Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 23:14, 13 December 2010

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1,322 new, unreferenced BLPs so far in March, 2010 (February topped out at 1,696). The best that self-promoters, PR people, hoaxsters, rabid fan-boys and internet cranks with an ax to grind have to offer (aka "the wisdom of crowds.") It's a relief to know the BLP problem has been sorted.

The lede to wikipedia's article on Jerusalem is a perfect illustration of the failure of the anonymous crowsourcing model. Unreadable as a question of style, missing the correct summary information as a matter of content, and completely failing to take the broad, historical view. It's a few hundred word scrawl exhibiting partisan warfare over content, over-sourcing, and the interests of truth warriors rather than scholars. And given the editing environment, it's unfixable -- a beast that changes here and there but can not break out of its cage of mediocrity and myopia. Good job everyone.

Misplaced Pages article of the week. Anti-Michelle Obama humor.

More encyclopedic content. There are actually clear policies against this sort of thing, good luck enforcing them.Sexuality of Robert Baden-Powell.

Given their recent antics, is the time drawing nigh for number 5? I think perhaps. For instance Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Tiger vs lion (| Fourth Arse AFD.)

Is Misplaced Pages an online encyclopedia, or a tool for paid editors to drive traffic to commercial porn sites? Apparently it's both (leaning towards the latter). Failed AFD for List of male performers in gay porn films.

Get your badge and gun kids, another actual problem for you to fix. List of actresses in the MILF porn genre.

And while we're at it, Marshall Tito is an important topic for an encyclopedia that currently persists as, well, a steaming pile because of your trench warfare editing policies. Which brave admin will step away from the video game, fictional character, and porn actor lists to really fix this?

All in the game. I get it. Bye.

• "It often happens that the 17-year-old is right and the professor is wrong."

  — Jimmy Wales, leading the charge against "elitism" (AKA expertise, education and experience).

• "Atheists can bang on about the supernatural not existing as much as they like – in the world of facts that view is shared by less than 5% of the global population. Serious people don't take their preaching seriously... So called mainstream scientists even falsify findings in medical research regardless of the possible consequences for patients. That said you guys are of course entitled believe what you like , but pushing a fringe POV so strongly violates our NPOV policy..."

  — a Misplaced Pages editor expressing the healthy contempt for science and fact-based research that are rapidly becoming the core principles of the encyclopedia.

• "Screw policy, screw what Misplaced Pages is not, forget all that rigidity. This list is cool. People like it. It should stay."

  — a Misplaced Pages editor, explaining the difference between an encyclopedia and myspace.

• "I am going to go ahead and ignore your request for citations. Sometimes, common sense is all that's required."

  — a Misplaced Pages editor explaining the importance of reliable sources and verification as inclusion criteria for an encyclopedia.

• "It would take much longer to do it that way."

  — a Misplaced Pages editor finally explaining the good reasons behind why some people choose to avoid using references or citations when creating new articles.

• "The Xinhua article (is a) reliable third party source."

  — a Misplaced Pages editor demonstrating the need for good judgement and background knowledge in the evaluation of sources.

• "We need a common vote for all Misplaced Pages users, to decide how things should be done, and eliminate all debates once and for all."

  — a Misplaced Pages editor, obliquely explaining how mob rule can lead to fascism.

• "If it was non-fiction, it would be perfectly valid, so I see no reason why fictional articles should be held to a different standard."

  — a Misplaced Pages editor applying geometric logic to the real world.

• "We must delete Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion, because it fosters a battlefield mentality and ideology that is bad for Misplaced Pages by turning away editors and insulting real living people by having public discussions in which random accounts insult these people by arbitrarily deeming them "non-notable". AfD runs counter to the whole concept of a paperless encyclopedia that anyone can edit."

  — one of our favorite editors, putting to bed the notion that Misplaced Pages should somehow look different to the world wide web.

• "Using a device in a monkey's brain to move a mechanical arm and legs around from a distance, is quite relevant, since soldiers will do that in the future with killer robots. They will influence them from a distance, using telepathy in war."

  — from the annals of irrefutable AFD arguments.

• "I'm quite lost as to how "if I run across someone who is doing Misplaced Pages really bad" is "bad English.""

  — A Misplaced Pages editor, demonstrating the appropriate level of regard for the written word.

• "You yourself behave in a manner that goes against the spirit of the Misplaced Pages project and you barely actually contribute to it so that makes your existence here almost worthless."

  -- Ah, the fans. I edit for the fans.

• Bali ultimate "spent time early on editing The Jordan Times so i would guess he has some opinions on the holocaust that may influence his opinions."

  — An editor committed to the Misplaced Pages way, showing the delicate and acceptable way to make a backhanded accusation of antisemitism.

• "As you can see by the articles that interest him, he clearly has a political agenda-just can't quite figure it out, yet."

  — A Misplaced Pages editor, struggling along in a binary world of Rocky & Bullwinkle vs. Boris & Natasha.

Well Said

• "In the real world people who kick over the office furniture and delete all their coworkers' data get fired. In Misplaced Pages we shower them with the attention they crave, sending an implicit "up yours" to all the constructive users whose time they have wasted."

  — a Misplaced Pages editor on the creation of the Troll Support Network

• "It's bad enough we practically give bad articles (OR/SYNTH plagued, sprawling unreferenced messes, and so on) a free pass and cheerfully smile on the preservation of bad and unsourced information with refrains of "but WP:PRESERVE." When it comes to the lives of real people, it is time for that game endlessly holding bad content in stasis to go out the window."

  -- a Misplaced Pages editor, clearly insane.

• "2009, PG Porn: A Very Peanus Christmas, written & directed by James Gunn for Safran Digital Group, playing "Mrs. Brown.""

  —  A Misplaced Pages editor; poetry.

• "It's worrying that the school of thought around Misplaced Pages that protecting people's reputations shouldn't be done if it scares off the newbies exists, and even more so that it's prevalent. Seriously, anyone who puts protecting new editors and retaining terrible content above upholding ethical and legal commitments to integrity, accuracy, and protection of a person's reputation is quite simply a massive idiot."

  —  A vicious, kitten-strangling Misplaced Pages editor who clearly doesn't understand that the game needs an endless supply of fresh meat, ehr, players.

• "We have a vicious circle in which policies and guidelines are tuned for deciding conflicts and then applied by POV pushers to make disputes about technicalities of policy application where they would lose immediately if things were treated correctly as matters of editorial discretion and subject to consensus of editors on the facts and presentation. As a result, editorial discretion has become almost illegal in the same way and by basically the same mechanism that "truth" has become an invective.... I am sure that most Arbs are pushing the project towards the abyss in very good faith"

  —  A wikipedia editor taking the lead in the (fictional) race to head the editorial content and standards board.

• My first comment here. Ah, how young and naive (ok: naive) I was. The failure of this comment was a foreshadowing (foreavalanche?) of future wisdom. .

Created

These articles when first created should be the bare minimum for new articles on Misplaced Pages.

• Australia-East Timor relations
• East Timor-Indonesia relations
• American Acclimatization Society
• Henry Hübchen
• John Ging
• Ilaga (Papua)
• Jay Gatsby (was a redirect).
• Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem (was a long standing copyvio; blew it up and started over)
• Laskar Pelangi (film)
• If You're a Viper (Fats Waller, Stuff Smith, and pot smoking)