A magazine editor is interested in a Wikipedia-critical piece

[journo]

I was approached years ago by a magazine editor to write or participate in a Wikipedia critical piece, but it got shelved for random reasons.

This year, the article idea was again revived.
I finished about half the article yesterday but I'm finding it too stressful as I have too much proximity to Wikipedia for my own tastes.

If anyone else wants to write it instead, from scratch, I can pass the baton and the editor will probably let you publish it under whatever name or alias you want. I just want to stay completely out of it honestly because I have other things I should be focusing on.

It's a pretty small outlet but I think any reporting is good and I trust many people here to do it if they want. I have no financial connections to the magazine, nor is this to fullfill a contract. The editor just thinks there aren't enough good Wikipedia critical pieces out there, and I agree.

Also this forum, including Barbour are under-represented in Wikipedia critical pieces for the sheer work they've done.

tl;dr if you wanna write a Wikipedia critical piece in an online magazine, DM me and I can probably help set it up, but please don't doxx people in it if you end up doing it, as Wikipedia has a hate boner about this forum.

[Ognistysztorm]

I was approached years ago by a magazine editor to write or participate in a Wikipedia critical piece, but it got shelved for random reasons.

This year, the article idea was again revived.
I finished about half the article yesterday but I'm finding it too stressful as I have too much proximity to Wikipedia for my own tastes.

If anyone else wants to write it instead, from scratch, I can pass the baton and the editor will probably let you publish it under whatever name or alias you want. I just want to stay completely out of it honestly because I have other things I should be focusing on.

It's a pretty small outlet but I think any reporting is good and I trust many people here to do it if they want. I have no financial connections to the magazine, nor is this to fullfill a contract. The editor just thinks there aren't enough good Wikipedia critical pieces out there, and I agree.

Also this forum, including Barbour are under-represented in Wikipedia critical pieces for the sheer work they've done.

tl;dr if you wanna write a Wikipedia critical piece in an online magazine, DM me and I can probably help set it up, but please don't doxx people in it if you end up doing it, as Wikipedia has a hate boner about this forum.

Can the piece be written by multiple people? Is the online magazine reputable enough? What if Jennsaurus put something that hints to a hidden serious scandal in Wikipedia but stopped short of doxxing, as if they are a sneek peek?

I suggest using etherpads if there are more than one writer who want to participate.

[ericbarbour]

I was approached years ago by a magazine editor to write or participate in a Wikipedia critical piece, but it got shelved for random reasons.

I've been contacted by a couple of publications about Wp criticism. In both cases they turned out to be right-wing "astroturf" operations with very few actual readers. The political right has both money and a desire to knock on WP for their own political reasons; they couldn't give a damn about its bad content generally, or the crazy governance.

tl;dr if you wanna write a Wikipedia critical piece in an online magazine, DM me and I can probably help set it up, but please don't doxx people in it if you end up doing it, as Wikipedia has a hate boner about this forum.

And I would say, go ahead and dox WP insiders IF there is a good reason to point out their hypocrisy or corruption. Wikipedia cultists have a hate-boner for anything and anyone that doesn't kiss their fat little asses. Any serious publication that runs an article that's less than adulatory about Wikipedia becomes the target of drive-by abusive editing and hand-wringing on WP noticeboards.

The Register spent 10 years abusing WP and paid a price for it. I could post 50 old noticeboard comments openly shitting on Cade Metz, one of the authors of those Register articles. Ugly things have been done to the WP bio of Andrew Orlowski, another Register writer who has been criticizing Wikipedia for 15+ years. Andreas Kolbe ended up completely revamping it.

And when the Qworty story broke in Slate in 2013, there was serious talk about adding Slate to their "spam blacklist", AND they abused the journalists involved, Amanda Filipacci and Andrew Leonard. Wikipedians were protecting and supporting Qworty until the news coverage became too embarrassing. This might explain why Slate currently gives column space to Stephen Harrison, an openly Wiki-friendly writer. They don't want any more Wiki-Abuse.

https://www.salon.com/2013/04/29/wikipedias_shame/
https://www.salon.com/2013/05/17/reveng ... wikipedia/
https://www.salon.com/2013/05/21/wikipe ... _its_mess/

[journo]

Is the online magazine reputable enough? What if Jennsaurus put something that hints to a hidden serious scandal in Wikipedia but stopped short of doxxing, as if they are a sneek peek?

It's run by a former Vice journalist who says he stopped getting tons of pussy after Vice became no longer popular. He started a separate site. He's a pretty chill guy.

They host a lot of vaguely right-wing content, but some left wing content. I think they self-advertize as a slightly social conservative outlet, but I'm not personally a social conservative or a right-winger. The outlet reads like a 4chan version of early Vice, but without the investigative reporting.

Some of their articles have a lot of readers, particularly the ones about celebrities or sex. The rest of the articles don't seem to have many readers.

[Ognistysztorm]

Is the online magazine reputable enough? What if Jennsaurus put something that hints to a hidden serious scandal in Wikipedia but stopped short of doxxing, as if they are a sneek peek?

It's run by a former Vice journalist who stopped getting pussy after Vice became no longer popular.

They host a lot of vaguely right-wing content, but some left wing content. I think they self-advertize as a slightly social conservative outlet, but I'm not personally a social conservative. The outlet reads like a 4chan version of early Vice, but without the investigative reporting.

Some of their articles have a lot of readers, particularly the ones about celebrities or sex. The rest of the articles don't seem to have many readers.

Actually there was a public domain piece written by a rando against Wikipedia that I've now forwarded into your inbox. To save time we can use it as a baseline and focus on refining its grammar and adding other details because it's written by a non-English speaker at a glance.

[ericbarbour]

It's run by a former Vice journalist who says he stopped getting tons of pussy after Vice became no longer popular.

lol

[journo]

Zach the editor isn't an unattractive guy. I say this as a heterosexual man.

I think that he just had women 'on tap' as it were during VIce's heyday. And like some former 80s rock musicians, he is whistful about days of yore.

Zach is also pretty chill, the Wikipedia-critical article idea was originally his idea.

Anyone can contact him at https://discord.gg/uTA8U626yw in real time. They are pretty friendly.

[Ognistysztorm]

Zach the editor isn't an unattractive guy. I say this as a heterosexual man.

I think that he just had women 'on tap' as it were during VIce's heyday. And like some former 80s rock musicians, he is whistful about days of yore.

Zach is also pretty chill, the Wikipedia-critical article idea was originally his idea.

Anyone can contact him at https://discord.gg/uTA8U626yw in real time. They are pretty friendly.

So we got a platform to finally write pieces that reveals darker aspects of Wikipedia. But the problem is when it is published, what about the reach? I can think of a few news subreddits like /r/inthenews but I'm afraid that people there could still find reason to dismiss it as alt right or Nazi, even when Reddit and some others are literally the front page of the internet these days where they are the only places to make stories go viral.

Unless, by luck, we get some partners within disadvantaged communities such as indigenous or native Americans, which indeed has already happened when Wikipedia recently wronged the native activist @WolvesoftheWes1 with standard ban-happy and newcomer biting shenanigans. I don't have idea on their community networks, let alone the question on whether it can be syndicated to their local newspapers since I plan to include breadcrumbs about a particular serious but hidden scandal in Wikipedia.

[Ognistysztorm]

It's run by a former Vice journalist who says he stopped getting tons of pussy after Vice became no longer popular.

lol

Can I help you and journo on working on the critical piece? My focus will be on Wikipedia's privacy law violations in the form of treatments against "violators" and perhaps slip in one or more breadcrumbs about a hidden serious scandal while stopping short of doxxing.

[journo]

Zach and Eric already have each others contact should either choose to further pursue it. I dropped my piece there indefinitely and don't have to do with whatever ends up coming out there as I decided to not be a part of it due to low stress tolerance and proximity to the subject.

This is only a small outlet so not worth a huge thread over. Should a more professional outlet reach out I'll also let know. Eric already says he gets contacted tho.