Discussion on the Second citizen forums about the contents of the Wikipedia article on Anshe Chung continues apace, in part fired up by the controversy about her wish to ban stills and film from the CNET griefing incident reported yesterday.For those who aren't familiar with the concept, the Wikipedia is a web-based encylopedia which is compiled from contributions by the amateur users of the encylopedia. fans say that despite this, the quality and accuracy of the information is similar to conventional encylopedias compiled by experts. It is arguable whether wanting to include the good, the bad and the ugly in a biography indicates partiality or simply a wish for the truth to be published, but for clarity's sake it is easier to portray the groups concerned as pro-Anshe and anti-Anshe.
In the case of the Anshe Chung article, there has been a struggle for supremacy between the pro-Anshe and anti-Anshe contributors which has been going on for some time. Anti-Anshe contributors wish to include her background as an SL escort and sex teacher, which is a matter of record, and the allegations of unscrupulous dealings over land; the pro-Anshe camp are just as determined to expunge those things.
Joshua Nightshade, having offered a bounty for links to forum postings that back up the stories about Anshe, has been accused of bias, and SL journalist Lorelei Patel even suggested that his strong feeling that the Wikipedia article should reflect the truth and include both negative and positive should disqualify him from preparing material for the article. She states that his offer of a reward for links to the negative material to be found on the SL forums, is "morally wrong"
It seems pretty extraordinary for a professional journalist to state that paying for links or research can be "morally wrong" per se, when all that is being solicited is links to postings that are a matter of record on the Second Life Forums. Joshua did not invite people to make up scurrilous stories in return for cash. In any case, I would contend that the very fact that the two factions are fighting over this article indicates that the balance and objectivity will be produced by the tension between submissions from the two groups. The very fact that the material is supplied from so many different sources should lead to a balance being achieved over time.
As a writer, I believe that there are no objective journalists, but they can produce objective stories. We all have our prejudices, our likes and dislikes, and our blind spots. That doesn't mean that we can't strive to produce the most objective opinion that we can muster, and try to write the truth. In essence, I think that someone who demonstrates a sympathy and partiality to a person is much less likely to be balanced and healthily critical about it ... and the most famous example of that is the biography of Charlotte Bronte by friend Mrs Gaskell, which obscured details of the writer's life deliberately, due to their friendship.
1. Oh, please, Caliandris, don't be giving these idiots on SC some sort of blank check for the really, really scurrilous practice among "Internet Journalists" of paying for stories.
This is, indeed, a patent offer to pay for stories, and it is tacky and disgusting as the lowliest supermarket tabloid with its Bat Boys. Trying to serve that up as a "bounty" for "links" like a coding bounty is just plain LAME. It's crappy and sleazy reporting.
He isn't merely asking for posts you can find by searching through SEARCH on the forums, Caliandris -- he wants people to dig up dirt on Anshe from their personal dealings with it. He's paying for horror stories. It's wrong. Let him if he is a "journalist" do the footwork of a real journalist instead of creating a camp-chair for idiots in Second Life.
Wikipedia -- which I call Impedia -- is a horror story of rigid, orthodox and shrill wikinistas creating a false wikiality in place of reality which bears no resemblance to actual thoughtful scholarship or non-biased and good-faith investigative journalism. It's social fascism as its worst, and its no accident, comrade, that Ayn Rand's follower with the powerful "objectivism" school of thought has created it and unleashed it on the world. Under the guise of "openness" it in fact insults intelligence with Politburo-like little sordid committees that pull content back and forth between factions.
That's what is happening with Anshe's entry; it's what has happened with mine, too.
Many people cite as "evidence" a card circulating through SL that purports to be Anshe's old card describing her services as a call girl. I had this spammed at me as a newbie for some reason when I bought some land from her, by a notecard-spamming object that led to me getting a card where the creator wasn't shown. It was a concerted, deliberate effort to spread stories through SL and the Lindens treated it as such and took it down (notecard spamming itself is against the TOS, but when it is done so as to harass and vilify someone it is also a TOS violation and they do take action).
No one circulating this card has any means of determining if it is authentic or true. Everyone who has a copy of it thinks they got some great scoop and mysterious inside dope but all they have is a notecard spammed to thousands of people in an effort to grief someone. They would all like to pretend that they do have more than this card; they do not. We have no former "alleged customers" "telling all" -- we really have nothing except a dumb-ass grief card.
And frankly, if Anshe engaged in escort services, what of it? It was nothing a million other girls in SL don't do, or a million boys don't make use of, for crying out loud, including all the denizens of the SC cesspool. Whatever the story, it appears to be a brief and insignifant part of her SL story. SC and others are trying merely to make hay out of this in order to bash Anshe.
Posted at 5:14AM on Jan 6th 2007 by Prokofy Neva