Steven Colbert banned from Wikipedia - SPOILERS possible

[Sparty99]

Anyone who saw The Colbert Report on Monday night when his "The Word" segment dealt with Wikipedia will get a huge kick out of this:

http://spring.newsvine.com/_news/2006/08/01/307864-stephen-colbert-causes-chaos-on-wikipedia-gets-blocked-from-site

[mrpantstm]

I think the admins missed his point entirely. While Wikipedia is a great resource it is easily edited by anyone with an account. Banning the StephenColbert account really doesn't address that.

Plus they can't really take a joke. :D

[Rob Helmerichs]

I think the writer of that article also misses an important point, by assuming that the Wikipedia admins have any idea who Colbert is. The first time I had ever even heard of him was last week, and then only because there was a lot of comic book board chatter about an appearance by Joe Quesada.

For all we know, the admins didn't know there was any kind of joke involved (not that being a joke would make Colbert's actions right), but only that there was a concerted effort by somebody to undermine the accuracy of the site.

[mwhip]

Link to the segment:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=zmHm0rGns4I

Long live Colbert!!!

[sushikitten]

That's hilarious. Every clip I see of that show is great...yet when I try to watch it, I just can't. I find myself not enjoying it. :(

P.S. The youtube video bothers me because the syncing is off.

[ZeoTiVo]

I think the admins missed his point entirely. While Wikipedia is a great resource it is easily edited by anyone with an account. Banning the StephenColbert account really doesn't address that.

Plus they can't really take a joke. :D


the beauty of this is that Wikipedia is asserting their reality that Stephen Colbert does not exist or if he does that Stephen Colbert is bad for Wikipedia. They played right into his point without even acknowledging it.

[ct1]

While Wikipedia is a great resource it is easily edited by anyone with an account.

And accounts that intentionally vandalize get banned, and the mistakes eventually get corrected.

Plus they can't really take a joke. :D

I don't think banning the vandalizing account and correcting the mistakes has anything to do with that... Their mission to to maintain the high quality of the data. (And regardless of the many articles and segments like this showing that anyone can intentionally vandalize it, their model is working, they are maintaining a high quality of data. Intentional vandalism does get fixed.)

Would leaving the mistakes and not banning him have proved they can "take a joke"?
:rolleyes:

[hefe]

I blame bears.

[Sparty99]

Would leaving the mistakes and not banning him have proved they can "take a joke"?
:rolleyes:
I think correcting the mistakes, not banning him, and trying to clean up their editing system might have done the trick the same.

I remember a few months back there was a real uproar that Wikipedia was really lax in who could edit their sites, so they changed the rules that anyone with a (free) account could edit their sites. As Colbert proved, any yahoo can set up an account and edit their sites.

I love Wikipedia, think it's a great resource, but they need to tighten up their controls, which is, I think, the entire point of Colbert's actions.

[dcheesi]

That's hilarious. Every clip I see of that show is great...yet when I try to watch it, I just can't. I find myself not enjoying it. :(

P.S. The youtube video bothers me because the syncing is off.Well some bits are funnier than others. Mostly I just skip his interviews altogether; I personally find them painful to watch. This why TiVo is great; if you want to you can just skip to the second segment and watch The Word, which is by far funniest thing on the show...

[MitchO]

Here's a youtube with synched up sound:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=A7W42aE9kao&mode=related&search=

[scheckeNYK]

I blame bears.

i blame elephants. damn things are everywhere!

[mrpantstm]

I blame bears.

threat #1

[mrpantstm]

And accounts that intentionally vandalize get banned, and the mistakes eventually get corrected.

Accounts that do widespread vandalizism get caught and are easily banned. But what about small edits on specialized topics. Are those noticed quickly or at all? While on one hand, yes Colbert told a mass of people to vandalize Wikipedia pages which can be easily caught but the real problem is the small edits (in my opinion anyway).


I don't think banning the vandalizing account and correcting the mistakes has anything to do with that... Their mission to to maintain the high quality of the data. (And regardless of the many articles and segments like this showing that anyone can intentionally vandalize it, their model is working, they are maintaining a high quality of data. Intentional vandalism does get fixed.)

Would leaving the mistakes and not banning him have proved they can "take a joke"?
:rolleyes:

Maybe "take a joke" was the wrong phrase. I'm not saying the wikipedia staff should take vandalizism as just a joke. I think the intent of the Colbert piece was more satirical rather than joking.

Did Colbert actually change anything? If anything I think he only changed his page. He told everyone else to edit elephants I think.

Of course they shouldn't leave the mistakes but banning StephenColbert is a little dramatic. It's not like he can't get a intern to edit something or just make another account. Have they solved the problem by banning him? No.

[cheesesteak]

I have no problem with Steven Colbert altering Wikipedia entries to make a point. The "scores" of people who intentionally vandalized the site because he said to are morons.

[Rob Helmerichs]

I have no problem with Steven Colbert altering Wikipedia entries to make a point. The "scores" of people who intentionally vandalized the site because he said to are morons.
And I DO have a problem with him telling people to vandalize pages. That was irresponsible, to say the least.

[Ereth]

I think correcting the mistakes, not banning him, and trying to clean up their editing system might have done the trick the same.

I remember a few months back there was a real uproar that Wikipedia was really lax in who could edit their sites, so they changed the rules that anyone with a (free) account could edit their sites. As Colbert proved, any yahoo can set up an account and edit their sites.

I love Wikipedia, think it's a great resource, but they need to tighten up their controls, which is, I think, the entire point of Colbert's actions.
What, precisely, would you have them do?

The POINT of Wikipedia is that people have knowledge and having a lot of people who can edit pages in which they have knowledge provides you with a more accurate site AND faster update times. Heck, sometimes the Wikipedia article on something is updated within minutes of news about that thing breaking.

Limiting who can update destroys the entire value of leveraging the knowledge of millions of human beings.

[busyba]

Limiting who can update destroys the entire value of leveraging the knowledge of millions of human beings.
Of course, the problem with leveraging the knowledge of millions of human beings is that fully 60% of them are total morons. :)

BTW Here's The Onion's take (http://www.theonion.com/content/node/50902) on Wikipedia.

[ct1]

Did Colbert actually change anything? If anything I think he only changed his page.

He also changed the George Washington page to say that GW never owned slaves...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Stephencolbert

He wasn't even banned for the vandalism. It was a ban as required by their username policy that requires "famous" names to be confirmed:

At Wikipedia, we appreciate your interest in the project, but your username matches a well-known public personality. To protect against impersonation, please provide confirmation of your identity to regain access to this account.

I've contacted the press contact for The Daily Show/The Colbert Report, asking whether or not Stephen did the editing himself, explaining our username policy, and offering full unblocking, as would be received by any other newbie vandalising the project.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Stephencolbert

[mrpantstm]

And I DO have a problem with him telling people to vandalize pages. That was irresponsible, to say the least.

I'd agree with that. As Jon Stewart says a lot of their viewers a drunk college people (not necessarily true but) who'd probably take Colbert up on that.

[retrodog]

Of course, the problem with leveraging the knowledge of millions of human beings is that fully 60% of them are total morons. :)

BTW Here's The Onion's take (http://www.theonion.com/content/node/50902) on Wikipedia.
Yes, but those are the 60% who are reading it. The other 40% are the ones actually entering data.


:D

[bobsbizzy]

i blame elephants. damn things are everywhere!


That's right, I heard that the Elephant population has tripled in the last 6 months.

:D :rolleyes: :) :cool:

[5thcrewman]

Wikipedia- Has always been dead to me!

Liberal kool-aid drinkers 'decide' what the 'Truth' is and shout-down any dissenters with a fury that matches the honking horns of their solar-powered cars!

[bdlucas]

I don't think what he did was particularly funny. It more-or-less amounts to taking a film crew and a can of spray paint into the subway and saying, "The subway system is broken because anyone can walk in and paint grafitti on the walls while the cops aren't watching - see? Why don't y'all come down and give it a try yourself?"

Just to be clear - some of the quotes he made up are funny. The act of editing them into Wikipedia and encouraging others to do the same is boringly juvenile, in my opinion.

[unicorngoddess]

I'd agree with that. As Jon Stewart says a lot of their viewers a drunk college people (not necessarily true but) who'd probably take Colbert up on that.


You're missing the point...if we all say that it's true then it must be true. The majority of the viewers are drunk college students :)

And, for all I know, elephants could be matin' like crazy over in Africa right now...causing the elephant population to triple over the next year. It will be a revolution!

[marksman]

And accounts that intentionally vandalize get banned, and the mistakes eventually get corrected.



I don't think banning the vandalizing account and correcting the mistakes has anything to do with that... Their mission to to maintain the high quality of the data. (And regardless of the many articles and segments like this showing that anyone can intentionally vandalize it, their model is working, they are maintaining a high quality of data. Intentional vandalism does get fixed.)

Would leaving the mistakes and not banning him have proved they can "take a joke"?
:rolleyes:

As with any open source editing project it is doomed to failure. It is run by disparate agendas and ruled by those who were there first. I tried to provide legitimate information into a category to just have the same bozo remove it over and over again. Someone who makes it his duty to apparently keep everything out of wikipedia that he can. The funny thing is that his reasons were ridiculous and I could find all kinds of examples in the category I was adding and in the categories he had marked as his favorites.

It is going to end up just like DMOZ, a cesspool controlled by a few power freaks who manipulate to the site to their own benefit.

[ct1]

As with any open source editing project it is doomed to failure. It is run by disparate agendas and ruled by those who were there first. I tried to provide legitimate information into a category to just have the same bozo remove it over and over again. Someone who makes it his duty to apparently keep everything out of wikipedia that he can. The funny thing is that his reasons were ridiculous and I could find all kinds of examples in the category I was adding and in the categories he had marked as his favorites.

It is going to end up just like DMOZ, a cesspool controlled by a few power freaks who manipulate to the site to their own benefit.

I hear you. I've been editting it and removing stupid stuff people post there. In my favorite category some bozo keeps trying to add the same info over and over. I keep removing the wrong information and telling him not to add that stuff. He keeps adding it for ridiculous reasons.


;)

[hefe]

The king of Wikipedia...
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060804.wxwiki04/BNStory/Technology/?cid=al_gam_nletter_newsUp

[madscientist]

WBUR's On Point had a full hour on Wikipedia earlier this week. Listen here (http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2006/08/20060802_b_main.asp) .

Simon Pulsifer was on it, although not one of the featured guests.

Pretty interesting.

[Double-Tap]

And accounts that intentionally vandalize get banned, and the mistakes eventually get corrected.

If someone is referencing Wikipedia to dismantle a bomb or perform surgery, "eventually" is a little too late. ;)

[madscientist]

September's Atlantic Monthly also has an article (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200609/wikipedia) on Wikipedia.

Seems like this is the month Wikipedia goes mainstream!