[WikiEN-l] Viral swarming teenage vanity spam

[Michael Snow]

Mark Gallagher wrote:

> G'day Michael S,
>
>> Mark Gallagher wrote:
>>
>>> G'day Daniel S,
>>>
>>>> (And in the legal world there are also phenomena such as jury  
>>>> nullification and rogue judges...)
>>>
>>> We have them on Wikipedia, too.  Witness the Jack Thompson OFFICE 
>>> action and certain admins.
>>
>> Pardon me, but what exactly are you referring to here?
>
> The Jack Thompson OFFICE action was an incident that occurred not too 
> long ago.  Some background (I don't know if you already know this 
> stuff, so bear with me if you do): the American Jack Thompson is a 
> professional lawyer and talented amateur wowser, famous amongst a 
> small subset of gamers.  The reason he's well-known to hardcore gamers 
> is because the target of his wowserism is violent video games.  Since 
> hardcore gamers typically enjoy playing violent video games above all 
> else[0], this is not a match made in heaven by any means.
>
> Through a curious quirk of the Internet, hardcore gamers are far more 
> likely to contribute Wikipedia than American attorneys.  In 
> particular, strange though it sounds, hardcore gamers are far more 
> likely to contribute to an article about Mr Thompson full of such 
> improperly sourced, utterly trivial, and of course totally biased 
> nonsense that the only reason I can't describe it as a "hatchet job" 
> is because the phrase "embarrassment to Wikipedia" leaps far more 
> readily to the tongue.
>
> When the Secret Wikipedia Puppet Government, aided by the Men In 
> Black, finally pulled the plug on this hatch--excuse me, this 
> embarrassment to Wikipedia, a thousand thousand gamers rose up in 
> complaint.  "That asshole Thompson wins again!", they cried.  
> "Wikipedia under the control of a Secret Wikipedia Puppet Government, 
> aided by the Men in Black!", they cried.  "I credit my 'blog.  That's 
> enough for me to argue that Thompson is a Satanist, right?", they 
> cried.  "Ow, I just stood up for the first time in seventy-two hours 
> and my knee joints cracked!", they cried.

As the person who drafted and watched over the rewritten Jack Thompson 
article, I do already know what transpired, but you give a decent 
summary for those who don't (as long as it's not taken too literally). I 
would note that quite a few of the gamer editors quickly recognized the 
superiority of a neutral, well-referenced version and have increasingly 
taken over defending it and educating the newer arrivals on how to do 
things properly.

> This seems to me a good case of "jury nullification": we asked for an 
> opinion, we got utter bollocks in return, we said, "actually, let's 
> not do what they said after all."

This is what confused me. If, as it would seem, you're equating the 
response from gamers with that of a jury, then you've got the concept of 
jury nullification exactly backwards. Jury nullification does not 
involve a judge or some other higher authority nullifying the decision 
of the jury. Jury nullification refers to the ability of the jury to 
reach a verdict contrary to the law and the instructions of the court. 
Fans of the concept like to cite John Peter Zenger's acquittal on a 
charge of libel as an example of this.

--Michael Snow