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A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

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Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#361

Post by dx034 »

unreal37 wrote: post #105
4bpp wrote: post #73

> ‘Philip Cross’ has edited @georgegalloway ‘s wikipedia page over 1800 times. This, and many other political arguments I have seen on it before, really makes me think that Wikipedia would benefit from a policy where a sufficient number of individual complaints against a user who has passed some threshold of number of edits to a single article (say 100) would be automatic grounds to block the user from further edits…

1800 edits on a single page in only a few years is essentially a sickness. I'm not a doctor, but that should be classified as obsession.

Depends on how you edit. Same with commits in github. If you describe issues very granular and commit for each, you can accumulate a lot of commits each day. Others might only get one a week for the same code produced. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#362

Post by dx034 »

bjourne wrote: post #316
tptacek wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. For example, Bir Tawil is called "a Terra Nullius" on several Wikipedia pages although no scholarly sources support that claim. There are only a few scholarly sources and they come to the conclusion that Bir Tawil can't possibly be Terra Nullius. For e…

Have you tried changing it based on sources? What the scholars say should be in scientific papers I guess? If it then gets denied you can still start a discussion on the talk page. Couldn't find anything on the talk page or history at first glance that referred to it.

EDIT: the source used for that paragraph is actually not a newspaper article, it appears to be scientific. I don't know much about the topic (and don't have access to that book) but it's not just copied from some newspaper.

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#363

Post by dx034 »

pvg wrote: post #139
tptacek wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

you should have no trouble pointing out examples. There are really entire broad topics that are bad. Lots of maths pages are horrible and un-encyclopedic.

But they're often still better than other freely available resources. Math errors are probably a result of the editor not knowing it correctly, not malice. Have you tried correcting the ones you found?

I find math on Wikipedia really hard to get right. If you want to express it completely accurate, many people with little knowledge of the domain won't understand it. If you want to make it accessible, you often need to make some compromise. For someone looking up a simple fact or theorem, having a simple description can be best, even if it's not strictly correct.

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#364

Post by pvg »

dx034 wrote: post #363
pvg wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you should have no trouble pointing out examples. There are really entire broad topics that are bad. Lots of maths pages are horrible and un-encyclopedic.

But they're often still better than other freely available resources. Math errors are probably a result of the editor not knowing it correctly, not malice. Have you tried correcting the ones you found? I find math on Wikipedia really hard to get right. If you want to express it completely accurate, many people with little knowledge of the domain won't understand it. If you want to make it accessible, you often need t…

But they're often still better than other freely available resources.

I don't think that's the case at all.

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#365

Post by bjourne »

dx034 wrote: post #362
bjourne wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. For example, Bir Tawil is called "a Terra Nullius" on several Wikipedia pages although no scholarly sources support that claim. There are only a few scholarly sources and they come to the conclusion that Bir Tawil can't possibly be Terra Nullius. For e…

Have you tried changing it based on sources? What the scholars say should be in scientific papers I guess? If it then gets denied you can still start a discussion on the talk page. Couldn't find anything on the talk page or history at first glance that referred to it. EDIT: the source used for that paragraph is actually not a newspaper article, it appears to be scientific. I don't know much about the topic (and don't…

There is discussion about it on the talk page. The change request was denied by the "consensus." The source isn't "scientific" but from a book. The book claims that it is "the only place on the planet that is both habitable and unclaimed" - not that it has Terra nullius status.

Scholars generally do not publish scientific articles just to refute misconceptions held by laymen. However, there is a blog post by a law professor correcting this particular misconception.

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#366

Post by posterboy »

smsm42 wrote: post #355
posterboy wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are complaining about basically some graffiti and likening that to environmental polution and the cause for bigger polution happening and not being cleaned up. Is that right?

No, I do not. You completely missed my point. My point is that people worry about global things, but not only do not contribute to more local - but no less important - things, but actually mess them up. Maybe if they did care more about local things, it would also be easier to make progress on more global things.

I didn't miss your point by much, I just didn't mention it because I didn't know how to express any better that a lack of respect is often symptomatic for a lack of insight; because in this case, a juvenile gray hat hacker spirit was at work to gain insight, even if approaching from the wrong end because of some bias. And I don't see any assumption of that bias in your post either. I suppose it's the assumption that they can't do no harm and are being hilarious. I don't see how it's not. I'd argue the harm was local, but the fun was global, to put it in your terms. You seem to think the opposite.

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#367

Post by herpes »

ropeadopepope wrote: post #131
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…

Why is this only concerning now? Wikipedia has had this issue for at least a decade. I would be less concerned with Russia and more concerned with the agenda of the people who have been working with impunity on Wikipedia all this time. Infogalactic doesn't have this problem.

I've never heard of "infogalactic." What makes it immune from these kinds of problems that Wikipedia has?

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#368

Post by dolzenko »

justonepost wrote: post #200
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…

What is a good source for authoritative content on controversial issues?

Brilliant :)

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#369

Post by forapurpose »

belorn wrote: post #359
forapurpose wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no perfect solutions, but dismissing all of them because they are imperfect (or mocking them as 'fun' and outdated) is a failure of thinking. Everyone's code is imperfect and has bugs, but that doesn't mean we should dismiss all code as unreliable. The reality is that some things are much more reliable than others, and critical thought is required to distinguish between them. > doing the work oneself and ma…

This then returns us back full circle. If we have to deal with imperfect, unreliable, potential (or even very likely) biased writing that require critical thought to distinguish bias, then where does Wikipedia fit if we order things by reliability. Studies has been done. Wikipedia has a page on it with a long list of cited studies ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia ). I would really enjoy seeing…

> My own view is ... Others might have a different personal view, but it is all good so long we all agree that A) critical thought is required for all reading in regard to controversial topics, and B) there are no perfect solutions.

I strongly disagree with the premise that every analysis - i.e., every personal view - is fundamentally equally accurate or worthy. That goes against critical thought and reason. A major point of the Enlightenment is that through reason, we can distinguish good from bad, accurate from false. You have a right to your own opinion, but that doesn't make it right. Also, you don't have a right to your own facts.

Re: A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign

#370

Post by manfredsteiner »

Shivetya wrote: post #319
notahacker wrote: post #273

I've interacted with Philip Cross many times (UK politics Wikipedia is a very small place) and found him perfectly reasonable and his edits usually well justified. Needless to say, an anonymous critic launching a campaign complete with website and Twitter account against him for allegedly being unfair to conspiracy-mongering figures like Craig Murray and George Galloway and genocide denial specialist Neil Clark and t…

I really am more concerned with the threat to call him out. While I may not agree with all his actions this idea that we can strip someone of the anonymity that makes wikipedia great because we don't agree with him is something we should all stand against. if you have to ask why, then it is as simple as understanding that yourself or editors you do like could find themselves silenced because it will bring threats

well, I'm grateful for some of the sense in this forum. i know PC and he's one. that's it - the end of the story. but some of these twitter and blog trolls don't care about real-life consequences. I agree with Shivetya that protecting the right to anonymity - particularly in thsi vile manhunt - should be paramount. i think PC is probably experiencing a lot of stress and would welcome some more solidarity around this. twitter has been rife with speculation, people post addresses on forums, someone even posted a death threat on craig murrays blog in the comments today... i mean , come on... anyone got any suggestiosn how to handle this and de-escalate? it seems totally unwarranted (as you say, he's prolific but not even in the top 300), and is getting really serious... :(
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