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Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger blocked from editing Wikipedia

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Re: Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger blocked from editing Wikipedia

#51

Post by jasonlotito »

mijoharas wrote: post #17
Heidaradar wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

did you read the reason why he was blocked? I can't say who's right or wrong but their reasons for blocking him seem to be valid in nature.

I found the thread hard to parse.[0]. Can you explain the reason? from a brief skim he is promoting some project he wants to start in wikipedia from outside wikipedia, is that it or did I misunderstand? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators'_noti...

Simple.

He broke this rule: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Canvassing

This is fairly straightforward, with the result (blocked from editing) mentioned clearly. It doesn't matter the topic.

Being a cofounder is immaterial.

Re: Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger blocked from editing Wikipedia

#52

Post by wongarsu »

Sweepi wrote: post #44
wongarsu wrote: post #31

So to summarize: he resuggested "WikiProject Intellectual Diversity", a group with the goal to make "Wikipedia more intellectually diverse" and "ensure fair and open decision-making and governance, broaden the range of permissible sources, reinforce genuine neutrality, rein in over-aggressive blocking while holding the powerful to higher standards of accountability", etc, with the implied undertone of preventing Wiki…

Well there is a lot more, e.g.: After that, Larry Sanger remarked: "What people don't realize, actually, is the number of people who are actually at work on Wikipedia on any given day is not really that enormous. It's more in the hundreds or low thousands, not in the millions. Well, there's a lot of people in India. There's a lot of educated people in India, right? There's a lot more educated people in India than the…

Ok, saying things like "The left marched through this institution. There’s no reason we can’t march right back" is pretty bad.

To be clear: it would be equally bad if you swapped left and right in that sentence. I don't know if his assessment of the issues with Wikipedia is correct, but his solutions aren't what you propose if you want to make Wikipedia more neutral

Re: Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger blocked from editing Wikipedia

#53

Post by Aurornis »

croes wrote: post #34
dotancohen wrote: post #8

Many of his essays have been deleted, and many others are Pending Deletion. Those deleted can be viewed only by admins. There is a large movement to censor this guy's opinions and undo his contributions. What happened? There is no explicit mention on the page.

>There is a large movement to censor this guy's opinions Wikipedia is the wrong place for opinions

The main wiki pages are not for opinions.

The meta-pages where people discuss the pages and the sites are full of opinions and debate.

Re: Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger blocked from editing Wikipedia

#54

Post by amiga386 »

TZubiri wrote: post #35
pjio wrote: post #22

As an outsider the accusation "Canvassing" seems like a double edged sword. Similar to Reddits "Brigading" but without the hostile intention. It's not clear to me, how Wikipedia prevents this rule from being used inappropriately to silence people.

Correct, and Administrators (and users invoking administrators) will often selectively use rules to pursue editorial purposes. I learned about wikipedia rules before learning about actual law, it's interesting to see exactly how the mechanisms of modern democracy protect against the specific ways in which Wikipedia fails: 1- Separation of powers between rulemakers and judges. In practice many Administrators who have…

While Admins do have a lot of power, at the same time their power is checked by ArbCom. Admins are held to a higher standard than general users and are kicked out of the role and banned from reapplying if they're found to have abused their privileges (as well as being given topic bans or complete bans from editing).

Merely inactive admins are automatically deadminned, because if you don't need it, you don't get it.

There is also something analogous to the political world: users can petition for an administrator recall, if the issue is a rogue admin abusing their privileges, or even just the admin is trying to hold onto their privileges when it's clear to others that they don't actually need them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:RECALL

So while I don't think Wikipedia is perfect, it does better than your summary implies.

Re: Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger blocked from editing Wikipedia

#55

Post by FergusArgyll »

vrganj wrote: post #41
FergusArgyll wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you implying I'm a Nazi for thinking that there's a cultural component to Marxist thought some of which is present in modern culture?! If I misunderstood your comment, I apologize

I'm not implying you're a Nazi, but I am pointing out the historical heritage of this line of argument. We've been here before, this exact same conspiracy theory was created by the Nazis to justify the unjustifiable. The slight rebranding of "Cultural B̶o̶l̶s̶h̶e̶v̶i̶s̶m̶ Marxism " is what Anders Breivik used to justify his acts of terrorism. We've gone done this road before. It doesn't lead anywhere good. I'm not pu…

I see. But there's pages about other aspects of Marxist theory some of which I'm sure was used to excuse crimes against humanity by the Nazis and other evil doers. See here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Marxism

In general Wikipedia takes an anti censorship approach regarding articles which can cause evil.

So why is the aspect of Marxism which deals with culture completely taboo and not represented? I'm not even sure if it's due to something bigger I just think the article on cultural marxism might be one of the worst on Wikipedia.

Re: Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger blocked from editing Wikipedia

#56

Post by altilunium »

I also have problems with Wikipedia, sure, but I resolved them simply by setting up a private wiki, and it's been quite peaceful.

Changing the whole institutional culture at Wikipedia is more of a social challenge than a technical one, and I am not well-versed in that area. So, I would rather fork some wiki software, write code, and write articles for myself.

Will my wiki be able to compete with a giant like Wikipedia on the internet? I don't know. I don't even know whether mine is indexed by search engines yet. But I love writing articles, so I'll keep doing it as long as I can.

Re: Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger blocked from editing Wikipedia

#57

Post by handoflixue »

avaer wrote: post #27
postflopclarity wrote: post #7

trying to contribute to wikipedia was the most miserable experience in a "collaborative" process I've ever had in my life. Like arguing with cranks at a town hall meeting, ignorant high school group project classmates, and bureaucracy-obsessed nonprofit initiative zealots all wrapped into one. in the area I was trying to contribute (a math subdomain) to there is sooooo much technical misinformation. but if you don't…

Most people don't realize that essentially all parts of Wikipedia are owned by random nerds versed in the beaurocracy who will revert all outsider edits. Unless you have hours per day dedicated to arguing with them (which they do!), the sign says you're welcome but the people say you're not. Not to say Wikipedia isn't great + useful! But realize that it is owned by a distributed network of feudal nerd-lords that will…

It's amazing how much this behavior is tolerated, despite very clear policies against a single person "owning" a page.

> Saying this as a former Wikipedia admin + nerd.

Any insight into how these people all manage to dodge the policies against such behavior? Is it just too much effort to complain + favoritism towards frequent editors?

Re: Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger blocked from editing Wikipedia

#58

Post by ameliaquining »

chollida1 wrote: post #48
wongarsu wrote: post #31

So to summarize: he resuggested "WikiProject Intellectual Diversity", a group with the goal to make "Wikipedia more intellectually diverse" and "ensure fair and open decision-making and governance, broaden the range of permissible sources, reinforce genuine neutrality, rein in over-aggressive blocking while holding the powerful to higher standards of accountability", etc, with the implied undertone of preventing Wiki…

> But then he made a tweet that basically just says "I suggested this, some people like it, some hate it". That's super against the rules, because it attracts people to the proposal who otherwise wouldn't have seen it. How would this in any way be against the rules? Wouldn'tan open and democratic process like wikipedia want as many eyes as possible on a vote or rule change? That sounds completely backwards from the o…

Consensus-based decision making doesn't work if people can bring in their existing audience from elsewhere to overwhelm the discussion. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Canvassing.

Re: Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger blocked from editing Wikipedia

#59

Post by WarmWash »

chollida1 wrote: post #48
wongarsu wrote: post #31

So to summarize: he resuggested "WikiProject Intellectual Diversity", a group with the goal to make "Wikipedia more intellectually diverse" and "ensure fair and open decision-making and governance, broaden the range of permissible sources, reinforce genuine neutrality, rein in over-aggressive blocking while holding the powerful to higher standards of accountability", etc, with the implied undertone of preventing Wiki…

> But then he made a tweet that basically just says "I suggested this, some people like it, some hate it". That's super against the rules, because it attracts people to the proposal who otherwise wouldn't have seen it. How would this in any way be against the rules? Wouldn'tan open and democratic process like wikipedia want as many eyes as possible on a vote or rule change? That sounds completely backwards from the o…

While I agree, the internet has also long suffered from brigading (for better or worse) because the barrier-to-action is virtually zero.

Re: Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger blocked from editing Wikipedia

#60

Post by Aurornis »

InsideOutSanta wrote: post #33
postflopclarity wrote: post #7

trying to contribute to wikipedia was the most miserable experience in a "collaborative" process I've ever had in my life. Like arguing with cranks at a town hall meeting, ignorant high school group project classmates, and bureaucracy-obsessed nonprofit initiative zealots all wrapped into one. in the area I was trying to contribute (a math subdomain) to there is sooooo much technical misinformation. but if you don't…

People often mention anecdotes like that when Wikipedia is discussed, but I made a few changes to pages over the years and never had any issues. I took care to follow the rules, and the changes were usually accepted; when they weren't, it was always for reasonable reasons, even if I didn't always agree with them.

That was my initial experience, too.

As I discovered later, I was just lucky to hit pages that weren’t possessively controlled by one person or a small group who want to control the page with a tight grip. That’s often true for pages for obscure topics that don’t have much text.

Get into a more mainstream topic or anywhere near a contentious topic and your edits will be reverted, rewritten, or debated by someone with more free time than you until the text goes back to what they wanted to control. It doesn’t matter how much you follow the rules, you’re at the mercy of what that person or group wants the page to say.

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