On 01/08/06, mboverload <mboverload(a)gmail.com> wrote: No, I'm saying that Colbert has no sense of good faith. Why would he just ask people to vandalise a page? Seems senseless. -- Oldak Quill (oldakquill(a)gmail.com)

On 8/1/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill(a)gmail.com> wrote: Colbert's entire show is based on tongue-in-cheek parody. In fact, you could say the whole thing is intelligent "trolling". It's usually fairly funny, as the Wikipedia segment probably was. Anyway, I'm kind of surprised he didn't mention something to Wikimedia warning it before broadcasting that segment. Anthony

On 02/08/06, Will <sceptre(a)tintower.co.uk> wrote: Well, that's five fewer to delete in one way or another... -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

On 8/2/06, Will <sceptre(a)tintower.co.uk> wrote: I repeat: I am *so* glad he made his vandalism request specific. Can you imagine if people just started turning up making outlandish but mildly plausible claims? There's no way we'd zap *all* fo them. Steve

On 8/3/06, Magnus Manske &lt;magnus.manske(a)web.de&gt; wrote: That kind of reaction seems like going the wrong way. At the end of the day, Wikipedia wants to be open, and it wants to grow and develop. We should look at these "idiot storms" as opportunities to attract new contributors. It would be cool if we could replace the {{test}} template with something like "Hey, thanks for the test - we've undone it now, use the sandbox if you need to test anything else. You wouldn't happen to know anything about <insert item from requests for expansion> or <another item> would you? We're short on information on them!" You know, obsequiously assuming good faith even when presented with evidence to the contrary can have an amazing effect on basically good-hearted people. Steve

On 8/3/06, Oldak Quill &lt;oldakquill(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: ... I kind of think a group has become too large when the effort of making a change that affects everyone is too great, and *everything* becomes a fork... Steve

On 03/08/06, geni &lt;geniice(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Haha, very good. No, I don't think we have a problem with humour either - the suggestion about blocking Wikimedia until the storm is over seemed to lack a sense of humour. If most people find a joke funny and our reaction to it makes us seem self-righteous and indignant then we have lost a sense of humour. -- Oldak Quill (oldakquill(a)gmail.com)

On Aug 3, 2006, at 6:14 AM, Steve Bennett wrote: Great. Invite more vandalism. -- Philip L. Welch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch

On 8/2/06, Steve Bennett &lt;stevagewp(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Actually I'd say that is more the reality, and the common misunderstanding is that all of Wikipedia is a work of a small organized group (like say a traditional newspaper). Thus you get headlines that Wikipedia is confused about Ken Lay's death, as though the differing accounts are being written by the same person. No, I think this is a little different. In journalism there is a well recognized principle that when you write a story about someone you should contact them to hear their viewpoint. This is why you often see a line in stories about "[whoever] could not be reached for comment". Now Colbert isn't a journalist, certainly not a traditional one as his show is basically a farce, but I would hope he knows who Jimmy Wales is and would be intelligent enough to contact him or someone else at Wikimedia before doing a segment on it. Anthony

On 8/2/06, stevertigo &lt;vertigosteve(a)yahoo.com&gt; wrote: I dunno. I apparently was wrong that it's a standard practice anyway. It would have been nice if *someone* had gotten a heads up *before* Colbert told the public to come vandalise the web site (even if it was said tongue-in-cheek). Anthony

On 02/08/06, Steve Bennett &lt;stevagewp(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: They probably knew we'd pick up on it straight away anyway. On 8/2/06, stevertigo &lt;vertigosteve(a)yahoo.com&gt; wrote: Perhaps the best place to have mentioned it before the episode aired would have been the Village Pump or somesuch. I agree that notifying Wikimedia would have been unnecessary. -- Oldak Quill (oldakquill(a)gmail.com)

On 8/2/06, Oskar Sigvardsson &lt;oskarsigvardsson(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: The only real difference between satire and trolling is whether or not you get the joke! Of course the word "trolling" has basically become meaningless at this point. People use the term for basically anything and everything. Anthony

On Thu, 3 Aug 2006 11:35:03 -0700 (PDT), Cheney Shill &lt;halliburton_shill(a)yahoo.com&gt; wrote: I think you mean elicit. Oh, wait, you were trolling, weren't you? Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

Cheney Shill wrote: You are mostly right but there is a very large amount of "Trolling" hat goes on which is quite obviously a joke. In this case the troll is really only going after the users who are either too easily agitated to read carefully or just plane dumb. In that instance it really is a matter of "getting the joke". Dalf