Talk:Wikipedia and public opinion

Some issues

Because of the growth and public attention that Wikipedia receives, it is likely that such contributions will similarly increase.

Some things:

• I think a category is in order for articles that have been edited by their subjects. At Talk:Adam Curry there is a banner about it. I don't know if that's neccesary. A category would be nice, I'll add it if this article doesn't go VfD.

• This article raises the issue of Wikipedia: Avoid self-references. discussion here.

Yeago 21:24, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

last add

I think it is definitely content worthy for a section, but I think its length and technicality detract from the intro, which is basic and neat. I think it also makes the article too essay-ey.

There are two interacting respect in which Wikipedia as a social structure and as a source of information interact with public opinion. On the one hand, Wikipedia is a resource that may be held in positive or negative esteem by the wider public, or about which people may hold opinions. On the other hand—and more to the point of this article—Wikipedia itself affects public opinion on topics other than itself, either through its operation to its guidelines, or in the subversion of those guidelines.

I believe here you're trying to separate this article from "Public opinions of Wikipedia". Could you explain a bit more? Thanks.

Yeago 23:06, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Basically it's exactly what you wrote on the AfD page. This article title could be about either direction in the interaction: either "what the public think of WP" or "how WP shapes opinion". I don't think it's quite so neat as to say the article should only cover the second, since there is feedback between the two directions. But we definitely want readers to know that the article is really focussed on the second.

But morevoer, I'd like to make this article into more than just "Foolish people who edited with a POV, and then got reported in the news". There's nothing wrong with including that. But I'd also like to report that "So-and-so wrote an essay about WP's effect on how readers evaluate the authority of sources" or "Study X finds that students who utilize WP as a resource have a greater (or lesser) interest in pursuing scientific careers". Or even "According to the Washington Post, the rapid dissemination of the corruption scandal around politician Foo on online web sites like Wikipedia led to his resignation". Obviously, I can only add those things if they actually happen, and external sources are verifiable.

My additional paragraph provides room to connect that related type of material to the article... I actually think it is best in the lead, where I put it in the first place. As is, the lead looks really thin, and doesn't give readers enough bearing on the article. But for now, we can keep it in an initial section. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 02:06, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I thought that' what you were getting at. I couldn't quite parse it. =)

I definitely think your alternate directions for this article are valid and interesting—this is why I broadly named the article. I know there's more to the story than these dolts, but they were my initial inspiration.

I agree the point needs to be made in the lead. I worked a bit on getting it there and am still going at it. Yeago 02:35, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

List of cited articles

I've seen this somewhere! Grrr.. I'm not sure if its a list or a category, but there is a list somewhere of all WP articles that have been cited. This would be a good addition to take the article less in the Adam Curry direction and more in the direction suggested above.Yeago 02:44, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, there is Wikipedia:Press coverage. But that includes hundreds, or probably thousands, of examples of various outside media mentioning WP. Most of them are not really that interesting to this article, since just referring to WP as a resource for information doesn't per se show anything interesting about an effect on public opinion. But it might be a good thing to look through for examples that are worth mentioning here. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 04:38, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Found some thins on See Also. Mostly I'm lookin for news examples.

I think we'd better do something soon as this article is being bagged on AfD for being a one-trick pony.Yeago 17:24, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

It's not going to reach consensus delete. But this is still a good opportunity to find some material other than just "Naughty editors push propoganda". Go forth and find it... the article is your baby. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 19:24, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Clarification on Jack Thompson media coverage

The Google News search for Jack Thompson + wikipedia turned up exactly two items, one of them a blog, which is why I described media coverage as minimal. Your interpretation of the community reaction is valid too, so I'll leave it as is. betsythedevine 06:11, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I assume "your" is me, right? I noticed the limited Google News hits also. But Google News is a bit limited; even for material published in well known print publications, the search tends to age rather quickly. Regular Google seems to return results much longer, as well as indexing a lot of sources News doesn't include. Just as an example, an article in, say, Time magazine might show up on Google News for a week or two after publication, but not after that, even using the same keywords. However, the Time archive on the web will still be searchable for regular Google years later (I've found this particularly looking for mentions of me, and of organizations I'm involved with, but that's just because I search for that sometimes). Google News is great for the latest news stories, but it's not an archive of everything ever printed by newspapers. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 06:29, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

You're absolutely right that Google news is limited--but I thought that since the event was less than two weeks old, I should still be able to find any stories that would meet Wikipedia's standards for sources that confer verifiability. Even the game magazine article I cited is far from presenting a neutral account. Trying to present the opposite point of view here on the talk page: if you look at the Jack Thompson article's discussion, you see Wikipedians agreeing that it was slanted against its subject. Thompson came across the article, was enraged, knew that "anyone can edit Wikipedia", and inserted some talkback at the end of the piece. He violated a whole pile of Wikipedia policies, but ... so do lots of newbies. He made no attempt to disguise his authorship. IMO, it unfairly represents his behavior as more important and worse than it was to use this incident as one of only four illustrations of misusing Wikipedia for personal advantage. Should we make the article infinitely long, including all the people who have ever edited articles about their field of interest? That would generate a ton of conflict. I see this whole crusade as bad for wikipedia, which is why I made the AFD instead of just flagging it POV. Maybe, as others have suggested, the Wikipedia namespace would be a good place to discuss ways that Wikipedia's increasing prominence in Google results has created new problems for editors and for the people described in our articles. betsythedevine 13:43, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Although this list is a scant 4 items, none of its items are older than December. I happen to believe all sorts of edits are happening on Wikipedia, but they are just going undetected.

The article on Zarqawi led me to believe this, as references to a years-old CIA report claiming he was dead/missing a leg kept disappearing from the article. I wasn't paying close enough attention then to find out who.

This "crusade" is good for Wikipedia because it will defuse future endeavors by propagandists by making their actions public and documented. Apologizing for Jack or anyone else by saying he's "just your average biased editor" is _________.

Your "field of interest" expression of misunderstanding/classic "extreme worst case" argument is addressed repeatedly in the article. See such phrases as "surrepticious [editing]", "investment", "direct involvement" or "financial or political involvement", etc. Sure, by some wacky logic you can connect everyone in these ways.

Yeago 16:21, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Let the coverage fit the man—Jack is rather minimal as well. Please help me understand why you are contributing to an article you're hoping will go dev/null? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yeago (talk • contribs)

Please don't be nasty Yeago! I think you're commenting on Betsythedevine, but this does not show WP:FAITH and it borders on WP:PA... or maybe it's an attack on me. In any case, how someone votes on AfD, or even if they nominate an article, has nothing to do with them editing it. I've edited a number of articles I voted to delete, because I felt they deserved a fair chance to earn a "keep" vote. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 06:33, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I was speaking to her, it wasn't an attack I'm really just quite confused. I thought AfD'ing an article meant you thought it was unsalvagable. If she NPOV flagged it, it would be a different story.Yeago 07:02, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Jack Thompson's claim that someone had threatened him

Here's the relevant quote from the first of his three edits to Wikipedia: "Wikipedia's "experts" ("X" is an unknown quantity and "spurt" is a drip under pressure) on Jack Thompson even got the day and year of my birth wrong. What do you expect from pixelantes (I created the word--see Wikipedia for confirmation of that) to describe video game vigilantes. They're so confused, they think the term which refers to their abusive vigilantism is a term of endearment and honor. Mussolini would be impressed. One of these knuckleheads threatened to torture and kill me from his home phone (ever hear of caller ID, junior?) because he was upset that I was saying on 60 Minutes and elsewhere that violent video games can affect attitudes and behaviors! He was arrested and jailed, in the Houston area."

It is clear that Jack Thompson is referring to a threat made by a specific person who was subsequently arrested and jailed. (Google turns up this probably-relevant story: [1]) Thompson is claiming that some "videogame vigilantes" edit Wikipedia, but he does not claim that the person who was arrested and jailed made any such edits.

In the third of his three edits, a communication to the Help desk, Jack Thompson threatens to sue Wikipedia, saying "You goofs let video gamer cretins spew page after page of bile about me, and I try to correct some of it, and you say my responses are not "encyclopedic." I guess I'll just sue you, then. Thanks for the heads-up. Jack Thompson." This is the legal threat that got him blocked, not his earlier statement that in the past someone had been jailed for threatening him. betsythedevine 23:01, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Please do not invent content that did not occur in the edit history in question. Maybe some outside events happened. Or maybe Thompson has just lied about that elsewhere (he was disbarred in Alabama, apparently, for a pattern of deceit... so that sounds plausible too). But whatever did or did not happen in the rest of Jack Thompson's life, this is just a discussion of the WP page, the edits on it, and the reporting of these events by the wider media. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 23:23, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

But I'm quoting from the edit history in question [2]. I'm quoting, in context, the exact claim made by Thompson. He is refering to a specific incident. I linked (rom the talk page) to an outside source referring to a death threat made by a videogamer in Houston, just to make it clear that he's talking about one specific incident. Whether or not Thompson invented the whole thing, it's clear that's the same incident his edit mentions. It's inaccurate and unfair to distort Thompson's words to make it sound as if he claimed wikipedians threatened him. Accusing me of inventing content is 1) untrue and 2) violates several Wikipedia policies you probably know better than I do. I rely on your good faith to re-read Thompson's actual contribution history linked to above and to correct the description of Thompson's actions accordingly. betsythedevine 23:40, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Given that Thompson probably did invent the whole thing, I don't think it's meaningful to say whether or not it's the "same incident"...certainly it is not "clear". That's the invention: the notion that WP editors "know" the incident in question, and that it is known to be factual. We can't presume that the Wikipedia editors who saw his edit initially also researched and located some external article. However, I can go with the characterization that Thompson is referring to some threatener outside WP; it's more generous to Thompson that is unambiguously warranted, but it's plausible. The way Thompson writes it, it's ambiguous, since he basically says "All you Wikipedians are pixellantes". Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 02:35, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Just for more background... I don't want to put this into the article itself, since it's not relevant, nor have I documented it to WP:V. But I've been passingly familiar with Thompson for a couple years. Not from WP, but as mentioned other places. Pretty much every time I've seen anything about him, he's alleging death threats against him, the majority of which seem to be purely fantasies by Thompson. Or more precisely, gross mischaracterizations of actual events... e.g. maybe someone on some online forum will write, "Which DOOM weapon is best to use on Thompson?" Sarcastically asking about a choice of fictional weapon is pretty darn far from what anyone (or the law) would call a death threat... but Thompson tends to write editorials and go on TV enumerating such "death threats". Given a long history of such allegations, it's hard to say Thompson was referring to a "specific incident". Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 02:42, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying the inventing content remark. I didn't mean to imply that Wikipedia editors would know about or research the original incident. If what I wrote implied that, it was unintentional and a mistake on my part-not an intentional invention. Both the Wikipedia quote and the external source I quoted refer to a specific threat (torture and kill) made and detected in a specific way (threats made by telephone were taped) by a single individual videogamer living in a specific city (Houston) and resulting in a specific event (the arrest of that person). These many coincidences do make it "clear" to me at least that Thompson is talking about the same event that he had elsewhere had publicly discussed. True or fictional? I don't know, but it's still the same story.

Maybe. Plausible. But definitely not the only death threat he's alleged in the past.

Unlike you, I don't see Thompson claiming that all Wikipedians are pixelantes. Thompson certainly thinks that some Wikipedians are pixelantes. Probably true, IMO--we Wikipedians are a varied group, that's one of Wikipedia's great strengths and virtues. Quoting Thompson's third edit, "You goofs let video gamer cretins spew.." ... This wouldn't make sense if he claimed all Wikipedia editors were gamers. betsythedevine 14:00, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

OK... I read the first paragraph of his comment as not discriminating between all Wikipedians and all videogame players. But I guess I'm a little influenced by stuff outside the note itself where Thompson assumes that everyone who ever played a videogame is of identical thinking and disposition; this seemed like an extension of that. I never followed it that closely though, maybe partially since the last time I ever played any kind of videogame was something like 1997 (hence my no doubt terribly anachronistic use of DOOM as an example... though I think there are newer versions than what I played a decade ago).

Good job on singularizing the legal threat. I sort of habitually refer to "legal threats" in the plural, I guess because they tend to come that way. But in any case, there's nothing that gets a user blocked quicker (in my experience) than a legal threat against WP... appropriately so, to my mind. Quite contrary to the implication you seem to draw that this event was some sort of targetting against Thompson, the "legal threat==block" equation seems like business-as-usual... and one of the things where WP functions best. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 15:44, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I have only vague and hearsay ideas about Wikipedia's blocking policies, but I didn't mean to imply that Thompson was especially targeted for blockage. I agree with you that making legal threats is an activity Wikipedia should ban; I'm not sure that immediately blocking somebody who may be unaware of the policy is the best way to enforce such a ban.

Just from reading Thompson's three contributions, and not knowing anything about him beforehand, I could understand his frustration with the well-meaning wikipedians who responded to him on the Help page. They point to Wikipedia policies and encourage him to use the talk page, then wait for others to make the actual changes. That may be official policy but it's slow and roundabout and implies a belief in Wikipedians' good faith that Thompson clearly did not have--and neither, apparently, does Jimmy Wales: [3] betsythedevine 17:44, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you're leaning over so far to try to put Thompson is a good light. That's not NPOV, but just advocacy on his behalf. But in any case, there's nothing similar, or wrong, about someone constructively editing an article about themselves (like Jimbo does, or I do), and inserting meta-commentary and insults in place of the entry. If Thompson had just edited the birth date stated in the article, like a regular editor does, no one would have cared in the slightest. And if he had made an error initially, but then made his meta-commentary in the talk page (even with the various insults), no one would have cared about that very much either (maybe a violation of WP:NPA, but those are dealt with slowly and reluctantly). For that matter, if the threats of legal action had been on Talk:Jack Thompson, probably no one would have noticed very quickly. Instead, he went to the place where all the administrators were most likely to see it, and threatened to sue WP. I have no idea if the admins who saw it were specifically aware of Thompson's long history of spurious litigation, but even if they were not, that's without question the quickest way I know of to get an account blocked... maybe the only really sure-fire way (even gross vandalism is more hit-or-miss). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 21:04, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm just trying to make the article NPOV and factual. I'm not sure why I'm defending Thompson here on the talk page either--maybe because the article was initially so slanted against him. It's easy to see, from the little I've learned about him, why many dislike him. I agree with just about all of the rest of your paragraph. betsythedevine 21:57, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

You are right that the description started out with an inappropriate anti-Thompson POV; I think Yeago got carried away with his indignation over some bad editors (which is a trivial matter not warranting an article if that was all it was for). But then I think some of your edits swung it too far the other way. It seems good now.

In fact... it would be really good if we can finally get in some material that is more interesting than just griping about a few bad edits, even if they did get reported in outside media. The Biden example shows a glimmer of the type of thing that could make this article more than in-house bickering. I mean, the Thompson type stuff is OK if it's not the whole article, but right now the balance is way off. Neither Thompson nor anything he did on WP is all that interesting (at least not for this article). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 00:08, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Please pay attention to WP:SELF

I've found a lot of edits the reference either the Wikipedia namespace, or refer to pages using WP internal links. Both of these are violations of WP:SELF. If WP pages are referred to, it should be done with full URLs, just like you would to an external website. Keep in mind that WP articles are often reprinted elsewhere, and the text should still make sense in that case. However, there is explicitly nothing wrong with writing "this article" and the like, which is called a "neutral reference". Just don't refer (even with links) to the fact that readers may be reading Wikipedia. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 06:29, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

The topic of 'notable edits' has aroused some contention and possibly an exception to the WP:SELF rule. Wikipedia has the WP:SELF rule to avoid referencing itself about notable subjects in order to refer back to the original, verifiable, source. The issue here is that the notable event was spawned on Wikipedia servers, and so while the press at large may reflect upon the edits, Wikipedia's servers are the only place for factual reference (edit logs, usually). You have an interesting solution, but I wonder if its just a technicality. Perhaps a link to the page as it existed at the time of reference would clear this up? Maybe I'm missing your point entirely.

The style of reference is a technicality, but an important technicality. The content of Wikipedia is reproduced in many places, even printed on paper. The link [[Some topic]], or still worse [[Wikipedia:Some topic]] makes no sense to someone reading a piece of paper, or reading a mirrored copy of an article elsewhere online. The URL link http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Some_topic is meaningful wherever it appears. The point of WP:SELF isn't to pretend Wikipedia doesn't exist, it's to make the article content independent of the fact it might be hosted in a particular place right now. Of course, navel-gazing about Wikipedia is not very encyclopedic either, but that's a somewhat different concern. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 07:18, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about removing the "this article" phrases. Sadly, now that the article has been dunked into the Deletion Consideration Bin, it can be deleted for all kinds of other reasons besides the stated reasons at AfD (or no stated reason at all).Yeago 06:43, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Huh? What's the "deletion consideration bin"? Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 07:18, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Articles for Deletion debate

This article survived an Articles for Deletion debate. The discussion can be found here. -Splash^talk 00:12, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

This has no links from other articles and has hardly been maintained. Given the concerns about self-references, the generally very poor quality of sources here, and the fact that it's mostly a list of controversies duplicating the Criticism of Wikipedia article, I'm redirecting it there. --Michael Snow 23:16, 26 October 2006 (UTC)