tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post990158015231207552..comments2023-10-26T22:06:11.166+11:00Comments on Metamagician3000: Essjay aftermath at Wikipedia - a lot of community soul-searchingRussell Blackfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431324430596809958noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-60587726831718236242007-03-25T21:20:00.000+10:002007-03-25T21:20:00.000+10:00The debate over there seems to be stymied. Wikiped...The debate over there seems to be stymied. Wikipedia evidently has bigger internal problems this week - never mind ... as long as they are invisible to casual users, it doesn't matter that much ...Russell Blackfordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12431324430596809958noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24761391.post-83487014796071136002007-03-21T11:50:00.000+11:002007-03-21T11:50:00.000+11:00On one level, I'm sort of peeved that the communit...On one level, I'm sort of peeved that the community has had to expend so much brain energy arguing over ways to solve a problem caused by <I>the Wikimedia Foundation not doing its job.</I> What do we donate money to them for, anyway? They keep the servers running, they handle the legal matters, and they provide PR. Couldn't the "member of Wikipedia’s management team" who told Stacy Schiff to contact Essjay have done his homework, acted responsibly and recommended somebody who never bothered to conceal his real identity? <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Raul654" REL="nofollow">Raul654</A> (Mark Pellegrini) springs immediately to mind: he's been around the project since the year dot, and as <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Today%27s_featured_article/archive_2#Ratification_of_User:Raul654_as_Featured_Articles_Director" REL="nofollow">Featured Article Director</A> he plays a much bigger role in managing WP content than Essjay ever did.<BR/><BR/>OK, people make mistakes. I doubt I would have done any better, so I shouldn't be too upset.<BR/><BR/>I guess I'm also a little bitter all the discussion which users I knew put into <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Expert_retention" REL="nofollow">Expert retention</A> went nowhere. If you people had only <I>listened,</I> grumble grumble.<BR/><BR/>Prophetic passage in Stacy Schiff's <I>New Yorker</I> piece: "Wikipedia is an online community devoted not to last night’s party or to next season’s iPod but to a higher good. It is also no more immune to human nature than any other utopian project. Pettiness, idiocy, and vulgarity are regular features of the site. Nothing about high-minded collaboration guarantees accuracy, and open editing invites abuse." Consider also this part, with which I don't entirely agree: "Wales’s most radical contribution may be not to have made information free but—in his own alma-matricidal way—to have invented a system that does not favor the Ph.D. over the well-read fifteen-year-old. 'To me, the key thing is getting it right,' Wales has said of Wikipedia’s contributors. 'I don’t care if they’re a high-school kid or a Harvard professor.'"<BR/><BR/>I <I>was</I> a well-read fifteen-year-old some number of years ago. I know the breed. They can do a lot, but they do have their limits.<BR/><BR/>You call Wikipedia "an unequivocally good thing — as long as its limitations are understood". I tend to agree with this assessment, partly because after some reflection, I'd concluded that the problems of Wikipedia are the classic problems of education and civilized debate, cast into a particular arena. To speak in grandiose terms, the Enlightenment has <I>always</I> had to deal with intellectual frauds and callous untruths.<BR/><BR/>I've seen people get antsy over Stephen Colbert's sallies at Wikipedia — "wikiality", "truthiness" and all that. My reaction has been, "So we've got a guy on TV pointing out for everybody how the truth can be manipulated and stifled? Great! The Enlightenment needs good PR." I think the Essjay incident is what they call a "teachable moment": it's an occasion when people see that the <A HREF="http://www.xenu.net/archive/baloney_detection.html" REL="nofollow">baloney detection kit</A> is a useful tool to have by your side.<BR/><BR/>At a very mundane level, this sort of nasty business can at least help schoolteachers explain why bibliographies are a Good Idea.Blake Staceyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13977394981287067289noreply@blogger.com