Guest Post: "Still Hosed Up" by Doctor Why

This is definitely becoming a month of guest posts. Here is the man with the TARDIS to tell us why Wikipediocracy is probably doomed. Plus, we get a fun photo at the bottom!


Still Hosed Up by Doctor Why


So…..what is the point to making comments about Wikipedia, other than to glorify it? For the past few months nothing has changed; In fact, in spite of a new criticism website ('Wikipedocracy' lol), nothing has really changed in years. No 'improvement' that I can see.

This blog ran a critique of W.P.O. back in June; months later, WPO sysop Billy Burns showed up and said…..

"This is the same as in any organization. We fill the holes and keep going. Andreas and a few other prized blog post writers moving to other venues hurt our blog output. We're going to have to find some more stellar writers. Would you have any suggestions? No, not you. Sorry. ;) "

And the owner of the blog rightly responded with:
"Monty, Monty Monty..... Go jump off the Star of India."

That's kinda pathetic, to be asking an enemy for help finding writers. Or was it snark? They have painted themselves into a corner perhaps? No, change that, it's more likely that Steve 'Greybeard' McGeady all by himself has painted them into a corner. Burns just does as he's told, and we all suspect old Steve is the one doing the quiet manipulation in the offline. I personally remember him under the old 'Gomi' name long ago; doing weasel things on Wikipedia Review. Maybe he just couldn't get very far on W.R. before because he didn't control the server and couldn't make outright threats. Looks as if he won't admit or discuss any of it either. No different than 'Elonka' or 'Mantanmoreland' or 'Ryulong' really.

The only useful blog writer they have left seems to be Greg Kohs. He wrote this fine item; one of the very few blog entries of recent months that wasn't a re-run of old crap. And shamed a few Wiki-diots into doing something about the crappy Ketel One article. One little mess fixed; among millions of others that remain unrepaired. The talkpage is lulzy.

This thread; in my sick opinion, is where Wikipediocracy's little act first turned the corner into stupid-land. EricBarbour pointed out some disturbing facts about Jimmy Wales's connections to the tech world; esp. Google and CreativeCommons and Larry Lessig; and it received favorable responses from almost everyone. Until 'Greybeard' showed up and started babbling about tinfoil hats and other bullshit. Dissing Barbour's comments but offering no rebuttal. Before this no one realized that 'Greybeard' loves Googleheads and their allies; in all seriousness. It's 'business' for him I guess. Maybe he owns a lot of Google stock; who knows. Barbour mentioned that McGeady used to work at Intel and asked him to talk further on the subject. And Burns frantically censored it. Don't give me any shit; I was reading the thread on that day and watched it happen. No wonder Barbour had enough of them. So have plenty of other people. Not all of whom are Wikipedia lovers either.

Everything connected with Wikipedia never changes. It's all sludge and backstabbing and incompetence. Picture the 'cool kids' table in middle school only on global scale. One wishes Steve McGeady would realize that he's never going to get 'control' of Wikipedia; or of any little bit of it. As Barbour already said; it will likely collapse into fighting and vandalism. Gomi will still be on the outside, mumbling like an old fool.

And so we have to ask; we were trying to write this material on October 19, and were 'inconvenienced'. Why was W.P.O.'s website down for most of October 19 and into the next day? Did someone post something that offended someone 'important'? I thought Encyclopaedia Dramatica had that area covered. Needle, needle, needle. ;)

                                           This photo is unrelated to Doctor Why's text; the
                                                         person depicted above is Ellen "Orlady" Smith,
                                                         Wikipedia administrator, employee at the Oak
                                                         Ridge National Laboratory, and former Oak 
                                                         Ridge city councilperson. Outed without 
                                                         her knowledge on Wikipediocracy three years ago.


[The "Star of India" mentioned in the post is a 19th Century museum ship tied up to the pier in San Diego, California. I was at least nice enough to not tell Monty Burns to climb to the the top of the main-mast before jumping into the bay. - Strelnikov]