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Wikipedia editing rules in a nutshell
- tokenadult 11y agoI read this brief article in question-and-answer format (not actually an interview) immediately after it was kindly submitted here. I was editing Wikipedia and reading Wikipedia dispute resolution forum pages just before coming to Hacker News today. The last Q and A paragraph of this article sums up the truth about Wikipedia: "So how does Wikipedia stop repeat 'sock puppet' offenders? "Someone going to great lengths to hide their IP address is sometimes enough to arouse suspicion amongst the site's administrators. And patterns of behaviour - from the adoption of similar usernames to a focus on specific topics and types of edit - can reveal a lot about motivations and personality. Multiple accounts can often be tracked to one individual - we're never as anonymous as we like to believe. But any open and collaborative system will always be open to abuse." Translated into English, Wikipedia has no effective defense against persistent socks, who waste a lot of the time of other Wikipedians. That is my experience as a Wikipedian who has brought two high-page-view articles up to good article status. (In other words, I have won two "Million Award" recognitions on Wikipedia.) It's an ongoing slog to improve article content on Wikipedia. The operative rule is anyone can edit.