User talk:Rhododendrites/2008

Question about Gaming the System

 * User:Rhododendrites wrote: Hi, I saw this (EDIT: and this) revert you made to the Gaming the System page. I'm working on a paper about the Wikipedia community that more or less focuses on the Gaming guideline.  I was wondering if you could tell me why you added "reverting for minor errors" (EDIT: and "various levels of intent").  They make sense to me, but I was hoping you could elaborate on particular events/examples that led you to feel the need for these additions.  If you have the time and are willing, I'd love to hear as much detail as you can tell me.  I'd also love to hear your take on Gaming the System in general and any other examples of Gaming you might remember.  It would really help me out.  My email is ryan_mcgrady@emerson.edu .  Thanks so much. —Rhododendrites 18:58, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Numerous times, I have noticed various users reverting an entire revision, but they gave only the reason that "grammar errors were introduced" (or such) as justification. This situation has occurred with multiple people in various articles, and each case requires specific judgment as to ascertain why the whole revision was reverted, rather than just fix the grammar errors. Sometimes the erroneous text has multiple problems, including spelling errors and slang, so claiming "grammar errors" appears to be an easy out, rather than fixing the text by adding sources and rewording. Also, the wholesale reverting has sometimes been in a pattern of multiple reverts by one person trying to keep out changes to an article. A better approach I have seen is to flag an article as "long-term stable" and request that users leave the article unchanged and try to improve other articles as well (because thousands of other articles need vast rework or don't exist at all). In general, many people tend to stake out territories and defy improvements by other people: that's why a wiki article about Cleopatra might proclaim her alluring beauty (as an important issue) but totally omit that she wrote books (scrolls) and spoke perhaps 27 languages; Wikipedia gets warped by many people trying to limit what articles can contain. Reverting for minor errors is one method to instantly reject changes.

As for the subject of judging intent, each situation requires specific analysis as to why articles were changed or reverted. A wiki administrator might revert an article due to "grammar errors" as a quick fix, rather than rewrite the wording, but the intent is not to "game the system" (in censoring an editor) but rather reverting the grammar error as a quick-fix among hundreds of articles being screened. In general, Wikipedia has many levels of opinionated viewpoints about article quality, and few people seem to view Wikipedia as the folly of mankind attempting to build a Tower of Babel-info. The frantic busy "corrections" to articles make many people highly aggressive, in an obsession to "clean-up the world" as though working faster and harder would end the need for garbage trucks in a city. Of course, the obsessions pre-date Wikipedia: Thomas Edison reportedly ignored his own hygiene to make the world a better (but smelly) place, while radio-inventor Nikola Tesla had time to bathe while developing the large-scale, city-wide electrical lines using AC current (that Edison opposed in favor of short-range DC current). The censorship is really sad, because meanwhile, some sources claim that famous Edison "stole" lightbulb designs from others, rather than inventing, or others note that Albert Einstein wrote his famous papers after Italian physicists had already published similar ideas months earlier, and Einstein's wife was denied co-authorship except in Russian lists of his papers. It all slants the viewpoints, in the same manner as ignoring that Cleopatra was a woman who wrote books, rather than a woman who snagged famous men. Gaming the system in Wikipedia is used to enforce similar censorship, and censorship has been an almost irrestible force throughout human history.

Anyway, those are some of my insights into the issue of gaming. If you need any more details, let me know. Thanks. -Wikid77 (talk) 23:05, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

WP:RFF
Hey, sorry you never got a response to your request for feedback. Did you still have any questions about it? If so you can always ask me on my talk page (about that article or any other), I'm always glad to try and help out. I'm going to go ahead and tag the section resolved, but definitely let me know if you need anything, or feel free to file another request. Peace, delldot   talk  02:18, 5 September 2008 (UTC)