I was hoping to get back to the dealing with the WikiSleeze: the scummy people in Commons trading in child porn, the single-purpose paid or unpaid editor accounts trying to hide that they are there to spruce up biographies and corporate pages, and so on. I need to do the research to find out just what pluperfect hell is going on, and that takes time without leads, and I'm under pressure to use the "notes" material because it is going out of date faster and faster and so it's becoming "news-history."
Obituary for a Jammer
Henry Stange (WA6RXZ) was a source of drama and comedy over at the 147.435 MHz 2 meter amateur ("ham") radio repeater in Los Angeles and also the 70 centimeter K9KAO repeater on 449.500 MHz, from which he was banned from operating on. On June 2nd, Stange's body was found in a shallow, poorly dug grave in Joshua Tree National Park. The LA Sheriff's investigation is ongoing.
The Numbers
I have gotten to a point where not posting for a month still garners nearly 3000 views, not that I'm a fan of not posting because of all this material I have to release.
Why do you think Wikipedia would collapse at all? I know the site has some major problems (that I've seen the ugly end of personally), but it seems to have a self-sustaining equilibrium that recovers from shocks to the system. Fewer editors, yes, but that might be because they don't need as many new articles written as during the first years. Wikipedia is more likely to reinvent itself than to die.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's reinventing itself into a ghost-town from where I stand. If they want to be serious, they need to hire copywriters and fact-checkers to get all the existing articles up to snuff, and they need to bring in real biologists to finish all those red links for the single-celled organisms, mathematicians for the math articles, etc. They also need to admit how many articles started from retyped 1920s "Encyclopedia Britannica" articles, and what came from that 19th century Catholic encyclopedia. And Jimmy has to admit that Bomis had great input into the Nupedia/proto-Wikipedia in 2000-2001, and he should send Larry Sanger and Ben Kovitz little crowns on plaques marked "Secret Kings of Wikipedia - Sanger and Kovitz." It's only been 17 years, after all.
DeleteOh God, I just saw that the "obituary" wasn't metaphorical. That poor man really is dead. I am so sorry for your loss. I feel like a big jerk now.
ReplyDeleteEverybody thinks I knew the guy, but I only really heard him (or about him) on the .435 zoo repeater. Try to contact Roger Bly (K6MWT) the repeater owner; he lives down in San Diego, they may have a legitimate fund for burial, but I don't know if the LA Sherriff's office has released the body.
DeleteUsually ham radio guys die of terminal old or terminal fat and old, this death was shocking because he was young enough to have small children.
Wikipedia might never die. One of the reasons it hasn't gone the way of other sites is it doesn't need much to keep it ticking over. Indeed, they are already self-sustaining on basic overheads like servers.
ReplyDeleteIf it was ever not the case, certainly now, the WMF are well aware that raising quality is not remotely a priority, there simply won't be an emergent competitor on that score, one that isn't also radically transformational in other ways.
The main threat to Wikipedia right now is governmental regulation of the internet, and that is why they fight any law that threatens their right to be absentee landlords over a free library, tooth and nail.
As my latest guest post shows, Wikipedia isn't getting any better at its basic mission, obtaining and retaining accurate and useful information, and nobody at the WMF gives a flying fuck. On that score, we can only keep chipping away at their propaganda.
There's no need to worry, those of us who know the signs, know there is no resurgence in their fortunes coming. As has been the case for years, there are signs of decay everywhere, to the point it is now affecting critical functions. In the eyes of the hard-core enthusiasts, it is all hands to the pump, they just don't have many hands, and not a very efficient pump.
Wikipedia is on borrowed time. It isn't, and on current evidence, can never be, essential to anyone or anything, not as an encylopedia. It is just free shit. They can't escape this reality, they can only continue to hope people don't realise it.
That was me, CrowsNest, btw.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharingg this
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