Spamwick

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November 2011

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Welcome

Chris, hi, and welcome. I'm kind of surprised to meet this way. I like your show. I have some friends who are big fans. I've listened to a few episodes myself, and just listened to episode 90 when you talked about your Wikipedia article, and zombies.

Are Wikipedians the wrong kind of nerds and geeks for you? We did drop the Klingon character from the logo, after all. But we're just as frequently male-dominated, lonely, off-putting, maligned, and bullied as any other kind. All PageRanked up and nowhere to go.

Wikipedia is a particular thing – a website that's also an encyclopedia, that strives for verifiable accuracy; which almost anyone is allowed to edit, use, modify, and distribute; supported by a community that interacts respectfully and civilly while encouraging boldness; and guided by rules which change over time. (WP:5P)

Sure, the volume of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines create a knowledge hierarchy. There's an overwhelming amount of material to read. Some discussions make me think of lawyers trying to communicate with non-lawyers. The technology sometimes falls short. Its usability doesn't compare to Stack Exchange, for example. These can be barriers to meaningful participation.

However, when the mass of policy and guidelines starts to become familiar, it's no longer as baffling. WP:SIMPLE is a good place to start, and many Wikipedians are willing to help. A bunch of volunteers creating an encyclopedia is a complex thing. A rather dubious endeavor. I mean, would you build a starship that way? If Earth built a crowdsourced starship, would you want to travel in it? I don't think I would. Though if it were my only chance at space travel, I wouldn't pass it up.

It certainly is sad that people take Wikipedia at face value, because it's far from finished, and taken en masse, far from good. The good quality articles are a tiny minority: fewer than 20,000 of 3.6 million, about 1 in 200, or half of one percent. (Good articles have a green plus sign in the top-right corner. Excellent ones have a gold star.)

Larry Sanger's post on Quora is a list of some of Wikipedia's biggest flaws. And yes. We, the 99.5% of articles, are full of half-truths. The whole point of the five pillars, the editorial policy, and the conduct policies are to shape and support a community that can improve that.

But, the point is, as much as maligning Wikipedian bureaucracy may be in vogue, I wanted to urge you to learn more about it, and share some of that with your listeners. Maybe you can even get Jimbo, Sue Gardner, or one of the other Wikimedia staff as a guest. Wikipedians are nerds too.

This page is in my watchlist, so if you respond here I'll see it. --Pnm (talk) 00:44, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Hey! Thanks for the kindness and help. I'm very receptive to cool people, even if we don't agree on every point. That douchebag Orange Mike unfortunately is the reason people tend to look at Wikipedians as petty and power-trippy. I felt like I was not being rude when I requested that the table be put back up and his response of "this isn't Facebook" and about how we were just trying to "abuse" Wikipedia and feed our egos was so far out of line. The only person who would say that listing relevant data is "abuse" and try to kill it is a fascist. And Wikipedia should not be a fascist regime. It makes me appreciate that someone like yourself would take the time to write out a thoughtful response. I addressed this on the podcast that's going up this week and invited a Wikipedian named tedder on who presented your guys' side of the case. He was really nice but no one will ever convince me that our list of guests, all of whom have their own wikipedia articles, is useless and extraneous information. I'm sorry that you guys don't understand how people actually use Wikipedia, but it's not quite in line with what Wikipedians think it is. We dumb consumers view it as a complete knowledge base. This may suck, but it's just the way it is. It's very frustration to me that someone like Orange Mike who has no investment in the show or understanding of its community gets to dictate what's relevant information on their behalf. It's truly ludicrous. Why shouldn't I then go onto a physics page and delete a bunch of formulas because I simply don't understand them and therefore don't see their value? The guests on our show ARE our show, so it is entirely necessary information. Every episode with a guest is someone of note, not to mention the fact that over 150,000 people listen to our show. We will absolutely add the list to our website, but Wikipedia has better SEO, and despite Orange Mike's shitty dismissive comment, that is important. People usually don't click past the first few google results. You guys set out to do society a service by maintaining information yet you do it a grave disservice when you dismiss Wikipedia's power in our culture and its practical application to its users. If someone added 3000 words of dumb anecdotes or every single fact about everyone on the show, then fine. Delete that. But removing the true, notable and verifiable information of our list of guests is petty and pointless censorship. AND FOR NO REAL REASON other than some guy who no one asked just interprets the guidelines in a weird way because he doesn't understand the show. He just doesn't feel like it should be up there. I'm sorry, but that it is not an acceptable reason. Other podcasts have guests listed. On mere precedence alone this should be a valid argument.

John Hodgman said the following:

"Wikipedia, obviously, is one of my favorite sources for dubious scholarship. I really do love Wikipedia, but that is a world of self-appointed experts, many of whom are extremely passionate about their little individual fiefdoms there, but it is a self-appointed expertise that is defining our culture now."

I know this is frustrating to you to know that people write off what you do in this way because you commit a lot of time and care to what you do, but this issue is EXACTLY why people like Hodgman have a dim view of it. It's in vogue because so many people have to deal with the same issues, and we get condescending snipes when we try to maintain the integrity of information that we know to be true and valid. Removing our guest list is petty to anyone who cares about our show, who are the only people who would ever click on our page so I ask you to please reconsider your position and don't stamp out vital information about our show.

Thanks for your time and consideration. Spamwick — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.151.147.121 (talk) 17:29, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

We're not done discussing this (heck, we're never done discussing anything...)

An editor has posted his opinion here at new suggestions on our signpost, a newsletter well-circulated and well-read among wikipedians. As you can read, the editor and I don't agree on some issues, do agree on others. I'm not much of a "talk radio" sort of fellow, but I enjoyed listening to your discussion on ep142, and think that Wikipedia might be a good subject for discussion in the future, having a somewhat disproportionate influence in the culture. Over time my personal opinion of the pedia has changed from naivete to cynicism to occasional disgust. But I do recognize that Wikipedia offers an important body of information, is usually a good place to start looking for information, and has an important place in breaking down the "tower of babel". On occasion I have used it for catharsis. BusterD (talk) 21:26, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank for your rational voice and support! It made me feel like I wasn't crazy for asking the questions I was asking. Onward! -Spamwick — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.151.147.121 (talk) 21:31, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Glad I could help. Dude! Please learn to use four tildes to sign your post. Is it so hard? Like this: "~~~~". Thanks and enjoy the veal. BusterD (talk) 21:54, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

It hadn't occurred to me, but the Washington, D.C. wikipedian group is hosting Wikimania 2012 next year. It might be a good place for a live taping. Lots of serious nerds will be there. BusterD (talk) 21:57, 20 November 2011 (UTC)