Nobody's mentioned it here yet, but there's been yet another Cade Metz article on Wikipedia in The Register:
Truth, anonymity and the Wikipedia Way http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/18/the_wikipedia_paradox/
(The subject line of this message comes from the 1962 promotional song for the New York Mets baseball team, [[Meet the Mets]].)
Why does The Register have an obsession with WP?
On Dec 19, 2007 9:06 PM, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
Nobody's mentioned it here yet, but there's been yet another Cade Metz article on Wikipedia in The Register:
Truth, anonymity and the Wikipedia Way http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/18/the_wikipedia_paradox/
(The subject line of this message comes from the 1962 promotional song for the New York Mets baseball team, [[Meet the Mets]].)
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On 20/12/2007, Rjd0060 - rjd0060.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Why does The Register have an obsession with WP?
Same reason as slashdot. If you come from the internet then wikipedia is big.
geni wrote:
On 20/12/2007, Rjd0060 - rjd0060.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Why does The Register have an obsession with WP?
Same reason as slashdot. If you come from the internet then wikipedia is big
If I read you correctly, you're probably right. Bigness naturally breeds criticism, and that says nothing about whether the criticism is warranted. The top level management of other big enterprises soon learns that it is futile to counter every bit of criticism that arises. On the other hand some of the rank and file employees of these companies may not see it that way, feel personally offended, and engage in long uninformed defences that only serve to make the situation worse. Now, being able to make these defences on the internet in full public view the situations get completely out of control.
The criticism in The Register is probably less obsessive than defensive efforts that are unable to separate valid criticism from nonsense. The EssJay incident was about one person who did no real direct damage to anything. What was damaged was the pride of a few people who couldn't live with the idea that they had been duped. The more we react to these incidents with hurt pride, and with severely restrictive measures to protect our pride, the more the trolls will be encouraged to keep trying to get our goat.
Ec
On 20/12/2007, Rjd0060 - rjd0060.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Why does The Register have an obsession with WP?
We're a large (in terms of visibility) organisation with a well-known name and certain features (regularly scheduled internal schisms, generally high transparency, and people in general not knowing how we do what we do) that make us a hilarious and constantly-amusing subject to cover in this way.
Ain't going to change under any forseeable circumstances.
I see. I didn't really think the "obsession" would stick with the Register for too long...doesn't it move around? Won't there soon be another newspaper or magazine or something that "takes over" the role?
On Dec 21, 2007 10:34 AM, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 20/12/2007, Rjd0060 - rjd0060.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Why does The Register have an obsession with WP?
We're a large (in terms of visibility) organisation with a well-known name and certain features (regularly scheduled internal schisms, generally high transparency, and people in general not knowing how we do what we do) that make us a hilarious and constantly-amusing subject to cover in this way.
Ain't going to change under any forseeable circumstances.
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On 21/12/2007, Rjd0060 - rjd0060.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
I see. I didn't really think the "obsession" would stick with the Register for too long...doesn't it move around? Won't there soon be another newspaper or magazine or something that "takes over" the role?
I understand a number of Inquirer reporters are going "what on earth" at the Carolyn Doran story (the huge mug shot being what made it *really* tasteful) and trying to lift their game so they're not taken as the same sort of thing as the new Register, ad-banner trolling and all. The Inquirer's hardware obsession is detailed enough to be extremely dull at times, so at least they've got some practice with actual journalism.
- d.
Interesting that "shouting the loudest" should be used by Cade Metz so shortly after it was featured in Physchim62's resignation on en-wiki. I wonder what Cade Metz' issue with Wikipedia is. Maybe he's threatened because its moving into his backyard.
On Dec 19, 2007 9:06 PM, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
Nobody's mentioned it here yet, but there's been yet another Cade Metz article on Wikipedia in The Register:
Truth, anonymity and the Wikipedia Way http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/18/the_wikipedia_paradox/
(The subject line of this message comes from the 1962 promotional song for the New York Mets baseball team, [[Meet the Mets]].)
-- == Dan == Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/ Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/ Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
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On Dec 19, 2007 6:26 PM, Nathan Awrich nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
I wonder what Cade Metz' issue with Wikipedia is. Maybe he's threatened because its moving into his backyard.
He's written for The Register for some time. One can presume that they added Wikipedia to the list of things he's expected to be covering as a natural outgrowth of the Foundation moving to San Francisco.
That is par for the course for any news or features oriented organization.
A perfectly innocent explanation, rather than either Metz or The Register suddenly deciding to focus malign intent on Wikipedia, is simply that Metz is one of many tech reporters in the San Francisco region, many of whose attention we're going to get more of with the Foundation in their back yard.
For a vast majority of them this is a good thing for us and will benefit the Foundation and projects over time.
Metz started off jumping on some salacious and critical points about Wikipedia; while unfortunate, we can hope that he does work towards a more normal coverage over time, consistent with the usual The Register standards. The Reg is not the New York Times by any means, but also doesn't *just* focus on negative stories all the time.
I suppose Cade's proving his point by shouting louder than most of us have any capability to...
Quoting "Daniel R. Tobias" dan@tobias.name:
Nobody's mentioned it here yet, but there's been yet another Cade Metz article on Wikipedia in The Register:
Truth, anonymity and the Wikipedia Way http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/18/the_wikipedia_paradox/
This one is closer to being accurate and it does correctly point out the very serious tension between enforcing COI issues and allowing anonymity. Who knows, if Metz keeps this up it might actually turn into real reporting.
On Dec 19, 2007 6:50 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting "Daniel R. Tobias" dan@tobias.name:
Nobody's mentioned it here yet, but there's been yet another Cade Metz article on Wikipedia in The Register:
Truth, anonymity and the Wikipedia Way http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/18/the_wikipedia_paradox/
This one is closer to being accurate and it does correctly point out the very serious tension between enforcing COI issues and allowing anonymity. Who knows, if Metz keeps this up it might actually turn into real reporting.
I wanted to second this; I read the article roughly when it came out, and didn't have time to comment here but I think this latest one is much more balanced and fairly discussing some of the dynamic tension Wikipedia has made part of our operating philosophy.
We do know the open / responsibility / anonymity tensions. Not everyone internally is happy with the balance we found, much less critics or normal people outside the project, but that those tensions exist between our goals and policies is accurate, fair, etc. Media covering them on an ongoing basis is fair, as they're an ongoing source of trouble for Wikipedia, because they are hard questions.