Re: Paid Editing on WP is permissible

[wexter]

Here is "one for the books" of paid editing.. I think a record in paid editing was set;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Terrence_A._Duffy

[ericbarbour]

Here is "one for the books" of paid editing.. I think a record in paid editing was set;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Terrence_A._Duffy

Have you seen that IP's talkpage?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:71.203.10.104

In order:
*He bitched about Duffy's article AND many of the revisions were rev-deleted;
*then claimed that any links to 8chan/8kun were "child pornography";
*then made weirdly random edits to articles like "Propane";
*tried to get Stefan Molyneux deleted or chopped down, claiming he "didn't matter anymore" or something;
*fought like crazy over Robert W. Malone;
*and was finally blocked over the Gonzalo Lira article. Which you complained about here, last year.

And as usual.....the WP admins are mishandling the lunatic.

Wait up, that's YOU. Isn't it? Do you have any idea how bad this makes you look?

[wexter]

Wait up, that's YOU. Isn't it? Do you have any idea how bad this makes you look?

lol; I am about to be scooped up by the Wikipedia police, or the white icecream truck with the spinning red light, any minute now.

Or, I could just put "tits" on 200,000 Wikipedia articles... for my own reasons. Essentially, any person editing Wikipedia is putting random stuff on the wall to pursue an objective, for reasons, or to self validate.

Throwing monkey wrenches, especially the left-handed variety, will be met with an army of industrious Wikipedians working diligently to preserve abject nonsense.

Why do I "hate" Wikipedia so much?

1) It's a way for the unscrupulous to set a narrative, or become the narrative
2) Its generally believed by a majority of people as being an authoritative source of information
3) The information on the site is mostly (entirely) wrong
4) The whole package is a dissonance engine
5) The site uses "slave labor" but its really big business
6) The site is irreformable - even at an entry to entry basis (WMF note below; I think they realize something is wrong, big time)
7) The site is just like everything else on the Internet

Let's say you took a cooperative tack with the Wikipedia platform what would you learn;


1) You would find most every entry you looked at is wrong (or utter nonsense), nothing new
2) You would know more about the automated tools
3) As long as you are not a disruptor you could do whatever you wanted to do on the platform. Disruption could be anything from finding facts, questioning a long-timer, editing the wrong article, using an IP address, trying to get folks to think about something
4) In very short order you can obtain the keys to the car including the use of automated tools;
----500 edits + 1 month, 500 edits, + 5 Months and then you have access to "online journals"
----You don't need admin rights to influence the platform or press an objective
----Barriers are very very low
----You could rub shoulders with some WS "known offenders and admins" <-that is where the real juice on the platform is derived
5) Older vintage stuff 2006-8 was not as "evil" as it is today, it was mostly "joke" quality stuff (as experts had fled by that time)
6) Lots of folks have been captured by the platform to be spit out later
7) Unverified editing (with an IP or MAC) cannot be done
8) "Not all animals are equal"
9) There is a greater connection between WFM and Wikipedia's operation than meets the eye You can reach out to WMF with the right approach.
10) Knowing the players is of great advantage as everything is personal (which is not good)
11) Folks with self driven articles that never belonged on Wikipedia can turn from darlings to being lambasted
12) Folks that get press as Wikipedians are disruptors (they really don't like "poster childs")

Two top takeaways;
Low barriers to entry for getting trust on the platform was most telling; The WMF reaching into Wikipedia, or influencing the platform from the side, is also telling; they are not worrying about liability but instead are concerned about continuity (with the platform at a low inflection point) . I think WMF knows, on an executive level, that the site needs reform as something is seriously wrong.

User generated content is in a downward spiral, wikipedia is good compared to tic-tok for instance

EB: Why do you hate Wikipedia so much?

(having looked at Wikipedia through the looking glass. - your interviews - just looking for 3-5 bullet points that sum it up)

PS; you had quite a bit of support from folks that realized something at Wikipedia was fatally-off

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... ricBarbour

and the complaint makes for some hilarious reading "I have no opinion on this issue, but I must say, I couldn't help laughing at "buttsnorkels." That has to be about the most creative insult I've seen used"

You did offer solutions for BLP, anonymity, jettisoning Wales, administrator qualifications etc that did not go over well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:EricBarbour

[ericbarbour]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_Rocket

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... ions/Fgphd

[ericbarbour]

True fact: you're not allowed to use the term "show us your tits" on Facebook.....

Mentioned the Mark Levinson article before. Someone finally removed a pile of crap in 2019 but it still looks like an ego stroke. Something Levinson would love. I've dealt with him in person and found him to be a raging narcissist--like most makers of "high-end" audio gear. Hope he got his money's worth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... s/Plangenf
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Spec ... s/Plangenf

[badmachine]

Kayden Coleman: internet tranny and butthurt fatass.

appears to be largely written by Freyralraune. i expect the article to disappear now that Kiwi Farms has found this person.

(edited)

[ericbarbour]

Freyralraune is alsmot certainly Coleman himself, or the partner thereof, or a close friend. Too many close personal details. That article really should be tagged--extremely blatant abuse. I would not wish abuse on KF on anyone, but this is just flat-out disgusting.

Speaking of disgusting:

Andy Baio is still an unimportant nerdo blogger.

And his WP article was mostly the work of Neil Kandalgaonkar, aka Flipzagging, a former WMF employee who has spent time venerating minor "digital friends" who support the WMF publicly. People like Baio (and Baio's stupid projects like Upcoming), Jason Scott who works at the WMF-friendly Internet Archive, plus John Resig.

And Slack for some reason. All the articles associated with Slack show traces of paid editing. This guy, former founder of Metafilter and current Slack employee, has been doing some of it--not very quietly. For extra non-credit, find some of Haughey's undeclared WP sockpuppet accounts. (As I explained on the Wikipediocracy blog long ago, HIS article was created for him by his Metafilter buddies. Also never tagged for COI.)

[YesOhMy]

AJFU's first article submission was the "Vacation Villager" on May 28, 2015. Review the history. Who was first editor June 3, 2015? Vegaswikian.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... on=history

Today I stumbled over yet ANOTHER editor fiddling with Las Vegas casino articles in a manner which is questionable. A Jurassic Park fanboy who diddles Las Vegas articles as a "sideline".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:AJFU

Why do I say this? Because AJFU absolutely HATES the Aztec Inn, a very minor, old, run-down hotel/casino on the worst part of the Strip. Most such places usually don't get or deserve a Wikipedia article. But the Aztec Inn's owners had a stupid dispute with the late Bob Stupak, builder of the gigantic Strat resort across the street from the Aztec. Over a parking lot. (Stupak was a "local legend". Went around bragging about his 9th-grade education and his success in spite of it. Compared himself to Donald Trump many times. The street at that corner is now called "Bob Stupak Avenue". Vegas is even more crass and corrupt than you might realize.) And since 2016 AJFU has gone to considerable lengths to use Wikipedia as a defamation platform, making the Aztec's article as negative as possible. While also editing the Strat's article, adding only positives. A LOT of them.

You may remember my past comments on WR and Wikipediocracy about "Vegaswikian", an administrator who openly controlled the WP content for McCarran International Airport, the Las Vegas Strip, and various major Las Vegas properties. I never saw Vegaswikian add unpleasant or negative information to any of the Vegas-related articles he monitored. In 2015 Vegaswikian abruptly disappeared and was desysopped. (AJFU showed up in September 2014, around the time of the Rawson-Neal scandal. How "convenient".)

As I said on WPO in October 2014, just a few months before he disappeared:

"Vegaswikian is responsible for Rawson-Neal Hospital, a pathetically short article with little detail for the only public psychiatric hospital in the state of Nevada and one of that city's biggest recent embarrassments. The two Sacramento Bee reporters who broke the story were finalists for a Pulitzer Prize this year. You won't find a link to their story series on Wikipedia. Nor will you find anything comparable about Rawson-Neal in Las Vegas news media, which is typical of that town. Rawson-Neal, and the now-closed county clinic that preceded it, were famous for being the "dumping grounds" for tourists who had breakdowns in casinos while gambling, a subject the casinos would like very much to keep quiet. This explains why Rawson-Neal was also "dumping" discharged patients in other cities, a commonplace and time-honored practice in Western cities."

Years after Vegaswikian disappeared, an IP address added a long section about the scandal. And THIS time, Vegaswikian wasn't there to revert it. Yet it's still a shit article.

Is AJFU just Vegaswikian's sockpuppet? Are these people being paid by someone in Vegas business circles to heel Wikipedia? You're not supposed to ask questions, you're supposed to feel the Wiki-Luv!

[sashi]

I have what seems to me a credible report that you have been recommending to people that they use WikiExperts. Is this true?

The report I have is that you contacted someone through Whatsapp to recommend WikiExperts, who then charged someone $15,000 for an article in Wikipedia. I am asking you because if so, then you definitely should not be an admin in English Wikipedia. If it is a lie, then fine. But please tell me the truth. Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:15, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

source

h/t Charliebware @ WPO. (geeks may admire the syntax of the link)

[Bbb23sucks]

I have what seems to me a credible report that you have been recommending to people that they use WikiExperts. Is this true?

The report I have is that you contacted someone through Whatsapp to recommend WikiExperts, who then charged someone $15,000 for an article in Wikipedia. I am asking you because if so, then you definitely should not be an admin in English Wikipedia. If it is a lie, then fine. But please tell me the truth. Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:15, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

source

h/t Charliebware @ WPO. (geeks may admire the syntax of the link)

Archived, before they oversight it.

Wonderful to see King For Life Wales meddling in volunteer operations with evidence-free allegations of off-wiki activities, provided with no details, tossed in to start a lynching bonfire. Disgusting. Resign Jimbo. Carrite (talk) 00:14, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

WOW. That reminds me of the recent Miraheze drama that I have been wanting to post about. I will also post about that soon.

Edit: Second (updated) archive