User talk:Antimanipulator

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SPA

Thanks for pointing out the semi-authorized experiment using an account that failed to disclose. I'm curious ~~Please explain~~ why you created this account. I'm in a position to reach out to one of the researchers and I'd like to understand your thinking ahead of that conversation. Chris Troutman (talk) 23:21, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Chris troutman: Hi there, I read the working paper and as I already wrote in the incidents discussion, I found what they did really bad, violating the rule to disclose paid editing, creating dozens of articles with ridiculous lemmas and bad citations and never listening to advice and then writing an abstract that suppresses parts of the results that do not match with what they wanted to find and never taking care of the articles once their paper was written. Most of the drafts for good reasons never made it into Wikipedia, and all that part is left out in their paper. This is disruption in order to advance their career, without respect for Wikipedia. Antimanipulator (talk) 02:46, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, this was disruption for the sake of a paper and WMF should have refused them at the outset. My question for you is, why did you create an account specifically to tell the community what happened? Chris Troutman (talk) 03:34, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I understand without an account my IP would have been visible to everyone and I don't think it helps anyone if speculation starts on that basis about who protested against their unethical practices. Antimanipulator (talk) 08:54, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Let me spell it out in more detail. There are former editors (some blocked or banned or even globally banned) who make a habit of creating new SPA accounts (and disappearing, sooner rather than later) showing up at ANI or similar places and citing in detail Wikipedia rules without explaining where they learned about our rules in such detail. Often their interpretation of the rules seem to be a bit off. Is there anything you can tell us about yourself that would contradict such a scenario?

You seem to be more concerned about the methods and conclusions of the paper rather than the breaking of Wikipedia rules. Why the concern about the paper's methods and conclusions. Is there any reason for us to believe that you know more about the methods than a professor at MIT? Any information about these questions would be helpful. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:02, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I am concerned about the abuse of Wikipedia by these researchers and their attempt to portray themselves as generous scientists who share their knowledge even though their results are highly questionable and misrepresented in their paper and media reports about it and they spent no effort into bringing their drafts into article form once they had their results. If you just want to appeal to authority, feel free to do that. I prefer to base my judgment on arguments. There have been numerous high profile researchers who have engaged in scientific misconduct, and it does not need Nobel laureates to point such cases out. I am sorry if you have had unpleasant experiences here in the past but I assume you agree it doesn't entitle you to question the right of anonymity of other users. If I have done anything wrong, please tell me and I'll try to improve in the future. Happy editing. Antimanipulator (talk) 22:44, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

So you know, I took up this issue with one of the researchers. I can tell you that certainly the misunderstanding was theirs. I accept that you didn't want your IP to "out" you. If you are a banned editor, please inculcate that the community doesn't want you around. If not, I would encourage you to stick to editing under your main account. I edit under my real name (and divulge where I go to school) because I have represented Wikipedia on campuses in the past. I accept that everything I type into Wikipedia can be held against me and I accept the consequences. People hiding behind screen names lack that authenticity. I think your criticism of the study and their abuse of Wikipedia was useful to the community and not something you should feel you need to anonymize. Chris Troutman (talk) 23:33, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate your openness. If you ever have a stake yourself in a case, you should know that there have been numerous cases in which whistleblowers had to suffer dramatic consequences, and sometimes the evildoers could just go on. Felix Oberholzer-Gee for example still is a professor at Harvard Business School after basing an influential and highly controversial study on data he never shared and blocking criticism and repeatedly self-plagiarizing. Science involves a lot of money and politics. Antimanipulator (talk) 23:46, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Invited to join conflict-of-interest discussion

This is a friendly invitation to voice any thoughts you might have at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard#Paid editing experiment as a sort of followup to the issue you raised at ANI. ☆ Bri (talk) 04:17, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]