The People's Republic of Wikipedia

H/T to Kathy Shaidle for drawing my attention to the review by Evgeny Morozov at Boston Review of The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World’s Greatest Encyclopedia by Andrew Lih, who joined Wikipedia when it was only two-years-old and quickly became an administrator. The review and comments are well worth reading — here are some highlights from the review and the comments (boldfacing mine):

In many cases, however, notability cannot be determined even by following thoughtfully developed guidelines. It is, for example, much harder to verify the notability of a figure from the 1920s than from the 1990s. Most of the important characters of that earlier era are gone from public memory, and newspaper archives from those days cannot be accessed easily online (where Wikipedians spend most of their research time). Given that the flow of articles on Wikipedia far outweighs the attention span of its editors, the latter often have to make the same tough choices that print editors do: why waste a day improving one hard-to-nail-down article when one can improve a hundred?

This creates enormous knowledge gaps in Wikipedia and further alienates well-informed subject experts, particularly those who may know much that is hard to verify online. The subject experts—who usually have great demands on their time, as well—are forced to engage in pointless intellectual debates with Wikipedia’s bureaucratic guardians, many of whom are persuaded only by hyperlinks, not cogent arguments. This raises participation costs—busy experts quickly give up and leave the site—and creates tension between “experts with an attitude” and “verifiability freaks,” which partially explains those gaps.

(snip)

However, high-brow entries also suffer because Wikipedia’s economics of knowledge creation are fundamentally unsound. As long as an hour of research yields less “Wikipedia value” than an hour spent planting one hundred commas, few enthusiasts will do the intellectual heavy-lifting. Besides, one cannot learn much about Chabrol from a cursory Google search. Thus, the real tragedy of the Wikipedia method is that it reduces intellectual contributions to such granular units that writing a 2000-word entry on Chabrol in one sitting feels like painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. And if you do go to such lengths to improve the site, you do not want the bureaucrats—who may know nothing about Chabrol—to judge your contribution. There is something unappealing about the value system of a project that prizes, say, movie reviews quoted from college newspapers over elaborate entries in the authoritative Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film, simply because the latter does not have an easy-to-link Web site.

Here is my favorite comment:

17 | Omits Wikipedia’s Porn Server Past

It’s amazing that all mention of Jimmy Wales’ earlier career serving up porn websites has vanished into the unWikified abyss. For the longest time, Wikipedia’s pages were served from the same racks that ran a little St Petersburg porn backend empire. Wikipedia’s founding DNA owes a lot to its birth environment. The single greatest analysis of Wikipedia was done by Encyclopedia Dramatica:

“The People’s Communist Republic of WikipediaⓀ, commonly shortened to simply Wikipedia, is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) in which participants play editors of a hypothetical online encyclopedia. The goal is to try to insert misinformation as well as pushing a point of view that is randomly assigned at signup, while preventing any contrary information from being entered by others. Players with similar misinformation will generally form guilds in order to aid one another. Wikipedia players gain more authority as they progress, with “Administrator” and “Double-O Licensed” rankings granting them access to game processes not available to others.”

http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Wikipedia — posted 11/06/2009 at 18:21 by realist

This historic, frightening anniversary

Iowahawk’s column from 11/6/2008 on the election of Obama, which he re-published yesterday, has proved to be prescient. My only quibble is that the presidency is Obama’s second full-time job ever, not his first. He was a copy editor in his 20’s. While others complain that Obama has never run so much as a lemonade stand, it just occurred to me that he had a cocaine habit that his legitimate income would not have supported, so he may well have entrepreneurial experience, after all, if he were a drug dealer. Well, I suppose that counts.

Iowahawk’s congratulatory column begins:

Although I have not always been the most outspoken advocate of President-Elect Barack Obama, today I would like to congratulate him and add my voice to the millions of fellow citizens who are celebrating his historic and frightening election victory. I don’t care whether you are a conservative or a liberal — when you saw this inspiring young African-American rise to our nation’s highest office I hope you felt the same sense of patriotic pride that I experienced, no matter how hard you were hyperventilating with deep existential dread.

And continues here.

How to empower disabled members of the Armed Services to thank them for keeping you safe

From a comment here by Viet Nam war veteran and Texan, Peter Davis, son of a World War II veteran, and proprietor of Shakey Pete’s Shootin’ Shack, which will be in my newsfeed when I can figure out how to stop his RSS feed from breaking it:

The Armed Services are all about close teamwork to kill people and break their stuff until they beg us to stop. In between wars they are supposed to stand around looking so fierce and dangerous that other countries just kind of tiptoe around praying that they do not arouse our wrath.

Amen. And ROFLOL.

For the members of our Armed Forces who have been injured permanently and need assistive devices that the VA and health insurance do not provide, Project Valour IT is raising money to do the following:

Project Valour-IT helps provide voice-controlled/adaptive laptop computers and other technology to support Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines recovering from hand wounds and other severe injuries. Items supplied include:

Voice-controlled Laptops — Operated by speaking into a microphone or using other adaptive technologies, they allow the wounded to maintain connections with the rest of the world during recovery.

Wii Video Game Systems — Whole-body game systems increase motivation and speed recovery when used under the guidance of physical therapists in therapy sessions (donated only to medical facilities).

Personal GPS — Handheld GPS devices build self-confidence and independence by compensating for short-term memory loss and organizational challenges related to severe TBI [traumatic brain injury] and severe PTSD [post traumatic stress disorder].

I am participating in the Air Force team of Project Valour’s fundraising drive to honor my Uncle Donald’s service as a Flying Tiger in the China-Burma-India theatre of World War II, and also because my late life partner was quadriplegic and cognitively impaired due to multiple sclerosis, so this is an area of rehabilitation I love and understand. (My father’s other brother and my mother’s brothers served in the Army. My parents met working on the Manhattan Project.)

To donate, just click on the Project Valour IT widget at the top of the column on the right.

If you prefer to donate in honor of a different service, here you go:

Marines — at Villainous Company

Army — at Blackfive

Navy — at USNI (U.S. Naval Institute).

Kathy Griffin, fiscal conservative unaware

Kathy Griffin made my late life partner, Margaret Ardussi, laugh when she was in pain and dying, as much as I’d ever heard her laugh in our 20+ years together. We watched her first HBO special, “My Life on the D-list,” again and again in the fall of 2004 in the weeks before Margaret died.

So I am willing to make a lot of allowances for Kathy Griffin.

And, since Noel Sheppard over at Newsbusters clearly does NOT follow Griffin’s work OR get her, and because I do and do, I want to explain that he is wrong to denounce Griffin’s joke about wanting celebrity financial advisor Suze Orman, who is openly lesbian, to be the first woman president.

Here’s why: Griffin started making the joke that it would take Suze Orman becoming president to get the economy prosperous again and that Orman could do it in 15 minutes almost as soon as Obama became president. Griffin is an Obama supporter, so I recognized this as one of the very first harbingers of the Kool-Aid wearing off.

Based on the things Griffin says about handling money and being an entrepreneur in her reality show, “My Life on the D-List,” I actually think Griffin is a fiscal conservative unaware — pretty much the way I was until the fall of 2008. Once she realizes what fiscal conservatism really is, and that there are conservatives who support equality for homosexuals — which is one of her favorite causes — I think she will join the team and be a great asset.

Probably what is preventing Griffin from realizing that she is a fiscal conservative, and that conservatism has a place for her and honors her individuality, is that she sees the Right as a demonic stereotypical monolith — funnily enough, that is clearly how Sheppard sees Griffin on the Left and he keeps her there by stereotyping and demonizing her.

In the meantime, Griffin has tacitly admitted that Obama is incompetent and she started joking about it practically the minute he was sworn in. THAT is what is important about the Griffin-Behar interview.

Sheppard has the interview transcript at his post at Newsbusters — the link is above. The burr under his saddle is actually my favorite line from Griffin:

Because you want a nice, financially focused, dirty lesbian running this country.

And, why yes, now that you mention it, I DO.

Proven technology for producing peace

This is a video from 1990 of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of the Transcendental Meditation program, explaining how the Maharishi Effect can create peace and positive trends. The Maharishi Effect begins when any given population has at least one percent practicing the Transcendental Meditation program twice a day, or the square root of one percent of a population practicing the TM-Sidhi program, which includes yogic flying, in a group.

I learned the TM technique in 1974 and the TM-Sidhi program in 1978. Yogic flying is real — one of the women in my class was in her sixties and could not bend her legs at the knees due to arthritis, but I saw her fly up and forward with her legs straight out in front of her in a few hops that took her about 10 feet across the foam we used for our yogic flying technique.

Neither the Transcendental Meditation technique nor the TM-Sidhi program are a religion. They are effortless and very pleasant to do. I consider the money I spent to learn these programs to be the best and most successful investment of my life. These techniques are unique — nothing else is comparable, or has comparable positive results.

No other meditation or personal development program has been as studied as the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs. I recommend checking out the Web site of the foremost researcher on the TM technique and Maharishi Effect, Dr. David Orme-Johnson, who is an absolutely brilliant and wonderful man of the very highest integrity. (It includes letters from people of a variety of religions who have learned the TM technique and affirm that it does not conflict with their religion.)

I bring this up due to the anger, hurt, grief and sadness flowing in the wake of the mass murder at Fort Hood by Army psychiatrist/Muslim extremist Maj. Hasan. We don’t need everyone in the U.S. to practice the TM technique, but your individual life does get better when you do, and with large enough numbers to trigger the Maharishi Effect, you change the trends of society for the better in measurable ways.

Find out more, and where you can learn the Transcendental Meditation technique at TM.org.

If you can’t find a qualified TM teacher, leave a comment here and I’ll help you. I will not, however, put up with complaints that they charge a fee to teach you the technique. Prior to Maharishi’s founding an organization to teach this technique in 1958, the price was to become celibate, be male, find and join the right ashram and give up all your worldly goods. So the current price structure for instruction represents quite a discount. This is a technique that reliably, pleasantly and systematically will take people who practice it consistently to the highest levels of enlightenment — it is worth the money! Plus, once you have the desire to learn the TM technique, it really can be amazing how your luck improves and the money you need for it comes to you, even when it seems impossible.

Bonus: Maharishi explains how to produce permanent peace — there is serious science about this, this is not about airey-fairey attitudes:

Best Fisking of the 'Inherited Deficits' assertion

Almost all my friends and family are liberal and occasionally I ask them about the economy and how they feel about Obama. I do this in the scientific way that a cat pats a mouse. What I really want to know is, “Is the Kool-Aid wearing off? Are you still satisfied that you investigated Obama sufficiently by believing every word he said and attributing every question about his policies, character and veracity to racism? Is everything still all Bush’s fault?”

Well, via Instapundit and Hot Air, I found Keith Hennessey, who takes apart the Obama administration Budget Director Peter Orszag’s latest assertion, in a speech this week at NYU, that Obama-Pelosi-Reid bear no responsibility for the weak economy due to the deficits that Obama inherited from Pres. Bush.

Hennessey’s post is even-handed and useful for its succinct dismantling of the Obama administration’s excuse that it is powerless over the economy due to the deficits inherited from Pres. Bush — here’s the punchline:

The most disappointing aspect of Director Orszag’s speech is not the details of his substantive argument. It’s that he would use a valuable and limited resource, his ability to command attention and shape the policy agenda, to assign blame rather than propose solutions. We need the current Administration to spend less time worrying about whether future problems are their fault, and more time trying to solve those problems.

You inherited debt/GDP of 50.5%. Under your policies that will increase to 82%. Please stop worrying about whose fault that is and do something about it. Propose a solution.

Frankly, I believe Obama is driving the economy into the ground on purpose to destroy capitalism, so he’s not really looking for a solution, at least not the kind that Hennessey is thinking of, but that’s just me.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air adds some pertinent details, which I have boldfaced:

Read all of Hennessey’s excellent Fisking of Orszag, but bear in mind something Hennessey doesn’t state: these deficits come from Democrats. Democrats have controlled Congress and therefore the purse since January 2007. The last budget that the Bush administration signed went into effect in October of that year. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid played keep-away with the FY2009 budget, passing continuing resolutions until Bush left office and then an omnibus spending bill when Obama became President. The $1.4 trillion deficit in 2009 is owed entirely to the Beltway triumvirate of Obama, Pelosi, and Reid, and has nothing at all to do with George Bush.

Update, 11/9/2009, Mon.: Welcome, readers of Legal Insurrection, and thank you, Prof. Jacobson, for making this “Post of the Day” along with your summary: “Or, in plain English, Bush isn’t to blame, you idiots!” Who knew that one of the principle — and first — positive achievements of Obama’s administration would be to rehabilitate the reputation of George W. Bush and restore to him the respect and love of a rapidly-increasing number of Americans who are seeing him in a new and flattering light? It’s too bad that light is coming from the flames of their liberty and America’s status as the world’s superpower and beacon of capitalism.

So — Muslims can serve in the Armed Forces but we're still purging homosexuals? How's that working out?

I weep for the wounded and dead at Fort Hood — except for the gunman, military psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan (update: he is alive).

But when Muslims are allowed to serve in our military, despite the fact that the Koran commands them to deceive and kill non-Muslims, yet lesbians and gays like Arabic-interpreter Lt. Dan Choi are barred from serving and witch-hunted out of the services, with Obama’s full support in practice despite his lip-service-only opposition to “don’t ask, don’t tell,” I have to remark on how insane it is to embrace your sworn enemy into your military and elevate him in the name of tolerance, while you stigmatize and cast out loyal and patriotic homosexuals who freely pledge to their country their last full measure of devotion.

Thanks to the commenters at Hot Air: The gunman’s photo is here, and his military record is at This Ain’t Hell — no religion is listed. The post at Hot Air linked above now also has video clips from Fox News, including an interview with Hasan’s cousin.

Update, 11/8/09: Welcome, Daily Pundit readers, and thank you, Daily Pundit for the link and most of all for the headline, “i think cynthia has a good point.”

Carrie Prejean sex tape revelation

Carrie Prejean, the fired Miss California USA who became famous for stating her opposition to marriage equality for homosexuals, dropped her lawsuit against the California state pageant officials on Nov. 3 after they showed her an X-rated home movie in which TMZ.com reports she performed solo.

“I just wanted to make an audition tape but none of the really hot guys I know wanted to do it with me,” explained Prejean, “for the tape, I mean. It made me really angry because they all said they were gay. I am smokin’ hot and there’s just no way they were telling the truth about not being turned on by me. Now I’m so glad I got even with those jerks, thanks to Perez.

“Anyway, I finally got a girlfriend to operate the video camera for me,” Prejean continued, “and she put it next to a mirror so I could see myself. I just kept looking at my reflection and getting more and more turned on. And then she started telling me where to touch myself and she described all the sexy stuff she wanted to do to me. I was so hot and wet by the time she asked me whether I liked two fingers or three that I just went to town.

“Then I realized I was missing this great opportunity for my acting career,” Prejean added, “to practice girl-on-girl love scenes. It turned out she was as good as any acting coach, so we just kept trying everything we could think of, all night and half the next day. I must have blown off two pageant appearances at least, but I had to think long term for my career so honing my craft was more important. Thank God, we are both straight, so it is OK. Plus, my book is coming out on Monday, and this should sell a ton of books.”

Update, 11/5/2009: Thank you to dear Little Miss Attila for the link. I assure my gentle readers that dear Attila is hot, hot, hot! And, yes, when I found out from TMZ.com that there really IS a Carrie Prejean sex tape, it was one of those, “There IS a God!” moments!

Thanks to dear Smitty at The Other McCain, I found Monique Stewart’s post at HotMES and I’ve boldfaced two points she makes that agree with predictions I made in May:

I wonder why she [Prejean] didn’t tell the Values Voters Summit audience about that [sex tape]? Does she think that was a part of God’s plan for her, too? Who knows? Even more importantly, who cares? Carrie Prejean is an orange, fake boob having, empty headed woman. Conservatives should have supported her, but never lifted her up to be the poster child for Christian values. If a girl wants to be sluttastic, that’s her business…except when she holds herself up as a believing practicing Christian.

I don’t know much about her, but other than getting a free boob job, taking topless pictures, starring in a porno, and saying she was raised to believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman, she hasn’t done much else with her life. She has a book coming out about…who knows? More about God’s plan, perhaps? I’m sure she’ll be using Christian conservatives to sell it and they will be who she sells it to. Bleh.

I think the following report published in the New York Daily News is credible, so I expect more schadenfreude for me and more tears for Prejean’s dupes, uh, supporters down the road:

Controversy keeps following Miss California USA Carrie Prejean: Now a woman claims to have had a lesbian relationship with the “opposite marriage” crusader’s mother.

Valerie Vetrano of Corona, Calif., told Star magazine she and Prejean’s mother, Francine Coppola, “dated,” and the relationship ended shortly before Carrie Prejean was in the Miss USA competition.

“I did date her,” Vetrano, who is openly gay, told ABCNews.com. “I’m not going to deny it, but I’m not going to say anything else.” Both Coppola and Prejean declined to comment on the ABC story.

Prejean’s parents, whose messy divorce proceedings began in 1996 and lasted nearly a decade, accused each other of having homosexual relationships, according to a series of court documents made public on TMZ.com.

My father is in pain and that's what I care about today

Dad is taking a nap but in a few minutes I will wake him up and take him to the rheumatologist, Dr. A (not his real initial). Dad’s arthritis was under control on a daily dose of 2.5 milligrams of prednisone, but prednisone has side effects, like reducing bone density, which concerned the doctor because Dad is 93 and a fall could kill him. I take this seriously because a fall led to my mother’s death in 2006.

However, every time we have tried to go below 2.5 mg of prednisone, Dad has had a flare-up of arthritis, usually in his left hand. So Dr. A and I went several rounds over tapering the dose — I argued against any reduction and pointed to the one-to-one ratio of tapering below 2.5 mg. to a flare-up and having to drastically increase the dose for a few days afterwards. But Dr. A was very concerned over the results of a bone density test — he proposed reducing the dose to 2.0 mg. Finally I agreed.

Disaster followed in about 48 hours. Only this time, the arthritis flared up in both hips and his spine. So a man who could walk comfortably upright was suddenly in agony and stooped over his cane, barely able to walk or get in and out of bed — AND this pain enormously increased his chances of falling.

I already have impressed my dissatisfaction with this turn of events on the nurse practitioner. But, since the increased dose of prednisone has not resolved Dad’s pain, I have snagged a cancellation appointment today with Dr. A.

If you are caring for someone who is elderly and/or dying, here’s are the takeaways: I should have negotiated with the doctor that this would be absolutely the last attempt to taper Dad’s prednisone if the bad result I feared manifested. Also — neither the doctor nor I foresaw that the arthritis could flare up and strike directly at Dad’s ability to walk. We both should have seen that one coming. I want the doctor to see the result of his insistence that we taper Dad’s prednisone so he will know why I will stand my ground to the death in the future.

Speaking of death, when you are making end-of-life care decisions — and that is what this is because Dad is 93 and has other health problems — here’s the thing: you are going to die of something. At the end of life, the choices you make do not determine WHETHER you will live as much as they determine WHAT WILL KILL YOU. I am going to impress on Dr. A that the gradual bone loss due to prednisone that could result in death from a fall is very much preferable to the nearly 100 percent certainty of falling that attends an arthritis flare-up (even one that only affects his left hand, since he has to push up from chairs to get out of them these days).

P.S.

I am heartbroken that religious totalitarianism prevailed in Maine by telling lies about homosexual marriage equality. Think I’m exaggerating? I’ll explain another time.

The bright side of NY-23 is that Newt Gingrich showed his true colors and God willing, this has ended his bid for the Republican presidential nomination in its infancy.

And I am joyful about the victories in Virginia and New Jersey.

Dear Attila

Dear Attila,

I am delighted to learn that you have discussed a sleep study with a doctor — I hope, one who is a sleep specialist, since the study of sleep medicine is brand-new and even young general practitioners mostly only know enough about sleep medicine to be dangerous, that is, dismissive of real problems, especially for women. FYI, about your belief that you wake up enough to become conscious when you’re really in trouble: during a sleep study they take an EEG to monitor the stages of sleep — the EEG shows spikes when the brain sends a signal to wake up enough to open the airway, if you have obstructive sleep apnea. You almost never wake up enough to become conscious after an apnea, and there can be hundreds of these episodes a night, so don’t be lulled into a sense of false security if you do wake up gasping from time-to-time.

If you have obstructive sleep apnea, recent research shows that the episodes of hypoxia do cause brain damage, especially to the center for organizational abilities. Also, as a writer, you might find the dysphasia particularly annoying. I don’t think insurance covers any therapy for it, the way they do for people who have had strokes. I assure you that recovery is very challenging.

If you are sleeping through loud alarm clocks, you are sleep-deprived. Something is wrong.

Regarding bread machines, I use the Breadman TR-875 and like it very much. I ordered it from NewEgg.com. It comes with recipes.

About your heirloom tomato question: you can grow any heirloom tomato in a container as long as it is big enough — at least 15 gallons. Do be sure it has good drainage and use potting soil — Miracle-Gro’s is good and affordable. Commercial self-watering containers are pricey, but excellent. Also, at least six hours of direct sun most days is a must. Cage or stake the vines. My favorite heirloom cherry tomatoes are Wild Cherry, aka Matt’s Wild Cherry, and Galina’s Yellow Cherry, although you certainly will want to consider Camp Joy, too. My absolute favorite tomato is Brandywine, Sudduth’s strain. I also like Berkeley Tie Dye and Orange Russian 117 — if you are going to go to the trouble, grow something that is delicious AND will WOW people visually. If you want lots of fried green tomatoes, get an indeterminate hybrid for their prolific production since their tomatoes will be delicious cooked and it won’t matter that if you let them ripen they would taste like baseballs. Among hybrids, Jet Star and Lemon Boy are considered respectable by heirloom tomato growers.

Love,

Cynthia