In honor of discovering that I've apparently had a Wikipedia page for a few months, I decided to tell the story of why I'm not a Wikipedian (a story I told Jimmy Wales lol) and this seems like the kind of thing that might interest you all: https://www.instagram.com/p/C5i1r68Lyk-/
Though TL;DR if you don't want to watch a four minute video, my attempt to increase coverage of children's literature on Wikipedia was met with exactly the kinds of gatekeeping acrimonious jerk behavior you might expect.
Casey Fiesler on Instagram: "My long story about why I’m not a Wikipedian. :) #wikipedia"
20 likes, 1 comments - professorcaseyApril 9, 2024 on : "My long story about why I’m not a Wikipedian. :) #wikipedia"Instagram
Dr. Casey Fiesler
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •American social computing researcher and professor
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)Mike Hanley
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •American track and field athlete
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)Andrew Hundt
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •Relatable, the first time I did more than a minor typo fix, and spent a couple hours to make a page a bunch better, someone just reverted the whole thing rather than improving it further, or any other constructive choice of action.
I haven’t really bothered with anything that isn’t minor since then.
Dr. Casey Fiesler
in reply to Andrew Hundt • • •Bynkii (they/them)
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •@ahundt I added an entry to the B-1B lancer page that I knew about because I’d watched it happen (nose-gear not lowered landing at Edwards AFB) and found news articles on it online (a bit of a trick since it happened in 1989 or so and wasn’t really major news) and I *still* had to fight for it.
I was like “yeah, fuck this, if I want random feral attacks for no reason, I have a cat. And at least the cat is sometimes cuddly.”
…might work for coffee…
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •No 5 mins passed until a deletion request was on it. 24 hrs of folks arguing and even on the Wikipedia irc someone in earnest said "if you get your first article deleted, your second one will be better. It encourages to become better"
Just Boby
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •Eliot Lash
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •Yeah when I was in high school I tried in earnest to be an active Wikipedia editor. I watched over the years as all my contributions were systematically reverted and erased. People have even been deleting pages from my USERSPACE for Pete's sake!
Pretty much all that remains now of a year's worth of work are my contributions to wikimedia commons. At least people rarely delete stuff there.
Ultimately it feels like they don't value the time of contributors.
Dr. Casey Fiesler
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •Dr. Casey Fiesler
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •Bynkii (they/them)
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •Bo Brinkman
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •Andrés Monroy-Hernández
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •Dr. Casey Fiesler
in reply to Andrés Monroy-Hernández • • •William Pietri
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •Jeffrey P. Bigham 🔥🔥
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •Dr. Casey Fiesler
in reply to Jeffrey P. Bigham 🔥🔥 • • •Jeffrey P. Bigham 🔥🔥
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •Dr. Casey Fiesler
in reply to Jeffrey P. Bigham 🔥🔥 • • •Steve Bellovin
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •Kristin (vis.social Admin)
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •Thomas
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •Andrew Feeney
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •Dr. Casey Fiesler
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •James Umbanhowar
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •Philip Guo
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •David Karger
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •Dr. Casey Fiesler
in reply to David Karger • • •EverybodyWiki Bios & Wiki
EverybodyWiki Bios & WikiBrian C. Keegan
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon:
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •Dr. Casey Fiesler
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •Yesterday I got two emails from Wikipedia editors offering (paid) services to improve my Wikipedia page so that it isn't deleted. One I just politely declined, but the other I'm still mad about. This email is misleading (less generously, outright lying) and manipulative. It's someone claiming to be a "senior wikipedia consultant" and they have a business webpage for people to pay them to create Wikipedia pages.
I replied asking them for clarification on this email, and they did not respond.
Debora Weber-Wulff
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •Dr. Casey Fiesler
in reply to Debora Weber-Wulff • • •Jessamyn
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •@WiseWoman If he's marked as a paid editor on his profile, then he's actually (within tolerances) allowed to do that but it's still sketchy. There is a huge rift between people who think paid editing is AOK and those who think it's a scourge.
(also just fyi if your Wikipedia page winds up with something incorrect on it, ping me and I'll fix. I voted on your AfD)
Dr. Casey Fiesler
in reply to Jessamyn • • •Jessamyn
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •@WiseWoman Ah! Sounds a lot like this protection scam from 2015.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/02/wikipedia-blocks-editor-accounts-linked-to-extortion-scam
When I looked at how they handled that issue, it was reported initially on the Administrator's Message Board. This is always a bit of a headache because it's just moar inside baseball Wikipedia but it does have the potential to get something taken care of (in this case, reporting that user)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard
Wikipedia blocks editor accounts linked to extortion scam
Matthew Weaver (The Guardian)Dr. Casey Fiesler
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •Final update:
Can someone find me a tshirt or something that says "I survived Articles for Deletion"?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Casey_Fiesler
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Casey Fiesler - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.orgBrad Patrick
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •Valerie Aurora
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •Brian C. Keegan
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •Dr. Casey Fiesler
in reply to Brian C. Keegan • • •Dr. Casey Fiesler
in reply to Brian C. Keegan • • •Kyle Thayer
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •@bkeegan It's possible that spike was partly my class of 150 students, since I linked to your website (and one of your TikToks) on the reading for my class that was due that day:
https://social-media-ethics-automation.github.io/book/reddit/ch03_bots/02_bot_examples.html#fake-bots
3.2. Examples of Bots (or apps) — Social Media, Ethics, and Automation
social-media-ethics-automation.github.ioDr. Casey Fiesler
in reply to Kyle Thayer • • •Kyle Thayer
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •Amazon Fresh kills “Just Walk Out” shopping tech—it never really worked
Ars TechnicaMike Taylor 🦕
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •The replies to this ----^ are, tragically, exactly what I would expect.
Someone needs to get hold of the #Wikipedia Deletion Police and kick their arses good and proper.
Jules
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •Dr. Casey Fiesler
in reply to Jules • • •Dr. Casey Fiesler
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •Jules
in reply to Dr. Casey Fiesler • • •