Talk:Goldbricking

Merged

Note that both Cyberslacking and CyberBludging have been merged into this article and redirected to it. --Xyzzyplugh 13:45, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Nobody, outside of the IT community I guess, ever uses this term in this manner

See title. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.245.188.243 (talk) 16:05, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

How does the title indicate anything about the use of the term? Jarble (talk) 20:35, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

I have never heard anyone (in IT or otherwise) describe anyone's behavior as "goldbricking".
The last place I remember hearing the term "goldbricking" was the movie "The Big Lebowski": "SHERIFF: Keep your ugly fucking gold-bricking ass out of my beach community!"; and "WALTER: I'll tell you who I am! I'm the guy who's gonna kick your phony, gold-bricking ass!"

I didn't post this topic, "== Nobody, outside of the IT community I guess, ever uses this term in this manner ==". But it seems to me the remark "See title" refers to the title of the topic "Nobody, outside of the IT..." (as opposed to the title of the article under discussion "Goldbricking" or to any subsection title), and we should take this claim made in the title "Nobody..." for this individual's entire contribution to this Talk section.

I am inclined to agree though. I have other complaints about this page that I can flesh out, and I think I'll use this as a jumping-off point.

This paragraph is problematic.

"Goldbricking, also known in computer-related tasks as cyberslacking, generally refers to an employee doing less work than he or she should. A modern example is staff who use their work internet access for personal reasons while maintaining the appearance of working, which can lead to inefficiency. The term originates from the confidence trick of applying a gold coating to a brick of worthless metal - while the worker may appear industrious on the surface, in reality they are less valuable."

It gives no sources or references whatsoever.

The equivocation of "Goldbricking" with "cyberslacking" has no reference or citation to back it up. By "reference" I mean an authority backing up a claim that "cyberslacking" is regularly and uncontroversially described by even a substantial minority of professionals or experts as "goldbricking" or vice-versa. A single mention in articles in Salon or Newsweek does little to sway me personally.

Furthermore, the implication that workers who use internet access - whether using their own bandwidth allotment on personal devices, or by taking advantage of company bandwidth - to check personal e-mail or stream music (or whatever else) is morally or behaviorally equivalent to "goldbricking" as a matter of parlance is problematic enough. But comparing it to fraud, theft or other criminal behavior is misleading, or at least would have to be accompanied by appropriate references to justify such a comparison.

The reference to a Salon article in the foot-notes does not accomplish neutrality. Rewording or rewriting the article might restore neutrality to the article, but it's a long way from encyclopedic at the moment.

"Some estimate goldbricking costs employers $1 billion a year in computer resources"

Whether "cyberslacking" actually has costs is dubious. In any case, these costs would be difficult or impossible to quantify in any meaningful or credible way. However (these considerations notwithstanding) the claim in the first sentence of the second paragraph is predicated upon the equivocation of cyberslacking with goldbricking, which is not IMO well-established. I would also strike the second sentence in this paragraph, since it isn't relevant and since "multi-shirking" doesn't seem to actually be a thing. Multi-shirking refers to the "multi-tasking" article which in fact makes no mention of multi-shirking.

To sum up and suggest changes:

1. The equivocation of goldbricking and cyber-slacking is false. Cyberslacking should have its own article.

2. The characterization (in the ending of the first paragraph of this article) of goldbricking as a willfully deceptive, fraudulent or otherwise overtly malicious behavior is original scholarship or opinion. There is no citation in this article to back it up.

3. The illustration of the concept's origin (last sentence of 1st paragraph this article) may be misleading. Compare it to the one you'll find here.

"This would seem to have grown up not so much from the idea of a person being a fraud (though that presumably contributed) but from that of a criminal who would do anything, including sell fake gold bricks, rather than do an honest day’s work."

At least this opinion on the subject uses language making it clear that it is discussing a piece of rhetoric and the attitudes underlying it, and not making a declaration of objective fact.

4. You could address the problem of the "multishirking" linking to the "multitasking" article by removing multishirking from this article or by finding a source to credit where "multishirking" is actually used.

If no one objects, maybe I'll come back and make some changes to Goldbricking later :)

Hrothgarvonmt (talk) 10:46, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Gold-bar swindle vs. cyberslacking

I've just come here from List of confidence tricks, which said that "Gold brick scams involve selling a tangible item for more than it is worth; named after selling the victim an allegedly golden ingot which turns out to be gold-coated lead." - this article appears only to talk about how "goldbricking" is the most common synonym for "cyberslacking".

None of the sources linked mention the term "goldbricking" (although one of them links to this adjacent article which uses the word, although not in any clear context).

The original story about the gold brick was deleted from this article as "unsourced rubbish" last month, but most articles that link to this page are expecting it to be talking about the historical swindle, rather than loafing off at work. Should this article be split off into "cyberslacking"? --McGeddon (talk) 16:01, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Military usage of term

This is also common military slang for malingering or goofing off and just generally doing whatever you can to avoid actual work. Not necessarily having to do with internet surfing. 214.13.81.211 (talk) 14:56, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Erroneous hypertext link 'multishirking'

Hypertext link 'multishirking' leads to wiki page "multitasking" which does not contain any information on 'multishirking' or contain the word 'shirking.' Suggested removal of hyperlink or change of text to read 'multitasking' instead of the current 'multishirking.'

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Narrow Focus

This seems limited to a really narrow definition of the term "goldbricking", as if it was specifically an internet phenomenon. Goldbricking is as old as work. Beetfarm Louie (talk) 12:36, 27 July 2022 (UTC)