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Wikipedia has always had problems with vandalism, though it has always mostly been adept to fighting it. There's been infamous high-profile cases such as John S

Wikipedia has always had problems with vandalism, though it has always mostly been adept to fighting it. There's been infamous high-profile cases such as John Seigenthaler being implied in JFK and RFK's assassinations, Bertrand Meyer (of Eiffel fame) having his death faked, Willy on Wheels using automated scripts to conduct mass article redirections and other shenanigans, a made up Polish historical figure receiving mainstream coverage, and other examples. I don't see why some instances of vandalism that are puerile but directed towards certain women imply a downfall of Wikipedia just like that, especially when the author is so disjointed and unable to provide concrete data. This analysis seems awfully selective.

jarcane 12y ago
The problem, as detailed quite extensively in the other articles in the series, is that this isn't simply vandalism. It's calculated and organized action, explicitly aimed at manipulating Wiki's hopelessly bureaucratic and clueless system. This isn't just some dork defacing a page, it's a whole virtual platoon of really hateful people playing at false good faith just long enough to keep their libels active almost perpetually, while tarring anyone who actually questions them as obstructionist. The worst thing is, I'm ultimately not at all surprised. I stopped even attempting to edit anything on Wiki almost a decade ago, because the system was as hopelessly broken then as it is now. The site is, ultimately, run by a lot of amateur bureaucrats who're more interested in the fantasy than the reality of the system they've concocted. Yes, it mostly works, but it's more or less constructed to make actual good faith efforts to correct the site an uphill battle for anything but trivialities, while making it easy for local tribalism and policy to be used as a tool for nutjobs and fantasists to keep their version of 'wikiality' on the front page of Google for another day.
tptacek 12y ago
An irony here is that some of the WP policies most hated among outsiders --- particularly in the nerd community --- stem from one of its oldest principles, WP:BLP, or "Biographies Of Living Persons". BLP is all about preventing stuff like MRA trolling or bogus accusations against Seigenthaler. It's also one of the major reasons for "deletionism".

jarcane 12y ago

The problem, as detailed quite extensively in the other articles in the series, is that this isn't simply vandalism. It's calculated and organized action, explicitly aimed at manipulating Wiki's hopelessly bureaucratic and clueless system. This isn't just some dork defacing a page, it's a whole virtual platoon of really hateful people playing at false good faith just long enough to keep their libels active almost perpetually, while tarring anyone who actually questions them as obstructionist. The worst thing is, I'm ultimately not at all surprised. I stopped even attempting to edit anything on Wiki almost a decade ago, because the system was as hopelessly broken then as it is now. The site is, ultimately, run by a lot of amateur bureaucrats who're more interested in the fantasy than the reality of the system they've concocted. Yes, it mostly works, but it's more or less constructed to make actual good faith efforts to correct the site an uphill battle for anything but trivialities, while making it easy for local tribalism and policy to be used as a tool for nutjobs and fantasists to keep their version of 'wikiality' on the front page of Google for another day.

tptacek 12y ago

An irony here is that some of the WP policies most hated among outsiders --- particularly in the nerd community --- stem from one of its oldest principles, WP:BLP, or "Biographies Of Living Persons". BLP is all about preventing stuff like MRA trolling or bogus accusations against Seigenthaler. It's also one of the major reasons for "deletionism".