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Re:Golden parachutes: Record severance payments at Wikimedia... by mattlondon on Monday May 22, 2023 @04:11PM (#36036102)
It has always been like this - at least for the past 10-15 years or so it has been essentially impossible to edit wikipedia.

Basically any change you make it insta-reverted by some bot or over-zealous power-crazed editor.

I think some editors decide that they "own" certain pages or group of pages and install themselves as some sort of authority/gate keeper/moderator. If your edit does not please them, it's gone. Instantly. You only get to edit the pages if you are in the editor's cabal of friends.

If you don't have an account, or you do have an account but perhaps have only made a handful of edits, you are instantly distrusted and assumed to be malicious.

Of course, you can never prove that you are not malicious, because there is the default stance of immediate-distrust for anyone, so your edits are constantly undone and you never get to build up enough credibility to appease the editors who control who gets to edit "their" articles.

I gave up years ago after a small edit-war with someone who kept reverting changes about a UK politician who was in national news at the time. No amount of references or citations from e.g. the BBC or the Guardian was good enough as I guess the verifiable truth didn't fit with their view of what this page should selectively say about that person, and so they banned my IP as a "vandal". I gave up (but got a new IP after redialing so it was pointless)

Re:Golden parachutes: Record severance payments at Wikimedia... by olivermarks on Monday May 22, 2023 @04:33PM (#36036347)
https://www.vice.com/en/article/7x47bb/wikipedia-editors-eli...

'Nearly All of Wikipedia Is Written By Just 1 Percent of Its Editors Researchers found that 77 percent of Wikipedia articles are written by 1 percent of Wikipedia editors, and they think this is probably for the best.'

Re:Golden parachutes: Record severance payments at Wikimedia... by swalling on Monday May 22, 2023 @04:39PM (#36036418)
> Basically any change you make it insta-reverted by some bot or over-zealous power-crazed editor.

You sound like someone who was pushing a particular point of view about politics, which is precisely the kind of edits that are set up for organ rejection given Wikipedia's strict stance on neutrality, sourcing, and the fact that politics are naturally contentious / prone to edit warring.

There are between 1.5 and 2 million anonymous edits to Wikipedia every month. https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/all-wikipedia-projects/contrib... A lot of them are in reality vandalism, spam, and garbage by passersby, but they aren't all reverted.

Re:Golden parachutes: Record severance payments at Wikimedia... by b59831 on Monday May 22, 2023 @05:33PM (#36036996)
Have you used Wikipedia?

It was one of the first culture war battlegrounds... And it's been owned for a while now.

Looking at these gross payments (and executive migration to think tanks), are you really pretending things aren't political?

Re:Golden parachutes: Record severance payments at Wikimedia... by SamoyedFurFluff on Monday May 22, 2023 @06:03PM (#36037271)
I’m going to be honest I’ve gone to some of the more controversial articles they don’t seem far off from reality a lot of the time. They usually have citations of both pro and anti arguments on both sides of any debate. Is there something I’m missing?
Re:Golden parachutes: Record severance payments at Wikimedia... by sp332 on Monday May 22, 2023 @06:09PM (#36037321)
Yes, the Talk and History pages on those articles.
Re:Golden parachutes: Record severance payments at Wikimedia... by ethbr0 on Monday May 22, 2023 @06:52PM (#36037711)
People can play fact Monopoly behind the scenes as much as they want -- there's a reason Talk isn't displayed without clicking on it.
Re:Golden parachutes: Record severance payments at Wikimedia... by swalling on Monday May 22, 2023 @06:18PM (#36037393)
The CEO of the nonprofit behind Wikipedia has zero editorial control over the site. Decisions are made by consensus among the editors who show up, which can be anyone. In fact, the executives probably have less editorial control than you and I do individually, precisely because it's a serious taboo in Wikipedia for staff members to try and influence editorial decisions.

Honestly you sound like a conspiracy theorist who doesn't really understand how Wikipedia works.

Re:Golden parachutes: Record severance payments at Wikimedia... by andersrs on Monday May 22, 2023 @07:42PM (#36038102)
Sure there is a lot of spam but there is also a lot of political pressure to influence politically controversial articles. This rather old video was an eye opener for me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t52LB2fYhoY
Re:Golden parachutes: Record severance payments at Wikimedia... by swalling on Monday May 22, 2023 @09:21PM (#36038701)
This kind of campaign is overblown.

They mention the topic of the Gaza flotilla raid in the video. If you read the actual article on this topic, it's pretty balanced, and mentions in the introduction that Israel was condemned by the UN Human Rights Council and their use of force was called excessive and unreasonable. Hardly a Zionist propaganda piece.

Re:Golden parachutes: Record severance payments at Wikimedia... by musicale on Monday May 22, 2023 @05:32PM (#36036983)
Similar issues with stackoverflow. Entrenched systems and editors/moderators create barriers that discourage contributions.

Tried a few times and realized it wasn't worth the effort.

Re:Golden parachutes: Record severance payments at Wikimedia... by vosper on Monday May 22, 2023 @06:04PM (#36037275)
A weird thing about SO is that you can accumulate privileges for doing nothing. I once answered a question about Python which has accumulated thousands of votes/points over the years, and now I have been granted all these editing rights that I don't even know what to do with (nor do I use them).
Re:Golden parachutes: Record severance payments at Wikimedia... by hanspragt on Monday May 22, 2023 @06:43PM (#36037628)
I got all my SO points from answering a single question on JavaFX, which I only used for about 6 months. It is not even the accepted answer (which was, and still is, incorrect).
Re:Golden parachutes: Record severance payments at Wikimedia... by andersrs on Monday May 22, 2023 @07:34PM (#36038051)
There is a lot of demand to control the narrative on political articles. Some political groups [1][2] have mobs of Wikipedia editors trying to influence what you read. I'd be surprised if they didn't have a few moderator roles otherwise a lot of their work would be reverted.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t52LB2fYhoY

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/aug/18/wikipedia-edit...

Re:Golden parachutes: Record severance payments at Wikimedia... by eastern on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @06:42AM (#36042356)
Edits might be for sale for things that matter to companies.

Every Public Relations agency claims to 'manage' the content on clients' Wikipedia pages.