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 Wikipediocracy screenshot taken May 18, 2013 | |
| Type of site | Blog and forum |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Commercial | No |
| Registration | Optional, required for some features |
| Launched | March 16, 2012; 12 years ago (2012-03-16) |
| Current status | Active |
Wikipediocracy is a website for discussion and criticism of Misplaced Pages. Its contributors have discussed problems with Misplaced Pages and its parent organization (the Wikimedia Foundation) and they have provided journalists with background information on Misplaced Pages's controversies.
Mission
The site describes its mission as being:
"to shine the light of scrutiny into the dark crevices of Misplaced Pages and its related projects; to examine the corruption there, along with its structural flaws; and to inoculate the unsuspecting public against the torrent of misinformation, defamation, and general nonsense that issues forth from one of the world’s most frequently visited websites, the 'encyclopedia that anyone can edit.'"
Wikipediocracy is "known for digging up dirt on Misplaced Pages's top brass," wrote reporter Kevin Morris in the Daily Dot.
History
Wikipediocracy was founded in March 2012 by contributors to Misplaced Pages Review, another site criticizing Misplaced Pages.
Investigations of Misplaced Pages controversies
Wikipediocracy contributors have investigated problems, conflicts, and controversies associated with Misplaced Pages.
Revenge editing
In 2013, Wikipediocracy members contacted Salon.com reporter Andrew Leonard to alert him about the "Qworty fiasco", providing background information on a Misplaced Pages editor Qworty and on the writer Robert Clark Young. This background information led to Leonard's writing an article, Revenge, Ego, and the Corruption of Misplaced Pages, which published the identification of Young as the "revenge editor" Qworty, who had negatively skewed Misplaced Pages biographies about his literary rivals. Just before the publication of Leonard's article, Qworty had been banned from editing biographies of living persons (on Misplaced Pages) by this message:
some of your comments ... are extremely troubling when considered in light of your edits and the “rants” you posted last month, which were deeply unfortunate and reflected negatively on the project. If you do continue or resume editing in the future, you are directed not to edit biographical articles concerning any living person (other than yourself and excluding reversion of obvious vandalism) and not to make disparaging comments about any living person on any page of Misplaced Pages. I hope you will understand that at this point, these restrictions are in the best interests of all concerned.
Relations with governments
Wikipediocracy contributors have assisted journalists who cover controversial relations between Misplaced Pages and governments. For example, the Russian government threatened to close the Russian-language Misplaced Pages if it continued to describe marijuana paraphernalia. Wikipediocracy's Twitter feed documented the suppression of information about marijuana "inhalation devices" by editors of the Russian-language Misplaced Pages.
Wikipediocracy contributors' criticisms of Misplaced Pages have been discussed in news stories covering Jimmy Wales's relationship with the government of Kazakhstan and the Gibraltarpedia controversy.
Wikimedia Foundation
A Wikipediocracy blog post reported that Misplaced Pages was being vandalized from IP addresses assigned to the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF). Responding to the allegations, WMF spokesman Jay Walsh stated that the IP addresses belonged to WMF servers and were not used by the WMF offices. He stated that the addresses were assigned to some edits by IPs due to a misconfiguration, which was corrected.
Hoax article
One Wikipediocracy forum discussion identified the Misplaced Pages account responsible for a hoax article Misplaced Pages admins had recently deleted. The "Bicholim conflict" article described a fictitious 1640–1641 Indian civil war. It was awarded Misplaced Pages's "Good article" status in 2007, and retained it until 2012, when a Wikipedian checked the article's cited sources and found that none of them appeared to exist.
See also
References
- "wikipediocracy.com info". alexa.com. Retrieved 25 June 2013.
- "Wikipediocracy". Retrieved 19 May 2013.
- ^ Morris, Kevin (23 April 2013). "Misplaced Pages says its staffers are not vandalizing Misplaced Pages". The Daily Dot. Retrieved 24 May 2013.
- Hersch, Global moderator (15 March 2012). "Welcome". Mission statement and welcome to the public. Wikipediocracy. Retrieved 2013-06-26.
- LaPlante, Alice (2006-07-14). "Spawn Of Misplaced Pages". InformationWeek. Archived from the original on 2011-06-12. Retrieved 2012-09-01.
- Shankbone, David (June 2008). "Nobody's safe in cyberspace". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved 2008-07-01.
- ^ Nichols, Martha; Berry, Lorraine (May 20, 2013). "What Should We Do About Misplaced Pages?". Talking Writing. Retrieved 20 May 2013.
- ^ Leonard, Andrew (17 May 2013). "Revenge, ego and the corruption of Misplaced Pages". Salon.com. Retrieved 18 May 2013.
- Manhire, Toby, "Misplaced Pages and the scourge of “revenge editors”", New Zealand Listener, 5 June 2013, retrieved 5 June 2013
- Morris, Kevin (9 April 2013). "The Daily Dot - Misplaced Pages pot article loses bongs, gets OK'd in Russia". The Daily Dot. Retrieved 18 May 2013.
- "Twitter / Wikipedia_Forum". Twitter. Retrieved 26 May 2013.
- Morris, Kevin (25 December 2012). "The Daily Dot - Misplaced Pages's odd relationship with the Kazakh dictatorship". The Daily Dot. Retrieved 18 May 2013.
- Hermans, Steven (8 January 2013). "Critics question neutrality of Kazakh Misplaced Pages". NET PROPHET. Retrieved 26 May 2013.
- Williams, Christopher (24 December 2012). "Misplaced Pages co-founder Jimmy Wales restricts discussion of Tony Blair friendship". The Telegraph. Retrieved 26 May 2013.
- Alfonso, Fernando (25 October 2012). "The Daily Dot - Misplaced Pages's Jimmy Wales breaks silence on resurgence of influence-peddling scandal". The Daily Dot. Retrieved 18 May 2013.
- Orlowski, Andrew (26 October 2012). "Wales: Let's ban Gibraltar-crazy Wikipedians for 5 years". The Register. Retrieved 19 May 2013.
- Hogsky, Roger (2013). "Busy day at the Wikimedia Foundation office?". Blog. Wikipediocracy. Retrieved 24 May 2013.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - Morris, Kevin (1 January 2013). "After a half-decade, massive Misplaced Pages hoax finally exposed". The Daily Dot. Retrieved 18 May 2013.
