Wikipedia Watch

[heiss93]

I was thinking it be a good idea if we had a thread on Revleft, to watch over edit wars and POV bias on revleft. It could be especially useful when editors need a reputable source to either back up or refute a claim. Wikipedia is a major center of media info, and one of the few that leftist can influence. And it will most likely be the first stop of many on any topic related to Marxism.

While I like the idea of a leftist wikipedia, it hasn't been able to take-off. But it may actually be more useful to work within wikipedia itself. Accept that we need to keep a close watch to make sure our edits aren't removed.

A good place to start are Marxist theoretical articles which can be pretty in-depth and are usually non-contested.


The Zionist lobby has been very effective on wikipedia. They have a paid full-time staff to patrol wiki articles. And they elect each other to be mods. I think we can learn from this.

Ideally we would have a leftist wikipedia with our "ideal" articles, and then also be active on wikipedia to shape it.

Anyway if anyone has an specific articles on wikipedia they have a problem with, or needs a reputable scholarly reference for an article. Post here.

[New Tet]

I was thinking it be a good idea if we had a thread on Revleft, to watch over edit wars and POV bias on revleft. It could be especially useful when editors need a reputable source to either back up or refute a claim. Wikipedia is a major center of media info, and one of the few that leftist can influence. And it will most likely be the first stop of many on any topic related to Marxism.

Not a bad idea. However, I'd like to think of MIA (http://www.marxists.org/index.htm) as the first stop, then--in my fevered imagination--the SLP (http://www.slp.org/)'s website (for it's wealth of educational and interpretive content) and then Wiki, etc.

[RHIZOMES]

Not a bad idea. However, I'd like to think of MIA (http://www.marxists.org/index.htm) as the first stop, then--in my fevered imagination--the SLP (http://www.slp.org/)'s website (for it's wealth of educational and interpretive content) and then Wiki, etc.

I think there are a lot of impressionable minds being shaped by Wikipedia.

[scarletghoul]

Someone needs to edit the disgusting rightist bias from this article, as it's an important event that we should be able to refer people to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat

It hardly mentions the Pinochet was a fascist ****, and dwells on some constitution beef to somehow justify the coup. It also alleges the Allende commited suicide, when I thought he died fighting ? Theres a load of misc bullshit too, and general one-sidedness. Also portrays it as a soviet-american conflict, and not a fascist imperialist suppression of democracy

[Durruti's Ghost]

Someone needs to edit the disgusting rightist bias from this article, as it's an important event that we should be able to refer people to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat

It hardly mentions the Pinochet was a fascist ****, and dwells on some constitution beef to somehow justify the coup. It also alleges the Allende commited suicide, when I thought he died fighting ? Theres a load of misc bullshit too, and general one-sidedness. Also portrays it as a soviet-american conflict, and not a fascist imperialist suppression of democracy

Yeah, that article sucks hard. I like this quote, though:


"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves."

Really, Henry? You can't at least try to maintain the pretext that bourgeois imperialism is somehow "democratic"?

[GPDP]

Really, Henry? You can't at least try to maintain the pretext that bourgeois imperialism is somehow "democratic"?


Kissinger is unique among bourgeois imperialist shitheads in that he's honest to a fault. Instead of putting up a facade of protecting freedom or democracy or other such bullshit, he outright admits he only looks out for U.S. interests. He's the physical embodiment of Machiavellian power politics.

[mykittyhasaboner]

It seems that every article regarding communists or communism whether it be past events or tendencies, are horribly explained (perhaps intentionally) with the most latent rightist slant imaginable. I've always said to my self "don't read about politics on wikipedia" because whenever I do I feel like it's been written by some foolish liberal or outright reactionary piece of trash (I also think there is an obvious pro-Western slant to wikipedia, but this is true about the whole internet..). It angers me to think that most people reading wiki will never second guess it and look further into whatever is said; they probably won't even check whether any given 'fact' or opinion has a source at the bottom...


I think there are a lot of impressionable minds being shaped by Wikipedia. I think this sums up my views.

That said though wiki is great for almost anything else besides sensitive/controversial stuff like politics.

[Sugar Hill Kevis]

Go outside

[scarletghoul]

The Stalin article is pretty severe in its bias, even if you dont like stalin, but its locked

[Q]

The Stalin article is pretty severe in its bias, even if you dont like stalin, but its locked
Those pages can still be edited. Read more about the policy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_policy).

[Die Rote Fahne]

Zionist conspiracy theories ftl.

[☭World Views]

I have been able to make several strides here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_capitalism

Before it was merely "Critique of capitalism"

I am also trying to clean/improve this with referenced sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-communism#Criticism_of_anti-communism

We are supposed to say why anti-communism is faulty.



My main contribution to wikipedia has been here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_black_book_of_capitalism

I translated the table of contents into English, and as soon as I figure out how to make a graph we can add more to it.

[☭World Views]

According to the black book of capitalism, capitalism has claimed the lives of over 99,850,000 people in the 20th century.

The list is not meant to be all inclusive. It is only meant to demonstrate the destructive nature of capitalism.

In the figure above, the following was not included:

Between 1990 and 1995 alone, over 5 million people have died due to capitalist wars of plunder. Over 3 quarters of these 5 million have been civilians.

In 1997 alone, malnutrition and famines have claimed the lives of over 6 million children.

These children, along with the rest of the people that died due to malnutrition and famines due to capitalism are also not included in the figure above!

[Kassad]

20th Century? That's not even half of it. What about the Native Americans who were killed in the colonial expansion of the European empires?

[☭World Views]

20th Century? That's not even half of it. What about the Native Americans who were killed in the colonial expansion of the European empires?

I was quoting a few paragraphs from the chapter dealing with the 20th century. An entire chapter is dedicated to the Indigenous Americans killed by colonial expansion. Idk if wikipedia would let me get away with summarizing the key points of each chapter, what do you think?

[Q]

I was quoting a few paragraphs from the chapter dealing with the 20th century. An entire chapter is dedicated to the Indigenous Americans killed by colonial expansion. Idk if wikipedia would let me get away with summarizing the key points of each chapter, what do you think?
Wikipedia has many summaries on movies, books, etc. For example: Homage to Catalonia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homage_to_Catalonia).

[Kwisatz Haderach]

I think you should not be openly discussing edits you are making to Wikipedia in a public place such as a forum thread. Often, when user A and user B are in conflict over an article, user B will decide to start checking user A's contributions list and follow him around to undo his edits to any and all articles.

Talking about your edits in a public place only makes that easier, if any rabid anti-communists are reading this thread.

I strongly suggest you continue this discussion over PM.

[ls]

Can you imagine the PMs? Also sent to: (..10 users).

That sounds like more of a headache than an edit war to me. :lol:

[Q]

I think you should not be openly discussing edits you are making to Wikipedia in a public place such as a forum thread. Often, when user A and user B are in conflict over an article, user B will decide to start checking user A's contributions list and follow him around to undo his edits to any and all articles.

Talking about your edits in a public place only makes that easier, if any rabid anti-communists are reading this thread.

I strongly suggest you continue this discussion over PM.
I think you're giving too much importance to revleft.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

Well, if the cops find it important enough to be worth watching...

[☭World Views]

I seem to be leading this page de-facto:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_capitalism

I received the green light from the editors to archive the talk page discussions and add more content.

What can we do to improve this article? I would like us to counter-counter-point the points of the capitalist sympathizers. Deleting them would be against wiki policy and would not sit well with the wiki community.

I think are best chances are to make this page an A-class article. It is currently C-Class.

The things I think we should fix are counter point the following:

(In reference to imperialism and human rights violations)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_capitalism#Imperialism_and_human_righ ts_violations



Proponents of capitalism argue that these problems have been widespread through all of human history, including in many states characterized as socialist such as in Cambodia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodia) under Pol Pot, the Soviet Union (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union) under Stalin, and China (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China) under Mao. Some claim that these practices are not consistent with the principles of capitalism even though they have existed in nations or in the colonies of nations (commonly or loosely) labeled as capitalist. They deny that many of the colonies had capitalist economic systems and claim that their economies mostly continued to be feudalistic. Supporters emphasize that it was capitalist states that abolished slavery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery) throughout the world and that it was capitalist states who developed the modern democratic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy) system. Critics reply that the major imperialist powers accumulated huge amounts of capital through slavery before it was abolished. Furthermore, they argue, slavery was only abolished after it became less expensive to pay wages in industries like mining and agriculture in the colonies.

Most capitalists acknowledge that military exploitation should be condemned, but argue that economic globalization and the introduction of capitalist principles to the developing world is improving the living standards worldwide. See the empirical research on Indices of Economic Freedom (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indices_of_Economic_Freedom) and the book the The Improving State of the World (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Improving_State_of_the_World) and research stating that the percentage of people living on less than 1 dollar per day halved between 1981 and 2001.[58] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_capitalism#cite_note-57) This is disputed by critics who claim that the very opposite is the case, that an underdeveloped, distorted economic growth concentrating wealth in the hands of elites within the cities while maintaining semi-feudal property relations in the country side—increasing overall disparity—are products of global capitalism.[59] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_capitalism#cite_note-58)



(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoclassical_economics)Neoclassical economists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoclassical_economics), which today are the majority of economists,[33] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_capitalism#cite_note-32) consider value to be subjective (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_theory_of_value), varying from person to person and for the same person at different times, and thus reject the labor theory of value. These economists see capitalists as earning profits by forgoing current consumption, by taking risks, and by organizing production. The labor theory of value, including Marx's version, has also been rejected by almost all economists in favor of marginalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginalism).[34] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_capitalism#cite_note-33) Proponents of capitalism argue that wage rates respond like any commodity in a market—in proportion to supply and demand. If enough employers compete for labor, then arbitrarily low wages will be prevented. They also claim that as worker productivity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity) and GDP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GDP) per person rises, competition will force employers to pay increasingly high wages. Unemployment is due to many factors such as temporary recessions, waiting for a better job offer, minimum wage regulations, social security, or a lack of skills needed at a particular time and place.[35] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_capitalism#cite_note-34) Proponents argue that conditions are generally improving worldwide. The author of The Improving State of the World (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Improving_State_of_the_World) provides empirical evidence regarding income, life expectancy, literacy, and time working to argue that capitalism is related to rapidly improving living standards worldwide.[36] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_capitalism#cite_note-catoinstitute-35)

[☭World Views]

Someone keeps on vandalizing this page, I would appreciate if people watch it and revert the change.

A user keeps on deleting the table of contents of the book

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_black_book_of_capitalism

His excuse is that "wikipedia is not a book indexing service", lol

[Dean]

I think you should not be openly discussing edits you are making to Wikipedia in a public place such as a forum thread. Often, when user A and user B are in conflict over an article, user B will decide to start checking user A's contributions list and follow him around to undo his edits to any and all articles.
This happened to me - by Ted Frank, an American Enterprise Institute lawyer. I agree with you, of course. There are some real assholes on that forum.

[Drace]

Wikipedia articles are the source of information for a lot of people.

They usually are unbiased but the articles pertaining to communism are filled with common propaganda. Even the sections of refutation are presented in a anti socialist way.
For example, the article on refutation of the Holodomor is titled "Denial of the Holodomor".
There are criticism sections in there articles but there surrounded by huge blocks of anti communist statements.

Can we not put an effort to change them to show our view of the history?

[Q]

I merged Drace's thread into the Wikipedia Watch thread.

[anticap]

Every time I visit Wikipedia I leave absolutely dejected and wondering how the Left can hope to change the real world if we can't even manage to reduce the systemic ruling-class ideological bias on a freely-editable web site.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

I just found this stupid statement:


Anarchist-communists such as Peter Kropotkin theorized an immediate transition to one society with no classes.

[Q]

I just found this stupid statement:
Where did you find it and what are you doing about it?

[Stranger Than Paradise]

Where did you find it and what are you doing about it?

On the Communist page here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism#Anarcho-communism

It is a semi-protected page and new users can't edit it so I can't do anything.

[Drace]

On the Communist page here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism#Anarcho-communism

It is a semi-protected page and new users can't edit it so I can't do anything.

lookie

Semi-protection prevents edits from anonymous users (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:User_access_levels#Anonymous_users) (IP addresses), as well as edits from accounts that are not autoconfirmed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:User_access_levels#Autoconfirmed_users) (is at least four days old and has ten or more edits to Wikipedia) or confirmed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:User_access_levels#Confirmed_users).Lol added this to the capitalism page

The private means of control have been critcized by many leftists, going as far as to say that over 100 million have died in the 20th century due to capitalist economic policies.I wonder how long it will stay

Ok shit
They keep changing it for lack of proper sources I suppose?
Im getting my sources from Another View of Stalin but it does not list its sources properly

[Sean]

http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Wikipediametric

This is the level of anti communist bullshit you have to contend with. Make a point to read the most important bits, that is the leaked cabal mailing list on wikileaks (http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Wikipediametric_mailinglist:_alleged_cabal_tactics _and_stalking_of_editors,_2009) (no, I don't get paid every time I dump something from wikileaks) and wikipedia's arbitration (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_notice board/Incidents&oldid=314636036#Concentrated_stalking_and_attacks_ against_Russavia). Slippery bastards will probably use the fact that this is mentioned here as proof of their innocence.

[anticap]

It's the kind of stuff the Left ought to be doing. Wikipedia is among the top Google hits for practically everything and is therefore a major propaganda tool; we should be in control of it. It's rather ironic that the Right is far superior to us at organizing and taking collective action. It's not like it's that difficult to play the WP-MMORPG for a while to ripen a bunch of accounts, then descend on the key articles in droves to remove the ruling-class bias. It's just a matter of doing it. I've suggested it to comrades before but nothing ever comes of it. Meanwhile, the Right is operating like a well-oiled machine to sing the praises of capitalism and besmirch Marxism and anarchism via the powerful (mis)educational organ that is Wikipedia.

[Sean]

It's the kind of stuff the Left ought to be doing. Wikipedia is among the top Google hits for practically everything and is therefore a major propaganda tool; we should be in control of it. It's rather ironic that the Right is far superior to us at organizing and taking collective action. It's not like it's that difficult to play the WP-MMORPG for a while to ripen a bunch of accounts, then descend on the key articles in droves to remove the ruling-class bias. It's just a matter of doing it. I've suggested it to comrades before but nothing ever comes of it. Meanwhile, the Right is operating like a well-oiled machine to sing the praises of capitalism and besmirch Marxism and anarchism via the powerful (mis)educational organ that is Wikipedia.
Gibberish. You should strive for objectivity, not propaganda. The truth is whats being eroded and facts are on the side of the people. It doesnt need to swing left.

[anticap]

Gibberish. You should strive for objectivity, not propaganda.

Balderdash. Wikipedia already is a propaganda organ, for ruling-class ideology (if you can't see this, please tell me now so that I can avoid wasting any more time conversing with you).


The truth is whats being eroded and facts are on the side of the people.

I hope you'll agree that the objective truth is that the working class ought to be in control of every aspect of civilization, since they create and maintain all of it, including Wikipedia. But you seem to be suggesting that we should relax and wait for such facts to manifest themselves at Wikipedia, rather than insert them, or, at the very least, remove the ruling-class counterclaims, which litter the site. If this is what you're suggesting, then, again, please tell me now so that I can avoid wasting any more time conversing with you.


It doesnt need to swing left.

Are you kidding? The entire world needs to swing left. Please tell me if you're not kidding, so that I can avoid wasting any more time conversing with you.

[ls]

Gibberish. You should strive for objectivity, not propaganda. The truth is whats being eroded and facts are on the side of the people. It doesnt need to swing left.

This.

Fucking idiots who just want to spread misinformation and left propaganda (anarchist, marxist-leninist or whatever else) over facts are fucking disgraceful.

[anticap]

I invite my comrades (I hope they accept fucking idiots who speak gibberish as comrades) to go back and read my posts more carefully. I invite them also to pick at random any Wikipedia article of the Left and discover that Wikipedia is a ruling-class propaganda organ. I never suggested that we insert sectarian propaganda into it (this you'll glean after re-reading my posts with your thinking caps on), but that we deny the Right the ability to do so. We ought to be in control of that site. If you disagree, then you must believe either (a) that the Right ought to be left in control of it, or (b) that neither the Left nor the Right ought to be in control of it. The problem is that (b) is the same as (a), because of the mechanism by which sources are deemed acceptable (anyone with any history at WP ought to understand this; and anyone with any understanding of institutional bias ought to understand why it's a huge problem, which stands in the way of the "encyclopedia" ever attaining the faintest level of objectivity on articles we're most concerned with).

[Drace]

The leftist topics in Wikipedia are almost 100% for the favor of the rightists.
I took great effort to try and change a few points.

It was all reverted for POV and supposedly the use of false sources.
One the admins finally banned me because he believed I was some guy named Jacob Peters who apparently has been making accounts and editing leftist articles.

Its almost god dam impossible to change anything.

The only thing I was successful of is changing the estimates of the deaths in the Ukrainian famine from 2.6 million to 1-10 million. And who knows how long that will last...

[Sean]

I invite my comrades (I hope they accept fucking idiots who speak gibberish as comrades) to go back and read my posts more carefully. I invite them also to pick at random any Wikipedia article of the Left and discover that Wikipedia is a ruling-class propaganda organ. I never suggested that we insert sectarian propaganda into it (this you'll glean after re-reading my posts with your thinking caps on), but that we deny the Right the ability to do so. We ought to be in control of that site. If you disagree, then you must believe either (a) that the Right ought to be left in control of it, or (b) that neither the Left nor the Right ought to be in control of it. The problem is that (b) is the same as (a), because of the mechanism by which sources are deemed acceptable (anyone with any history at WP ought to understand this; and anyone with any understanding of institutional bias ought to understand why it's a huge problem, which stands in the way of the "encyclopedia" ever attaining the faintest level of objectivity on articles we're most concerned with).
I don't disagree that wikipedia is slanting right on its articles, my point (or rather my grumble and assholish attack, sorry!) was that you don't understand the dynamics of wikipedia and while your enthusiastic fire with fire sounding rhetoric might win applause, its not how to go about things. I happen to know a thing or two about how it works, in fact even though I rarely edit myself, I could write a fucking book on them.

[heiss93]

I would concentrate on articles on Marxist theory for now. It is where you are least likely to face strong opposition, and where wikipedia's own rules are on your side since the goal of the article should be to provide exposition not criticism.

Many of the wikipedia articles on the more obscure theoretics of Marxism are actually fairly good. These articles are very important to educating the general public.

Many on revleft have proposed a leftist wiki, although nothing has ever taken off. Ideally we would have a leftist wiki with out "wish list" version of the article and try to keep the main wikipedia article as close to that as possible.

[anticap]

I don't disagree that wikipedia is slanting right on its articles, my point (or rather my grumble and assholish attack, sorry!) was that you don't understand the dynamics of wikipedia and while your enthusiastic fire with fire sounding rhetoric might win applause, its not how to go about things. I happen to know a thing or two about how it works, in fact even though I rarely edit myself, I could write a fucking book on them.

I'm not sure what you've based your assessment on, but you're wrong. I've been slogging through that swap for over seven years; I ought to know how it works by now. Wikipedia is essentially a text-based MMORPG. (For anyone less familiar with the "dynamics" of WP, I recommend you save yourself the time and pain of the direct experience and head straight to Wikipedia Review (http://wikipediareview.com/).)

[anticap]

Many on revleft have proposed a leftist wiki, although nothing has ever taken off. Ideally we would have a leftist wiki with out "wish list" version of the article and try to keep the main wikipedia article as close to that as possible.

I like that idea. Too bad there's not a "Marxopedia" to complement Anarchopedia (http://anarchopedia.org/); they could be combined into "RevLeftopedia."

[ComradeMan]

Allow me to rant about Wikipedia...

Other than for basic facts and stats and quotes Wikipedia is not in any way a serious resource. I have even found errors with the stats or had them pointed out to me by others and whenever I use wikipedia I go straight to the original source and ignore most of what's written on the page.

The problem with wikipedia is it based on false premises.

1. "Conventional wisdom"- this might seem fair enough but what the hell is conventionl wisdom anyway? The rule of the majority? I studied geology, fifty years ago the theory of plate tectonics was laughed out of court by conventional wisdom- had wikipedia existed hypothetically 50 years or so ago then an editor would not have been able to post an article about the theory because it was "against" conventional wisdom and a group of editors would probably have, at best, categorised it as some fringe theory or other in that it challenged their so-called conventional wisdom.

2. Wikipedia always bands around this idea of a "neutral point of view", But can a neutral point of view ever exist? Is that not a contradiction in terms and another example of unspeak? A point of view is de fecto a specific position and thus subjective and not objective. Seeing as the pages in the English language are the most numerous there is also an inherent Anglo-Sphere bias. Have a look at some of the editors pages on the more political material and their "neutral points of view" well may be challenged. If I read an article in The Times, The Guardian, The Socialist Worker or The Daily Mail, at least I am aware of the political position beforehand, with Wikipedia you never know.

3. Wikipedia is edited by all and sundry and a quick look at the discussioon pages often reveals the narrow-mindedness, bigotry or purely subjective opinion of the editors who may or may not even be specialists in their field. This brings me back to conventional wisdom, the conventional wisdom is that which is agreed by whichever editor holds sway over a page, that's about how conventional it is.

I think that the principle was fair enough and some articles are great but the trouble is that there is no safeguard with wikipedia and I think it does lead to a hive mentality at times.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Well, the bias is not all one way. When someone tried insert a link to my site in the article on Dialectical Materialsm, all hell broke loose among the dialecticians:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Dialectical_materialism

Check out sections 7 and 9.

[Drace]

I find the articles on the USSR and Stalin slanting right.

[Robocommie]

The trouble with Wikipedia is the trouble with the internet in general. It is the democracy of opinion. On the internet, the opinion of one moron with a sophomoric understanding of anything (and don't think I'm saying I'm not guilty of this) can be just as potent and presentable as the opinion of a scholar who has spent his life researching the subject.

[ComradeMan]

Well, the bias is not all one way. When someone tried insert a link to my site in the article on Dialectical Materialsm, all hell broke loose among the dialecticians:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Dialectical_materialism

Check out sections 7 and 9.

To be fair Rosa, as learned as you may be- Wikipedia has a rule about self-published sources, which is probably a good thing in itself. I can understand how frustrated you must feel but the rules are the rules. I read through the comments and I don't think the problem was with left or right politics, just the fact that your material would fall under the "self-published" rule.

[cska]

It seems that every article regarding communists or communism whether it be past events or tendencies, are horribly explained (perhaps intentionally) with the most latent rightist slant imaginable. I've always said to my self "don't read about politics on wikipedia" because whenever I do I feel like it's been written by some foolish liberal or outright reactionary piece of trash (I also think there is an obvious pro-Western slant to wikipedia, but this is true about the whole internet..). It angers me to think that most people reading wiki will never second guess it and look further into whatever is said; they probably won't even check whether any given 'fact' or opinion has a source at the bottom...

I think this sums up my views.

That said though wiki is great for almost anything else besides sensitive/controversial stuff like politics.


20th Century? That's not even half of it. What about the Native Americans who were killed in the colonial expansion of the European empires?


I was quoting a few paragraphs from the chapter dealing with the 20th century. An entire chapter is dedicated to the Indigenous Americans killed by colonial expansion. Idk if wikipedia would let me get away with summarizing the key points of each chapter, what do you think?


To be fair Rosa, as learned as you may be- Wikipedia has a rule about self-published sources, which is probably a good thing in itself. I can understand how frustrated you must feel but the rules are the rules. I read through the comments and I don't think the problem was with left or right politics, just the fact that your material would fall under the "self-published" rule.


Allow me to rant about Wikipedia...

Other than for basic facts and stats and quotes Wikipedia is not in any way a serious resource. I have even found errors with the stats or had them pointed out to me by others and whenever I use wikipedia I go straight to the original source and ignore most of what's written on the page.

The problem with wikipedia is it based on false premises.

1. "Conventional wisdom"- this might seem fair enough but what the hell is conventionl wisdom anyway? The rule of the majority? I studied geology, fifty years ago the theory of plate tectonics was laughed out of court by conventional wisdom- had wikipedia existed hypothetically 50 years or so ago then an editor would not have been able to post an article about the theory because it was "against" conventional wisdom and a group of editors would probably have, at best, categorised it as some fringe theory or other in that it challenged their so-called conventional wisdom.

2. Wikipedia always bands around this idea of a "neutral point of view", But can a neutral point of view ever exist? Is that not a contradiction in terms and another example of unspeak? A point of view is de fecto a specific position and thus subjective and not objective. Seeing as the pages in the English language are the most numerous there is also an inherent Anglo-Sphere bias. Have a look at some of the editors pages on the more political material and their "neutral points of view" well may be challenged. If I read an article in The Times, The Guardian, The Socialist Worker or The Daily Mail, at least I am aware of the political position beforehand, with Wikipedia you never know.

3. Wikipedia is edited by all and sundry and a quick look at the discussioon pages often reveals the narrow-mindedness, bigotry or purely subjective opinion of the editors who may or may not even be specialists in their field. This brings me back to conventional wisdom, the conventional wisdom is that which is agreed by whichever editor holds sway over a page, that's about how conventional it is.

I think that the principle was fair enough and some articles are great but the trouble is that there is no safeguard with wikipedia and I think it does lead to a hive mentality at times.

Don't want to grave dig, but I believe that correcting Wikipedia is crucial, as I have seen some people use it more often than Google. Wether it should or shouldn't be so, it is by far the most influential source of information for young minds today. I certainly believe RevLeft should get organized discussing relevant articles and working together to fix bad ones.