Research Article: Wikipedia’s Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust

[ericbarbour]

Just letting them know their conduct is questionable.

To: mdennis@wikimedia.org

That's exactly what you do to make her put your email address in her killfile so she never sees any of your communications.

If you want WikiBoogers to notice something, do some serious JOURNALISM, and get it published in a "reliable source". They will pay attention then, no matter how many killfiles or watchlists you're on.

[wexter]

“Research Article: Wikipedia’s Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust”

Lots of “distortions” on Wikipedia beginning with what they call “reliable sources”.

1) The email was copied here as an open letter - which speaks beyond the recipient

2) "Reliable Source" and "Notable" -- those are terms used by Wikipedia as a rationalization strategy

3) The writing for Wikipedia is "on the wall" -- it is an "artifact" that Wikipedia's replacement technology has already harvested

The replacement is everything at play now - it is all about organizing data for profit and its scope is much wider and far reaching than Wikipedia.

Using algorithms to organize data from all sources including your devices listening in. Lets say there is a doctor shortage in two to ten years; "Dr. Know" (the holographic answer engine) will write you a prescription based on the entire database of (no so) confidential medical records weighed against a cost curve. Your outlook and life ("choices") will be tailored to the information you are presented with - you will be on an informational timeline from birth to death.

Beyond taking the finite pool of advertising revenue away from Google - A Wikipedia type replacement product is not even a valuable use case. Wikipedia is done for all intensive purposes. Wikipedia sucks is now a "grave dancing" exercise.

Started in 2001 Wikipedia had a 21 year run - from an exciting and shiny new idea, to a flawed platform that was institutionalized. Being a monopoly it was immune from critique, reform, refinement, development, evolution, adjustment, and change. As of November 2022 it became clear that Wikipedia will become functionally obsolete due to technological/business innovation that occurred elsewhere.

[boredbird]

The support/oppose votes for VM's siteban currently hovers at a 4-4 suspense.

Predictions aren't worth much but here's my shot: Piotrus will be spared due to his history of assigning Wikipedia to his students, saying that people should use Wikipedia instead of reliable sources and palling around with the WMF. GizzyCatBella will be topic banned because he's a wikinobody. Marek could go either way.

The proposed decision's fawning praise for Piotrus is one of the most craven aspects of this whole affair. "Communications" professor Piotrus' behavior is arguably the worst as he openly advocates ignoring scholarly literature in favor of Wikipedia articles that he, Marek and Jacurek/GCB wrote themselves. He teaches this to his students. Why fuck up only Wikipedia when you can fuck up the whole world?

Thankfully it looks like your toxic social-network and product will shortly be replaced by emerging technologies.

I got bad news Wex, it will be replaced by AI chatbots who plagiarize Wikipedia without disclosing their sources. Soon the chatbots will be plagiarizing one another and there will be no way to tell. It's the ultimate way to get around legal or ethical anything. Maybe Piotrus will see where the wind is blowing and join the bots.

[Ognistysztorm]

Some of Wikipediocracy has speculate on the possible mass resignation and general chaos as a result of the case:

To be strictly accurate, I posted that "in theory, there could be mass resignations" in response to Mr. NAC's suggestion that "nothing good will come of" the Arbcom case and the whole business in general. Maybe this is just a function of how I use common terminology, but to me, the word "might" implies a definable degree of likelihood, whereas "in theory" and "could" suggest more of an indefinable, and by extension much less likely degree. And as to whether or not you can "win" by resigning, Katherine Maher has shown us all how that's done, but since nobody who actually does the content work on Wikipedia is getting paid anything, well... point taken, I guess.

That's not to say they shouldn't all resign, of course. They totally should. (That's a given!)

The closing of the case itself never would have brought about mass resignations and general chaos. The real test was always how the decision would be interpreted offwiki. By aligning themselves with the paper, ArbCom has taken the safe way out, and the only way there will be direct scrutiny on them is if somehow the entire paper gets spectacularly debunked and/or its authors' credibility is ruined, which seems fairly unlikely at this point.

The thing is, the decisions on letting some major distortionists off the hook may very well had sealed the fate. Outside forces like Jewish lobbies and down to Anonymous will have a field day over it. That or it will just set the stage for other interesting effects like the publication of Jennsaurus investigative story which in turn will take the chaos to a whole new level.

[boredbird]

That or it will just set the stage for other interesting effects like the publication of Jennsaurus investigative story which in turn will take the chaos to a whole new level.

Lol "oh poor Oberranks!" Prove me wrong.

[wexter]

Some of Wikipediocracy has speculated on the possible mass resignation and general chaos as a result of the case:
..
That or it will just set the stage for other interesting effects like the publication of Jennsaurus investigative story which in turn will take the chaos to a whole new level.

With the Fram outrage; You will see in the link below that resignations were followed by mass "re-sysops" a very fickle and meaningless response. There will be less impact as the matter is closed because time has elapsed - bad press or embarrassment will have no real impact.

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

I got bad news Wex, it will be replaced by AI chatbots who plagiarize Wikipedia without disclosing their sources. Soon the chatbots will be plagiarizing one another and there will be no way to tell. It's the ultimate way to get around legal or ethical anything. Maybe Piotrus will see where the wind is blowing and join the bots.

As mentioned;

it is an "artifact" that Wikipedia's replacement technology has already harvested

Wikipedia is an "artifact" which means the information has been absorbed/copied/plagiarized - it already happened - it was hoovered.

Your outlook and life ("choices") will be tailored to the information you are presented with.

The profit imperative and level of control garnered -- will have much greater scope in terms of societal/personal ramifications than Wikipedia.

Beyond taking the finite pool of advertising revenue away from Google - A Wikipedia as a product is not even a valuable use case

It is a misunderstanding perhaps, that the point of Wikipedia (starting as soft-porn search) or AI is the provisioning of quality information to consumers. Both are all about revenue.

Wikipedia is done, kaput, lost relevance, it won't die out completely because it is funded, but henceforth it will run on ever diminishing momentum - and it will garner less interest. It is done..

[ericbarbour]

With the Fram outrage; You will see in the link below that resignations were followed by mass "re-sysops" a very fickle and meaningless response. There will be less impact as the matter is closed because time has elapsed - bad press or embarrassment will have no real impact.

As usual. Covering up their idiot squabbles is more important than resolving them.

Wikipedia is an "artifact" which means the information has been absorbed/copied/plagiarized - it already happened - it was hoovered.

And it started happening long ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Watson

During the game, Watson had access to 200 million pages of structured and unstructured content consuming four terabytes of disk storage[11] including the full text of the 2011 edition of Wikipedia,[37] but was not connected to the Internet.[38][19]

STILL not mentioned: the woman who worked on the Watson project. AND was a Wikipedia administrator at the same time. And is now a WMF employee (partly because IBM is circling the drain, and partly because the WP insiders really like her; she plays extreme hardball in the office and on wikis). And her hubby is a former arbitrator, checkuser, oversighter blah blah, and still an admin today.

The history of the Watson article is full of her, and her socks, and her supporters. Here's "hoping" that OpenAI insures the safety of one of their favorite natural-language sources, by having friendly WP administrators to help control it. It's what you do, maaaan.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Kbrown_(WMF)

[Boink Boink]

Open revolt over an unpopular ArbCom decision that challenges a cherished community norm (all you need to win a content dispute is the time, skill and will to be an asshole) is of course the rare scenario that Jimmy envisions using his reserved power to dissolve ArbCom and call for fresh elections.....so dramalol for that scenario.

The ban proposal for VM is of course facing the usual problem....

1. If you don't ban him, you need to restrict him
2. What restrictions shall you place? (he's had several already, and they have clearly not changed his approach)
3. How likely is it that he will stick to them this time? (he is a born wikilawyer, a stubborn argumentative prick, and has a massive chip in his shoulder)
4. How do you get community buy in for sanctions that barely a majority of the Committee voted for and only then with many of those having to switch from their preferred sanctions to someone else's idea of what might work?
5. Who enforces these sanctions? Not the ArbTwats, obviously. That's too much like work. Evidence has already been presented that members of Wikipedia's already thin on the ground Admin corps would rather stick their hand in a woodchipper than deal with VM. And in this very case he has shown his willingness to dispute any and all charges against him, line by line.

The problem with Wikipedia governance is the people who propose restrictions on the terminal recidivists who are by then already the root cause of huge disruption, never face the consequences when these pathetic efforts to extent one last seriously we really really mean it this time chance, inevitably fail.

When has it ever worked? When has an editor as bad as VM, who has been allowed to be who he really is (an uncollegiate fighter) for so long until finally facing the threat of an actual site ban, seen the light and had a total and complete transformation in their approach? At the very least, show they accept and can live with the fact Wikipedia is deeply unfair by design and you can't always get what you want.

He can't change what he is. Like a rabid dog, putting him in a cage only hurts him and puts an undue burden on everyone else.

Put the fucker out of his misery. Lethal injection.

Who cares if killing the dog means you are giving Icewhiz his victory? How do you even get to be an Arbitrator without realising that people like Icewhiz don't conduct years long campaigns of harassment merely to win a content dispute. They do it because they feel aggrieved at the fact they lost a content dispute because Wikipedia in it's wisdom thinks letting rabid dogs bite people and then having Administrators pat them on the head and say GOOD BOY is how you do good governance.

[boredbird]

Un-fucking believable....

I have something of a reputation as a hanging judge when it comes to site bans. I have been extremely critical of the committee for not banning some people in the recent past. Yet I want to give VM a final chance here. Maybe it is because I am on holiday and there is fantastic weather here. Maybe it is due to the harassment VM has faced over the past several years. Maybe it is because I have seen VM work on content. Who knows. The chance won't be easy and the restrictions will be draconian, but chance is a chance. --Guerillero Parlez Moi 20:02, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure what pisses me off more. The lackadaisical attitude, the "who knows", or the fact they are making the case that content contributions or being a victim can excuse being a gigantic asshole, right beneath where his colleagues are correctly pointing out that they don't.

"I'm cruel to some people but merciful to others and this proves that I'm impartial."

[Ognistysztorm]

https://news.chapman.edu/2023/05/15/rul ... cks-depth/

The ruling bans two distortionist editors from the topic area, but the ruling is appealable in 12 months. The proposed remedies lack depth and consequence, says Klein.

“By ignoring the egregiously false content our article flagged for them, and focusing only on editors’ conduct (e.g. uncivil language), Wikipedia has once again failed, and miserably so,” Klein says. “The arbitrators have done nothing about source misrepresentation, or about using fringe sources, which are the crux of the problem. So the message of this case is, there’s no problem with falsifying the past; just be nice about it. This has tragic results: they have just banned an editor who had brought in trustworthy scholarship, and let another editor go free who has authored blatantly antisemitic content.”

The arbitrators are not historians, Klein adds. “They have zero content expertise, so they have no idea when an editor is spinning lies. More than that: They are bound by Wiki policy to steer clear of content. ArbCom was simply the wrong solution to begin with. What they should have done, which some editors suggested, was to ask historians for help.”

The biggest winner here is therefore, Kumioko. Look guys, this is the beginning of Cla68's doomsday scenario.