Interesting and very amusing email I got from someone whose recent experience as a Wikipedia editor shows that Wikipedia is not as inclusive as we think when it comes to… well, classifying so-called “obscenity”:
So, I added you to this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violet
…putting down that you were “an American author, lecturer, and podcaster.” On the fly, without really thinking about it. Thereafter I thought to myself, “Huh. Maybe I should really standardize what Miss Violet is said to be with her Wikipedia article… which would really satisfy my desperate need to be completely anal retentive and OCD, would reflect the range of what she actually does instead of a half-assed tripartite summary of said range, and more importantly would really stick with the principles of encyclopedic documentation. In case you did not know, encyclopedic documentation is very important to crazy people.
So I changed it to say that you are “an American writer, podcaster, blogger, editor, sex educator, and sex columnist,” which is what your main Wikipedia entry says you are.
I got the attached warning on my Talk page, which I think is hilarious. The Change I Made to Violet was apparently “a minor change with obscenities,” by which I can only conclude that Wikipedia regards the term “editor” to be an obscenity, something with which I most enthusiastically concur. Or maybe it’s “blogger,” in many respects an even dirtier word.
Hope you are doing well,
I’m happy to finally see “author” on at least the “Violet” page. But good thing “author” isn’t on the main entry about me. That would really rile Clue(less)bot. I have written an obscene amount of published books. Not to mention lectures…
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Editing Wikipedia can be enormously frustrating, and most of the people who spend a lot of time doing it are the kind of anally-retentive, pedantic, obsessive types that would drive me batshit insane in the real world – but for some reason, I enjoy messing with it anyway. I think it appeals to the subversive in me, to be honest about it. When it works, it’s an excellent method for undermining the existing (and in my opinion, outdated) channels of knowledge control and distribution.
Which is, now that I think about it, probably also why I’m a Violet Blue fan. ;-)
(well, that and the naughty pictures, of course)
Violet, if you ever decide to dive into the Wikipedia pool, drop me a line or something (I’m assuming you can access my e-mail address through this ‘comments’ interface) and I’d be happy to help walk you through it. If you’d rather not mess with it, but you see some kind of heinously egregious error that needs to be fixed, just let me know and I’ll take care of it. I’ve also got your article and the ‘violet’ disambiguation page on my watchlist now, so I’ll know pretty quickly if anyone changes either of them.
Oh, and one other thing?
Turnip. Turnip. Tur-fucking-nip.
Because I can, damnit.
I love that Ken is drunk with the power of “turnip”. :) I love ya right back, most especially for giving me a clear understanding of Cluebot and how it works. otherwise, I’d have no idea, and I really believe that the amount of vandalism on Wikipedia — it’s got to be so out of control, I don’t know how people have day jobs and keep the pages correct. I only see that from my experiences with the page about me.
and just to make matters clear, this was not me; I actually do not have a Wikipedia account of any kind. this was an email I received; I redacted the IP address because, well, it’s an IP address and it’s not mine to show the world. so Harl, it wasn’t me making these edits. honestly, I’ve been meaning to set up an account and take the time out of my schedule to learn the protocol/methods/voodoo, but it kind of overwhelms me; I’m truly wiki-phobic, something that’s kept actually me off of other group wikis.
You know I love ya Violet, but speaking as a longtime Wikipedian, I have to admit I love Cluebot too.
See, the amount of vandalism on Wikipedia is just staggering. I’m not exageratting when I say 75-80% of my contribution time is spent reverting it – although I’m sure that varies by editor and what they’re interested in. Virtually all of the vandalism you see on Wikipedia is done by people who haven’t registered an account (so they only show up as an IP address) and consists of things like replacing the entire content of an article with the word “Poop” repeated 5647 times.
So if Cluebot sees an unregistered user make an edit, and that edit contains words on the Top 20 vandal-buzzword list, it reverts it. 99% of the time it does exactly what it’s intended to do, and saves Wikipedians like me a truly enormous amount of work. The remaining 1%, when Cluebot reverts something that wasn’t vandalism, is easy to fix.
And Luna, to answer your question – Cluebot didn’t revert the edit because of any percieved obscenity. It reverted the edit because it used words frequently used by vandals. If ‘turnip’ was a favorite among vandals, Cluebot would revert that as well – but once again, *only* if it’s done by an unregistered user.
As long as I’m logged in with my Wikipedia user account, I can use the words ‘turnip’ and ‘sex’ in my edits as often as I like – and I’m pretty much drunk with power because of it.
Who are you directing your comments to? The person who edited her page or Violet herself?
And it wasn’t just called vandalism. It was called obscenity. Would the words “turnip”, “keyboard”, and “afghanistan” be considered obscene as well?
I have plenty of issues with Wikipedia, but this isn’t one of them. You made your edits anonymously, instead of signing on to make the edits. That raises a flag suggesting the possibility of vandalism.
Then you added the word “sex” which would reasonably be in a list of words which might be used in vandalism.
It’s quite possible to use the word “turnip” or “keyboard” or “afghanistan” in vandalizing a page, but it’s not as much fun as the word “sex” might be.
And it IS only a bot. The instructions at Wikipedia tell you that if your edit is proper, to take down the warning, and repeat your edit.
BTW, you tweeted earlier tonight that you were downright chilly because of your choice of garments. I hope you didn’t catch cold – and that your escort was properly appreciative of your low-cut attire. It was thoughtful of you to honor him so.
It says “Violet Blue, an American writer, podcaster, blogger, editor, sex educator, and sex columnist.” for now, but they’ve got the page set up to automatically revert changes.
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