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Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

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Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#531

Post by 20after4 »

efilife wrote: post #478
bjourne wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I knew IceWhiz. You are correct that he (or rather "they") eventually was kicked from the site. But he/they operated on the site for years and was the biggest PITA you can imagine. He must have single-handedly scared away two dozen honest contributors with his BS. It is very, very easy to game the rules on Wikipedia. Wars of attrition goes on for years. Normal people don't waste their time. IceWhiz and his meat puppe…

how do you know he scared off 24 contributors?

I'd interpret it as a bit of Hyperbole, I don't think the specific number is significant. Perhaps "several" would be a better choice of a quantifier.

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#532

Post by PeterStuer »

jjmarr wrote: post #87

The English Wikipedia is a massive target for influence campaigns. I don't think there are any other communities as resilient as it. Just an example: There's certain individual or group that edited under the name "Icewhiz", was banned, and now operates endless sockpuppet accounts in the topic area to influence Wikipedia's coverage on the Middle East. One of them was an account named "Eostrix", that spent years making…

Keri Smith, a former hardcore SJW activist, has documented how she and others daily targeted people through Wikipedia edits for preparing a cancel. It's quite fascinating the extend of organization and process they used.

For instance, they would not directly edit the target's page, but start working 2 links removed from it, compromise the "friend of a friend of a friend", and then work towards the actual target and finally try to cancel the target through "association with " accusations.

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#533

Post by computerthings »

psychoslave wrote: post #394
watwut wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't have principles.

Even "maximize the hegemonic monopolistic power of my claws" can be taken as mindset principles. Having principles is orthogonal to striving adoption of ethical fair well being for everyone.

[dead]

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#534

Post by 20after4 »

BrtByte wrote: post #494
yannis wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia is the best source of humanities "common knowledge". Yes there are users that abuse the system to push their own point of view. Many articles in Wikipedia have improved tremendously over the years; many times it is not unusual for an article to have over a hundred references. It gives you all the info you want to understand the subject before you delve further through books. Now for politics I can see the p…

Wikipedia's value isn't that it's perfect, it's that it shows its work

On articles that are either controversial or cover some kind of current events, I often find more value from reading the edit history and the discussions than from the article itself.

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#536

Post by exceptione »

chii wrote: post #393
roenxi wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ex-CIA head Brennan famously remarked in an MSNBC interview [0] that when he says something is a Russian information operation that includes dumping accurate information. So really it isn't enough to identify something as Russian propaganda - it is necessary to analyse whether it is propaganda of the accurate and informative variety, or the inaccurate variety. Propaganda really just means someone is arguing a viewpoi…

> a lot of the views are very agreeable That's why you don't "ignore" propaganda, but consume all, from all sides. Just consuming agreeable propaganda simply means it is working.

Nope, you shouldn't. Because propaganda is effective.

Humans are by default not influenced by logic, but rather respond on beliefs and emotions. This is one of the hardest thing to swallow for us people, we do see ourself as independent rational thinkers. We are sometimes able to, with effort.

To understand it better, you should know that Russian propaganda is not designed to instill a certain belief, but rather to make you not belief the truth. The Kremlin is happy to push different, conflicting stories. You end up with a society of nihilists.

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#538

Post by stogot »

20after4 wrote: post #510
atombender wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That list is fascinating. Like the obscure Canadian illustrator [1] who for a decade has been repeatedly trying to put herself into Wikipedia despite being told she's a "non-notable" artist. I'm frankly amazed that enough people have the time to track this nonsense and stamp it out that it ends up being self-correcting. It's not just about time, either; chasing bad edits and prosecuting bad users must be a huge chore…

There are a whole bunch of little utilities like browser extensions and bookmarklets and even an entire in-house cloud infrastructure that is used for hosting various kinds of bots and web-based tools for automating workflows. It's all very ad-hoc, crude and not very well organized or publicized. There have been a few efforts over the years to create a repository for all of the little tools to help with exposure and…

They have excess money as an org, why don’t they hire SWEs to improve it?

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#539

Post by maigret »

PeterStuer wrote: post #532
jjmarr wrote: post #87

The English Wikipedia is a massive target for influence campaigns. I don't think there are any other communities as resilient as it. Just an example: There's certain individual or group that edited under the name "Icewhiz", was banned, and now operates endless sockpuppet accounts in the topic area to influence Wikipedia's coverage on the Middle East. One of them was an account named "Eostrix", that spent years making…

Keri Smith, a former hardcore SJW activist, has documented how she and others daily targeted people through Wikipedia edits for preparing a cancel. It's quite fascinating the extend of organization and process they used. For instance, they would not directly edit the target's page, but start working 2 links removed from it, compromise the "friend of a friend of a friend", and then work towards the actual target and f…

What is SJW? Please avoid using unclear acronyms.

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#540

Post by aloha2436 »

swat535 wrote: post #513
crabmusket wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See my sibling comment. Getting your name checked off is compulsory but nothing stops you from handing in a blank ballot.

Why would you hand blank ballot at. That point? You might as well vote.

"I don't like any of the rat-bastards." "I don't care." "I think it's funnier to draw a dick. (And I don't care.)" "I trust other people to make the right choice." "I refuse to participate in this bourgeois sham election." ...are all reasons I've heard, even if I don't actually understand any of them.
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