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 Wikipedia from drifting too far to the political left.
This is unpopular because people oppose this on various grounds (mostly that it might be vote brigading and tiling decisions in their favor just by showing up in an organised way around wikipedia). Also the same project was apparently suggested before and rejected in early stages
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. Probably in an attempt to sway discussion, because his tweets are obviously seen primarily by people who like his ideas
Which then lead to the vote to ban him from editing Wikipedia. With a total ban getting more votes than a more limited ban, like banning him from participating in articles namespaced for internal matters
Is that about right?
Of course, some editor decided it was 'marketing' for starlink so it got deleted despite loads of people protesting. It was the only source I could find easily for showing which country got starlink when.
A huge list of prose is still on the page (not marketing?) showing the updates in a very hard to read and not comprehensive way. Something is really quite wrong over there.
1. There is incorrect information on wikipedia.
2. Legacy news publishes an article, using wikipedia as source (of course).
3. Now the incorrect information is essentially canonized
It got to the point where there was a column for "verified" numbers, others, and then "Manufacturer projected" numbers.
...I mean, yeah, that doesn't sound particularly encyclopedic. "Marketing" might be a bit strong but that doesn't mean it belongs in a general encyclopedia.
Go use conservapedia or grokpedia if you want the lies, no one is forcing you to use Wikipedia, and no one is asking for it to be turned into shit like everything the alt right touches
> "But you haven't made any comments on the Talk page about that."
Well then, make that comment yourself and you can go ahead and revert it later if the other person does not respond.
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 open and free spirit of wikipedia. If even wikipedia has gone full mob rule then hwo do any projects stay open and free to everyone?
The core idea is, Wikipedia has internal mechanisms to make these kinds of notifications, and making these decisions needs some knowledge and experience about how Wikipedia works.
Recruiting inexperienced people to bias decisions which requires knowledge is effectively converting that proposal to a blunt instrument and trying to force your way in (aka bludgeon).
When the mechanisms in place and requirement of experience (i.e. competence), whistling the town square and calling people to force a gate is textbook brigading, and brigading is forbidden everywhere (maybe except 4chan/8chan).
I agree with your premise and with your conclusion. That said, campaigning in a democracy is exactly recruiting inexperienced people to bias decisions which requires knowledge. Any support of that viewpoint would effectively ban political campaigning.
if you bring in a bunch of non-wikipedia people (i.e. people who haven't previously cared about or participated in wikipedia discussions at all), all from 1 person's twitter following, you aren't getting "open and free spirit"-ed discussion. you are getting a bunch of larry followers who want larry to "win"
I stopped engaging with Wikipedia because my experience of their administration is that it's deeply toxic. This specific instance doesn't seem too out-of-hand to me, since the rules are clear in this instance. It's where there are grey areas that their behavior starts to get unhinged.
It's perfectly acceptable for them to charter their own rules and keep these kinds of matters internal until they agree it's best, for their goals, to involve the public.
Frankly, they strive to be some of the greatest practitioners on neutrality. This is not the kind of organization that needs the kind of public correction you are wondering about.
And if it was, I think we can all understand why modern day Twitter is the wrong place to exclusively inspire that discussion.
[1] : https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia:IS_NOT_A_DEMOCRACY...
Wikipedia is not an experiment in democracy or any other political system. Its primary (though not exclusive) means of decision making and conflict resolution is editing and discussion leading to consensus—not voting. (Voting is used for certain matters such as electing the Arbitration Committee.) Straw polls are sometimes used to test for consensus, but polls or surveys can impede, rather than foster, discussion and should be used with caution.
Off-site petitions and votes have no weight in the formation of consensus on Wikipedia.
A democracy can vote that pi=4.
This is not a very useful property for an encyclopedia, so you're going to need a different system for determining outcomes.
Preferably you need a method that is somehow still somewhat fair. And that's how we get to the concept of rough consensus. It's absolutely not perfect, and it's not meant to be, because nothing is. Improvements welcome.
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 there are in, say, England. Just due to sheer numbers, you can field a lot of good writers on Wikipedia, and if you quite simply learn how to play the game..." (33:54).
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Adminis...
The part you left out was that he was asked by the interviewer how Indians who felt the site was biased against them could fight the bias:
> When asked about how "Indians and Hindus who feel there is this bias" could "fight it actively", Larry Sanger responded:
So he’s saying that a group can combat bias on the site by participating in the site. India has a lot of educated people and therefore it wouldn’t be hard to find people to contribute. Why is this so controversial?
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
He’s not saying they need to “march through this institution”. He’s saying they need to learn how to navigate the increasingly Byzantine rules set up by the small number of editors so they can contribute to the site.
Why would it be bad to counter bias by bringing in people from the under-represented group? What would be permissible to you, if not bringing in people from that group to participate?
Why is that bad?
>To be clear: it would be equally bad if you swapped left and right in that sentence.
Not at all, if it was swapped, the left would be calling for diversity, equity, and inclusion. They'd call those opposing said diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives every -ist they could throw, all while playing the victim.
Then O'Sullivan's First Law inevitably comes true and the terminally online leftist entryists shut anyone right of them out. This is where Wikipedia is now.