New subject: The ongoing trolling

8 Jul 2005


      Jimmy Wales wrote:
...
Skyring wrote:
...
Then try to forget that you are well-regarded and experienced here and
you have a great deal of power. Put yourself in the shoes of a new
editor doing what they see as the right thing and encountering
statements like this one: "I will revert you twice a day, for the rest
of history if needs be. Plus I have more allies than you, so your
attempts to restalinise this article must fail."
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AKhmer_Rouge&diff=148359...
But in this case, this response was absolutely valid.  Ruy Lopez was
engaging in an ongoing campaign of vandalism of the article, and letting
him know that we're more patient than he is, is exactly the right thing
to do.
A fellow user informed me that Wales called me a vandal on this mailing list, which he believed was unfair, so I came to the archive of this list to see what was said, and now I am responding.
If I would say I'm surprised Wales has weighed in the way he did on this matter, I would be lying.  I have seen the way he has treated even admins like Secretlondon.  I have seen how only admins like 172 get their adminship removed.  Not to mention all of the users who have not become admins (not like anyone who falls on the side of the political spectrum that Secretlondon or 172 does could ever become an admin nowadays).  Or that many of Wikipedia's (in my mind) best contributors have signed up for the project to counter systemic bias from the English language userbase, something I won't go into detail about here, but that so many people who at least I respect have joined it says something to me.
Or perhaps I'll just come out and say it: those who are politically pro-labor, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist, what is sometimes called the left, are, I wouldn't even say marginalized on Wikipedia, but attacked.  Those who are anti-labor, pro-capitalist and pro-imperialist, or what is sometimes called the right, are given adminship, made bureaucrats and whatnot.
And why wouldn't it be so?  Wales himself is a capitalist, and an American.  What kind of encyclopedia would one expect to result from the structure put in place by an American millionaire after all the money he made on pornography and whatnot?  Wales sometimes feels he has to position himself above the fray, but the history is clear.  Meaning his actions, such as the attack on Secretlondon, not his noting how he was enthralled with Ayn Rand as a student and that sort of thing, although I'll consider those sorts of things as circumstantial evidence.
I must dive into a tangent for people reading this and thinking, "wait, all admins are not right-wing zealots, I have seen plenty of reasonable ones".  I agree, that is not what I am saying.  So let me jump off into my tangent on this subject.
At the top of Wikipedia's front page are listed the master categories: Culture, Geography, History, Life, Mathematics, Science, Society, Technology.  I think Wikipedia does a great job on some of these master categories, especially science and mathematics.  I think Wikipedia does an awful job on some of these master categories, such as history and society.  I should also say I am not alone in this opinion, I have heard it expressed many times by others, that the articles tending towards the science/math end are great, while the ones tending towards the history/society end are horrible.  This is not even a "left wing" view, I have heard it expressed by many "right wing" users.  I use [[quantum mechanics]] (which is in a subcategory of the science master category) as an example of an article Wikipedia is good at.  Wikipedia is a cooperative enterprise, and most people editing that page are there to help and cooperate with one another, many of whom know what they are talking about, which is why the article is so good.  At the other end of the spectrum, we have articles like [[Khmer Rouge]] (which I'll get back to), or [[Palestine]] (which I don't edit, but which everyone is unhappy with, pro-Palestinian and Zionist), or [[John Kerry]], especially during the presidential race.  In fact, I recall an article about Wikipedia about how the John Kerry and George Bush articles were junk before the elections, and thus it was a negative article about Wikipedia.  Anyhow, clearly, some admins  originally were good users who edited mostly the science and mathematics articles, or perhaps the technology and geography articles.  They were promoted to admins and still focus on these categories.  They are apolitical, and good admins.  So no, I am not saying all admins are biased and right wing.  In fact, I would say the majority aren't.
What I am saying is there are users, some who become admins (or don't) who concentrate on the more controversial master categories like history and society.  And now is when I start pointing fingers.  Because Wales insults even admins like Secretlondon who concentrate on this.  Admins like 172 get de-opped in what I feel is a sneaky manner, while other admins (meaning the ones focused on the more controversial articles) get away with murder.  These are admins, who I felt were some of the few admins who stuck up for people of a more "left" persuasion on Wikipedia.  But they are de-admined, attacked off Wikipedia by it's high mucky-muck and so forth (although after months of being gone, Secretlondon has started to contribute again, thankfully).  I have been on Wikipedia for a long time and this is very clear to me.
Heaven help a user of such a persuasion who is not an admin.  Especially if s/he is new, and is, what I consider to be trying to be baited into a trap.  Wales has countenanced what he calls Carr being "difficult", what I call being insulting and rude.  So new users of a certain persuasion are baited - Carr insults them, they insult back, maybe no one tells them about the 3RR rule, and pretty soon they are blocked, in arbitration and whatnot.  When I see this baiting going on - baiting towards the trap of blocks, arbitration etc., I tell the new user being baited to follow the rules, don't violate 3RR, don't insult users, even if they like Carr are insulting you but Wales allows their "difficult" behavior and so forth.
In fact, it's obvious what a nutty mix we have here.  Wales is someone who has made millions on pornography.  Ed Poor is a moonie, with typical moonie ideas.  Adam Carr is a former Maoist, and now is as fanatically anti-communist as surely as he was probably fanatically communist.  And so on and so forth, this is the cast and crew being dealt with.  And Carr loves to throw mud at me and say I'm some kind of fanatical communist or something.  I mean it's a laugh - he is someone who was in a Maoist cult, people like Ed Poor are still in weird cults, yet I'm the fanatic because I try to make Carr's language on edits POV.
Carr recently edited [[Semyon Budyonny]] changing "Budyonny...was an ally of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin" to "Budyonny...was a crony of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin".  I reverted it back to the former version, my first edit ever on the article.  Carr reverted it back and now the page is locked.  Who is the vandal here?  Who is being difficult?
Frankly, on some level I have given up on Wikipedia ever having decent history and society pages.  If Carr wants to go through all the articles, calling people cronies and whatnot, that's fine by me, I'm sure the Encarta people are laughing their heads off.  I'm not here to kiss Jimbo's ass as so many on this list do, I could really give a damn what the Ayn Rand-reading porn magnate thinks.  I edit Wikipedia from time to time, but I do more work on other wiki encyclopedias.  I know Wikipedia is hopeless on the history and society categories.  Which wiki encyclopedia will overtake Wikipedia for these fields?  Demopedia?  Dkosopedia?  Perhaps something more radical - Anarchopedia, Red Wiki, Infoshop's Openwiki?
I should also note that according to the Wikipedia legend, people having "left" or "right" opinions doesn't matter as long as they are NPOV, don't violate 3RR, discuss changes, don't insult other users and all of that.  I myself see this as one of focus more than anything.  I created [[No Gun Ri]] in April, which not only was not started yet but had no links to it.  So now the article exists, about a My Lai type massacre by US troops during the Korean war.  As I said, I see this as emphasis: this incident did not exist in Wikipedia history until I inserted it, although we have hundreds, thousands of pages on anything any left-wing "regime" ever did wrong.  Of course, as soon as I wrote the article it was descended on by people trying to cast doubt on whether it ever happened, apologizing for the US etc.  If I tried to do even a little of that for an article on China or Cuba, Adam Carr would be screaming I'm a fanatical communist, an apologist for genocide and so forth while Wales would stand by clapping.
As I said before: I think Wikipedia has a bright future in the science/mathematics master categories where everyone is cooperating (and isn't Wikipedia essentially a cooperative enterprise) and headed off the cliff long ago on the history and society master categories.  In fact, most of the original articles for the history of countries was FUNDED BY THE US ARMY.  Virtually all of those not from US government funding were written by the US State Department.  Yes.  Go back and look at the original articles for all "History of so-and-so-country".  I'll use Cuba as an example.  Not that the US army or Bush's State Department can't write an objective history of Cuba, I'm sure the US government can easily put aside the fact that it almost had a nuclear war over Cuba in the 1960's or is currently trying to overthrow, or at elast undermine Cuba.  Anyhow, let's take a look, shall we?
February 2002, [[History of Cuba]]
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_Cuba&oldid=52927
One sentence esays "On May 20, 1902, the United States granted Cuba its independence, but retained the right to intervene to preserve Cuban independence and stability under the Platt Amendment."  Well, isn't that magnanimous, the US is no nice it agreed to risk the lives of its brave young men to "preserve Cuban independence and stability".  Anyhow, where did this come from?  Let's take a look at this current US State Department Background note on Cuba:
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2886.htm
"On May 20, 1902, the United States granted Cuba its independence but retained the right to intervene to preserve Cuban independence and stability in accordance with the Platt Amendment."
The current article doesn't have this sentence, because all mention of the Spanish-American war ever taken place has been removed.  Which says a lot about Wikipedia in the history/society categories.  But plenty of the US State Department language is still in the current article, and this State Department and US army stuff permeates the entire encyclopedia.  And the only changes to it is people like Adam Carr coming in and calling various modern Cuban bureaucrats things like cronies.
So as I mentioned before - I think Wikipedia will continue to be good in the science/math master categories and horrible in the history/society master categories.  Wikipedia is also decent in other master categories, depending.  The four middle categories between science/math and history/society vary - technology is pretty good, while the "life" master category is almost as far down in the abyss as the history/society one.  And as I said before, I am sure that for the history, society, life categories, people flee to wiki encyclopedia's that do not have real vandals and trolls like Trey Stone (who has been blocked 8 times since his arbitration started, but is still vandalizing - really vandalizing, despite porn magnate Wales's insults towards me).  Wiki encyclopedias like Demopedia and Dkosopedia - or even more radical ones like Anarchopedia, Red Wiki and Infoshop's Openwiki.  I suggest people check these wikis out, and contribute original material, or public domain English articles (not ones funded by the US army though, please), or translations from encyclopedias in the public domain - there are some very good public domain encyclopedias out there, and I don't mean Encyclopedia Britannica circa the early 20th century.  Why be frustrated here on Wikipedia when you can actually cooperate in a friendly environment with people writing a encyclopedia of articles pertaining to categories like history, society, life and whatnot?  I have.  It will lower your "wiki-stress" level.
I should note I am not telling people to leave Wikipedia, or not to contribute to it.  I think the science and math master categories are great.  But the history and society categories are hopeless.  These categories are already ruled by right-wing kooks on Wikipedia, and always will be, but if you are at an RK or Trey Stone level of fanaticism, perhaps you should check out another right wing nutcases wiki encyclopedia - wikinfo.org.  As far as those who feel close to the workers movements, or who don't go to Pentecostal churches to here preachers railing about how the faggots are taking over America which will lead to the destruction of society, Demopedia and Dkosopedia are out there, as are some more radical ones.
In fact, perhaps this is something everyone would be happy to see.  What would your level of stress be if RK and Trey Stone went to wikinfo.org or wherever, and the Shornes and whatnot all went to Demopedia/Dkosopedia or perhaps Red Wiki or something?  I mean, let's face it, there will NEVER be cooperation on the Palestine page.  Ever.  What's going to fix it, a wiki version of the "peace process" like the one that supposedly has gone on since 1967 in Israel?  With Sharon building new settlements, calling that a peace process is like saying the American slaughter of Indians since 1776 has ben a peace process.  But I shall not get into that - just like I don't much edit the Palestine Israel pages on Wikipedia.
As far as the Khmer Rouge page, I won't go much into that either.  The change I have been trying to make for months is minor, and of course, accurate.  First of all, there is no organization that ever called itself "Khmer Rouge", which is French for "Red Khmers".  It is sort of like calling the Communist Party USA "Red Jews" or "Red Anglo-Saxons".  It's just an insulting propaganda term, like Viet Cong was.  But even if we accept the Communist Party of Cambodia/Kampuchea be called Khmer Rouge, it becomes ridiculous in this article.  The political coalition the Khmer Rouge is in, FUNK, is called...Khmer Rouge.  It would be like calling the Uniti nell'Ulivo (United under the olive tree) coalition in Italy, Democratici di Sinistra (Left Democrats).  Many parties are in Uniti nell'Ulivo so calling the coalition Democratici di Sinistra would be ridiculous, but FUNK is called Khmer Rouge in the article.  That is the least ridiculous incidentally, the government, GRUNK, is called Khmer Rouge as well.  That would be like calling the US government the Republican party.  Which is ridiculous, the Republicans are in control of the federal government, tempered by the Senate filibuster, but the Republican party is not the same thing as the US government.  In the case of Cambodia it is even more ridiculous - the US president is a Republican, but GRUNK was run by the former prince of Cambodia, Sihanouk, who was not in the Khmer Rouge.  Then we get to the army which is again called - the Khmer Rouge.  It would be like calling the US army the Republican party, since the Republican party is in charge.
I should point out that this is not just a view shared by me, and not even by left-wing or liberal writers on Cambodia like Noam Chomsky or Michael Vickery.  Even the US army funded study of Cambodia conceeds all of this.  I should also note that Trey Stone, another person who accuses me of being an apologist for genocide or whatever, has been busy making rationalizations for why the US government began supporting the Khmer Rouge in 1979.  He says they were in a coalition - with Sihanouk, and this made it OK.  Which gets us into another loop, in the 1975 Khmer Rouge and Sihanouk coalition, Adam Carr and Trey Stone are fanatical about erasing Sihanouk from the coalition, after 1979, they are fanatical about erasing the Khmer Rouge from the same damned KR/Sihanouk coalition.
My interest in Cambodia comes from Noam Chomsky, who incidentally has been averse to communism since the 1930s when he felt the communists betrayed the Spanish republic.  He wrote some comments about American news coverage and the type of hysteria the US got into when it lost in Vietnam - hysteria about massacres in Cambodia, congressional hearings over POWs who the Vietnamese were still secretly holding for some reason.  In fact, there's a law that the POW/MIA flag has to fly over all federal buildings at least once a year, on which is a photo of an American soldier the Vietnamese are still holding for some reason.  Well, I don't want to get into a psychological evaluation of self-admitted former Maoists like Adam Carr or the other people.  I just want a rational, logical Khmer Rouge article.  I give up on other articles, but not this one - I am proving a point.  Anyone who is not a hysterically fanatic anti-communist can see how hysteria has gripped this article, and has been winning.  I see it more as a lesson on how Wikipedia does not work for the history master category.  In fact, even if everyone not currently in arbitration decided to be perfectly reasonable about this article, Trey Stone when he is not on one of his eight blocks since he went into arbitration months ago would just come in and muck it up.  It is a testament to how Wikipedia is a complete failure.  And I will continue making my very logical, reasonable and historical edits in the face of the fanaticism that is against me.  And as I said before, even if everyone else is being reasonable, in-arbitration Trey Stone is not being, so that is what I am arrayed against.  But of course, Adam Carr is being completely unreasonable as well.  I would have to get past these two fanatics to even consider if anyone else is being unfair.  And as I said before, all efforts have been made to drive the 172's of Wikipedia off, so it is an often lonely battle on this page.  Poison letters to the Secretlondon's, sneaky admin-removals of the 172s have done their job.  I have no allies on the page, while the "difficult" Adam Carr's are countenanced by Jimbo Wales himself, the Trey Stones revert repeatedly as his ArbCom case drags on forever, and of course, Ayn-Rand reading porn magnate Jimbo Wales calls me a vandal for making the very reasonable change I mentioned earlier.
Please look at the revert war from the time period of that Adam Carr comment, read my earlier comments here (or on the Khmer Rouge discussion page) and see for yourself.  This edit war went on between me and Adam Carr (and Trey Stone) from May until a few days ago, when with this still unresolved, when CJK came in and began making, what else, more pro-US/anti-KR changes, so then the edit war became the old one plus the new CJK one.  For example, CJK said he never heard of the US food aid program to Cambodia - "Ruy goes on to say that 'international food aid' was keeping them alive. I have never heard of this 'food aid' from ANYWHERE ELSE, so Ruy should give a source for that as well."  Since my edits never go through, and no one else ever sources, I barely see the point of giving a reference for this, but I dig up a New York Times article mentioning it anyway.  And note - Cambodia is a subject I know a bit about, and CJK admits he is completely ignorant of things such as the food aid program.  So we have someone who knows quite a bit about this subject (me), and people who know little about it like CJK making edits reverting me.  After I give the source, CJK does not accept it because he says "I think the U.S. gave food aid to the Lon Nol Army, but not civilians".  Amazing!  CJK says he never heard of this program, but as soon as I source it all of a sudden he "thinks" he knows where the food went!  How did he go from knowing nothing, to all of a sudden not only knowing about it, but how it was distributed?  So of course he doesn't accept my changes.  And of course, if he actually read the article, he would see the food was going to civilians.  This is what I have to deal with.
So to those of you not coming to this list to kiss the ass of Ayn Rand reading porn magnate Jimbo Wales - check out the Khmer Rouge article as my personal example of how Wikipedia does not work for the history (or society) master category.  And check out Demopedia, Dkosopedia and the other wiki's I mentioned so we can build a good, cooperative wiki for historical and political articles without having to deal with the RK's and Trey Stones.  The RK's and Trey Stones can go to right-wing nut Fred Bauder's wikinfo.org.  And if you like Wikipedia for it's articles in the master categories of science, mathematics and technology - well, I think Wikipedia is good in those areas as well.  But for history/society it is a lost cause, and I suggest at least trying out these other places before you get frustrated and leave, as so many have done.  These alternative wiki's are all growing, and in a few months they'll reach a level of critical mass.  So check them out.
Ruy
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Re: [WikiEN-l] The ongoing trolling