Posted on 12/29/2005 11:55:25 PM PST by Notwithstanding
Wikipedia is a liberal "encyclopedia" that anyone can edit. Unfortunately, it is very popular and very "progressive", although its stated goal is to present factual information wit a neitral point of view. A perfect example in the Kwanzaa "article" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwanzaa), as is the "article" on abortion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion), and the article on President Bush (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush).
Any attempt to add balance to these articles is met by severe censoring and shouting down or shutting down editors. I suggest people sign up (free and anonymous) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Userlogin) and start politely editing. Once there, to gain "credibility" I suggest you look around and then for the first few days edit only uncontroversial articles for grammar or choppiness or poor citation - you will then be seen as a neutral editor (everyone is an "editor"). I suggest using a different screen name than you do at FR.
They deliver in New York.
'Yawn.'
I'll take that as a yes.
Actually, I'm exceedingly conservative in many notable respects, and also a Roman Catholic, if you find that interesting, though the full depths of my politics and views are complex (they contain both real and imaginary components, heh). Also, Mindspillage remarks of this page, "I'm a libertarian, for crying out loud."
Regarding appointments: All arbitrators were initially elected. Then some of them quit, so some were appointed to interim terms (pretty much the runners up from the election). Another election is imminent. Maybe the Arbcom suffers from some sort of left-wing volunteer bias... I dunno. Don't try to accuse Wales of subverting democracy and justice and all that, though
I'm not entirely sure that your characterization of the Arbcom as 'second-tier' is a complete representation of the picture. The Arbcom is roughly tantamount to the juducial branch - of the English Wikipedia only, mind you- not entirely like the Supreme Court per se, in that it handles more mundane cases, but it is still more... reactive than anything else. Also, it explicitly stays out of article content disputes, and engages only in user behaviour disputes.
Administrators: There are hundreds of administrators, not just dozens. Non-administrators participate in the nomination and election process for administrators in the same manner that administrators do. Administrators are generally prohibited from using administrative powers to deal with article content disputes with which they are engaged.
Finally, you left out the all-important fourth tier- general users. Don't forget them. They can't block people or protect pages, true, but they can still revert pages (with a slightly less trivial effort) and participate in all non-judicial decisions on a level equal to that of administrators.
Now, Wikipedia left-wing? The whole Internet leans a little left, in my opinion, and Wikipedia (especially at the fourth tier, which is the group which does most of the article editing) is no exception. But 'VERY left-wing'? I dunno. That's sort of pushing it. And an 'Action Alert'? Don't let's be silly, now. :) But... any steps you can take towards providing Wikipedia articles with a more neutral point of view (review our policies and documentation on that) are quite welcome, provided you conduct yourself properly and try to follow the rules and guidelines... anyway.
I'm rambling, aren't I? It's almost 2 in the morning and I really should be getting to sleep. Good night.
Assuming you are accurately presenting your views that makes, what? 1 conservative out of 10? Also, libertarian is a far cry from being conservative in the case of Mindspillage. Libertarian = agrees with us half the time (economic issues), opposes us the other half (moral issues) and self described atheist/agnostic types tend to emphasize the latter.
Regarding appointments, I don't accuse Wales of subverting anything...yet. It is a matter of fact though that Wales has personally selected half of the current arbitration committee including 2 of the most partisan liberal members.
I do have an issue with one thing you state though - "Also, it explicitly stays out of article content disputes, and engages only in user behaviour disputes." This is true in policy, but it's worth as much as the paper it's written on. In practice the arbitration committee frequently shows favor and disfavor toward different sides in content disputes because a large number of the cases it takes are fundamentally the product of a heated content dispute. What you produce in return are a bunch of cloaked rulings that penalize conservative editors by subjectively calling their content contributions "POV" while letting the favored opinion (read: the liberal one) stand.
As for your claim that "Administrators are generally prohibited from using administrative powers to deal with article content disputes with which they are engaged," again it's worth about as much as the paper it's written on. So yeah, administrators are prohibited from abusing their power. But does that mean they never abuse it? No, and in fact some...no, many administrators abuse it all the time. Wikipedia Administrators are the WORST revert warriors on that whole wretched site and if you go to almost any given article on well known conservative political topics you will find one or more left wing administrators constantly reverting and censoring and controlling all the edits anyone else makes. Just look at the histories and the names go back weeks and months and even years, such as a few of the examples named above by me and other freepers here.
And does this type of censorship and unruly administrator behavior mean they get slapped down by...oh...say...YOU when they abuse their power? Not likely, because the current Arbitration committee gives administrators free passes and only punishes them when the evidence of wrongdoing is so intense and so well known (i.e. the recent Ed Poor case) that not doing anything would embarass the arbitration committee itself.
Also don't try to obscure the leftist bias and arbitrator/administrator problems at wikipedia under the non-english portions of the site. Wikipedia's english portion is by far the most developed part of wikipedia and is the sole subject of this discussion and complaint.
See "Britons Getting Fatter"
http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1852128,00.html
London - British adults have got fatter in the last 10 years with almost one in four now officially obese, according to official statistics released on Friday.
In men, obesity rates almost doubled in 10 years, from 13.2% in 1993 to 23.6% in 2004, a study by the health and social care information centre found.
For women, the increase was slightly lower, growing from 16.4% to 23.8%.
A newbie freeper (signed up today) claiming to be User:Fennec, the wikipedia arbitration member, posted a lengthy defense after I complained the arbitration committee was dominated by liberals.
If this is true it means one thing - this thread and the criticism it has heaped on Wikipedia's political biases has attracted the attention of wikipedia's elites. There is slim to no chance that a wikipedia arbitrator would stumble onto this thread by chance while searching the web, so in all probability it was circulated through a backchannel such as the arbitration committee's mailing list...quite possibly with a note to the effect of a "watch out for freepers changing these articles" bulletin, given the leftist political bias among the majority of the site's administrators and other sysops.
It also happens to be the case that certain liberal members of Wikipedia's higher ups don't like it when their dirty laundry is aired somewhere that they can't control. Ex internet porn magnate and current wikipedia owner Jimmy Wales made that clear when he deleted and euphemized references to his porno businesses from his own wikipedia entry. Arbitrator Fred Bauder and his politically aligned supporters did the same more than once when editors who said too much about this little unpleasantry from his past: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=co&vol=1999sc%5Csc0125a&invol=1
The Seigenthaler affair and other recent events have caused more grief to many wikipedia elites. The encyclopedia's administration has also been in all out panic mode for a couple weeks now after a couple of administrators pissed off the guy who runs Google-Watch.org and he responded in kind by plastering their names all over his website.
You see, leftists thrive on power and the ability to exercise that power against people who dissent from their edicts. Inside the encyclopedia the leftists are in control of the site administration and they use their control to enforce a liberal bias, to suppress conservative edits, and to penalize any critics of them. Not so once they get outside of WikiWakiWorld though. On the open net and on conservative forums like FR the wikipedia administration is powerless to suppress criticism and hide the fact that they promote a liberal agenda. So whenever it happens they go into panic mode, have a drawn out discussion within their own mailing lists about what to do or how to retaliate, and eventually they send out one of their ranks from the hive to answer the critic.
They did the same thing a week ago when several anti-pedophile organizations published a report that Wikipedia and its administrators facilitate pro-pedophile editors and articles. A few hours later a wikipedia administrator responded by glossing over the real problem and focusing on a minor mistake in the press release that its authors then voluntarily corrected. And now wikipedia's sister project wikinews.org has huge counterresearch "story files" being assembled to post counterattacks on the groups that publicized the pedophiles that inhabit their site.
The theme is recurring: somebody airs Wikipedia's dirty laundry and wikipedia administrators respond in cult-like fashion to suppress or counterattack it.
In other words - don't be surprised if there's already a file being assembled by the wikipedia elites on Free Republic's criticism of them, and don't be surprised if passages appear in the Free Republic article on wikipedia accusing us of "freeping" their content to "vandalize" it when in fact we're only undoing liberal bias that is already there.
One of them is dead. You'd know this if you read Wikipedia properly instead of trying to disrupt it all the time.
Please don't speak for Freepers, newbie. You've only been here a month and many of us want no part in notunderstanding's Jihad against the Wikipedia site.
Your first post was: 'Hi - I just came across this forum while searching for info about wikipedia's liberal bias. It's certainly there and it's institutionalized.'
Sounds like you have a serious axe to grind with the site and are trying to drag Freepers into your sinister battle.
Show was hilarious. One died quite some time ago - is that news to you? Not to me. They were proud of their obesity. On the other hand, it is YOU who began to petulantly mock obesity on this thread. I simply point out the absurdity of a Brit attacking Americans (including Canadians) on the basis of how fat they are.
My you are an odd one.
Not sure where this goes. I am one of the editors on Wikipedia. I don't have the time or inclanation to refute all of the rants on here, so instead I will invite you all to browse, read, and edit on wikipedia. On the alert we received notice, I was pleased to note that you encouraged people to gain credibility and to be polite and curteous. If you do in fact do that, and listen to the administrators, we will be happy to welcome you.
Note that Wikipedia follows the Neutral Point of View policy. While we do not require editors to be free of bias (as we would require them to be free of brains as well), we do require them not to let it interfere with the quality of the article. For example:
"Saddam Hussein is an evil man"
Would be considered a violation of WP:NPOV (local shorthand) because it shares an opinion as a fact, no matter how much we may all agree with the sentiment. However, this is accpetable:
Saddam Hussein has been widely considered a horrific Tyrant. The (fill in a news paper here) called him the "worst thing thats ever happened to the world".
So, as long as you source your additions, you will find your wikipedia experiance a fruitful one. Within a week of poking around, you should see how the nuts and bolts of the adminstration aspects work first hand.
Let me warn you however that actions such as this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mexico&diff=prev&oldid=33356856
Are not tolerated. If you are coming en masse, I would ask you all to help police yourselves.
Now, if you aren't too busy attacking Wikipedia, may I suggest some light reading for you?
In fact I first discovered FR when reading Wikipedia where a pro-abortion, pro-gay liberal editor was ranting about how horrible and right wing this place is. I figured if they hated it so much FR must be doing something right, so I joined. Fortunately most freepers are not as snotty and obnoxious as you seem to be, which puts you in the clear minority here even if your type may be in the majority at WikiWakiWorld. IOW, bug off.
I see that you're a stalker in addition to being ill-mannered and obnoxious. You're free to hold your own opinion on wikipedia or whatever else you desire, but please recognize that other people disagree and that is no grounds to harass them. If you can't dispute the grievances people have with the site you like so much, attacking them personally for posting those grievances is not an intellectually defensible alternative.
I see that you're a stalker in addition to being ill-mannered and obnoxious. You're free to hold your own opinion on wikipedia or whatever else you desire, but please recognize that other people disagree and that is no grounds to harass them. If you can't dispute the grievances people have with the site you like so much, attacking them personally for posting those grievances is not an intellectually defensible alternative.
You, on the other hand, may very well be a stalker. You seem determined to stalk the good burghers of Wiki. The gentleman who posted here not long ago might regret welcoming your ilk to the site he edits.
I don't believe your post should have been for me.
On FR you should reply to the first poster or "All"
if you wish to make a general comment. Otherwise
your comment may be missed by the person/s you
wished to address.
LOL. So much for "unbiased" editing. Although, I'm sure the WP (The Washington Post) shares WP (WikiPedia's) "unbiased" NPOV (Non-American point of view). JMHO, of course.
Your version of reality is also evidently very skewed since you refer to the people at Wikipedia I've criticized as "good burghers of Wiki" - a group that contains such scoundrels and scum of society as an internet porno king, a guy convicted of soliciting prostitutes, and leftwing wackos who hold NAMBLA in high esteem. But that is in keeping with every other indicator of your troubled mind to be gleaned from your postings to me and others on this thread.
As to the "gentleman" that posted here, all I can say is that I fault him for the company he keeps and evidently defends, much as I fault you, and you can broadcast that to the mailing lists for all I care. I certainly have no intention of "invading" his site as you have insinuated against those who do not share your infatuations with the WikiWaki - just to truthfully comment on it as I see fit, and that includes publicizing its faults when they occur.
Since you seem unable to tolerate that though, I'm not sure this conversation should continue much further. I'm therefore placing you on ignore indefinitely.
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