[Taxacom] Wikispecies as an open alternative to Catalogue ofLife

[Paul van Rijckevorsel]

Ah yes, alliances and perceptions.

Wikipedia is full of conflicts and I have yet to see a case where
a conflict was resolved by applying the rules. However, creating
alliances, perceptions and all the other mechanisms of politics
are likely to be of importance. There are plenty of users who
spend a lot of time playing the political game.

Paul

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Doug Yanega" <dyanega at ucr.edu>
To: <TAXACOM at MAILMAN.NHM.KU.EDU>
Sent: Friday, December 16, 2011 8:41 PM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Wikispecies as an open alternative to Catalogue 
ofLife


> Paul wrote:
>
>>I would not want to present myself as any kind of expert on
>>the taxonomy of nitwits, but this classification of "two kinds
>>of nitwits" strikes me as wrong; obviously the situation is
>>more complex than that, which is why I was glad to use
>>the quotation.
>>
>>Probably it is safe to postulate that a nitwit is somebody
>>who operates outside his area of competence, without being
>>aware of his limitations?
>
> Those are the ignorant nitwits. There are a few, however, who know
> exactly what they are doing, and - as Stephen suggested - manipulate
> the rules to suit their own agendas. They are competent, but what
> they are doing is wrong, and done for the wrong reasons. The one who
> has made the biggest nuisance of himself on Wikipedia is probably
> Andy Z. Lehrer, but he violated so many of WP's policies (including
> using pseudonyms in order to pretend to be other people) that he got
> himself banned, and his postings are summarily wiped clean whenever
> he pops up on another dial-up IP. He is fully aware of his
> limitations, he either simply refuses to acknowledge them, or claims
> to be too important a scientist for the rules to apply to *him*.
>
> Which brings me to the following comment:
>
>>   * " ... incompetent nitwits ... deleting or vandalizing
>>   legitimate contributions - but you may need to act
>>   as the enforcer yourself!" is highly unrealistic; anybody
>>   doing so is likely to have the OWN-policy thrown in his
>>   face. Actually, the " ... incompetent nitwits ... deleting or
>>   vandalizing legitimate contributions ..." are the reason
>>   most commonly given by competent, long-time editors
>>   who leave Wikipedia.
>
> Competent long-time editors could, and should, build some kind of
> rapport with administrators, and leverage that to address issues with
> persistent troublemakers. This is how I eventually dealt with Andy
> Lehrer; I learned the rules, followed the procedures, and got the
> admins to back me up when I had built my case. I did not *personally*
> do anything to Lehrer, I worked within the system and had others with
> the auhority take the appropriate actions. I think, however, that
> interpreting my actions to be those of an enforcer is not inaccurate.
>
> The issue remains, though, that it requires active involvement to
> police any sort of wiki; you cannot simply make your contributions
> then ignore what happens afterwards, and not many people are willing
> to invest *any* effort in doing so. Most importantly, perhaps, is
> that the actual amount of effort involved is far, far less than
> people imagine, so again the perception is blinding people to the
> reality. It isn't that hard to keep a wiki clean.
>
> Peace,
> -- 
>
> Doug Yanega        Dept. of Entomology         Entomology Research Museum
> Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314        skype: dyanega
> phone: (951) 827-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
>              http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
>   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
>         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82
>
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