wikipediasuckscoop

The Detroit News has syndicated the content in case you can't get past the paywall. Have a nice day.

Semantic drifts can occur over time whether we like it or not; that word has now been used to refer to platform decay in a colloquial sense. To insist that a word must be tied to a particular definition or meaning when such a drift has de facto occured in a broader and significant degree is the textbook definition of etymological fallacy.

A lot of people have asked in the support forums to tone down or moderate their policy to only clearing the contents of inactive email accounts instead of accounts themselves, because access to email accounts are seen more like an utility these days with so many online services using emails for multi-factor authentication and verification.

There are a lot of factors which will cause people to be involuntarily absent from their accounts, such as medical incapacity, prison (whether rightfully or not, since there are many wrongful conviction cases worldwide), internet blackouts, and within the context of East Asia, being trapped in scam compounds for an extended time.

I support only the deletion of inactive accounts if they were abandoned immediately after creation and whose main motive is to squat usernames.

Enshittification in high gear mode. The other day they've been exposed for backpedalling on their promises to spare inactive accounts that were created before 2024 until next year from the inactive accounts deletion policy.

I interpret this as a systemic issue (procedure, they) which happens regularly or always (procedure, anyone). It makes me imagine a wiki page "Vandalism cases on wikipedia" containing a table of cases with date, article, edit, and IP/account, existing for months or years frequented by wikipedia mods and admins.

That's right! That's exactly the format they used in these procedures, which sometimes branch over onto "sockpuppet investigations" casepages. The other day I approached an Europe-based digital rights lawyers group and they agreed with the assessment that these pages do indeed constitute violations of General Data Protection Regulation. The only problem is that they have to find a victim who's willing to be a complainant in order to initiate a formal complaint.

A few months ago the Italian data protection authority ruled that Wikipedia isn't exempt from the privacy regulation in some way.

There are, but because of the brigading, to avoid stuffing the beans, I'd put this link to their "sockpuppet investigations" page instead so you can look into it further by yourself.

Ultimately, Eric Barbour of Metasonix has collected a trove of Wikipedia's affairs and scandals over the years which is only accessible through hard drive formats to journalists if asked. There's even a book which has yet to be published and which could be the Hollywood Babylon of Wikipedia.