And as a counter-balance, your approach is flawed.
Any person who says "this article is Wrong", needs to show why it's wrong,
not just say it. Even the subject. There is no such thing as "Right" and
"Wrong" when dealing with biographies. That is why hard scientists should
not try to stick their toes into biography, they just do not comprehend the
distinction between Non-Fiction and Biography.
Right, Wrong, True, False, White, Black, and so on do not exist. They
don't. No existence. They aren't there. Nowhere. Ok ...
Now on to step B.
Will Johnson
**************
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In a message dated 4/22/2009 1:21:53 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
dgerard(a)gmail.com writes:
> It's entirely
> unclear why they don't start their own wiki encyclopedia, and thus
> demonstrate our evil and worthlessness.>>
>
--------------
In the early days I remember stumbling upon a sarcastic wiki that poked fun
at everything. But I can't recall what it was called.
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Hudong.com is now bigger than us:
http://www.jlmpacificepoch.com/newsstories?id=139049_0_5_0_M
In fact they may have broken 3 million but I can't read
全球最大中文百科由全球1,016,360位网民共同编写而成。共计3,050,203词条，32.7亿文字
and I'm not totally certain their definition of article is the same as
ours. Still I think we need to get a clearer idea of what is going on
at Hudong.
--
geni
In a message dated 4/22/2009 11:26:25 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
arromdee(a)rahul.net writes:
> Someone who claims to be a person who isn't Newsweek-level famous, and
> corrects
> a fact about themselves that's noncontroversial, probably is them. Even
> if
> you doubt it's them, there are other factors which make it more likely;
> for instance, if the person is known to be on the Internet already. Or if
> he
> corrects the fact in some online location that Wikipedia doesn't accept as
> a
> source.>>
> -----------------------
You are coming a little closer now Ken.
But, anyone can "correct" a non controversial fact, without the necessity
for identying as the subject. If the fact is non controversial, then for the
most part, I don't even expect a source ! Imagine that. This is probably
most true for the removal of material, but I've seen additions that I let
pass just because I was like "well who cares about that anyway?"
IF the person is KNOWN to be on the internet, you stepped right into that
one Ken. That's what I've been saying all along. If they are known to be on
the internet, then you know how to validate well-enough that the subject is
the speaker and the speaker is the owner of some internet identity. That's
good enough for me. Some validation is just fine. No validation, and
allowing a priveledge position to some speaker, is *not* fine.
We all can change articles. No one gets a pass simply by claiming to be
the subject. If you want a pass, you are going to have to show me evidence
that you are the subject. If you are the subject and don't want a pass, fine,
go ahead, edit the hell out of your own article, as long as you stay within
the process.
You want to step out of the process? Then you will need to show evidence
that you get that priveledge. You don't get it by stamping your feet and
claiming priority.
Will Johnson
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Several times it has happened in the five years that I've been in-world,
that people have contacted me to make changes in their own biographies, once
they've gotten stymied in the process.
I have never once, not one single time, assumed they were the person in
question. I always verify, independently who they are, through some official
channel. For example, a radio host, can be verified by finding the official
site for the radio station, checking for that person in their listings which
frequently will have an "email me here" button and you can confirm the
email addresses are the same or something like that.
There are always ways to fool any system, but doing nothing to verify
identify, on controversial issues, is a good path to creating more problems, not
fewer ones.
The funniest one, was when a BLP on a highly-charged pseudo-historian was
in conflict and the subject contacted me, not to actually fix it, but to do
genealogical research *for him*. I never really figured out whether he knew
that I was the main culprit in making his biography neutral and forcing out
the hagiographical details. But I made fifty bucks so I'm not complaining.
Will Johnson
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In a message dated 4/22/2009 10:59:38 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
dgerard(a)gmail.com writes:
> Really, that statement looks like complete rubbish. Spam repository?
> Please do justify that assertion.>>
> -----------------
Hey you started it;)
You called Knol a spam repository.
I tend to live inside my own high-walled city on Knol, so I don't really
know who is building a nuclear weapon near me and who is farming pot.
However, when I have ventured out onto the wooley prairies, I find an awful
lot of medical articles by doctors and medical researchers, and then an
awful lot of opinion pieces such as "Why Wikipedia Sucks" or whatever.
It seems someone that Knol appealed to the medical profession early on, but
this is changing. I'm monitoring the progress of the Top Viewed Authors
with a Knol table, and have recently started a Knol on the Top Viewed Knols as
well. There is obviously to me, some way to cheat the numbers, maybe a few
of these authors are running login-and-click-me dial-up bots to boost their
numbers.
Surprisingly to me, the second most popular author is an outdoors guru
(hunting, camping, fishing, etc.) I really haven't noticed that much spam, if
you are using the word to me "buy something from me", or "utter gibberish",
or "redirect yourself to my own website". I just haven't seen it.
Will Johnson
**************
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In a message dated 4/22/2009 10:52:43 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
arromdee(a)rahul.net writes:
> If you really doubt that the person themselves is sending you a
> correction,
> then fine. But that's only good if you really have some reason to doubt
> it's
> them. Saying "what if it isn't them" and then stretching it to cover all
> situations whether you believe it's them or not is just elevating process
> above people.>>
-----------------------------
Or it's the correct approach.
Not believing random strangers is very good for Wikipedia and children as
well.
If you want to assume that a stranger is what they say they are, then you
will want to spend a lot of time in Craigslist Personals to learn that people
lie quite often when there is little chance they will be "caught".
It is only by enforcing some method that makes people be responsible for
their statements that we achieve a balance between "small lies" and "big
truths".
This isn't a new concept that Wikipedia found. It's an old concept, that
we need to recognize.
Will Johnson
**************
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> Durova
> 1. Is Citizendium a snapshot of what Wikipedia's growth would have
> been, if Larry Sanger had remained with the project?
Not a testable question, since Wikipedia already dominates the
niche. One might also ask "Is Wikia what Wikipedia would have looked
like (entertainment, sports, toys) if Larry Sanger had never been with
the project?". Note in a certain way Wikia looks a lot like Bomis.
(granted, it's missing the aspect of soft-core porn, err,
"glamour photography", but that's likely an artifact of
Google Adsense's policy restrictions)
There's many situations where a business/marketing type and
an academic/creative type produce something in collaboration which
is far more successful than what either ever does on their own.
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 :-(.
> 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)
> 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.
--
Seth Finkelstein Consulting Programmer
Web site - http://sethf.com/
Infothought blog - http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/
In a message dated 4/22/2009 6:59:26 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
dgerard(a)gmail.com writes:
> Knol is the
> highest-profile failure so far - untrammeled freedom for the writers
> has made it a spam repository.>>
>
-----------------
Like Wikipedia was when it hit it's first 100,000 articles.
I wouldn't call it "untrammeled" however, there are a few things I tried to
do in Knol that were not allowed.
Will Johnson
**************
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