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From a brief skim, the list includes pretty much all active Arbitration Enforcement (AE) admins. For those not in the loop, AE is the main mechanism to enforce

From a brief skim, the list includes pretty much all active Arbitration Enforcement (AE) admins. For those not in the loop, AE is the main mechanism to enforce civility and neutrality in contentious areas (obvious stuff like Israel-Palestine, American Politics, but also India-Pakistan, casteism, etc etc). It removes editors that are obviously only on the site to astroturf a specific belief relating to a globally controversial topic. This requires painstaking review of one's conduct and is the main reason Wikipedia is not astroturfed in the same way Reddit or other discussion forums are. If the strike goes forward, Wikipedia will have a massive realignment towards whatever political groups can amass the most accounts agreeing with them. Grokipedia would unironically become more neutral in a year.

Pay08 4mo ago
[flagged]
- nvme0n1p1 4mo ago
  Considering Wikipedia has remained high quality for so long, you're going to have to expand on this. As is, it exudes the same naivety as "the building hasn't gotten robbed, so why are we spending money on security?"
  - hulitu 4mo ago
    > remained high quality That was ten years ago. Now, political stuff (countries articles for example) is biased. It really looks like CIA fact book.
    - fsflover 4mo ago
      Links?
- HerbManic 4mo ago
  It is probably one of those things, once they are gone you will see just how effective they were.
  - vintermann 4mo ago
    I'm sure they're effective at maintaining the appearance of objectivity, so I agree that things will look terribly biased if they take a collective leave. That it will actually be worse on contentious topics, I'm not so sure if. My assumption for Wikipedia on any contentious topic, is that professionals have been gaming the system for so long that you're going to see very competent propaganda. Basically I think it's good if people stop trusting Wikipedia on contentious topics.
    - fsflover 4mo ago
      > Basically I think it's good if people stop trusting Wikipedia on contentious topics. Why? Is there a better source of information for those not able to spend years following all news from all sides?
      - vintermann 4mo ago
        No. So if you're OK with having the most respectable wrong beliefs about a contentious topic, go for it. It's basically the political equivalent of "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM".
        fsflover 4mo ago
        Please provide examples for "the most respectable wrong beliefs". Do you consider, e.g., the climate crisis as one?
        vintermann 4mo ago
        Yes. It's a contentious topic. It shouldn't be a contentious topic, but it is. If you decide to go with the Wikipedia "nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM" opinion on climate, you won't be well-informed. For that you'll have to do a lot more of that reading you don't have time for. But as it happens, you'll be on the whole right, because (last time I checked) the people trying to deny the climate crisis on Wikipedia weren't very successful. It's such an old "dispute", I think Wikipedia may have developed antibodies so to speak, before manipulation could get really competent. The scary topics are the ones we don't know are contentious. I couldn't give you examples of those, obviously.
vintermann 4mo ago
Astroturf is not the right word, because appearing to be grassroots isn't how you sell your perspective on Wikipedia. Most of the people stopped from editing contentious topics on Wikipedia are in all likelihood more sincere about their beliefs than average. The more organized and professional they are about shilling, the better they do.
- Wikipedianon 4mo ago
  > The more organized and professional they are about shilling, the better they do. This is incorrect. Shills do well when they contribute outside of the topic area, memorize wiki-law, and only coordinate to !vote in contentious high-impact discussions. e.g. requested moves, reliable sources noticeboard discussions, and RfCs. They are seen as "normal" Wikipedia editors. Professionally organized shills are unable to do this since they must ensure most of their time is "on-task" meeting a comment/karma/etc qutoa and find it difficult to justify doing non-shilling work. This works well on sites like Reddit or HackerNews. It does not work on Wikipedia. For starters, discussion outcomes are moderated and closers do not count votes. Closers look at your history and assign lower weight to editors that appear only to be interested in a particular area. Other mechanisms include a 500 edit minimum for certain areas + a "balanced editing restriction" (maintained by Tamzin, the same person starting the strike) which tracks %age of edits by subject area and can impose a maximum of 30% in the contentious subject. Trying to skate under these bare minimums is similar to avoiding money-laundering by making many cash deposits of $9999. You'll be taken to Arbitration Enforcement and look even more suspicious. You need someone who'll can non-professionally shoot-the-shit at random hours to maintain the cover story despite it not being a clear requirement. Currently, the best shill-farm is run by the /r/Palestine subreddit. If you join their Discord, you can participate yourself! https://discord.com/invite/hhsG4QTf9n https://discord.com/invite/hhsG4QTf9n Essentially, you're given free rein to edit as you see fit with an encouragement to make many uncontroversial edits & befriend normal editors. You do not know who else is part of the project and do not interact with them on Discord. It is very antisocial in that sense. You are only "activated" by the Discord mod through direct messages to !vote in high-impact RfCs/discussions, e.g. officially recognizing the Gaza Genocide. This avoids creating a clear paper trail of collusion and means it's difficult for someone to infiltrate/burn the network. It's also incompatible with the micromanagement typical of traditional influence operations. It's been going on for a few years now as a continuation of other farms. It's one of the main reasons there's been such a slant towards Palestine onwiki lately. Yes, it's been reported many times by many people. It is an open secret at this point and Arbitration has failed at actioning this. So far, the only people who have been banned were the ones dumb enough to re-use the same username on Discord as Wikipedia, so now you get a warning not to do that during onboarding. Otherwise, it's too difficult to prove participation.

Pay08 4mo ago

[flagged]

nvme0n1p1 4mo ago
Considering Wikipedia has remained high quality for so long, you're going to have to expand on this. As is, it exudes the same naivety as "the building hasn't gotten robbed, so why are we spending money on security?"
- hulitu 4mo ago
  > remained high quality That was ten years ago. Now, political stuff (countries articles for example) is biased. It really looks like CIA fact book.
  - fsflover 4mo ago
    Links?
HerbManic 4mo ago
It is probably one of those things, once they are gone you will see just how effective they were.
- vintermann 4mo ago
  I'm sure they're effective at maintaining the appearance of objectivity, so I agree that things will look terribly biased if they take a collective leave. That it will actually be worse on contentious topics, I'm not so sure if. My assumption for Wikipedia on any contentious topic, is that professionals have been gaming the system for so long that you're going to see very competent propaganda. Basically I think it's good if people stop trusting Wikipedia on contentious topics.
  - fsflover 4mo ago
    > Basically I think it's good if people stop trusting Wikipedia on contentious topics. Why? Is there a better source of information for those not able to spend years following all news from all sides?
    - vintermann 4mo ago
      No. So if you're OK with having the most respectable wrong beliefs about a contentious topic, go for it. It's basically the political equivalent of "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM".
      - fsflover 4mo ago
        Please provide examples for "the most respectable wrong beliefs". Do you consider, e.g., the climate crisis as one?
        vintermann 4mo ago
        Yes. It's a contentious topic. It shouldn't be a contentious topic, but it is. If you decide to go with the Wikipedia "nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM" opinion on climate, you won't be well-informed. For that you'll have to do a lot more of that reading you don't have time for. But as it happens, you'll be on the whole right, because (last time I checked) the people trying to deny the climate crisis on Wikipedia weren't very successful. It's such an old "dispute", I think Wikipedia may have developed antibodies so to speak, before manipulation could get really competent. The scary topics are the ones we don't know are contentious. I couldn't give you examples of those, obviously.

vintermann 4mo ago

Astroturf is not the right word, because appearing to be grassroots isn't how you sell your perspective on Wikipedia. Most of the people stopped from editing contentious topics on Wikipedia are in all likelihood more sincere about their beliefs than average. The more organized and professional they are about shilling, the better they do.

Wikipedianon 4mo ago
> The more organized and professional they are about shilling, the better they do. This is incorrect. Shills do well when they contribute outside of the topic area, memorize wiki-law, and only coordinate to !vote in contentious high-impact discussions. e.g. requested moves, reliable sources noticeboard discussions, and RfCs. They are seen as "normal" Wikipedia editors. Professionally organized shills are unable to do this since they must ensure most of their time is "on-task" meeting a comment/karma/etc qutoa and find it difficult to justify doing non-shilling work. This works well on sites like Reddit or HackerNews. It does not work on Wikipedia. For starters, discussion outcomes are moderated and closers do not count votes. Closers look at your history and assign lower weight to editors that appear only to be interested in a particular area. Other mechanisms include a 500 edit minimum for certain areas + a "balanced editing restriction" (maintained by Tamzin, the same person starting the strike) which tracks %age of edits by subject area and can impose a maximum of 30% in the contentious subject. Trying to skate under these bare minimums is similar to avoiding money-laundering by making many cash deposits of $9999. You'll be taken to Arbitration Enforcement and look even more suspicious. You need someone who'll can non-professionally shoot-the-shit at random hours to maintain the cover story despite it not being a clear requirement. Currently, the best shill-farm is run by the /r/Palestine subreddit. If you join their Discord, you can participate yourself! https://discord.com/invite/hhsG4QTf9n https://discord.com/invite/hhsG4QTf9n Essentially, you're given free rein to edit as you see fit with an encouragement to make many uncontroversial edits & befriend normal editors. You do not know who else is part of the project and do not interact with them on Discord. It is very antisocial in that sense. You are only "activated" by the Discord mod through direct messages to !vote in high-impact RfCs/discussions, e.g. officially recognizing the Gaza Genocide. This avoids creating a clear paper trail of collusion and means it's difficult for someone to infiltrate/burn the network. It's also incompatible with the micromanagement typical of traditional influence operations. It's been going on for a few years now as a continuation of other farms. It's one of the main reasons there's been such a slant towards Palestine onwiki lately. Yes, it's been reported many times by many people. It is an open secret at this point and Arbitration has failed at actioning this. So far, the only people who have been banned were the ones dumb enough to re-use the same username on Discord as Wikipedia, so now you get a warning not to do that during onboarding. Otherwise, it's too difficult to prove participation.