Mailing List Archive

Re: Porchesia atonement
--- Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell@gmail.com> wrote:
>

> >
> > In any case, I pointed out how I sincerely believe
> > that this example
> > is important for all our projects, although it
> > happened to be one that
> > happened on our largest project.
> >
> > It seems to me that we can best address issues of
> > "en.WP dominance" by
> > communicating and being sensitive to and aware of
> > the challenges that
> > participants in each project face... I don't see
> how
> > silencing
> > discussion is going to further that goal.

I have been thinking about this alot today. I badly
mishandled this disscussion. Although I cannot say
that I believe I was wrong on any particular point, it
was not handled well. The fact that you have
misinterpted my intentions to such a degree proves
this. I will try to atone for this by giving the
disscussion I believe you would like to have another
chance. So every one please add more information
about the problems and soulutions as well as sharing
your own expeirence in these things from your home
project.

THE PROBLEM
*Wiki's inherently lend themselves to vandalasim and a
subset of this is hoaxs.

*On a open wiki there is little or no efferot to
prevent such things, but rather many people working to
fix these things afterwards.

*Once a hoax survives a week or so it will likely be
around indefinately

SOULTION PATROLLERS

*People who care that the wiki does not fill up with
hoaxes patrol recent changes and new pages with the
goal to immediately remove such material. They use
numerous tool to do this as efficiently as possible
including bots, rss feeds, and software features like
"patrolled edits" ( anyone know of other tools?)

**Pro: Problems are removed quickly

**Pro: With the right tools this can be amazingly
efficient


**Con: Requires a large amount of manpower

**Con: Tools are not centrally distrubuted some
require uncommon technical skills to use

**Con: On the rare occasion a problem is missed or
fools the patrollers it is around indefinately

**Con: Depending on the which tools are used (and
especially when using a combination of uncomplimetary
tools) it is possible several people may patroll one
"good" edit/article which is a waste of effort. This
is because only "bad" pages are guranteed to be
visibly marked.

SOLUTION VISiBLY APPROVED

This solution involves pages being examined more
closely than is done by patrollers and being somehow
marked as approved which may or may not involved
limiting further edits.

**Pro: Pages being closely examined means no hoaxes
will get "approved"

**Pro: Approval is very very slow process (when
thinking of ALL pages)

**Pro: Since "good" pages are visibly marked there is
no wasted effort


**Con: options which include limitations on future
edits may prevent further improvents. (This can
largly be addressed by the development of more subtle
means of "limiting future edits")

**Con: Since "good" pages are visibly marked the
"approvers" are in effect a more visible subset of the
population than patrollers are (since anyone nominate
a "bad" page for deletion). This can be a particular
problem in wiki's where there is a large amount of
distrust amoung the population.

SOULTION PERIODIC REVIEW

Periodic reveiw of all -pages. Either all at once or
in a rotating basis (Jan #-C, Feb D-F, etc.)

**Pro: Every page is eventually review (Nothing slips
through)

**Con: Very very labor intensive

**Con: Slow process. Hoaxes could exist for as longer
as a year depending on how fast the rotations or how
long periodic is.

**Con: Wasted of effort. "Good" pages that have bee
previously review and have little or no changes
recieves the same amount of attention as pages that
are a high-risk to be a hoax.

**Con: Such a large task means that at some point
pages will only recieve a cursoury review.


BIRGITTE SB EXPERIENCE

Ok I will now share my own experience with these
methods at en.WS. Firrst I need to explain that we do
not have the manpower to approach any of these
solutions in a serious comprehensive manner. What I
mean by that it is I believe there to be a vandalism
and maybe even hoax on en.WS right now. There is not
a directed effort to combat these thisngs at en.WS. I
know several people, including myself, try to keep an
eye on it, but I am sure you all can imagine the
results "trying to keep and eye on it" brings.

*Patrolling
en.WS has patrolled edits enabled. I am unsure if
anyone besides my self makes use of this feature,
although I suspect Zhalshadar does. There is no
effort to patrol *every* edit. I particularly try to
patrol the edits of IP's. If use Recents changes to
hide all logged in users and to hide patrolled edits,
and after marking a significant number of IP edits
patroled I can manage to display a weeks worth. So I
try to do this about once a week but I know there are
gaps . . . I do not know if anyone makes a particular
effort to patrol New Pages or New Users.


We also have pgkbot and an vandalism IRC channel. At
many times there is someone keeping an eye on this
channel but not at all times . . .

Many editors at en.WS (by which I mean 6-10) regularly
make a cusoury checks of Recent Changes for anything
suspicous looking whenever they are working on the
site. Some of these people work on the site daily,
others much less often.

Watchlists are barely useful for vandalism. There are
too few people watching. However they are useful for
the few vandal magnets we have. Like "Macbeth"

In all en.WS does not have the manpower availble to
allow the "Patroller" solution to be effective.

*Visbly marked approved pages

Because en.WS cannot manage to patrol against
vandalism, we rely on this method. All proofread
pages may be nominated for protection under our text
integrity policy. This is obviously successful, but
has the downside of completely preventing future edits
including interwiki links. This is not so bad as it
seems because of two things. One Wikisource
inherently deals with a large amount of static
material, so there is littler that anyone would want
to add to a proofread page. Two this paolicy was in
force before the lang subdomiain split so people from
other languages are usually aware in the event thaty
want to add an interwiki and they know to just request
it be added on the talk page. I imagine many people
will be upset at the thought of a wiki protecting
pages, but proofreading would be pointless without
this or some other similar method (section protection
requested nine months ago or the likely scenario that
the community will agree to use stable versions).
Please realize that proofreading far more labor
intensive than even fact checking is at a WP project.
No one really likes that pages are protected it is
simply the lesser of two evils. The outstandingly
strong support that was gathered for section
protection is evidence that WS is simply making do
until a more subtle method is developed. And that is
out of our hands.


*Review of All Pages

en.WS has no intention of doing this periodically.
However we effectively went throught this method when
we adopted a header template to be placed on all
pages. Over 20,000 pages have been "handled" with
only the dregs of around 1,500 pages to be done. Of
course many pages only got a cursory look, but we did
take care of many problems with this method.
Vandalism, hoaxs, as well as copyvios (which is a more
significant problem a WS projects)


AS I said above I am sure that en.WS has existing
vandalism right now. And it will sit there until
someone finds it. Here I suppose my expectations are
properly adjusted to reality. en.WS simply does not
have the manpower to comprehensively deal with the
vandalism it recieves. Currently I am happy to ensure
to work of proofreaders is secure and the the rest of
the site will eventually be taken care of. If one of
our readers finds something we have missed I would
hope they would alert of to it so we may fix it.


Birgitte SB



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Re: Porchesia atonement [ In reply to ]
On 10/3/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb@yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
>
>
>
> BIRGITTE SB EXPERIENCE
>
> Ok I will now share my own experience with these
> methods at en.WS. Firrst I need to explain that we do

just for information, a description of how nl.wp deals with anonymous
edits is located at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/RC_patrol_on_nl.wikipedia

henna

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unlike you I wasn't given a map at birth!" Alyssa, "Chasing Amy"
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Re: Porchesia atonement [ In reply to ]
The problem is how to come up with a sources criterion that can't be hoaxed.

There's enough trouble with stupid AFD nominations on en:wp by people
who couldn't find the subject on Google and presumed it therefore
didn't exist.

Will we forbid print sources unless a scan is lodged with the WMF?


- d.
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Re: Porchesia atonement [ In reply to ]
--- David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com> wrote:

> The problem is how to come up with a sources
> criterion that can't be hoaxed.
>
> There's enough trouble with stupid AFD nominations
> on en:wp by people
> who couldn't find the subject on Google and presumed
> it therefore
> didn't exist.
>
> Will we forbid print sources unless a scan is lodged
> with the WMF?
>
>
> - d.
>

Obviously not (Copyright?). I think you are beind
sarcastic, but it is hard to be ceratain. "How to
come up with a sources criterion that can't be hoaxed"
is only a the problem with the proposed solution of
requiring sources. I think this is large enough
problem that requiring sources should be thrown out of
consideration for this particular problem.

Birgitte SB

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Re: Porchesia atonement [ In reply to ]
On 03/10/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb@yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com> wrote:

> > The problem is how to come up with a sources
> > criterion that can't be hoaxed.
> > There's enough trouble with stupid AFD nominations
> > on en:wp by people
> > who couldn't find the subject on Google and presumed
> > it therefore
> > didn't exist.
> > Will we forbid print sources unless a scan is lodged
> > with the WMF?

> Obviously not (Copyright?). I think you are beind
> sarcastic, but it is hard to be ceratain.


It is somewhat reductio ad absurdum. But there are those on en: who
seriously advocate that a reference can only be good if it's easy for
a normal person (presumably in the US) to find.


> "How to
> come up with a sources criterion that can't be hoaxed"
> is only a the problem with the proposed solution of
> requiring sources. I think this is large enough
> problem that requiring sources should be thrown out of
> consideration for this particular problem.


Coming up with a rigid rule that would catch this hoax without causing
ridiculous quantities of collateral damage will not be easy.
[[:en:Wikipedia:Reliable sources]] is marked "guideline" but phrased
didactically, so when applied robotically - and people do apply it
robotically - is disastrous in practice, gutting articles and causing
the sort of PR disasters over living bios it was written didactically
so as to avert.


- d.
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Re: Porchesia atonement [ In reply to ]
--- David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 03/10/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> > --- David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > The problem is how to come up with a sources
> > > criterion that can't be hoaxed.
> > > There's enough trouble with stupid AFD
> nominations
> > > on en:wp by people
> > > who couldn't find the subject on Google and
> presumed
> > > it therefore
> > > didn't exist.
> > > Will we forbid print sources unless a scan is
> lodged
> > > with the WMF?
>
> > Obviously not (Copyright?). I think you are beind
> > sarcastic, but it is hard to be ceratain.
>
>
> It is somewhat reductio ad absurdum. But there are
> those on en: who
> seriously advocate that a reference can only be good
> if it's easy for
> a normal person (presumably in the US) to find.
>

This is crazy, but I witnessed articles being damaged
by having the easest source cited for every assertion.
Even when this source does not exactly match. I
believe part of this problem comes from FA. People
seems to want to be able to bring an article up to FA
without visiting a library. I would rather FA accept
articles without being so heavily cited, if they will
not make an effort judge the quality of the source. I
think outside of controversial articles, no sources at
all, is better than misrepresented or low quality
sources.

>
> > "How to
> > come up with a sources criterion that can't be
> hoaxed"
> > is only a the problem with the proposed solution
> of
> > requiring sources. I think this is large enough
> > problem that requiring sources should be thrown
> out of
> > consideration for this particular problem.
>
>
> Coming up with a rigid rule that would catch this
> hoax without causing
> ridiculous quantities of collateral damage will not
> be easy.
> [[:en:Wikipedia:Reliable sources]] is marked
> "guideline" but phrased
> didactically, so when applied robotically - and
> people do apply it
> robotically - is disastrous in practice, gutting
> articles and causing
> the sort of PR disasters over living bios it was
> written didactically
> so as to avert.
>
I think this is true of most rules and a good reason
to *avoid* coming up with a rigid rule to catch
hoaxes. They key is to find them quickly. I think
en.WP generally does a good job of this. I imagine
they patrol articles much more effectively than other
communities. (Or else a ten-month old hoax would get
a more matter-of-fact recation) I think the key is
finding a way to identify "high-risk" articles. If we
could manage to ggenerate a list of month-old articles
sorted by least number of edits, and keep it low
profile. It may be enought to do a second round of
"patrols" off such a list. Although that doesn't help
with any currently existing hoaxes.


Birgitte SB

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Re: Porchesia atonement [ In reply to ]
On 03/10/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb@yahoo.com> wrote:

> I think this is true of most rules and a good reason
> to *avoid* coming up with a rigid rule to catch
> hoaxes. They key is to find them quickly. I think
> en.WP generally does a good job of this. I imagine
> they patrol articles much more effectively than other
> communities. (Or else a ten-month old hoax would get
> a more matter-of-fact recation)

Ten months is pretty extreme by en.wp hoax standards - three months is
the usual top of the range before it gets caught by someone, IME.

> I think the key is
> finding a way to identify "high-risk" articles. If we
> could manage to ggenerate a list of month-old articles
> sorted by least number of edits, and keep it low
> profile. It may be enought to do a second round of
> "patrols" off such a list. Although that doesn't help
> with any currently existing hoaxes.

Something like Special:Unwatchedpages on en.wp - visible to admins
only? It's worth a try...

--
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andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
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Re: Porchesia atonement [ In reply to ]
--- Andrew Gray <shimgray@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 03/10/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
> > I think this is true of most rules and a good
> reason
> > to *avoid* coming up with a rigid rule to catch
> > hoaxes. They key is to find them quickly. I
> think
> > en.WP generally does a good job of this. I
> imagine
> > they patrol articles much more effectively than
> other
> > communities. (Or else a ten-month old hoax would
> get
> > a more matter-of-fact recation)
>
> Ten months is pretty extreme by en.wp hoax standards
> - three months is
> the usual top of the range before it gets caught by
> someone, IME.
>
> > I think the key is
> > finding a way to identify "high-risk" articles.
> If we
> > could manage to ggenerate a list of month-old
> articles
> > sorted by least number of edits, and keep it low
> > profile. It may be enought to do a second round
> of
> > "patrols" off such a list. Although that doesn't
> help
> > with any currently existing hoaxes.
>
> Something like Special:Unwatchedpages on en.wp -
> visible to admins
> only? It's worth a try...
>
> --
> - Andrew Gray
> andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
> _______________________________________________
>

Well I don't know how big Special:Unwatched Pages is.
It might be unmanagable. I don't even know if my idea
is technicly possible, but people do amazing things
with the toolserver. Another idea is if a Lunar
Changes list can be generated. Basically the same as
Recent Changes but it would be pages whose most recent
change was exactly one-month ago.

Birgitte SB

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Re: Porchesia atonement [ In reply to ]
On 03/10/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Well I don't know how big Special:Unwatched Pages is.
> It might be unmanagable. I don't even know if my idea
> is technicly possible, but people do amazing things
> with the toolserver. Another idea is if a Lunar
> Changes list can be generated. Basically the same as
> Recent Changes but it would be pages whose most recent
> change was exactly one-month ago.


"at least one month since last change" would be a good one!


- d.
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Re: Porchesia atonement [ In reply to ]
--- David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 03/10/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Well I don't know how big Special:Unwatched Pages
> is.
> > It might be unmanagable. I don't even know if my
> idea
> > is technicly possible, but people do amazing
> things
> > with the toolserver. Another idea is if a Lunar
> > Changes list can be generated. Basically the same
> as
> > Recent Changes but it would be pages whose most
> recent
> > change was exactly one-month ago.
>
>
> "at least one month since last change" would be a
> good one!
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
>

Such a list would great to go through and review to
find any existing problems. Once this list has
reviewed, however I think Lunar Changes (which would
be a revolving door like RC) would be a good way to
say on top of the issue.

I guess we are talking about to issues at once.

*How to find any hoaxes that are currently existing?

Complete review of existing high risk pages (david's
static list) It is managable that people will push
through a montrous list once but not continually.

*How to catch the inevitable future problems that slip
through RC patrol?

Something like "Lunar changes" (which again may not
be technically possible,) where you have a managble
amount of article to continually check.

Birgitte SB

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Re: Porchesia atonement [ In reply to ]
On 03/10/06, David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 03/10/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > Well I don't know how big Special:Unwatched Pages is.
> > It might be unmanagable. I don't even know if my idea
> > is technicly possible, but people do amazing things
> > with the toolserver. Another idea is if a Lunar
> > Changes list can be generated. Basically the same as
> > Recent Changes but it would be pages whose most recent
> > change was exactly one-month ago.
>
> "at least one month since last change" would be a good one!

Hum. This is a database-dump-solution, but...

Rank pages by "suspicion factors". Long time since last touched is
one; no inbound links ditto. Marked as unsourced? Heavily edited by
only one person? Heck, google the name and see if there's much
response. All crude metrics, but put together they *might* be
productive.

--
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andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
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Re: Porchesia atonement [ In reply to ]
On 03/10/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hum. This is a database-dump-solution, but...
> Rank pages by "suspicion factors". Long time since last touched is
> one; no inbound links ditto. Marked as unsourced? Heavily edited by
> only one person? Heck, google the name and see if there's much
> response. All crude metrics, but put together they *might* be
> productive.


:-D I like it! A simple matter of programming, of course ...


- d.
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Re: Porchesia atonement [ In reply to ]
On 10/3/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray@gmail.com> wrote:
> Ten months is pretty extreme by en.wp hoax standards - three months is
> the usual top of the range before it gets caught by someone, IME.

I've never seen any data that would support that... You know something I don't?

I've certainly done my share of removing year old intentionally bogus
data from enwiki...

The fact is that once something has survived initial review on
watchlists and recent changes, the chances of it being fixed stay
fairly low. (this comment based on the curve of ages of deleted
images, which have a spike around 7-10 days but assume a low and
uniform deletion probability after that)
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Re: Porchesia atonement [ In reply to ]
On 03/10/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/3/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Ten months is pretty extreme by en.wp hoax standards - three months is
> > the usual top of the range before it gets caught by someone, IME.
>
> I've never seen any data that would support that... You know something I don't?
>
> I've certainly done my share of removing year old intentionally bogus
> data from enwiki...

Interesting. This is just my gut feeling based on the ones I've run
across and the ones I've seen reported; I haven't pulled together any
numbers.

> The fact is that once something has survived initial review on
> watchlists and recent changes, the chances of it being fixed stay
> fairly low. (this comment based on the curve of ages of deleted
> images, which have a spike around 7-10 days but assume a low and
> uniform deletion probability after that)

Hum. Technical study suggestion: Is it possible to identify all
VFD/AFD debates which include the word "hoax", and figure out the
age-at-deletion of all articles correspondingly deleted?

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Re: Porchesia atonement [ In reply to ]
On 10/3/06, David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 03/10/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > --- David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > The problem is how to come up with a sources
> > > criterion that can't be hoaxed.
> > > There's enough trouble with stupid AFD nominations
> > > on en:wp by people
> > > who couldn't find the subject on Google and presumed
> > > it therefore
> > > didn't exist.
> > > Will we forbid print sources unless a scan is lodged
> > > with the WMF?
>
> > Obviously not (Copyright?). I think you are beind
> > sarcastic, but it is hard to be ceratain.
>
>
> It is somewhat reductio ad absurdum. But there are those on en: who
> seriously advocate that a reference can only be good if it's easy for
> a normal person (presumably in the US) to find.
>
>
> > "How to
> > come up with a sources criterion that can't be hoaxed"
> > is only a the problem with the proposed solution of
> > requiring sources. I think this is large enough
> > problem that requiring sources should be thrown out of
> > consideration for this particular problem.
>
>
> Coming up with a rigid rule that would catch this hoax without causing
> ridiculous quantities of collateral damage will not be easy.
> [[:en:Wikipedia:Reliable sources]] is marked "guideline" but phrased
> didactically, so when applied robotically - and people do apply it
> robotically - is disastrous in practice, gutting articles and causing
> the sort of PR disasters over living bios it was written didactically
> so as to avert.



Requiring sources is only partly helpful, as well.

It takes near-zero effort to set up multiple apparently widely separated
websites with coverage of a subject.

The amount of effort required to write up a faked book and self-publish it
out via one of the print-on-demand publishers, and then get it into Amazon,
isn't really all that much either.

Afraid that people will call you on that? How much effort does it take to
make a fake page scan of a book claiming to have been printed prior to the
advent of ISBN numbers? Oh, your library doesn't have a copy? Not
suprising, only 5,000 copies were printed, ...

Intend to do it as an April 1 related event? You can probably get reliable
news sources and personalities who are verifyably known to the world to
assist, if you find the ones with senses of humor.


If we have, or ever have in the future, people who are seriously interested
in hoaxing Wikipedia there is practically very little we can possibly do to
prevent it. We can set a barrier for entry which is high enough to keep the
amateurs and vandals deterred... and I like the ideas people are posting for
additional review projects and hasn't-been-edited-for-a-month lists and
such. I was thinking about this a couple of days ago; for example, on
en.wikipedia we have around a thousand admins and active trustable editors.
With a million articles, we could scan everything in a year, at a rate of 3
articles a person a day. A few minutes of fact checking (and, while you're
there, putting in some references if it doesn't already have them, etc) each
day would go a long ways towards helping catch low-effort hoaxes.

I had been thinking that we could create an automatic list, which people
could then be randomly assigned articles out of to go check, and then
confirm back that they'd checked it somehow (put a tag on the talk page?).
Or break it down by topic, so people don't get article subjects they can't
reasonably fact check other than via google.


--
-george william herbert
george.herbert@gmail.com
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Re: Porchesia atonement [ In reply to ]
David Gerard wrote:

>The problem is how to come up with a sources criterion that can't be hoaxed.
>
>There's enough trouble with stupid AFD nominations on en:wp by people
>who couldn't find the subject on Google and presumed it therefore
>didn't exist.
>
>Will we forbid print sources unless a scan is lodged with the WMF?
>
Exactly, and it's pointless for some people to become so panicked over
this. That will accomplish nothing.

Strangely, there is an advantage to having an article with no sources at
all. Readers will be more inclined to doubt it, and question its
accuracy. There is nothing easier than hoaxing the sources for a fact.
An honest editor will find such tactics unthinkable, and will be quite
rightly upset when he's questioned. A dishonest one (who is more than
merely stupid) can feign any attribute of an honest editor.

Honest editors can still misunderstand their sources, or with a simple
error that adds or omits the word "not" can get the subject completely
wrong. Fact checking means hard work. It means more than berating
those who have failed to provide detailed sources, and whining when
honest editors bite back. In my dreams I imagine a Wikipedia where
those who question the facts of others are also curious enough to seek
out corroborating information.

Ec

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