[WikiEN-l] Lies, damned lies, and statistics

[geni]

2009/4/17 Seth Finkelstein <sethf at sethf.com>:
>        It's also pretty common for those two type to have conflicts,
> and that usually ends with the business/marketing type working-over
> the academic/creative type. Wikipedia is NOT an original story there :-(.

Of course the problem with that description was that Larry was
involved in conflicts with other wikipedians.

Larry's position was never long term stable. If you look at how the
foundation interacts with the community these days it's either through
pronouncements or through indirect social networks.

>> 2. Will Citizendium become a top 1000 website within the next five years?
>
>        Depends on if Google does something to boost that sort of site.
> (I think the *real*, crucial, irreplaceable, founder of Wikipedia, is Google)

No. Looking at yahoo and MSN it's pretty clear that anything close to
a normal search algorithm will tend to favor wikipedia for certain
types of searches.

>> 3. Is debate about Sanger's and Wales's respective cofounder/founder
>> claims regarding Wikipedia a worthwhile endeavor?
>
>        Speaking here just as a very interested observer, apart from
> matters of personal injustice or formal relevance, there's many issues
> at the bottom of this about Wikipedia itself. To note just one, either
> way there's a pretty scary implication - that is, EITHER:
>
> 1) One of the most prominent and highest-ranking Wikipedia people is
> claiming his biography is being kept wrong, by a group favoring
> "a disgruntled former employee building himself a nice career on this lie"
>
> OR
>
> 2) One of the most prominent and highest-ranking Wikipedia people is
> attempting to use Wikipedia to rewrite history for his own self-promotion,
> with only the threat of outside scandal limiting his attempts to do so
> "I can't {{sofixit}} without creating a media firestorm"
>
> [I assume the infamous IRC transcripts I'm quoting are accurate]
> [I'm of course for case #2, but I acknowledge there's belief in case #1,
> which after all does include that prominent and high-ranking Wikipedian]
>
>        Though case #2 is better for Wikipedia itself than case #1,
> again, either way, there's something profound there.
>

Except several years behind the times. The community  has dealt with
the issue and from what I've seen Jimbo has been back peddling of
late.


-- 
geni