En-WP: Act V -- the islands
Caliban: [T]here thou mayst brain him, having first seiz'd his books. [...] Sometimes a thousand twangling[s] [...] will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices[.] Stefano: [...] This will prove a brave kingdom to me, where I shall have my music for nothing. Caliban: When Prospero is destroyed. Stefano: I remember the story. [...] Lead, monster, we will follow.
- Buffalo Bill, The Tempest
Contents
Preface
Much of the material below links to wonders discovered after having wandered wide-eyed into the world of en.wiki's paratext, criticism sites ranging from the raging retribution (and spyware, be it said it is alleged) of Encyclopedia Dramatica (now then hosted in Sweden, now at .rs) to the more Establishment-friendly Wikipediocracy, which has hosted many hard workers in the critical movement, but which has notoriously been accused of various vices, including being dominated by a # of white guys. Wikipedia Sucks, a forum I began participating on, was blown up for Valentine's Day 2017 (a former candidat for ArbCom announced it on the Wikipediocrat forum). As a result, I decided to be a traitor to the Dark Knight, who once felt force in me, and go fraternize with the pediocrats, on whom he, too, it should be said, keeps a close eye. ^^
As always in these cases, those who had furrowed away ideas in their mailboxes or in threads that they would archive later were greatly saddened when the site was exploded.
What I learned from this was interesting and helpful. Below, a look back and a look forward. Not sure this will lead to a climax, a resolution of drama, or even to any sort of moral, but it's stored here because I think it's useful to see the collateral damage of BLP/BCP legal disputes.
- BLP: biography of a living person. Note: redundance of bio and living
- BCP: biography of a corporate person.
Wiki-courts
- SCoW or Arbitration/Requests/Case: bot on trial
- AE or Arbitration/Enforcement/Request: 1 | 2 | 3
The Rogolian Threads
Rogol wants to write himself into the deaths of Wikipedia. According to Wikipedia, which Rogol possibly wrote, he is an emperor from a society once riven by the battles of the Arispammiens & the Nephlibarres, or something like that. The Dark Knight and HRA do not like such poetic chatterboxing. Nor does Genderdesk. Still Rogol's not a bad gambiteer; DMCA complaints long after he's disappeared...
- After Criticism, What is to be Done? 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
- Engineering Vice 1 | 2
- Under-ambitious greatest gift to civilization, like, ever or an over-clerked MUD? 1 | 2 | [... fighting ...] | 5 | 6 | [
7] - Sent to the Data Mines 1
Dark Corners
Critique of Libertarianism: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
The King's Indian Puzzle
Dark Knight! You've solved the puzzle, right? (White's center is toast)
biblio-bound: The Decline of Stack Overflow / The Xanadu model. Thanks, KI. :)
Vipul Naik
The story of Vipul Naik has been much discussed both on and off wiki (much more on than off it must be said). The folks at IAC are following this story closely, which makes sense given their perhaps legitimate concerns about Western charites. It did strike me that the very last link I saw on Naik's github list was for a small stipend to be paid to anyone developing the Inter-American Development Bank, which I personally see as a neoliberal funder of (sweatshop) infrastructure. This because of my reading about their investments in Costa Rica and Haïti. Anyway...
That said...
A lot of Vipul Naïk's work is very interesting (he's done significant [study of Wikipedia page views] in the last years), and has focused on timeline presentations, something that I remember feeling the need for when working on the DAPL article, and that I see Mark Devlin has made a major design element of his newslines.org. The remuneration and distribution of work within the network have raised a lot of eyebrows, some have gone so far as to claim it was a sort of pyramid scheme, though that strikes both KI and I as hyperbolic. Discussion at ANI, at COIN. A lot of people were curious about the return of El C, myself included since I've read that she's been associated in some folks' minds with the admin known as Neutrality.
aiki wiki
- of matrices & mushrooms HRA v. WWHP
- aiki ikia, the six petals of
Fora
A number of fora and blogs were opened in the wake of the Wikipedia Sucks! (and so do its critics) explosion: Wikipedia Review at Proboards was brought back to life, Wikipedia Sucks! is Eric Barbour & Strelnikov's forum. IAC (Indians against corruption) has created a blog called wikipediacritics.com. Being from Indiana I too feel like I should be an Indianian against corruption, for many reasons.
A recent discovery, thanks to G. Kohs at Wikipediocracy is the blog Wikibuster, which periodically covers French Wikipedia and the WMF. As of October 2017 though there is still no post about the WM France implosion. There are a number of very interesting posts though, one of which in English (Swiss Papers).
A hoax, deletions, paid editing and redirected leaks
- LynnWysong discovers a well-made hoax. NB: comment from Andy the Grump. ^^
- While Wikipediants like to make fun of those who confuse WP, Wikia, and WikiLeaks, according to one wikixpert, historically speaking, there was some early Wikian succor afforded to Wikileaks, in the form of redirects. (Wikia press-release)
- More hoaxes (result: IP-block on Le Monde for 9 months) and some Orangemoody type tactics in another post.
Winds of Change?
Deletion of Wikipedia Review
After "IAC" associated folks copied the site structure and a few of the posts from WR-2 at Proboards to http://wikipediareview.boards.net, a complaint was filed (ostensibly against Singora by "IAC"-associated folks) which led to the closure of WR-2. (It is also thought that the same IAC folks were behind the WS-1 TOS deletion from proboards)
Archived threads (links are to archive.is):
- David Brock
- Neutrality, the Perfect Wikipedian?
- Golden Handshakes
- WMF donors' money funds outgoing managers' nest eggs
- Clinton Foundation Spox
- Berkeley Professor banned over anti-Trump editing course: TDA's presentation of this Breitbart piece on Gelobter / ejustice
Breitbart
TDA begins writing for Breitbart and starts shaking the tree. Echoes at WPO of Sagecandor/Cirt in the press. :) But, wait! ... Drmies! says it isn't press, so no mention on talk pages of any of TDA's criticism.
It becomes so.
Shortly after this subtitle was created a Buzzfeed article described as a "bombshell" was delivered to Wikipediocracy by a retired member. The bombshell was sure to discredit by association two Wikipedia critics (David Auerbach & The Devil's Advocate) and possibly a third. (the name "The Dark Knight" was (pretty gratuitously?) associated with American Renaissance...)
Battleshipping through the islands
Were DMCA bombs lobbed? (at genderdesk from the USS Wikipediocracy) or is it all an elaborate PR stunt?
GenderDesk
A blogger (or conglomerate of same) wanting to ensure the barbarians don't win.