I hope someone's reported him to the police for this criminal offense. Under the Computer Misuse Act 1990, deliberately making an unauthorized modification to computer data which impairing the reliability of the data can land you up to five years in jail (well, theoretically, at least - in practice he'd probably get off with a caution!)
Andrew
---- Original Message -----
From: "David Gerard" <dgerard(a)gmail.com>
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Thursday, 16 April, 2009 20:52:27 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland, Portugal
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rod Liddle, Spectator, on his Wikipedia article
http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/3540166/stop-being-sanctim…
He was upset it was in what he considered an unsuitable state, tried
fixing it, was reverted and started putting silly stuff in other bios.
I didn't comment on that, but I did leave a comment on how to get bad
living bio issues dealt with effectively - talk page,
info(a)wikimedia.org, BLP Noticeboard. Hopefully will be out of the mod
queue soon.
Goddamn, living bios are an eternal pain in the arse.
- d.
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
In a message dated 4/16/2009 1:11:47 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com writes:
> "I went into the profile of the footballer Cristiano Ronaldo and added
> the words ‘cheating Portuguese c***’ in every sentence and was
> delighted to see that my alterations remained in place for a week or
> so."
>
> Now, that shouldn't have happened. We have anti-vandal bots that are
> meant to catch things like that...>>
--------------------
Even if true, I don't know if the bots would catch anything here. As you
implying they look for repetition? Or that they look for "***" ?
**************
Great deals on Dell’s most popular laptops – Starting at
$479
(http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1220029082x1201385915/aol?redir=htt…)
In a message dated 4/16/2009 11:15:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
arromdee(a)rahul.net writes:
> Is it clear that the proclamations from him don't necessarily represent
> our
> opinion and should not be taken as such (particularly by reporters)?>>
>
To my mind yes. Any reporter who quotes Jimmy and then implies that this
is the opinion of "Wikipedia" should not only be fired, but also taken out
behind the barn and shot.
Then we can cut off their nose and ears, drag them through the street and
throw their corpse into the Tiber.
Will Johnson
**************
Great deals on Dell’s most popular laptops – Starting at
$479
(http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1220029082x1201385915/aol?redir=htt…)
I think Nathan this thread is an attempt to show why Citizendium isn't a
resounding success. And the very fact that some contributors, instead of
wanting to improve the project, entrench themselves, shows part of the problem.
One thing that Wikipedia has going for it, even if change is glacial, it
happens. People pointing out flaws in the system, are listened to, even if
grudgingly.
A system caught in a deep-freeze isn't going to be able to change with a
society which is changing under it. People today are used to the type of
thing that Wikipedia does, *so much so* that it has actually forced Brittanica
online, IMDb and others trying to compete to change themselves to more
closely match.
That says something. In fact I think I see what's coming next. In my
opinion there are weaknesses in the Wikipedia approach, such as being resistent
to conflicting articles on the same topic (wanting merging instead of
duplication). There are also weaknesses in the Knol approach, because you have no
real *authority* helping the casual user decide what Knols are good and
which are crap.
I think there is a way to bring these closer together, but it's not the
Citizendium way. They have already proven that their approach is a dead-end
last decade approach.
I just hope that Google will keep Knol running at least for the next couple
of years.
Will Johnson
**************
Great deals on Dell’s most popular laptops – Starting at
$479
(http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1220631252x1201390195/aol?redir=htt…)
So after the mention of Citizendium once again, I applied to join it.
The application page is extremely verbose. So much so, that it's a bit of
a turn-off.
All I wanted to do was sign up and tweak a few articles to see if the
interface was better.
They make you create a 50-word biography. What's the point of that? So I
used that space to bitch. My application was rejected.
I know Larry Sanger reads this. Maybe he could respond. "We don't want
people who bitch". Sometimes people bitch for the right reasons.
What I would do, is make the Sign Up page be at the most "Choose a
username, choose a password". There's really not much point in making it
extremely difficult to join a project.
Will Johnson
**************Feeling the pinch at the grocery store? Make dinner for $10
or less. (http://food.aol.com/frugal-feasts?ncid=emlcntusfood00000001)
On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 10:44 PM, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote:
> Pot meet kettle.
> http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Talk%3AHomeopathy%2FDraft&diff=1004481…
A lot of people have the sort of double standard I discussed in my
WP:SAUCE essay:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sauce_for_the_goose_is_(not)_sa
uce_for_the_gander
You guys are right, and you're wrong. Sanger seems to be factually
correct in his assertion of co-foundership given that Jimbo himself
put matters that way until inexplicably changing his mind later.
However, when he insists on a "right" to state his point here, he
starts sounding like various crackpots who insist on their "right" to
rant everywhere they want to, even on private property. On the other
hand, it isn't very healthy for this project to take an attitude of
"if you can't argue logically against that guy's point, just call him
a troll and ban him!" A wide degree of free speech in meta-
discussion is in keeping with the aims of the project, which is the
point I made (or dead horse I kept beating...) during the BADSITES
wars.
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
On Sun, 12 Apr 2009 12:04:20 -0700, Delirium wrote:
> I think you might also be aiming at the wrong audience to some extent.
> You seem to accept the media-narrative "founder myth" of Wikipedia as
> this thing that sprang whole cloth out of nothingness due to the
> ingenuity of Jimmy Wales; save only that you'd like to modify the credit
> to include Larry Sanger in an equally or more prominent role. But my
> impression is that this is mainly an external view. Most of the
> knowledgeable Wikipedians I know take a more complex view, crediting to
> various degrees: Ward Cunningham's development of wikis; the development
> of community and social norms on WikiWikiWeb and MeatballWiki; the
> expansion of subject-specific wiki encyclopedias from the original
> design-patterns-encyclopedia focus of WikiWikiWeb to cover ever more
> areas of knowledge; the parallel cropping up of non-wiki "all human
> knowledge written by random people on the internet" compendia like
> Everything2; and so on.
... and Tim Berners-Lee for inventing the World Wide Web; the ARPAnet
pioneers for creating the network on which the Web operated; Ted
Nelson for inventing hypertext; Xerox PARC for creating the elements
of the modern user interface that Apple stole from them and Microsoft
stole from Apple; the original IBM PC development team for creating
the PC platform which brought personal computers into the mainstream
and made it possible for the Internet and Web to be a mass medium;
Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs for showing that home computers were a
reasonable idea in the first place; the developers of the Altair
computer for showing that computers didn't have to be huge million-
dollar hulks; the pioneers of mainframe computers for creating those
million-dollar hulks in the first place and letting computer science
begin as a discipline of knowledge; Edison and/or Tesla for making
electricity ubiquitous and all those later devices possible; Ben
Franklin for making discoveries about electricity the later inventors
could build on.... and so on and on and on. Everybody builds on the
discoveries and inventions of those who came before.
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
All,
Earlier today, I had no joy in trying to post this "open letter to Jimmy
Wales" on Jimmy's own user talk page: the man himself deleted it. That is
not the sort of behavior I would have expected of the head of an allegedly
open, transparent community devoted to free speech. I would like
Wikipedians in general to be apprised of my concerns. I believe they are
serious and well-justified, and they should not be dismissed without a
careful hearing. I do not ask that Jimmy Wales reply here on this list.
But I do ask that "the powers that be"--including the Wikipedia community,
the Wikimedia Board, and the media--hold Jimmy responsible for his very
shabby behavior toward me.
Let me be clear. This is not just an attempt to "tell my side of the
story." It is me confronting Jimmy Wales publicly for lying about my
involvement in the project after many private requests to stop. You might
disagree with me about many things, but we need not disagree about the facts
as they can be found in various Internet archives, nor about the necessity
of keeping our leaders honest.
A readable copy, with some updates, can be found here:
http://blog.citizendium.org/2009/04/08/an-open-letter-to-jimmy-wales-copy/http://blog.citizendium.org/2009/04/08/updates-re-open-letter-to-jimmy-wales
/
The letter itself follows.
--Larry Sanger
===============
Jimmy, I don't know a better place than this for an open letter to you
[i.e., than on your user talk page on Wikipedia]. I recently read the Hot
Press interview with you. The lies and distortions it contains are, for me,
the last straw, especially after
<http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/xodp/message/1720> this came to light,
in which you described yourself as "co-founder" in 2002.
I've reached out to you on a couple of occasions to coordinate our
"versions" - well, my version and your fanciful inventions - about how
Wikipedia got started. Last year I read about a speech in which you
represented me as being more or less opposed to Wikipedia from the start -
despite it being my own baby, really - and I wrote to you saying that if you
keep this up, I will speak out. Well, I'm finally speaking out.
In Wikipedia's first three years, it was clear to everyone working on it
that not only had I named the project, I came up with and promoted the idea
of making a wiki encyclopedia, wrote the first policy pages and many more
policy pages in the following year, led the project, and enforced many rules
that are now taken for granted. I came up with a lot of stuff that is
regarded as standard operating procedure. For instance, I argued that talk
should go on talk pages and got people into that habit. Similarly, after
meta-discussion started taking up so much of Wikipedia's time and energy, I
shepherded talk about the project to meta.wikipedia.org - and after that, to
Wikipedia-L and WikiEN-L. I insisted that we were working on an
encyclopedia, not on the many other things one can use a wiki for. I came up
with the name "Wikipedian" and other Wikipedia jargon. I had devised a
neutrality policy for Nupedia, and I elaborated it in a form that stood for
several years on Wikipedia. I did a lot of explaining and evangelizing for
Wikipedia - what it is about, why we are here, and so forth - for example,
in <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Our_Replies_to_Our_Critics%22>
Wikipedia:Our Replies to Our Critics and a couple of well-known posts on
kuro5hin.org <http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/7/25/103136/121> like this
one and <http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/9/24/43858/2479> this. I also
recall introducing many specific policy details, the evidence for which is
in archives (such as on archive.org) and no doubt in the memories of some of
the more active early Wikipedians.
These are only some examples of ways in which I led the project in its first
14 months; after I left, there was a lot of soul-searching in the project
about what would happen now that it was "leaderless" (see the quotations
linked from <http://www.larrysanger.org/roleinwp.html> this page). When I
was involved in the project, I was regarded as its chief organizer. As you
can still see in the archives, I called myself "Chief Instigator" and "Chief
Organizer" and the like (not editor).
I also want to correct you on something that tends to harm me: your repeated
insinuations that I was "fired." In the Hot Press interview, you said I left
Wikipedia because you "didn't want to pay him any more." You know - and so
does everyone else who worked at Bomis, Inc., around a dozen people - that
at the end of 2001, you had to go back to Bomis' original 4-5 employees,
because of the tech market bust, when Bomis suddenly lost a million-dollar
ad deal. Tim Shell told me I was the last person to be laid off. He told me
- the day I arrived back from my honeymoon, as I recall - that I should
probably start looking for new work, because of the market. I was made to
believe, and always did until a few years ago when you started implying
otherwise, that I had been laid off just like all the other Bomis employees.
In those first three years, Wikipedia did three press releases, in which we
are both given credit as founders of the project. I
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%27s_first_press_relea
se> drafted the first press release in January 2002; you read and approved
it before posting it on the wires. Moreover, you must have read the many
early news articles that called us both founders. You could have complained
then - when you were CEO of the company that paid my paycheck. But you
didn't. In fact, you called yourself "co-founder" from time to time.
Evidence of this has surfaced in the form of
<http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/xodp/message/1720> this post to xodp in
which you begin, "Hello, let me introduce myself. I'm Jimmy Wales,
co-founder of Nupedia and Wikipedia, the open content encyclopedias." While
your company supplied the funding and you supplied some guidance, I supplied
the main leadership of the early project. This is why Wikipedia's second
press release also called me "founder," in 2003 - just after I broke
permanently with you and the Wikipedia community - and the Wikimedia
Foundation's first press release described me the same way, in early 2004.
I had nothing to do with the second and third press releases, and, as Bomis
CEO and Wikimedia Chair, you approved all three. But now read what you told
Hot Press recently. The interviewer asked: "Sanger said that proof of his
being co-founder is on the initial press releases. Are you saying that he
basically just put himself down as co-founder on these press releases?" You
answered "Yes." How could I "put myself down as co-founder" in 2003 and
2004, when I wasn't even part of the organization? This is an attempt to
buff your reputation while making me look like a liar - but your simple
"Yes" answer can be refuted with
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_releases/January_2002> a
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_releases/January_2003> few
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_releases/February_2004> URLs;
you were a contact on all three press releases.
Beginning in 2004, you began leaving me out of the story of Wikipedia's
origin. You began implying, to reporters, that you had done a lot of the
sort of work that, in fact, you hired me to do. You have even implied that I
was opposed to various ideas that were crucial to Wikipedia's popular
success - when those were, for all intents and purposes, my own ideas. A
good example is Daniel Pink's
<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.03/wiki.html> article for Wired
Magazine - in which you implied that I had little or nothing to do with
Wikipedia.
You still do this. You told the Hot Press interviewer, "Larry was never
comfortable with the open-editing model of Wikipedia and he very early on
wanted to start locking things down and giving certain people special
authority - you know, recruit experts to supervise certain areas of the
encyclopaedia and things like that." This is a lie. I was perfectly
comfortable with the "open-editing model of Wikipedia." After all, that was
my idea. I did not want to "start locking things down" - or to "recruit
experts to supervise certain areas of the encyclopaedia." I challenge anyone
to find any evidence in the archive that I did any such thing. For my early
attitude toward expert involvement, see
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Deferring_to_the_experts> this column,
written a year after the project started. Besides, your claim doesn't make
sense. Even after a year, I was hoping that a revitalized Nupedia would work
in tandem with Wikipedia as its vetting service. Though you increasingly
disliked Nupedia as Wikipedia's star rose, it was always my assumption that
you felt the same way about at least the potential of the two projects
working together.
It was one thing, in 2004, to leave me out of the story of Wikipedia. It was
another to assert in 2005, (1) for
<http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-April/021452.html>
the very first time, that
<http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-April/021446.html>
somebody else had the idea for the project, contrary to
<http://web.archive.org/web/20010406101346/www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Wikipedia_
FAQ> what had been on the books since 2001, or (2) that I am not co-founder
of the project. But in both cases, people scanning the Wikipedia-L mailing
list archives found old mails in which you contradicted yourself.
<http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2001-October/000671.html>
One embarrassing mail has you giving me credit - as, of course, I always had
been given credit - for the idea of Wikipedia, and
<http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/xodp/message/1720> another embarrassing
mail surfaced just a few days ago in which you called yourself "co-founder"
of Wikipedia.
I find your behavior since 2004 transparently self-serving, considering that
this rewriting of history began in 2004, just as Wikia.com was getting
started, and you started promoting your reputation as the brains behind
Wikipedia. There is a long "paper trail" establishing virtually all of my
claims about Wikipedia, and which refute your various attempts to rewrite
history.
I have not publicly confronted you about this before, to this extent. Public
controversies are emotionally wrenching and time-consuming. I know I might
be (verbally) attacked more viciously than ever by your fans and
Wikipedia's. (To them, I just point out that Wikipedia is bigger than Jimmy
Wales.) I have mainly limited myself to answering reporters' questions -
keeping my more harshly-worded statements off the record - and to
<http://www.larrysanger.org/roleinwp.html> this page on my personal site.
Occasionally I couldn't help objecting to some particularly outrageous
claim, but I never went all out.
I thought that the evidence against your claims about me would shame you
into changing your behavior. But, five years since you started
misrepresenting my role in the founding of Wikipedia, you're still at it.
I have been content to watch you reap the rewards of the project I started
for you, largely without comment. You (with Tim Shell and Michael Davis, the
Bomis partners) did, after all, sponsor the project. After leaving
Wikipedia, I went back to academia and, after that, worked for a succession
of nonprofit projects - these days, <http://www.citizendium.org/>
Citizendium.org and now also <http://www.watchknow.org/> WatchKnow.org. I
have not tried to cash in on my own reputation. I have been approached by a
number of venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and publishers and have always
told them that I have my own plans. If I had wanted to cash in myself, I
wouldn't have moved away from Silicon Valley back to Ohio, as I did, in
order to lower my costs in supporting the non-profit projects which I've
made my life's work.
The Hot Press interview is the straw that broke this camel's back. I resent
being the victim of another person's self-serving lies. Besides, I don't
want to set a poor example in my failure to defend myself.
Please don't say I'm making mountains out of molehills. When you go out of
your way to edit Wikipedia articles to
<http://workbench.cadenhead.org/news/2828/wikipedia-founder-looks-out-number
-1> remove the fact that I am a co-founder, or
<http://www.wikitruth.info/index.php?title=Jimbo_Found_Out> ask others to do
so, I don't call that correcting "very simple errors," as you told Hot
Press. What angers me is not any one error, but the accumulated weight of
your lies about me - I've mentioned only a few of them here.
Finally, you might protest that you have said, several times, that I am not
credited enough. For example, you told Hot Press:
I feel that Larry's work is often under-appreciated. He really did a lot in
the first year to think through editorial policy. . I would actually love to
have it on the record that I said: I think Larry's work should be more
appreciated. He's a really brilliant guy.
This sounds like a fine sentiment. But how could it be sincere? What better
way to ensure that I am "under-appreciated" than to contradict your own
first three press releases and tell the Boston Globe, just two years later,
that it's "preposterous" that I am called co-founder?
I have two further requests, not of you, but of those who deal with you: the
Wikimedia Foundation and reporters.
First, I ask the Board of the Wikimedia Foundation to reiterate the
Foundation's original position (as expressed in its
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_releases/February_2004> first
press release) that we are both, in fact, founders of Wikipedia. (I note
that the author of the recent history of Wikipedia, Andrew "fuzheado" Lih,
was
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Press_releases/February
_2004&action=history> among the authors and contacts for this press
release.) If the Foundation is unwilling, I request an explanation why its
corporate view has changed. Is it simply because Jimmy Wales has made his
wishes known and you enforce them?
Second, I request any reporter who interviews you about the early history of
Wikipedia and Nupedia to interview me as well, so I can correct anything
misleading. They should know that there are many details in my 2005
<http://features.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/18/164213&tid=95> memoir
of Nupedia and Wikipedia, and my story has never varied. I would also
appreciate it if a reporter were to inquire about my request, above, to the
Board of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Larry Sanger (sanger(a)citizendium.org)
I can recognize when I am no longer welcome. I didn't really believe I ever
was welcome to begin with, but I was willing to try. I've always been
optimistic.
I assume that, since the self-appointed silencers among you are apparently
operating with impunity, I could not possibly continue to press my case here
without continuing to cause an uproar among them. So I will stop. Those
who wanted to silence me have done so successfully, just as your fearless
leader did on [[User talk:Jimmy Wales]].
On the issue of whether I am entitled to speak out here, I did want to make
two points.
First, whether or not it really is, Wikipedia (like Citizendium and other
similar projects) ought to be democratic, open, and devoted to free speech
in a certain sense. The sense is that, as long as a person is generally
abiding by the rules of the community, he has a right to speak out in public
forums, even if others find it "annoying." If a mob of others are outraged
at what he says, they have the right to try to refute him (under the same
reasonable rules); but they do not have the right to demand that he be
silenced. As soon as they gain such authority, the mob is de facto making
the rules, which is fine for people who love mobs, but absolutely terrible
for most of humanity and for anybody who cares about justice and other
things that cannot be made into silly acronyms.
Second, virtually all of the arguments of those claiming that I lack the
right to air my concerns on this list work as arguments that I should not
have been allowed to post in the first place. Surely the moderators were
right to allow me to post, and I was grateful to them for letting me do so.
Nevertheless, since first posting, all I have been doing is defending the
relevance, or significance, of my open letter to Jimmy Wales, or my right to
make it--not really discussing its content at all. That's a pretty sad
state of affairs, I think. I actually think that a large majority of
Wikipedians probably sympathize with my letter, but that they are
intimidated by those on this list who have the ability to make up arguments
justifying censorship of someone with a serious, well-justified complaint
about one of the most important leaders of the project.
As to the attacks on Citizendium, I'm not going to bother replying. Those
who are inclined to be sympathetic toward us will find out about us from
more reliable sources, or from their own observation. Suffice it to say
that the people who are lobbing the most vicious attacks either know nothing
about the project, or are deeply philosophically opposed to it, and in
either case, their opinion is not worth very much, as far as I'm concerned.
As to those who might be inclined to sympathize with us, but who are
intimidated into silence here on this list, and by mobs in general, let's
just say that you're very welcome to join us.
I do want to say one last thing to the more reasonable people in the
community, who I know have been following this, and who stick things out in
the face of what looks like a brainless mob: while I long ago decided I
couldn't join you, I do admire and sympathize with your situation.
Wikipedia is great--it's hard to abandon. There are a lot of very smart and
decent people on Wikipedia, and if I have harsh words about the Wikipedia
community from time to time, I hope you'll understand I'm not talking about
you.
--Larry (I'll be unsubscribing right after sending this)
P.S. Apropos of nothing but a throwaway remark by someone on the list: I
have never, ever, not even once, used any account on Wikipedia (or
Citizendium) other than User:Larry Sanger.
Brian <Brian.Mingus(a)colorado.edu> wrote:
> Let's be clear that, especially after the failure of Nupedia to take
> off,
> Wikipedia's success was a surprise both to Sanger and Wales. Neither
> of them
> expected that this would happen and can therefore not take full or
> too much
> credit for it.
The fact that they were surprised by its success does not mean that
they don't deserve credit for it. History is full of ideas whose
success surprised their creators. I'm sure the Beatles were surprised
when they soared to the top of the music charts (especially after they
had spent years grinding away with only modest success in Hamburg and
Liverpool). When Linus Torvalds released the first version of Linux,
he had no way of knowing that it would take off the way it did. That
doesn't mean the Beatles don't deserve credit for their music or
Torvalds doesn't deserve credit for Linux.
If anything, the failure of Nupedia shows that Sanger and Wales
deserve *more* credit, not less. Rather than giving up on the idea of
an online encyclopedia after their first attempt, they persevered,
retooled and came up with an alternative approach that did work. Of
course they had no way of knowing what a success it would become. They
got lucky, and a huge community of other people has contributed in
various ways. But they still deserve credit for the original innovation.
-------------------------------------------
SHELDON RAMPTON
Research director, Center for Media & Democracy
Center for Media & Democracy
520 University Avenue, Suite 227
Madison, WI 53703
phone: 608-260-9713
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