4 ms·

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 mino

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.
- niels_olson 14y ago
  At this point I'm not sure if I'm supposed to keep arguing, offer to have you over for beers, or both.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    STRONGLY PREFER BEERS.
    - niels_olson 14y ago
      I live roughly equidistant to most of the best breweries in San Diego, let me know if you're headed to town.

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.

niels_olson 14y ago
At this point I'm not sure if I'm supposed to keep arguing, offer to have you over for beers, or both.
- tptacek 14y ago
  STRONGLY PREFER BEERS.
  - niels_olson 14y ago
    I live roughly equidistant to most of the best breweries in San Diego, let me know if you're headed to town.