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Vandalism?

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I really don't see how the subject of that USF profesor telling his kids to express themselves as unique individuals using a medium that he thought was free to all ideas and speech has anything to do with you making such a pompous comment about vandalism. It really doesn't make you sound smarter nor does it give you any more authority... it really just makes you look like an ass. Yes he made a simple mistake but sending "stern" e-mails to the president of that university is kind of rediculous is uncalled for because you are messing with that guys job for making up a word... Get Over It.

71.100.15.176 16:22, 16 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Tampa.

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Before you sound off on the topic of vandalism I suggest you review Wikipedia:Vandalism. I am not defining what is vandalism on Wikipedia; that has been defined already.

I expect a certain level of responsibility from a professor. That responsibility extends to checking out what he thought was "a medium that he thought was free to all ideas and speech" to understand the limitations that are agreed on by the community and monitored by unpaid volunteers. Performing acts of vandalism (again, not MY word) is bad enough; many users are kept quite busy cleaning up the messes made by individuals who make "deliberate attempts to compromise the integrity of the encyclopedia". But to deliberately incite and even require this kind of activity is totally irresponsible for a professor.

My comment referred back to a suggestion to block all IP addresses from the University of Florida. I thought that the President of the University should know about this before he found out otherwise that no one at USF could edit anonymously.

I am not "messing with that guys job for making up a word".

  1. "That guy" is responsible for his own actions.
  2. "Making up a word" is not a problem. Posting it on Wikipedia as a hoax is a problem.
  3. There is no way to assume good faith based on his actions.
  4. I was suggesting an alternative action. I did not personally take any action; I did not send email or letter.

As for my use of "stern" it was in the sense of "this is serious". I will accept that the choice of word may have been better. "Polite but stern" was the exact phrase, and it was used as an echo of the previous entry (by another editor) which used that exact phase.

Other things you may want to review:

To other readers of this

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Reference Wikipedia:School_and_university_projects#University_of_South_Florida

There is additional interesting discussion at the link, including response from Alex Duensing. WCFrancis 15:17, 20 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
No longer there. Link will only take you to the top of the current page.wcf Facts are stubborn. Comments? 04:23, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

University of South Florida

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It has been reported that Alex Duensing, adjunct professor of English at the University of South Florida, has been setting his students homework involving creating made-up words and posting dictionary articles about them to the encyclopaedia to promote their made-up meanings, in violation of the Wikipedia is not a dictionary, [is not a soapbox], and no original research official policies.

The homework for the next class is to come up with a word, write the definition, and post it to Wikipedia, a community encyclopedia on the Internet that allows anyone to write an entry on any topic. It's the perfect medium for a reality-questioner like Duensing. Once a word is there and defined, he argues, who can say it's not real? — Linsky, Max (2005-09-07). "For unconventional USF teacher Alex Duensing, life is what you make of it". {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |org= ignored (help)

WikiLex (AfD discussion), one such identified dictionary article on a made up word, has been listed for deletion.

Kiyama (AfD discussion), another found by searching the Special:Newpages for ". . 131.247", which is the IP range for USF.

Searched Newpages from 00:06, 9 September 2005 (UTC) back to 03:24, 3 September 2005 (two found, listed above).

-SimonP 00:51, September 9, 2005 (UTC)
  • Folks--I just became aware of this. I've got an email and phone call into Alex. I suspect he didn't understand how wikipedia works. It is not uncommon for instructors in our program to assign work on wikipedia so I"m hopeful you won't ban USF based on 1 problem....Thanks for your patience. Joe Moxley
  • I just wrote him a polite but stern e-mail, telling him that this is vandalism, that it's in explicit violation of official policy, and that if it continues then all IPs belonging to the University of South Florida will be blocked from editing. DS 17:29, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • A polite but stern email and letter to the President of the University of South Florida informing him of this behavior might also help, letting him know why his IPs are about to be blocked. I would think that the abuse contact should also be notified. It disturbs me that a professor would be creating a team of vandals. What message is he sending? _WCFrancis 02:14, 10 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I do appreciate Wikipedia's democratic approach, and I do apologize for not being more familiar with Wikipedia's guidelines--I do not promote vandalism. I am, however, not sorry for creating and promoting 'wikilexing'; I believe that every individual has a right and responsibility to invent the ideas that comprise our shared conceptual sphere.

Granted, the guidelines state Wikipedia is not a place for the publication original thought. Only material that is newsworthy or available in other reputable (usually secondary) sources is appropriate for Wikipedia. Yet, this brings me to a matter I fail to understand. Why do we deny individuals the right to publish their own ideas on this site when a small public relations firm can do so with ease? They can get their information into "reputable sources" with little effort. Should I simply allow good wikilexes to be published on my site or in my newspaper columns before they are posted to Wikipedia? If so, I certainly will. There is little I won't do to assist individuals as they engage in their fundamental right to shape reality.

I realize that this position poses a challenge to the way Wikipedia works, and that many of you may find these efforts disagreeable. However, I do, in the democratic spirit of this site, hope we can work out these matters without threats and in constructive dialectical manner.

After all, I do consider myself a noblist.

Very Many Best,
Alex Duensing

A word, term or idea must not only be printed in a reputable media source outside of wikipedia before it may be added here, but it also must be in common (broadly defined) usage or thought. Wikipedia reflects the general understanding and view of the world. One person's made up term does not fit that definition. Your best option would be to create your own wiki (or use urban dictionary or another service for neologisms) where you can generate such content. Please do not encourage the addition of content merely to prove a point, create new ideas or shape reality. Wikipedia tries to reflect reality not shape it. This link is Broken 00:35, 19 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
We are glad to see you here. Please consider registering as a first step towards a good dialogue. Now, let me address your specific points. 1) I doubt that any PR firm can do what you suggest, we have experience with removing advertisments, orginal research and such. It doesn't really matter if it is one person, a class or a firm - we have simply too many Wikipedians 'on the lookout' for such problems (I recommend you familiarize yourself with the size of Wikipedia:Votes for deletion project). 2) As for your project: publishing a word on your website does not mean it is relevant to be used in Wiki. Publishing it in an academic journal and getting some newspapers would be better, and if you can make people use it without your prompting, then its even better (as far as the criteria of inlcusion in Wiki go, see Wikipedia:Notability and related pages, and note that majority of your student articles were deleted because they were patent nonsense). Please note that you cannot start with Wiki as the source to 'spread the knowledge'. Not only our various policies are against it, but as you have just seen we have efficient technical means to stop such attempts before they have any visible impact (or damage...). Of course there are always exceptions; we have ourselves invented some words here (to wikify, a wikipedian). But we didn't do it 'for fun' or to 'prove a point', those words were invented because they were needed. New needed words are invented all the time, but the key word here is needed. Anybody can write gibberish on the web and even make it googlable, but I very much doubt it you can make it notable, not without a significant following to prove some point (see nigritude ultramarine for example). If you can create such a significant following for your purposes, that it would make you notable and we would surely allow your word(s) to be added to Wiki. 3) Bottom line is that we deny the individuals the right to publish 'their stuff' here beacouse majority of us decided this is not appopriate for us and that Wikipedia is not a dictionary, Wikipedia is not a soapbox and Wikipedia is no place for orginal research. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 02:39, 19 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for taking the time to address my views. I hope that I can return the favor.
1. Matters posted on Wikipedia need to reflect in common (broadly defined) usage or thought. Is there a yardstick for what constitutes "common usage or thought?" How many people must opt into a concept before it is up to Wikipedia standards?
2. Shaping reality is what I do. I will not encourage individuals to post directly to Wikipedia to this end. However, I will work to get worthy concepts into the news, into "reputable sources" and into "common knowledge." Once an idea makes it into these-- Wikipedia, as Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus seems to indicate, is fair game.
3. A small PR firm would be probably not be able to get their material directly onto Wikipedia. Unlike some news and other "reputable" sources, Wikipedia will not publish information from press releases -- at least not until someone else has.
4. I am not doing this "for fun" or "to prove a point". Both I and Nex Real Design (the organization I work for) strongly espouse the rights of individuals to create their own terms and realities.
Hope this answers your concerns.--Lexlander 21:44, 19 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The yardstick used varies, as it reflects the Wikipedia community as a whole. Generally, "notability" requires a pretty good showing in terms of Google results. I appreciate your philosophy and intent, I think I do speak for the community when I say that we don't exist to serve that purpose. Geocities has been around for a long time now, so has Blogger; it's possible for anyone to set up a web page with their "own terms and realities" and get an audience for them. Wikipedia thanks you for your respect of our project boundaries. --Dhartung | Talk 19:23, 21 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
To be a little more precise on that remark about notability: obviously, we often turn to Google searches because they are easy. If a wide variety of sites (especially scholarly sites, established news sources, etc.) are using a term in a given way, we tend to assume that it is well-established. Similarly, this is one easy way to establish that a person or institution is "notable". This works well for matters of widespread contemporary concern in the English-speaking (or at least Latin-alphabet) world. It's trickier for something whose main fame was in the distant past, or is in (for example) the Tamil- or Bulgarian-speaking world. And trickier yet for oral cultures that are only moderately documented. Our threshhold for notability varies a lot with subject matter. We would seriously doubt any claim of an important porn star or American politician who didn't pass the "Google test", but one or two good scholarly citations might be enough on a 19th-century Yiddish-language actor or a tribal ritual from deep in the Amazon. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:34, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

From the earlier version of page just before it was removed. Copied 04:30, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

wcf Facts are stubborn. Comments? 04:30, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]


I have kept this message in spite of the lack of registration of the sender (see second request in Wecome to Visitors above) because I thought it was worthy of a serious response. -WCFrancis 17:18, 16 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Update

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Pointless update two years later: I posted this on the Numpty talk page.

"Numpty" appeared as a made-up word entered in 2005 when students at the University of South Florida were assigned homework involving creating made-up words and posting dictionary articles about them to Wikipedia to promote their made-up meanings. In the discussion of the inadvertent vandalism (if those words can be used together), Apwoolrich entered this side comment:

"May be coincidence but Numpty is a dialect term in the UK. I know a lady who was born in Northamptonshire who uses it regulary to describe someone who is a bit thick (as in dim witted)."

The note on the deletion of the talk page1 included this from Crazfulla: "This word is verified via the external link given. You could ask any scottish person as to it's origin." Gee. Wonder what the external link was?

If this is true there needs to be referenced information here; if not the empty entry needs to be removed. Even so the entry maybe needs to be transwikied to Wiktionary.

15:57, 25 August 2007 (UTC) wcf Facts are stubborn. Comments?

1 Why delete the talk page without deleting the article page????

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