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I did, and found it quite hyperbolic. It seems the basis of the complaint is that someone in the world with more public influence than a Wikipedia admin took th

I did, and found it quite hyperbolic. It seems the basis of the complaint is that someone in the world with more public influence than a Wikipedia admin took their complaint to a public forum with a wider reach than Wikipedia talk pages. Nowhere did I suggest Roth is perfectly correct. But the general assertion of this line of dissent is that Roth should suck Wikipedia eggs until he groks Wikipedia, and until he does, he should otherwise keep quiet. Roth, his biographer, or both, seem to not thoroughly understand Wikipedia. I'm not arguing that. However, even with an imperfect understanding, the nature of his solution to the problem is correct in the first iteration.

tptacek 14y ago
That's not the general assertion the article makes. Roth complained about an interpretation of _The Human Stain_ that had been made in numerous extremely reputable secondary sources, despite the fact that the article included a recitation of Roth's own intent. That's the core argument beneath the rant. Is that argument _wrong_? If not, it seems pretty compelling, regardless of how the rant itself is written. Facts don't become not facts simply because they're written hyperbolically.
- niels_olson 14y ago
  I will agree that was the core argument, the line of dissent, I called it. But I don't think that is the reason he wrote the article, nor the reason for the shrill tone. He's pissed that someone with more public influence took their gripe to a larger public forum. In calmer waters, Oliver would express complete willingness to educate Roth, and his biographer, on Wikipedia policies. But my sense is that, like many domain experts, especially in subjects further from hard science, for Oliver bucking the established order is to be met with only the fiercest rebuke.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    I don't have much to say about his tone ("drops mic" and all that). But the core issue here, just to make it very clear: Roth disagreed with a critical interpretation of _The Human Stain_ (albeit an interpretation that was grounded in fact --- "which acquaintance of Roth was the story inspired by"), and felt that his standing as the book's author gave him the authority to demand the removal of that interpretation from the encyclopedia. I respectfully submit that you don't have to be a rules lawyer to accept the encyclopedia's refusal to do that.
    - niels_olson 14y ago
      Ok, FWIW, I have over 1000 wikipedia edits, run multiple mediawiki wikis, have started a number of articles on the English wikipedia, and am currently in a minor dispute about a template merger. My nephrology professor said there are two camps: the clumpers and splitters. While there may be some rules-based reason to make a distinction between the plights of Professor Messer-Kruse and Philip Roth, I think that to the first order they are both aggrieved experts outside the social circles of Wikipedia. To the second order, they both have a misunderstanding of Wikipedia's rules. To the third order, it appears the Wikipedia admins are not without fault in their willingness to move goalposts and parse ever further into a seemingly bottomless list of rules. To the fourth order, we are all enjoying a fair bit of hindsight: it probably wasn't so clear to anyone at the time Roth sat down to type this out. I'm not disagreeing with you. My only point was that what Roth did passes the common sense test every bit as much as what the Wikipedians did, regardless of how much the Wikipedia admins may chafe under the pressure of someone bringing external pressure to their kingdom.
      - tptacek 14y ago
        As regards Wikipedia you and I are probably more alike than not: we've both got 1000-2000 WP edits, we're both subject matter experts: myself in the gritty details of a corner of vulnerability research, you in medicine. And we were both frustrated by the manner in which Wikipedia integrates or, more likely, fails to integrate expert contributions. (Obviously, we're not the only ones frustrated about this, as this exact issue was why Larry Sanger split off from Wikipedia to create a competing projects which, as we all know, failed). But I believe two things at the same time: Wikipedia has a problem with rules-lawyering insiders pushing away expert contributions, and that the Roth incident isn't one of those cases. And I think I sympathize with Wikipedians at being pilloried in the New Yorker for (it seems) doing everything right. We can safely assume that 99.9% of the readers of Roth's "letter to the editor" will take away from it the idea that Wikipedia is an ignorant self-serving bureaucracy --- the nerve! after all of a bunch of Internet nerds daring to tell Roth how to interpret his own novel! --- when, let's be honest here, Wikipedia is probably rather more important than all of Roth's book's taken together.

tptacek 14y ago

That's not the general assertion the article makes. Roth complained about an interpretation of _The Human Stain_ that had been made in numerous extremely reputable secondary sources, despite the fact that the article included a recitation of Roth's own intent. That's the core argument beneath the rant. Is that argument _wrong_? If not, it seems pretty compelling, regardless of how the rant itself is written. Facts don't become not facts simply because they're written hyperbolically.

niels_olson 14y ago
I will agree that was the core argument, the line of dissent, I called it. But I don't think that is the reason he wrote the article, nor the reason for the shrill tone. He's pissed that someone with more public influence took their gripe to a larger public forum. In calmer waters, Oliver would express complete willingness to educate Roth, and his biographer, on Wikipedia policies. But my sense is that, like many domain experts, especially in subjects further from hard science, for Oliver bucking the established order is to be met with only the fiercest rebuke.
- tptacek 14y ago
  I don't have much to say about his tone ("drops mic" and all that). But the core issue here, just to make it very clear: Roth disagreed with a critical interpretation of _The Human Stain_ (albeit an interpretation that was grounded in fact --- "which acquaintance of Roth was the story inspired by"), and felt that his standing as the book's author gave him the authority to demand the removal of that interpretation from the encyclopedia. I respectfully submit that you don't have to be a rules lawyer to accept the encyclopedia's refusal to do that.
  - niels_olson 14y ago
    Ok, FWIW, I have over 1000 wikipedia edits, run multiple mediawiki wikis, have started a number of articles on the English wikipedia, and am currently in a minor dispute about a template merger. My nephrology professor said there are two camps: the clumpers and splitters. While there may be some rules-based reason to make a distinction between the plights of Professor Messer-Kruse and Philip Roth, I think that to the first order they are both aggrieved experts outside the social circles of Wikipedia. To the second order, they both have a misunderstanding of Wikipedia's rules. To the third order, it appears the Wikipedia admins are not without fault in their willingness to move goalposts and parse ever further into a seemingly bottomless list of rules. To the fourth order, we are all enjoying a fair bit of hindsight: it probably wasn't so clear to anyone at the time Roth sat down to type this out. I'm not disagreeing with you. My only point was that what Roth did passes the common sense test every bit as much as what the Wikipedians did, regardless of how much the Wikipedia admins may chafe under the pressure of someone bringing external pressure to their kingdom.
    - tptacek 14y ago
      As regards Wikipedia you and I are probably more alike than not: we've both got 1000-2000 WP edits, we're both subject matter experts: myself in the gritty details of a corner of vulnerability research, you in medicine. And we were both frustrated by the manner in which Wikipedia integrates or, more likely, fails to integrate expert contributions. (Obviously, we're not the only ones frustrated about this, as this exact issue was why Larry Sanger split off from Wikipedia to create a competing projects which, as we all know, failed). But I believe two things at the same time: Wikipedia has a problem with rules-lawyering insiders pushing away expert contributions, and that the Roth incident isn't one of those cases. And I think I sympathize with Wikipedians at being pilloried in the New Yorker for (it seems) doing everything right. We can safely assume that 99.9% of the readers of Roth's "letter to the editor" will take away from it the idea that Wikipedia is an ignorant self-serving bureaucracy --- the nerve! after all of a bunch of Internet nerds daring to tell Roth how to interpret his own novel! --- when, let's be honest here, Wikipedia is probably rather more important than all of Roth's book's taken together.