A few years ago my kid's teachers all give up and stopped banning Wikipedia articles. In many ways this was a big win for the commons. Instead of a narrow body of academic professionals editing "all the world's information," high school teachers and college professors now accepted the fact that our children can learn from real-world experts. After all, Wikipedia is, in many cases, more accurate, more open and more timely than commercial encyclopedias written by residents of ivory towers.
But with the open crowd-sourcing of knowledge comes a big problem, which was the reason we created academic institutions and college degrees in the first place: Who determines what is notable and important enough to be written about and shared with the world?
At first glance this seems like a simple problem. My cat, Ziggy, is amusing and perhaps even smarter than me. But an article about Ziggy should not pollute Wikipedia's virtual pages. There may be more notable people or cats named Ziggy. Granting Wikipedia article status to Ziggy may be used to deceive other people or cats about his stature in our world and enable fraud of some kind. Articles about irrelevant cats, as opposed to relevant cats like Garfield, might besmirch the credibility of Wikipedia as whole and give high school teachers and college professors reasons to restrict my kid's research to encyclopedias with academic credentials.
Recently Kate Middleton's wedding dress was treated as if it was as relevant to the world as my cat. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales is concerned, as this article in Slate reports, and he sees it as a diversity issue. Eight-one percent of Wikipedia's editors are men and these men seem to view Kate's dress and my cat as not very important. The problem isn't only pig-headed men who don't understand the importance of fashion and weddings. The problem is deletionism and deletionists.
The Deletionist Wars on Wikipedia make visible the underlying culture wars that impact so many parts of our lives, our laws, our media and the way we think. A deletionist is basically an amateur editor with a very narrow definition of what is relevant and a very wide brush with which to paint his editorial will. A deletionist is motivated by intolerance and isn't trained in recognizing his bias (which is something you learn in academic programs and therapy sessions).
The broad brush in this case is Wikipedia itself. If you can prevent an article about wedding dresses from being included on Wikipedia, you can invalidate a whole segment of the human story. You can control the conversation, because if you can't find it on Wikipedia, then it can't be cited or spoken about. Eventually, it can't even be thought about. Isn't that what Wikipedia is supposed to prevent? Thought control?
It's not like the deletionists have a single grand agenda. If they did, they would be easy to fight. What Jimmy Wales has recognized is that this is a big problem. What we all have to recognize is that the deletionists are us! When we censor someone for expressing the "wrong" ideas, instead of talking to them about it, we are the intolerant deletionists. Technology can't fix us. We have to fix ourselves.
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They have a few preffered sources of information, such as the NYTimes, AP ect. and whatever those sources report is what gets on wikipedia
No matter how innacurate they are
So for instance it says on wikipedia that obama supports universal healthcare. Now obviously in reality obama does not support that. But since he said it once in a speech and the NYtimes reported on it, that's what gets on wikipedia
we're at the mercy of dexterous delusionists. Data isn’t being delivered directly, its at minimum a second hand rendition. A Human’s Humble Opinion.
"Technology can't fix us."
But it could convey a “health” warning. This Material Is Believed To Be Accurate. Unless Proven Otherwise.
"We have to fix ourselves."
What can be offered is a working knowledge, not an infallible comprehension. When there are no more contradictions to expose, that work will be done.
Please stick to Kardashian related topics so this will not happen again in the future.
"A deletionist is basically an amateur editor with a very narrow definition of what is relevant and a very wide brush with which to paint his editorial will. A deletionist is motivated by intolerance and isn't trained in recognizing his bias."{{citation needed}}
In reality, the motivation behind deletionists and inclusionists more accurately equates to a comparison between quantity and quality. Generally speaking, the more seasoned an editor becomes, the more the focus on deleting articles which do not meet the notability guidelines. "Relevance" is not recognized by the community guidelines that assist in determining whether or not an article remains in the encyclopedia. And most new editors misunderstand the definition of "notability", as it pertains to Wikipedia. In reality, new or "amateur" editors simply lack the knowledge and experience to act as a deletionist.
What we all have to recognize is that the deletionists are us! When we censor someone for expressing the "wrong" ideas, instead of talking to them about it, we are the intolerant deletionists.
But what does harm is censorship for especially political purposes. Look up the Bush II administration 'Ownership Society'. Notice it's not what's there but what isn't there. Karl Rove was the architect of the $440 billion dollar subprime mortgage program that later had zero down payment and allowable bad credit features added to it. Rove was proud of it and interviewed widely. He said he wanted to model his role and Bush II's role to be like Mark Hanna and President McKinley in making the Republicans dominant for a generation.
Rove wanted to get an Hispanic constituency for the Republicans. His program synergized with a purposely moribund SEC, Sen Phil Gramm's unregulated derivatives, and stunning corruption in the mortgage industry. At one point half the Jumbo mortgages were stated income 'liar loans'. In other words, Rove's political scheme made him an architect of the 2008 Crash. None of that nor its historic consequences is mentioned in the idealized article on the Ownership Society.. Indeed, it all sounds ideal.. It's good that various views are presented with correct standards, but not a campaign pamphlet.
I probably wouldn't use wikipedia for anything politically or religiously controversial, though.
Reading the talk tab can be very informative on how some conclusions are reached. Add that together in with the article and there will certainly, in my view at least, be a more balanced view than the so called "skeptic" and "true believer" websites out there that many people reference in their discussions.
As a university lecturer the idea wikipedia is somehow a credible source is plain disturbing, just another sign of accepting mediocrity from students who can't be bothered to do research. Importantly, crowd sourcing and community acceptance of ideas does not make them 'correct'. One wonders what amazingly stupid insights crowd sourcing would have generated if wikipedia was around when only a handful of scientists understood germ theory or the solar system.
I love wikipedia and have spent many evenings moving from page to page, enjoying the connections between articles and number of topics. But it is what it is - imperfect, rough at times, even downright divisive, and a lot of fun. Don't legitimize it any further than that. The idea that control of wikipedia is the ultimate weapon of discursive dominance only shows how intellectually lazy people are, and that is something we don't need wikipedia to tell us.