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NoCoPilot

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PostSubject: Wikipedia Woes   Wikipedia Woes EmptyFri Apr 07, 2017 8:15 pm

I like to reference Wikipedia when researching, the articles are generally well-written and reliable. Being "user submissions" you have to take them with a grain of salt and every so often you run across an article that's total bullshit or total self-promotion.

But you learn to gauge.

Which is why it PISSES ME OFF that some of the Wiki editors -- Wiki has a few people, dunno if they're paid or volunteer, but they oversee things and try to keep things tidy. Good idea, right? Trouble is, some of them get it into their heads that they have this GREAT POWER, and they go around pissing in other peoples' cornflakes.

I've had 3 or 4 articles deleted -- without preamble -- because they didn't meet "notability guidelines." Only problem is, there ARE no "notability guidelines." Notability is defined as "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list." The trouble is, you can see, "significant coverage" is undefined, "reliable sources" is undefined and "independent sources" is undefined. It basically all comes down to one editor's opinion.

Uninformed opinions, in all my cases. Editors unfamiliar with the subject matter, and too busy to do any research. They just unilaterally decide "I've never heard of this so it can't be important."

Granted, Wikipedia is a piece of shit user-edited encyclopedia that doesn't mean fuck-all to anybody. Getting deleted from Wikipedia means nothing to nobody.

But it still pisses me off to spend a week or two researching and writing an article, only to have some dickwad remove it because they're feeling like exercising some great power.
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_Howard
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PostSubject: Re: Wikipedia Woes   Wikipedia Woes EmptySat Apr 08, 2017 1:54 pm

Why don't you post the articles here for a "peer review"? I promise we'll be kind.
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NoCoPilot

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PostSubject: Re: Wikipedia Woes   Wikipedia Woes EmptySat Apr 08, 2017 8:36 pm

It's not peer review I need. Thanks anyway
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_Howard
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PostSubject: Re: Wikipedia Woes   Wikipedia Woes EmptySun Apr 09, 2017 1:27 pm

I used the wrong term there, although it was meant to be tongue in cheek.
I would not presume to critique your writing without invitation.

As I read your post, I get the idea that you are not sure of the reason for the articles' rejection. I thought that perhaps we might provide some insight into Wikipedia's reasoning. That's all.

You mentioned weeks of research and the editor's response of "I've never heard of this...". Is it original research that you have done? If so, you're out of luck, as Wikipedia has a strict No Original Research policy.

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richard09

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PostSubject: Re: Wikipedia Woes   Wikipedia Woes EmptySun Apr 09, 2017 2:47 pm

I would second the idea of providing an opinion from a (relatively) unbiased point of view. It doesn't really matter if it's something I know nothing about, as then I can supply the pov of the typical wikipedia reader (snark snark).
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_Howard
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PostSubject: Re: Wikipedia Woes   Wikipedia Woes EmptySun Apr 09, 2017 2:53 pm

Yeah, that's what I was thinking, Richard. The author and the reader often approach a writing very differently, especially if the author has significantly greater knowledge of the subject.
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NoCoPilot

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PostSubject: Re: Wikipedia Woes   Wikipedia Woes EmptySun Apr 09, 2017 6:15 pm

I've written enough Wikipedia articles (a dozen or so) to know about the neutral voice and no original research and sufficient references and as many Wikipedia links as possible.

The articles I was pissed about were somewhat specialist, and I'm quite sure the Wiki editor who took it upon herself to delete them -- without discussion and without anyone else agreeing to it -- undoubtedly had never heard of the subject matter.

In my somewhat biased opinion that is not sufficient grounds.
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_Howard
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PostSubject: Re: Wikipedia Woes   Wikipedia Woes EmptyMon Apr 10, 2017 10:18 am

Change the titles of the articles and submit them again. Maybe the next guy will pass them.
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PostSubject: Re: Wikipedia Woes   Wikipedia Woes EmptyMon Apr 10, 2017 12:16 pm

The title of an article is its subject matter.
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PostSubject: Re: Wikipedia Woes   Wikipedia Woes EmptyThu Aug 03, 2017 2:51 pm

And it's not just an editor that has to "pass them." You can create a new article and post it all by yourself, without anyone reviewing it.

However, at any point down the road, a dickwad self-appointed "editor" can delete your submission for notability or any number of other ill-defined shortcomings. I had one article, went through a lot of hassle in 2009 to avoid deletion, finally got approval and it's been a popular article ever since.

Then this week a new dickwad emerges and decides to delete it. I said, wait a minute, we had this discussion in 2009. Didn't you read the history? "A lot has changed in 8 years," he replied.

I said, "Is this youir personal opinion, or can you show me some documentation?"

His response was to continue with the deletion.

Probably lives in his mother's basement and this is the first real power he's ever had. It keeps real SMEs (subject matter experts) from wasting their time on Wikipedia though, letting the dimwits and dickwads run things.
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NoCoPilot

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PostSubject: Re: Wikipedia Woes   Wikipedia Woes EmptySat Aug 05, 2017 9:33 pm

Reading up on Wikipedia's checkered history has been illuminating.
Quote :
Wikipedia Woes Coati_%28Nasua_nasua%29_at_Parque_Nacional_da_Serra_dos_%C3%93rg%C3%A3os%2C_Teres%C3%B3polis%2C_Brazil
A South American coati.
In July 2008, a 17-year-old student added an invented nickname to the Wikipedia article coati as a private joke, saying coatis were also known as "Brazilian aardvarks". The false information lasted for six years in Wikipedia and came to be propagated by hundreds of websites, several newspapers (one of which was later cited as a source in Wikipedia) and even books published by university presses.
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PostSubject: Re: Wikipedia Woes   Wikipedia Woes EmptyThu Oct 29, 2020 10:30 am

This morning some Wikipedia editors and I reached the end of a 3-year battle over the article on Wendy Carlos.

I won.

But it doesn't feel like a victory.

Here's the story in a nutshell.  As you may know, Wendy was born Walter Carlos and gained fame with "Switched-On Bach" in 1968.  However, W. Carlos was never comfortable as a man, refused to do any interviews or have any pictures taken, and in 1972 with the funds gained from SOB underwent sex reassignment surgery.  She kept her gender dysphoria secret for seven more years before finally "coming out as a woman" in a 1979 Playboy interview.

Ever since then she has granted numerous interviews, had photoshoots, launched a HUGE personal website, and released a dozen new albums, all as Wendy Carlos.

But some people insist that her gender transition is the story here, not her music, and she's had a hard time of it convincing people that she was always a woman, just born with the wrong body.  Deep in the caverns of her website is a page devoted to her struggle to put her medical history behind her, and how she feels about people who insist on focusing on it.  She is not kind to them.

So, Wendy's Wikipedia page over the past 15 years has seen numerous efforts by numerous amateur editors to elevate her sex change to front-and-center, and numerous efforts by others of us to place it in a more nuanced perspective.  This most recent effort commenced in 2017 when a new (young) editor rewrote vast sections of the page.

He would not listen to entreaties (on the "Talk" page) and accused me of all sorts of dastardliness.

We've been negotiating back and forth, off and on, for three years.  I have given up two or three times, refusing to get dragged into into an "edit war" with somebody who is not interested in compromise.  The recent (September) release of a new Wendy Carlos biography by Amanda Sewell opened up all the old wounds.  Sewell was unable to talk to Carlos herself, or anyone close to her, so her "biography" is full of well-known public facts and unsourced authorial speculations -- which Carlos has called "pure fiction" and denounced.  Nevertheless my editorial nemesis jumped all over this and used Sewell's book as a "reliable source" for his own unfounded allegations.

I appealed to other editors to weigh in on this, laying out my case.  After a lot of back-and-forth, I emerged victorious, with ten editors siding with me.

My nemesis called it a "hollow victory" and slunk off.

In this day & age of partisan division and refusal to compromise, I had hoped (against hope) to reach a negotiated settlement.  I had hoped to prove that reasonable minds could disagree and still reach consensus.

Although I'm happy with the end result page text, I'm still sorrowful that the other editor is butt sore over it.
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NoCoPilot

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PostSubject: Re: Wikipedia Woes   Wikipedia Woes EmptySat Oct 31, 2020 5:02 am

LOL.  Well, I *thought* we'd reached a consensus.  Ten minutes after the issue was resolved and the discussion closed, the bully created a new online identity, reverted the changes back to his old wording, and re-opened the discussion as "a neutral disinterested third party" (!)

Another two days was wasted arguing with this moron, before it became apparent it was the same guy back again.

This morning I decided to withdraw from any further goings-on, after dreaming about Wikipedia citations last night.  I'm obviously too wound up about this for my own good.  It's only a user-written online encyclopedia, for christ's sake.

Life's too short.  I have other projects which demand my attention.
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PostSubject: Re: Wikipedia Woes   Wikipedia Woes EmptyMon Dec 07, 2020 8:21 pm

This evening I was editing a different Wikipedia article, and noticed I had 26 messages in my user page.  Among them was a notification that the Wendy Carlos page issue had been resolved a couple months ago.

The remaining text is what we all agreed upon.

The user who was being such a dick about editing it got himself banned from Wikipedia.

The fake account he created to argue in favor of himself was identified as a "sockpuppet" (the wiki term for a false identity) and all his entries were removed.  I had opened a request for a sockpuppet investigation but never heard anything back.  I guess they verified my suspicion and promptly canned his ass.

Good deal O'Neil.
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PostSubject: Re: Wikipedia Woes   Wikipedia Woes EmptyThu Jul 29, 2021 10:06 pm

In the past couple months I've had three Wikipedia pages flagged for deletion because they were "unreferenced."

I've explained to all three self-appointed "deletionists" that discographies and bibliographies (as these were) cannot be linked to online references, because the sources for the information in them are ephemeral: Amazon sales, E-Bay auctions, incomplete websites, personal collections.  If there were a single reputable source for the information, the Wiki article wouldn't serve any purpose.

I picture these editors as 16-year old boys in their parent's basements, who are probably picked on at school, and use this tiny bit of power they give themselves to, as I put it earlier, "piss in everyone's cornflakes."  There is no interest served in deleting another person's work, especially if it's fact-based and not an opinion piece.  It's simply a penis display.

To make my point, I just took one of my articles flagged for deletion, and added a reference -- back to itself.

And to further make my point -- though nobody will notice -- I have stopped sending yearly support to Wikipedia. There is no oversight, no adult supervision anymore.
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