[WikiEN-l] (No subject)

[Philip Sandifer]

The fact of the matter is, we're not going to be able to shut down  
ARGs from using Wikipedia. The best thing that we can do is delete  
the articles when we find them, and where possible politely notify  
the game creators that they will need to find somewhere else to put  
that information.

-Phil

On May 11, 2006, at 3:49 PM, Geoff Burling wrote:

> Well, I guess it had to happen; but why did it need to involve one  
> of my
> favorite tv shows?
>
> I assume you are all familiar with the tv show "Lost", & perhaps with
> Alternative reality games (ARG); if not, we have some articles on  
> Wikipedia
> that do a fair job in explaining them. One item to keep in mind is  
> that
> ARGs depend on the ability to seed clues around the internet to help
> create their fictional world.
>
> I stumbled across the article [[Valenzetti]] last night, led there by
> a link from outside Wikipedia. (I put some details on the Lost talk  
> page,
> enough to prove that I'm not behind this.) This article has been  
> worked
> on by several different hands -- including, I am told, one of the
> creators of the television series itself. Yet, until I did some  
> Wikifying
> to the article last night (mea culpa: I was tired, I should have  
> been in
> bed -- so I started polishing this before I realized just what I was
> polishing), it was an orphan with no links to the rest of Wikipedia  
> -- as
> if to hide its existence from the Wikipedia community.
>
> This is not fancruft, It is not an article about a character or  
> place from
> a fictional work. It is not even reporting about the phenomena of  
> ARGs.
> It is someone abusing Wikipedia's openness to publish their creative
> material where the rest of us are working hard to create a reliable
> source. It's the equivalent of trying to slip a critical discussion  
> of the
> _Necronomicon_ into a scholarly journal of medieval literature.
>
> I hope I don't need to explain at further length why this article is
> wrong. And I hope I'm not the only one appalled at this.
>
> We need to do something about this, in order to keep Wikipedia from  
> being
> abused again. [[Valenzetti]] is already on WP:AfD, where I expect  
> it to
> be judged wanting & deleted; but I suspect that there are a dozen  
> studio
> hacks eager to repeat this act, unwilling to understand why it is an
> insult to our labor. If people want to create a procedure -- fine,  
> create a
> procedure, just as long as it either allows digruntled Wikipedians (or
> their assigns) to hurt the people who do this, or dissuades people  
> from
> doing this.
>
> Geoff
>
> PS -- If anyone with the powers to check for sockpuppets has the time,
> would you check the following list of usernames & IP addresses &  
> see if
> they are sock or meatpuppets? This list comes from the history of this
> article, & I suspect that most of them will point to a location either
> in Los Angeles or Hawaii. It may be the beginning of another list of
> sources we have to ban -- just like the US Congress.
>
> 63.201.147.43
> Pilotsnoop
> 71.140.128.230 -- I've been told this belongs to Javier Grillo- 
> Marxuach,
>                   formerly a writer/producer for Lost
> SixSider
> Peephole
> 128.231.88.4
> 70.187.197.17
> Smorris76
> 216.20.149.168
> 195.235.227.10
>
>
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