots - don't block people for being uncollaborative, when it's pretty fucking obvious the user in question never once even felt like he was part of a collaboration. The reality is, none of you are even a tenth as good at writing an encyclopedia as you clearly believe you are. You're on Wikipedia precisely because you have no evident talents in writing or human resources, you can't even get your shit together on the relatively simple task of style and format. You're a joke. Every time you confront people as if you know shit, people outside your cult actually laugh.

Yes he took his ball home and told you all to fuck off, and you slammed that door right in his face and told him his mom was an ugly fat bitch. Just like thousands of times before him. Maybe one day you'll sit down and ask yourselves why so few people, on this planet of millions of highly educated and talented English speaking people, want any part of your shitty website, and why even articles on pretty big Greek islands are still properly, embarassingly, shit.

A reasonable article could be salvaged if someone has the sources, the time and the patience to do it......Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 17:30, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, good luck with that. This is the same prick who called the guy's efforts "documenting every last belch, grunt, and fart anyone ever emitted in or on a given landmass".

You're running out of people to piss off, Wikipediots. And you forget, while you're waiting, there are hoardes of people who like to fuck with you for no other reason than you are like this, so eminently deserving of having your time wasted, your egos pricked, your so called encyclopedia messed up. People who want to give you one last kick in your collective ass before your collective head well and truly blocks it completely.

[Graaf Statler]

My god, what a drama. Many times I am wondering what they are thinking at WMF's office about this kind of shitty performances because I am sure they are following this soaps too. And I am sure they are following the critical fora, so they know what is going on.
It's seems to me a drama. Locked up there in there one Tsjernobyl, you see the ground shaking, but you can't do anything. Because the only logical thing for them is to intervene directly, but they can't for legal reasons. And wikipedia is getting more crazy by the day, because of this kind Greek drama's the last people who are able to think in a normal way are leaving and only the complete fools are left.

The whole wiki mouvement is in a direct crises after the complete failing of the last attempt to save it. (Cheerleader Maher who hasn't a clou what Wikipedia really is, the fuckt checkersss and fake news nonsens, the gender bla bla, Pedia will be but a relabel source in 2030, only no living person on this globe knows how, etc.) The new elan has completely failed.
It's now a nuclear power station running out of controle, and nobody knows the solution because there isn't one. And in the main time I am sure a tremendous fight is going on in the controle rooms, because the situation is like I said before for me a complete Deja vu. Because that's what always happens if the situation is going out of hands, people start to blame the other for the fiasco.
Strange enough is that Deja vu is about the same subject, a Greek drama. Greece what crashed is 2009, and put Europe in a crisis what still is going on. Only I don't think there is any ECB to safe WMF....

[CrowsNest]

I think the time has long since passed when the WMF really believed they can do anything about this sort of car crash. It's been years since they tried to start ringing the right alarm bells, make the right corrective actions, change the culture completely. As seen here, the effect is minimal, if not completely non-existent. Arguably, they have only gotten worse. Every significant change the volunteer Wikipediots have made in policy or culture these last few years, has been specifically designed to raise the drawbridge and encourage institutionalised bullying of non-conformists like this guy, on the faulty assumption what they have built already is almost a complete encyclopedia, with a sensible set of clear and evenly enforced rules, and a well functioning community. They either don't see, or don't care, that a long term survival rate of newcomers in the low percentiles, signals the eventual death of their cult.

[Abd]

There are myriads of stories like this. There were editors who used to intervene. They pissed off the cabal, and the cabal developed more and more effective ways of enforcing their point of view, leaving those editors either frustrated, or, sanely, leaving Wikipedia. The best of the original core left, leaving the dregs. The structure was not designed to empower wisdom and depth, but rather to cater to quick decision-making and knee-jerk reactions.

I demonstrated that if one did the work of actually collecting evidence on a situation, it was considered, knee-jerk, that this must be biased, since why else would anyone go to so much effort? The thought that someone might actually care about neutrality was beyond them. Many of the faction I tangled with on occasion actually claim that NPOV is wrong. They are anti-academic and anti-intellectual.

My first ArbComm case, filed about JzG doing what JxG had long done and which he continued to do in spite of being reprimanded, began with a user conduct RfC. I compiled neutral evidence. The RfC was cosigned by Durova, but the summary of "community opinion" -- about 2:1 -- was "Ban Abd." In other words, the "community" violated the idea and spirit of RfCs, and went after me, the one who compiled the evidence that they didn't like, against Durova, who was too popular. In the Arbitration that followed, the evidence was attacked as having been cherry-picked, with hostile summaries appended to each edit.

In fact, JzG had written all those summaries. The compilation was neutral. That Arbitration turned when an Arbitrator used an automated process to collect what I had collected manually. Yet the ultimate result was that JzG was considered a "valuable volunteer," we wouldn't want to offend one of those, just to please that Abd dogshit. It later became clear that an ArbCom majority actually wanted to Ban Abd from the start, but didn't have enough cover in that case.

(JzG actually resigned and went away for a while, offended that I had not been immediately banned. He came back, and did everything he could to get even. He continued to complain about me even long after I was banned. And he is very likely one of the complainants who created an Office ban for me, working with Joshua P. Schroeder (often blocked and banned, and, in fact, currently blocked) and the Smith brothers, and one idiot bureaucrat on Wikiversity who came out of effective retirement to block Abd and complain, it's likely. I see this all as an opportunity, much more valuable than wasting time creating WMF content; I can do that elsewhere with better tools and better results, though Wikiversity was quite good while it lasted. I had realized, before all that shit came down, that Wikiversity was not safe. The problem was not really the Bad Guys, the problem was that the community didn't give a shit. Nobody is in charge, actually, except a mob that reacts this way and that.)

So ... MediaWiki allows a user privilege called Ombudsman. Someone with research tools, including reading suppressed edits. There is an "Ombudsman Commission," which I have never seen do anything useful, but maybe they do. Wikipedia never developed the kind of supervisory structure that a real encyclopedia needs. It demonstrates that crowdsourcing can do more than many might have expected, though I wasn't surprised. Nor was I surprised that the ideals of Wikipedia were unrealizable with the structure created. (or not created).

[Graaf Statler]

It's absolute clear a wiki editor has to obey the cabal. And if you don't the astroturfing starts and also the crowd has to obey. Protests against the cabal are not tolerated.
The cabal is governing a wiki in the way they think is right, it are the same persons over the years. And one thing is for sure, they don't learn from there blunders. They make the same mistakes over and over and over. They don't care about good editors, its all about wiki politic. Who is who's friend. What are the interests. How can I push in the best way my POV. It has nothing to do with a intellectual proces, other matters are far more important. They don't care about good editors, for them it's the same if someone is copy past some stuff. They don't care about copvio, they don't care about anything. As long someone is creating as many articles as possible, doesn't matter if it's complete rubbish, it is a top editor for the cabal.

[CrowsNest]

Guy Chapman is a menace, but I think he at least tries to focus on fighting those people he seems to think represent serious threats to Wikipedia, or otherwise give him cause to get upset. Two obvious current cases being his defence of "Philip Cross" and his wrestling with Alison Chabloz. As such, wierdly, outside of his obvious influence over matters of precedent, which are rare occurences, you can sort of consider him less of a problem for the overall health of the site, namely their ability to recruit sane talented people, than the sort of arrogant ass that routinely gets involved in cases like this. They appear to be involved in Wikipedia as much for the sheer hell of it, the power trip, rather than any higher principle. We can consider Guy sort of like the second line of defence. If a sane, sensible person can deal with the sort of bullshit these admins have to offer and still pressed on in their aim to disseminate knowledge, then once they become established, they will inevitably encounter the terrible sight of Guy in full flight over some issue. And that is when they will really realise how deep the rot is, and reconsider their life choices. Addiction permitting, of course.

[ericbarbour]

don't forget:

http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showforum=44

When Guy encounters the SLIGHTEST resistance, he goes into tantrums like a 2-year-old. And age has failed to "mellow" him.

[tern]

What's new?

The trajectory is die, but the pace is as a big ponderous animal.

[Paul Bedson]

Isn't there always a Phoenix that rises from the ashes in Greek tragedies like this?

P.S. Everipedia's https://iq.everipedia.org/ (or https://iqnetwork.io) blockchain encyclopedia went live for creating pages this week and you can get paid for editing as soon as the rewards module goes live.

[CrowsNest]

Well, as episodes like this illustrate quite well, you guys certainly have a few hundred thousand potential editors out there who got burned by the false promises and general shit-baggery of Wikipedia, that you might be able to convince to participate.