Someone pointed this out to me so I thought I'd share it. I can't find it online yet - it's more of a feature so maybe it won't be. Page fifteen of today's DM is an article by [[Petronella Wyatt]] - she created the article herself back in December. Basically a moan piece on the back of Alan Johnson's remarks. Larry Sanger is now called 'Jerry' and Wikipedia has 'employees'. Seems she spoke to or attempted to speak to Jimmy about vandalism on her article, threatening to sue.
On 4/23/07, Gary Kirk gary.kirk@gmail.com wrote:
Someone pointed this out to me so I thought I'd share it. I can't find it online yet - it's more of a feature so maybe it won't be. Page fifteen of today's DM is an article by [[Petronella Wyatt]] - she created the article herself back in December. Basically a moan piece on the back of Alan Johnson's remarks. Larry Sanger is now called 'Jerry' and Wikipedia has 'employees'. Seems she spoke to or attempted to speak to Jimmy about vandalism on her article, threatening to sue.
-- Gary Kirk
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Here's the url http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=...
No one takes the Daily Mail seriously, not even the people who read it. The only people who do are the chaps who work for that rag.
Seriously, we should give out a big press release explaining once and for all about vandalism, how it isn't hacking, and why it isn't a big problem. People keep on misunderstanding how vandalism works and how quickly it's reverted.
Moreschi
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Ahh - someone mentioned that he'd seen that Wikipedia was rubbish in "the paper". Didn't realise it was the Daily Mail, or I wouldn't have bothered arguing Wikipedia's side...
On a more serious note - it would help if something were to be done to tell those reporting just why Wikipedia articles can be vandalised, and what we do to repair it. For what I've heard of the newspaper article (I haven't read it yet), they followed the usual process of looking through revisions (or introducing deliberate vandalism) and reporting these instances as examples of Wikipedia being evil, only their to poolute our childrens' minds, must be banned (you see where I'm going with this..). Hopefully when/if stable revisions arrive, a lot of the complaints will slow down. As Wikipedia grows, and gets more press attention, its faults are pointed out more and more often, so we need to do all we can to nullify these concerns, and crucially let the media know how a we are taking care of the issues.
Martin
On 23/04/07, Christiano Moreschi moreschiwikiman@hotmail.co.uk wrote:
No one takes the Daily Mail seriously, not even the people who read it. The only people who do are the chaps who work for that rag.
Seriously, we should give out a big press release explaining once and for all about vandalism, how it isn't hacking, and why it isn't a big problem. People keep on misunderstanding how vandalism works and how quickly it's reverted.
Moreschi
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Or maybe just get a full-time Wikipedia PR machine up and running, to counter all the bad spin. Certainly, the more high-profile we get the more flak we'll cop. I agree that Stable Versions will help - do we have a release date for them yet?
Moreschi
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Christiano Moreschi wrote:
Or maybe just get a full-time Wikipedia PR machine up and running, to counter all the bad spin. Certainly, the more high-profile we get the more flak we'll cop. I agree that Stable Versions will help - do we have a release date for them yet?
While I don't like seeing misrepresentations of Wikipedia any more than anyone else and do my part to counter them "in real life" when talking to people, I'm not sure it's actually that huge a deal. Attacks on Wikipedia are increasing because we're becoming more popular, basically without any advertising or PR---simply because we're an extremely useful resource. So long as we remain a useful resource, we're going to be popular, regardless of whether the PR we get is good or bad. The chances that some bad newspaper PR will cause people to stop using Wikipedia are pretty small. Of course, things that both improve our usefulness as a resource *and* have the side-effect of nice PR (like stable versions) are worth pursuing. =]
-Mark
On 23/04/07, Martin Peeks martinp23@googlemail.com wrote:
On a more serious note - it would help if something were to be done to tell those reporting just why Wikipedia articles can be vandalised, and what we do to repair it.
Every press call on the subject ... though they seem to have been dropping in frequency.
For what I've heard of the newspaper article (I haven't read it yet), they followed the usual process of looking through revisions (or introducing deliberate vandalism) and reporting these instances as examples of Wikipedia being evil, only their to poolute our childrens' minds, must be banned (you see where I'm going with this..). Hopefully when/if stable revisions arrive, a lot of the complaints will slow down. As Wikipedia grows, and gets more press attention, its faults are pointed out more and more often, so we need to do all we can to nullify these concerns, and crucially let the media know how a we are taking care of the issues.
Stable versions will be a MASSIVE public relations boost. Even journalists who understand how Wikipedia works (and many do) will appreciate it becoming even theoretically fixable.
- d.
On 4/23/07, Christiano Moreschi moreschiwikiman@hotmail.co.uk wrote:
Seriously, we should give out a big press release explaining once and for all about vandalism, how it isn't hacking, and why it isn't a big problem. People keep on misunderstanding how vandalism works and how quickly it's reverted.
Or maybe we could just make it clear to first-time Google search visitors how the site is written and run, and stop pretending to be a 100.0%authoritative reference work when none of us actually view it that way.
On 4/23/07, Martin Peeks martinp23@googlemail.com wrote:
Hopefully when/if stable revisions arrive, a lot of the complaints will slow down.
Is this ever going to happen? Should it? Should just be set up as a fork?
On 4/23/07, Omegatron omegatron+wikienl@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/23/07, Christiano Moreschi moreschiwikiman@hotmail.co.uk wrote:
Seriously, we should give out a big press release explaining once and
for
all about vandalism, how it isn't hacking, and why it isn't a big
problem.
People keep on misunderstanding how vandalism works and how quickly it's reverted.
Or maybe we could just make it clear to first-time Google search visitors how the site is written and run, and stop pretending to be a 100.0%authoritative reference work when none of us actually view it that way.
We aren't pretending to be a 100% authoritive source. We've got various disclaimers and anyone who bothers looking for it will know how it is built. You can't trust any source without doublechecking - not even the "authoritive" ones. Britannica has errors too. It's the readers that need to change.
Mgm
On 23/04/07, Christiano Moreschi moreschiwikiman@hotmail.co.uk wrote:
No one takes the Daily Mail seriously, not even the people who read it. The only people who do are the chaps who work for that rag. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
At least it reports the news, unlike some "news"papers I can mention. Still, there are very few you can take seriously.
On 4/23/07, Mak makwik@gmail.com wrote:
Here's the url http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=...
Quite a well written, amusing little piece, not at all the hack job I'd been led to expect. Petronella Wyatt was apparently vandalised by the insertion of all kinds of lurid allegations. She complained and apparently it was fixed. She thinks she knows who did it.
So really, why write a story about it in <s>newspaper</s> the Daily Mail? A friend vandalises my userpage. Do I use this as a stage to attack him? No. I move on.
And Jerry Sanger, I ask you... ;-)
On 23/04/07, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/23/07, Mak makwik@gmail.com wrote:
Here's the url
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=...
Quite a well written, amusing little piece, not at all the hack job I'd been led to expect. Petronella Wyatt was apparently vandalised by the insertion of all kinds of lurid allegations. She complained and apparently it was fixed. She thinks she knows who did it.
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On 4/23/07, Gary Kirk gary.kirk@gmail.com wrote:
So really, why write a story about it in <s>newspaper</s> the Daily Mail? A friend vandalises my userpage. Do I use this as a stage to attack him? No. I move on.
She's a columnist. Columnists tend to write about events in their lives.
Drop the kool-aid. Two anonymous users libeled her in an article about herself, and Wikipedia processes missed this - the oldest portion of the vandalism lasting 14 days before detection. Check the article history.
Gary Kirk wrote:
So really, why write a story about it in <s>newspaper</s> the Daily Mail? A friend vandalises my userpage. Do I use this as a stage to attack him? No. I move on.
And Jerry Sanger, I ask you... ;-)
On 23/04/07, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/23/07, Mak makwik@gmail.com wrote:
Here's the url
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=...
Quite a well written, amusing little piece, not at all the hack job I'd been led to expect. Petronella Wyatt was apparently vandalised by the insertion of all kinds of lurid allegations. She complained and apparently it was fixed. She thinks she knows who did it.
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On 23/04/07, Blu Aardvark jeffrey.latham@gmail.com wrote:
Drop the kool-aid. Two anonymous users libeled her in an article about herself, and Wikipedia processes missed this - the oldest portion of the vandalism lasting 14 days before detection. Check the article history.
14 days, eh?
It probably "escaped detection" because no-one was reading the page in question, which in turn is most likely because she's utterly un-notable other than her affair with Boris Johnson.
A point Fred Bauder raised earlier, essentially.
On 24/04/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 23/04/07, Blu Aardvark jeffrey.latham@gmail.com wrote:
Drop the kool-aid. Two anonymous users libeled her in an article about herself, and Wikipedia processes missed this - the oldest portion of the vandalism lasting 14 days before detection. Check the article history.
14 days, eh?
It probably "escaped detection" because no-one was reading the page in question, which in turn is most likely because she's utterly un-notable other than her affair with Boris Johnson.
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On Mon, April 23, 2007 17:24, Gary Kirk wrote:
Someone pointed this out to me so I thought I'd share it. I can't find it online yet - it's more of a feature so maybe it won't be. Page fifteen of today's DM is an article by [[Petronella Wyatt]] ...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=...
On 23/04/07, Gary Kirk gary.kirk@gmail.com wrote:
Someone pointed this out to me so I thought I'd share it. I can't find it online yet - it's more of a feature so maybe it won't be. Page fifteen of today's DM is an article by [[Petronella Wyatt]] - she created the article herself back in December. Basically a moan piece on the back of Alan Johnson's remarks. Larry Sanger is now called 'Jerry' and Wikipedia has 'employees'. Seems she spoke to or attempted to speak to Jimmy about vandalism on her article, threatening to sue.
You know you've made it big in the UK when you get a hit piece in that odious little rag.
It amuses me how those who've left comments are generally 'on our side', so to speak - a few even paraphrase WP:AUTO - wow! We're getting through! The author seemed to think the vandal edits were a deliberate attack on her rather than the work of (to stereotype) bored schoolkids.
On 23/04/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 23/04/07, Gary Kirk gary.kirk@gmail.com wrote:
Someone pointed this out to me so I thought I'd share it. I can't find it online yet - it's more of a feature so maybe it won't be. Page fifteen of today's DM is an article by [[Petronella Wyatt]] - she created the article herself back in December. Basically a moan piece on the back of Alan Johnson's remarks. Larry Sanger is now called 'Jerry' and Wikipedia has 'employees'. Seems she spoke to or attempted to speak to Jimmy about vandalism on her article, threatening to sue.
You know you've made it big in the UK when you get a hit piece in that odious little rag.
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On 4/23/07, Gary Kirk gary.kirk@gmail.com wrote:
It amuses me how those who've left comments are generally 'on our side', so to speak - a few even paraphrase WP:AUTO - wow! We're getting through! The author seemed to think the vandal edits were a deliberate attack on her rather than the work of (to stereotype) bored schoolkids.
Close. IP traces to University of Virginia.
On 23/04/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 23/04/07, Gary Kirk gary.kirk@gmail.com wrote:
Someone pointed this out to me so I thought I'd share it. I can't find it online yet - it's more of a feature so maybe it won't be. Page fifteen of today's DM is an article by [[Petronella Wyatt]] - she created the article herself back in December. Basically a moan piece on the back of Alan Johnson's remarks. Larry Sanger is now called 'Jerry' and Wikipedia has 'employees'. Seems she spoke to or attempted to speak to Jimmy about vandalism on her article, threatening to sue.
You know you've made it big in the UK when you get a hit piece in that odious little rag.
{{npov}}
;-p
- d.
On 23/04/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 23/04/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 23/04/07, Gary Kirk gary.kirk@gmail.com wrote:
Someone pointed this out to me so I thought I'd share it. I can't find it online yet - it's more of a feature so maybe it won't be. Page fifteen of today's DM is an article by [[Petronella Wyatt]] - she created the article herself back in December. Basically a moan piece on the back of Alan Johnson's remarks. Larry Sanger is now called 'Jerry' and Wikipedia has 'employees'. Seems she spoke to or attempted to speak to Jimmy about vandalism on her article, threatening to sue.
You know you've made it big in the UK when you get a hit piece in that odious little rag.
{{npov}}
;-p
Guilty as charged, and entirely unrepentant about it :)
Oh, for crying out loud. The author is complaining about libel that existed in a Wikipedia article about her. It lasted for 3 days before it was noted by a "friend" of hers and she reverted it herself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Petronella_Wyatt&diff=12226062...
Actually, some of the vandalism was older than that, FOURTEEN days:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Petronella_Wyatt&diff=prev&...
The author had a legitimate complaint. Wikipedia contained libel against herself which was missed entirely by Wikipedia editors and processes.
Let's not attack the author or the paper for once again pointing out one of Wikipedia's core problems.
James Farrar wrote:
On 23/04/07, Gary Kirk gary.kirk@gmail.com wrote:
Someone pointed this out to me so I thought I'd share it. I can't find it online yet - it's more of a feature so maybe it won't be. Page fifteen of today's DM is an article by [[Petronella Wyatt]] - she created the article herself back in December. Basically a moan piece on the back of Alan Johnson's remarks. Larry Sanger is now called 'Jerry' and Wikipedia has 'employees'. Seems she spoke to or attempted to speak to Jimmy about vandalism on her article, threatening to sue.
You know you've made it big in the UK when you get a hit piece in that odious little rag.
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On 4/23/07, Blu Aardvark jeffrey.latham@gmail.com wrote:
The author had a legitimate complaint. Wikipedia contained libel against herself which was missed entirely by Wikipedia editors and processes.
Let's not attack the author or the paper for once again pointing out one of Wikipedia's core problems.
Quite. I think we're disturbingly close to "killing the messenger" in this thread.
On 24/04/07, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/23/07, Blu Aardvark jeffrey.latham@gmail.com wrote:
The author had a legitimate complaint. Wikipedia contained libel against herself which was missed entirely by Wikipedia editors and processes. Let's not attack the author or the paper for once again pointing out one of Wikipedia's core problems.
Quite. I think we're disturbingly close to "killing the messenger" in this thread.
Oh, absolutely. Though that it started as a vanity article really doesn't lessen the living bios headache.
(The stable versions feature is ticking along nicely as I understand it - the paid dev is doing great work and there's a pile of volunteers helping. The problem is that it's an easily-described feature, but actually implementing it on MediaWiki means getting into just about everything. Hence the long time between its suggestion, at the time of the Indian Ocean tsunami, and it going live anywhere at all.)
- d.