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A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

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Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#201

Post by JdeBP »

Jasper_ wrote: post #36
noobermin wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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]. T…

Another example of problematic diagrams in the computing field is the one for systemd. It took me citing one of the systemd developers to point out that it was not in fact an accurate diagram.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Systemd&diff=6311...

I observe that this was again that account that you mention, in 2013 taking someone else's work off another WWW site without attributing the creator (or indeed any indication on that other WWW site, that has no free copyright licence that I can find, that the original diagram was freely licensed by that creator and usable on Wikipedia in the first place), taking it out of its original context, and falsely marking as "own work".

That account maintains a personal version of the article still calling it "The entire systemd software bundle and its components".

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ScotXW/systemd#Components...

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#202

Post by hueving »

burfog wrote: post #159
Jasper_ wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't remember the exact claims I tried to fight, but let's pick a random diagram from the page I linked: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Linux_AP... See if you can spot any inaccuracies. Here are a few: 1. SDL doesn't use libevdev. It uses the kernel ioctls directly: http://hg.libsdl.org/SDL/file/3a50eb90e4b2/src/core/linux/SD... 2. Sockets, netfilter, network protocols are all listed under "ev…

1. You missed a thin red line in the diagram. The diagram is not meant to claim that SDL uses libevdev. 2. Sockets are files. No, they don't have filenames usually, but they do have file descriptors and even inode numbers. 3. The diagram does not imply that the I/O scheduler is a file. The I/O scheduler is listed as a component underlying the listed filesystems. There are no inaccuracies. That said, the diagram is aw…

>2. Sockets are files. No, they don't have filenames usually, but they do have file descriptors and even inode numbers.

I challenge you to create a symbolic link to one. :)

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#203

Post by bushin »

strainer wrote: post #129
bushin wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems closer to the truth, otherwise why sputnik and rt would care.

These notable persons (Craig Murray, David Edwards, George Galloway etc) who are reporting their personal biographies being edited unfairly on Wikipedia, are in fact well known as prominent humanitarian and anti-war activists and writers. For strategic reasons at least -- Russia's foreign commercial news stations are also of late "sympathetic" to anti-war and progressive themes (such as arms reduction and peaceful co…

I googled Galloway and he has young Stalin on his twitter profile pic. Never before had Stirlitz been so close to failure.

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#204

Post by neffy »

justonepost wrote: post #199
dpwm wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If indeed it is one individual. With the intensity of edits it would not be at all surprising if this editor was in fact more than one individual masquerading behind a single account.

What possible benefit would accrue from doing something like that?

Look at who get's the favourable edits, and figure out their agenda?

A stipend for the editor is small change to some of the financial types.

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#205

Post by Jasper_ »

burfog wrote: post #159
Jasper_ wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't remember the exact claims I tried to fight, but let's pick a random diagram from the page I linked: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Linux_AP... See if you can spot any inaccuracies. Here are a few: 1. SDL doesn't use libevdev. It uses the kernel ioctls directly: http://hg.libsdl.org/SDL/file/3a50eb90e4b2/src/core/linux/SD... 2. Sockets, netfilter, network protocols are all listed under "ev…

1. You missed a thin red line in the diagram. The diagram is not meant to claim that SDL uses libevdev. 2. Sockets are files. No, they don't have filenames usually, but they do have file descriptors and even inode numbers. 3. The diagram does not imply that the I/O scheduler is a file. The I/O scheduler is listed as a component underlying the listed filesystems. There are no inaccuracies. That said, the diagram is aw…

> 1. You missed a thin red line in the diagram. The diagram is not meant to claim that SDL uses libevdev.

There's an arrow pointing to "SDL input". In theory, it makes sense that libevdev is like libDRM and libasound in being "the officially sanctioned userspace library", but that's not the case -- evdev is much, much older than libevdev and does a lot more than wrap the ioctls.

> 2. Sockets are files. No, they don't have filenames usually, but they do have file descriptors and even inode numbers.

Lots of things have file descriptors and are not files. For instance, eventfd(). Or timerfd(). File descriptors should probably be renamed "kernel object handles". As for inodes, abstract UNIX sockets do not have them. Seriously, have a program make abstract sockets (sun_path should start with '\x00'), then call lsof. The 'inode' field will be 00000000.

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#207

Post by unreal37 »

tptacek wrote: post #126
tux3 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright I'm going to have to disagree specifically on that point. I otherwise agree with your argument that there's no homogenous "they" banding together (And there's an article for that, even! [0] And an article nuancing that view too. [1]) But I emphatically take issue with the idea that it's reasonable to shut down what sounds like, in your words, "very legitimate concerns" instead of guiding the concerned users t…

In what sense is a process being used by experienced editors against an inexperienced one here? Again: all I see is a person being told where to file grievances, and a general set of expectation about "Conflict of Interest" that doesn't in fact match the project's COI guidelines.

What you see is bureaucracy.

- File this form in triplicate here sir!

- I did, but it was instantly rejected within 2 minutes. Where should I file my appeal?

- File your appeal with the same person.

- But it will get rejected again. Can't I appeal to someone else?

- You can only file your appeal somewhere else if you fill out this form.

- OK, I did that. It was rejected in 6 minutes by the same person.

- Sounds like you're out of appeals. Stop trying to play the system.

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#208

Post by wybiral »

bijection wrote: post #156

Why is FiveFilters taking such interest in this particular anonymous Wikipedia editor? This doesn't look like simply an honest piece of investigative journalism, given how far FiveFilters seems to be going to promote this story ( https://twitter.com/fivefilters/ ). Why doesn't the article disclose the relationship between FiveFilters and Media Lens? The FiveFilters blog ( http://blog.fivefilters.org/ ) mentions Media…

They seem more like Putin-aligned propaganda relays than "investigative journalism".

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#209

Post by twic »

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #87
k1m wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that long. Did you read it? One Wikipedia editor is trying to highlight the problem of Cross' edits and have him marked as having a conflict of interest on certain articles. The Wikipedia admin (or superiour, I'm not familiar with the Wikipedia hierarchy) shuts him down very rudely and doesn't appear to want to address the issue at all. Leaving the editor to give up: "Forgive me for concluding that Wikipedia…

Wikipedia is not a hierarchy. Admins are experienced wikipedians who have a few extra administrative tasks (hence the name). The Admin in question seems to have acted based on their own judgment. (I know because I asked them! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:JzG#meatball:ExpandS... ) . You could even talk to the admin yourself, if you would like extra information. Wikipedia has a function to add questions to a…

Oh, JzG is Guy Chapman! I remember him from usenet back in the day. I haven't interacted with him in almost a decade, but i remember that he was one of the good guys, even if he did take it a bit seriously.

Seeing a link to Meatball is also a blast from the past - i just about remember the drama when it split off from Ward's Wiki.

Reminiscences aside, i suppose these are both reminders that Wikipedia is a living fossil; it was started in the early days of the web (not the early early days, but early enough), drew its participants and culture from other places which existed at the time, and has been evolving on its own terms ever since.

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#210

Post by hackandtrip »

jpatokal wrote: post #113
lkrubner wrote: post #58

This part: “ We pulled in the dates from his user contributions page and found that Cross had not had a single day off from editing the site in almost 5 years! ” Makes me think that this is an account shared by many people. Since we don’t know who this person is, there is a chance that this person is really a whole organization.

There are a lot of obsessive people on Wikipedia. Back in the days when I was an active editor, I was regularly embroiled in edit wars with somebody who had odd but extremely firm opinions about the romanization of Okinawan (not a political topic even in Japan) and what appeared to be 24/7 ability to enforce them. I suspect quite a few of those shut-in "hikikomori" types are top Wikipedia editors... All that said, ch…

Is it good, though? I'm all about reducing entropy about facts, but what about opinion or more delicate subject? The power on propaganda, on making a new truth, is so big.
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