Sockpuppetry is generally considered a not nice thing on Wikipedia. The encyclopedia defines a sockpuppet as "an additional username used by a Wikipedian who already has one or more accounts." Why everybody can't just edit under their real names is a deepest, darkest mystery to me. Larry Sanger had a good idea when he slapped a real-name policy on Citizendium.
Accusations of sockpuppetry fly every day at WP. The game has grown sillier and more boring than solitaire. The latest example of the nonsense was Greg Maxwell's allegation against a user named Majorly. The accusation just happened to occur in the middle of Majorly's request for adminship. He was trying to get the tools back after voluntarily giving them up a few weeks ago.
Maxwell was last seen consorting with other poobahs to once again allow anonymous accounts to create articles. His sticking of his nose into Majorly's RfA set off alarums and excursions. Majorly eventually withdrew the request even though he seemed sure of approval, and a major stink erupted about Maxwell's busybodiness.
There's this hush-hush thing called "checkuser", designed to ferret out evil and wicked and not-kosher sockpuppetry. Actually, what checkuser is designed to do is keep the peons in line. Favored editors on the encyclopedia can sockpuppet all they want. Anyway, the checkuser results on Majorly seemed to indicate that this sockpuppet allegation was pure crap. But I can't know for sure because my peon self isn't allowed to see the oh-so-secret evidence.
Majorly apparently got screwed, but at least I don't have to worry about this particular inquisition. I've never operated a second username and I'm not about to start. If they want to railroad me out of Wikipedia, they'll have to find some other excuse.
UPDATE: Greg Maxwell is having a tough time all round. His out-of-the-blue decision to once again allow anonymous accounts to create new articles is getting drubbed here. It looks like there will be no consensus to allow anons to write new articles, so Maxwell's proposal won't go into effect. I agree with Maxwell on the issue, but his decision-making process was high-handed and almost certain to backfire.
Friday, November 9, 2007
Thursday, November 8, 2007
MIA
Spent a little time yesterday browsing the Wikipedia-hating pastures of Wikipedia Review. Amid the paranoia and silliness, I came across a link to a WP page I'd never seen before: Missing Wikipedians. The page proved almost poignant.
This list of missing editors is where former Wikipedians go to...well, not exactly die. In fact, there's another list of deceased Wikipedians. I'll comment on that page when I'm feeling really wistful.
Some of the comments about missing editors were either sad or silly, depending on your personal cynicism index: "Very sad. Notheruser was a great contributor." "He will be missed by many." "A respected administrator; last edit August 1, 2006. His final edit summary was Last edit...good night."
That last edit summary struck me as a stylish way to bow out of the project. Maybe when I end this blog, I'll post a two-word "Good night" entry. Or "Good morning" if it's 9:00 AM.
I recognized several of the dearly departed. Essjay quit because of "the New Yorker mess." Yeah, I've edited the article. Katefan0 was hounded off the site in a very nasty episode. Zoe got p.o.ed at Jimbo and stormed out. Flcelloguy seemed like a very nice editor, but that weird thing called real life turned too busy for him. CharlotteWebb got tangled in a TOR web, which I never understood because I don't know what the Hades TOR is.
Many of the reasons cited for leaving boiled down to burnout: "lost interest", "closed up shop", "I just feel like part of a mob", "grew tired", "felt fed up", "time here has passed", "it wasn't fun anymore", "no interest", "nobody will listen to you", "just not fun anymore", "not worth my time", "gotten tired". When it gets to be a chore, it's time to find the door.
Some left over specific issues: advertising, administrator actions, the reward board, the userbox flapdoodle, "vandals, trolls, and malefactors", conflicts over particular articles, criticism on the user's talk page. The funniest exit line was: "This contributor is currently under the impression that Wikipeia is a complete waist of time. (except for a spelling lesson)." But most just up and left because they felt like up and leaving. As one note said: "Disappeared without any notice or indication of reason."
That's the way to go.
This list of missing editors is where former Wikipedians go to...well, not exactly die. In fact, there's another list of deceased Wikipedians. I'll comment on that page when I'm feeling really wistful.
Some of the comments about missing editors were either sad or silly, depending on your personal cynicism index: "Very sad. Notheruser was a great contributor." "He will be missed by many." "A respected administrator; last edit August 1, 2006. His final edit summary was Last edit...good night."
That last edit summary struck me as a stylish way to bow out of the project. Maybe when I end this blog, I'll post a two-word "Good night" entry. Or "Good morning" if it's 9:00 AM.
I recognized several of the dearly departed. Essjay quit because of "the New Yorker mess." Yeah, I've edited the article. Katefan0 was hounded off the site in a very nasty episode. Zoe got p.o.ed at Jimbo and stormed out. Flcelloguy seemed like a very nice editor, but that weird thing called real life turned too busy for him. CharlotteWebb got tangled in a TOR web, which I never understood because I don't know what the Hades TOR is.
Many of the reasons cited for leaving boiled down to burnout: "lost interest", "closed up shop", "I just feel like part of a mob", "grew tired", "felt fed up", "time here has passed", "it wasn't fun anymore", "no interest", "nobody will listen to you", "just not fun anymore", "not worth my time", "gotten tired". When it gets to be a chore, it's time to find the door.
Some left over specific issues: advertising, administrator actions, the reward board, the userbox flapdoodle, "vandals, trolls, and malefactors", conflicts over particular articles, criticism on the user's talk page. The funniest exit line was: "This contributor is currently under the impression that Wikipeia is a complete waist of time. (except for a spelling lesson)." But most just up and left because they felt like up and leaving. As one note said: "Disappeared without any notice or indication of reason."
That's the way to go.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Mumbo-jumbo
Click the edit tab on my user page and a pile of bizarre symbols will tumble onto your screen. This is Wikipedia markup language. Which is sort of like HTML, the lingo that drives the web, and sort of not.
The language is definitely not easy to master. It takes a lot of mumbo-jumbo to get the screen to display what you want in the way you want it. You have to learn the language by making every conceivable and several inconceivable mistakes. Luckily, you can always bury your mistakes by using the preview button. That button is your best friend - maybe your only friend - on the encyclopedia.
I like to hunt around pages and see the markup behind their format. Some user pages, in particular, are so pretty that nerds like me just have to see the markup driving them. This gives me all sorts of bad ideas for festooning my own user page with silly doodads.
Like userboxes. Those are the cute little things that announce I'm alive and I've got 11,000 edits and I know who Jimbo is. I've stretched some boxes out and squished some down to make a big diamond. As one of the userboxes says, I like diamonds.
Believe it or not, userboxes actually set off controversy on Wikipedia. What doesn't set off controversy on the encyclopedia? One day Jimbo was musing that userboxes were too divisive because people were actually, gasp, expressing opinions in them. Sure enough, some gung-ho admins stared deleting scads of the boxes, which got scads of other editors screaming. Lots of people like to put the little thingies on their user pages.
Eventually some weird solution was reached where userboxes are in some space instead of some other space. Don't ask me the details because I don't know them and I don't want to know them. I just learn what I can from the markup behind the boxes.
The language is definitely not easy to master. It takes a lot of mumbo-jumbo to get the screen to display what you want in the way you want it. You have to learn the language by making every conceivable and several inconceivable mistakes. Luckily, you can always bury your mistakes by using the preview button. That button is your best friend - maybe your only friend - on the encyclopedia.
I like to hunt around pages and see the markup behind their format. Some user pages, in particular, are so pretty that nerds like me just have to see the markup driving them. This gives me all sorts of bad ideas for festooning my own user page with silly doodads.
Like userboxes. Those are the cute little things that announce I'm alive and I've got 11,000 edits and I know who Jimbo is. I've stretched some boxes out and squished some down to make a big diamond. As one of the userboxes says, I like diamonds.
Believe it or not, userboxes actually set off controversy on Wikipedia. What doesn't set off controversy on the encyclopedia? One day Jimbo was musing that userboxes were too divisive because people were actually, gasp, expressing opinions in them. Sure enough, some gung-ho admins stared deleting scads of the boxes, which got scads of other editors screaming. Lots of people like to put the little thingies on their user pages.
Eventually some weird solution was reached where userboxes are in some space instead of some other space. Don't ask me the details because I don't know them and I don't want to know them. I just learn what I can from the markup behind the boxes.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Something nice for a change
Just looked over the recent entries, and I have been a grump lately. So I'll be sweeter in this note. As my user page says, I'm a sweet little thing...most of the time.
I've done a lot of work on Wikipedia's Citizendium article. Citizendium, for those not endlessly fascinated by online encyclopedias, is a nascent competitor to Wikipedia started by Larry Sanger. Depending on who you believe, Sanger was a co-founder of Wikipedia or just one of Jimbo's hired hands. There's little doubt that he played a major role in WP's first year before leaving after various disagreements with Jimbo.
Working on the article hasn't always been pure joy. Larry didn't like some of my additions and wasn't shy about telling me so on the article's talk page. He's still not my biggest fan, as his comments on this blog make clear. Another editor axed much of my stuff as too detailed. Some of the cuts were justified, but he also eliminated a valuable selection of media comments about the project.
But that's WP life. You can't please all the people all the time. A lot of my work survives in the article, and WikiDashboard still lists me as the entry's top contributor. So it was pleasant news that the article was nominated and then selected as one of Wikipedia's good articles. This is AAA ball, one step below the major leagues of featured article status.
The good article project is really a good idea. Hauling an entry through the excruciating featured article gauntlet is no fun, as I found out with the Henry James article. It's nice to have a less painful system for recognizing good work in the encyclopedia.
I've done a lot of work on Wikipedia's Citizendium article. Citizendium, for those not endlessly fascinated by online encyclopedias, is a nascent competitor to Wikipedia started by Larry Sanger. Depending on who you believe, Sanger was a co-founder of Wikipedia or just one of Jimbo's hired hands. There's little doubt that he played a major role in WP's first year before leaving after various disagreements with Jimbo.
Working on the article hasn't always been pure joy. Larry didn't like some of my additions and wasn't shy about telling me so on the article's talk page. He's still not my biggest fan, as his comments on this blog make clear. Another editor axed much of my stuff as too detailed. Some of the cuts were justified, but he also eliminated a valuable selection of media comments about the project.
But that's WP life. You can't please all the people all the time. A lot of my work survives in the article, and WikiDashboard still lists me as the entry's top contributor. So it was pleasant news that the article was nominated and then selected as one of Wikipedia's good articles. This is AAA ball, one step below the major leagues of featured article status.
The good article project is really a good idea. Hauling an entry through the excruciating featured article gauntlet is no fun, as I found out with the Henry James article. It's nice to have a less painful system for recognizing good work in the encyclopedia.
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Drama never ends
SlimVirgin, blogged about previously, has returned to editing. Sure enough, her enemies - in particular, Judd Bagley of Overstock.com - are pledging more attacks. At Wikipedia Review Bagley has posted details of what looks to be inconsequential sockpuppetry by SV. He promises redder meat at Antisocialmedia.net, his personal anti-Slim site.
Will anything come of this? Not unless it gets into the mainstream media. Right now the unmistakable mustiness of stale conspiracy theory hangs about the Slim-bashing by Bagley, Daniel Brandt and others. Slate offered a brief mention of the main allegation: SV had/has connections with intelligence agencies, who are using her entrée into the highest circles of Wikipedia poobah-dom to influence sensitive articles on the encyclopedia.
Is the allegation true? I have no earthly idea. But WP poobahs are banning, blocking and censoring with a BADSITES vengeance anybody who breathes a word of this allegation anywhere close to the site. I wouldn't put this entry on the site myself, and I'm a blissfully uninvolved skeptic on the whole issue.
The loopiest conspiracy theory from Wikipedia Review is that SV's month-long absence from editing was some kind of behind-the-scenes punishment by Jimbo. I really don't buy this one, and even WR itself alleged that Slim was editing under other accounts over the last few weeks.
The nightmare scenario: the conspiracy theory proves true and mainstream media - especially the left-wingers who predominate there - pick up the story. Spymasters use agent to influence Wikipedia.
This would make Seigenthaler and Essjay look like teensy-weensy potatoes. Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com and another SV enemy, recently muttered that reporters are already working the story. I don't know if I believe him. I sure don't want to believe him.
Will anything come of this? Not unless it gets into the mainstream media. Right now the unmistakable mustiness of stale conspiracy theory hangs about the Slim-bashing by Bagley, Daniel Brandt and others. Slate offered a brief mention of the main allegation: SV had/has connections with intelligence agencies, who are using her entrée into the highest circles of Wikipedia poobah-dom to influence sensitive articles on the encyclopedia.
Is the allegation true? I have no earthly idea. But WP poobahs are banning, blocking and censoring with a BADSITES vengeance anybody who breathes a word of this allegation anywhere close to the site. I wouldn't put this entry on the site myself, and I'm a blissfully uninvolved skeptic on the whole issue.
The loopiest conspiracy theory from Wikipedia Review is that SV's month-long absence from editing was some kind of behind-the-scenes punishment by Jimbo. I really don't buy this one, and even WR itself alleged that Slim was editing under other accounts over the last few weeks.
The nightmare scenario: the conspiracy theory proves true and mainstream media - especially the left-wingers who predominate there - pick up the story. Spymasters use agent to influence Wikipedia.
This would make Seigenthaler and Essjay look like teensy-weensy potatoes. Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com and another SV enemy, recently muttered that reporters are already working the story. I don't know if I believe him. I sure don't want to believe him.
Playing tag
Anybody who glances at Wikipedia nowadays can't avoid the blizzard of tags attached to articles. Just to make sure nobody misses their electronic graffiti, the lazy-ass taggers, who can't be bothered to work on the articles themselves, usually splatter their butt-ugly tags at the top of the entries they deface. It's amazing that editors who work hard at improving articles put up with these jerks. At least I'll bash them here.
A typical example is the Deal or No Deal article. The asinine taggers have marred this entry with six tags that say nothing more than "I don't like this article." There are three tags that whine exactly the same complaint about "trivia" (meaning any content the moronic taggers don't like.) Another tag bitches that the article is too long. Breaks my heart, idiot. Another wants "table format", whatever that means. I'd like to table him.
These taggers have done precisely nothing to improve the article. Any halfway rational reader will ignore their nonsense and concentrate on the article's substance. Fortunately, the article has been built by people who want to write an encyclopedia, and offers a great deal of information on the show. It's too bad that some "editors" have to dump imbecilic comments in crappy boxes all over other people's work. I just hope their vandalism won't deter users of the encyclopedia.
All such tags, if used at all, should go onto an article's talk page. After all, lamebrain taggers of the world, the talk page exists for comments about an article. Even the wikify tags, which I use to find articles to work on, should rest quietly on the talk page and not scream at the top of an article.
Another example is an article I worked on today, Henry George Theorem. This brief entry about a mildly interesting bit of economic theory was festooned with three tags that took up more space than the article itself. I had no trouble finding references for the article and making the other demanded changes. But taggers can't be troubled to do a little real work. They just want to run up their edit counts with their useless goofball scrawls.
UPDATE: The Deal or No Deal article no longer has six tags. An editor took a meat-ax to the article. The wholesale destruction eliminated most of tags, along with much useful information. Deletionists are almost as much of a pain as taggers. Unfortunately, this deletionist is also a tagger. He hung two more tags on the article that say nothing more than "I don't like how this article is written." Of course, such comments should go on the talk page, but the urge to deface the article was too strong.
A typical example is the Deal or No Deal article. The asinine taggers have marred this entry with six tags that say nothing more than "I don't like this article." There are three tags that whine exactly the same complaint about "trivia" (meaning any content the moronic taggers don't like.) Another tag bitches that the article is too long. Breaks my heart, idiot. Another wants "table format", whatever that means. I'd like to table him.
These taggers have done precisely nothing to improve the article. Any halfway rational reader will ignore their nonsense and concentrate on the article's substance. Fortunately, the article has been built by people who want to write an encyclopedia, and offers a great deal of information on the show. It's too bad that some "editors" have to dump imbecilic comments in crappy boxes all over other people's work. I just hope their vandalism won't deter users of the encyclopedia.
All such tags, if used at all, should go onto an article's talk page. After all, lamebrain taggers of the world, the talk page exists for comments about an article. Even the wikify tags, which I use to find articles to work on, should rest quietly on the talk page and not scream at the top of an article.
Another example is an article I worked on today, Henry George Theorem. This brief entry about a mildly interesting bit of economic theory was festooned with three tags that took up more space than the article itself. I had no trouble finding references for the article and making the other demanded changes. But taggers can't be troubled to do a little real work. They just want to run up their edit counts with their useless goofball scrawls.
UPDATE: The Deal or No Deal article no longer has six tags. An editor took a meat-ax to the article. The wholesale destruction eliminated most of tags, along with much useful information. Deletionists are almost as much of a pain as taggers. Unfortunately, this deletionist is also a tagger. He hung two more tags on the article that say nothing more than "I don't like how this article is written." Of course, such comments should go on the talk page, but the urge to deface the article was too strong.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Old timers
By Wikipedia standards I'm a mere pup. I didn't start editing much under my real name until late 2005, well after the website started on Wikipedia day, January 15, 2001. Sure, it's only a few years, but WP "old-timers" tend to consider themselves privileged on the encyclopedia.
This became painfully apparent when Jimbo Wales recently decided to throw his Wikipedia weight around. Last week, just before he left on a camping trip, Jimbo permanently banned an editor named Miltopia. The banning was somewhat controversial because Miltopia has made some useful contributions to WP. He's also questioned the Wikipedia poobahs about some of their policies and decisions. To at least a few editors, it looked like Jimbo was trying to squelch dissent.
So a brave-to-the-point-of-foolhardiness admin named Zscout370 (why can't people just use their real names?) reverted the ban. Jimbo got back from the camping trip, was not amused, and promptly kicked Zscout370 off the admin list. This produced enormous wailing and gnashing of teeth. You can witness some of the ruckus here. To give Jimbo credit, he buckled under the hollering and restored Zscout370's admin status.
Another ancient Wikipedian named Greg Maxwell casually announced the other day that anonymous editors - who edit under their IP addresses without user names - would be allowed to start creating new articles again. After the Seigenthaler oopsie-doopsie, anons weren't allowed to begin new entries, but only to edit existing articles. This always seemed like a stupid PR ploy to me. Why should an oddball user name suddenly entitle an editor to write new articles?
So I agreed with Maxwell's decision, but the decision-making process was the height of autocratic presumption. Apparently Maxwell got together with a couple other poobahs and decided to make the change, after no consultation at all with the broader range of Wikipedia editors. Gee, us broader-range types only write the damn encyclopedia, Greg.
I really don't buy the constant whines about an evil WP "cabal" that supposedly controls all aspects of the encyclopedia. But when old-timers like Wales and Maxwell start acting like they own the site, I almost want to decamp to Wikipedia Review and yelp. Which is exactly what Miltopia and Zscout370 did.
Wikipedia is a top ten Internet site now. It's no longer a tiny club where the old-timers can casually dictate to everybody and expect quiet obedience. If WP can have a bloated $4.6 million budget, the project can also start respecting its editors a little more, even if they question the sacred decisions of an old-timer or three.
This became painfully apparent when Jimbo Wales recently decided to throw his Wikipedia weight around. Last week, just before he left on a camping trip, Jimbo permanently banned an editor named Miltopia. The banning was somewhat controversial because Miltopia has made some useful contributions to WP. He's also questioned the Wikipedia poobahs about some of their policies and decisions. To at least a few editors, it looked like Jimbo was trying to squelch dissent.
So a brave-to-the-point-of-foolhardiness admin named Zscout370 (why can't people just use their real names?) reverted the ban. Jimbo got back from the camping trip, was not amused, and promptly kicked Zscout370 off the admin list. This produced enormous wailing and gnashing of teeth. You can witness some of the ruckus here. To give Jimbo credit, he buckled under the hollering and restored Zscout370's admin status.
Another ancient Wikipedian named Greg Maxwell casually announced the other day that anonymous editors - who edit under their IP addresses without user names - would be allowed to start creating new articles again. After the Seigenthaler oopsie-doopsie, anons weren't allowed to begin new entries, but only to edit existing articles. This always seemed like a stupid PR ploy to me. Why should an oddball user name suddenly entitle an editor to write new articles?
So I agreed with Maxwell's decision, but the decision-making process was the height of autocratic presumption. Apparently Maxwell got together with a couple other poobahs and decided to make the change, after no consultation at all with the broader range of Wikipedia editors. Gee, us broader-range types only write the damn encyclopedia, Greg.
I really don't buy the constant whines about an evil WP "cabal" that supposedly controls all aspects of the encyclopedia. But when old-timers like Wales and Maxwell start acting like they own the site, I almost want to decamp to Wikipedia Review and yelp. Which is exactly what Miltopia and Zscout370 did.
Wikipedia is a top ten Internet site now. It's no longer a tiny club where the old-timers can casually dictate to everybody and expect quiet obedience. If WP can have a bloated $4.6 million budget, the project can also start respecting its editors a little more, even if they question the sacred decisions of an old-timer or three.
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