City officials attempt to doxx Wikipedians

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2023-08-01/News_and_notes

by akolbe • 3 years ago

183 90 3 years ago

en.wikipedia.org

This was a good read, it was nice how they put the contested signature top right and prominent and also clearly reiterated the story the mayor tried to squash.

kotaKat• 3 years ago

It's as if the city council decided to drive right into their own bridge[1] and now we get to watch the chaos unfolding all the same.

[1] http://11foot8.com/

pityJuke4• 3 years ago

Completely unrelated to the parent topic: oh my god, they added warning signs on top of 11"8+8, and people are still messing up?

EDIT: Nope, my memory is bad, the "OVERHEIGHT MUST TURN" sign was always there.

threesevenths• 3 years ago

Haven’t the warning signs always been there, even when it really was 11’ 8”?

mike_hock• 3 years ago

The bridge is fucking world-famous and they still manage to mess up.

jeroenhd3• 3 years ago

They've put up extra height bars and they've added a blinking light using a sensor for warning overheight trucks (OVERHEIGHT MUST TURN) which shows to an extra long red light. I also believe they've lowered the road a little bit, but there's only so much they can do.

People still crash into it, somehow.

adhesive_wombat2• 3 years ago

"OVERHEIGHT MUST TURN" is almost comical in it's dangerous ambiguity. My first parse is "if you were over height, you would have to turn", not "you, yes, you! Stop! Now!".

I'd take a bet that the person who choose that wording wanted the accidents to continue but also have plausible deniability because they did do "something".

joshstrange• 3 years ago

It always amazes me that truck rentals like we see in a few videos on that site are legal, like with a normal license. Every time I’ve rented one all I can think of “I can’t believe they trusted me with this thing that I drive once every few years at best”. I guess they don’t care, they have insurance but still.

Whenever I see someone else diving one of these I give them a very wide berth and assume they have no idea what they are doing since they normally don’t.

stronglikedan2• 3 years ago

I once reserved a 20 footer, and at the last minute they called me and asked me if I would take a 26 footer instead. Man, I didn't know what I was getting into. That is a whole different beast than the standard 20 footer. Never again - what a pain in the ass that was - every aspect of it was a hassle. The whole time I was wondering how the hell it was legal for me to be driving that thing around.

Arrath2• 3 years ago

See also: Hilariously outsized RV's that any person can hop behind the wheel of with no extra training or license requirements. I swear some are the size of Greyhound busses now.

jtriangle• 3 years ago

You can also just rent heavy construction equipment as well in alot of places, and they'll deliver it to your door.

They have insurance, and they're not liable for something you do with it, you are.

brightlancer• 3 years ago

I guess they don’t care, they have insurance but still.

Of course they care; even big companies have to fight with their insurance companies and often don't get fully compensated.

As a general statement, the overwhelming majority of renters pay their money and return the truck without any issue. The rare accident is costly, but it's paid for mostly through rental fees rather than insurance.

I was once offered a job and asked, "Can you drive a truck?" Sure, no problem. I show up for the _cross-country_ drive and it's a 28' box truck with a manual transmission. Thankfully, I had driven a manual car before and there was a primary (I was the 2nd) driver to help me through the particulars of the box truck.

Thousands of miles back and forth across the country over 3 months, never a driving incident.

Whenever I see someone else diving one of these I give them a very wide berth and assume they have no idea what they are doing since they normally don’t.

I think you over-estimate the skill of the drivers of sedans and SUVs and everything else. Most drivers are pretty awful, even in cars they drive every day.

hoosieree2• 3 years ago

Once I got stranded and the only rental vehicle option for me was a U-Haul because I was too young to rent a car. Let that sink in.

stronglikedan2• 3 years ago

My current favorite. Feel resistance? Keep going! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LK5RzZDJoQ

bombcar2• 3 years ago

I mean 99%+ of the vehicle got through fine! That's perfectly within the SLA.

saganus• 3 years ago

Two things I was not expecting from this video:

- the amount of people that just keeps going at _full speed_ (even after violent shaking and noise)

- how much it would make me laugh. For some reason the absurdity of it all just cracked me up

MetaMalone• 3 years ago

So fkn funny. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7pO39Sh6THg

0cf8612b2e1e• 3 years ago

At some point, you would think they would lower the road beneath the bridge.

tialaramex• 3 years ago

The road there is stuck. Raising the railway, which has been done once already, is very expensive. Lowering the road would require moving a sewer main, which is a fairly delicate and also expensive job. Both railway and sewer are very old and substantially pre-date the modern assumption that you can just drive trucks wherever you want as if that's some basic element of civilisation rather than a weird temporary glitch.

opwieurposiu• 3 years ago

Apparently there is a gravity-flow sewer underneath the road, making it very difficult to go any lower.

bratgpttamer2• 3 years ago

Reminds me of one of my favorite headlines: "Teacher says every time a truck storrows, an overpass gets a trophy"

(storrowed = putting a 12'6" truck under a 10'6" bridge)

[1] https://www.universalhub.com/2019/teacher-says-every-time-tr...

[2] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=storrowed

dtgriscom• 3 years ago

Ah, yes. September is coming, and with it the "DON'T TAKE TRUCKS ONTO STORROW DRIVE" signs land on every major road entering BOSTON.

shove• 3 years ago

Hell yeah, nice local reference

lysp• 3 years ago

Australia has their own - Montague Street Bridge ("Monty").

It's 9'11 (3.0m)

https://howmanydayssincemontaguestreetbridgehasbeenhit.com/

It has dozens of warning signs, an overhead gantry with rubber paddles that hit a high vehicle's roof, flashing lights and still gets hit approximately once a month.

pityJuke4• 3 years ago

Is there a way to get an RSS feed for just "The Signpost"? Really interesting read.

Arnavion• 3 years ago

Subscribe link in footer -> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost...

notpushkin• 3 years ago

Looks like you can get any category on any MediaWiki website as RSS. Neat!

https://mediawiki-feeds.toolforge.org/

pityJuke4• 3 years ago

Wonderful, thanks!

mvdtnz• 3 years ago

There's a link at the bottom labelled "Wikipedia Signpost RSS feed", I haven't double checked it but I suspect that's what you want.

vorpalhex• 3 years ago

I wonder if havig a name and shame website, with a copy of the material they want removed, would be valuable and not just cathartic.

Props on Wikimedia Foundation for doing it right.

akolbe• 3 years ago

Actually, the Wikimedia Foundation was not involved. The Signpost is written by unpaid volunteers (like the rest of Wikipedia), not by Wikimedia Foundation staff.

bloopernova3• 3 years ago

Edited to add: they were apparently born in 1969, I've spent too much time online, and I enthusiastically leapt to the wrong conclusion.

Original comment follows:

The lawyer who sent the letter has the wikipedia username "kimlynn69".

You'd think that a lawyer, engaging in actions on behalf of a client, would use a more professional username.

tomalpha• 3 years ago

To be fair, a glance at her LinkedIn profile (top google search result for her name) suggests that 1969 could well be her birth year.

silisili• 3 years ago

Our of pure boredom, I can confirm records show this.

bloopernova3• 3 years ago

Ah, well not the first time I've made a fool of myself jumping to the wrong conclusion. I'll change the comment.

AdmiralAsshat• 3 years ago

Totally unprofessional to be born in that year, IMO. She should have considered the long-term ramifications when deciding to emerge from the womb.

yjftsjthsd-h• 3 years ago

In fairness, if I was born in 1969 I would be deeply torn between using it in every single username I had for the sake of comedy, or avoiding it precisely because people tend to make assumptions and actually being born then is never going to be anyone's first thought.

Clamchop2• 3 years ago

I'm looking forward to the Y2k69 hysteria.

bratgpttamer2• 3 years ago

A friend of mine was born on 6/9/69 and she made sure to tell everyone.

rdtsc• 3 years ago

The WMF told Indy Week that they had not received the letter and that the letter that had been made public contained an incorrect postal address for the WMF's headquarters

I wonder if the lawyer did it on purpose. They've probably had enough dealing with an unreasonable client so they made a few "mistakes" to blow the case up so the city can get a new official and they won't have to deal with them any longer.

If you listen to the linked video of the official yelling obscenities and acting unprofessionally, imagine working for them. On one hand, they'll do what they are told, on the other, mistakes "just happen". And look at that, they are not seeking re-election any longer, sounds like a "win" for the attorney.

NoZebra120vClip3• 3 years ago

Do they have to send those with Certified Mail?

mschuster914• 3 years ago

An eyewitness interviewed by Indy Week alleged that Durham council member DeDreana Freeman had attempted to strike Durham Mayor-pro tempore and council member Mark-Anthony Middleton during the shouting session, but instead struck O'Neal once and punched the head of fellow Durham council member Leonardo Williams twice before Williams subdued her. In the aftermath of these incidents, O'Neal announced that she would not seek re-election as Mayor and a state investigation was opened into the extortion allegation (Holsey-Hyman denies the alleged extortion attempt and a separate allegation that she ordered city employees to perform campaign work on her behalf).

Wtf. That alone is wild, open brawls in parliament are usually something associated with dysfunctional democracies. Attempting to censor that and invite the Streisand effect? That's new. If you decide to throw fists in politics, at least don't attempt to contradict the evidence. JFC.

int3• 3 years ago

eh, Taiwan is a functional democracy and yet it has had parliamentary brawls too

mschuster914• 3 years ago

Didn't know that, had a quick Google and stumbled over a ton of reports spanning many years - including a bunch of legislators throwing pig guts around [1].

Wild.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/12/11/legislato...

LordShredda• 3 years ago

Nothing says loyalty and patriotism more than a good old fist fight in the name of democracy

alephnerd• 3 years ago

Elementary school me was introduced to the physicality of Taiwanese parliamentary politics from the Cat in the Hat movie (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rtXccR1h_Ak).

It's an underrated movie tbh, especially given that Barbie got an 88% on Rotten Tomatoes

88913527• 3 years ago

The US House has a ceremonial mace that represents the legislature's authority. A few members have invoked mentions of it in heated debate, and it's been walked about the floor to maintain order. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mace_of_the_United_States_Hous...

ericbarrett• 3 years ago

There’s actually a long history of personal violence in U.S. legislative bodies, especially leading up to the Civil War: https://www.history.com/news/charles-sumner-caning-cilley-du...

Nmi2osv7• 3 years ago

looks like a pretty lousy mace to be honest

mickdeek86• 3 years ago

Itself another aspect of the Founders' Roman Republic fetishism. The mace was inspired by the symbol of state authority, the fasces, composed of twigs that when bundled together were stronger than a single pole of similar girth. It was also a common architectural embellishment during the Deco era and is still on the wall of the US House behind the dais. The State of the Union cameras always zoom in exactly enough to keep them out of view, because the symbol became controversial around 1934 for some reason. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasces

inferiorhuman• 3 years ago

  open brawls in parliament are usually something associated with
  dysfunctional democracies

Yeah, tell that to Australia, England, Japan, the EU, Israel, Italy. Hell in South Korea one legislator threw shit… shit happens.

axus• 3 years ago

The topic after Durham was about RuWiki. Apparently the director of "Wikimedia Russia" was banned from making edits due to "Long-term abuse: creating a Wikipedia fork which includes stolen content from Commons as well".

I get that pushing a state-sponsored, censored clone of Wikipedia is bad for free information, but it seems out of scope of the real Wikipedia. Stealing information from Wikipedia is a bad thing, by itself?

div72• 3 years ago

Probably because of attribution. I assume that most Wikipedia articles are licensed under a version of CC with attribution requirements.

sen_armstrong• 3 years ago

TIL that Рейму Хакурей (Reimu Hakurei) is a bot that removes possible vandalism on Russian Wikipedia, and that its creator's page rains touhou powerups.

kornhole• 3 years ago

This is an interesting read of some of the politics around editing of Wikipedia, but the problem is much bigger. This show interviewing the founder dropped last night and covers many of the problems as well as some potential solutions to decentralize the knowledge and search capabilities such as encycloreader.org. https://rumble.com/v33wemb-wikipedia-co-founder-condemns-it-...

veave• 3 years ago

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Elaine_O...

City officials attempt to doxx Wikipedians

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