Blog post on where WO and the rest of it is....

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Blog post on where WO and the rest of it is....

Post by Strelnikov » Sat Mar 24, 2018 11:19 am

....and it (WO or Wikipedia) doesn't seem to be moving in any direction to me.

Am I wrong? If you think I am wrong, tell me.

Link here.
Still "Globally Banned" on Wikipedia for the high crime of journalism.

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Re: Blog post on where WO and the rest of it is....

Post by CrowsNest » Sat Mar 24, 2018 12:47 pm

As always, I cannot agree with statements like this.....
not a lot is happening inside Wikipedia
There always something happening that can be written about without repeating oneself, even major stuff, like ACTRIAL adoption. Obviously, while the specific events are new, the underlying themes are typically the same, leading to repetition. But giving out the message that nothing about how Wikipedia is managed or how the community thinks really changes and here's the latest example, is a useful public service message.

Agreed on the fact Wikipedia is dying a slow death. It has been since 2007, but recently there have been some remarkable developments which suggest a tipping point is being reached.

I am specifically thinking of the recent voluntary exile of Tony1 and Dr. Blofeld (admittedly not yet long enough for him with his history to be called permanent), and the forced exile of Born2Cycle. I've not run the stats, but all three of these people were not just committed editors, they lived and breathed Wikipedia, and were extremely influential/productive in their own spheres of interest - Blofeld in activley driving content addition, Tony in MOS issues, and B2C in naming.

It is impossible to see how these losses, all traceable to long standing systemic issues with Wikipedia's dysfunctional community, can be recovered from. The site has always periodically lost prolific participants due to burnout or some other traumatic event, if not just disinterest or real life changes, but this is something else. It maybe significant that none of them were Admins, and none likely ever could be.

Even though only one exit was forced, notably all three were entirely avoidable, and could be reversed by the people themselves simply saying or doing what they know is required of them. Blofeld needs to do nothing really, Tony needs to just swallow his pride, and B2C simply has to accept a small topic ban.

But significantly, all three exits haven't been avoided precisely because they themselves do not wish it. They seem happy to walk away. There's evidently nothing the community can do to persuade them to come back, and for some strange reason, their long standing addiction to Wikipedia seems to have finally worn off. It can only be the attritional effect of years and years of the same old shit - all three editors have always had to suffer grief for what they do - and so were arguably never really happy or willfully participating for the joy of it, they were just addicted.

And while it can't be ignored that some or all may be socking as a means to manage their withdrawal, the nature of their past lives shows that hiding in the shadows isn't what they ever wanted from Wikipedia - all three are editors for whom their established and hard fought reputations, mattered. Without their names, they're nothing.

So there's definitely something strange going on. We are, after all, well into the period when ever more editors are passing the milestone of ten years of addiction. That realisation cannot fail to freak some of them out, jolt them out of their addiction and into questioning what the fuck it was all for, given a truly reliable and comprehensive encyclopedia is no nearer, as a fruit of their collective labours.

Moving on from that strangeness, you may also be overplaying the fear ordinary (highly active) Wikipedians have of being globally banned, but this cannot fail to be sending a chill of fear through those who are very vocal about what they see as faults and failings. The message is surely out now - don't send emails to any of your fellow editors if they are anything less than totally complementary, lest you be seen as a harasser.

I am a bit puzzled by this.....
The real problem within Wikipeda-criticism is that you have to either never have been a member (like yours truly) or you don't want back in for the criticism to be serious.
I agree, you do have to be one of those, but I fail to see it as a problem? Or were you referring to the issue of how many supposed critics are neither one or the other, and how they are dominating the discussion at WO, and by default are not present or persona non grata at WP itself. I think you can also always argue there are some exceptions to this rule based on the evident equality of the criticism, but sadly not many.

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Re: Blog post on where WO and the rest of it is....

Post by CrowsNest » Sat Mar 24, 2018 1:12 pm

P.S, you probably already noticed, but if not, you appear to have riled dear old Zoloft with this blog post, and he retaliated with a not very nice post on the WO forum. Pretty sure creating socks isn't his style, so clearly someone over there (cough, Poetlister, cough) is trying to manipulate the poor old duffer. I guess he's feeling like he can get away with anything these days, and ironically Zoloft is partly to blame for that.

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Re: Blog post on where WO and the rest of it is....

Post by Strelnikov » Sat Mar 24, 2018 4:59 pm

CrowsNest wrote:P.S, you probably already noticed, but if not, you appear to have riled dear old Zoloft with this blog post, and he retaliated with a not very nice post on the WO forum. Pretty sure creating socks isn't his style, so clearly someone over there (cough, Poetlister, cough) is trying to manipulate the poor old duffer. I guess he's feeling like he can get away with anything these days, and ironically Zoloft is partly to blame for that.


Just copypaste what he wrote here; I can't find it.
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Re: Blog post on where WO and the rest of it is....

Post by Mutineer » Sat Mar 24, 2018 7:30 pm

It was sort of a strange hybrid of WO criticism and CB radio (which is obviously among your interests) but I certainly liked the article. That picture of Zoloft and his later-revealed attitude of, basically, "how can we help Wikipedia" live in infamy.

You certainly crank out the WP criticism. I'm not bitter about it but I recall how well WS1 (Proboards) was humming along before those dirtbags including, but not limited to, damaged Greg Kohs managed to wipe it out.

As for the dearth of fresh WO articles, it's because it treats authors poorly and word gets around.
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Re: Blog post on where WO and the rest of it is....

Post by Strelnikov » Sun Mar 25, 2018 2:15 am

The Wikipediocracy thread where yours truly was named again. Because Zoloft has no tact, taste or whatever:

MadManz:

Small question about WMF (not sure if anyone knows answer)

Who the fuck is "J[name blanked] C[to keep up the suspense] of Southern California" and how is he globally banned by WMF if he doesn't even have an account on any Wikimedia sites? There is no account on any WMF project named "J--- C------- of Southern California" and if there is one called "J--- C------" (I can't remember) it isn't even globally locked, and the only "proof" of him being banned is him being added to the list. The "of Southern California" has lead me to believe it may be caused by a real life issue but I have no idea what else it could be. (And yes, I searched for him online and on Wikimedia and the best results were random Facebook accounts that have a 1% chance of being owned by JCoSC.)

AndytheGrump:

Re: Small question about WMF (not sure if anyone knows answe
Whoever he is, he is subject to a WMF global ban, and they are unlikely to say why:


Details of global bans are confidential.
In order to protect the privacy of all parties involved, the Wikimedia Foundation generally will not publicly or privately comment on the reason for any specific banning action...




https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Global_Ban_Policy

tarantino:

Re: Small question about WMF (not sure if anyone knows answe

This is why. He doesn't like me:)

mynameisnotdave:

Re: Small question about WMF (not sure if anyone knows answe


tarantino wrote:
This is why. He doesn't like me :)



Forgive my ignorance, but was that written in English? :)))))))))))

What a load of ramble.

Guido den Broeder:

Re: Small question about WMF (not sure if anyone knows answe

Good-old LinkedIn has a J----- C------ in the area.

Bezdomni:

Re: Small question about WMF (not sure if anyone knows answe

Forgive my impertinence Tarantino, but I'm curious, do you regret anything about that affair? I believe the person the Griffon Bannister is inquiring about may regret going to the library he pays tax(es) for -- well, at least in the pseudonymous "squirrel on the power grid" way that he did.

Mr. Lokhshin, Ms. Poore and even Ms. Stephenson-Goodnight do not pay tax(es) in San Diego. So you're right, "My name is not Dave," it does sound like a loaded rumble t . l . c .

Your ignorance is excused My name is not dave... we all do our best.


tarantino:

Re: Small question about WMF (not sure if anyone knows answe

Bezdomni wrote:

Forgive my impertinence Tarantino, but I'm curious, do you regret anything about that affair? I believe the person the Griffon Bannister is inquiring about may regret going to the library he pays tax(es) for -- well, at least in the pseudonymous "squirrel on the power grid" way that he did.

Mr. Lokhshin, Ms. Poore and even Ms. Stephenson-Goodnight do not pay tax(es) in San Diego. So you're right, "My name is not Dave," it does sound like a loaded rumble t . l . c .

Your ignorance is excused My name is not dave... we all do our best.



No regrets, Coyote, and I won't go into why or what you don't know.

[Bezdomni makes dumb reply. Next post is where Wee Billy Burns gets on a small high horse.]

Zoloft:

Re: Small question about WMF (not sure if anyone knows answe

While J---- was getting thrown out, I was having a beer with a friendly Wikipedian, learning more about the internal politics, then on my way back to the conference I met C----- on the sidewalk (pretty much as he described) and then spent the next few days (registered as myself, and identified as from Wikipediocracy) discussing reform and Wikipedia's atrocities and other topics. I was a panel member on a Wikipedia security conference that had been angling to enact more sanctions and rules against critics. Having a critic on the panel may have quashed that.

I had hours-long arguments/discussions with Arcom members.

C-------'s antics have gotten Wikimedia legal staff to SanFranBan him. I'm in the group photo with my belt and suspenders, right in front.

My badge was not full of lies and impersonation.



Attachment:
badgesm.png



Twitter copy of the WikiCon 2016 group photo



Zoloft wrote:

Easiest game of Find-the-Zoloft ever.

I'm the fat bald white guy with glasses in the lower right, brown slacks, with suspenders. That is not a cane, but a railing.




You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.

[Dumb response from Bezdomni, Anroth talks about camera angles, Mad Mans says "Thanks" after quoting "Monty" Burns.]

So what can we gather from this?

A. Tarantino is probably within the WMF or worked as an Internet researcher (possibly a hired gun of the WMF) before he decided to talk about Wikipedia as a hobby for six years. I think either works; unless you are writing about Wikipedia for journalism purposes, or are an former Wikipedian or WMF employee, you aren't going to be interested in this.

B. They know the truth, but they won't say it - by outing me, they forced me to use an assumed name. Unfortunately, that person (whose name I borrowed for all of three hours) did not play along but did not tell me he wasn't playing along, and he wrote the WMF weeks before the event. They decided to give me a ban letter if I showed up, and I did - I was busted when I walked through the door. None of the charming WO-MBers above recognize that I was there to take photos and video, nothing more, and I said as much both on the blog and that Storify piece. If I could have cajoled people into giving interviews, that would have been great, but instead I was chased up and down a public library for nearly an hour.

C. Burns is desperate to be important within this tiny world, which is why he thinks that he was "....discussing reform and Wikipedia's atrocities and other topics. I was a panel member on a Wikipedia security conference that had been angling to enact more sanctions and rules against critics. Having a critic on the panel may have quashed that." What are these big changes he stopped? If anybody here knows, please tell me. If I had shown up as myself I would have wound up like Kohs, banned from Wikiconference NA 2014 (i.e. "The one in New York City").
Still "Globally Banned" on Wikipedia for the high crime of journalism.

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Re: Blog post on where WO and the rest of it is....

Post by ericbarbour » Sun Mar 25, 2018 3:32 am

Zoloft wrote:While J---- was getting thrown out, I was having a beer with a friendly Wikipedian, learning more about the internal politics, then on my way back to the conference I met C----- on the sidewalk (pretty much as he described) and then spent the next few days (registered as myself, and identified as from Wikipediocracy) discussing reform and Wikipedia's atrocities and other topics. I was a panel member on a Wikipedia security conference that had been angling to enact more sanctions and rules against critics. Having a critic on the panel may have quashed that.

I had hours-long arguments/discussions with Arcom members.

And all to no damned avail whatsoever. Perhaps someday Wee Billy will admit that Wikipedia operates like a paranoiac religious cult--perhaps. And when he finally realizes it and objects to it, they will purge him like so much bad Mexican food, and then pretend he never existed. Because that's the "Wiki Way".

A. Tarantino is probably within the WMF or worked as an Internet researcher (possibly a hired gun of the WMF) before he decided to talk about Wikipedia as a hobby for six years. I think either works; unless you are writing about Wikipedia for journalism purposes, or are an former Wikipedian or WMF employee, you aren't going to be interested in this.

It's quite possible, and no one will ever admit it. We know more about the CIA and the NSA than we do about Wikipedia's "seekret internal operations". It is magnetically attractive to people with paranoid schizophrenia.

S's blog wrote:(much like how Citizen's Band operators are using illegal "export model" radios and talking to each other in narrowband FM mode using fifty watts of power*

Hah. I know of CBers who run 50 KILOWATTS of power. I also know of transmitter manufacturers who will cheerfully build you a CB linear amplifier as powerful as you might desire, and be willing to pay for. Supposedly there is a total lunatic in South Texas who has a 200-kilowatt CB linear. Needs his own giant diesel generator to power it. He has been tagged by the FCC several times yet somehow continues to operate....you won't read about any of this on the FCC's website or in the news media.

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Re: Blog post on where WO and the rest of it is....

Post by Strelnikov » Sun Mar 25, 2018 7:41 am

ericbarbour wrote:
Zoloft wrote:While J---- was getting thrown out, I was having a beer with a friendly Wikipedian, learning more about the internal politics, then on my way back to the conference I met C----- on the sidewalk (pretty much as he described) and then spent the next few days (registered as myself, and identified as from Wikipediocracy) discussing reform and Wikipedia's atrocities and other topics. I was a panel member on a Wikipedia security conference that had been angling to enact more sanctions and rules against critics. Having a critic on the panel may have quashed that.

I had hours-long arguments/discussions with Arcom members.


And all to no damned avail whatsoever. Perhaps someday Wee Billy will admit that Wikipedia operates like a paranoiac religious cult--perhaps. And when he finally realizes it and objects to it, they will purge him like so much bad Mexican food, and then pretend he never existed. Because that's the "Wiki Way".

A. Tarantino is probably within the WMF or worked as an Internet researcher (possibly a hired gun of the WMF) before he decided to talk about Wikipedia as a hobby for six years. I think either works; unless you are writing about Wikipedia for journalism purposes, or are an former Wikipedian or WMF employee, you aren't going to be interested in this.


It's quite possible, and no one will ever admit it. We know more about the CIA and the NSA than we do about Wikipedia's "seekret internal operations". It is magnetically attractive to people with paranoid schizophrenia.

S's blog wrote:(much like how Citizen's Band operators are using illegal "export model" radios and talking to each other in narrowband FM mode using fifty watts of power*


Hah. I know of CBers who run 50 KILOWATTS of power. I also know of transmitter manufacturers who will cheerfully build you a CB linear amplifier as powerful as you might desire, and be willing to pay for. Supposedly there is a total lunatic in South Texas who has a 200-kilowatt CB linear. Needs his own giant diesel generator to power it. He has been tagged by the FCC several times yet somehow continues to operate....you won't read about any of this on the FCC's website or in the news media.


Reponses:

What has gotten on my nerves its that "Monty" Burns acts like he is above all of this; he or Kohs or McGeady made the decision to chuck me, and I know Burns yanked the Stierlitz avatar because he put it up. He created a mess, then blames me for trying to create a work-around. And for the n00bs reading this thread, I showed up at Wikipediocracy to talk about Reddit, and I may have been one of the first people off site to talk about nolibs and his "crew" and their 50+ subreddits that they ran like r/The_Donald is being run now (and that was years before Trump ran.)

Perhaps someday Wee Billy will admit that Wikipedia operates like a paranoiac religious cult--perhaps. And when he finally realizes it and objects to it, they will purge him like so much bad Mexican food, and then pretend he never existed.

He is a marked man in the eyes of the WMF and he will end up being banned for running a criticism site no matter how much he tries to make it amenable to ArbCom, James Alexander, or Jimmy Wales. He's like everybody who works at the Ministry of Truth in 1984; no matter how orthodox they are to the Party's shifting and mostly-unwritten ideology, they will all wind up being destroyed by a Thought Policeman like O'Brien because they still speak Standard English and not Newspeak as their first language, and the ambiguities of English are loathed by IngSoc ideologues. Purging all sockpuppets off Wikipedia is the Newspeak, as is purging anybody who thinks that the site can be improved through methods not sanctioned by the WMF. So say goodbye to Burns, Andreas Kolbe, all the others over there who are Wikipedians or secret Wikipedians.

S's blog wrote:(much like how Citizen's Band operators are using illegal "export model" radios and talking to each other in narrowband FM mode using fifty watts of power*


Hah. I know of CBers who run 50 KILOWATTS of power. I also know of transmitter manufacturers who will cheerfully build you a CB linear amplifier as powerful as you might desire, and be willing to pay for. Supposedly there is a total lunatic in South Texas who has a 200-kilowatt CB linear. Needs his own giant diesel generator to power it. He has been tagged by the FCC several times yet somehow continues to operate....you won't read about any of this on the FCC's website or in the news media.


I screwed up and should have said "fifty watts of power in mobile operation" i.e., they have a "barefoot" export transceiver in their truck, no linear amp running off a spare alternator (or a rack of them) so they can produce 70kW doing "keydowns" gunning the engine in neutral while yelling their handle into the microphone.

If Mr. South Texas SuperLinear has the cash to order a monster like that, assemble this thing which has to be the size of a medium industrial refrigerator in an outbuilding on his property, put up a small antenna farm to support the output, and a surplus tank engine to run it, then fines are the least of the dude's troubles. If an amateur radio operator built something like that for the 10, 75, or 80 meter bands his license would be gone in a Shanghai minute. And that's why the FCC is mum on this guy, because CBers stopped being licensed by the 1980s, they have to treat what he does like "spurious emissions" from a dying florescent lamp ballast.

Radio Metallica Worldwide from the late 1990s ran in AM at 10kW, and all they played was Metallica. The DJs used echo reverb (a common pirate SW trick, helps disguise your voice) and the signal covered the entire US and reached Europe.

Still "Globally Banned" on Wikipedia for the high crime of journalism.

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Re: Blog post on where WO and the rest of it is....

Post by sashi » Sun Mar 25, 2018 9:22 am

[Dumb response #2 from Bezdomni]

Hey! ^^ I used to be a wedding photographer, successful group photos interest me. (You also have to admit that your own squirrel-cam video was slightly less effective than the official photo at showing who was there...)

I was struck by the number of people I can identify in that photo -- the orange hat, the blue tie, the RedShirts running right down the middle, the typical front-row presence of Lil.E-Game... I would have liked to hear Zoloft talk about the staging of that photo, honestly, because it does not seem to have been overly random.

[Dumb response #1 from Bezdomni]

There's plenty I don't know, but I do believe that I've read that tarantino didn't out you because you were going to the San Diego library. Is that correct? However, the fact that you were outed at WPO *did* lead you to hatch the plot you did with the results it had... (is that also correct?)

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Re: Blog post on where WO and the rest of it is....

Post by Strelnikov » Sun Mar 25, 2018 11:00 am

sashi wrote:[Dumb response #2 from Bezdomni]

Hey! ^^ I used to be a wedding photographer, successful group photos interest me. (You also have to admit that your own squirrel-cam video was slightly less effective than the official photo at showing who was there...)

I was struck by the number of people I can identify in that photo -- the orange hat, the blue tie, the RedShirts running right down the middle, the typical front-row presence of Lil.E-Game... I would have liked to hear Zoloft talk about the staging of that photo, honestly, because it does not seem to have been overly random.

[Dumb response #1 from Bezdomni]

There's plenty I don't know, but I do believe that I've read that tarantino didn't out you because you were going to the San Diego library. Is that correct? However, the fact that you were outed at WPO *did* lead you to hatch the plot you did with the results it had... (is that also correct?)


Sorry, I forget whose handle is what.

There was no possibility of me taking a calm, composed group photo because I was being chased and harassed by Andrew Lih, Sydney Poore, and the other lady demanding that I walk with them to be ejected from the library.

Tarantino exposed my name and one email address long before WikiConjob San Diego happened, and I felt I had to use a false name to get into that event. In truth I could have just gone to the library and just wandered around with a camera running and if anybody asked I would play the tourist.....after all I was there getting photos to send to Eric, that's it.

I would have liked to hear Zoloft talk about the staging of that photo, honestly, because it does not seem to have been overly random.

Looks like a combination of sorting by height and importance, also that's a ramp or stairs they are standing on.
Still "Globally Banned" on Wikipedia for the high crime of journalism.

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