Monthly Archives: January 2021

6:45 AM PST 1/27/2021byInkoo Kang

Throughout her long, madcap and utterly singular life, Elizabeth Carmichael boasted a talent for remaking reality. Carmichael had little use for the way things were not when it came to her body, nor to Americas ailing car industry of the 1970s. Her knack for making the world see things her way led her to pursue a gender transition in the late 60s, seemingly with no other trans people around to give support or advice. A decade later, that same force of will led to her highly publicized claim that she would create and mass-produce a three-wheeled, fuel-efficient car that would save the country from the oil crisis a pipe dream that helped her bilk millions from investors.

A fabulist, an inventor, an Ayn Rand-worshipping libertarian, a queer pioneer and a doting parent of five (and several more children she abandoned or never bothered to meet), the exquisitely complicated Carmichael is, among so many other things, a gift to documentary filmmakers. With HBOs The Lady and the Dale, directors Nick Cammilleri and Zackary Drucker (a consultant and cast member on Transparent) do right by their subjects multitudes, presenting a rollicking and twist-filled bio-doc in four parts that doesnt shy from Carmichaels many flaws while supplying ample context for the transgender experience a half-century ago. TVs longform documentaries are seldom so illuminating, or entertaining.

Cammilleri and Drucker smartly eschew re-enactments for animation in telling Carmichaels life story a visually charming choice that underscores both the profound mutability and itinerant weightlessness of her familys existence. (It also means that The Lady and the Dale refreshingly looks like few other TV docs.) Born in Indiana in 1927, Carmichael roamed from city to city before and after starting a family with her umpteenth but seemingly final wife Vivian, almost always evading arrest for her latest con. The family of seven mostly kept on the move, the childrens records falsified and their schooling sacrificed to Carmichaels quasi-fugitive status.

The Lady and the Dale is the rare biographical doc in which the subjects domestic self is as interesting as their professional feats. Thats partly due to the series' star interviewee: Candi Michael, one of Carmichaels daughters, who refers to her parent as both my father and Liz. (Two of Carmichaels children participate in the doc, as does Vivians younger brother Charles Barrett, who does his best to provide his deceased sisters perspective on her wife.) The children, who appear to have been the people who accepted Carmichaels womanhood most readily, had a front-row seat to her transition. If theres one point where Cammilleri and Drucker falter, its in not furnishing a fuller account of the ways Carmichaels history of fraud and instability affected Vivian and their children, whose forged paperwork gives them trouble to this day with should-be-straightforward tasks like providing identification or applying for a job.

Many trans people throughout the 20th century have tried to cloak themselves in anonymity for fear of being outed. Not Carmichael. In publicity shots for the car she promised to build a two-seater called The Dale that looks like a cross between a banana and a spaceship Carmichael appears in long hair and a miniskirt or a Wonder Woman pose. She was a soundbite machine, too, bragging about her companys proprietary bulletproof, unbreakable plastic (which didnt exist) and telling reporters, I dont want to sound like an egomaniac, but Im a genius.

At six-foot-two and some 200 pounds, Carmichael, who didnt begin transitioning until her forties, couldnt escape suspicions about her gender presentation. Her appearance, combined with her outlandish assertions about The Dale, led journalists to comb through her past and reveal her mile-long rap sheet. (Seemingly every news story declared her, in the sensationalized and uninformed parlance of the day, really a guy.) When the R&D funds for The Dale ran out, with no viable prototype to show for it, Carmichael ran into legal trouble, which meant disproportionate shows of force by the police and brutal stays in mens prisons.

But the institution that arguably had the most catastrophic effect on Carmichaels life, especially during her later years, was journalism. Reporters were right to expose Carmichaels lies about The Dale, but a kind of tabloid journalism indistinguishable from entertainment would plague the entrepreneurs later years, when she finally seemed to be embracing stability and even helping down-and-out men by offering them jobs. Its a tragic snapshot of the sideshow lens trans stories were seen through by the mainstream press at the time a viewpoint promulgated by journalist Dick Carlson, who outed Carmichael as trans (and won a Peabody for it) and fathered son Tucker, who would later spout his own fear-mongering rhetoric against trans people.

Deception has long been a charge against trans individuals, most often for their attempts at expressing their true selves. Carmichael was accused of being deceitful, too but in her case, she actually was a lifelong scammer and probable narcissist who perhaps did more harm than good in the world, while also being an undeniable trailblazer. Its to The Lady and the Dales considerable credit that the doc underscores, rather than streamlines, the warts-and-all complexities of Carmichaels life. It feels like some kind of progress to consider someone as irreducible as Liz Carmichael in her full messy humanity.

Premieres Sunday, Jan. 31, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HBO

Read the original here:

'The Lady and the Dale': TV Review - Hollywood Reporter

Neil Peart performs with Rush at The Forum on Aug. 1, 2015, in Los Angeles.

Rich Fury/The Canadian Press

The city of St. Catharines, Ont., announced on Tuesday the commissioning of an original work of public art to recognize the percussive and poetic contributions of one of its favourite sons, virtuoso Rush drummer and lyricist Neil Peart. Interested Canadian artists and creative teams are invited to submit proposals to honour the musician who died of brain cancer last year at age 67.

Peart spent his formative years in Port Dalhousie, a St. Catharines community of historical significance and waterfront appeal. The scenic spot is immortalized in the 1975 Rush song Lakeside Park, with wistful lyrics written by Peart about the days of barefoot freedom, the merriment of midway rides and shining stars on summer nights.

A pavilion at Port Dalhousies Lakeside Park has already been named in honour of the drummer, one of the handful of musicians with memberships in both the Order of Canada and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Story continues below advertisement

Were quite certain the park and the art piece is going to become a mecca for Rush fans around the world, said David DeRocco, head of the task force soliciting the artwork. From the get-go, the committee has said, Lets think big here.

According to DeRocco, who estimates he saw Rush in concert some 30 times over the years, the loose budget for the commission, which will be funded through donations, is $1.5-million.

Seeking benefactors, DeRocco and the task force might wish to track down the anonymous individual who in December plunked down US$500,312 for a set of chrome-coloured drums once owned by Peart. The Slingerland kit, sold as part of a sale of music memorabilia by Bonhams Auctioneers, was used by Peart for the first concert he ever played with Rush, at Pittsburghs Civic Arena on Aug. 14, 1974.

The progressive power trio released their final studio album, Clockwork Angels, in 2012 and stopped touring after 2015. In 2016, guitarist Alex Lifeson and singer-bassist Geddy Lee were immortalized in the form of Lee-Lifeson Art Park, a music-themed green space in the suburban Toronto neighbourhood of Willowdale where the two Rush members spent their childhood.

In addition to his musicianship, Peart was a motorcycle enthusiast who authored numerous books of fiction and non-fiction. His thoughtful, far-out Rush lyrics testified to an enthusiasm for science fiction and the philosophies of Ayn Rand. Last week Simon & Schuster published Neil Peart: The Illustrated Quotes, by David Calcano and Lindsay Lee.

Among the artists expected to compete for the Peart memorial commission is Morgan MacDonald, a well-known Newfoundland sculptor who has made it his business to immortalize heroes. Among his works is A Time, a bronze sculpture of the beloved Newfoundland folk singer-songwriter Ron Hynes that stands near the YellowBelly Brewery on George Street in St. Johns.

Newfoundland artist Morgan MacDonald works on a clay sculpture of the late Rush drummer and lyricist Neil Peart.

Handout

This summer, MacDonald posted photos on social media of a clay maquette of Peart and his drums.

Story continues below advertisement

It would be a huge honour if I were selected to create a sculpture of Neil, says MacDonald, a fan of Rush since childhood who had already put in more than 1,000 hours into the sculptures design before the commission was announced. After his death, to think that Rush was not going to be making music as a trio ever again, it hurt me to the core. You realize things dont last forever.

Music does last forever and, conceivably, so does art. Hopefuls have until March 29 to submit their proposal for the commemorative piece. A selection panel will then shortlist six finalists to participate in the design process. Organizers hope to see shovels in the ground for the project as early as next year.

That might be aggressive, given the realities of COVID-19 and the difficulties of putting on fundraising concerts, DeRocco said, but thats our hope.

Sign up for The Globes arts and lifestyle newsletters for more news, columns and advice in your inbox.

Go here to see the original:

Closer to the park: St. Catharines commissions artwork to honour Rush drummer Neil Peart - The Globe and Mail

As culture and politics become ever more polarised, it's tempting to retreat into the reassuring hum of our own echo chambers and positive feedback loops. But this reluctance to engage with 'the other side' can only corrode civil discourse. As regular readers of The Spectator will know, listening to opposing views in good faith allows us to test our convictions, or as Bertrand Russell put it, 'those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.'

In these hyper-partisan times, it's not surprising perhaps that there are so few platforms where opposing intellectual heavyweights can go head to head - who wouldnt want to see Douglas Murray and Paul Mason debate identity politics for instance? But it is possible to see what the other side is up to. So cast aside your prejudices and dive into these left-leaning videos and podcasts. The sentiments might not be agreeable to every listenerbut you'll certainly have better, more informed arguments once you're done.

Self confessed 'leftist activist' and former Channel 4 economics editor Paul Mason was once a member of the Workers' Power Group. He has since distanced himself from Trotskyist politics and now identifies with a 'radical social democracy'. He has praised Marx's humanism and believes in moderating inequality and championing workers rights through 'networks' rather than 'hierarchies'. Often seen videoing himself at anti-racism marches he is in favour of state suppression of fascist groups. As an economist, Mason has little faith in the free market and questions the very idea of private ownership. His YouTube channel is packed with urgent calls to action and he has plenty to say about Covid and why Labour lost the last election.

Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek debates the virtues of Marxism with clinical psychologist and pro capitalist Jordan Peterson. The discussion, although lively, never descends into cheap shots and is full of fascinating insights into the nature of human happiness and the various ways in which we strive for a better life. Enjoy 2.45 hours in the company of two of our most colourful public intellectuals. On a similar theme you should watch Christopher Hitchens' eloquent 1986 Ayn Rand debate.

Billed as a 'cheerful space for optimism and progressive ideas' ex Labour leader Ed Milliband is joined by radio presenter Geoff Lloyd to explore the 'ideas, people and movements solving the biggest challenges facing society'. Together their aim is to tackle pressing issues of the day head-on. Recent episodes include a discussion about big tech censoring and another on the benefits of flexible working hours. The pair also talk to policy-makers, experts, campaigners, academics and thinkers about a range of topics including climate and ecological breakdown, income and wealth inequality, social care, racial injustice, systemic bias and land reform.

Covering everything from history to economics, philosophy to fiction, Cambridge academics David Runciman and Helen Thompson try to make sense of the current political and cultural climate. Invited guests discuss the ideas and events shaping the modern world. Economist Diane Coyle and professor of European politics Anand Menon try to pin down the long-term consequences of Brexit while historian Jill Lepore ponders the events of January 6th and asks whether the invasion of the Capitol building was nothing short of an insurrection.

After serving as Minister of Finance under Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, Greek economist and politician Yanis Varoufakis founded the left wing political party MeRA25 in 2018. A leading advocate of the universal basic income Varoufakis has authored several best selling books including Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present and Adults in the Room: My Battle With Europe's Deep Establishment. His website Thoughts for the Post 2008 World contains a wealth of material including a lively video of Varoufakis debating with Republican senator John Bolton about the likelihood of global stability in a world mired by an escalating climate emergency and a New Cold War between the West and China. Anyone interested in the fate of Julian Assange should watch Brian Eno, Ken Loach, Roger Waters, Frank Barat, Stefania Maurizi and Varoufakis discuss what the unfolding drama means for the future of free speech.

From a crisis of capitalism to racism and climate change, the controversial Novara Media website contains dozens of videos and audios from leftist thinkers as well as firebrands such as Ash Sarkar (who famously confessed to being 'literally a communist'). Writer Hari Kunzru discusses the alt right and red pilling and there's an illuminating examination of 'progressive elitism' with cofounder of Novara James Butler and writer Eliane Glaser. Rather than seeking to moderate between two sides of a debate, Novara 'actively intends to feed back into political action'.One for the truly intrepid.

An award-winning US podcast dealing in progressive politics and culture drawn from over a hundred different sources. Established in 2006 the forum features a smorgasbord of leftist ideas including most recently a discussion about how white supremacy turned the GOP base into an out of control Frankenstein's monster. Also worth listening to is a 2019 conversation in which various guests debate the rise and inevitable fall of Neoliberalism.

Continued here:

No more echo chambers: the internet's best left-wing thinkers - Spectator.co.uk

Good day And a Tub Thumpin Thursday to you! Well, we have a new President and House and Senate, and they all lean left No longer are there checks and balances in our Govt But what the heck, we can give this new arrangement a try, right? Before the new arrangement turns its back on the 80 Million people that didnt vote for them, they might want to keep in mind what happens when you get those 80 Million people riled up Im just saying Our Blues were playing again last night and I was able to watch the game that began at 9 my time here The Rock Classic band, Blind Faith, greets me this morning with their song: Cant Find My Way Home Ive been there believe me on that one folks!

Well yesterday, I said that I didnt think that much would happen with the currencies for everyones attention would be on D.C. And the Currencies drifted, albeit a bit lower on the day. But while the cat was away, the mice did play, and Gold gained $32 on the day to close at $1,872.00, and Silver gained 62-cents to close at $25.90 I guess that Gold traders and investors got the memo that the new Administration is going to push harder on the Cold War with China Ahhh Those geopolitical problems And while were at it, maybe they also heard the news that the next Stimulus Bill will be a DOOZY And that, my friends, is exactly what I talked about in an interview with Dennis Miller of a few months ago. I said that once you start giving out currency, the next time will require a bigger payout, and the next one will require a larger payout than the last one, etc.

I know that Ive been remiss in not mentioning whats going on overseas each day I actually have done this on purpose, because as always, its all about the dollar So, I focus on dollar stuff each day I will tell you that tomorrow is a HUGE day for economic data overseas So, Monday, Ill try to recall to go back and look at it and see whats happening The European Central Bank (ECB) is meeting today, and I'm thinking that ECB President will be looking to move interest rates more negative... I guess, we'll see, eh?

In the overnight markets, the currencies are getting marked up VS the dollar, and Gold is flat to down a buck or two... The Petrol Currencies are leading the pack today, with good gains in Russian rubles, Canadian dollars/ loonies, Brazilian real, Norwegian krone, and even pound sterling! Yesterday, was a real nothing for the currencies, and today, they've gotten back to the business at hand, which is pushing the dollar toward the currency woodshed...

OK Well new Treasury Sec. Janet Yellen was in the news quite a bit this week as her nomination was voted on. Here are some thoughts from Janet Yellen, that caught my eye when asked about how seniors have been damaged greatly by the zero interest rates policy that was partly under her regime at the Fed She responded:

I believe the benefits will far outweigh the costs, especially if we care about helping people who have been struggling for a very long time, she said in the statement, which was obtained by Reuters.

And those words got publishing guru, Bill Bonner sitting up to respond to her: Who are these people who have been struggling? American household income (thanks to the feds bailouts and giveaways) was at its highest point ever last year with $1 trillion more in earnings than the year before.

And we need not remind dear readers that the U.S. government is broke with a $2 trillion deficit already on the books for this year Bill Bonner

Well I want to thank the good folks at GATA for this next blurb, as they highlighted it from an article on the FT.com. Apparently new Treasury Sec. Janet Yellen is not a fan of currency manipulation.. Lets listen in:

Janet Yellen warned U.S. trading partners against currency manipulation and touted the importance of market-based exchange rates in her most exhaustive comments yet on the incoming Biden administration's approach to international economic policy.

Ms. Yellen, who is Joe Biden's nominee to serve as Treasury secretary, said "the intentional targeting of exchange rates to gain commercial advantage is unacceptable" and that she would "oppose any and all attempts by foreign countries to artificially manipulate currency values to gain an unfair advantage in trade."

Chuck again So, who wants to set the over / under on how long it takes Yellen to change her mind and put some of those Billions, with a capital B, in the Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF), or Slush Fund, as I call it, to work?

Ok, currency traders you heard it straight from the horses mouth, that using the ESF to protect the dollar is not going to happen going forward. What are you waiting for now? Take the dollar to the woodshed and leave it there! Because thats what it deserves!

Well, lets see what else is there to talk about this morning? It is a Tub Thumpin Thursday, so we will see the Weekly Initial Jobless Claims this morning right out of the starters blocks This unemployment problem has become a rash that wont go away A lot of businesses that these unemployed people worked for, will not be coming back, so there will be no job for the Unemployed person to go to once things open up again What will they do? Its a sad, sad situation and its getting more and more absurd (in case you didnt catch it, those lyrics are from an Elton John song titles: Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word

You know 3 years ago, I didnt really care for the decision that was made to show me the door But as time goes buy, I think it was the best thing I could do, given my health, age, and my willingness to keep writing my letter, which the new company wasnt going to tolerate one iota So, there was no Unemployment Claim by me I simply walked away, found a new publisher, and retired But I had been there where a lot of the unemployed people are now, back in 1998... And I didn't like the feeling of not going somewhere to earn money each day, so I know what it feels like, folks... And it's not a happy place!

Theres really nothing else, unless you are tied to the Home Building, Housing starts, and existing home sales data to look at today or tomorrow But before we close out the week I wanted to circle back to what I talked about on Tuesday, and that is that U.S. Retail Sales were negative the last 3 months, which included the Christmas shopping season! How on earth can that be? Unless of course the U.S. Consumer is tapped out They cant put any more on their Credit card, and theyre savings have dwindled greatly And without Consumption the economy is going nowhere, folks Theres just no way the Govt can make up for this lack of consumer spending of course that wont stop the Govt from trying! So, look for more deficit spending and currency printing Got Gold?

To recap It was Inauguration Day in the U.S. yesterday, and the currencies basically drifted, albeit a bit lower on the day.. Gold on the other hand rallied by $32, and Silver by 62-cents on the day The overnight markets have gone back to pushing the dollar toward the currency woodshed. Chuck has read and heard some interesting things about new Treasury Sec. Janet Yellen, so he spends a large part of todays letter talking about her

Before we had to the Big Finish today, I wanted to highlight another quote from someone that should be revered, Ayn Rand, talking about Freedom of Speech Heres Ayn Rand, "Once a country accepts censorship of the press and of speech, then nothing can be won without violence. Therefore, so long as you have free speech, protect it. This is the life and death issue in this country: do not give up the freedom of the press, of newspapers, books, magazines, television, radios, movies, and every other form of presenting ideas. So long as that's free, a peaceful intellectual turn is possible." Ayn Rand

Or, here's your snippet: "Today, Treasury Secretary-nominee Janet Yellen addressed the Senate Finance Committee during her confirmation hearing.

In her statements, she argued that major fiscal stimulus is justified to support the economy while the pandemic still rages.

She stressed the need to address income inequality and pledged support for the incoming Biden administrations climate change policies.

In other words, she plans to support large amounts of government spending to stimulate the economy.

She acknowledged that debt is a potential problem. But, she added, right now, with interest rates at historic lows, the smartest thing we can do is act big. In the long run, I believe the benefits will far outweigh the costs, especially if we care about helping people who have been struggling for a very long time.

Lets just say thats wishful thinking.

We cannot spend our way out of a debt trap. As Ive explained before, fiscal policy is not stimulus because the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio is now over 130% and rising quickly. Extensive research shows that at debt-to-GDP ratios above 90%, the multiplier on new debt is less than one.

This means were in a debt trap (in addition to a liquidity trap caused by Yellens previous organization, the Fed).

But Janet Yellen has no real understanding of money and monetary economics. Her tenure at the Fed proves it."

Chuck Again Well, I would say that Rickards comments qualify him to be banned from Twitter and Facebook! HA! Seriously, he sure doesn't pull any punches talking about Yellen does he?

Market Prices 1/21/21: American Style: A$ .7780, kiwi $ .7222, C$ .7926, euro 1.2150, sterling 1.3724, Swiss $1.1283, European Style: rand 14.7908, krone 8.4254, SEK 8.3014, forint 294.05, zloty 3.7260, koruna 21.4770, RUB 73.52, yen 103.39, sing 1.3220, HKD 7.7516, INR 72.94, China 6.4669, peso 19.56, BRL 5.3300, Dollar Index 90.17, Oil $53.02, 10-year 1.09%, Silver $25.97, Platinum $1,131.00, Palladium $2,419.00, Copper $3.64, and Gold... $1,871.30

Thats it for today and this week Yesterday, was an absolutely beautiful day here, I sat out on the deck reading my book, 1984, for about 2 hours and then I had taken in enough sun for the day... Another beautiful sunrise this morning, with an orange sky, not red... My next book is Fahrenheit 451, which I have sitting here waiting for it to be read! Oldies but goodies, right? Well, that's pretty much how I am with my music too! Dan Fogelberg takes us to the finish line today with his song: Late For The Sky... I think I've told you before, that this song always brings me to tears, as it so sad... You know, come to think of it, ever since 2007, I've become a big cry baby, over anything that's sad... Now there's something that I've never talked about before to anyone... So, you dear reader know something about me that others don't! So, any way, it's time to go, so I hope you have a Tub Thumpin' Thursday today, and a Fantastico Friday tomorrow... And Please Be Good To Yourself!

See the article here:

Currencies get back to the task at hand - FXStreet

There are two stories you could tell about Wikipedia.

One is that 20 years ago a web resource was launched that threatened academia and the media, and displaced established sources of knowledge. It was an encyclopedia anyone could editchildren, opinionated ignoramuses and angry ex-spouses. If I edited the page on particle physics to claim it was the study of ducks, the change would be instantly published. If I edited your page to call you a paedophile, that would be published too. Worse, although anyone could edit it, not everyone did: the editors were a self-selecting group of pedants and know-it-alls and overwhelmingly men. All of this led to biases in what soon became the worlds first port of call for finding out about anything. In time the sites co-founder, Larry Sanger, would concede that trolls sort of took over. The inmates started running the asylum.

But there is also anotherincreasingly plausiblestory. Namely, that Wikipedia is the last redoubt of the idealism of the early World Wide Web. From the moment of Tim Berners-Lees 1989 paper with its proposal of how information could be connected and made accessible via a hyperlink, visionaries began to imagine a kind of global democracy, where anybody, anywhere, could use a computer to discover the world. Amid a raft of developments known (in a 1999 coinage) as Web 2.0which allowed everybody not merely to consume content but also to create itsome dared to dream that we would all become digital citizens shaking the plutocracys hold on established media and other elitist hierarchies.

Bit by bit, most of the web let us down. Yes, we were given a voicebut it didnt come for free. Websites like Facebook harvest our data in order to attract advertisers; screen addiction, raging tribalism, trolling and misinformation reign. Tech billionaires got far richer than the old press barons ever were, and the rest of us became not empowered e-citizensbut data sold to companies wanting to target us.

But despite being the seventh most-visited site in the world in 2020, Wikipedia still seems different. It is the only not-for-profit in the top 10, with no adverts, no data collection and no billionaire CEO. Hundreds of thousands of volunteers maintain and create pages for free, correcting one another and upholding an impressive veracity. As early as 2005, the science journal Nature found that Wikipedia comes close to the accuracy of Encyclopedia Britannica online (to the displeasure of the Britannicas editors). Back then, the young Wikipedia had four errors per science entry to Britannicas three. Wikipedia may not have reached the ideal of Jimmy Wales, the sites more prominent co-founder, of being a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge, but it isnt far off. In February 2020, Wired named Wikipedia as the last best place on the internet.

As Wikipedia leaves its teenage years, the question iswhich of our two stories is more valid?

Wikipedias creators might seem like unlikely revolutionaries. Growing up in Huntsville, Alabama, where he was born in 1966, Jimmy Wales had a deep affection for his household encyclopedia. He would sit with his mother sticking in entry-updates sent by the publisher that referred the reader to a more accurate entry in a later edition. Speaking from an attic in his house in the Cotswolds during lockdown, Wales tells me that one entry that needed updating was the moons, for the good reason that people had landed on it for the first time.

Wales studied finance and went on to work as a trader. His intellectual heroes were the novelist and philosopher of selfishness Ayn Rand (one of his daughters is named after a Rand heroine) and the Austrian free market economist Friedrich Hayek, whose Road to Serfdom was a favourite of Margaret Thatchers. He spent much of his free time on the early internet, playing fantasy games and browsing, and became fixated by its potential. He quit his job and with two partners set up Bomis, which started as an information directory but developed into a mens site (whose Babe Engine was basically a way to search for pornography).

Wales decided to create a free, virtual encyclopedia that could be updated in real time and that anyone could access. Like its predecessors, it would be a secondary, not a primary sourceit would cite information from the media or academic papers, rather than publish original researchand it would have a strict approvals process. It was really very formal and very top-down, you had to be approved to write anything, and you were expected to submit a completed essay, he says. Nupedia launched in October 1999, with Larry Sangera philosophy graduate student whom Wales had met online via philosophy mailing listsas editor-in-chief.

There are now over 300 Wikipedias in different languages, and over six million entries on the English language site alone

Thanks to the long submission process, the site had published only 21 articles after a year. Meanwhile, Sanger and Wales had come across the concept of wikiscollaborative, freely rewritable web pages that can be used to run group projects, collect notes or run a database (wiki is the Hawaiian word for quick). As an experiment, they launched another encyclopedia on 15th January 2001 that ditched the checks in favour of a wiki-style approach: Wikipedia.

Intended as a sideshow to Nupedia, the new site exploded. One of the things that was interesting, Wales remembers, is that in the early days, people started writing things that were pretty good. They were very short and basic, but there was nothing wrong with them. There are now over 300 Wikipedias in different languages, and over six million entries on the English language site alone. Over time, three core policies were established: pages should take a neutral point of view; contain no original research; and be verifiable, meaning that other visitors can check the information comes from a reliable source. Interestingly, none of these tenets is accuracy: the site effectively outsources this by resting everything on citations.

Two of the sites servers crashed on Christmas Day 2004, and Wales had to keep the site limping along himself. Shortly after, he launched a fundraising campaign. Today, regular energetic campaigns, highly visible when you click on an entry, bring in over $100m a year for Wikipedia and other projects of the superintending Wikimedia Foundation, mostly from small donationsthe average is $15.

Despite the incredible number of pages, there are fewer active editors than you might think: on the English-language Wikipedia only 51,000 editors made five or more edits in December 2020. A 2017 study found that in the sites first decade, 1 per cent of Wikipedias editors were responsible for 77 per cent of its edits. An edit can be as small as a tweak to the formatting, or it could be starting a new page.

The site is now vast, with over 55m articlesthe English-language Wikipedia alone would fill 90,000 books, giving it comparable volume (if not always quality) to a typical Oxbridge college library, available free to anyone with an internet connection, whether a rice farmer in Bangladesh or a physics student with out-of-date textbooks. Most impressive is its speed: articles are edited 350 times a minute. Wales says one of the first moments he truly saw Wikipedias potential was on 9/11. While television news was looping footage of the towers falling, Wikipedias network of volunteers were doing something different: People were writing about the architecture of the World Trade Center, its history. The site has come into its own during the pandemic, too, moving far more rapidly than established publications: since December 2019, there has been an average of 110 edits per hour on Covid-19 articles by some 97,000 editors.

The passion and dedication of Wikipedias editors is clear, but that doesnt necessarily mean theyre always good at what they do. One sobering recent revelation concerned entries in the Scots language, a close cousin of English that is primarily spoken in the Scottish lowlands (and not to be confused with Scottish Gaelic). Thousands of Wikipedia pages in Scots had been created by someone who didnt speak the languagea teenage user called AmaryllisGardener from North Carolina. Some words were still in English, others seemed to have been translated into Scots via a poor online dictionary. AmaryllisGardener sincerely thought he was being helpful, saying in a Wikipedia comment that he had started editing the pages when he was 12, and was devastated by the outcry (and abuse from other editors). Ryan Dempsey, a Scots language enthusiast from Northern Ireland who first flagged the errors on Reddit, tells me that he believes the errors went uncorrected for so long mostly because Scots is not very widely spoken, still less read, and those fluent in it are more likely to be older and rural and so have less of an online presence. After outing AmaryllisGardener, he realised that there were many other editors who were far worse on the Scots site.

The story was covered all over the world, but isnt the best example of Wikipedias effectiveness: mistranslationsespecially in little-read languagesare far more likely to survive than factual errors, given the requirement to cite facts carefully (youve doubtless seen a bright red citation needed mark next to an apparently innocuous statement). However, there have been many other controversies about accuracy. Lord Justice Leveson was blasted in 2012 after his report into the culture and ethicsand accuracyof the British press listed one of the founders of the Independent newspaper as one Brett Straub, an unknown figure who erroneously appeared on the papers Wikipedia page.

In 2015, the scientists Adam Wilson and Gene Likens looked into the edit histories of several science pages on Wikipedia, finding that within just a few days the page for acid rain was edited to define it as the deposition of wet poo and cats, and separately by another user who claimed that acid rain killed bugs bunny; a third dismissed the phenomenon as a load of bullshit. One repeatedly tried to change the spelling of rain to ran.

None of the rogue changes lasted longdedicated editors monitor popular pages for changes, as do the sites botsbut for Likens in particular, who led the team that discovered acid rain and had devoted time to editing the page himself, this was frustrating. (Of course, anything called acid may invite a certain volume of psychedelic gobbledygook.) Wilson says acid rain went through some very tumultuous edits. Their study found politically controversial scientific subjects attracted far more edits, which will also mean more quality control. Wilson tells me that he is fairly impressed by the discussion and edits on the climate change page.

The other problem with Wikipedias open-door editing policy is that theres little to stop those with a vested interest influencing entries. Wikipedias guidelines caution against editing your own page, or on behalf of family, friends or your employer, but this is tricky to police in a land of anonymous usernamesand the temptation can be strong. Indeed, a farcical controversy unfolded when Wales changed his own entry to remove references to Sanger as co-founder of the site, leaving him as the sole creator. He was called out in 2005, and later aired regret to Wired: I wish I hadnt done it. Its in poor taste. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism revealed in 2012 that thousands of edits to Wikipedia were being made from within the House of Commons. The former MP Joan Ryan, who left Labour for The Independent Group, admitted to editing her own page, pleading that she had to tackle misleading or untruthful information.

But while both criticism and praise often centre on the claim that editing is a free-for-all, that is no longer quite the case. Thomas Leitch, author of Wikipedia U, points out: Wikipedias folklore is that Were the peoples encyclopedia. Were a democracy, anybody can edit. Thats not true[to edit] you cant be someone who has corrected, or in Wikipedias view miscorrected, a given page so many times youre now banned; or someone who has run afoul of an editor. You have to colour within the lines to be able to edit on Wikipedia.

While anyone can create a Wikipedia account and click edit on almost any page, your edit will likely be reversed by another editor unless it meets certain standards. If disputes ariseedits being repeatedly made and reversed, or a discussion turning ugly on the Talk discussion pages that accompany every articleusers can be banned by administrators, or an article can be locked against unsupervised edits.

Even the everyday friction between editors can put off the would-be Wikipedians. I decided to have a go, and added a short, factual line on a recent controversy to the history of Wikipedia page (admittedly one thats likely to be heavily scrutinised). Within seven hours it was removed by another editor, with the curt explanation: hardly notable or controversial. The page as a whole is marked as need[ing] to be updated as of August 2018based on my limited experience, perhaps over-precious editors could be to blame.

The stern eyes of experienced editors may be justified in some cases but there are serious consequences. Surveys show that editors on the English language site are overwhelmingly young menexactly in keeping with so much of Silicon Valley. The Wikimedia Foundation set a goal in 2011 to get to 25 per cent female editors over four years. In 2014, executive director Sue Gardner was forced to admit that I didnt solve it. We didnt solve it. In 2018, nine out of 10 editors were male.

Wikipedias open-door editing policy means theres little to stop those with a vested interest from influencing stories

Wales bemoans not nearly enough progress, and says the Foundation still has a lot to learn. He had hoped the phasing-in of a visual text editor (meaning the page youre editing looks like the published version, rather than resembling off-putting code) would attract more diverse editors, but it hasnt had the impact that I would like.

Whats at stake with diversity is, in Waless own words, not just some sort of random political correctnessit impacts the content. When male contributors predominate, you get certain kinds of entries and edits: in 2013, the New York Times journalist Amanda Filipacchi noticed that someone, or a group of someones, was gradually moving women out of the American Novelists category and moving them into one called American Women Novelists, meaning that the main list of American authors was becoming exclusively male.

With no application process for being an editor, and potentially anonymous and genderless profiles, this is a problem not easily amenable to the conventional corrective of monitoring. Jessica Wade, a physicist and Wikipedia editor, blames the skew to the male-dominated tech world from which the site was born: When the community started, it wasnt diverse, and it didnt welcome people from underrepresented groups.

When women or minorities do try to edit, she says, they can face old hands who dont encourage people enough to make them want to stay. Not everyone is so determined that they wont give up when theyre told the page they listed is rubbish, or that theyve not cited something properly.

Having dabbled in editing Wikipedia herself, Wade was shocked by the lack of entries for female scientists. She set herself a steep goal: to create a new page for a female or minority scientist every single dayand, starting in early 2018, shes done it ever since. Her project provoked some grumbles, and one fellow scientist made her doubt herself: They said that I was diluting Wikipedia and damaging the community by putting these entries on there. It really upset me. Shes quick to say, though, that the majority of the community is supportive, and the joys of collaboratingwaking up after a night of editing to see that contributors on the other side of the world have added useful edits or photos to your entryoutweigh the negatives. Mary Mann, a librarian who was spurred back into editing recently by inaccuracies regarding a type of pepper, tells me that her experience has been positive, with the caveat that the pages Ive tended to work on so far are non-controversial pages. Everyone likes Sichuan peppers.

Another important skew in Wikipedias contributions is geographical: Around 68 per cent of contributors are in America and the UK; Wales predicts that the big changes in Wikipedias next 20 years will be largely invisible on the English site: Wikipedias in the languages of the developing world [will be] a really huge part of our futurehow do we support whatever technological limitations people might have?

Wales believes that the reputation of Wikipedia has improved dramatically over the years. At the beginning, he found the storms about individual silly edits frustrating, but there are far fewer of them now. Its like how there was a whole spate of stories about eBay, about someone selling a gun, or someone selling their babies, or selling their soul. And then everybody realised that yeah, you can post pretty much anything you want on eBay, then someone will flag it and it gets taken down. Its not that exciting.

Meanwhile, stories of lecturers warning students not to cite Wikipedia conveniently omit that they would say the same about any encyclopedia, as theyre not primary sources. Several I spoke to regularly recommend Wikipedia as a great place to start researching a subject, as you can reach the primary sources through the links. Ellis Jones, a sociology professor, made editing Wikipedia pages on sociological theorists part of his syllabus: Its one of the most exciting things in the course for the students. It allows them to see that even though theyre not experts, they can contribute some small piece of knowledge to the public.

Leitch, the author of Wikipedia U, argues that the great gift of Wikipedia is the way that it teaches us to question sources of authority. Yes, of course, we have to be asking questions about Wikipedia. But while were on that subject, shouldnt we be asking those questions about liberal education in all of its avatars? Take the peer-review process: a 2017 study found that it comes with its own set of biases: women were under-represented, and both men and women tended to favour work by their own genders. Some charge the process with slowing down the publication of disruptive findings; virtually everyone involved with it knows that academics will insist on the addition of references to their own publications, as shameless a form of anonymous self-promotion as attempting to buff up your Wikipedia page.

Rather than Wireds description of it as the last best place on the internet, I prefer the way Tom Forth, another Wikipedia editor, described it to me: as the least bad place on the internet. It has many flaws, but many fewer than other huge sites. Dont be evil, Googles former motto, is a promise Wikipedia could claim to have kept.

The great gift of Wikipedia is the way that it teaches us to question sources of authority

Ironically for those who see Wikipedia as a disruptor, some of its greatest problems stem from the older institutions it relies on for citations. Its notability criteria mean that reputable sources must recognise a subjects importance before Wikipedia can. When I ask Jimmy Wales about his concerns about fake news, he highlights a much greater problem: the steep decline in local news outlets, which means the site often cannot cover local topicsat all.

However, the relationship between the resource and the world it reflects is not a one-way street. It can seem like if something isnt on Wikipedia, it may as well not exist. Conversely, newer pages like those created for female and ethnic minority scientists by Wade can, in some small ways, hack away at the biases in the world at large. During 2020, she and another scientist set about creating Wikipedia pages for those researching the pandemic, and says she soon noticed a gradual lessening in the white, male skew of experts quoted in the media.

One of the first pages Wade made was for Gladys West, an African-American scientist and a pioneer of GPS technology. The page started small, as little was known about her life, but over the years more has emerged, and she was recently profiled in the Guardian. For Wade, this encapsulates the joy of editing. When I see other people Ive done pages for getting recognition and honours and being celebrated, Im just like, this is the best day ever. This is the greatest thing ever. The power you have from just sitting up at night with your laptopits extraordinary.

There is something undeniably romantic about thousands of people pooling their knowledge onlinenot for money or fame, but because it seems a good thing to do. One of the editors I spoke to sent me a link to Listen to Wikipedia, a website that plays musical notes as it shows, in real time, which pages are being updated: bells for additions, strings for subtractions; deeper notes for large edits, higher notes for small. Kent county Delaware, Biondi, Upton State Pueblo Pottery, Italy National Cricket Team. Topher Grace, and words in languages I dont understand flash by. The longer I watch, the more it looks like the least bad place on the internet.

Read the rest here:

Wikipedia is the last bastion of idealism on the internet Prospect Magazine - Prospect Magazine