On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 3:35 AM, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
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.
I thought we explained. This was more dangerous because the people involved were more prepared with methods to subvert our processes. I specifically said that the effects were not severe, but they could have been. Everyone involved with this is quite aware of how vulnerable we are to any group of this sort.
I am not sure you quite understand how POV-pushing works, now. If a group is more mainstream, that does not mean that an article can wind up looking less slanted. Or, for that matter, that a BLP can wind up less of an attack page - BLPs of marginally notable academics involved in the I-P conflict were their special target.
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.
This is indeed not comparable. In Pakistan-India, or Armenia-Azerbaijan, a random onlooker can attempt to mediate or fix neutrality without always being accused instantly of having his or her own POV on the subject. In addition, in those real-world disputes there are as yet few organisations that are devoted to shaping the public message the way that American presidential campaigns, for example, are. And finally, those disputes are unlikely to focus on trying to convert the random wikipedia reader, the way that CAMERA specifically did.
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?
Typical. I rest my case.
FWIW, the only thing that I object to about CAMERA are their tactics. But that's presumably not good enough. You can't look at DGG's concerns, or mine, check that we spend time on WP in difficult areas but not really part of this particular conflict, and say, OK, they might know what they're talking out more than I clearly do. No, instead, you choose to imply that we're concerned because of real-world POV. This is remarkable. Assume bad faith, anyone?
RR