Comment I have talked to the authors of this study (Score 1) 7
And they say there is a LOT of outrageous behaviour in this area of Wikipedia editing. The card game is only "the tip of a large iceberg", whatever that means.
Submission + - Major Wikipedia donors caught editing their own articles 7
An anonymous reader writes: As reported before on Slashdot, one of the most terrible sins on Wikipedia is to edit articles for pay, or otherwise violate the "neutral point of view" policy, per their co-founder Jimmy Wales. And yet, the Wikipedia-criticism website Wikipediocracy has recently performed a study showing that a large percentage of the Wikimedia Foundation's largest cash donors have violated that policy. Repeatedly, and wantonly. In short, they wrote articles about themselves or their companies, then gave the WMF big donations — and were not confronted about violating the NPOV policy. It reeks of outright favoritism. The first installment of an upcoming multi-part series discusses the co-creator of Cards Against Humanity, and his blatant editing of the Wikipedia article about his card game, followed by a $70,000 donation to the WMF. An honest donation, or hush money?
Comment I WONDER..... (Score 1) 112
...how many events like this are associated with Wikipedia, and which we never hear about anywhere.....
Submission + - Is Wikipedia "accurate"? Not necessarily..... 1
metasonix writes: A new post on the Wikipediocracy website discusses the notorious, albeit now badly-dated, 2005 study published in Nature magazine claiming that Wikipedia content was almost as reliable as Encyclopedia Britannica in science topics. Despite not being a ringing endorsement of Wikipedia, the news media of 2005 tended to report it as such. This new article includes a long list of examples of Wikipedia content failures, including major paid-content abuses and some outright, highly-successful hoaxes. All were subsequent to the 2005 study, the bulk of them having occurred in the past year. And all occurred while Wikipedians continued to claim that Wikipedia just keeps "getting better and better". Perhaps Klee Irwin might have a different take on that?
Comment Criticism of Wikipedia -- there is a place for it (Score 1) 161
If anyone wants to see evidence of Wikipedia's many, many (many!) problems, try Wikipediocracy.
There is a blog with regular posts full of horror and madness, plus a forum where you can be lectured at length about the failings of Wikipedia, and Jimbo. And all nonprofit too.
Comment and no one seems to care (Score 1) 3
Typical, Slashdot usually buries bad publicity about Jimbo's Folly. The manchildren still love it.
Meanwhile, the community degrades.
http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Wikimedia-Foundation-scales-back-targets-1655933.html
Meanwhile, the community degrades.
http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Wikimedia-Foundation-scales-back-targets-1655933.html
Journal Journal: evidently
Slashdot has been hijacked by Wikipedia insiders. Stories that are in any way negative about Wikipedia never make it to the front page.
Comment why is this being suppressed? (Score 1) 3
This is an important issue, and Larry Sanger needs no introduction. Andreas is a Wikipedia reviewer/rollbacker.
So why isn't this post in the firehose?
Submission + - Facebook PR Firm Edited Its Own Wikipedia Page (shitplanet.org)
metasonix writes: In the midst of all this week's flap about Facebook hiring notorious PR firm Burson-Marsteller to defame Google, I discovered something else: a Burson-Marsteller employee completely rewrote the firm's Wikipedia article to remove all the negative information. He did it openly, he violated a number of Wikipedia internal policies, another Wikipedia editor helped him, and no one was the wiser.
Comment Re:Deletionist, Inclusionists, and the Goal (Score 1) 191
Comment This post was so funny..... (Score 1) 222
....that I started a thread about it on Wikipedia Review.
Mr. Malda, you're not as smart as you think you are.
Mr. Malda, you're not as smart as you think you are.
Comment This is pathetic. (Score 1) 827
You should see the kind of psychotic letters the major high-end magazines
get routinely. Sometimes they have to take out orders of protection
against certain readers.
High-end audio is a form of mental illness that only afflicts men over the age of 40. They are massively insecure, and usually affluent--but they comprise a VERY small group.
If Slashdotters had some actual brains, they'd sit on their hands. Because the more they squawk about "double-blind tests", the more attention (and sales) high-end gear makers and high-end publications get.
Because nobody loves a troll, right or wrong.
PS: Mr. Steward got death threats. Nice going.
High-end audio is a form of mental illness that only afflicts men over the age of 40. They are massively insecure, and usually affluent--but they comprise a VERY small group.
If Slashdotters had some actual brains, they'd sit on their hands. Because the more they squawk about "double-blind tests", the more attention (and sales) high-end gear makers and high-end publications get.
Because nobody loves a troll, right or wrong.
PS: Mr. Steward got death threats. Nice going.
Submission + - New Handheld Computer is 100% Open-Source (linux.com)
metasonix writes: While the rest of the industry has been blubbering about the iPad and imitations thereof, Qi Hardware is actually shipping a product that is completely open-source and copyleft. The Ben NanoNote is a handheld computer that apparently contains no proprietary technology. It uses a 366 MHz MIPS processor, 32MB RAM, 2 GB flash, a 320x240 pixel color display, and a Qwerty keyboard. No network built in, though it is claimed to accept SD-card WiFi or USB-Ethernet adapters. Included is a very simple Linux OS based on the OpenWrt distro installed in Linksys routers, with Busybox GUI. It's apparently intended primarily for hardware and software hackers, not as a general-audience handheld. The price is right, though: $99.
Submission + - Jimmy Wales: the porn on Commons must go (wikimedia.org) 1
Larry Sanger writes: Jimmy Wales recently took a bold position against pornography on Wikimedia Commons: "Wikimedia Commons admins who wish to remove from the project all images that are of little or no educational value but which appeal solely to prurient interests have my full support." Wales also restarted the "Commons:Sexual content" policy page. His basic complaint is that Wikimedia Commons hosts too much unnecessary porn, and he wants to get rid of it. He underscored his seriousness this way, stating that we can expect "a strong statement" from the WMF soon: "if the Wikimedia Foundation wants to declare that it is ok for Commons to be a porn host, they can do that, and I'll not be able to continue. That isn't going to happen, though, and in fact you should expect a strong statement from the Board and/or Sue in the next few days." This comes about a month after I originally posted my report about depictions-of-child-sexual-molestation on Wikimedia Foundation servers to the FBI, which Slashdot duly ripped to shreds (as only Slashdot can), and a little over a week after the FoxNews.com story. The latter coverage reported that one of my senators, and my representative to Congress, had forwarded the matter to the FBI's Assistant Director of Congressional Affairs. I'm happy to be able to congratulate Jimmy Wales for his good judgment on this, and I look forward to the larger Wikimedia community approaching these issues with a little more sanity.
Comment this will help (Score 1) 372
....all those unsophisticated Ubuntu users who just want their multimedia playback to work, without messing with "multiverse", and sources.list edits, and .deb packages, and dire warnings about violating copyright laws in the US. Everyone installs that stuff anyway, so Canonical might as well pay the fees.
And BTW, can we please be free of Flash now?.....
And BTW, can we please be free of Flash now?.....
