Can we stop calling Wikipedia “supposedly neutral” now?
It has dug its grave and climbed in.
This is just the unmasking and mortification part of the story: Next come lawsuits. The first one I have heard about demands somewhere around $56 million for deliberate distortion of somebody’s page–a somebody who happens to be a Pharmaceutical whistle-blower.
When I can tell you more, I will.
No wonder what’s his name is begging for money.
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As a Wikipedian going way back, and a believer in the basic approach, I long scoffed at those who predicted its demise and eventual descent into chaos. Those predictions were wrong; in a true free system, people will be more prone to fix errors than introduce them.
What I didn’t foresee is what obviously HAS happened to it: people with money and agendas can afford to camp out on a page and dominate it simply by throwing money into hiring people to do it. This will often balance out, but not often enough; not when one party has far more resources and will than the other. I’ve seen it on too many pages to ignore, and it’s apparent that the Wikimedia people who are in charge have no incentive to do anything about it; indeed, large donors can probably get away with a lot, and reforming it will thus be hard.
I’m really surprised to say it, but the doomsayers were right, but the wrong way; the problem isn’t going to be random people introducing insanity and chaos; it’s going to be government and corporate interests with an agenda and money to throw at it being able to simply dominate a subject and quash dissent.
Obviously, you two are “Wiki-Denialists”:)
–HB
Wikipedia is only as biased as its editors. If you perceive bias, get involved and correct it.
I don’t follow the GW/AGW thing on Wikipedia; I’m not an expert on the matter and to tell you the truth the whole thing just annoys me. I’ve managed to correct blatant bias on several other articles, though; e.g. Rathergate, the Scott Thomas Beauchamp affair, the Lori Berenson article, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Mark_Shaw
Oh, and by the way: I’ve had dealings with William Connolley (mentioned by Delingpole in the link provided by Celia), and while (again) I can’t speak to his actions in the GW/AGW articles, I’ve found him to be a pretty decent sort.
Wikipedia is only as biased as its editors. If you perceive bias, get involved and correct it.
Dude. The problem here is that people with big money and access to resources that everyday people don’t can dominate a page or pages and obliterate dissent. That is the story. Saying “just get involved and fix it” doesn’t work when you’re one or a handful of everyday people up against someone who’s paying an army of webmonkeys to destroy anything you have to say.
My first official entry on Wikipedia was on 16 November 2003, and I’ve had literally thousands upon thousands of entries since then. I’ve seen this in action, big time, and it’s been getting worse not better. It’s not every page, it’s not every issue. On some things, that’s because there is no money and power at stake. On others, it’s because there are opposing forces balancing each other (like, Republicans vs. Democrats, Liberals vs. Conservatives etc.). But when you are up against someone who can actually pay a half-dozen people to monitor a page you’re interested in, whose job description includes making sure alternative points of view are either gotten rid of or badly twisted, you can’t just “get involved.” Wikipedia isn’t set up to handle that problem. Not that I’ve seen so far anyway.
It’s nice to hear that Delingpole is nice to you. He’s also a man with money and resources who appears able to dominate a whole subject on Wikipedia with very little to stop him. Wikipedia needs to be reformed to correct issues like this, because it’s not just Delingpole; I’ve seen it on other issues, and experienced it first hand as I tried to provide balance to pages where I was grossly outnumbered by people who were obviously “camping” on a page to make sure certain information was either censored or, worse, twisted.
Wikipedia is now, like it or not, the #1 reference tool on the planet, and there are serious interests, monied interests frequently, who have big reason to try to do this. The system currently can’t defend itself very well from that. Something needs to change.
Although by the way, I don’t think this is a “death knell” for Wikipedia. It is a call for reform. Wikipedia is just too big, and too useful, and too many people use it. And, it’s been a non-profit organization relying 100% on donations from the beginning; the fact that they have pledge drives (which they’ve also always done, from the beginning) doesn’t really enter into this that I can see.
But trust in Wikipedia is threatened if we allow this sort of domination by monied, organized interests to quash dissenting voices that cannot muster similar resources in response. Such a thing is actually against the Wikipedia premise and principles, but those running it have to acknowledge it and commit to doing something about it before it can change. Otherwise, the problem’s going to get worse.
I haven’t tried to either post or correct Wkipedia. I use it as entry level research so I get a jump on what I should be looking at. As a reference, it rates just above “some guy said”.
On the other hand, I have read of complaints that all too often the bots controlling pages have done so with the blessing and enforcement of editors controlling the site. I have heard of people putting public-record information on such a monitored page and getting a temporary ban for doing so (with the information stripped, of course).
I’ve generally found Wikipedia more reliable than, say, Time Magazine or the New York Times. That said, it has its genuine flaws.
The strength of its working model is remarkable, but people need to understand how it works and why it works before criticizing it, or they jump to the wrong conclusions. It would, for example, almost certainly (99.9%) think that Jimmy Wales knows or is involved in the politics of Global Warming on Wikipedia. It’s possible, but much more likely not. Wikipedia’s too big for that; it’s like expecting Bill Gates to know everything about what everyone developing Windows software is doing.
The problem here is not likely to be the Wikimedia Foundation or the people running it; it’ s going to be that their very publication model is prone to being abused by powerful interests. It’s not that just anyone can enter things into Wikipedia–it’s that anyone can be destroyed by whoever happens to have more muscle to put into bulldozing dissent on any given issue.
The problem here is that people with big money and access to resources that everyday people don’t can dominate a page or pages and obliterate dissent. That is the story. Saying “just get involved and fix it” doesn’t work when you’re one or a handful of everyday people up against someone who’s paying an army of webmonkeys to destroy anything you have to say.
Sorry, I don’t buy it. And, to tell you the truth, that sounds a lot like some sort of k0N$p1R@cY-theory nonsense.
Maybe it’s true for certain articles I don’t monitor, but I’ve just never seen any evidence for anything like that.
It’s nice to hear that Delingpole is nice to you.
Connolley, not Delingpole. And from what I can see, he’s just one guy without any more time or resources than any of the rest of us has.
Wikipedia does have problems with bias of one sort or another; typically that of omission. It is what it is; as another commenter here has noted, it ranks just above “something some guy said,” at least in terms of first-order credibility. But it’s still a very valuable resource, and from what I can tell, no more biased on political issues than are CNN/MSNBC/AP et al.
Sorry, I meant Connelly. But this is getting weirder and weirder: Connelly may be a nice bloke, but so what? Connelly clearly DOES have the connections and resources to do exactly what I suggest–and in fact has been slapped by Wikipedia itself for abusing his privileges. So without question, he can do it–he HAS done it. No “k0N$p1R@cY-theory nonsense” required; we already know he has this pattern of behavior, and we know he’s well-connected with people who would help do it.
Wikipedia has some defense against this stuff, and clearly takes it seriously, but it appears more needs to be done.
Connelly clearly DOES have the connections and resources to do exactly what I suggest–and in fact has been slapped by Wikipedia itself for abusing his privileges.
So? Your claim is that Connolly has been hired by persons unknown to cleanse Wikipedia, right? I don’t see any evidence of that.
If there’s something on Wikipedia that you don’t like, by all means put it straight. Just get all of your references in order, and you’d also do well to enlist others to help.
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