Wikipedia Watch

[Felix the Cat]

Growing pains for Wikipedia (http://news.com.com/2102-1025_3-5981119.html?tag=st.util.print)

For Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, last week was a tough one. And he's going to change the ground rules for the popular anyone-can-contribute encyclopedia because of it.

First, in a Nov. 29 op-ed piece in USA Today, a former administrative assistant to Robert Kennedy lambasted the free online reference work for an article that suggested he may have been involved in the assassinations of both Robert F. Kennedy and John F. Kennedy.

Then, on Dec. 1, a new flurry of attention came when former MTV VJ and podcasting pioneer Adam Curry was accused of anonymously editing out references to other people's seminal podcasting work in an article about the hot new digital medium.

To critics of Wikipedia--which, in a spin on the open-source model, lets anyone create and edit entries--the news was further proof that the service has no accountability and no place in the world of serious information gathering.

"Wales, in a recent C-SPAN interview...insisted that his Web site is accountable and that his community of thousands of volunteer editors...corrects mistakes within minutes," former Robert Kennedy aide John Seigenthaler wrote in USA Today. "My experience refutes that...For four months, Wikipedia depicted me as a suspected assassin."

Wales has dealt with criticism for years, and he's sensitive to it. He knows that many people worry that Wikipedia's self-policing process can't possibly keep up with the massive number of new articles that crop up on the site, and the edits that appear in existing entries. The cybertome, after all, is home to millions of articles--nearly 850,000 in English alone, with many other entries in dozens of additional languages. In October, the English-language site hosted 1,515 new articles per day.

But Wales said the Seigenthaler incident was an aberration.

"The system failed in this case," Wales said. "A bad entry was kept for some time until (Seigenthaler) actually fixed it himself. Basically, what I would say is we're looking right now, and over the weekend, at this particular incident and what went wrong. It seems like the key issue is we're having some growing pains."

When Wikipedia articles are first published, they show up on a special page, and volunteers--so-called new-page patrollers--monitor entries in their area of interest.

Wales said the Seigenthaler article not only escaped the notice of this corps of watchdogs, but it also became a kind of needle in a haystack: The page remained unchanged for so long because it wasn't linked to from any other Wikipedia articles, depriving it of traffic that might have led to closer scrutiny.

Also, Wales said, the entry was unusual in that it was posted by an anonymous user--most new articles are published by registered members, who are more likely to be held responsible for what they write.

Thus, to avoid future problems, Wales plans to bar anonymous users from creating new articles; only registered members will be able to do so. That change will go into effect Monday, he said, adding that anonymous users will still be able to edit existing entries.

That's less of a problem, Wales suggested, because changes are frequently vetted by members who keep watch lists of articles they want to ensure remain accurate--perhaps even articles they've written themselves.

The change is one of the first that would specifically limit what anonymous users can do on Wikipedia. And some may see that as a significant step for a service that's traditionally prided itself on letting anyone participate. But Wales said the move is not a major one because, as mentioned, most new articles are already written by registered Wikipedia members, and most anonymous users' actions are edits to published entries.

Currying disfavor
Meanwhile, the brouhaha surrounding Curry and the podcasting article raises new questions about whether people should be allowed to create or edit Wikipedia articles about themselves or projects they've been involved with.

"Wikipedia is so often considered authoritative. That must stop now, surely. Every fact in there must be considered partisan, written by someone with a conflict of interest," blogging and podcasting pioneer Dave Winer wrote in his blog. "Further, we need to determine what authority means in the age of Internet scholarship."

Curry deleted references to work presented by Technorati principal engineer Kevin Marks at the 2003 BloggerCon at Harvard University. But from Curry's perspective, conflict of interest had nothing to do with it; he simply believed the references were inaccurate.

And when he discovered they weren't, he explained in an e-mail to CNET News.com, he realized he'd made a mistake.

But that "doesn't mean I'm not allowed to have an opinion of the facts and change Wikipedia to represent my viewpoint," Curry said.

Wales said he's not sure how to approach the question of whether people should be allowed to post on subjects in which they have a personal interest.

"That's an interesting philosophical issue," Wales said. "Because on the one hand, particularly with things like podcasting, the people involved are people who know a lot about it, and on the other hand, when people are editing something they've been personally involved in, it can be hard for them to be neutral."

He added that traditionally, Wikipedia has discouraged users from participating in such entries and asks them to be mature and serious when they do.

"But we don't have a rule about it, because it's too hard to enforce, and it may not be a good idea."

In the blogosphere, however, Curry is getting beaten up for having edited out the Marks references as well as a sentence in which Stephen Downes had been credited with delivering MP3 files via RSS feeds.

But Curry bristles at the accusation that he was intentionally trying to deprive anyone of due credit.

"That I'm trying to inflate my role in the history of podcasting is a mean-spirited claim," he said, "and not based on the facts of my (Wikipedia) edits and entries. But the meme took, and now I'm the asshole of the week."

[Felix the Cat]

The referenced article is here (http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-11-29-wikipedia-edit_x.htm)

[1-800]

Wikipedia is worthless.

On September 11, 2001, I witnessed the start of World War IV when Islamic forces attacked the World Trade Center. I saw the smoke rising from Manhattan Island from the windows of 14th Story of the Axinn Library at Hofstra University.

Shortly afterwards I began reading Little Green Footballs,Fuckedcompany, and was turned on to Victor Davis Hanson. I was privileged to hear VDH speak in person in 2004 at UC Santa Cruz. In my opinion the fight against Islamofascism is as important to this generation as the fight against Nazism and Communism were to previous generations.


Because in many ways this is a war of ideas, the best way to fight Islamofascism (see [1] for good explanation) is by exposing it to critical scrutiny and demonstrating an alternative way of life that better fits the human desire for liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In the words of a liberated Iraqi, what the world needs is more "Democracy, Whiskey. And Sexy!" [2]

I believe in the principle of Uberrima fides, meaning utmost good faith and full disclosure of all material facts. Unfortunately some people on wikipedia do not operate on the same principle, they are opposed to full disclosure of any information that makes their cherished intellectual idolatry (be it Islam, Chomskian leftism, or something else) look bad.

My long experience with FuckedCompany, makes owning hippies and idiotarians, quick, simple and effective. Being an inclusionist, I feel the best way to fight disinformation is more information.

Palestinians, Armenians and lots of other put-upon ethnic groups too, demand 'justice'. Well, diplomacy,finance, and poker are alike in one respect: there ain't no justice, and you're barking at a stone wall to 'demand' it. Pragmatism, expedience, and Realpolitik guided by great principals rule the day.

And to anyone who claims that I have some grand bias against Islam, Quote me. If I'm alleged the mightiest and greatest Islamophobe on wikipedia, then there ought to be reams of unimpeachable evidence for this to be so. Creating new articles, and expanding others will not cut it with me.

[Lenny]

Wikipedia should be boycotted, or better yet eliminated from the internet (scorched earth policy)

http://homepage.univie.ac.at/horst.prillinger/blog/archives/2004/06/000623.html

[Felix the Cat]

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Open_source
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Nietzsche
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/George_Bush

[Felix the Cat]

'Nature': Wikipedia is accurate (http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-12-14-nature-wiki_x.htm)

SAN FRANCISCO — Wikipedia, the encyclopedia that relies on volunteers to pen nearly 4 million articles, is about as accurate in covering scientific topics as Encyclopedia Britannica, the journal Nature wrote in an online article published Wednesday.

The finding, based on a side-by-side comparison of articles covering a broad swath of the scientific spectrum, comes as Wikipedia faces criticism over the accuracy of some of its entries.

Two weeks ago prominent journalist John Seigenthaler Sr. revealed that a Wikipedia entry that ran for four months had incorrectly named him as a longtime suspect in the assassinations of president John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert.

Such errors appear to be the exception rather than the rule, Nature said in Wednesday's article, which the scientific journal said was the first to use peer review to compare Wikipedia to Britannica. Based on 42 articles reviewed by experts, the average scientific entry in Wikipedia contained four errors or omissions, while Britannica had three.

Of eight "serious errors" the reviewers found — including misinterpretations of important concepts — four came from each source, the journal reported.

"We're very pleased with the results and we're hoping it will focus people's attention on the overall level of our work, which is pretty good," said Jimmy Wales, who founded St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Wikipedia in 2001.

Wales said the accuracy of his project varies by topic, with strong suits including pop culture and contemporary technology. That's because Wikipedia's stable of dedicated volunteers tend to have more collective expertise in such areas, he said.

The site tends to lag when it comes to topics touching on the humanities, such as the winner of the Nobel Prize for literature for a particular year, Wales said.

Next month, Wikipedia plans to begin testing a new mechanism for reviewing the accuracy of its articles. The group also is working on ways to make its review process easier to use by people who have less familiarity with computers and the Internet.

Encyclopedia Britannica officials declined to comment on the findings because they haven't seen the data. But spokesman Tom Panelas said such comparisons, assuming they're conducted correctly, are valuable "because they tell us things you wouldn't know otherwise."

While some Britannica officials have publicly criticized Wikipedia's quality in the past, Panelas praised the free service for having the speed and breadth to keep up on topics such as "extreme ironing." The sport, in which competitors iron clothing in remote locations, is not covered in Britannica.

Britannica researchers plan to review the Nature study and correct any errors discovered, Panelas said.

Unlike Britannica, which charges for its content and pays a staff of experts to research and write its articles, Wikipedia gives away its content for free and allows anyone — amateur or professional, expert or novice — to submit and edit entries.

Wikipedia, which boasts 3.7 million articles in 200 languages, is the 37th most visited website on the Internet, according to the research service Alexa.

[Excorcism]

I think Wikipedia has a board of editors that look up the authenticity of its articles. THose that have not been reviewed or deleted seem to have the emssage "Warning, the content in this article may be disputed"

[Lenny]

What sense is there in letting thousands of uninformed and lesser-informed people create articles in an ecyclopedia :argue: Plus many of those that create and edit the articles are likely to be biased partisans that add highly slanted and distorted information, if not outright fake and wrong information. Else why would people be willing to spend their free time editing an encyclopedia unless they are pushing an agenda

Science articles are one thing, but what about political articles, historical articles and similiar articles. Who has editorial control over these? I dont trust this encyclopedia

[Ixtab]

Maybe it's accurate (only on scientific topics), but usually it's so poorly written that I can't stand reading it.

[Petyr Baelish]

As far as elementary organic chemistry goes, Wikipedia is certainly more accurate than the official webpages of the DEA, a fact that I find deeply disturbing.

[jcs]

Wikipedia is only awful when it comes to ideological issues. This encompases most of the humanities.
However, with science, it's fine. And when you just need to look up a little information about some person, it can be useful. I do that occasionally to see if some obscure philosopher is worth reading.
If you're looking up some political thinker, just invert every moralization. ;)

[Felix the Cat]

Wikipedia founder 'shot by friend of Siegenthaler' (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/12/17/jimmy_wales_shot_dead_says_wikipedia/)

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has been shot dead, according to Wikipedia, the online, up-to-the-minute encyclopedia.

Apparently, the assassin was a "friend" of the victim of a recent controversy which ironically, smeared former Robert F Kennedy aid John Seigenthaler as a suspect in the assassination of both Kennedy brothers. That claim, which the site carried for several months, along with the assertion that Seigenthaler had lived in Russia, was eventually proved false.

"At 18:54 EST on December 12, John Seigenthaler's wife, who was infuriated at Wikipedia regarding the recent scandal regarding his role in the Kennedy Assassination, came into the house, where Jim was having dinner. Wearing a mask, he [sic] shot him three times in the head and ran," reported the online reference source.

The free-for-all, write-it-yourself website prides itself on its fact checking.

Wales made his fortune in bond trading before setting up the Bomis pornography ring. A long time devotee of Ayn Rand, Wales recently criticized the decision to grant federal funds to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, according to reports on a web discussion board.

"Right, um, seriously..."

With co-founder Larry Sanger, who has since left the project, he helped kick-start the project just as the dot com boom was collapsing, and now he's the public face of Wikipedia. Before his "death", Jimmy Wales had become a familiar sight on cable TV news, usually vowing to "tighten up" the project's editing processes in response to the public scandal that had broken that week.

His death will be mourned by many across the internet.

The news of the "shooting" even made the venerable London Times, yesterday. The Times noted that after the first Seigenthaler scandal broke, the now "deceased" Jimmy Wales had, as he has so often, promised to tighten up a few nuts and bolts in the "encyclopedia's" editorial processes.

He certainly had his work cut out.

"A cursory search today suggested that these procedures - which require contributors to register basic details before posting articles - were being defeated by a relentless wave of vandals, apparently co-ordinating their assaults from a series of chatrooms dedicated to its demise."

"The loss of credibility has caused commentators to question whether Wikipedia is destined to follow the LA Times's doomed experiment in unrestricted internet comment, Wikitorial, which had to be closed down after just two days under a bombardment of pornographic postings."

Is nothing sacred?

So is Wikipedia a source of reference, or just a great big game?

Speaking to The Register last month, former Britannica editor Bob McHenry charictarized Wikipedia as a game, one of many multiplayer shoot-em-up games that have been made popular by the spread of networked computers.

"It's got the public playing the encyclopedia game," he told us recently. "It's also like playing a game in the sense that playing it has no consequences. If something goes wrong, you just restart. No problem!" he said.

For the record, The Register must note that the ubermeister of Wikipedia appears to be alive and well

The "news" of his death consisted of a random edit to his own, particularly fulsome entry on the encyclopedia he helped create.

[Kodos]

Why the smiley face??? Ah I didn't read it.

[Anima Eternae]

Read the whole article. ;)

[Ixtab]

A publicity stunt?

[Felix the Cat]

hehe, here (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jimmy_Wales&oldid=31683254) is the edit in question.

It was reverted within 60 seconds, so clearly some wiki-biographies are more carefully watched than others ;)

[Anima Eternae]

No, anyone can edit wikipedia articles. Obviously it was a prankster.

[Ixtab]

No, anyone can edit wikipedia articles. Obviously it was a prankster.I thought you had to be a paid member to edit Wikipedia articles?

[Felix the Cat]

I thought you had to be a paid member to edit Wikipedia articles?
Ouch ouch ouch. Totally unhackerish.

No whey dewd

[Ixtab]

Ouch ouch ouch. Totally unhackerish.

No whey dewdCan you translate the above into English?

[The Retard]

I thought you had to be a paid member to edit Wikipedia articles?

Anyone can edit Wikipedia, but if you make joke edits they'll warn you to stop.

Like this:
As they say in the movies, "ooh behave". Seriously, though, we are trying to write an encyclopaedia here, so don't make joke edits. Some readers looking for a serious article mightn't find them amusing. Remember, millions of people read Wikipedia, so we have to take what we do a bit seriously here. OK?

The joke is running a bit flat, I'm afraid. Humor is all very well but Wikipedia is a serious encyclopedia. It is time to end the joking and get down to some serious work.

[Dionysus]

Lol. Don't make joke edits, what the fuck do they expect? It's open to abuse from the beginning.

[Lenny]

Humor is all very well but Wikipedia is a serious encyclopedia. It is time to end the joking and get down to some serious work.Serious encyclopedia? :rofl: I think they accidently left out the words "wannabe", "of extremely poor quality", "untrustworthy", and "biased" which should all be included in any description of "Wikipedia" :argue:

[Felix the Cat]

Post here egregious examples of Wikipedia bias.

[Felix the Cat]

It's well known in the industry that the Chinese J-10 fighter was developed using technology supplied by Israel, but any attempt to add this information to the article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengdu_J-10) is quickly reverted by paranoid Jews

[WFHermans]

The Wikipedophiles have removed the article 911 Eyewitness.

We are not allowed to question the zionist line on 911. Articles praising man-boy love and deviate porn are welcomed by Wikipedia.

[Friar Puck]

Its too bad "them" aren't as good as "us". I encourage all of those who hate wikipedia for x, y, or z go change the articles that are abhorrently inaccurate so that the thousands of people who go to wiki will find what they need.
Puck

[Janus]

I just registered.

[Lenny]

Its too bad "them" aren't as good as "us". I encourage all of those who hate wikipedia for x, y, or z go change the articles that are abhorrently inaccurate so that the thousands of people who go to wiki will find what they need.
PuckI dont think you get it why people hate that thing :nono:

[WFHermans]

Friar Puck, what you suggest is not possible. Read what cowcube wrote:

It's well known in the industry that the Chinese J-10 fighter was developed using technology supplied by Israel, but any attempt to add this information to the article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengdu_J-10) is quickly reverted by paranoid Jews

And if you keep writing what the jews don't want you to know, they will ban you.

[Dr. No]

Its too bad "them" aren't as good as "us". I encourage all of those who hate wikipedia for x, y, or z go change the articles that are abhorrently inaccurate so that the thousands of people who go to wiki will find what they need.

After people have followed your advice and realized what a hopeless waste of time that is, they can go bitch about it at The Wikipedia Review http://wikipediareview.proboards78.com/

[Dr. No]

To critics of Wikipedia--which, in a spin on the open-source model . . .

Open-source software creation follows a hierachical structure (i.e. it doesn't just let any bum in to modify other people's code), whereas Wikipedia is a free-for-all. That's why open-source software works, whereas Wikipedia doesn't.

[WFHermans]

The Wikipedophiles have closed the forum that exposed their lies.

Good article on http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/07/07/Wikipedia_bias_1.html

What is the staff of Wikipedia up to?


IN MAY of 2007 I reviewed the online encyclopedia Wikipedia's article 'Lee Harvey Oswald' and was astounded by the lack of sources and deliberate misquotations of Warren Commission witnesses. 31 of its 38 footnotes erroneously linked to John McAdams' personal website jfkassassination.net whose Wikipedia screen name is Walloon. [Not erroneous. The Wikipedophiles claim they need credible sources, so the Wikipedophile that wants to peddle a new zionist lie just writes the lie on his homepage, then links to it as a "credible source". WFHermans]

After I made only minor preliminary corrections, the article reverted to its previous content less than five minutes later.

After entering the "Discussion" page to elaborate on the article's errors all discussion was deleted from the "Discussion" page by Wikipedia Administrator Coelacan within the same time frame of five minutes, and he blocked my IP address from Wikipedia. After changing my IP address I reentered the "Discussion" forum and again all comments were promptly deleted by Coelacan, who also deleted all postings for the past six months and blocked all "Editing" and "Discussion" pages for the article.

Over the following three weeks the exact same process repeated itself for any of the many Wikipedia articles even remotely related to the JFK assassination.

This exact same administrator does not only censors assassination articles supporting the lone assassin theory, but conspiracy articles as well in order to create strawman criticism of the Warren Commission.

I asked Administrator Coelacan directly on his message board why he was censoring all discussion on an epoch of history so popular that book stores have devoted entire sections to it? It violated Wikipedia's policy which states:

"Anyone is welcome to add information, cross-references or citations, as long as they do so within Wikipedia's editing policies and to an appropriate standard… Because Wikipedia is an ongoing work to which, in principle, anybody can contribute, it differs from a paper-based reference source in important ways."

What was the point in even having articles on the JFK assassination if they were only going to link automatically to one individual's homepage?

On June 10, 2007 Administrator Coelacan responded:

"Shut the f[+++] up you gook bastard! No one is interested in your commie f[+++]ing lies! If you ever spread your f[+++]ing lies here again I will f[+++] your whole gook family in front of your face!" [That's just an average Wikipedophile. WFHermans]

Loudoun County Virginia law enforcement have since been notified to determine if Coelacan's racially charged threats of violence have broken any laws. [Don't expect the jew-controlled justice-department to act here. Raping children is perfectly legal, it says so in the Talmud. WFHermans]

Wikipedia's deliberate censorship and abuse should be deeply concerning to Wikipedia's many contributors.

Christopher (last name known to us)
Leesburg, Virginia, USA


David Irving comments:

I HAVE become increasingly concerned about the readily perceived bias in some Wikipedia encyclopedia entries.

Let's make no mistake: by far the largest number of entries are an unusually useful resource tool, providing data on lesser personalities and events, written up by real experts - the members of the public.

But the temptations, and the scope for the deliberate defamation of a personality -- outside the ambit of the laws of libel -- are vast.

Political or religious groups with axes to grind can plant spurious or skewed facts about a person, in one country after another (because Wikipedia has many different language-versions) and their victim has little or no scope for recourse.

He finds the malicious and error-riddled Wikipedia dossier being used relentlessly against him. I know from my own experience:

it turned out that the judge in the Austrian court where I was sentenced to three years' jail in 2005 had privately looked up the German Wikipedia entry on me (an entry which includes the web addresses of all the hostile anti-Irving websites, but specifically stated that it would not provide a link to my website because of legal difficulties);

the president of Ars Polona, the Warsaw Book Fair company, ordered my immediate removal from the exhibition after the present Commandant of the Auschwitz Camp sent him the Polish Wikipedia entry on me (he has now agreed to pay full compensation);

a London landlady ordered my instant eviction by armed, flak-jacketed police officers after she read the British Wikipedia site entry about me (she now faces a massive claim for damages in the British courts, because such entries are no lawful grounds for breach of contract); and so on.

I repeat: Wikipedia is a useful tool, but it needs careful supervision to prevent malicious evildoers - particularly those "nice folks next door" - seizing control.


Tom H. comments, Sunday, July 8, 2007: "I have tried on repeated occasions to remove the loaded adjectives from the David Irving page of Wikipedia. Those changes, too, have been reversed and blocked several times. The person in charge of the page seems to be Jewish. The mediator seems to be Jewish. It is unlikely that your page will ever approximate neutrality! What amazes me is the speed with which the neutral language is reversed. It is as if these folks have nothing to do all day but monitor and manage the Wikipedia page. Since I do not have to "get a life" yet, I have given up. It is cowardly, I know, but I just do not have the time to battle their continuous hostility toward the "facts."

WFHermans comments: It is absurd that Wikipedophiles can send their victims to jail by slandering them. It's the Wikipedophiles that belong there.

[il ragno]

[Don't expect the jew-controlled justice-department to act here. Raping children is perfectly legal, it says so in the Talmud. WFHermans]

Hermans....you are the king. You're like a spritz of Zyklon Room Deodorizer in the Temple Beth-Earth. Long may your saddle-soap-polished jackboots gleam with victory!

[Jake Featherston]

"Wales, in a recent C-SPAN interview...insisted that his Web site is accountable and that his community of thousands of volunteer editors...corrects mistakes within minutes," former Robert Kennedy aide John Seigenthaler wrote in USA Today. "My experience refutes that...For four months, Wikipedia depicted me as a suspected assassin."

So why didn't this idiot just edit the article himself?

[Commander]

I think the word is out about wikipedia. For non-political stuff they are a reasonable source of info, but for the rest.........forget it. :jew:

[Jake Featherston]

I think the word is out about wikipedia. For non-political stuff they are a reasonable source of info, but for the rest.........forget it. :jew:

I disagree. Most of their political articles are just as useful as any other mainstream source, and occasionally, more so. And you can improve them while you read them, as I often do.

[Commander]

If you don't think Wikipedia has a slightly pro-Zionist bias, that's fine. I don't agree with you, I think others don't either.

[WFHermans]

I disagree. Most of their political articles are just as useful as any other mainstream source, and occasionally, more so. And you can improve them while you read them, as I often do.
Try to improve the article on David Irving and see how long your improvements last. Probably half the time it will take for you to get an IP-ban.

Wikipedia is just another scam by jewish pornking Josiah Wales. The goyim do the work, write the articles for free, and even donate money to the Wikipedophiles for working for them. All it takes to control the goyim from wriiting accurate articles on touchy jewey pet-subjects like pedophilia, holocaust, Israel and Hitler are a few good sayanim who have two buttons on their keyboard, one that says "revert article to zionist partyline" and another that says "IP-ban for goy".

[Ambrosio Spinola]

WFH never lets you down :D

[il ragno]

Wikipedia is just another scam by jewish pornking Josiah Wales. The goyim do the work, write the articles for free, and even donate money to the Wikipedophiles for working for them.

Hear, hear! The best cons are the ones that you talk yourself into falling for.


All it takes to control the goyim from wriiting accurate articles on touchy jewey pet-subjects like pedophilia, holocaust, Israel and Hitler are a few good sayanim who have two buttons on their keyboard, one that says "revert article to zionist partyline" and another that says "IP-ban for goy".

Substitute "employment" for "IP", and you've just described the way real-world media works as well.

[Jake Featherston]

If you don't think Wikipedia has a slightly pro-Zionist bias, that's fine. I don't agree with you, I think others don't either.

The entire Western world has a slightly pro-Zionist bias, so I guess I agree with you that Wikipedia is part of the Western world. And its certainly no more biased than an encyclopedia you have to pay to use, and probably a bit less so; I'm sorry the entire thing isn't authored by Islamic National Socialists or whatnot. I've frankly never read any articles on Wikipedia that particularly pertained to Zionism; if you're posting on The Phora, you should already know enough about politics that an encyclopedia would not be your primary source for political knowledge....I use Wikipedia for articles on all sorts of things, but I don't need to look up articles of "Israel" or "Elie Wiesel," for crying out loud; I already have the sort of at-least-cursory knowledge on those topics that one would expect to find in an encyclopedia article.

[Jake Featherston]

Try to improve the article on David Irving and see how long your improvements last. Probably half the time it will take for you to get an IP-ban.

I've made a LOT of Politically Incorrect improvements on Wikpedia; over 100 of them, and virtually all of them are still there, and no one's hassled me in the slightest. Do the Jews mabe have an organized cadre that monitors a handful of articles of great concern to them? Probably. Instead of whining about it, we should be imitating them.

[Commander]

Try to improve the article on David Irving and see how long your improvements last. Probably half the time it will take for you to get an IP-ban.



Out of curiosity I read what they have to say about David Irving.

Talk about Zionist lunatics poisoning the well............sheesh.........:wailingjew:

[Vissario]

I've made a LOT of Politically Incorrect improvements on Wikpedia; over 100 of them, and virtually all of them are still there, and no one's hassled me in the slightest. Do the Jews mabe have an organized cadre that monitors a handful of articles of great concern to them? Probably. Instead of whining about it, we should be imitating them.
In my experience, Wikipedia has been a mixed blessing on highly controversial articles.

Like this one: Holocaust denial (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_denial)

I spearheaded a fight for a GAR (good article review) of the article based on removing the allegation that all holocaust deniers were, by default, anti-Semites. Clearly, making that claim without actual evidence backing it up is against Wikipedia policy, and they agreed. It was agreed by all to remove the "anit-Semitic claim" and instead move it down below where it more correctly says some Holocaust revisionists may be anti-Semites. In conclusion, the functions and machines behind Wikipedia's editing process clearly make it possible for people of different view points to exchange information and resolve problems with pages.

But on the flip-side, during my "crusade" to have that the first sentence changed, I encountered a lot of flack and irrelevant corollaries and ad hominem arguments. I was called anti-Semitic myself, my arguments dismissed as "promoting hatred", and all of the common ADL dribble you would expect; but on wikipedia? I think that the very nature of Wikipedia allows for a distinctly "liberal", PC aspect of thinking on everything. The established base of editors are loath to accommodate people who think differently than themselves even if it is on only minor issues. Thus, the actual editing process on wikipedia can be compromised to support a particular ideology just by default.

But if you think something is wrong about an article, don't just edit it when it is obviously very controversial. Make an account, go to the discussion page, and create a new entry describing why you want to change something and provide a good cohesive argument. Be prepared to back it up with something more than just words; an article or book source would be a good start because Wikipedians require that most of the time for a change. That, or you prove their cited source as being incorrect.