Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-03-11/In the media

Australian Feminist Writers

Where are all the Australian feminist writers on Wiki? Encouraging update and creation of pages on Australian Feminist Writers. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:05, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

This issue's News and Notes has a long feature on the various Wikipedia events for International Women's Day and WikiWomen's History Month. Gamaliel (talk) 18:45, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Andrew McMillen

Regarding Andrew McMillen, how predictable and expected is it that a writer who criticizes Wikipedia finds his own article nominated for deletion...I'd be more surprised if it wasn't nominated. Some Wikipedians have incredibly thin skins and react poorly to anyone notable who criticizes the project, whether or not the criticism is justified. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 20:50, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

"Hey, I have an article even though I shouldn't!" "Oops, thanks for pointing that out! Let's correct that error!" What were you expecting? DS (talk) 19:20, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Snore...

Blah blah blah radical liberal hogwash blah. Blah blah blah radical conservative hogwash blah.

Seriously society? You still haven't realised that radical conservatives and radical liberals are equally foolish? How?

I tire much of this "epic battle" (sarcasm) between the radical conservatives and radical liberals that never seems to halt for even a moment.

I am starting to see why the Rastafarians call politics "politricks". Because it's all just a bunch of nonsense.

People should be judging individuals by their own merits. Anything less then that is indicative of poor judgment and stark bias.

So why can't we all just take a break from sparring every second and just sit down, have a glass of root beer, and give one another friendly hugs?

I use the Web much less now because of these silly political skirmishes that are going on within it. Where I live, everybody laughs at this silliness for the most part. The Web is becoming a mindless ball of silliness, and it's hard to take anything said within it seriously when people are arguing over dumb stuff.

It is one thing to wish to weaken the systematic bias of Wikipedia, but it is another to call the ArbCom case in question a "political injustice"; that borders on WP:DIVA territory. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 18:27, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

So, you don't identify yourself as a proud New Englander? That is a group identification. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 20:34, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Group identification isn't the problem in this case. The problem is that the label being used is no longer sufficient to accurately give your average joe an idea of what you believe in. Rather than seeing Feminism as "a movement striving to break the gender divide in society and to get women to be granted equal opportunity everywhere", the average joe will see it as "a sort of cultish group that harasses and slanders those that they don't like".

Such a conclusion is the result of an extremely negative stigma that has become attached to the word in question. You can not simply pooh-pooh that stigma and go on your merry way. The simple fact is that the word "Feminism" has been torn and tattered to the point of unfathomability. That label needs to be tossed out and someone needs to come up with a new one. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 22:47, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Who started this whole shebang?

Gosh, I'm so glad we are still arguing about this. If only there was some way - like say a history page, or an archive of text discussions - to actually investigate who did what. (And to save time, and speaking as someone who was here almost from the very beginning, it was Jimbo's money and Larry's idea. Jimbo was barely present during year 1, his active involvement didn't really start until after Larry left in 2002. And does anyone remember Tim Shell?).Manning (talk) 00:07, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Well as someone who has been here almost as long, I'll express doubt the argument will ever be resolved for good until all involved parties are dead. (Although I'll agree with you that Wikipedia was a creation "of Jimmy's money & Larry's idea".) On the one hand, Wikipedia is Jimmy Wales' sole claim to fame. Sharing credit for it with anyone -- Sanger, Ward Cunningham, the Foundation Board, people who write content for Wikipedia -- dilutes his single claim to fame. Then there is the problem Sanger has that when given the opportunity to create a "better Wikipedia" (i.e. Citzendium), he failed. That failure makes it appear that Sanger has no idea why Wikipedia was a success, thus invalidating his claim to have helped create it. Of course the truth is no one understands why Wikipedia was so successful for its first several years, why a bunch of nobodies would think writing an encyclopedia was worth joining a bunch of strangers & spending their spare time using Wiki software to make it happen in the first place. Simply put, there was an unexpected social dynamic here that Wales & Sanger stumbled upon by accident, which worked for a while with little need of management, & now both want to claim credit for because no one else could do it better than they. -- llywrch (talk) 23:13, 17 March 2015 (UTC)