Difference between revisions 28711054 and 31557555 on enwiki

== DYK ==

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|'''[[:Template:Did you know|Did you know?]]''' has been updated. A fact from the article '''[[Vegetarianism of Adolf Hitler]]''', which you recently created, has been featured in that section on the [[Main Page]]. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on [[:Template talk:Did you know|the "(contracted; show full)
What happened in regards to [[User talk:Onefortyone#Mediation|this]]? It seemed like Wyss and onefortyone had come to an agreement on putting the rumours in a special section. Why can't that work?[[User:Karmafist|Karmafist]] 01:41, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

141 subsequently used that rumours section as a wedge from which to seed [[Elvis Presley]] with Google-friendly keywords which would lead to tabloid books by [[David Bret]]. [[User:Wyss|Wyss]] 01:58, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
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==Yes, this is a joke==
For the record, that photo of Jimbo/Che was a joke, not something serious; of course, if you want to take it seriously and use it as an excuse to leave, go for it, I don't care. Also, for the record, I used Photoshop CS 2 to make it, not that crap program Gimp. &mdash; <small>[[User:Brian0918|<b><font color=black>BRIAN</font></b>]][[User_talk:Brian0918|<font color=gray>0918</font>]] &bull; 2005-11-21 12:12</small>

:Duh, like I thought it was a serious publicity photo? Yes, starkly a joke, as was my re-use of it and anyone who thinks the existence of that graphic has anything to do with why I'm no longer participating in WP likely isn't smart enough to be editing articles but then, lots of Wikipedians avoid encyclopedia writing and instead focus on fiddling and building their own petty castles in the cyber-sky, don't they? Anyway the above is exactly the sort of emotional, distracting, thoughtless and unhelpful remark that wastes the time of skilled, content-driven editors at Wikipedia. As an aside, the term ''gimped'' was used as a generic verb for photo manipulation, however now that the author of the photo has specified the software, I've changed the caption. [[User:Wyss|Wyss]] 14:47, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I'd also suggest that the wanton enabling of trolls and fools on Wikipedia gives the petty cyber-castle builders endless excuses to waste time on them with RfArs, RfCs, mentor committees, IRC watchlist feeds, loopy talk page discussions/scoldings, insincere civility patrols and other process-oriented, attention-getting stuff they think will help them get elected to roles in the bureaucracy... anything to avoid true volunteer work, the writing of an encyclopedia founded on scholarly principles. [[User:Wyss|Wyss]] 18:06, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

:Then why not stay and defend those principles? Take a short [[wikibreak]] and come back.  And make sure you leave the wikibreak template on your user page so we can look forward to your return. -[[User:Viriditas|Viriditas]] 04:00, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

==Wikipedia is a Meta Culture Blog==
I think the leadership of Wikipedia began with sincere notions about writing an encyclopedia ([[Nupedia]]) but demographic realities got in the way. Its high-traffic, enthusiastic user base not only coughs up free, Google-friendly content but also funding in the form of contributions and that user base won't support an encyclopedia built on scholarly standards (no fun, too much work/thought/skill required, too little opportunity for seeding articles with sundry personal takes, agendas and so on), no way, not ever. Instead, this site's leadership followed the traffic and the money, enabling it with servers, software and social structure as Wikipedia grew into a giant, interactive, collaborative culture blog. I have not a clue where Wikipedia will wind up. I don't think its leadership knows either but since they're not actually stupid, I glark they have their hopes, which likely adapt somewhat from month to month. Whatever. It's not an encyclopedia and someday they may even stop calling it that, claiming some sort of "new and wonderful" knowledge paradigm. I say ''codswallop'' and meanwhile I have neither want nor need nor time to write for a meta blog, much less one driven by a mob. [[User:Wyss|Wyss]] 07:17, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

:You may not need Wikipedia, but it needs you.  Take a break and come back.  --[[User:Viriditas|Viriditas]] 09:14, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

::Thanks [[User:Viriditas|Viriditas]], truly :) Without tighter, more plainly-put and strictly-followed sourcing policies along with far less coddling of trolls, fools and teenaged boys, I don't think it's a meed fit and I don't think WP's leadership should change anything unless they know what they're doing and have a plan for sustaining it (meaning if this is working for them, at least for now, far be it from me to try swaying them). [[User:Wyss|Wyss]] 17:56, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

:::As long as you maintain a good, positive attitude, I don't see why you wouldn't succeed.  I might even help you, as would many others.  But, you should stop attacking the "leadership" and Wikipedia in general if you want people to listen to you.  Complaining isn't productive. Make a list of the core issues you want to change.  For example, I'm very concerned about vandalism and trolls and the effect they have on the credibility of the site, so I would be willing to comment on those issues, but I'm also interested in what you have to say about "scholarly standards".  --[[User:Viriditas|Viriditas]] 21:55, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

::I haven't attacked Wikipedia's leadership and I've already stated my "core issues." Sadly, the above is yet another example of the careless reading skills and time-wasting, loopy dialog editors are subjected to here. I guess it's no accident that the only non-patronizing and thoughtful replies I've gotten have been by private email since they'd be ever so politely flamed on a talk page. Meanwhile, although I'm replying to queries I'm not asking for anything, am no longer editing here and don't plan to start up again. Wikipedia is a big blog, not an encyclopedia. [[User:Wyss|Wyss]] 22:23, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

:::You've attacked the Wikipedia "bureaucracy" and accused them of enabling trolls and fools to justify their positions.  You've also accused them of being a "charismatic religious (or political activist) organisation". I don't think I need to look too hard to find other attacks as well.  You would be far more successful if you attacked the issues (vandalism, trolls, scholarly standards) instead of the organization.  But, now I'm repeating myself.  And hey, if the lurkers support you in e-mail, why listen to me? --[[User:Viriditas|Viriditas]] 22:39, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

::Here we go again. You're the one using those gnarly Latin terms ''attack'', ''accuse'' and ''justify'', not me. I don't ''even'' see it that way. If Wikipedia wants to enable trolls and fools (and take their money) that's up to them and way cool by me. Moreover, if they've found that a social model based on a charismatic religious or political activist organisation works for now, how merry for them. I don't care. I thought I was volunteering my time to an encyclopedia project but it wasn't true. That's ok. I got something out of it and Wikipedia got some GNU content from me. Meanwhile, I am out. [[User:Wyss|Wyss]] 22:52, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

:::You will be missed. --[[User:Viriditas|Viriditas]] 23:01, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

::::Yeah, like a rag doll, luzzed about for kicks (heh heh) ;) [[User:Wyss|Wyss]] 23:07, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

:::::I'm sorry that you feel that way.  I think that valuable editors like yourself should be made to feel welcome, and I apologize if I've indirectly contributed to this situation in any way. --[[User:Viriditas|Viriditas]] 00:52, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

::::::You didn't contribute to that, even if we have disagreed on certain historical definitions of vegetarianism :)  [[User:Wyss|Wyss]] 01:09, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Wyss, you are worth more than 10 casual "I just came here and want to ad some stuff i've read that might be true and should therefore be included and don't you dare to revert" people. Everyone who bothers to look through your history will realise that you know what you're writing about. But many people here are concerned about the social aspect of wikipedia. And we shouldn't neglect it. The casual reader and contributor might first be adding less constructive stuff but could be a furure good editor, and we should keep the door open and not make him hate wikipedia. Imagine year 2020 and what people think about wikipedia. I hope people will see wikipedia as a good place AND a good encyclopedia. Those two are connected. You are leaving because of what you see as lack of focus on that last part, but take a step back. Wikipedia is up and down, but is progressing. A single article might be worse now than it was, but in a year I bet it's better. With or without you. That last part might seem frustrating, but it's true who ever leaves. Me, you or Jimbo Wales.

Regarding arbcom and administratrs: I think you are giving them way, way too much weight and consideration. They are just dedicated editors often very focused on following social wikipedia rules. But they are just editors. I belive some of them are overdoing the social thing, but also that most aren't. But they all mean it well. Really. They all want wikipedia to improve. And when someone has made 10.000 edits people people tend to be less concerned about what a revert might do to his ego. It shouldn't be your first. So I ask you, live through your arbcom case knowing that you're right. Tell them that you are. Don't just go silent. And don't let some remark from any hasty socially concerned admin make you quit. They aren't worth it. You know you're right.

So, whether you are one or not: Take it like a man, and continue working. Please. [[User:Shanes|Shanes]] 00:06, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

:Thanks for the very kind words. I can't "take it" like a man, [[User:Shanes|Shanes]] and don't want to. [[User:Wyss|Wyss]] 00:39, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

::Then how about taking it like a woman, and making it through the labor pains of Wikipedia in the hope that the end result will be something new and wonderful? --[[User:Viriditas|Viriditas]] 05:51, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

:::Like a new and wonderful... paradigm of knowledge? When I stopped, I was spending most of my time on WP cleaning up messes made by the vandals and fools who showed up on my watchlist... er... it's so much worse that I can't even talk about it without fear of being mistaken or flamed, never mind what's left of the twisted tale but I so much appreciate what you two are saying. Thanks :) Meanwhile I don't think scholarly sourcing standards would ever be supported by a "consensus" of voting, financially-contributing Wikipedians. That's how Nupedia got replaced (gobbled up) by its child Wikipedia to begin with. The regulars are mostly here for the wiki, the interactive, Google-lit, alphabetised culture blog and all too often, the cyber-bureaucracy, organisation and social model it enables. This is all dynamic, high-traffic, money and publicity producing stuff but it has little to do with researching and writing an encyclopedia and demonstrably has not produced a demographic capable of building one. Wikipedia is 99% copy-pasted text dumps (hundreds of thousands of articles wontedly ridden with careless errors) and less than 1% even moderately researched encyclopedia articles (a few thousand at most), forget editorial balance or writing style, oh, the horror. That "1%" only survives because the main demographic doesn't care about those sorts of articles, so it doesn't corrupt them. Meanwhile the high traffic entries are basket cases. I don't like the notion of wading through a cyber-waste dump of coddled trolls, fools and mob-think police to edit the 1% of articles most Wikipedians don't care about. [[User:Wyss|Wyss]] 07:06, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

::::The gaping chasm between [[hoi polloi]] on the one hand, and [[academic elitism]] on the other.  This has already been addressed by Sanger v. Wales.  Wyss, if you were in charge and had significant political clout, what ten simple things would you do to address the problem as you've described it?  --[[User:Viriditas|Viriditas]] 09:01, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

One can't build a scholarly encyclopedia with wide-open user policies and one can't build sustainable, money-attracting mass-market traffic on the Internet without them. Since WP's dodgy content is of zero or even negative value to any "mission-critical" business, academic or government application, forget those sorts of organisations as a source of anything other than token publicity support. In short, WP's too broken to fix and too fixed to break (heh heh). It's taken on its own life and never really was an encyclopedia, but the illusion got folks interested in a big way. If the leadership is clever, which they likely are, they already see the writing on the wall. I glark they'll pre-emptively re-brand the whole project somehow, keep enabling the trolls and fools and call it a big docking intellectual success, a ''wonderful and new knowledge paradigm'', but instead of a blog pretending to be an encyclopedia it'll be a blog pretending to be a "meta-knowledge" site (code word for trolls and fools... come on in!). Sourcing requirements will, if anything, be loosened, not tightened and there will be a moment of truth when a decision is made as to whether the money will come from donations, advertising or both. All this will be done in the name of NPoV and cultural tolerance but the object will forever be traffic and media leverage... fame is the name of the game. The talk pages themselves may evolve into topical and chatty blogs (what am I saying? That's what they are now). The mob-think police will multiply with rules supposedly concerned with civility and preventing the most blatant forms of defacement and graffitti but will be tacitly designed to encourage very sharp conflict, inefficiency and endless discussion, which will keep trolls and foo- er... people coming back to defend their precious, Google-visible pitches. Oh, yeah, and the content's GNU, so anyone could use that as a skeleton for all sorts of reference works but the cross checking, verification and prose-fixing would cost almost as much as writing an encyclopedia from scratch so what we'll likely see instead are bits and pieces of WP re-heated and served to specialized groups with no consistancy in editorial quality. Ultimately, the whole game may successfully stabilize into some sort of meta online community of wankers and sales people who think they're changing the world, sort of like an E-Bay of opinionating blogs about... everything and anything trolls and fools might be interested in, from gossip and politics to revisionist history and even crank science. NPoV. It's what the majority of Wikipedians consistently demand. As I've found in my own life, be careful about what you ask for though, since you might get it :) [[User:Wyss|Wyss]] 12:53, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Meanwhile, the good news: While it's not flawless, the content of ''Britannica'' is very good indeed. And it costs stunningly little. And the bad: offhand I'm not sure that Britannica runs under a civilized operating system. (My evaluation of EB comes from the last copy I bought, when I was still a Windows conformist.) And more bad news: Britannica is very much less comprehensive than WP.

''. . . everything and anything trolls and fools might be interested in, from gossip and politics to revisionist history and even crank science'' Well, yes -- but nobody forced you to spend your time on crank blowhards like J.&nbsp;P.Ennis, fruitcake-magnets like Hitler, or gossip-magazine fodder like Presley. The majority of WP isn't that wonderful, but it also doesn't attract the attention of tiresome gossip-mongers. Just now, for example, I've made small improvements to the article on [[127 film]], an article I'd now rate C&minus; rather than C&minus;&minus;. This is a subject of no interest to Sollog, Uri Geller, David Bret or ''Hello'' magazine, so the article is likely to get better rather uninterruptedly, in its minor and prosaic way. I doubt that 127 film is of any interest to you (and frankly it's not of much interest to me either), but you're far too bright a person to have interests circumscribed by what trolls and fools might be interested in. So aim high.

Oh, and I don't think that what I'm doing is creating an opinionated blog: indeed, I divulge little of myself on my user page or anywhere else because I can't see why anybody should be interested. -- [[User:Hoary|Hoary]] 13:52, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

:I agree Hoary, you're writing encyclopedia articles and ''that's'' wonderful. My take on the ''fruitcake magnet'' or high-traffic articles is that it's important to get them into helpful shape because those are the ones which so disproportionately attract and even influence people, in so many ways. Was I forced to participate in those articles? Hmmm... 

*I got involved in the Ennis thing because I'd originally voted to delete it as unencyclopedic, then hung around to help make sure the content at least was ok.

*I got involved with the AH related articles while I was being harrassed by The Number (who was eventually banned), as a result of the Ennis article. He had compared me to Hitler (a Godwin's law incident), I idly clicked into the article and discovered a total mess... poorly written English, facts wrong, balance misleading, everything. Gross subject but meed to get straight for people. Aside from straight vandalism I must say I didn't have any serious problems editing those articles though, but for the one on his vegetarianism but even that wasn't so bad since the editors involved, although biased and maybe mistaken sometimes IMHO were sincere and responsible people.

*Then there was Elvis. Ha! I was editing [[Picnic_(film)]], clicked on [[Nick Adams]] (who had a small role) and stumbled onto the Wilkes/141 conflict. 141 was using Nick Adams as a wedge from which to seed the Elvis Presley article with Google friendly keywords which would lead readers to tabloid books by a certain dodgy author. Some would say, "ignore it!" but for me an encyclopedia is defined by its treatment of high profile subjects like EP (whom I've almost always found yawn enducing). The problems there ultimately presented to me the host of systemic ones WP deals with.

Lastly, once I had a couple hundred articles on my watchlist I was spending most of my time reverting straight vandalism or cleaning up the wontedly woeful writing that did contain helpful new content. I've not a shred of doubt that my personality drew me into ensuring these "node" articles weren't too bad. Doing so brought me face to face with the objective differences I've described but I must emphasise, these are demographic, traffic and money issues. I'm not "accusing" WP's leadership of anything. I think they're trying to accomplish their goals in the context of how the world works for them right now. As for me, I can't happily edit [[Picnic_(film)]] knowing that if a reader clicks on [[Nick Adams]] they'll be misled, never mind the codswallop they'd see at EP who I could care less about other than in academic terms. I'm not the first editor to run into this dilemma and won't be the last. [[User:Wyss|Wyss]] 22:36, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

:Actually your history is very similar to mine. I voted "delete" in the VfD on "Sollog", was appalled by its failure, and hung around to defend the (undeserved, unnecessary) article from Ennis himself and possibly a discrete sollogite. I'd never heard of Nick Adams till I read of him on your talk page, and thus briefly got into that and thence to the Presley article. But even at my most energetic I never had anywhere near as much energy as you, and now I think that defending the integrity of articles on Presley and the like will require [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Mel_Etitis&oldid=25236387#Wikipedia%3ARequests_for_comment.2FMel_Etitis what some of the top brass regard as indefensible edit warring], at least until the ability to edit articles only accrues to certain grades of user IDs, grades that are a lot harder to get and a lot easier to lose. So now Presley, together with much else, is off my watchlist. -- [[User:Hoary|Hoary]] 02:15, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

::Hey, my watchlist is off my watchlist ;) [[User:Wyss|Wyss]] 03:31, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

::(But I still strongly think people should contribute researched articles if they want, since helpful content ''will'' tend to endure one way or anoher) [[User:Wyss|Wyss]] 03:31, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

: For the benefit of others just discovering this situation, apparently the Wyss RFAr being referred to is [[Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Wilkes, Wyss and Onefortyone]].  I'm also encountering oddities in an RFAr in which I'm somehow involved; the RFAr is so poorly defined that I'm not sure of my involvement other than for "behavior": [[Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Climate change dispute 2]].

===Reply to [[User:Viriditas|Viriditas]]===
I respectfully disagree with [[User:Viriditas|Viriditas]] when he says that [[User:Wyss|Wyss]] has been attacking the Wikipedia bureaucracy.  Wyss, while criticizing the focus on Wikipedia standards of Wiki-love, has been following the Wikipedia standards of civility and the assumption of good faith, and has been respectful in her criticisms of the Wikipedia bureaucracy.  In this respect, she is in contrast to another editor who is even more critical of the leadership of Wikipedia, namely, [[User:FuelWagon|FuelWagon]], who has been engaging in attacks.  Wyss is, unfortunately for Wikipedia, following the advice that I tried to give to FuelWagon, which is that if you think that the system is flawed and you don't have the inclination to work within it, leave it alone rather than raging about it.  If Viriditas is saying that Wyss should have been more subtle in her criticisms of Wikipedia, then I think such a subtlety would have been missed.  [[User:Robert McClenon|Robert McClenon]] 15:50, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

==Wilkes, Wyss, 141==
Why did you accept this RfAr when no efforts, nor evidence of any efforts, to remedy the alleged issue by other means have been made or presented? I ask because this seems to be contrary to both the template instructions and WP policy. Could you please cite the documented section of Wikipedia's written policy which you used to make this extraordinary exception? Thanks. [[User:Wyss|Wyss]] 00:01, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

:I posted a request on this page asking you to respect the decision. [[User:Fred Bauder|Fred Bauder]] 00:11, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

::To substantiate your implied claim that I did not respect the decision, please cite diffs showing that I made any edits whatsoever to the articles in question after you made that post. Furthermore, why isn't this single post listed in the RfAr as evidence of a prior effort and what documented section of Wikipedia's written policy did you use to make the extraordinary exception of basing your decision on alleged evidence not placed into the template on the RfAr page as required by the template instructions and WP policy? Thank you. [[User:Wyss|Wyss]] 00:18, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

:::'''Note that Fred Bauder hasn't replied, likely because there are no diffs to cite... I didn't touch the articles after his first and only mention of them on my talk page'''. [[User:Wyss|Wyss]] 16:46, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

:Please see my comments on [[User talk:Ted Wilkes]]. [[User:Kelly Martin|Kelly Martin]] ([[User talk:Kelly Martin|talk]]) 04:09, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

::What she wrote there was:

You seem to have mistaken Wikipedia for a legal system. Kelly Martin (talk) 04:05, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

:::In other words, there are no rules and arbcom does at it pleases. Sadly, [[User:Kelly Martin|Kelly Martin]] is mistaken. She is required to answer under Wikipedia policy [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_policy#Requests]. This includes justifying her decision to accept if asked, along with following WP polcies and even applying "real world" laws as applicable. In my humble opinion, if she can't (or refuses) to follow Wikipedia's published arbcom policies, how can she helpfully participate as a member of arbcom? Similarly, if a WP user can't rely on WP's published policies, how can that user make reliable decisions as to the appropriateness and helpfulness of her edits? Either way, I'm sad to see such a flip and sarcastic reply from her. [[User:Wyss|Wyss]] 13:01, 29 November 2005 (UTC)


Just for the record, I posted this to [[User:Kelly Martin]]'s Talk page in response to her statement (above and on my talk page): "You seem to have mistaken Wikipedia for a legal system."
*No, no mistake, just [[fact]]. I quote [[Jimmy Wales]]: "''The arbcom is a judicial sort of body''." In fact, it is my dedicated effort to help make Wikipedia an [[encyclopedia]], not a [[gossip magazine]], that brought me to the [[Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee]]. Thank you. - [[User:Ted Wilkes|Ted Wilkes]] 16:01, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

::They seem to cite policy when it suits them, but say it's not relevant when it doesn't accomodate their unencyclopedic personal agendas. I can't think of any other explanation for these bizarre assertions that WP policy never applies to arbcom, the sarcastic and rude replies, or the insistence that arbcom doesn't work like a legal system when Wales describes it as "judicial." '''In this case arbcom's agenda is revenge against Ted Wilkes''' for bringing an RfAr regarding a member of arbcom and then against me for trying to explain Wilkes' reasoning. Again, nothing else could explain the timing, evasiveness to questions regarding process or the utter lack of conformance with the template instructions. Of course, as they twist into this more and more deeply, it becomes more difficult to exit gracefully. If they drop the RfAr, they think it will give an impression they're admitting both that their acceptance of the frivolous RfAr was revenge-emotion driven and that earlier they were sloppy and cavalier about academic sourcing methodologies (never mind they're coddling a troll). Anything to avoid confronting the scholarly and logistical problems of writing an enyclopedia, I guess. Managing the social model of a meta culure blog is much easier, especially when it's done by arbitrary fiat. [[User:Wyss|Wyss]] 16:41, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

== Citation issues ==
You may be interested in reference/citation content/format issues in [[Talk:Global cooling#Citation format poll]] (see preceding discussion) and [[Wikipedia:Requests for comment/SEWilco#Response]]. ([[User:SEWilco|SEWilco]] 04:12, 1 December 2005 (UTC))

==The marketing of an "Internet encyclopedia"==
I'm not alone in my take that Wikipedia is no encyclopedia. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Doc_glasgow Doc_glascow's post]. He's even less impressed than I am and calls Wikipedia '''a graffiti wall and a dump for all the world’s unverified cruft'''. I agree and I was a bumpkin. I thought I was dealing with apathy but it's not. Mr Wales is a marketer and he more or less means for Wikipedia to be this way. Cranks, trolls and conflict marketed under the label "Internet Encyclopedia," all enabled by wiki software, happens to equal traffic and donations, an easy enough tale. Goodbye. [[User:Wyss|Wyss]] 11:07, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
::Back to my original question for a moment: if Wikipedia ''could'' be fixed (I'm not saying that it can't, but in the above discussion you claimed that it was beyond repair) how would you go about it?  What policies and guidelines would you attempt to implement?  --[[User:Viriditas|Viriditas]] 10:54, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

:::Hmmm... since you asked, keeping in mind it appears Mr Wales long ago confronted these issues, made his decisions ''and has heard variations of the following from many, many people like me''. He is articulate and insightful and if he had wanted to do these things, he would have done long ago:

* Change the basic goal from one fixed on software and community development to one of writing an academically sound encyclopedia. 

* Implement a system of user editing grades that recognizes and rewards demonstrated article-writing expertise rather than adroit adherance to correct social behavior (although basic rules of politeness are always helpful). New users would have limited editing rights, the best editors would have admin-like rights and so on.

* Recognize the extreme difference between community consensus and peer review.

* Clearly define, explain and strictly enforce sourcing requirements and standards. However, this would cause much conflict on several practical and philosophical levels and likely rip WP to shreds.

* Simply delete (or set aside) 80% of the articles, they are garbage.

* Attract an ''academically qualified'' review group to check articles for both accuracy and clean writing style. Mr Wales has been all talk and no action on this for years (as I said, there are practical reasons for this, which come down to his priorities). Money shouldn't be the problem if the will to do it is there.

* Zero tolerance for trolls (call a troll a troll), minimal tolerance for fools. Forget the myths of wiki-love and converting trolls into "good" editors. The interested ones will come (and stay) if they sense WP has become an efficient and academically oriented environment. Nobody with any expertise wants to waste their time reverting nonsense added by people who don't know what they're talking about, or worse.

'''Most of the current user base would flee'''<br>
However, ridding WP of fools and trolls would eliminate (in my humble opinion) about 80% of the site's active user base along with at least half of its admins. I think Wales has known this for years and has his own reasons for not doing it.

'''So what is Wikipedia truly efficient at?'''<br>
If Wikipedia is so inefficient at generating quality content (hundreds, sometimes thousands of person-hours will wontedly result in a mediocre, unscholarly article), what ''is'' Wikipedia efficient at? Traffic is the name of the game, as is fame.

'''Encyclopedia writing is not a mass market hook'''<br>
Scholastically inclinced reference projects, while perhaps exciting to weird (grin) people like me, are in truth boring to most but without selectivity as to participating editors, WP's content will be driven by mob tyranny.

Face it, half of all people are of below average cleverness, and many of the other half are either indifferent to volunteering their time to an academic project or shouldn't be trusted if they do express interest, since maybe half of ''them'' would come only as articulate hucksters. Worse, qualified people tend not to have a lot of spare time, so online projects like this risk attracting more than their share of tossers and impaired outcasts, even into its bureaucracy (or dominant clique) who themselves have not a clue how or why they are being used in the furtherance of non-encyclopedic goals. How's that for stark talking? [[User:Wyss|Wyss]] 15:13, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

:Thanks for your detailed reply, Wyss.  It might be best to keep my replies brief.  I'll start with two of your points:
#Why do you think that software and community development and an "academically sound encyclopedia" are mutually exclusive?  Isn't there a third option such that one provides a foundation for the other?  Obviously, we need the software to function, and the community to run and use it.  Why should this detract from academic standards?  If I'm reading you right, I think you are saying there is too much of a focus on engineering and social networking and less emphasis on encylopedic rigor.  Have you joined [[Wikipedia:Forum for Encyclopedic Standards]]? [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check]]?  What about joining the discussion and contributing to [[Wikipedia:Reliable sources]]?

::I read a recent article about Mr Wales and it mentioned that in his office, the open books seen by the journalist were software manuals. Not, I would note, peer-reviewed literature on information flow and structure, scholarly sourcing methodologies or encyclopedic principles. Meanwhile I agree the topics aren't mutually exclusive. However, I don't think Wikipedia's leadership has demonstrated any interest in producing an academically sound encyclopedia. Rather, they've focused on a policy of software and community development which has enhanced quantitative things like traffic and a huge number of articles, rather than qualitative aspects such as sufficient accuracy and reliability of content. Since WP's leadership, in my experience, has no interest in scholarly standards (the output speaks for itself, never mind a careful reading of Wales' remarks on the subject), I think the standards forum is superfluous. The solutions aren't so hard to come by, but applying them would greatly diminish participation and require extensive policy and software changes. I don't think WP's current economic model (or Wales' plans) are compatible with that. [[User:Wyss|Wyss]] 20:29, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

#How do you know that "80% of the articles are garbage?"  Have you downloaded the current database and run custom queries for "garbage-like" articles?  You could, you know, but you would have to define "garbage".  I'm going to take a [[SWAG]] and assume you mean articles which lack proper sources.  Is that correct? If so, it should be possible to determine a very rough estimate by looking for articles which contain "references", "external links", "notes", etc.  It would be helpful to have actual statistics. --[[User:Viriditas|Viriditas]] 13:12, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

::Sources are a big docking problem with Wikipedia entries, but not the only one. If an article contains factual errors, delves into an unencyclopedic topic, lacks balance or is poorly written, I'd loosely call it ''garbage''. I've spot checked enough WP articles to say it's likely more than 80% but I was trying to be generous. The "featured articles" for example, are misleading freaks which have gone through something much more closely resembling some sort of academically grounded peer review but I've often read them as they showed up on the front page and some still have issues, especially in terms of balance and style. Moreover, if the article has external links and helpful references along with a bibliography, parts of the text may still be codswallop.

So never mind social perceptions and nuanced cultural spins on the meaning of truth or "NPoV", forget writing style, blow off balance too, for now: Everything begins with stark factual accuracy backed by academically rigorous secondary sources which have been drawn from existing primary sources meeting widely-described scholarly standards of authenticity and reliability. All this lingering foolishness and trollishness on Wikipedia causes any notions of quality and credibility to collapse in a dark, dusty heap of skepticism.

==John Seigenthaler==
During the recent media spike about Wikipedia's made-up-from-whole-cloth bio of [[John_Seigenthaler_Sr.]] [http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/t2zaWzTywYO9Qr/Wikipedia-Hits-a-Wall.xhtml], Wales was asked some general questions about Wikipedia's accountability and accuracy controls. His response included the remark, "Figuring out how we balance these kinds of issues as a society is an interesting challenge to be sure."

'''Will Atlas shrug?'''
No mention of encyclopedias or any current plans to correct WP's systemic problems, but instead a vague, politician's platitude about wider society, 'issues' and 'challenges'." Does this sound like someone whose main goal is the writing of an academically grounded encyclopedia? Or are these more like the words of someone attempting to lead a "disruptive," global mass market... something-or-other? So yeah... I mean, give me Google-level traffic is all... I can make a billion dollars or whatever, promote my somewhat [[Ayn Rand|Randian]] notions and the world'll think I'm a philanthropist, all at the same time. [[User:Wyss|Wyss]] 23:11, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

==No longer watching==
Since I believe many of the world's problems arise not only from ignorance but from the gathered behaviour of otherwise sensible folks basing their myriad daily decisions on labyrinths of mis-information, I don't want to participate in the building of a product which is widely known to wontedly distribute factually-mistaken, unbalanced and poorly-written text to millions of people. Heartfelt thanks to those who have been in touch here and by email :) [[User:Wyss|Wyss]] 09:46, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

== Parting shot ==

Just as I come back from an extended break I find you're leaving. Unfortunate coincidence.

I've argued extensively with several people on the issues you've mentioned above. I've since come to the conclusion that both sides in this debate are essentially correct: the people emphasizing that Wikipedia is a troll-infested crap factory with marginal significance as an authoritative source, and those emphasizing that Wikipedia is a highly successful and useful source of information whose content is continuously improving.

The point is, these things are not mutually exclusive. The differences arise over what Wikipedia's ultimate goal should or will be, and how we should realize this. One side is the "it isn't broke and we shouldn't fix it, just tune it where necessary and continue on the current heading" faction and the other is the "we've reached escape velocity and should jettison the booster rockets". The last group is arguing that Wikipedia's open nature was a successful growth incentive, but that we're experiencing diminishing returns and should now turn to building something better on the foundations—carving a statue from the rough marble.

In short, transition to [[Nupedia]], which was a failure because it tried to start from nothing with high standards, and didn't grow. Using Wikipedia as a basis might be more effective.

I cannot, in good faith, say "do not leave". Not that I like to see you go (on the contrary) but because I don't think an appeal to your patience would be satisfying. I see a transition to a new order as a gradual process, which is not sudden enough and, more importantly, too slow. Gradualism smacks of indecisiveness and cowardliness (and I've been accused of both, actually). But I just don't see a "revolution of the experts" happening. No way. Maybe with a fork, but such a fork would of course be doomed—it would not inherit Wikipedia's momentum and be dead on arrival.

Does Wikipedia have problems? Absolutely. Extrapolating we can only expect them to get worse. For some, the problems define Wikipedia as something they no longer want to sink their time in; something that eats up too much time combating the negative things and being insufficiently rewarding in the positive things.

I am not a scholar or professional editor by any stretch of the imagination, and I'm "part of the problem" insofar as I'm far more involved in community affairs than in writing articles, so I'm not going to lecture you on how Wikipedia is wonderful and that you should buckle up. All I can say is that I personally believe things ''will'' get better, that Wikipedia is not doomed to collapse under the problems that plague it, and that the community (yes, the community, not Jimbo Wales or any other Great Leader who'll start the revolution) will find ways to reform Wikipedia when it, as a whole, no longer satisfies its demands.

Think of it like this: the trolls, vandals, cranks and idiots may grow in number every day, but they will not decide the fate of Wikipedia. There will always be more people who care about this thing we've built, and as a whole we will all grow to demand more of our creation. Is this a slow process? Yes, very. We're talking about a growing average awareness of mostly intangible quality among a group of loose-knit volunteers. It could be a very long time before this matches up with your vision of what Wikipedia ought to be, and many others like you, and those people may grow impatient or disillusioned and leave, impoverishing the editor base. But I do not believe that we are not scaling with the unproductive elements as a whole, and that Wikipedia is to become a directionless, meaningless social construct a la [[Everything2]]. It just seems that way because the unproductive elements are disproportionally more prominent and annoying, and because they creep into areas previously untouched.

So... where was I going with all this? I don't know, this was just a random brain dump. If you want a well-written speech, hire a spin doctor. :-) In closing, I can just say that I would/will be disappointed to see you go, both on a personal level and viewed as a loss to the encyclopedia. I can only offer as advice to take a step back, scale down involvement, focus on what the encyclopedia ''can'' do for you as opposed to what it ''should'' be doing, and accept that there will be a time and place to remedy the evils you cannot remedy today. But should that be unsatisfying, then part Wikipedia in amicality, and know that you can always return.

Good luck on your travels, wherever they may take you. [[User:JRM|JRM]] · [[User talk:JRM|Talk]] 17:22, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

::Thanks JRM. Whatever lofty goals its leadership may have, I think Wikipedia is "hurting" the world (and the open source movement) for now. [[User:Wyss|Wyss]] 19:42, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

On what was already my last day of checking my talk page on Wikipedia, I spotted this article in today's New York Times:

:'''[http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/weekinreview/04seelye.html Snared in the Web of a Wikipedia Liar]'''

[[User:Wyss|Wyss]] 20:53, 4 December 2005 (UTC)


==A small part of the reasons Wyss left Wikipedia==
For months, Wyss tirelessly tried to encourage a [[Wikipedia:NPOV|PoV pusher of the highest order]] calling himself [[User:Onefortyone|Anon 80.141/Onefortyone]] to amend his conduct and work together to make a quality encyclopedia. All her efforts were to no avail and this disruptive agenda pusher, who had reverted Wyss and many other editors hundreds of times, was caught [[lie|fabricating]] his input and distorting information that he placed into articles and was placed on [[Wikipedia:Probation]]. Despite his probation, he continued with the same non-encyclopedic inserts. When Wyss was again forced to remove this non-encyclopedic crap repeatedly from the same articles Anon 80.141/Onefortyone had been tampering with before, she was suddenly and astoundingly informed by [[User:Fred Bauder|Wikipedia Arbitration Committee member Fred Bauder]] that Anon 80.141/Onefortyone was an '''editor in good standing''' and Bauder threatened her [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Wyss&diff=28115466&oldid=27838894 here] . When Wyss protested, Bauder then arranged for [[User:RedWolf]] to file a bogus claim against her at [[Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Wilkes, Wyss and Onefortyone]]. Note that RedWolf filed a broad general complaint but never provided one single fact for his baseless accusation, ever, or any further input of any kind. That kind of conduct is called being a stooge and is intellectually dishonest. Now, look at what happened to Wyss for defending Wikipedia integrity: [[Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Wilkes, Wyss and Onefortyone/Proposed decision]]. This is called railroading. And anyone wonders why she left in disgust? And if, in the process she got a little testy when some who knew nothing of the facts took cheap shots and some ignoramus deliberately and repeatedly called her  "''he'',"  then her being a bit testy is more than justified. My question is, where were you guys hiding? [[User:FuelWagon]] had the integrity to speak up and every single word he wrote in her defense was polite, clear and factual. Why do you guys bother writing large amounts on this Talk page that is meaningless? Its bullshit to say you care about Wikipedia quality but do nothing to defend it. Wyss deserves the [[Honor|Wikipedia:Medal of Honor]], not burned at the stake by those who get off on using their power to "teach her a lesson." Go to the Arbitration case and speak out with a simple honest statement for quality so that we catch the agenda pushers and put an end to the creators of  the type destruction caused by the fabrications done at [[John Seigenthaler]]. Those fabrications to the Seigenthaler article are '''exactly''' the same as the  deliberate inserting over and over of [[lie|fabrications]] and unverified information by [[User:Onefortyone]] for which he was found guilty at [[Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Onefortyone/Proposed decision]]. Read what [[User:RickK]] said when he left back in June. And one more thing. Let there be zero doubt that Wyss is the last person on the planet to suppress gay rights as Onefortyone insinuated about our efforts to stop his fabricating agenda.  - [[User:Ted Wilkes|Ted Wilkes]] 17:12, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

:I don't know, don't want to investigate, and don't much care about who it was who got X to do Y. For that reason, I don't agree with all of the above. But I certainly agree with much of it, and with the gist of the whole thing. ''My question is, where were you guys hiding?'' A reasonable question. Myself: in Tokyo as usual, but with the various screens of my SuSEbox mostly devoted to other matters. I'd been reading this stuff about the alleged bisexuality or homosexuality of 1950s and early 60s Hollywood -- hazy memory of what I've read about "the King" tells me that he generated more cash via his mostly ghastly movies than via his sometimes excellent songs -- with increasing disbelief, and disbelief of two kinds: first, a mild disbelief that such a large percentage was gay/bi, and secondly, a starker disbelief that anybody with a sufficiently level head to be qualified to edit something calling itself an encyclopedia should be so desperate to paint people such as Presley as bisexual. If Presley (for example) had publicly inveighed against homosexuality or for what are charmingly termed "family values", an apparently contradictory sex life might well be of interest. He didn't (or anyway the article doesn't claim that he did), so what the hell. Still, one characteristic of WP is that once a subject is deemed worth an article, there seems to be no limit whatever on the content (if verifiable, not plagiarized, etc.) of the article. The [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Citizen_Kane&diff=29118059&oldid=28999079 occasional bold removal of trivia] works, but more often than not it doesn't. I don't suppose this will change until the ability to edit WP is awarded much more warily and retracted much more quickly. In the meantime, maintenance of articles about anything of moderately wide interest seems destined to be a huge waste of time. (Minor example: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Citizen_Kane&diff=30423984&oldid=30299770 unexplained factual change] to ''[[Citizen Kane]]''; [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jl212&oldid=30439081 laboriously polite (and I suspect time-wasting) question about this]. If I have to do this kind of thing to ''[[Citizen Kane]]'' again, I'll probably just delete it from my watchlist, accepting that my life's too short to fight to prevent it and similar articles from becoming junk.) -- [[User:Hoary|Hoary]] 10:10, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

::I am Redwolf24, not RedWolf. As to Wyss's sex, this is something I did not know, I am not so malicious as to call her by the wrong sex on purpose. For about the 30th time, my filing the case had nothing to do with Fred Bauder. If Fred Bauder wanted a case filed, '''he'd do it himself'''. There's no rule preventing arbitrators from filing, and in fact he'd have more leeway if he filed it himself. There is no cabal. It's unfortunate that Wyss would leave like this though. I was perhaps most annoyed with what happened at [[Nick Adams]] and how Wilkes reported FCYTravis at 3RR after what looked like a tag-team method of avoiding the 3RR. Perhaps my idea of you two doing this is as misguided as Wilkes' idea that I'm in a deal with Bauder. In fact, I'm having my doubts about naming Wyss in the RfAr, it's clear to me now that Wilkes is the problem. Wyss - I hope you consider coming back. [[User:Redwolf24|<font color="darkblue">R</font>]][[Wikipedia:Esperanza|<font color="green">e</font>]][[User:Redwolf24|<font color="darkblue">dwolf24</font>]] ([[User talk:Redwolf24|talk]]) [[Wikipedia:Meetup/Seattle3|<font color="gray">Attention Washingtonians!</font>]] 03:46, 8 December 2005 (UTC)



To: User:Redwolf24:

Before anyone calls someone "he," they take the time to check, exactly as I did. Wilkes is a "problem" - you mean adhering to the enclyclopedic standards that [[Jimmy Wales]] stated as fundamental is a problem for you?  I suggest you examine closely my 584 aricles and ALL my edits at Wikipedia. You will most certainly see that all the [[Nick Adams]] edits you "claim" to have looked at have in fact been done in full cooperation with [[User:FCYTravis]], the mentor assigned by the [[Wikipedia:Mentorship Committee]] you created at the request of [[User:Fred Bauder]]. You seem to forget that [[User:onefortyone]] was convicted of [[lie|lying]] and fabricating information in order to deliberately falsify a biography. Was nothing learned this week from the [[John Seigenthaler]] fiasco about how the rest of the world views Wikipedia articles that are allowed to be filled with slander and unfounded information? - [[User:Ted Wilkes|Ted Wilkes]] 07:43, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

:::I'm posting this because I've received several private emails. I never had the impression Redwolf24 had an articulated agreement with Mr Bauder to file the the RfAr but I think Redwolf24's reasoning was, one way or another, related to the timing of Wilkes' RfAr against Bauder and my attempt to explain Wilkes' thoughts on the project talk page. Redwolf24 has since indicated to me he was rash in some respects and has apologized and I appreciate that. Please keep in mind, while Wilkes can be extremely aggressive, he's usually right when it comes to source issues and I'd suggest that if they could get past the superficial bluster and fussle he displays when annoyed by trolls, most admins could learn something about encyclopedic writing and objectivity from him. I have no doubt he'd calm down if he didn't keep seeing fools and trolls being coddled by alternately clueless and gossip-loving admins while spewing misinformation and unsupported nonsense through biographical articles. By the bye, there is still zero verifiable, encyclopedic evidence for 141's assertions about Nick Adams. Anyone looking into the sources who can't understand that shouldn't even be here. Anyone who thinks that hearsay innuendo and idle gossip belong in an encyclopedia only because they've appeared in print somewhere is a wiki-fiddling wanker who wouldn't know the difference between an enyclopedia and a tabloid if it pogged them in the ear. [[User:Wyss|Wyss]] 15:23, 8 December 2005 (UTC)