Re: <nettime> A Puff Piece on Wikipedia (Fwd)

[Oliver Gassner <carpe.com@gmx.de>]

On Thu, 2 Oct 2003 16:15:01 +0200, Florian Cramer
<cantsin@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:

>Note that the commentator quoted above 
>encloses the words 'messes' & 'my' in apostrophes 
>- presumably w/ the intent of questioning those 2 concepts.  
>That's precisely the issue here. 

Yup, and as I posted with my name (as opposed to you), you do not need
to anonymize my comment ;) <- that one is also intentional.
 
>Wikipedia entries don't BELONG to anyone.  

They still seem to be the "work" of a small group of persons PER ENTRY, as
in this case.

Your comment was probably fair, but if the position in the entry and it's
wording had been appropriate to a project like Wikipedia, I am sure it
would have been treated differently (housing costs in university towns are
a gl�obal problem, I assure you, and they are nothing that has to be dealt
with in paragraph one when describing a university (that is also
somnething I will noit discuss ;) )

>Alterations to entries are not "messing" w/ them, 
>they are legitimate partakings in the entry process.   

Let me state it more clearly: Your 'partaking' was ignorant, defacing and
infantile. If you had REALLY wished to express a well formed opinion in
'encyclopedia comaptib�le' stly you could probably have done so. You chose
to provocate and... hey.. they wre provocated to react. Fine.

I see the reaction NOT as a 'proof' that wp is 'biased buit that it
removes any 'biased' content quickly. OK, they could have taken you
seriously, taken the paragraph and edited it and put it in an appropriate
section. But hey, you shit on their front door and expect them to take the
turd (is that the word? Me German ;) ) and make it into something
beatutiful.

>Any entries I might make to Wikipedia 
>ARE open to the revisions of others 
>- even if I disagree w/ them. 

Ands IF they try just to play a prank on you? JUst point me to some of
"your" entries or additions and I will surely contribute ;)

>> Specially the remark, that this was done within less than 30 minutes
>> points more to the activity of a WikiGardener than to one of a person
>> from the said instituion.
>> 
>> You would not EARNESTLY (pardon me for shouting) believe, that a PR
>> person from Johns Hopkins has nothing else to do than monitor a
>> WikiPage several times an hour (even if by a script or
>> changedetection.com or the likes) and re-edit it if necessary?
>
>That's a good point.  The person may not be specifically 
>employed by JHU.  However, they have a strong vested interest 
>of some sort for making sure ONE opinion dominates 
>on the subject w/in the Wikipedia context.  

Even if I allow others to jointly edit a text I devised I do not need to
let them turn the text in any direction they want, right? Your style was
inappropriate as was the place where you put your snippet. (And you were
aware of that as your wording in the mail to Florian tells me.)

>> Before anyone indulges in paranoia they should just check the obvious:
>> Someone writing about JHU every day would rather not want the stuff
>> from the fyi-guy in there.
>
>I find the above to be contradictory.  
>The point is exactly that 
>"Someone writing about JHU every day would rather not want the stuff 
>from the fyi-guy in there." 
>SO, why is that paranoid?  
>If Wikipedia is to be open to anyone's participation 
>why is the opinion of the JHU person 
>more important than the "fyi-guy"'s?  

There is no 'JHU'-person (unless you maanfge to trace the IP ;)  the
is someone whose work you were about to deface.

>Because the "JHU person" represents an "elite institution" 
>& the "fyi-guy" is speaking from the perspective 
>of the impoverished community that JHU occupies 
>such a privileged position w/in?

Again: Your way of 'adding' information was inappropriate.

>> IMO this quick re-edit is proof that the wiki-system (or: wikipedia)
>> works: Any nonsense will quickly be removed ;)
>
>Why is it nonsense?  
>The point is that the JHU puff piece 
>IS the nonsense 
>& if it's not removed 
>why shd any commentary about it be?

I don't get that paragraph porobably because I lack language skills.

Your entry was in stlye and position not a 'contriburtion' but an attempt
to 'mess' with the origial article. As the regular editor of the article
was online he did not take the pains to 'correct' your style and insert
point but did a sensible thing: he removed the 'noise' from the signal.

Although you could have had the skills to trace the source of the re-edit
you chose to imagine a PR person on campus, even disregarding the
edit-history of the article.

This is dishonest behaviour and does not lead to me taking you in the
least seriously in what you wnat to imply about wiki-like sturctures in
general or in this special case.

Oh, you can tell me you did not know about "tracert", but you surely know
about the change-history of wiki-articles? (If you don't you should not
think about wikis publicly ;) )

OG

PS: I still have to shake off the idea that your initials might be K.E.
and that Sibylle's offspring plays a joke on us ;) Specially as he is not
commenting himself *g* (Wenn ich dich erwischt haben sollte, schuldeste
mir n Bier oder zwei wenn Du in Stuttgart bist. OBwohl: FYI spricht
dagegen.)




-- 
oliver gassner - radbrunnengasse 1/2 - D-71665 vaihingen an der enz
og@carpe.com - mobil 0179 297 234 2 -  http://www.oliver-gassner.de/
literatur:  http://www.carpe.com/
presse: http://www.oliver-gassner.de/presse/

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