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A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

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Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#31

Post by Spooky23 »

whack wrote: post #10

This is extremely concerning. Phillip Cross was easily caught because he was running his mouth on twitter, and was blatantly making one-sided edits from his single account. Imagine if a country like Russia makes an orchestrated effort to achieve similar goals, using an army of fake-wikipedia-profiles. They could easily turn Wikipedia into a platform for disseminating propaganda. In fact, I'd be surprised if they have…

A few of my colleagues at work had a running gag of building a persona around one of our coworkers as a joke.

The goal was to get a Wikipedia bio crediting him with inventing a particular variant of mullet in the 70s.

We were unsuccessful in getting him inventor status, but we did a bio page created, and prominently featured a picture of him with a mullet. You just need a few months and some savvy dealing with the bureaucrats on the site. Slowly make relevant edits to build facts on other articles and you are good to go.

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#32

Post by throwaway1982x »

throwaway_98554 wrote: post #9

Judging by the time card, I would bet multiple individuals are using this account. And they're probably getting paid to do it.

I also conclude the opposite.

The time card looks very much like any time card of a single individual's regular internet use - showing the sleep pattern/circadian rhythm of a single person averaged over a long period of time.

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#33

Post by tomtimtall »

Wikipedia should maintain 3 separate threads for all these polarizing individuals and organizations. Obliviously biased for, obviously biased against, and the the idealt neutral statement of facts(with no facts removerførsel because they play negative or positive, they can be dismissed or remover In the biased sections only.

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#34

Post by abiox »

Dolores12 wrote: post #19
whack wrote: post #10

This is extremely concerning. Phillip Cross was easily caught because he was running his mouth on twitter, and was blatantly making one-sided edits from his single account. Imagine if a country like Russia makes an orchestrated effort to achieve similar goals, using an army of fake-wikipedia-profiles. They could easily turn Wikipedia into a platform for disseminating propaganda. In fact, I'd be surprised if they have…

Imaging troll army trying to discredit Russia that doesn't give a f$#k about Wikipedia nor USA elections. Every country has its own agenda. Current agenda is barking at Russia in unison about fake accusations like it was with Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Cuba, Venezuela, Turkey... you name it. (country has to have some oil or no barking)

> Russia that doesn't give a f$#k about Wikipedia nor USA elections

why do you feel this is the case? that would actually be very strange if true.

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#35

Post by bhouston »

throwaway_98554 wrote: post #9

Judging by the time card, I would bet multiple individuals are using this account. And they're probably getting paid to do it.

Many wikipedians are obsessive types. Also why would multiple people pretend to be one. Groups are more effective than individuals on Wikipedia.

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#36

Post by Jasper_ »

noobermin wrote: post #23
JoshMnem wrote: post #21

The Wikipedia editing process is broken. Wiki-lawyering is used to shut down the collaborative editing process, even when not on political topics often by people who don't know much about the topic that they are editing. I don't trust Wikipedia content and tend to examine the Talk pages (sometimes even the Talk page histories) on controversial articles.

Wikipedia is useful for looking up technical info that there is no conflict over. It is not a good source for diving into a top-level controversial topic as those articles are long and have many places for people to stump and push for their ideas. The more specific a topic (think, a specific author associated with an ideology vs. the page for the ideology) the better. I think I've just adopted these mental heuristics…

> Wikipedia is useful for looking up technical info that there is no conflict over.

Even this isn't true. As a former contributor to the Linux desktop community, false information about projects and codebases I had runs rampant on Wikipedia. One Wikipedia editor with more time on his hands than any of us [0] devotes his time to maintaining those articles, despite self-admittedly having little topical knowledge [1]. Trying to correct these things quickly caused me to spiral down into edit wars I wasn't that interested in winning, and tomes of naming policy after policy.

To get something incorrect on Wikipedia, you just have to be persistent and cast your WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, WP:DEMOCRACY, etc. spells at the right time. Anybody interested in correcting the record will eventually tire out and have to go back to doing the work...

[0] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:ScotXW [1] https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2013-No...

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#37

Post by tptacek »

always_good wrote: post #29

My friends and I had a shameful game in uni where we competed to see who could make the most egregious edits to wikipedia without getting reverted. What was surprising was just how easy it was. We started with minor edits in small articles, just adding our own name to some list of notable achievers. Then, due to competition, we would add an entire paragraph that fabricated an event. Like adding ourself as a conquista…

"Shameful" is a good word for it. Stuff like this is a major reason --- maybe the major reason --- behind most of the limitations of the Wikipedia platform. It is, for instance, the primary cause of "deletionism": marginal articles are difficult to police, and so the project has to establish a notability cut-off so it can constrain the problem at least to articles where there are sources to tie claims to.

I'm not saying you should feel bad about yourself, but it's good if people can recognize what WP is up against.

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#38

Post by tptacek »

k1m wrote: post #12
whack wrote: post #10

This is extremely concerning. Phillip Cross was easily caught because he was running his mouth on twitter, and was blatantly making one-sided edits from his single account. Imagine if a country like Russia makes an orchestrated effort to achieve similar goals, using an army of fake-wikipedia-profiles. They could easily turn Wikipedia into a platform for disseminating propaganda. In fact, I'd be surprised if they have…

Wikipedia, however, appear to be trying to protect him. Please see one Wikipedia editor's efforts to flag his behaviour: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:KalHolmann

Exactly what is it we're supposed to be looking at here? And what does "Wikipedia", as an entity, mean in your comment?

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#39

Post by throwaway_98554 »

bhouston wrote: post #35
throwaway_98554 wrote: post #9

Judging by the time card, I would bet multiple individuals are using this account. And they're probably getting paid to do it.

Many wikipedians are obsessive types. Also why would multiple people pretend to be one. Groups are more effective than individuals on Wikipedia.

Because many people would get upset if "my-political-party" was hiring team of editors to change the wiki articles.

And if they are indeed getting paid, the organisation might have an important turnover. By using a single account (or multiple shared accounts; I doubt there's only one), you keep the 'prestige' you have built.

Your 1 week old new recruit can edit texts left and right while most people think it's a legit old wikipedians tidying stuff up.

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