[mseebach]

So, in the article it's claimed that Wales wanted to do a study using this method, and (implied) if appropriate, revise his conclusion.

This is four years ago, anyone knows if that happened?

Edited to add: One thing that has been annoying me a little, is when articles, regardless of their quality, are deleted because they lack notoriety. If these deletes adhere to the conclusions in this article (written by an outsider, then deleted by an insider, rather than both written and deleted by insiders), this strikes me as an example of a policy that should be changed in face of this evidence, since capturing the knowledge of these drive-by contributors seems more important than "saving space".

[aaronsw]

Wales admitted he was wrong to me through a mutual friend. I don't think he ever publicly recanted, though.

[mseebach]

That is rather disturbing. Well, as PG says, there's still room to do to Wikipedia what Wikipedia did to Encyclopedia Britannica.

[barrkel]

I don't find it disturbing. I think it's very much in Wales' character; starting out in soft porn, co-founding Wikipedia, and then passing himself off as founder, rather than co-founder. Every time I see his face at the top of a Wikipedia page, it sickens me, and similarly every time I see him described as "founder". Thus, the Wikipedia banner sickens me twice.

AdBlockPlus element hiding rule: wikipedia.org###siteNotice

[sielskr]

Thanks for the AdblockPlus rule!

[Alex3917]

For what it's worth, here is a thread I started on the Wikipedia mailing list in May 2005, which I believe was the first public debate about this:

http://marc.info/?l=wikipedia-l&m=111502457428025

There are a ton of interesting posts from Jimbo, SJ, et al. Here are a couple of key comments by Jimbo about where his beliefs came from:

http://marc.info/?l=wikipedia-l&m=111503845405275&w=...

http://marc.info/?l=wikipedia-l&m=111521774525655&w=...

[gwern]

Of course he didn't.

Do you remember when anonymous page creation was disabled after Seigenthaler? The Foundation promised us a study of the effects.

Years later: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/20...

They never bothered.

[riffraff]

maybe _that_ is why they need to escalate to 25M of expenses next year!