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[this article has been locked by wikipedia moderators]
by scrame 3y ago
[this article has been locked by wikipedia moderators]
- commoner 3y agoWikipedia's protection policy (English edition) is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Protection_policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Protection_policy If you read the policy, you'll find that a government request is not a valid reason for a Wikipedia administrator to protect ("lock") an article.
- AlecSchueler 3y agoGovernment just needs to hire a mechanical turk to play out an edit war.
- bawolff 3y agoWikipedia isn't a one person one vote type of thing. Its not that simple to just hire mechanical turk.
- Nowado 3y agoDetails are wrong, but the general point is: given design decisions in Wikipedia having article take specific form is a matter of making correct person/people make it so, meaning it is something one can buy (with some extra steps of buying access to those people yada yada, nowhere near limits of state actors powers).
- bawolff 3y agoIts not like wikipedia is a strict hierachy either, where there is a single or small group of people you can just bribe who can't be overriden.
- Nowado 3y ago... and? I'm really not sure what your point is. Bribing more than one person/group and dealing with probabilities is a normal state of affairs, what about it?
- bawolff 3y agoBribing something like 500 people can get expensive, but more importantly its hard for 500 people to keep a secret. I don't think its a practical strategy or at least not an easy one.
- Nowado 3y agoAdmittedly even with 5-10 accounts per employee that isn't general-purpose-small-PR-agency stuff, but on a state levels it's nothing. For reference, quick google says slightly over 1 million people in USA hold top security clearance.
- bawolff 3y agoBribing 500 people is easy when you can choose your targets. Bribing a large specific group of diverse people with full secrecy, is a different story. The moment someone leaks the jig is up, and at least some of the bribed group would probably be very ideologically opposed which makes them difficult to bribe.
- AlecSchueler 3y agoIt's not to vote for it to be locked, rather just to create so much maintenence overhead that keeping it open is no longer tenable.
- arthur2e5 3y agoChinese Wikipedia used to be like that until a WMF intervention happened -- over off-site canvassing and doxxing. Now important decisions like admin elections go in a special secret ballot system. Not sure what's happening with the more usual discussions. Too tired to keep up with whatever's happening there.
- masklinn 3y agoI think what they’re suggesting is using Turk to perform an edit war causing the article to be locked. I assume with the goal of the article being locked to before information you want to suppress got added, but that seems difficult to control. Unless you also identify and subvert moderators.
- bawolff 3y agoNot to mention - locked doesn't mean no edits, just you have to jump through hoops on the talk page first.
- masklinn 3y agoIf there is a time-sensitivity component to the information (such as an election the next day or so) the slowdown from the talk page is likely sufficient, especially if you can move some of the mess over there.
- komali2 3y agoCan you find an example of an article where this happened?
- AlecSchueler 3y agoNo, I was just presenting a theoretical alternative to explicit state intervention.
- DonHopkins 3y agoErdoğan would be smarter to outsource his mechanical edit war so it look like it's coming from another country.
- joenot443 3y agoIt's true that government request isn't a valid reason, but administrators lock articles for much shakier reasons _all_ the time. Usually this happens when news comes out which would challenge the prevailing narrative of the article. At this point, other members come in and update the article, but those still loyal to the original viewpoint are quick to revert. Thus, the resident admin can declare an "Edit War", and now the article will go protected and will largely still pander to the original view, regardless of what new reports or data may come out. Typically, the original editors will then get in Talk-fights and exhaust any dissenting opinions by nitpicking with rules (WP:___, etc.) and the article will remain locked. I had some examples linked, but I worry their inclusion would derail the discussion. To be clear - I love Wikipedia, I use it every day. It's abundantly clear though that it doesn't represent anything close to a neutral perspective, it represents the exact politics of the kind of person who you would imagine would become a Wikipedia editor.
- bawolff 3y agoNeutrality is an ideal that i think wikipedia strives for, but is impossible to ever reach. Hopefully it tends ever more towards it as time goes on. Like everything, wikipedia is certainly shaped, both consiously and unconciously by the people who write it. Anyways, i think whether or not it is "neutral" is kind of the wrong question, because nothing really is in the absolute. The interesting question is how is it relative to other information sources. Ancedotally i think its pretty good, but this is a terrible question to answer ancedotally as that might just mean i agree with its biases or i just look at the right parts of wikipedia (wikipedia's quality is hardly uniform across all topics)
- LastTrain 3y agoThat is because there isn’t such thing as a “clear neutral” perspective, and to expect someone to deliver one to you and bitch about it when they don’t is irrational. Moderation is a balance of concerns and Wikipedia has struck about the best balance I’ve seen from a large org.
- joenot443 3y agoConsidering "neutrality" is literally one of the three policies of Wikipedia, I don't think it's very irrational for one to expect that to be delivered. Its mention seems to have struck a nerve with you though, for that I apologize, I certainly didn't come here with the intention to "bitch" about your favorite large org :)