Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 01:58, 22 August 2006

I Have The Power, by Tyco - Fri, December 16 2005 - 07:58 AM

As an encyclopedia, Misplaced Pages has some issues. As a model of how and where distributed intellect fails, it's almost shockingly comprehensive.

When we were first considering making Epic Legends Of The Hierarchs available as a publically manageable satirical metanarrative, we dropped the basic timeline on Misplaced Pages because I liked the way their software went about things. Of course, a phalanx of pedants leapt into action almost immediately to scour - from the sacred corpus of their data - our revolting fancruft.

That's okay with me. I wasn't aware they thought they were making a real encyclopedia for big people at the time, and if I had, I'd have sought out one of the many other free solutions. I had seen the unbelievably detailed He-Man and Pokémon entries and assumed - like any rational person would - that Pokémaniacs were largely at the rudder of the institution.

I am almost certain that - while they prune their deep mine of trivia - they believe themselves to be engaged in the unfolding of humanity's Greatest Working.

Reponses to criticism of Misplaced Pages go something like this: the first is usually a paean to that pure democracy which is the project's noble fundament. If I don't like it, why don't I go edit it myself? To which I reply: because I don't have time to babysit the Internet. Hardly anyone does. If they do, it isn't exactly a compliment.

Any persistent idiot can obliterate your contributions. The fact of the matter is that all sources of information are not of equal value, and I don't know how or when it became impolitic to suggest it. In opposition to the spirit of Misplaced Pages, I believe there is such a thing as expertise.

The second response is: the collaborative nature of the apparatus means that the right data tends to emerge, ultimately, even if there is turmoil temporarily as dichotomous viewpoints violently intersect. To which I reply: that does not inspire confidence. In fact, it makes the whole effort even more ridiculous. What you've proposed is a kind of quantum encyclopedia, where genuine data both exists and doesn't exist depending on the precise moment I rely upon your discordant fucking mob for my information.

Past Spleenings of the Discordant Mob

Current Spleenings of the Discordant Mob:

Power Line

Hi. You recently reverted this edit to Power Line by user Qwertman1 (talk · contribs). I thought Qwertman1's edit improved the article, removing quite a bit of hostile POV. Clearly you disagree; can I ask why? Cheers, CWC(talk) 09:09, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I've just noticed your subsequent edits. Nice work. I've struck out my now-irrelevant question. (If no-one else has spell-checked the article by the time I get OpenOffice 2.x on this machine, I'll have a go at it.) CWC(talk) 09:47, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Permissions for photos

In order to obtain permission for the photos (and the text as well), you should write back to the Jamestown foundation asking them to explicitly state that the photos and text are now in the public domain, or under the GDFL or another compatible licence. You can then forward the email to permissions@wikimedia.org . Commons has an email template which should be good to use.--§hanel 05:50, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Civility warning

It is important to keep a cool head, especially when responding to comments against you or your edits. Personal attacks and disruptive comments only escalate a situation; please keep calm and remember that action can be taken against other parties if necessary. Attacking another user back can only satisfy trolls or anger contributors and leads to general bad feeling. Please try to remain civil with your comments. Thanks!

Specifically,in reviewing (as requested at an administrative notice area) your edits and edit summaries to Chile under Allende and other articles I think you could be somewhat more civil in your word choices. ++Lar: t/c 02:08, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I have seen additional edit summaries by you and consider them woefully incivil, this one for example: ... this is your last warning. If you continue with these incivil entries you WILL be blocked. I note also that you are sparring with a user giving you a warning, direclty below this. "tattle" is in no way shape or form a collegial remark and is unacceptable if civility is your goal. Consider yourself warned about that as well. At this point this is a formal warning from an admin and removal of it will also result in a block. ++Lar: t/c 07:16, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Mind your behavior

I'd like to comment on your imposition of subjective views in a number of articles, which I was alerted of. At the very least, imposing your own views is a violation of the no original research policy; at the most, it qualifies as disruption and can amount to vandalism if it persists. You've already received a warning about the personal attacks on other editors. Noting that you will push your 3RR quota to the limit as much as you can is also not a good idea; 3RR is a quick guideline to identify and punished "revert warriors" but it's not the worst thing that can happen to you. Try to keep cool, discuss civilly, and leave sensitive article content alone until you reach consensus to edit it. The NPOV policy doesn't say that everybody is entitled to have their opinion mentioned in an article. It must be read along with WP:NOR and WP:V. —Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 00:23, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Let me see if I have this straight: Somebody is tattling on me, and you're sending me a warning without having even seen the subjects in question to see if I am actually guilty of the alleged crimes charged? Has it occurred to you how easy it is for whining tattle-tailers to "bully" their "subjective views" into an article just by continually "shopping" around for admins to go stomp over the user-pages of their critics? Fine. Two can play the game; and since I have your attention, I'd just like to let you know that many Wiki editors who tattle about me are disingenuous vandals who have no interest in writing truthful articles and every interest in locking down their propaganda. This is particularly the case in (a) Islam-related articles (for obvious reasons), (b) property-redistribution articles (socialists would love to imagine there are no credible, or any at all, arguments against their favorite way of getting stuff without paying for it) and (c) Chile/Allende-related articles (where some are tenacious in their attempts to preserve moldy 35-year old propaganda -- it tooks *months* to get into Wiki the Chilean Chamber of Deputies' own pivotal condemnation of Allende and request for the military oust him). Also please be observant of the fact that edits are not the same thing as reverts, no matter how much the defenders of rubbish would like to conflate the two when siccing the admins on their detractors.--Mike18xx 03:44, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

As noted above, this entire paragraph is unacceptably incivil. ++Lar: t/c 07:19, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Arguing that charges against oneself are untrue does not equate to being incivil, let alone unacceptably so.--Mike18xx 01:20, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Correct. As long as one remains civil in doing so. However, "tattle", "disingenious vandals", "rubbish" and half a dozen other terms I can easily pick out of just that one paragraph are all unacceptably incivil. Do you understand that? For if you don't understand and acknowledge that, then there's not much point in my replying to the rest of this and I might as well issue the block now. ++Lar: t/c 01:37, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Allow me to present an example of exactly this sort of behavior This editor slides in huge reverts while checking the "M" box for "minor edit". His arguments have been shredded on Talk (by others first, so it's not all me), and he hasn't bothered to engage there since (and so his pretensions to a "dispute" warranting an NPOV tag involving his truth-censored/propaganda-inserted version are at best credulous). I say his edits *are* "disingenuous vandalism", their contents are indeed "rubbish"; and I certainly do not think it is "incivil" to refer to them as so on my own talk page. I furthermore do not think it would be incivil of me to suggest that he has on occasion utilized sock-puppets -- certainly other editors have already done so in their summaries of this particular article, summaries I don't find to be offensive in the least.--Mike18xx 01:54, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Further 3RR is not a license to revert 3 times in 24 hours and it is not a license to make similar but slightly different changes. If you persist in edit warring over articles, regardless of whether you are within the formal guidelines of 3RR, I will block you. ++Lar: t/c 07:19, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Am I to take from this that the guidelines now no longer matter, and what matters instead is the arbitrary whim of whatever administrator has taken a disliking to me (if, for no other reason, than that I am argumentative before him)? I will also add that it takes *two* (or more) to "edit war", and that page-protections seem a more prudent course of action by dispassionate administrators. If you were to block everyone involved, that, at least, I couldn't argue wasn't fair.--Mike18xx 01:20, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd also like to reply particularly to your allegation that "you're sending me a warning without having even seen the subjects in question". Indeed I haven't followed the whole mess along, because it wasn't my intention to get involved in the discussion over content. —Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 14:19, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

This appears to be a stipulation as to the veracity of my "allegation".--Mike18xx 01:20, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

What I've seen is a pattern of abusive edits on your part. I don't care whether what you wrote is true/accurate or not (that's a problem for the ones watching the articles); that's not the question... —Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 14:19, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

A "true/accurate" edit which is also asserted to be "abusive" represents an oxymoric concept (and terse summaries don't just happen out of the blue, either). Even if such were possible, is it more important that thousands of interenet browsers encounter accurate information, or that the lowest-common-denominator "sensitive" contributor always be placated? I find it very worrisome that an administrator at an encyclopedia would blunty confess to not caring whether articles were true or not--if an encyclopedia isn't expressly in the business of accuracy, I fail to see what the point of the enterprise is. (Question for Lars: Do you consider it evidence of "incivility" on my part for me to harp on the issue of disinterest in accuracy?)--Mike18xx 01:20, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

but the manner in which you're trying to get your ideas into the articles, and how you're treating others. The user who alerted me is one that I've known for some time, a very fine and knowledgeable contributor, and one who has never been accused of gaming the system or insulting those who disagree. —Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 14:19, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Of course I have no way of defending myself from that statement nor of questioning credibilities...I can only sit in my uncomfortable chair in front of the tribunal and listen to the charges brought forth by unidentified accusors. That, and logically reduce the situation to its principled essentials, which is that another editor is complaining explicitly to get me disciplined, and that the administrator electing to perform the disciplining has no interest in the accuracy of the articles in question, and form my own conclusions regarding what Misplaced Pages will eventually amount to as truth inexorably becomes the least important aspect of article-creation.

I shall leave the both of you with this: I have *never* gone complaining to an admin about anything -- not even to request an article-Protect. It's not that I am "treated" better by other editors than I treat them in return (a well-toned lie in a revert summary is more offensive to me than a blunt but truthful one); it's just that I have a thick skin and don't need anyone holding my hand. And you've heard, I hope, of the now-old saying Whenever you subsidize something, you will get more of that something-? When whiners are "rewarded" for whining at Misplaced Pages, you're going to get more whining at Misplaced Pages, not less.--Mike18xx 01:20, 22 August 2006 (UTC)