3 ms·

This part: “We pulled in the dates from his user contributions page and found that Cross had not had a single day off from editing the site in almost 5 years!”

This part: “We pulled in the dates from his user contributions page and found that Cross had not had a single day off from editing the site in almost 5 years!” Makes me think that this is an account shared by many people. Since we don’t know who this person is, there is a chance that this person is really a whole organization.

jpatokal 8y ago
There are a lot of obsessive people on Wikipedia. Back in the days when I was an active editor, I was regularly embroiled in edit wars with somebody who had odd but extremely firm opinions about the romanization of Okinawan (not a political topic even in Japan) and what appeared to be 24/7 ability to enforce them. I suspect quite a few of those shut-in "hikikomori" types are top Wikipedia editors... All that said, checking the manual of style in question today, I'm positively surprised to see the weirdness is gone. This is a strength of Wikipedia: over time entropy of opinion tends to decrease, even though it may take years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Japan-related_articles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Japa...
- hackandtrip 8y ago
  Is it good, though? I'm all about reducing entropy about facts, but what about opinion or more delicate subject? The power on propaganda, on making a new truth, is so big.
cooper12 8y ago
It's not hard to make an edit a day. It's a daily activity for editors like me to come home and wind down by quickly going through our watchlists and reverting any vandalism. I have 11k articles on mine and I wouldn't even say I'm a prolific editor. It takes me only a few minutes and thanks to things like ORES (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/ORES https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/ORES), most of the suspicious edits are highlighted already.

3 ms·

This part: “We pulled in the dates from his user contributions page and found that Cross had not had a single day off from editing the site in almost 5 years!”

by lkrubner 8y ago

jpatokal 8y ago
There are a lot of obsessive people on Wikipedia. Back in the days when I was an active editor, I was regularly embroiled in edit wars with somebody who had odd but extremely firm opinions about the romanization of Okinawan (not a political topic even in Japan) and what appeared to be 24/7 ability to enforce them. I suspect quite a few of those shut-in "hikikomori" types are top Wikipedia editors... All that said, checking the manual of style in question today, I'm positively surprised to see the weirdness is gone. This is a strength of Wikipedia: over time entropy of opinion tends to decrease, even though it may take years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Japan-related_articles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Japa...
- hackandtrip 8y ago
  Is it good, though? I'm all about reducing entropy about facts, but what about opinion or more delicate subject? The power on propaganda, on making a new truth, is so big.
cooper12 8y ago
It's not hard to make an edit a day. It's a daily activity for editors like me to come home and wind down by quickly going through our watchlists and reverting any vandalism. I have 11k articles on mine and I wouldn't even say I'm a prolific editor. It takes me only a few minutes and thanks to things like ORES (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/ORES https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/ORES), most of the suspicious edits are highlighted already.