The biggest problems with Wikipedia Policies?

[Archer]

CambridgeBayWeather has been an administrator since 2005. His user page gives his name and date of birth in a roundabout fashion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... 7034#About
Alan Sim
born February 20 or February 27, 1944 or 1956 in Purley, UK
And links to his really lame website.
http://www.alansim.com
His earliest userpage says 1956.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... d=15217794
He says he is a weather observer in Kitikmeok region of Nunavut, hence the username..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitikmeot_Region
Here he is on the Ikaluktutiak fandom wiki.
https://ikaluktutiak.fandom.com/wiki/User:Alan_Sim
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/9edbe ... 135a6455b5
https://www.nunavutnews.com/nunavut-new ... ce-7278433

Well done. My question is: do the people in Cambridge Bay know that their DEA's director is spending an enormous amount of time fucking with people on Wikipedia? Running broadband to the high Arctic was a VERY costly endeavour and it's hilarious that the head of the school system in this extremely isolated town is using it to heel Wikipedia content and abuse Wp editors.

That story about the district's school bus just sitting, because they don't have the money to run it, makes one wonder what other questionable things are going on in the Cambridge Bay education system. And which ones are the doing of Alan Sim.

So many of these early insiders (Sim was sysopped 19 years ago and was a very early vandalism patroller) are getting OLD. His website is 20 years old and cringey; his WP history is obsessive/ADHD and focused on Canada; and I'm not sure he's really an "important figure" on WP. Never bothered to put him down for the book wiki.

But like the US Supreme Court, they don't leave until they physically can't do the job anymore.

Perhaps this belongs in BoredBird's thread though, if it isn't so much related to policy (beg pardon for missing the point if it is). While most of the policy critique here seems somewhat on point, the central feature of Wikipedia's policy, guidelines, and deceptive, "unofficial" (yet visibly-positioned and frequently-cited) essays is that, as a whole, it needlessly lends itself to abuse and undermines public participation, seemingly by design. It's vague and abstract whenever rights of users or responsibilities of authority are the subject, all the while making the false impression of a public, democratic organization that respects public democracy and the rights of editors. I find it hard to believe that such a policy could come about by accident, it's a common pattern throughout.

[Archer]

WP:AGF (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... good_faith)

If you wanted to encourage critical thinking and discourse, would you ever require (it's official policy and also part of the UCoC - they aren't "asking") editors or users to make an assumption that not only encourages complacence and credulity, but is often demonstrably false? Don't we all learn not to trust the intentions of strangers, particularly when instinct tells us otherwise? I could write much more about WP:AGF and I may add to this post, but I don't want to labor this very simple point. In summary, WP:AGF adversely conditions the user's expectations and also prohibits/chills discussion about the intentions of editors or the administration (which, far from giving outsiders the benefit of the doubt, seem to exploit or create opportunities to exclude them)[1]. I'd like to think most people at least perceive something faintly dubious or sinister about WP:AGF, even if they can't explain exactly what it is. Personally, I enjoy discourse much more than simply writing reviews or essays. If anyone wants to play the devil's advocate or has any comments about this policy, do feel free.

[1] For example (apropos policy), WP:NOCONFED seems to suggest that an expression of nostalgia for southern chivalry/honor or incredulity toward WP:NOCONFED's dubious claim that slavery was the only cause of the civil war (rather than a cause, in addition to tariffs) implies sympathy for the Atlantic slave trade and that such users should thus be "indefinitely blocked on sight". (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... te_beliefs). It would be rather an understatement to say that's quite a stretch.

[Archer]

The role of Google?

Without some form of external censorship, Wikipedia would not be able to maintain a favorable public image. It seems reasonable to assert that Google (and to a lesser extent other search engines) are in no small part responsible for the sorry condition of critical discourse on the internet. I googled "criticism of wikipedia", and of the ten results on the first page, seven were links to Wikipedia and the other three were toothless news articles. Incidentally, it seems that mainstream news articles (nearly all of which are bullshit in general) will show up in Google's search results regardless of the query one makes. Conversely, blogs and forums (outside a rather limited selection of terrible websites like twitter, reddit, quora, etc.) seem rather disfavored. I don't believe that the public is apathetic or cynical - the critic would have no power if the public simply didn't care at all. I hypothesize that Google imposes a furtive type of censorship by directing users toward a small set of (likewise 'managed') websites.

[Ognistysztorm]

The role of Google?

Without some form of external censorship, Wikipedia would not be able to maintain a favorable public image. It seems reasonable to assert that Google (and to a lesser extent other search engines) are in no small part responsible for the sorry condition of critical discourse on the internet. I googled "criticism of wikipedia", and of the ten results on the first page, seven were links to Wikipedia and the other three were toothless news articles. Incidentally, it seems that mainstream news articles (nearly all of which are bullshit in general) will show up in Google's search results regardless of the query one makes. Conversely, blogs and forums (outside a rather limited selection of terrible websites like twitter, reddit, quora, etc.) seem rather disfavored. I don't believe that the public is apathetic or cynical - the critic would have no power if the public simply didn't care at all. I hypothesize that Google imposes a furtive type of censorship by directing users toward a small set of (likewise 'managed') websites.

Google has been officially ruled as having an illegal monopoly on the search market.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/05/business ... index.html

[Archer]

The role of Google?

Without some form of external censorship, Wikipedia would not be able to maintain a favorable public image. It seems reasonable to assert that Google (and to a lesser extent other search engines) are in no small part responsible for the sorry condition of critical discourse on the internet. I googled "criticism of wikipedia", and of the ten results on the first page, seven were links to Wikipedia and the other three were toothless news articles. Incidentally, it seems that mainstream news articles (nearly all of which are bullshit in general) will show up in Google's search results regardless of the query one makes. Conversely, blogs and forums (outside a rather limited selection of terrible websites like twitter, reddit, quora, etc.) seem rather disfavored. I don't believe that the public is apathetic or cynical - the critic would have no power if the public simply didn't care at all. I hypothesize that Google imposes a furtive type of censorship by directing users toward a small set of (likewise 'managed') websites.

Google has been officially ruled as having an illegal monopoly on the search market.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/05/business ... index.html

There hardly seems to be any regulation against anti-competitive business strategies. In this case, the problem is not monopoly per se. Google, bing, duckduckgo, etc. all give you more or less the same type of search result, sampled from the same set of websites, even if the exact results/proportions vary. None of these big search engines appear to "compete" with one another, it wouldn't matter if they comprised an oligopoly instead of an ostensible google-monopoly. I interpret this as strong evidence of collusion. Google search results are very narrow and not designed to provide value for the user. They make their money by furtive censorship and advertising. I imagine some people would claim that any poor quality search results from Google are entirely a result of advertising practices and, in tones of skepticism and condescension, that claims of censorship/collusion seem just a bit too conspiratorial. At this point you remind them that markets tend toward collusion when government regulation and public scrutiny are lax. If one rejects the idea that all of these companies are colluding, but accepts the premise that that Google's search results could easily be improved upon (while still including adverts), then it should follow that other search engines would do just that and quickly destroy Google's "monopoly". One of the assumptions must be wrong and considering they all yield the same dogshit search results, it's pretty obvious which.

Consider this part of the CNN article: "Those contracts have given it the scale to block out would-be rivals such as Microsoft’s Bing and DuckDuckGo, the US government alleged in a historic antitrust lawsuit filed during the Trump administration." (emphasis mine) They intend the reader to believe that these companies are competitive in the first place. So much propaganda works this way, gradually impressing upon their audience a grossly skewed and grossly deceptive system of beliefs, apropos society, justice, social norms, etc. I despise the media.

[Archer]

[...]

Why would they go to so much trouble? , one might reasonably ask. If they were just in the business of showing internet ads, why would they need to put on this elaborate dog-and-pony show? Also, why would microsoft, duckduckgo, etc. cooperate for such an apparently small slice of the pie, considering google verges on monopoly?

There can be only one answer: their object is not merely to make money with ads, but to covertly censor the english-speaking internet. For this to work, they depend absolutely upon maintaining an entirely bogus public image - so contrary to reality, in fact, that it cannot really bear any scrutiny at all. They are predictably dismissive/hostile toward hypotheses involving collusion because if one is willing to take such hypotheses seriously and discuss them in public, then the public will very quickly 'build' a more accurate 'consensus'. It's essentially a "big lie" - despite Wikipedia's article, I seriously doubt the phrase was coined by Hitler. It's probably as old as the first oppressive religion or cult.

[Archer]

If/when I consolidate these notes into an article, I must remember to put more emphasis on blocking. Blocks are the means by which Wikipedia achieves the appearance of 'consensus', which in turn gives the impression of a larger public consensus that does not necessarily exist in reality.