Okay, I try to stay. It's just that I've had terrible time with my debating skills lately; this mess here was the last drop for me that convinced me I need a slight break from any kind of Wikipedia-related advocacy.
So I really try not to say anything any more that I can't back up, and above all, I try not to be Clever and Debatinational (if that is a word). =)
And sorry in advance for a longish post.
#66, #72: I'm really a prosaist (specifically an awful fantasy hobbyist writer) and not a poet, but I guess I'll try - eventually. =)
#69: I'm kind of agreeing here: Wikipedia policies are big and confusing, and regrettably, we're kind of in a swamp with what I call "cargo-cult policy following": People are hugging policies without understanding the spirit of the policies and what caused them to be created in the first place. If someone says we need to clean up, streamline, and clarify policies NOW, I'm all for it - life is too short to learn all of these policies by just opening the policy pages and reading. I also rambled a little bit a while ago (curiously, in my blog =) how Wikipedia would be a much better place if we tried a "civil-law" approach where the policy is what it is, backed by precedents, clarifications and examples; we're now a "common-law" community where everyone's up to interpret the rules however they want as long as they consider what happened before. I was talking about deletion process in particular, but I think it could be extended to other fields as well.
#85: Exactly. When I said something about "blogs not being helpful" I meant the same thing as the locals say when they say "don't whine that you didn't win the lottery if you didn't buy a ticket". =) I see it all that often that people make a big noise out of something that could have been handled in calm and peace if they had contacted the right people. Of course blogging about issues is helpful at some level; however, don't expect any results unless you bring matters up in other channels as well.
#87: Yup, there's one solution to this though: Know the rules, know the procedures, just do what everyone else is doing. For example, there was this one case of an Art Movement whose proponents had a big problem sticking to ordinary rules with their article: They kept using flowery non-neutral language, didn't explain why the subject was notable, and had no idea about article formatting either. Could the article have been saved? Yep - if someone would have written an article according to our rules. Which is why, for most part, we try not to delete things with prejudice. The sad part is, the proponents get frustrated at that point, feel they're wronged, and think that the article has been deleted forever and ever. However, if you are familiar with the rules, it's not uncommon for the article to get restored properly.
#93: Sorry to diverge here, but I don't think there really was a "jihad against webcomics", even when it was categorised as such; it was just that people decided to institute notability criteria. The problem with the notability criteria is that the bar has to be set somewhere, and sites that are kind-of-sort-of notable end up being seriously debated. And as I complained above, with the current common-law approach, the notability criteria are pretty much lines in water, but I sure hope they work at least somehow.
There's an interesting issue about formation of notability criteria: I guess most of them get initiated when someone notices "we have an awful lot of awful articles about things no one cares about", and gets the ball rolling. Of course it's a bad thing if someone (hypotethically speaking) has animosity toward (say) webcomics and decides to get rid of the very worst; however, it still doesn't remove the fact that there should probably be a commonly accepted rule on what's accepted and what's not. So even when someone acts on bad faith, it's sometimes better to just let it go. If bad people do good things, Wikipedia's preference is to let the good things stand, even when done by bad people - while the actions are probably bad, it avoids some red tape and avoids duplicate work.
#97: Reminds me of an old thought of mine: Wikipedia has become successful because it's a wiki. The biggest threat to it is that people don't always realise it's an encyclopaedia, with all that it entails - one of them being that it can't be all-inclusive. One of the biggest weaknesses of Wikipedia is that it's not just a wiki; for most people, it's the wiki. I really hope the wiki concept gets drummed up even farther and people set up their own wikis to cover the minutiae that can't be fit in an encyclopaedia, even arguably so. So, good luck to Wikia et al...
On naming conventions, in general: There's no end in sight! No end! Never! Oh, maybe we can settle this - but I guess the naming issues have to wait until Wikimania 2028 conference, held in Gdanzig. =)
I can't stop crying. I promised to shut up, but I have to say that I feel absolutely horrible for failing extremely spectacularly to make things better. It is not often that I have to admit, from the bottom of my heart, that I really wish I hadn't opened my big mouth whence the words of infinite clueless spring forth from.
(Despite of the appearances, I'm most emphatically not being sarcastic this time. I really am dumb and admit it, plain and simple. The unusual word choices are here just to make it easier for me to write this. Sorry if they make me look less sincere.)
I feel it is this spectacular failure for which in particular I have to apologise, much more than I ever have. (And sorry if this doesn't read what I think it should read - my grammar already went to sleep.)
I'm a horrible person. Yes, I really need to learn to read - all over again. I really need to learn to stop talking about things I haven't got the clue about. And leave this "debating" stuff for people with stronger minds.
Once again, sorry and good night.
I was always afraid that this day would come: I've officially lost my marbles, don't know what is going on, and despite my sincere attempt to the contrary, managed to cause much more harm than good.
It's clear that I need a long holiday. This just isn't working.
I'd definitely like to appeal to the readers of this thread to apologise for wasting everyone's time, energy and disk space.
Ban me if you think it does any good. I've deserved it for being a certified 100% genuine idiot.
That admins like you come here and howl in protest about people making "sweeping generalizations" for criticizing wikipedia about a specific incident makes me wonder what the hell you would do if this had been posted on wikipedia. Deleted the page, deleted its history, and blocked everyone involved for a week?
Deferred them to the correct place to complain about? You know, like I always try to do?
I guess I missed the noticeboard message where Admins Like Me were told to be vindicative, and I will bring up the issue with them shortly - but if you specifically want me to buy a new pair of jackboots, that can be arranged. I hate them, though - always leave my feet sore. Of course, I can't tell before I've fitted them.
How about you listen to what is actually being complained about rather than viewing any and all criticism as some global attack or sweeping generalization about wikipedia?
Oh, I was just thinking aloud. If no one likes it, I guess I can gladly shut up. I'll just make my own blog post. Obviously, not as world-changing as this one, but since no one reads my blog anyway, it's of no consequence.
And I definitely want to apologise for everyone inconvenienced by a random passer-by who has the chronic inability to shut up.
#20 - no, but "people with agendas" sounds awful lot like "Someone(tm) is Behind This Thing, and They're Out to Get Us(tm)(r)(c)".
When, in truth, it's either 1) everyone backstabbing everyone else, or 2) someone in charge doesn't understand the policy as well as they should.
#17 - It's not that simple, because someone forgot to either provide a source or edit the article to remove an obviously incorrect statement.
(After all these years, people forget the correct answer for the question "Why does the article X have the error Y?" is "Because you didn't fix it." =)
"Criticism of Wikipedia--its processes and its results--is not solely the privilege of those who immerse themselves in its procedures."
You appear to believe in this sort of flow of information: 1) make a Big Stink, 2) hope someone notices it, 3) hope the people involved notice the people who noticed the Big Stink, 4) hope the people in charge notice the people involved who noticed the people who noticed the Big Stink, then 5) The whole thing is settled through an administrative fiat from the Very Top of the Command Chain.
In Wikipedia, however, we fix the process this way: 1) Someone tells people that things are wrong. 2) People debate. 3) Things get fixed.
Of course debating about Wikipedia's flaws isn't the sole right of the Wikipedians themselves. The thing that matters is that fixing the process is the responsibility of Wikipedians themselves.
In other words, practical ideas for improvement are much better than exposing the injustices and expecting people to howl in terror.
And I'm arguing that for the small number of malicious people there are a giant bunch of people who don't want utter sheer insanity to happen.
The rules get changed through consensus - if people aren't aware of bad stuff, nothing gets done about it. The right place to complain about this is within Wikipedia. I've seen altogether too many people complain about stuff in their blogs rather than taking the lead and changing things from within.
Okay, I admit I whine about this stuff in my blog, but at least I try to bring these topics up in Wikipedia too.
I'm sorry for bringing things up without any introductionary words whatsoever - usually not in my habits to present an allegory without making it very clear what I'm commenting on. Anyway...
My point is that in my opinion, blogging about this accomplishes nothing, especially if you're trying to point out that this isolated incident is utterly and definitely part of the larger problem. Wikipedia is a giant big mess of isolated incidents, and trying to generalise something out of it gives somewhat conflicting results.
So with this view, I hope the random Pythonesque peasant seems a bit more in place. There's always someone who cries that Stuff Is Wrong; We know the Stuff Is Wrong. The Stuff is also (simultaneously, in a completely different location) Completely Right. And tomorrow, probably the other way around.
(And here comes another big point of mine:)
All I've seen over the last few years is that people have pronounced Definitive Verdicts on various areas of Wikipedia. Every single time, I have to look at the sweeping allegation for a long time, consider what the most correct response would be, and all I can say is "It's not that simple."
And that's really all I can say about this particular incident, as it relates to the whole giant mess that we have for rules. This is, ultimately, an isolated incident - whether you want to categorise it as one or not. A lot of isolated factors led these people to these situations.
Wikipedia's problem is that we're not consistent, policy-wise. We like to think that we are, but that's not true. Conversely, the big problem of people who complain about Wikipedia is that they make sweeping generalisations about a site that's neither generalisable nor sweeping very well. People who complain about Wikipedia always seem to forget to mention the exact things that lead them to these annoying dilemmas of theirs. Yes, in perfect world, they wouldn't matter - but we're not consistent and knowing the past is very important in order to assess the situation.
And I'm sorry for not being particularly consistent myself - it's past midnight here. I'm really confused today and I hope I made at least some sense.
(Egh, I meant to point to #7, sorry) - Oh, it appears the debate has more to do with the fact that spammers used the site as a redirector.
Also, there's the separate issues on whether or not the site can be (at markup level) linked to, and whether it can be used as a source... A lot of material is used as sources even when they're not linkable (or even exist in the web). To me, the correct action would be to retain the links to the site, with the note that the links can't be accessed directly due to the site being in the spam blacklist.
#9 - tried appealing? With those exact same reasonings? You know, posting to blogs doesn't help, but we have tons of different channels to appeal. Weird stuff happens. All we can do is to point out the weirdnesses, within the site.
On a contrary example, links to MobyGames were ultimately not considered spam, even when a large bunch of them were added by alleged co-founder of the site. It all comes down to what is useful and how the links are ultimately used...
"Wikipedia is being gamed with increasing success by people with bad agendas"?
What happened to "Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence"?
I'm not saying a bad thing hasn't happened. All I'm saying that sensationalist generalisations about Violence Inherent in the System got old about two years ago.
I'm a Wikipedia admin - I know all too well that we're regrettably humans. And yes, block-happy and sick and tired of the millionth sockpuppet of some random vandal and as a result prone to making mistakes. But note that we can and will listen to reason if the evidence speaks for itself.
Then, a few random thoughts for people who start thinking "oh, but there's this obscure rule that means that you can't be unblocked anyway":
1) Pulling random rules out of the hat is wikilawyering, plain and simple.
2) It doesn't matter if the rules are being obscurely applied. A wrong block is a wrong block. If people agree you got blocked for a valid reason, that's good. If people don't agree you got blocked for a valid reason, it takes a considerable amount (read: too much) of rule-throwing to get out of that.
- User:Wwwwolf
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2007 | 12 |
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