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A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

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Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#231

Post by wybiral »

zug_zug wrote: post #135
roywiggins wrote: post #14

"Anti-war" doesn't sound like a particularly descriptive adjective for the apparent targets here. They are not anti-war campaigners per se, they seem to be sitting in the Russia-sympathetic zone of discourse. I'm not saying that to discredit them (I might, but I won't), but calling them anti-war rather obscures the problems people might have with them. That doesn't mean that a "one-man" effort to shepherd their Wikip…

I'm not sure if whether it's Russia has anything to do with it. The point is that objective truth requires moving above tribalist mentality, clearly cross failed to do that. Dragging Russia into this is also failing to rise above tribalist mentality.

The fact that this "article" was published on a site that appears to have no other purpose other than advertising some RSS tool and who has a Twitter account that seems to be almost entirely dedicated to pushing this one story is an objective truth.

Their other Twitter activity is mostly from an anti-western perspective with a lot of pro-Assad, pro-Iran, pro-Wikileaks, pro-Corbyn, and a handful of straight pro-Putin messages. I'm not giving an opinion, just stating the objective truth (I can link exact Tweets if you'd like).

This article also mirrors pieces being shared predominately on pro-Putin outlets like Sputnik and RT.

So the fact that some of the targets in this seem to be pro-Russia isn't entirely a non-point when trying to evaluate the full picture of this situation and the motivation of the different parties involved.

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#232

Post by dredmorbius »

tptacek wrote: post #41
Jasper_ wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

If it's "rampant" on Wikipedia, you should have no trouble pointing out examples. So, respectfully, I'd ask that to support your argument with evidence, you do that. I had trouble editing technical topics I was familiar with, too, and found it incredibly aggravating. I'd write demonstrably true, helpful, factual content about something only to have it struck for lack of sourcing. It took awhile to get through my head…

As examples I've encountered, virtually anything touching on the Kochs, Koch Industries, the Koch foundations (and other "charitable" organisations), or their interests, particularly global warming topics, and most especiaally their stable of denialists.

It's not that valid and truthful information cannot be added, but it runs a fearsome gauntlet of protectors.

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#234

Post by dredmorbius »

tomtimtall wrote: post #33

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.

There is frequently a "Controversies" section. Also the Talk page and revision history.

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#235

Post by cooper12 »

yongjik wrote: post #227
cooper12 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's stop pretending any of these rules are "arcane". Go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page . Right there in the sidebar in plain view, the first option is "Help": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents . Everything you need to know to edit is there. You can also just Google "Wikipedia how to edit" and plenty of hits will come up. It's not hard at all. You sound no better than someone who bitches about…

How can it be considered not arcane when it contains gems like "Wikipedia:Be bold" and "Wikipedia:Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point". In other words, when I'm skirting a rule, I'm "being bold". When you claim your edit did not violate some rule any more than my edit did, you're "disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate a point". If these issues are resolved by reasonable folks, it may still work, but Wikipedia…

What is nuance and actually reading what these titles say? It's all written out for you and there's no contradiction. Also, no one actually uses the disrupt point like that.

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#236

Post by burfog »

hueving wrote: post #202
burfog wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. :)

ln -s /proc/`pidof Xorg`/fd/1 here-you-go

Really though, it's the file descriptor that matters. This is the abstraction that lets you do things like pass a socket between different processes in the same way that you'd pass an opened directory between different processes.

The few places where this abstraction is missing are painful. A good example is ptrace. You can't pass a ptrace between processes. Handling it nicely in poll or select isn't easy.

The use of file descriptors might not seem so amazing today, now that Windows has the HANDLE and MacOS X has the Mach port, but it was revolutionary when it was introduced. For about 15 years, it was just a UNIX thing. MS-DOS had separate ways to deal with everything: files, directories, each different vendor's network stack, etc. Every other OS was like that, more or less.

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#237

Post by 8bitsrule »

tptacek wrote: post #41
Jasper_ wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

If it's "rampant" on Wikipedia, you should have no trouble pointing out examples. So, respectfully, I'd ask that to support your argument with evidence, you do that. I had trouble editing technical topics I was familiar with, too, and found it incredibly aggravating. I'd write demonstrably true, helpful, factual content about something only to have it struck for lack of sourcing. It took awhile to get through my head…

Well-stated and accurate. In this case, the editor in question seems to 1. have lots of time; 2. relish a) removing already-contributed material s/he doesn't like (always subject to that action if not adequately-cited), and b) adding cites to material s/he does like.

IF this person is busy taking the 'N' out of NPOV all over the place - as the article claims - that ought to be obvious to the WP 'court'. In which case, a 6 month suspension for abuse seems appropriate. Further abuse means s/he'll have to find a new IP to abuse from. Rinse and repeat.

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#238

Post by zug_zug »

wybiral wrote: post #231
zug_zug wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if whether it's Russia has anything to do with it. The point is that objective truth requires moving above tribalist mentality, clearly cross failed to do that. Dragging Russia into this is also failing to rise above tribalist mentality.

The fact that this "article" was published on a site that appears to have no other purpose other than advertising some RSS tool and who has a Twitter account that seems to be almost entirely dedicated to pushing this one story is an objective truth. Their other Twitter activity is mostly from an anti-western perspective with a lot of pro-Assad, pro-Iran, pro-Wikileaks, pro-Corbyn, and a handful of straight pro-Putin…

The question at hand is whether Cross is editing wikipedia beneficially. You instead focus on the political views of the website that published this piece, which is irrelevant, and also creates a distracting us/them mentality. None of which has any bearing on whether Cross is editing wikipedia beneficially.

If you think the piece is unfairly critical, then dispute the facts of the case (the merits of the edits he made) rather than the character of the speaker.

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#239

Post by wybiral »

zug_zug wrote: post #238
wybiral wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that this "article" was published on a site that appears to have no other purpose other than advertising some RSS tool and who has a Twitter account that seems to be almost entirely dedicated to pushing this one story is an objective truth. Their other Twitter activity is mostly from an anti-western perspective with a lot of pro-Assad, pro-Iran, pro-Wikileaks, pro-Corbyn, and a handful of straight pro-Putin…

The question at hand is whether Cross is editing wikipedia beneficially. You instead focus on the political views of the website that published this piece, which is irrelevant, and also creates a distracting us/them mentality. None of which has any bearing on whether Cross is editing wikipedia beneficially. If you think the piece is unfairly critical, then dispute the facts of the case (the merits of the edits he mad…

I think the editor may have been trolling these people, yes, and the people offended should escalate the issue. But so far that's been Wikipedia's response so I don't see any wrong-doing from their behalf. Just from one editor.

But instead of going through the proper channels and attempting to resolve this within the Wikipedia protocols these people seem to be launching a campaign against Wikipedia which, in my opinion, borders on propaganda.

Some of the debate here was also over a subjective accusation that the targets were "anti-war" when in reality the commonality seemed to have been pro-Putin. That distinction also stinks of propaganda. Again, just my opinion.

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#240

Post by burfog »

Jasper_ wrote: post #205
burfog wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There is not an arrow pointing to "SDL input". Look again. :-)

Spoiler:

There is an arrow pointing to a large red box that happens to contain libevdev right below the arrow. To see the edge of the box, you may need to scroll right if your browser has a narrow window.

It is a terrible diagram, but it is correct.

In UNIX terminology, anything with a file descriptor is a file. Plan 9 would have a filename, but that is a different OS.

See the man page for stat(1) where you will find S_IFSOCK. The st_mode value is 0140000 for a socket, which is 0xc000 in hex.

I just hacked up the program shown by "man 3 getaddrinfo" to call fstat on the file descriptor and show the results. I get this:

    fd 3 has inode 325043100, mode 140777 0xc1ff, dev 8 rdev 0
That inode number is the one that shows as symlink content in the /proc/*/fd/ directory listing.

Clearly, it works. Sockets do have file descriptors and inode numbers. Inside the kernel, there is even a "struct inode" for each socket.

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