"Meet the Wikipedia editors fighting to keep coronavirus pages accurate"

Because no one else is doing it--not even the media.
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ericbarbour
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"Meet the Wikipedia editors fighting to keep coronavirus pages accurate"

Post by ericbarbour » Wed Mar 25, 2020 9:20 am

https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikipedi ... irus-page/

Look at Dekimasu sometime. Extremely secretive administrator since 2007--started on Wp in 2006 blathering about the Bleach manga/anime.

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Re: "Meet the Wikipedia editors fighting to keep coronavirus pages accurate"

Post by Abd » Wed Mar 25, 2020 4:00 pm

Not a bad article. "Accurate" is a bit misleading. True to source and not using unverified primary source would be more
"accurate" as to what would be within policy, as well as keeping out original research and synthesis. The Wikipedia problem is mostly about biased or simply poor enforcement of policies.

Dekimasu is possibly Japanese. Time zone is either US ET [could also be Brazil) or CT or Japan, most likely. So the user, claimed to be a professor in the article, moves around some. It's plausible. I had extensive interaction with James Heilman (Doc James). Generally a good guy, was not yet a licensed physician when I first knew him, but apparently became so.

However, there is a limit to what expert editors can do. The project did not create reliable structure, the very concept of reliability is "un-Wikipedian." No responsibility equals no reliability. In spite of the adhocracy working to quickly create a project, it could never make it reliable, or not without much more sophisticated structure, which has always been rejected.

I looked at Bleach (manga) . It absolutely sucks to have super-powers in high school. Eric, one of the factions I first tangled with on Wikipedia was the fancruft deletionists, who were willing to sock and generally create extensive disruption in order to delete "fancruft." My God, effing priorities! In any case, Dekimasu clearly was knowledgeable about the manga series and was able to handle Japanese sources. I suspect high school age or early twenties.

Not a bad start, began doing quasi-admin wikignoming early on, made newbie errors and fixed them.

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Re: "Meet the Wikipedia editors fighting to keep coronavirus pages accurate"

Post by ericbarbour » Wed Apr 08, 2020 9:20 pm

The joke continues. I warned you that many journalists love Wikipedia and are willing to give the WMF and its internal trolls "special treatment". This looks like a teen-magazine profile of Maher. She's a bit old to play this game. DISGUSTING.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/ ... infodemic/

WIRED ran a charming buttlick of Heilman.
https://www.wired.com/story/how-wikiped ... formation/

Today, Haaretz joined in (and talks lovingly about Shani Sigalov, recently elected to the Board of Trustees, longtime big-shot on the Hebrew Wikipedia)
https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premiu ... -1.8751147

Slate also
https://slate.com/technology/2020/03/co ... icies.html
While Wikipedia is not generally thought of as a source for breaking news, it is enjoying a prolonged period of favorable press coverage. Especially since 2016, journalists have been praising the site’s editors for their efforts to fend off lies and misinformation on the web. In a feature article for Fast Company earlier this month, Alex Pasternack praised the encyclopedia’s volunteers as “good-hearted people who care about a shared reality” and “defeat[ing] all the b.s. out there.”
No wonder a book about Wikipedia's deranged internal culture was a failure. I can picture journalists reading the MS, covering their eyes, and screaming "REEEEEEREEEEE".

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