Monday, September 04, 2006
Wikipedia and me
Maybe to shift somewhat to somewhat lighter subjects I think it interesting to discuss my experiences with the Wikipedia and some of math people's attempts at slanting that encyclopedia with their own rather hostile antics.
First off, like most I came upon the Wikipedia as a useful resource, where often it's true you need to check things in other sources, but I've found that usually the Wikipedia is right, and you get more information that is useful.
But one day while doing the routine searches that I HAVE to do as I monitor the math wars, I found a search result showing up on the Wikipedia to me!!!
Some nincompoop had put me on the Wikipedia as a sci.math crank.
I thought about it a bit, and decided to edit the article to make it more accurate, clearing up some factual errors, like how long I'd posted, and removing more libelous and hostile remarks.
Someone came back, reverted my edits.
I changed again, correcting the article.
My edits were reverted again, and remember, the math community is HOSTILE, so we're talking about me finding some person had decided to put up some nasty negative about me on the Wikipedia—trying to set hostile opinions more firmly—and I was now in a fight against someone trying to block me from making it into an objective encyclopedia article—versus a rant against one individual.
Tiring of the stupidity, I put the page up for permanent deletion.
And it was so deleted, after a vote, and that was that.
The winning argument I gathered was that having a history of making wrong claims on newsgroups did not justify getting into the Wikipedia!!!
Oh well, all I cared about was preventing math people in the continual fight of the math wars from getting that big of a leg-up by having a hostile article against me in the Wikipedia, and remember, there are a lot of them so it just wan't worth it to fight against a bunch of nasty people by continually trying to edit the article to make it objective.
There may have been other paths to blocking them, but I like the one I took.
Still that wasn't all with me and the Wikipedia as I've talked about writing the first prime counting function article—which happened after what I mentioned above—but there is more.
Some other math community knuckle-head decided to STILL try and get me on the Wikipedia under the Cranks article, which I, of course, edited. Luckily that article is in dispute already so this time it's harder for my edits to be reverted. If you're curious go to the article and check the history to see my changes.
My point here is that I prize knowledge. But math people are capable of using means that are far beneath what you'd think, so I have to be vigilant in the math wars, as I track them across cyberspace. And I think the Wikipedia is valuable as an un-corrupted tool, while math people are quite capable of trying to use it in personal vendettas and attacks against individuals because they do not give a damn about the truth.
The math wars are a political war, so yes, this is a political posting, but hey, with people like I'm facing, if you do not step up to play politics, you may find yourself just another victim.
Math people try to exploit the Wikipedia. You might say I try to exploit the Wikipedia.
And our battles change your world.
THAT is how history is about INDIVIDUALS and GROUPS FIGHTING individuals, versus what you may think history is about, as I can talk about other battles across Blogger, where one is currently on-going as some math twerp took over a blog page after I deleted it.
OUR BATTLES CHANGE YOUR WORLD.
First off, like most I came upon the Wikipedia as a useful resource, where often it's true you need to check things in other sources, but I've found that usually the Wikipedia is right, and you get more information that is useful.
But one day while doing the routine searches that I HAVE to do as I monitor the math wars, I found a search result showing up on the Wikipedia to me!!!
Some nincompoop had put me on the Wikipedia as a sci.math crank.
I thought about it a bit, and decided to edit the article to make it more accurate, clearing up some factual errors, like how long I'd posted, and removing more libelous and hostile remarks.
Someone came back, reverted my edits.
I changed again, correcting the article.
My edits were reverted again, and remember, the math community is HOSTILE, so we're talking about me finding some person had decided to put up some nasty negative about me on the Wikipedia—trying to set hostile opinions more firmly—and I was now in a fight against someone trying to block me from making it into an objective encyclopedia article—versus a rant against one individual.
Tiring of the stupidity, I put the page up for permanent deletion.
And it was so deleted, after a vote, and that was that.
The winning argument I gathered was that having a history of making wrong claims on newsgroups did not justify getting into the Wikipedia!!!
Oh well, all I cared about was preventing math people in the continual fight of the math wars from getting that big of a leg-up by having a hostile article against me in the Wikipedia, and remember, there are a lot of them so it just wan't worth it to fight against a bunch of nasty people by continually trying to edit the article to make it objective.
There may have been other paths to blocking them, but I like the one I took.
Still that wasn't all with me and the Wikipedia as I've talked about writing the first prime counting function article—which happened after what I mentioned above—but there is more.
Some other math community knuckle-head decided to STILL try and get me on the Wikipedia under the Cranks article, which I, of course, edited. Luckily that article is in dispute already so this time it's harder for my edits to be reverted. If you're curious go to the article and check the history to see my changes.
My point here is that I prize knowledge. But math people are capable of using means that are far beneath what you'd think, so I have to be vigilant in the math wars, as I track them across cyberspace. And I think the Wikipedia is valuable as an un-corrupted tool, while math people are quite capable of trying to use it in personal vendettas and attacks against individuals because they do not give a damn about the truth.
The math wars are a political war, so yes, this is a political posting, but hey, with people like I'm facing, if you do not step up to play politics, you may find yourself just another victim.
Math people try to exploit the Wikipedia. You might say I try to exploit the Wikipedia.
And our battles change your world.
THAT is how history is about INDIVIDUALS and GROUPS FIGHTING individuals, versus what you may think history is about, as I can talk about other battles across Blogger, where one is currently on-going as some math twerp took over a blog page after I deleted it.
OUR BATTLES CHANGE YOUR WORLD.
# posted by James Harris @ 16:37 
