I should preface this by discussing in the beginning the constructive part of what I have to say, as opposed to the acrimonious things. English Wikipedia's main page lists eight "master" categories:
Culture | Geography | History | Life | Mathematics | Science | Society | Technology
Wikipedia is a cooperative enterprise. And I feel that Wikipedia does a great job with categories like Mathematics and Science. Technology is pretty good as well. On the other end of the spectrum, we have categories like History and Society with articles like [[Palestine]] or [[Kashmir]]. I do not think Wikipedia does a good job on these categories, and the articles within them. Newspaper articles have been written about how Wikipedia does not do a good job on articles in these categories, using examples such as the [[John Kerry]] and [[George Bush]] articles.
I am convinced the only way to solve this is to tell the right-wing RK's, the Trey Stone's and the VeryVerily's to go to places like wikinfo.org, and for the Shorne's, the 172's and other left-wing users who have had trouble on Wikipedia to go to left or liberal wikis like Dkosopedia, Red Wiki, Demopedia, Anarchopedia, Infoshop's Openwiki and so forth.
I think this is a constructive thing to say. I'm trying to help things. Wouldn't everyone here rest easier if all the Palestine and Kashmir edit warriors cleared out for other wiki's? I would, and you probably would, and they would. And for articles on the human genome, chess and whatnot, we can all work together.
Now diving into acrimonious territory. Something brought up several times - it is claimed I said that adminship is handed to right-wing users and denied to left-wing users. That is not what I said. I said very clearly that THE MAJORITY of admins are good. But the majority of admins are not focused on the contentious History and Society categories, but the other categories, or are just doing various neutral Wiki-tasks like VFD and stuff like that. But the ones who DO concentrate on those two categories tend to be right-leaning, and the few left-leaning ones who made it through like 172 or Secretlondon are persecuted (and 172 is de-opped). Despite having explicitly said that the majority of admins are good and usually apolitical, several times people claimed I said that all admins are right-wing. That is not what I said, I said the majority of admins are good and mostly apolitical, but the minority who are political are right-winging, and the minority of the political admins who are left-leaning like 172 and Secretlondon are persecuted. In fact, 172 was de-adminned in what I feel is a sneaky manner.
MacGyverMagic/Mgm says:
Secondly, adminship has nothing to do with being left- or right wing or being a capitalist. Everyone gets their chance to speak up about a nomination and the main arguments to make someone an admin are based on their interpersonal and editing skills and not their political viewpoints.
Admins need to be involved in controversial issues simply because that's what their delete, revert and protect buttons were made for in the first place.
I agree.
Fred Bauder says:
No fair, my experience with RK running wild here partly motivated me to create Wikinfo
I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek in my comments on Wikinfo. I think it's good wikinfo exists. It's not exactly my cup of tea, but I think most people would be happier with people like RK editting the Israel articles there than on Wikipedia. Or Shorne editing articles on communism on Red Wiki for the other side of the political coin.
Ultrablue says:
Ruy Lopez is moderated on this mailing list, which you were probably unaware of. I approved his post above, but did not notice the text: "those of you not coming to this list to kiss the ass of Ayn Rand reading porn magnate Jimbo Wales".
As far as I can recall, I don't believe I've ever posted to this list before, although it's possible I did months ago and forgot. Anyhow, I was not signed up to this list, I just signed up to it yesterday because I was informed I was called a vandal on it by Jimbo Wales. Perhaps a year ago I would have tried to walk the high road instead of slinging mud back, but I guess I have gotten too used to Wikipedia mud-slinging. Which is one reason I have noted that I now spend most of my time editing on other wiki encyclopedias.
As far as Chad Perrin's questions about this, I am just noting that Wales is a millionaire and reads Ayn Rand, i.e. I am pointing to what his political bias's are.
David Gerard says:
I probably disagree with Jimbo on everything politically, and I consider Ayn Rand and Objectivism material for standup comedy [2]. But somehow we get along and work together pretty well on the actual project of writingan encyclopedia. I wonder why that is. Do you have any hypotheses?
The [[Great Soviet Encyclopedia]] is online. You can run it through an English/Russian translator (or go to your local library and get an English translation, which is a few dozen volumes). Compare the history articles there with the history articles in the Encyclopedia Britannica, or Encarta or whatnot. I should note that many respected members of the Soviet intelligentsia, scientists who built Sputnik, nuclear bombs and whatnot "worked together" to make the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. And Encyclopedia Britannica and Encarta has some illustrious contributors. But they come out completely different. Which is my main point.
To directly answer your question: I have just told you what I have seen. I have seen Wales attack Secretlondon, I have seen the attacks on 172, I have seen any admin who consistently works to protect users from the right wing users: the TDC's, the Sam Spades, the Very Verilys, the Ed Poors, the Fred Bauders and whatnot. All of these users are right wing, and I feel they inject right wing bias into their edits. Of course, people like Fred Bauder have their opinions and do not descend to the level of the VeryVerily's, but he is right-wing, and I feel his (and others) edits put right-wing POV in articles.
And there are just hordes of left-leaning users who have just been driven off, never to be seen again. The problem with discussing this is that multiple questions come up: Are Wikipedia's articles politically biased, are there more right-leaning than left-leaning admins, are the left-leaning admins like 172 and Secretlondon persecuted, are left-leaning users persecuted and so forth.
Ruy
Hi Ruy.
You're perfectly right. I had you confused with another mailing list contributor entirely. I apologise for any confusion this may have caused.
~Mark Ryan
On 7/10/05, Ruy Lopez ruy.lopez@mail.com wrote:
Ultrablue says:
Ruy Lopez is moderated on this mailing list, which you were probably unaware of. I approved his post above, but did not notice the text: "those of you not coming to this list to kiss the ass of Ayn Rand reading porn magnate Jimbo Wales".
As far as I can recall, I don't believe I've ever posted to this list before, although it's possible I did months ago and forgot. Anyhow, I was not signed up to this list, I just signed up to it yesterday because I was informed I was called a vandal on it by Jimbo Wales. Perhaps a year ago I would have tried to walk the high road instead of slinging mud back, but I guess I have gotten too used to Wikipedia mud-slinging. Which is one reason I have noted that I now spend most of my time editing on other wiki encyclopedias.
On Sat, Jul 09, 2005 at 08:44:32PM -0500, Ruy Lopez wrote:
As far as Chad Perrin's questions about this, I am just noting that Wales is a millionaire and reads Ayn Rand, i.e. I am pointing to what his political bias's are.
Well, thanks for clearing that up. I, personally, have read four of Ayn Rand's books, by the way, but have also read such works as Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle". I don't think pointing out a very limited selection of someone's reading list are much of a reasonable indicator of what sort of bias that person may or may not bring to the table in any collaborative enterprise. Whatever Jimbo's personal political leanings may be, they aren't relevant to determining his management style. Rather, it would be more productive and reasonable to examine his actual management actions, in whole and in context, and only examine political leanings to attempt to understand the reasons for that behavior if that too interests you (though it's still not really relevant to a discussion of whether there's applied bias in management style).
-- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
On Sun, Jul 10, 2005 at 11:34:14AM -0400, Chad Perrin wrote:
On Sat, Jul 09, 2005 at 08:44:32PM -0500, Ruy Lopez wrote:
As far as Chad Perrin's questions about this, I am just noting that Wales is a millionaire and reads Ayn Rand, i.e. I am pointing to what his political bias's are.
Well, thanks for clearing that up. I, personally, have read four of Ayn Rand's books, by the way, but have also read such works as Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle". I don't think pointing out a very limited selection of someone's reading list are much of a reasonable indicator of what sort of bias that person may or may not bring to the table in any collaborative enterprise. Whatever Jimbo's personal political leanings may be, they aren't relevant to determining his management style. Rather, it would be more productive and reasonable to examine his actual management actions, in whole and in context, and only examine political leanings to attempt to understand the reasons for that behavior if that too interests you (though it's still not really relevant to a discussion of whether there's applied bias in management style).
I really dislike making typos.
s/are much of a/is much of a/
-- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]