---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Kurt Maxwell Weber <kmw(a)kurtweber.us>
Date: Thu, May 8, 2008 at 7:42 PM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Ayn Rand and Wikipedia
To: Anirudh Bhati <anirudhsbh(a)gmail.com>
On Wednesday 07 May 2008 08:27, you wrote:
> Now maybe this has nothing to do with Objectivism. I don't know that
> much about Objectivism with which to comment. I do plan on reading
> more about it, but I don't think I'm going to subscribe. I like the
> rational self-interest part, and I mostly like the capitalism part,
> but some other parts seem outdated and non-intuitive. Did Rand ever
> reconcile her so-called "Objectivist metaphysics" with modern physics?
> They seem to contradict one another.
Perhaps it is modern physics that is in error.
Science is not truth. Science's epistemology results in building models
that
merely serve as an aid to understanding what *appears* to be true, without
necessarily actually describing what *is* true.
I would submit that philosophy is a vastly superior means for apprehending
the
Universe than science, precisely because philosophy's method, reason, is
much
more reliable than science's.
--
Kurt Weber
<kmw(a)kurtweber.us>
In a message dated 5/8/2008 7:06:59 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
abd(a)lomaxdesign.com writes:
The article had been, over a long period,
carefully crafted to (1) present all the propaganda points and spin
developed by an advocacy organization, and (2) to exclude all criticism.
----------------------------
*What* article.
Will Johnson
**************Wondering what's for Dinner Tonight? Get new twists on family
favorites at AOL Food.
(http://food.aol.com/dinner-tonight?NCID=aolfod00030000000001)
> I was interested in Wikipedia when I first heard about it, and was
> using other wikis first. However, my serious involvement began in
> September last year when I discovered a situation with an article of
> political interest. The article had been, over a long period,
> carefully crafted to (1) present all the propaganda points and spin
> developed by an advocacy organization, and (2) to exclude all criticism.
>
> Attempts by ordinary users to insert critical material met with
> immediate reversion, by certain users and by a certain IP address.
> Some excuse was always given. As an example, one of the "plus"
> arguments in the article was contradicted by a source. A user posted
> it with the source. It was reverted on the basis that the report was
> a blog. When it was pointed out that it wasn't a blog, it was an
> edited, on-line newspaper, it was still taken out with other
> arguments. The editors keeping the article free of criticism were
> clearly experienced with policy. When I became involved, they had to
> work a little harder. The IP editor crossed the 3RR bright line. I
> tried to file a 3RR report, but didn't get the details just the way
> the admin who dealt with it wanted, so even though the offenses were
> blatant, nothing happened immediately. But then a sock puppet account
> was created and *I* was reported for 3RR, though I hadn't actually
> done that. Fortunately, the admin who looked at it saw what was going
> on and blocked just about everyone in sight. The registered editors
> maintaining the position of the article were sock puppets of a
> long-banned user, and the IP address, from independent evidence, was
> the personal IP address of the Executive Director of the advocacy
> organization.
>
> Most ordinary users did not have the patience or skills to deal with
> that situation.
>
> But there is more. I discovered that an SPA had registered, more than
> a year before, and had been systematically AfDing articles on topics
> inconvenient to the agenda of the advocacy organization. Typically,
> nobody who understood the issues participated in the AfDs; this is a
> specialized field and the people who had created the articles were
> mostly experts or students in the field, most of them not serious
> Wikipedians. I.e., they don't check their watchlists regularly. Some
> of what was deleted was clearly not notable, but other articles were.
> This SPA still has an account, though his activities of late have
> been reduced to sporadic personal attacks. He was finally blocked for
> a brief period because of his canvassing for Oppose votes in my last
> RfA. From his activities, he appeared to be a sock puppet of an
> experienced user, but the most likely candidate, the same active
> puppet master as the one as who had been socking the article I
> mentioned, was not confirmed by RfCU.
>
> This organization has funding. It has knowledgeable volunteers. I
> know that one of them, an experienced Wikipedian (active back to
> 2004, I understand) was assigned to interdict my work on Wikipedia,
> because he, when he realized the situation, told me.
>
> Now, when I research the subject of the article on the internet, I
> find, everywhere, quotations from Wikipedia. I go to the web sites of
> city governments, and find quotations from the Wikipedia article that
> were the propaganda inserted by that organization. It's all stuff
> that can be asserted with a straight face; it's skillful political
> spin. If you look closely and check it, it is inaccurate, but in a
> way that is deniable, i.e., to an inexperienced eye, the difference
> between the statements and the truth is seemingly minor. But the
> difference introduces a spin, and the spin is what is important to
> political activists. A description of a thing becomes a
> "recommendation," but critical information from the same source is
> not mentioned. Words are shifted in definition, so that one can imply
> something that isn't true without actually stating something untrue.
> It's stuff that is familiar to anyone who has studied the tools of
> political propaganda. And the work of this organization on Wikipedia
> has been *effective.* I've slowed it down, to be sure, but it's like
> pushing the boulder up the hill. If there is funding and energy
> pulling that boulder back, it comes back.
>
> I'm just one editor, and I have other interests. (I've become very
> interested in Wikipedia itself, its structure and policies and
> procedures, how the community functions, for better and for worse,
> and so, even though the article I mention above is on my watchlist, I
> often don't even notice the edits until much later, when I look at
> the article itself, so much traffic comes my way.) Wikipedia is a
> community project, and nothing should depend on one editor, but often
> it works out that way, simply because nobody else takes an interest.
> The article mentioned had multiple RfCs that attracted no
> participation. Even though it is a hot political topic in the United
> States.
>
> Now, the advocacy organization I mention above is a small
> organization. Wikipedia has taken on a project with vast political
> implications. Control knowledge and you can control society. What if
> someone dedicates governmental-level resources to the problem of
> managing Wikipedia spin? Are we at all ready for this? And, since the
> possibility is so obvious and the possible benefit to those who would
> manipulate so great, what would make us imagine that it is not
> already happening? Just not so clumsily as with the efforts that have
> been discovered to date?
>
> One person with some patience and fairly modest technical skills
> could develop a whole army of sock puppets, and take a few of them to
> admin status. But that's not the major worry. I've seen a set of
> articles, in another field, systematically distorted by a single SPA,
> active continuously for a couple of years, steading pushing the
> articles in a certain direction. In my paranoid moments, I realize
> that drug companies might have some incentive for this slant. What if
> some drug lobbying company paid a person to do that? It would be a
> drop in the bucket of their available funds. It would essentially be
> crazy *not* to do it. Just about impossible to prove, so, please,
> don't take this as an accusation, I'm just noting that such *could*
> be occurring. The articles have suffered greatly, whether or not this
> person is sincere.
>
> Here is what I expect we could find if we had the means: we'd find a
> couple of corrupt administrators. We'd find more administrators who
> are merely dupes. The absolute numbers would be small, considering
> that there are, what, 1600 administrators? We would find, however,
> many more simple editors quietly doing their work, civil, avoiding
> violating policy, familiar with sourcing requirements and using them
> to steadily and selectively removing what they don't like and adding
> what they do, always with deniability. The world of "reliable source"
> is vast and you can find almost anything in it. Finding *balance* is
> much more difficult and standards for balance much more subtle.
>
> There are solutions to the problem. But ... they fly in the face of
> many common assumptions, and there are obvious objections that people
> think of immediately. With more exposure to the ideas, those opinions
> would probably change, but the knee-jerk responses mean that the
> solutions are immediately rejected. Just as people would have
> rejected the idea of an "encyclopedia anyone can edit" because of
> certain very obvious objections. The solution is to develop true
> community consensus, measured within a system that allows full
> deliberation to take place in a connected and efficient way. It's
> really ideal for wikis. But we have taken certain directions contrary
> to it. For example, "No canvassing." If some topic comes up and is
> under debate, to solicit the participation of someone knowledgeable
> can, under some conditions, be considered canvassing. Canvassing is a
> problem because of participation bias, and we are totally
> schizophrenic about this. If votes don't count, canvassing creates a
> minor noise problem. But if votes count, then participation bias is a
> serious thing. And networks of users can exist off-wiki to do the
> canvassing, and, in fact, they do. This is one of them. There are
> others with other agendas.
>
> Now, I claim that (1) there is a problem, and (2) there are
> solutions. How would we determine the truth of these? Rough consensus
> can be highly vulnerable to knee-jerk responses, particularly as
> communities become established, people become familiar with the "way
> things work," and the pressure to maintain status quo increases, as
> it always does in even diffuse "organizations" such as the Wikipedia
> editor community. Until we establish true deliberative mechanisms --
> and we don't need to reinvent the wheel, there are many precedents
> for what we need to do -- we, as a community, will be a pushover for
> special interests. Only the clumsy ones will be discovered and stopped.
Yes, obviously true. But rather than a witch hunt we need to focus on
implementation of neutral point of view. That means making sure unpopular
(at least among Wikipedia users) viewpoints are fully and fairly
expressed.
Fred
I frankly am extremely confused at why so many people are reacting
significantly worse to this than prior incidents.
The effects were not more severe this time, if anything they were less.
The number of people involved was less not more.
The group being more mainstream lessens the danger that their edits
are further off base, though it does make them harder to detect
sometimes.
This is not comparable to issues where we have large on-wiki disputes
between competing factions, such as Pakistan/India. There is little
risk of policy subversion when the issue is so contentious that
everyone is watching all the time. That is not to say that those
areas are not hotbeds of contention and problems - but they're not the
same.
The only explanation that makes sense to me is that those who feel
very strongly that this was uniquely severe are those who also are
very strongly opposed to CAMERA's viewpoint on the Palestinean/Israeli
conflict.
Is there anyone who either is neutral on that point or pro-Israel who
thinks this was a terrifically bad incident, beyond that of other
advocacy groups incidents we've had?
--
-george william herbert
george.herbert(a)gmail.com
Dear Wikimedians,
I'm writing to announce two thing of interest to the community:
1. "The Wikipedia Story" wiki invites Wikimedia community folks to
help write the "next chapter" for Wikipedia. The result will appear
in the hardback book "The Wikipedia Story: How a bunch of nobodies
created the world's greatest encyclopedia" a nonfiction work which
will be released in January 2009 by Hyperion
Many already know I have been writing this book for over a year, after
being a community member for over five years, attending three
Wikimanias and conducting countless interviews with Wikipedians around
the world. I am inviting the community to collaboratively write the
last chapter as a tribute to and demonstration of the extraordinary
users I've had the privilege of working with. Details can be found
here:
Link
http://wikipediastory.com/wiki/Main_Page
In prelaunch we've had a dozen contributors "kick the tires" and put
seed material in. Unlike other wiki experiments such as "A Million
Penguins" and "Wikitorials" which have had difficulties building the
right dynamic for generating quality content, this endeavor has
experienced Wikipedians at its core. You don't all have to agree, but
I'm confident the right dynamic will allow for thoughtful discourse. I
invite you to come take part and help chart out the future course of
Wikipedia. It would be incredibly helpful to register using your
familiar Wikipedia username. Please do feel free to pass this message
on or translate this for Wikimedians and non-Wikimedians alike.
As always, you are welcome to contact me directly on wiki or by email
if you have any questions. See you on the wiki!
2. Wikipedia Weekly audio podcast episode 48, "An interview with Jimmy
Wales," is now online for your listening pleasure. Wikipedia Weekly is
an independent "radio show" that has been produced for over a year
with volunteer effort from the community such as Liam Wyatt,
User:Tawker, User:The Placebo Effect, User:Daveydweeb and
myself. (Thanks to numerous others who have been guests and helpers.)
We have never stumped or spammed the podcast (until now), and hope you
find it a useful public service. You can subscribe to it as a podcast
from Apple's iTunes or listen to it in Ogg Vorbis format on the web
site. We always welcome comments and even your participation in our
"roundtable" show discussions.
Links
http://www.wikipediaweekly.org/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikipediaWeeklyhttp://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=201998397
Thanks.
-Andrew Lih (User:Fuzheado)
http://www.andrewlih.com/blog/
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org>
Date: Wed, May 7, 2008 at 6:45 PM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Ayn Rand and Wikipedia
To: Anirudh Bhati <anirudhsbh(a)gmail.com>
First of all, thanks for this post. I think you're right on in
pointing out one pitfall many people fall into with Wikipedia. It's
not altruism, but escapism (isn't it also hedonism?).
I do think to some extent that altruism and hedonism go hand in hand,
though. Often the reason Wikipedia is fun, the reason we seek praise,
is because we think it's worth it to sacrifice our time and energies
for others. Just look at some of the comments of the chair of the
foundation board. She says the WMF is making her life miserable, yet
she continues to volunteer for it every day (I do believe this will be
her last term, but still, she was complaining about wanting to resign
privately to me years ago). I think there's a lot of that that goes
on at all levels of Wikipedia, and I think that's much more dangerous
than contributing to Wikipedia because you enjoy it.
I also think that one *can* contribute rationally to Wikipedia because
one enjoys it. Though I also think there's another even less
dangerous way to contribute, and that's as a learning experience. A
wiki is an interesting method of communication. I think it's possible
to benefit from editing a Wikipedia article in the same way I can
benefit from participating on a mailing list, or sending this email to
you.
Now maybe this has nothing to do with Objectivism. I don't know that
much about Objectivism with which to comment. I do plan on reading
more about it, but I don't think I'm going to subscribe. I like the
rational self-interest part, and I mostly like the capitalism part,
but some other parts seem outdated and non-intuitive. Did Rand ever
reconcile her so-called "Objectivist metaphysics" with modern physics?
They seem to contradict one another.
"Jimmy Wales and I are indeed friends, i.e. I wasn't being sarcastic.
However, that does not make me a fan of Wikipedia. I'd consider myself
a lukewarm occasional user who wouldn't dream of contributing. I'm too
selfish for that: I value my own words too highly to allow random
morons to edit them at will." - Diana Hsieh
On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 3:23 AM, Anirudh Bhati <anirudhsbh(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> >I think Wikipedia would be fairly well in line with Objectivism if it
> wasn't for the constant begging for money. I believe Ayn Rand taught
> that not only should an Objectivist not engage in acts of altruism,
> but s/he should not encourage others to engage in acts of altruism
> either. I'd feel a lot more comfortable with Wikipedia if they'd just
> use banner ads like everyone else.
>
> It was the act of altruism that Ayn Rand was against, not charity. On the
> other hand, she propounded that in a free world run by the sheer talent of
> the meritorious, the underdogs and the incapable would be supported by
> charities.
>
So the WMF is one of "the underdogs and the incapable"? Maybe I'm
right that Rand would object to this system of funding, but for the
wrong reasons.
However, I do find it hard to see how, at least in our unfree world
run by thugs, donating money to Wikipedia is not an act of altruism
for all but the most wealthy among us. If I give $100 to the WMF I
necessarily have to give up something else, and in my opinion what I
give up will *always* be worth more to me than it is worth to a
non-profit organization. That is certainly true in the specific
instance of the WMF - I look at the WMF's budget and it bears no
resemblance to the way I'd spend the money. But I think there's more
to it than that, and that non-profit organizations almost inevitably
waste money.
Were my $100 to go directly to the underdogs and the incapable, I
wouldn't be able to make the same argument, though I do still wonder
how it is in my rational self-interest to give $100 to a stranger that
I'm probably never going to meet again.
> In an interview, her first appearance on television after the death of her
> husband, she was asked, "Why is altruism bad?" Her response was quick:
"Why
> is suicide bad?"
>
I think I saw that interview on YouTube (was it the Donahue one?), and
it probably inspired my response to the assertion that altruism
doesn't exist because people always do what they *want* to do. My
response was something to the effect of "What about an anorexic?" On
the other hand, I either don't agree with or I don't understand her
use of the term "evil" to describe altruism. The response to my
comment about anorexics was that anorexics have a mental defect so
they have no choice in the matter. My feeling is that anyone engaging
in altruism has a mental defect to some extent or another. I wouldn't
call the person performing altruism "evil", I'd call them "stupid", or
maybe "sick".
On the other hand, I realize now that there is another, and maybe
better, response to that claim: rational self-interest is not the same
as hedonism.
Anthony
Hi All,
I'm pleased to announce a new web service.
MediaWiki2PDF - is a free online service, that allows you to generate
nice looking PDF documents from books found on wikibooks.org. It looks
through child pages and collects chapters and subchapters into a single,
well-formatted PDF document. All you have to do, is just enter url of
the book and press "Enter".
From recent time service can also generates PDF-s from wikipedia articles.
It is possible to get PDF in A4/Letter and e-book (suitable for
e-readers) sized formats.
Visit us at http://blogpaper.com/mediawiki2pdf
We hope it will be useful to you.
Best Regards.
Blogpaper Development Team.
Jimmy Wales states that he is a great fan or even follower of Ayn Rand's
philosophy.
What would Ayn Rand think about Wikipedia?
Will Johnson
**************Need a new ride? Check out the largest site for U.S. used car
listings at AOL Autos.
(http://autos.aol.com/used?NCID=aolcmp00300000002851)
FlaggedRevs is now actually live on de.wikipedia.org :-).
Congratulations and many thanks to _everyone_ involved in getting us
to this point. In a nutshell, FlaggedRevs makes it possible to assign
quality tags to individual article revisions, and to alter default
views based on the available tags. In the German Wikipedia
configuration, unregistered users will always see the most recent
version that has been checked for vandalism, if any such version is
available.
Aka hacked up a nice script that shows how many pages have been
"sighted" (basic vandalism check) on the German Wikipedia:
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~aka/cgi-bin/reviewcnt.cgi?lang=english
Given that FlaggedRevs has just been live for a day or so, a review
rate of 4.41% is quite impressive! Kudos to the de.wp community for
its pioneering role in this important experiment. As a reminder to
other wiki communities, the extension can still be tested in the
Wikimedia Labs at:
http://en.labs.wikimedia.org/
Since the FlaggedRevs extension can be very flexibly configured, it
will be up to individual communities to determine what the best
roll-out strategy is. From our point of view, it's best if communities
self-organize to make decisions around the use, and that they file
requests through
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/
which point to a decision on their community to enable the extension.
But, in the least intrusive possible configuration, FlaggedRevs is
essentially a very powerful change patrolling tool, and I could see us
phasing it in like any other new feature.
--
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate