18 Comments

I'm glad I waited to respond. My connection to Wiki-Anything is tenuous. I'm sure you know about camels and committees. Given authoritarians' recent open addiction to censorship, which is uppermost in my mind these days, my initial suspicion was a general objection to private book collections. They are fertile grounds for insurrection.

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I'm so sorry, and that's so bizarre. A long time ago, years and years, I got into a Wikipedia fight about whether the Simpsons line "I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords" was originally from "Empire of the Ants". It isn't! I forced myself and my husband to sit through the entire movie! It's not there. It's just a Simpsons thing. Talk about trivial. At least your correction was about a significant writer and interesting facts. I know how it can make you lie awake sulking for a week or so.

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The people who want it their way must do nothing else but edit Wikipedia so they ahve the power of many edits which allows them to trump someone like me who only adds now and then. And here's an interview about it. This simple censorship shows that Wikipedia has issues.

https://blog.exacteditions.com/publisher-1-on-1-the-book-collector/?fbclid=IwAR2GSzveCLv1Bd4_1Lwe_sNSQAoT8d5lW31_Nl19WgNEGGJPElZj6LZopVM

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I expect a lot of legitimate contributions to Wikipedia get blocked, for any and no reason at all. Keep us posted on whether you get a response.

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I will. So odd. Maybe the key contributor thinks that book collecting if known ruins IF's image. But he founded The Book Collector!

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You could start a new page all about his collection and insert a new link on the main page. Or a new page on The Book Collector and then insert the bits about Fleming.

You'd have to write a new article (stub?) from scratch.

elm

wikipedia was (is?) notorious for being hard on women contributors

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What's really odd is that Fleming's nephews edit the Book Collector. You are so clever. I now added a note on the journal's page so at least I got it in somewhere. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_Collector

(I can't believe I am obsessing over this, but I happen to think Book Collecting is a good thing!)

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"What's really odd is that Fleming's nephews edit the Book Collector."

I doubt HAL cares one way or another. This is about Bond, and also, HAL, Editor HAL, and not much else.

"You are so clever."

Thank you! 😁 'Start a new page' is a frequent response to an overstuffed main article. In this case a mention of Fleming's collection is totally relevant, but it's hard sell to somebody who mainly cares about the movies.

"Kathleen McCook2 hr ago

What's really odd is that Fleming's nephews edit the Book Collector. You are so clever. I now added a note on the journal's page so at least I got it in somewhere. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_Collector

(I can't believe I am obsessing over this, but I happen to think Book Collecting is a good thing!)"

Of course it is!

elm

'but it's not in the movies!'

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Thanks for looking at this with a lighter touch. I worry about big censorship but this little censorship is also invidious.

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That is perceptive, And it is a diffused censorship. All kinds of people guard whatever page they care about. sometimes it is harmless but often it compounds. Ii admit to adding to lot about libraries.

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"If something as straightforward as adding a few citations to the Wikipedia entry on Fleming is deleted, what else is deleted anywhere in Wikipedia?"

A long time ago I edited a set of outbound resource links on a page for a particular DSM diagnosis. Mostly I did a fixup on the formatting and chopped out some dead links. Lasted almost two weeks and fixed a problem one site was having. It got nuked after two weeks. I was surprised at that, since the article became more readable, and the page seemed obscure at that point and hadn't had any fixups in a year. I found out why: there was someone squatting on the page and nuking changes. 'Don't mess with my page! MINE MINE MINE!' is the attitude.

(I also fixed a page on a particular obscure star that someone had inserted a fake note about a stellar obscuration of that star signalling the end of the world. Jerk! I think that one got left alone, but who knows?)

I figured this is similar to the kind of thing where you get volunteers working where ever (the library!) having a particular axe to grind in their area, even if, or maybe especially if they're merely wrong about their fixation. (That one particular author who always seems to be mis-shelved to an obscure location, &c.)

elm

although i think that's mostly gone out of fashion

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I struggled again today. "HAL" said the Book Collector was a primary sources so I couldn't cite it on the Ian Fleming page. Now I've had an EDIT WAR message on my page with the notice I may be blocked from editing. How can this be a first class article if it ignores something to which Fleming devoted so much time? Maybe they think book collecting hurts IF's image. I even gave them a citation to the Times literary supplement: https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/the-agents-secret/

No wonder fewer than 19% of Wikipedia editors are women.

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""HAL" said the Book Collector was a primary sources so I couldn't cite it on the Ian Fleming page."

Well, if you've got to gear up for battle than you need the sitrep: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_and_using_primary_sources

I can't tell whether HAL was invoking 'primary source' in the wrong way (according to the guidelines) or means something else (that is, TBC should get its own page). Or maybe HAL had nothing intelligent to say and was just reflexively saying no.

"Now I've had an EDIT WAR message on my page with the notice I may be blocked from editing."

Yeah, this is fun right here, isn't it. In the old days, Wikipedia was notorious for intra-editor wars that often dragged on forever. These days, that still goes on, but in this new age, they're trying to fend off trolls from the normal trying to use Wikipedia as a platform for various sorts of political/social wars and they will block first and ask questions later. I think Marci is correct here - basically go hands off on the main article. Let HAL look like the schmuck.

(In the Open Source world, volunteer administrators are notorious for length, and extremely nasty debates and whatnot that seem to go on forever. It's all political. (Gamergate, in some obscure connection, likely originated with that crowd.) The Debian Linux Distribution was pretty notorious for these kind of hard shell political battles, that makes your skirmish look pretty small change.)

"No wonder fewer than 19% of Wikipedia editors are women."

It's the sunny part of the year, and the mountain goats butting heads resounds in tremendous CRACKS that echo all over hill and dale. Unfortunately, first mover advantage means the nerdy dudes have been feuding over this stuff for a long time, and they have honed their blunt instruments to a very sharp edge.

Pity the poor latecomer who has to learn the ropes.

elm

also pity the poor commenter who get can't get use any freakin' markup tags in a substack comment box! grrrrrr.

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I know exactly what you are talking about. I really think this whole thing is so interesting. The Fleming bios don't mention this..is it a secret shame to be a book collector? I FINALLY got a sentence in by citing the London Times (which is actually a summary of the rejected Primary source): "The Times Literary Supplement reported that Fleming was a book collector and founder of the antiquarian journal, The Book Collector.[96] In 1956 Fleming began to participate in attracting advertising revenue for the journal. Details of Fleming's work to support the journal including excerpts from his letters to the editorial staff are included in the article, “Ian Fleming & Book Collecting."[97]."https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Fleming

Now they might be waiting until deep night to take it away again. BUT this is not political or controversial. I see you have been through it and understand. In the real world if you try and talk about this to your friends they think you have gone off the deep end.

I have noticed that a query made to an Alexa device answers with a wikipedia article. So, really, it's a circle, isn't it? Thanks for taking the time to discuss. There are a lot of Bond fans I guess who would be crushed if they knew their icon (gasp) collected books.

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Which disorder and DSM issue? DSM in Wikipedia can be simply a reference to the publication, and if the poster wishes to dispute something, she can add her interpretation or additional information. I had a dispute in another forum about Intermittent Explosive Disorder with someone who said that any view other than that of the DSM-5 was misinformation. Sound familiar?

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Yes, Wikipedia is quite imperious if you try to add anything they don't agree with. In this case it isn't even controversial. It's just someone trying to avoid the world knowing he collected books.

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My suspicion is that it was the contributor of this article who called you names and deleted your edit/addition. The administrators of Wikipedia would not behave in this manner. I once corrected an article about quaking aspen trees which stated that the foliage of these trees turns a bright crimson red in autumn. Since I know that aspens turn a golden yellow in the fall (I have a colony of quaking aspens on my own property and have been able to observe them personally for the past half century) I corrected the article, but the original submitter kept deleting my edit. I gave up on it, but nearly a year later my correction had been reinstated. It takes Wikipedia's reviewers quite some time to get around to examining and verifying (or debunking) corrections and additions. I would counsel patience and avoiding contact with the contributor of this article.

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I think you are correct.,. There may be later correction, but the initial writer sometimes "can't be wrong" and has rights that seems to override others. This doesn't happen when I write about libraries. Patience is always the best way to go.

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