During my stint volunteering with the FLI, I worked on a project to improve Wikipedia’s coverage of existential risk. I don’t remember the ultimate outcome of the project, but we were up against an admin who “owned” many of those pages, and was hostile to many of FLI’s views.
The talk of an admin who controlled those pages with an iron fist came from before this project existed, presumably encountered by affiliates who had tried to edit in good faith exactly as you’ve advocated, but were shut down.
We were far from the first or only group that had Wikipedia-editing sessions. I’ve walked past signs at my university advertising them for other groups. Ours was quite benign. I’m reading some of the discussion from back then; their list included things like adding links for the page on nuclear close calls.
I’ve seen articles on hot-button topics where the Wikipedia article is far more slanted to one side than any of the mainstream media articles, and read the talk archives where a powerful few managed to invoke arcane rules to rule out all sources to the contrary. It’s stuff like this that makes me want out. I was a happy Wikipedian in high school in a previous decade, but I shall be no longer.
presumably encountered by affiliates who had tried to edit in good faith exactly as you’ve advocated, but were shut down
It was paid-editing for a political agenda. From an EA perspective paying someone to do paid editing or do political lobbying is completley fine. On the other hand you have the money isn’t speech side that considers using money to do lobbying or get someone change Wikipedia according to their political interests bad.
While there might have been multiple admins that opposed the EA effort at that time Jytdog was one of the central admins and isn’t around any longer because misbehavior in his quest to fight against political and commercial interests pushing their point of view onto Wikipedia.
We were far from the first or only group that had Wikipedia-editing sessions.
From the Wikipedia perspective there’s a difference of a Wikipedia user group that does a Wikipedia-editing session together which is great and an organization having a project to change Wikipedia according to their agenda.
If you start a WikiProject X-risk and then coordinate within that WikiProject that’s democratic participation. If an organization coordinates internally and then tries to push it’s views onto Wikipedia that’s different.
While I would prefer that such an FLI project wouldn’t face opposition, I do understand the other side. The quest of protecting Wikipedia against organizations who try to push their agenda on Wikipedia by paying money to hire people has value.
The way around this is general democratic participation. Inclusionism against exclusionism is a constant fight in Wikipedia and I don’t think opting out of it because there are many exclusionist on Wikipedia is a good idea. I think Wikipedia is central enough that it’s worth for more people to engage with it.
It was paid-editing for a political agenda. From an EA perspective paying someone to do paid editing or do political lobbying is completley fine. On the other hand you have the money isn’t speech side that considers using money to do lobbying or get someone change Wikipedia according to their political interests bad.
Putting aside that a volunteer project by a non-profitis not paid, and I take some issue with arguments that improvements to the page on nuclear close calls is “political”:
I mean that some individuals later in this group, before any organized effort by the FLI existed, had dabbled in editing some of these same articles, for exactly the pure motives that you advocate editing for, and encountered entrenched (and perhaps unreasonable) opposition.
From the Wikipedia perspective there’s a difference of a Wikipedia user group that does a Wikipedia-editing session together which is great and an organization having a project to change Wikipedia according to their agenda.
Our perspective was that we were merely adding better information, improving accuracy, and giving fair summaries of the arguments.
I expect similar groups would say the same.
You can judge for yourself. Here are some edits from the group:
Putting aside that a volunteer project by a non-profitis not paid, and I take some issue with arguments that improvements to the page on nuclear close calls is “political”:
Do you think the point of adding nuclear close calls isn’t to move public policy into a direction that’s less likely to produce a nuclear accident? That’s a political purpose. It’s not party political but it’s political.
I mean that some individuals later in this group, before any organized effort by the FLI existed, had dabbled in editing some of these same articles, for exactly the pure motives that you advocate editing for, and encountered entrenched (and perhaps unreasonable) opposition.
There was an EA project where Vipul paid a few people to write EA related Wikipedia content on a variety of EA issues. This triggered resistence from people like Jytdog who see it as their mission to prevent commercial and other interests from infringing into Wikipedia. While of course not all EA people involved in that episode were paid it’s part of the reason why some admins were very protective about EA articles.
If you look at the account behind the edit you point to it’s an account that mostly edits articles for a single cause. Given what you said it’s also an FLI associated account that edits FLI pages without doing any disclosure about how the account owner relates to FLI. That’s why it’s likely perceived as being an account by someone with an agenda that they are not open about. It doens’t like like a person who comes regularly to Wikipedia when they browse the web and edits something when they see an error.
Do you think the point of adding nuclear close calls isn’t to move public policy into a direction that’s less likely to produce a nuclear accident? That’s a political purpose. It’s not party political but it’s political.
Of course I believe it serves that purpose. I also believe that the most recent edit in all of Wikipedia at my time of writing, deleting a paragraph from the article on Leanna Cavanagh (a character from some British TV show I’d never heard of) serves to decrease the prominence of that TV show, which will weaken whatever message or themes it carries (such as bringing attention to Yorkshire, where the show is set).
So, this is an empty criticism.
Similarly, I don’t know who “the account behind the edit you point to” is since I linked to two different revisions both of which cover edits by multiple authors, but I checked the edit history of one of them, user Simfish (whose real life identity I shan’t reveal at this moment). He has a bunch of edits on the “Timeline of Nordstrom” article, and I don’t know what that has to do with EA.
I’m not sure this conversation has any more productive purpose. You keep on harping on a specific defense of Wikipedia culture that any hostility encountered by my peers is justified because we were a paid special interest group. I’ve stated several reasons why those justifications did not apply at the time hostility was first encountered. I see you continuing to try to find ways to make those criticisms apply. Needless to say, this is a silly battle since I’m the one with all the details.
I can say that this experience is not leaving me any more desirous of editing Wikipedia, so I’m at least one person with whom you’ve not yet succeeded in your original goal.
Edit: Okay, I just found Simfish (and his real name) on a list of people whom Vipul paid, and found that Vipul Naki’s timeframe overlapped with the FLI group. I have to partly retract the details behind my thesis above. I can still make it because I do not recognize anyone else on Vipul’s list having a Boston/FLI connection.
Edit 2: Neither of these articles appear on the list of articles sponsored by Vipul.
I also believe that the most recent edit in all of Wikipedia at my time of writing, deleting a paragraph from the article on Leanna Cavanagh (a character from some British TV show I’d never heard of) serves to decrease the prominence of that TV show, which will weaken whatever message or themes it carries (such as bringing attention to Yorkshire, where the show is set).
While bringing less attention to Yorkshire might be an effect of the edit, it’s not the purpose of the edit. Purpose is about intent. FLI is an organization that has a mission. Part of that mission is to get governments to act better in regards towards X-risk.
So, this is an empty criticism.
My point here isn’t criticism. It’s understanding why the thing that happened happened.
I personally have no problem with either what Vipul did or what FLI did here. If you however want to understand why there was the opposition that’s there and edit in a way that’s less likely to face opposition it makes sense to understand why the scenario played out the way it did.
Edit 2: Neither of these articles appear on the list of articles sponsored by Vipul.
“Your edit can be rejected because of collateral damage from some conflict you are not a party to” is an instance of “benign edits are rejected for arcane reasons”, not a refutation of it.
“Edits may be rejected for reasons that are not reasonably predictable by the editor and unrelated to the quality of the edit” is, in fact, a model of how edits are treated. And it’s useful in deciding whether editing is likely to work.
There are two things here. The first one is that I’m asking people to voice their opinion on talk pages which is a different category of action then making edits to Wikipedia articles directly.
If an EA organization wants to edit Wikipedia, understanding the relationship between the EA community overall and Wikipedia is something that’s achieveable and that then allows predicting the related effects.
During my stint volunteering with the FLI, I worked on a project to improve Wikipedia’s coverage of existential risk. I don’t remember the ultimate outcome of the project, but we were up against an admin who “owned” many of those pages, and was hostile to many of FLI’s views.
This article, at least by appearances, is an excellent account of the problems and biases of Wikipedia: https://prn.fm/wikipedia-rotten-core/
An organization having a project to change Wikipedia is not what Wikipedia is about and triggers immune system response of Wikipedia.
The way to engage with Wikipedia is to start by doing a bit when you naturally come across a Wikipedia article with issues.
For the whole EA endevear that incountered resistence, it’s worth noting that Jytdog who was one of the main admins against it is now banned.
The talk of an admin who controlled those pages with an iron fist came from before this project existed, presumably encountered by affiliates who had tried to edit in good faith exactly as you’ve advocated, but were shut down.
We were far from the first or only group that had Wikipedia-editing sessions. I’ve walked past signs at my university advertising them for other groups. Ours was quite benign. I’m reading some of the discussion from back then; their list included things like adding links for the page on nuclear close calls.
I’ve seen articles on hot-button topics where the Wikipedia article is far more slanted to one side than any of the mainstream media articles, and read the talk archives where a powerful few managed to invoke arcane rules to rule out all sources to the contrary. It’s stuff like this that makes me want out. I was a happy Wikipedian in high school in a previous decade, but I shall be no longer.
It was paid-editing for a political agenda. From an EA perspective paying someone to do paid editing or do political lobbying is completley fine. On the other hand you have the money isn’t speech side that considers using money to do lobbying or get someone change Wikipedia according to their political interests bad.
While there might have been multiple admins that opposed the EA effort at that time Jytdog was one of the central admins and isn’t around any longer because misbehavior in his quest to fight against political and commercial interests pushing their point of view onto Wikipedia.
From the Wikipedia perspective there’s a difference of a Wikipedia user group that does a Wikipedia-editing session together which is great and an organization having a project to change Wikipedia according to their agenda.
If you start a WikiProject X-risk and then coordinate within that WikiProject that’s democratic participation. If an organization coordinates internally and then tries to push it’s views onto Wikipedia that’s different.
While I would prefer that such an FLI project wouldn’t face opposition, I do understand the other side. The quest of protecting Wikipedia against organizations who try to push their agenda on Wikipedia by paying money to hire people has value.
The way around this is general democratic participation. Inclusionism against exclusionism is a constant fight in Wikipedia and I don’t think opting out of it because there are many exclusionist on Wikipedia is a good idea. I think Wikipedia is central enough that it’s worth for more people to engage with it.
Putting aside that a volunteer project by a non-profit is not paid, and I take some issue with arguments that improvements to the page on nuclear close calls is “political”:
I mean that some individuals later in this group, before any organized effort by the FLI existed, had dabbled in editing some of these same articles, for exactly the pure motives that you advocate editing for, and encountered entrenched (and perhaps unreasonable) opposition.
Our perspective was that we were merely adding better information, improving accuracy, and giving fair summaries of the arguments.
I expect similar groups would say the same.
You can judge for yourself. Here are some edits from the group:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=AI_takeover&type=revision&diff=688572046&oldid=687117054
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Biotechnology_risk&type=revision&diff=713438700&oldid=713369288
Do you think the point of adding nuclear close calls isn’t to move public policy into a direction that’s less likely to produce a nuclear accident? That’s a political purpose. It’s not party political but it’s political.
There was an EA project where Vipul paid a few people to write EA related Wikipedia content on a variety of EA issues. This triggered resistence from people like Jytdog who see it as their mission to prevent commercial and other interests from infringing into Wikipedia. While of course not all EA people involved in that episode were paid it’s part of the reason why some admins were very protective about EA articles.
If you look at the account behind the edit you point to it’s an account that mostly edits articles for a single cause. Given what you said it’s also an FLI associated account that edits FLI pages without doing any disclosure about how the account owner relates to FLI. That’s why it’s likely perceived as being an account by someone with an agenda that they are not open about. It doens’t like like a person who comes regularly to Wikipedia when they browse the web and edits something when they see an error.
I first thought that you were talking about something that happened later and not back in 2015. Nobody blocked https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_close_calls from existing.
Of course I believe it serves that purpose. I also believe that the most recent edit in all of Wikipedia at my time of writing, deleting a paragraph from the article on Leanna Cavanagh (a character from some British TV show I’d never heard of) serves to decrease the prominence of that TV show, which will weaken whatever message or themes it carries (such as bringing attention to Yorkshire, where the show is set).
So, this is an empty criticism.
Similarly, I don’t know who “the account behind the edit you point to” is since I linked to two different revisions both of which cover edits by multiple authors, but I checked the edit history of one of them, user Simfish (whose real life identity I shan’t reveal at this moment). He has a bunch of edits on the “Timeline of Nordstrom” article, and I don’t know what that has to do with EA.
I’m not sure this conversation has any more productive purpose. You keep on harping on a specific defense of Wikipedia culture that any hostility encountered by my peers is justified because we were a paid special interest group. I’ve stated several reasons why those justifications did not apply at the time hostility was first encountered. I see you continuing to try to find ways to make those criticisms apply. Needless to say, this is a silly battle since I’m the one with all the details.
I can say that this experience is not leaving me any more desirous of editing Wikipedia, so I’m at least one person with whom you’ve not yet succeeded in your original goal.
Edit: Okay, I just found Simfish (and his real name) on a list of people whom Vipul paid, and found that Vipul Naki’s timeframe overlapped with the FLI group. I have to partly retract the details behind my thesis above. I can still make it because I do not recognize anyone else on Vipul’s list having a Boston/FLI connection.
Edit 2: Neither of these articles appear on the list of articles sponsored by Vipul.
While bringing less attention to Yorkshire might be an effect of the edit, it’s not the purpose of the edit. Purpose is about intent. FLI is an organization that has a mission. Part of that mission is to get governments to act better in regards towards X-risk.
My point here isn’t criticism. It’s understanding why the thing that happened happened.
I personally have no problem with either what Vipul did or what FLI did here. If you however want to understand why there was the opposition that’s there and edit in a way that’s less likely to face opposition it makes sense to understand why the scenario played out the way it did.
That doesn’t mean they weren’t collateral damage.
“Your edit can be rejected because of collateral damage from some conflict you are not a party to” is an instance of “benign edits are rejected for arcane reasons”, not a refutation of it.
It sounds to me like you are interested into judgement while I’m interested in useful mental models to engage in action.
“Edits may be rejected for reasons that are not reasonably predictable by the editor and unrelated to the quality of the edit” is, in fact, a model of how edits are treated. And it’s useful in deciding whether editing is likely to work.
There are two things here. The first one is that I’m asking people to voice their opinion on talk pages which is a different category of action then making edits to Wikipedia articles directly.
If an EA organization wants to edit Wikipedia, understanding the relationship between the EA community overall and Wikipedia is something that’s achieveable and that then allows predicting the related effects.