Slashdot Log In
Visualizing the Wikipedia Power Struggle
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon May 21, 2007 08:26 AM
from the ban-everything-and-let-wales-sort-em-out dept.
from the ban-everything-and-let-wales-sort-em-out dept.
todd450 pointed us to a nifty
visualization of Wikipedia
and controversial articles in it. The image started with a network of 650,000 articles color coded to indicate activity. The original image is apparently 5' square, but the sample image they have is still pretty neat.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
"Steal"? (Score:5, Informative)
[John]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
Nice editing (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeeha! (Score:4, Funny)
but the sample image they have is steal pretty neat.When did Speedy Gonzales get a job at OSTG?
Mirror of Sorts (Score:5, Informative)
http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/visual/projects
Yet another example (Score:4, Informative)
This one is less pretty with colours, but way more informative...
Parent
LOL! (Score:3, Funny)
Service Temporarily Unavailable
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.
Apache/1.3.33 Server at www.abeautifulwww.com Port 80
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Today on /. (Score:4, Funny)
Wow... (Score:3, Insightful)
A) Crashes before there are 9 comments and B) Doesn't know how to spell "still" Glad to see slashdot's standards are still so high, CmdrTaco. Thanks.
hmmmmm (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry, it sounded so poetic, I had to reformat it. (note that, unlike my other posts, this one doesn't belong to me, I blatantly stole it from jollyreaper. So it doesn't enter the PD until he releases it, or for 70 years after his death.)
The Slashdotted Article (Score:3, Informative)
[abeautifulwww.com]A new visualization Bruce Herr and I recently completed is being featured in this weeks New Scientist Magazine (thearticle [newscientist.com]is free online, minus the viz). They did a good job jazzing up the language used to describe the vizpower struggle, bubbling mass, blitzed articlesbut they also dumbed down the technical accomplishments. I guess not everyone gets as excited about algorithms as I do.Before I talk anymore about the viz, though, let me mention its appearing at the NetSci 2007 Conference [indiana.edu]this week, and hopefully a varient will appear at Wikimania [wikimedia.org] later this summer as well. The viz is a huge 5 feet by 5 feet when printed, and I only include a low res, smaller version here. At some point high qualityart prints of it will appear at SciMaps [scimaps.org]for sale to fund further visualization research.
[abeautifulwww.com]Now for the good stuff. Much like my visualization of the netflix prize competition data [abeautifulwww.com], we began this piece byrepresenting the dataas a network. In this case the nodes in the network are wikipedia articles and theedges are thelinks between articles. We then (with some help from our friends at Sandia) used an algorithm to lay out all 650,000nodes (wikipedia articles) that had at least one link in such a way that similar articles are near one another. These are the yellow dots,which when viewed at low res give a yellow tint tothe whole picture.
The sizes of the nodes (circles, dots, whatever you want to call them), are based on a model of revision activity. So large circles indicate that an article might be controversial, or the subject of lots of vandalism, or just a topic whose content frequently changes. We labeled only the largest nodes, to keep it readable. Thereis an interactive version of this in the works based on the google maps platform which will change the labels and pictures used as the user zooms in or out. Stay tuned for that.
The image used for each tilewas selected automatically, simply by using the first imagein the most linked to article among all the articles inthat tile.We were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the images that appeared.
Our hope for this visualization approach, which we continue to improve on,is that it could be updated in real time to give a macro sense of what is happeing in Wikipedia. I personally hope that some variation of it will end up in high schools as a teaching tool and for generating discussions.
Now all they need to visualize (Score:3, Interesting)
Whoops. Did I say something less then complimentary about the quantum fucking encyclopedia [penny-arcade.com], where info may or may not be correct based on which second of the day it is, and where you can be assured that the moment someone tries to fix it, they'll be beat down by an army of socially inept retards [artsjournal.com] who have nothing better to do than accumulate hundreds/thousands of edits per day in hopes that they, too, can become administrators and ban anyone they disagree with?
just like your link (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, but it's still useful for finding out who this guy is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CmdrTaco [wikipedia.org]. I don't pay attention and when a name actually pops up repeatedly, I like to know who the person is supposed to be. Take this person: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton [wikipedia.org] I could tell you vaguely that she the first lady married to Bill Clinton. I c
Re:just like your link (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem with interest groups is not only do they typically have a lot of time and resources they also tend to have a strong tendency to monopolise the issue in question. Sometimes to the point where they appear incapable of actually rationally defending their position, whilst having almost stereotypical strawmen and ad hominum responses. (Zionists and Feminists must qualify as "textbook examples"...)
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Being an idiot on 400 subjects has to count for something.
I edit one page of the wiki and no more very occasionally. Since any moron can write what they like there super but if any moron who is a 'super-moron' on 400 topics just shows that being 'responsible' is a strange state of mind.
70%"Flamebait"?They're deadly afraid of the truth! (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
How ironic that he totally saw it coming, criticizing wiki.
that site has gone beyond annoying, beyond misleading, its actually dangerous. Wiki is at the top of just about every google search. The entire storehouse of human knowledge (i.e. the internet) is being hijacked by a media company (google) via the mindless peddling of "consensus" that is wikipedia.
there can be no popular consensus for topics that require a lifetime's study. there is no eas
Similar effort (Score:5, Funny)
http://www.hallert.net/images/mapofwikipedia.GIF [hallert.net]
Re: (Score:2)
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/press/archive/blackhol
Interesting, but not too helpful (Score:2)
Visualising the Wikipedia power strugles (Score:3, Insightful)
Page, visualizing the power struggle: "Service Temporarily Unavailable
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later."
R.I.P. Wikipedia lost the power struggle...
The two sides of Wikipedia (Score:4, Interesting)
One thing I learned is there are two sides of Wikipedia. In the upper right hand corner of the main page you can see what are called the "master categories". The categories such as Mathematics and Science highlight what is best about Wikipedia. The categories such as History and Society highlight what is worst about Wikipedia. You do not really have big battles over articles like "Pythagorean theorem", and they usually do a good job of explaining what that is. On the other hand, if you look at the top of an article like "Palestine" you will see that it is semi-protected, meaning new users can not edit the article. You can also see eight pages of discussion which really doesn't get anywhere. The article is garbage. The Wikipedia cabal likes to say things like cooler heads eventually prevail on such articles, but that is just a lot of bullshit. The cabal itself can often be the problem - if you look at the article's originator, it is Ed Poor, who has not only an admin but a bureaucrat at Wikipedia. He is also a Moonie, with some very strange beliefs, not only religious, which I could care less about, but politically. It's typical Wikipedia that he would create the article, and more so that he has held such high level positions.
Actually I antagonize in using the Wikipedia cabal phrase as these people are so paranoid they have replied to messages like this on Slashdot in the past with stuff like "AHA! YOU SAID CABAL! YOU ARE ONE OF 'THEM'! AN ENEMY! ONLY ENEMIES OF WIKIPEDIA USE THAT PHRASE". Or maybe I could say Wikipediareview.com has some good criticisms of Wikipedia, since they're fanatical about that site to where you are not allowed to mention it on the "Criticism of Wikipedia" article.
I spent a bit of time on Wikipedia and used to care more about this due to that time spent etc. Nowadays I just contribute to other wikis I like which I feel are more balanced. I should note that Jimbo Wales ran the Ayn Rand mailing list for years, has said "[F. A.] Hayek's work...is central to my own thinking about how to manage the Wikipedia project.", and I can give dozens of more examples of where Wales's somewhat far out political biases lay. This political bias starts at the top and works its way down, as one can see with his appointment of people who did not make the cut electorally such as JayJG to Arbcom.
My advice to people is to patronize other wikis - the concept of a wiki encyclopedia is a great idea, but their political views are so far out, that it fragmenting is a certainty.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Someone pull the plug on IP editing. They should be required to setup with a legit email and at least a 3 day wait. Users who trash articles with BS comments should have their account deleted r
Re:The two sides of Wikipedia (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, Wikipediareview has made a policy of harassing editors and admins, the users coordinated attacks where they call people at their houses late at night and call their employers to complain about them to get them fired. Do you support that? Since you're probably not going to respond to this, it's probably fruitless to ask, but you opened the door with your line of comment. You REALLY want to use Wikipedia Review as a reference?
So mentioning that site to bolster your viewpoint (presumably, you're an editor who disagreed with a decision that applied to you, as in perhaps you tried to use Wikipedia as a MySpace site, or were pushing a point of view in contravention of the site policies, or were upset when the article your wrote about your math teacher was deleted as 'non-notable') is similar to starting a conversation with "Now, the Nazi medical experiments were terrible, but we _did_ learn some useful things from them..." (howdy Godwinists!)
So, your credibility is basically shot. The cabal reference underscores it. I'm an admin there, and we can't even agree on what to order for our pizzas, much less plot to push some sort of wacky political agenda.
Your bozo bit has been set, good day.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So, you support real-life criminal harassment over silly crap that happens on a volunteer-run free website? Wow.
You really need to get a sense of perspective, dude.
Palestine (Score:2)
The article about the Danisg Muhammad Cartppms [wikipedia.org] was also surprisingly good while the event was current. Actually one of the best descriptions of the case you could fidn anywhere on the net at the time.
I agree that the talk pages are often horrible, but surprisingly often that horror doesn't reflect on the main articles.
Maybe you simply are more optimistic than me
Conservapedia- A trustworthy alternative (Score:2, Insightful)
Doesn't that sound better than Wikipedia?
Re:The two sides of Wikipedia (Score:5, Insightful)
Now imagine a match where the fans could overturn the referee's decision. Repeatedly, both sides. "Free kick for the red team" "No, free kick for the blue team" "No, free kick for the red team". Every so often a guy would run around and show all the players the red card, and you'd have to undo it.
You get the pleasure of being called partial by morons who are so far from being level it's a wonder they don't tip over. And you sure don't get paid for it, or have any league that'll slap the worst personal attacks. You've got zero authority except temporarily locking edits which is like getting between two NFL teams waiting for the play signal again.
That pretty much sums up the fun of trying to get a neutral and balanced article on a controversial topic in Wikipedia. I understand perfectly those who give up. I use Wikipedia for quick "what is that?" and simple facts. If I want to form an opinion on something, I'm not looking to wikipedia for a balanced view...
Parent
As Penn & Teller would say... (Score:3, Interesting)
You ought to read this great blog by a former wikipedia admin [livejournal.com]. He details the powers a wikipedia admin gets and the methods by which admins connected to partisan debates, or just assholes who managed to get an admin bit, abuse people.
They get to be as abusive as they want language-wise, and if anyone chides them on it, the other admin-cultists will back them up.
They get to block anyone, for any reason, at any time, and the "procedures" wikipedia has for an appeal are a joke.
They can block someone
Oblig xkcd reference: (Score:4, Funny)
http://www.xkcd.com/c256.html [xkcd.com] -- Map of online communities
Steal pretty neat (Score:2, Funny)
Network Mirror of the site (Score:5, Informative)
It's Like Modern Art in a Way (Score:2)
Service Temporarily Unavailable
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.
Apache/1.3.33 Server at www.abeautifulwww.com Port 80
Very Leftist (Score:4, Interesting)
Given that, I do see a serious ideological left bent in Wikipedia. I've tried to put hard facts (well-cited, thank you) to give a counter to obviously left-biased articles (or articles where the viewpoint is used to justify government intrusion), only to have them removed or edited to oblivion. It's often a hard fight to keep such facts in Wikipedia. Anti-American sentiment is definitely there, with wild, unsubstantiated rumors that keep popping up again after they're killed, and the editors will not keep them out. In that case the only recourse is to post the facts in opposition to the rumors (and hope they survive), but such things should not have to be done.
Yes, I abhor the pathetic conservapedia even more. Wikipedia's slant is more of an accident, a result of the populace and to some extent those Wales put in charge. But conservapedia was conceived as biased.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Have you thought about becoming a Libertarian? http://lp.org/ [lp.org]
Re:Very Leftist (Score:4, Insightful)
Democrat: Out of your bedroom and into your business.
Republican: Out of your business and into your bedroom.
But there's been some crossover, each inheriting the worst traits of the other.
Parent
wikipedia is a useful dynamic (Score:3, Insightful)
personally i'm tired of "either or" type thinking, in fact, I use each and every resource
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)