The Trouble with Wikipedia: A Cautionary Tale
Back in February, I published an article on PJ Media documenting the substantial financial support provided by the German federal government and other German public agencies to the production of Roman Polanski’s film The Ghost Writer. The film is about a former British prime minister who is suspected of having been controlled by the CIA. Any resemblance between the character in question and a certain living former British prime minister by the name of Tony Blair is obviously intentional.
Nowadays, of course, Blair is most famous — or, more exactly, infamous — in continental Europe for his support for the Iraq war. The fact that such a film received some €5 million in backing from the country that led the self-styled “axis of peace” that opposed the war struck me as being of evident public interest. How readers want to interpret this fact is, of course, up to them. Perhaps it is just coincidence, after all. But I also provided some examples of other recent English-language cinema blockbusters that have received substantial German public subsidies. The list suggests that the logic of German funding of English-language cinema is not merely economic, as defenders of the practice in Germany commonly insist.
A couple of months after the publication of my PJM report, Erik Svane of the euroblog ¡No Pasarán! wrote me to tell me that he had added a reference to the article to the Wikipedia entry on The Ghost Writer. “One sour note came from John Rosenthal,” the otherwise glowing entry on the film now read,
who points out that the winner of Berlin’s Silver Bear received a large amount of financial support from the German federal government, which happened to be “part of the self-styled ‘axis of peace’ that opposed the Iraq War” led by Blair and George W. Bush.
A footnote provided reference and link to my PJM report. I was, of course, glad that the information had been linked. But I am no fan of Wikipedia and, from previous observations of the evolution of Wikipedia entries, I strongly suspected that the reference would not last long.
About a month after that, John Rentoul, a columnist for the British daily The Independent, posted an entry on his blog likewise citing my research on the German financing of The Ghost Writer and linking my PJM report. Earlier, Rentoul had independently raised the issue of German public subsidies for the film, but he had originally cited a much lower figure of only €200,000 in German public support.
After being informed about the Rentoul post, I became curious what was happening in the meanwhile to the entry on The Ghost Writer on Wikipedia. So, I had another look. Lo and behold, the reference to my PJM report — and, with it, any reference whatsoever to the German subsidies — had been removed. The before-and-after versions can be viewed here and here respectively. As the dates in the Wikipedia history log make clear, the reference had remained in the entry for all of five days.
The Wikipedia editor — or perhaps in this case, more exactly, censor — responsible for the revision was one “Alandeus.” On April 26, in the “talk” section on the article, Alandeus made the following comment. The “Babelsberg” to which he refers is a film studio in Potsdam, outside Berlin.
Practically all films that are produced in Babelsberg are eligible for or get Federal funding, i.e. loans, so interpreting so much political ill will into it is carrying it a bit far. On the other hand, I question whether Wikipedia is well severed [sic] by opinions from such blog sites. Is this good or valid reference?
Two days later, Alandeus apparently decided unilaterally that it was not and proceeded to remove the reference. Note that he did not, at this time, add his general claim suggesting that German public funding is politically unproblematic. He simply removed all reference to the funding, so that readers would not have to bother themselves with the matter. The irony of a self-appointed editor of a Wikipedia entry suggesting that an online media is not a worthy reference can be passed over here without comment.
As it so happens, the Wikipedia user page for “Alandeus” identifies him as Alan Benson, an “American translator living in Berlin.” Benson’s webpage proudly recounts how he participated in a hundred-thousand-strong anti-Iraq war demonstration that took place in February 2003 in Berlin. It also notes his membership not only in “Democrats Abroad Berlin,” but even in the German Social Democratic Party or SPD. It was, of course, the Social Democratic German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder who would spearhead the international campaign against the American-led intervention to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein.
After I pointed out to Erik that the PJM reference had disappeared from the Wikipedia entry, he then put it back in, along now with a reference to the Rentoul post on the website of The Independent. It took another five days for none other than Alandeus to remove the reference once more. Yet again, Alandeus, in effect, flagged his intentions in advance. In the Wikipedia “talk” section, he defiantly rejected the charge that his previous edit had been politically motivated, noting that per Wikipedia’s “principles,” “personal and group blogs are largely not acceptable as sources.” “Therefore,” he concluded, “John Rosenthal would not be acceptable, but The Independent’s John Rentoul would be.” Never mind that PJ Media is neither my personal blog nor a group blog. Above all, never mind that the “unacceptable” source — namely, my PJM report — was precisely the cited source for the “acceptable” one!
John you won’t get a large response but your message must get out. Far to many people think Wikipedia is a quotable source. It is not!
I read somewhere that Wikipedia is run like a cult.
Look up the Greek island of Chios. In 1821 the Ottomans swept the island of 99% of its 188,000 residents by death or slavery in Egypt. On Wikipedia it blames another Greek island for the invasion.
No, it blames a neighboring island for provoking the massacre. Nor is this provocation portrayed as remotely justifying the massacre.
That I point this out does not mean I think this article on Wikipedia by John Rosenthal is not well founded.
I should start by saying that while I’m a heavy reader and contributor, and usually like their treatment of non-controversial subjects, I do not permit my students to ever cite wikipedia in their coursework.
Wikipedia has longstanding policies about what is and isn’t considered acceptable. PJM, as much as I love it, is not a “reliable source” from wikipedia’s point of view because the columns aren’t vetted by the editors. I’ve seen Huffington Post articles removed for the same reason. They let the Independent article through even though he cited you because presumably he and his editor checked your claims.
OK, now I know that A) the MSM isn’t really fact-checking much of anything these days, and B) Wikipedia has a strong liberal bias. (Look at the Cynthia McKinnney article for an example, or the Tea Party page for another.)
It’s still got systems and processes, and in your case they seemed to have followed them. In other cases, not so much. The Climategate page, for example, was and is heavily edited by employees affected directly by the scandal (and who have been permitted to do so by the Wikipedia admins, against their own stated policy).
The page on Naked Short Selling was famously altered by Jimbo Wales himself to remove a contrary viewpoint, who locked down the page, banned numerous users and later an entire town in Utah, and even secretly modified the internal wikipedia database to cover up his actions. A news site (the Register) which had been cited tens of thousands of times and conforms to the Reliable Source criteria above, was suddenly removed from the list of acceptable sources just to kill any text opposing naked short selling. During the financial crisis, the abuses turned out to actually be occuring and the practice was banned; only a few months later did Wikipedia finally allow the criticisms in.
So compared to your critique being sourced to a newspaper that in turn cites you, there’s a lot more important problems with wikipedia out there.
I didn’t know about the whole town; I’ll have to look that up.
In addition to things like that, it might be helpful for someone else to present the following in a more accessible format:
http://24ahead.com/n/9281
They lied for a “reliable source” who wasn’t telling the truth at the same time as they used the fact that a source wasn’t a “reliable source” to keep the truth out of WP.
Like I said, someone else needs to make what they did accessible.
P.S. If you link to WP, you’re helping them. If you don’t want to help them, don’t link to them. Instead, put links like this:
en.wikipedia . org/blah
That way they don’t get any search engine benefits.
Wikipedia has some articles in an area in which I did professional research for more than thirty years. Some of the Wikipedia entries are riddled with errors. Some of the analysis is so superficial as to be embarrassing to any expert in the field. Some of the observations and sources are political to the point of undermining any remote claim to objectivity. In attempting to rectify the problems, I contacted Wikipedia but they told me no one in my geographical area can edit as there is some malicious hacker in the area and the whole area was blocked. I found that difficult to believe. After some email, I was assured I was enabled to edit, but I never could. I gave up. When you are an expert in a field, see the garbage in Wikipedia and then find you can’t change it, you realize it is not really an encyclopedia.
Thanks, John. That’s quite a story, and more than disappointing. I frequently refer to Wikipedia, and in many cases I find it’s pretty useful. However, I’m always a bit skeptical because I understand the murky and sometimes ideologically motivated editing process, so I use it to get to other sites or to review basic information. When I find an article that I know something about and can judge it to be reasonably accurate, I’ll use it as a reference. Would be nice if there were an appeal process that involved an impartial committee of some sort, but I guess that’s asking too much.
The worst unevalated dammage ever occasioned to the West by two senior politicians the couple B.B. Bush – Blair, similar to Brigitte Bardot, but who could have managed the situation much safier as the B.B. politicians. The entier Gulf war was not necessary and less the destruction of Sadam Hussein and his armies. These two albern politicians pushed us in the present Irangate
So today it is too late to regret, and B.O. looks not to be the experienced one to be called “Saviour”
And what, exactly, does your comment have to do with Wikipedia’s problems?
I guess like your “saviour” B-O, you can’t get away from “Blame Bush, blame Bush, blame Boooooooooooooooooosh!”
Thanks for illustrating it so accurately, however.
Normally I tend to lurk and not post, but I must post because of two things.
1) Your post has absolutely no relevance to this topic.
2) Your lack of comprehension concerning the English language (both in grammar and spelling) is enough to cause me to gouge my eyes out.
Wikipedia to me, however, is a useful beginning point for research. I do not quote or reference to it, but instead use the references it provides as a springboard to true information. If someone is doing research on any given topic they should be scouring all forms of media for information, and not relying on one website for all data.
Say Gabe, how much Oil for Food money were you raking off?
Wiki What? Isn’t that where Dems get all their “facts,” like Arizona’s NOT a border state?
I am an amateur historian. I use Wikipedia, not as a primary source, but as a place to find references and links to other sources of somewhat less… volatility.
I would also like to point out that Wikipedia, or some of it’s authors/editors, are not as scrupulous about citing sources as could be desired. Some time back, I stumbled across a Wiki page that looked familiar. It was an edit of a page that I had put up on my personal website some years previously. My writing style is rather unique, and much of that uniqueness carried over. I sent the Wiki editors an email, pointing out the similarities and referencing archived versions of my work at the Internet Time Machine. All I asked for was appropriate credit. Instead, the page was removed and, some months later, a new page was put up in it’s place. FWIW.
Ironic that Wiki would be exposed by a silly thriller like The Ghost Writer. The core premise of the film–that the US needs to plant moles inside the British government to influence British policy–is plainly ludicrous and misunderstands American-British relations since WWII.
Polanski has an axe to grind but he chose the wrong vehicle.We say jump, Britain says how high? We don’t need moles.
I edit Wikipedia, mostly articles on Mexico. I stay out of controversial stuff. Alandeus is right that PJM or any other blog is not considered a valid reference. Reference to newspaper article, even if the newspaper cites the blog is OK. Why? The idea here is that newspapers have editorial boards who fact check whereas blogs do not. Now we all know how useless this supposed fact-checking can be, but Wikipedia needs to have a general guideline as to what is a valid source and what is not.
That being said…. controversial articles have been a thorn in the side of WP for some time now. For non-controversial stuff, WP is fine. There has been a clamor by many editors on English language Wikipedia to put some kind of control on editing, at least on problematic articles. German Wikipedia (the different languages have somewhat different rules) has much stricter rules as to who can edit what. However, founder Jimmy Wales has been very reluctant to put any serious restrictions on editing, trying to remain true to the original spirit of an encyclopedia anyone can edit. He still resists taking away editing from IP addresses and only to those with accounts despite the fact that almost all vandalism of articles comes from IP addresses.
Rusty Bill… as for your case, what happened is per WP policy. Any plagiarized pages are simply removed or rewritten. This is because all WP pages are GDFL, which cannot be if the content is plagiarized from another source.
While Wikipedia has some very serious problems, outside scrutiny does have an effect on what goes on. Much of the problem is that a)WP is too big for any one organization to monitor what happens and b)it is far too useful overall for most people who use it… as some said here, to get a bit of info. It is not worthy of citation, but then no encyclopedia is, but in many, many cases it is a good place to begin.
If you see something in WP that needs to be corrected, the best thing to do is to go into the page and correct it. Its not like book or even a blog where you appeal to the powers-that-be for assistance.
Huffington Post is regularly cited as a source by Wikipedians, including a few lines above the excised PJM reference in that very article. Precisely how does it differ from PJM?
PJM is clearly a news and opinion journalism source, like, say, DC Caller, or Slate, or Hot Air, or Huffington Post. IIRC, the Christian Science Monitor has moved to being online-only. Does this make it no longer a credible source?
“If you see something in WP that needs to be corrected, the best thing to do is to go into the page and correct it. Its not like book or even a blog where you appeal to the powers-that-be for assistance.”
If only this were true. I have engaged in trying to correct some obscure but highly biased pages about political events, with the result being only frustration, and the “editor” who closely watches those pages actually making it worse with each revert of my corrections.
The Wikipedia rule on “reliable sources” is useless – especially since the main stream media is itself strongly biased in certain areas. One source I was unable to get removed was a quote about a historical event from a far-left newspaper movie review, as if a movie review is news rather than opinion! But since it was from an edited source, the reliable sources folks considered it within the guidelines.
At the same time, I was unable to use information about an event in which I participated and help organize, because my information was first person, and hence not from an edited source. I can understand the frustration of subject experts in this regard.
Wikipedia is doomed to fail at its supposed goal of achieving accuracy through open editing. The reason is that leftists, especially, have lots of time (they are often educators) and love to play games with bureaucratic rules – heck, they’re the ones that dream up all our bureaucracies. Furthermore, the ones I have encountered have no regard for truth or fair play – only for making sure their propaganda wins out.
Leight T, I am the CEO of PJM and a longtime blogger, but I also have written over the years for the NYT, WaPo, LAT, Warner Brothers, Disney, Universal, Simon & Schuster, Random House… I could go on, but you get the point.
I can promise you there is a lot more fact-checking on a well-trafficked blog than in the MSM. The financial reasons for this should be obvious. The MSM can’t afford real fact-checking anymore and blogs are public. I make one error on my blog and I hear about it five minutes later. I do my best to correct accordingly. (I don’t want to end up like Dan Rather.)
Wikipedia’s preference for “mainstream” sources over blogs is just another example of their BS.
Further, to John Rosenthal’s point: In my filmmaker life I have dealt extensively with German Film Funds. Of course, they are political. Why wouldn’t they be? They are run by (largely) well-heeled leftists. I did fine with them because I was one of them at the time. An American independent filmmaker who wants to make a left-liberal film would be well-advised to go the Berlin Festival and nose around. He/she might just come up with a subsidy or a loan or a combo of the two.
Great article, John.
Roger, one of the things that is astonishing about Wikipedia is that experts in a field cannot use their expertise directly to support a statement.
I have no doubt as to your credentials as I am a PJMedia reader. But there are tons of blogs and most are not up to PJ’s standards. I remember why you named this Pajamas Media in the first place. The attitude still holds. If you look at the Beer in Mexico article, which I worked on, I got jumped all over for using questionable sources simply because they are purely web-based media. Nevermind that we are just talking about beer.
There is a discussion on Jimmy Wales’ userpage right now with some ppl pissed about a recent Fox News story. Someone motioned to have Fox declared not reliable but this was canned because WP did not want to go into which news sources are reliable and which are not. Its easier to accept or reject as a class rather than make qualitative judgments. Could you imagine WP trying to determine which individual news sources would be reliable and which would not? Needless to say, most conservative media would not make the cut.
Its easy to dismiss WP but its too often used to simply toss it aside. Its also a valuable source for information that would not otherwise exist on the web in English… such as the articles I write.
I have a suggestion. The problem is not with WP’s rules per se… it with the fact that far too many editors and admins are liberal and biased. They get away with it because they have a pack mentality… they can overwhelm the opposition.
Perhaps a (preferably large) number of conservative editors can group together and challenge the liberals on a particular article and let’s see what happens.
I have a much easier solution : Why do not all conservatives simply turn liberals ?
Truly, Roger
That being said…. controversial articles have been a thorn in the side of WP for some time now. For non-controversial stuff, WP is fine.
Those with agendas infest the non-controversial stuff too. The Norton Motorcycles entry had, under trivia, something about Che Guevera riding a Norton that was the basis of the Motorcycle Diaries film. He was described as “socialist revolutionary”. Every time I added the words “and mass murderer”, with a proper citation to a publication that met Wiki standards for sources, my edit was removed.
One administrator banned me with the vague charge “user hates Wikipedia” and to get your account restored they basically want you to admit what you did that they think was wrong. It reminded me of a show trial under Stalin. As the appeals process went on, it was clear that though I was abiding by their silly process, and following the exact procedure specified, they had a problem with my attitude. Finally, without having to eat too much shit (cf. e.e. cummings) I pretty much forced them to follow their own rules and reinstate me.
To give you an idea of what mind-control freaks they are, as part of the appeals process you are recommended to suggest ways that you can contribute. When I said that I was personally researching the subject of how Jewish automotive pioneers had literally been written out of history by the Nazi regime, that was said to ‘raise a red flag because of Godwin’.
Good and useful piece — see my riff on it at http://www.digitalsociety.org/2010/07/the-trouble-with-wikipedia/
Just try to post anything on Wikipedia that is negative about Obama. ESPECIALLY if it has provable factual information.
It disappears in minutes. No matter where you put it.
Wikipedia is constantly monitored by what are at present ‘volunteer censors’, the termites of the world of free speech, constantly nibbling away at its foundations. One day they may find themselves in the employ of some superstate government. Then again, why would government pay them for what they already do for nothing? Useful idiots, as has been said.
Seriously. Try to post ANYTHING negative about Obama. Whoosh, off into the black hole of leftist censorship. One doesn’t need a “Pravda” when the people themselves do the job of ensuring that only one version of ‘truth’ gets out.
Dave in Dallas
Of course, that was never the case with Bush, was it? Er, yes it was. Motes and beams.
With Bush it was anything positive was removed in minutes.
By fair means, or foul…
Trouble is, Wiki is used – a lot. It seems to come at the top of most google searches. Therefore, its worthwhile to fight for your right to contribute. Base your arguments, as John has done, on solid references. They’ll lie and play endless word games to uphold their rage against humane tradition and sanity but why make things easy for them?
I was able to put up an article that I knew would be attacked. Anti-culture establishment academics seized on it immediately. But I wrote it with unassailable references, emailing a publisher for copyright waiver, and spending many hours on research. In the end they couldn’t delete it. They tried very hard until someone higher in their editorial pecking order came in and said it was okay. I don’t know how they determine who’s higher or lower but there is a pecking order it seems – when you publish an article.
When I’ve tried to edit an existing article it is much harder to get changes to stick. You have to be like them. The long march. Actually, that’s not true. You need to be better by marshaling facts, references and reason.
Wikipedia has absolutely no merit – it is a pulsating accumulation of mental diarrhea.
As for German “cinema” subsidies, lets just say the German people developed a taste for the idea back in the 1930s through the 1940s…much hasn’t changed in the last couple generations.
Of course, this is an old story. Wikipedia has had, and continues to have, a full-time climate troll in the name of William Connelly, who makes sure than only alarmism passes the bridge:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/12/18/370719.aspx
I suspect that there are a number of other such single-issue trolls guarding their respective bridges.
This is even as nothing compared to the acrivities of former Wiki administrator William Connolley, who just happens to be a co-founder of realclimate.org, the chief loudspeaker of the global warming propagandists (Joe Romm, Gavin Schmidt et al). Connolley has managed to ensure that not a word critical of AGW can be found on WP, and he has also ensured that bio pages on prominent climate skeptics are hatchet jobs. Some articles he vanished entirely down the memory hole. So long as he held admin privileges he also locked his pet articles to prevent editing, and banned any rditor who attempted to restore his deletions or correct his smears.
That’s why I call it ‘Worthless-pedia’! A million miles wide and one half inch deep.
Their climate gatekeepers (Connolley et al.) are distinctly Stalinesque. Just don’t acknowledge the existence of an alternative viewpoint and it doesn’t exist!
Diversity of everything (except opinion)! Isn’t it grand?
“Orwellian” in their use of memory hole technology. Orwell envisioned a state so powerful it could edit history on the fly. He couldn’t have imagined the power that the internet would give to individual totalitarians.
Rusty Bill writes: “That being said…. controversial articles have been a thorn in the side of WP for some time now. For non-controversial stuff, WP is fine. There has been a clamor by many editors on English language Wikipedia to put some kind of control on editing, at least on problematic articles. “
The problem is that all articles become controversial to somebody. The basic model of Wikipedia is a failure.
I received the same treatment on an entry I posted to “liberalism” about the differences between classical liberalism and contemporary liberalism. It was summarily struck down no matter how much documentation I provided. I think it’s safe to say that in any entry that touches on politics, Wiki will find a way to make sure the left is well represented and the right is ignored.
To condemn with faint praise, Wikipedia is fairly useful for checking basic facts, dates, etc. For anything remotely controversial, it is to be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism.
Exactly! Do not even TRY to check on ANYTHING for instance connected with Islam, Sharia, et al., unless willing to be presented with bias, well-known-to-be-side point of view only! Actually, I would even distrust their dates or so called “facts.” What “facts” they claim to be facts? Well, you can try to “trust” them in field of mathematics, but even there, if you will try to insert some obvious formulas they can ask you for “source” or to “prove” that 2+2=4 .
This example is one of many reasons I tell my college students NOT to use Wikipedia as a source for anything they write. I also tell them NOT to “google” for the information they need. They have access to awesome databases of peer-reviewed, edited, authoritative, reliable resources.
Excellent article. Wikipedia is very dangerous for living people and current political topics. I have been fighting the usually anonymous editors libeling me with false information and the sorts of deletions you mention that spin a very different picture of who I really am and what my ideas are. My case is not uncommon. On the other hand, the Wiki articles on mainstream physics, my field, are generally pretty good and useful.
My 15yo son was searching for info on ships that disappeared in American waters. One such ship was Captained by an Italian. Their investigators decided that it was hit by an Atlantic hurricane, unnamed. Hell it was early 1900s so no record of it hitting land just suspected by the investigators. Trouble is Atlantic hurricanes do not occur in January, ever. Could not get it edited to ‘a storm’ or to say that the official findings were disputed. It was a hurricane cased closed.
>>> Alandeus is right that PJM or any other blog is not considered a valid reference.
That’s rich, considering that most thinking people do not consider Wikipedia a valid reference.
I have a couple of blog posts on this subject from years ago:
http://www.libraryplanet.com/2006/06/22/wikipedia-worthy/
http://www.libraryplanet.com/2008/04/17/the-power-of-the-wikipedia-editor/
I still use it for some things. It is difficult to find a more complete synopsis of the career of Matter-Eater Lad than at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter-Eater_Lad. But for anything that really matters, use at your own disk.
In addition to John’s comment on an online source finding an online source unacceptable, I find the argument that PJM isn’t acceptable as a source when a Huffington Post review is cited a few lines above is just… beyond bizarre.
Of course the Huffington Post tilts left, and PJM doesn’t.
Now I understand.
Over the years I’ve written a few wikipedia articles on professional topics and niche topics. And I’ve edited many, with no issue. However, the few times I’ve gotten involved in political topics, well, suffice to say the wikipedia flashpoints are anything that challenges the typical liberal college student’s view of politics or popular culture.
Putting any effort into those kinds of articles is like cleaning the Augean stables; the level of arrogance and ignorance of most of these lefty kids is just gob-smacking.
I have had my own problems on what I prefer to call Wickedpedia. There are some religious topics which were written by propagandists. I started editing them with references to appropriate documentation. The self-appointed trolls for those topics made sure my edits were removed. It spoiled their storyline. Wikipedia is rooted in naive leftist thinking and controlled, for the most part, by leftists.
If Alandeus is Wikipedia’s name for a guy named Alan, it looks like he’s a guy named Alan who thinks he’s God (Latin ‘Deus’). It appears that he was already into petty power trips when he picked his pseudonym.
Precisely: Nomen omen. The guy is omnipotent, so why be surprised? Unless, as a linguist, he chose to insert (for some reason or other) the French/Spanish preposition “de” before the designation of his geographical origin, making himself a simple Alan from the U.S.
MarkD, that would be my take, and what I tell my children. If you want to find out who first recorded a song, or the population of a town WP is fine. Anything political should be viewed with considerable suspicion, however. Like any tribal group, its editors see their perspective as the real and balanced one, with others being biased. What sources they accept, even if concrete standards are put in place, will have a lot of intuition behind it, unacknowledged.
I too have found Wikipedia to be helpful in my area of study, which isn’t a political hot topic, and I like the links to actual websites below as well as links to related articles. I’m sure there’s some kind of bias involved at some level, but how does it stack up to actual traditional encyclopedias like Britannica and others? I read them all the time as a kid and we routinely cited them as sources in my classes growing up, but I would suspect they might have had an editorial slant, too, just perhaps not as noticeable as Wikipedia these days. I’m not sure people read encyclopedias then like they read Wikipedia now; being online has maybe made it hipper for the average person to read, when the old tomes on the shelf just looked too intimidating to find out what was going on there.
You hit the nail on the head, Wikipedia is but a collection of sources that in themselves must be read and evaluated in the search for the truth.
Anyone who thinks that Wikipedia is anything more is a fool.
Politics is bloodsport to those on the left.
Editing this wiki-page in this fashion means more to “Alandeus” than it does to you or me. He will outlast you. He will exhaust you. And ultimately because of this, his spin will win and will remain in the wikipage, and your counter-point will be wiped.
There is an army of “Alandeus” clones and drones. This army can’t be bargained with, it can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity or remorse or fear and it absolutely will not stop, ever, until our ideas are dead.
Oh, give over, MR Paranoid. Right-wing bloggers are JUST as violent, and just as virulent. Try and see through your Glenn Beck false tears.
David from London: “Right-wing bloggers are JUST as violent, and just as virulent.”
Only in your paranoid dreams, David. 90% of all the violence comes from the Left – look at the number of people killed by leftists, socialists of every fetid flavor, during the last century. Look at the recent Tea Party protest violence – ALL from leftists, and mostly from SEUI union goons.
Evidence has been given regarding the violence, real and virtual of those on the left.
Please give evidence of any violence from the right.
O.K.C.
Dear Dave from London: Pooot! You know you are lying. Stop it. Right-wing freaks are estranged lost souls embraced not by even the most liberal conservative. OTH, Stalin, Pol Pot, El Che, Lenin, Chairman Mao and the other members of the Leftist cavalcade of murderers are defended by the Lowest Leftist on the Leftist Totem Pole, starting with you-know-who! Give over, indeed! Leftists truck only in propaganda, lies, and eternal ignorance, a.k.a. delusion.
That was *exactly* my experience. The other guy was unrelenting, reverting my edits within minutes almost any time of day or night. When I tried to correct something, he’d not only revert it out, but also add some more left wing tripe supporting his view.
The left in America seems to have a heck of a lot of these people who have nothing else in their lives but winning these little battles.
I gave up – it objectively wasn’t worth it.
The only good that came out of it was I ended up with a very good collection of books on the subject of the dispute.
Wikipedia has deteriorated over the years, owing to political editing, to such an extent that I will no longer consult it on even the least controversial of subjects. I wrote to them last year stating my position but have given up waiting for a reply.
I’m an engineer… so that means I have to fix things when I see something that is broken. Here is a broken system. Two people fighting over how they thing some article should be written. Currently what is written is determined by whomever has the most time to changes the article more often. That hardly seems logical.
This should be easy to fix using the swarm mind. Wiki should keep it’s rev history and color code that which has been changed the last few times. That way the reader could see what has been changed and what it was changed from. If something keeps getting changed more then a few times by the same people it is captured into a different page as a “Contention.” Each side can write an short summery of what they want written there and WHY. Neither of them are allowed to alter the others argument. Let the reader decide for themselves.
I also am an engineer, which is probably one reason it so annoys me to see blatant lies out there.
Wikipedia already has the systems you describe. It is trivial to find the editing history. You can compare any version you want with any other version.
The fundamental idea is flawed, and no amount of tinkering with it is likely to fix it. Like so many “good” ideas dreamed up by liberal intellectuals, Wikipedia works far better in theory than in practice – on controversial issues.
On less controversial issues, it’s often very good. Last night I spent quite a bit of time reading on Wiki about dreadnaughts (there’s an obscure topic) because they were the subject of a novel I read. Wikipedia was my first choice for that subject, and was excellent.
I’m sorry to spoil a perfectly good misconception, but the main dudes behind Wikipedia were a couple pretty conservative philosophy buffs. Wikipedia supremo Jimbo Wales is a disciple of Ayn Rand.
The problem with Wikipedia is not its “open source” concept, though it would actually be pretty neat if it worked that way. The problem is that the way it is advertised and the way it operates are two very different things.
The biggest problem with Wikipedia, as John Rosenthal found in the heavy-handed censoring of his entry, is that Jimmy Wales and the boyz are hypocrites of the first water. Like most who consider themselves political and social “progressives”, they don’t actually believe in all that democracy stuff they talk about. Rather, like most liberals/socialists they believe that for the good of “society” there must be an elite class of more intelligent and more righteous individuals who guide the benighted proletariat through the dangerous maze that is life. That way the masses won’t have to think too hard, and the “right” decisions will be guaranteed.
To accomplish this internet nirvana Wikipedia introduced the “Super Editor” class, which consists of just the sort of morally superior beings who feel comfortable in choosing what is good for people to see. If there is a conservative among these beings with exceptional editing powers, there’s never been any evidence of it. And being creatures of a higher order, of course they’re followers of The One, for whom directing lesser beings in the way they should go is second nature. Thus Wikipedia has become a place where basic historical events, ordinarily immune to ideological spin, are in fact formed and shaped to fit the current socialist trends. Inconvenient facts are even expunged, as in Stalin’s history books.
So we’ve wound up with an information source which operates much more like a commissariat than the open and free place for exchanging knowledge that the Wiki propaganda spews about. Don’t expect the truth from Wikipedia, because that’s not what it’s there for. It has become just another liberal propaganda machine. Because the truth scares them.
1. The film is about a former British prime minister who is suspected of having been controlled by the CIA….The fact that such a film received some €5 million in backing from the country that led the self-styled “axis of peace” that opposed the war struck me as being of evident public interest.
After losing his bid for reelection, SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder became chairman of the board at Russia’s Gazprom. SPD Chancellor Willy Brandt’s closest aide was a spy for Communist East Germany.
Just sayin’…
2. But let’s not forget Blair and the Saudis. Not to mention Bush and the Saudis.
@ 7. David Levavi The core premise of the film–that the US needs to plant moles inside the British government to influence British policy–is plainly ludicrous and misunderstands American-British relations since WWII. It does however accurately reflect the Soviet method of relationships and operation, even as recently revealed.
Wikipoodle is a fluffy exercise in which Alan Deus Ex Machina and similar agents of stalwart political organization and conviction can persistently sustain their belief-system. As an American translator in Germany who supports all the richtige German causes and mainstream political positions, he evidently is particularly insulated (and cosseted) from anything like facts that might sway his opinion.
Practically all films that are produced in Babelsberg are eligible for or get Federal funding, i.e. loans, so interpreting so much political ill will into it is carrying it a bit far
If that’s true then it removes much of the sting from your charge. You at least imply that this particular film received special treatment.
As a university instructor we allow then to use wikipedia as a source to find other references but they can not use it as a citation (except maybe definitions). They have to use per-reviewed journal articles or published books. I personally use it as a pointer to find other sources not as a reference itself just for this reason. And yes too many experts get shot down because the talk an inconvenient truth
Unfortunately, the peer-review system has also been subverted. For example, just look, if you can find them, at the Climate-gate e-mails, and the commentaries thereon. Modern peer-reviewed journals are sometimes no more credible than Wikipedia.
What compounds the problem of identifying errors, or mischievous deception, or plagiarism in many cases of academic writing, is that the modern, approved standards are insufficient: the APA method of citation, for instance, which is endorsed by Sociology, English and Education faculties et al., allows citations which are almost impossible to check properly because, if you paraphrase another work in your paper, under APA rules, you need not provide a page number. Accordingly, if you paraphrased multiple authors, and provided no page numbers, I then need to read many entire books to find the referenced passages. So, if I have a peer-reviewed text, and I wish to prove that its claims are unsubstantiated, and selected out of context, and fundamentally meaningless in the first place, or if I suspect that you’ve just copied huge slabs of another author’s original research, my locating the original claims and passages may take weeks of hard reading. It is so much easier to say, “this work contains proper citations, it has been peer-reviewed, and it was published by a reputable publisher: it must be perfectly fine.”
Wikipedia is flawed at a fundamental, philosophical level, in that it is biased towards the inaccurate, the ignorant, and the trivial. Imagine we have two Wikipedians. One is a tenured professor of theology at a well-respected private university, with many publications to his name and a reputation as a serious scholar. The other is a seventeen-year-old high-school dropout without a job living in his parents’ basement. On any article, including articles regarding theology, Wikipedia’s fundamental philosophy gives precedence to the high-school dropout rather than the professor. Why? Because according to Wikipedia, the strength of open-source encyclopedias is that anyone can edit them; anyone can contribute some tiny tidbit of information, no matter how uncredentialed they are. Democracy in action, right? One man, one vote, and the professor and the dropout’s votes count for exactly the same. Except that the dropout is utterly ignorant of theology, and the professor is an expert. And yet in an edit war, the professor will lose. Because the professor has a job. To maintain his expertise, he has to research. He has to lecture. He has to write and he has to publish. He can’t hang around and edit-snipe an article on Wikipedia regarding transubstantiation no matter how much he would like to. The dropout has plenty of time to tinker with Wikipedia. He has lots of time to revert any edits anyone makes to his (ignorant) views on transubstantiation. So he wins by default.
This, coincidentally, is why at several Wiki-related conventions, speakers were actually charged for the right to address the conventioneers. Traditionally, speakers at conventions are given a small stipend to cover costs of travel, lodging, etc., because the assumption is that they are speaking from their expertise, and that expertise is valuable. However, if, like Wikipedia, you view all contributors as equally expert, then it becomes impossible to winnow down potential speakers. Unless you charge them. Money, not knowledge, becomes the coin of the realm when objectivity is thrown out the window.
Because that’s what Wikipedia is. It’s the subjective encyclopedia, premised on the view that reality is democratic, with all viewpoints equally valid. But reality is not a democracy. It’s a dictatorship: the dictatorship of the real.
My fear is it will become the place to go for our youth. Before they have developed enough intellectualy to fight back. The circle is closed.
The point of this article may be valid and the author’s arguing is certainly sound.
Nevertheless, John Rosenthal could have had a more thorough look into the inner wheelings and dealings of “wikipedia”, especially the German edition.
In doing so, the character of his writing might have remained one of episodic yet acute urgency. Yet, it might have grown into a somewhat more substantiated critique of the matter that is “wikipedia”.
For instance, John Rosenthal could engage himself in a more thorough investigation into which organisation is punctually involved with the German edition of wikipedia; both in terms of staff/collaborateurs, money/donations and its stated intent on publishing the German “wikipedia” in print (as an “encyclopaedic yearbook”).
In doing so, John Rosenthal might have stumbled upon and shed some light on the “Bertelsmann Foundation”.
A lot of the “fine tuning” and “editing” of the more, dare we say “crucial” German “wikipedia” entries is attributed to BF, lending to it those cherished Minitrue touches.
Bertelsmann Media Group and its subsidiaries may be well known, but they don’t only work their agenda through MSM. For instance, many of their media operate the same perceptive bias that “wikipedia” shows, and vice versa.
It could have been interesting to know the beef of that story, too.
Gerrit, What would happen if someone were to put Mr. Rosenthal’s information about the German government funding of the “Ghost Writer” movie into the German language version of the Wiki article? Who would edit it then? Would the average German reader be nonplussed by the information, more or less assuming government subsidies for movies?? Or, perhaps surprised that an English language movie was paid for by German taxpayers?
Alandeus (de=Deutsch, us=USA) here, joining the fray.
True, caution needs to be taken when citing Wikipedia as a source. Consequently, caution also needs to be taken when citing sources. Wikipedia has a policy for identifying reliable sources (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NEWSBLOG#Newspaper_and_magazine_.22blogs.22). The question was whether or not PajamaMedia qualifies.
On the one hand, it may be unqualified as a group blog as according to “Self-published sources (online and paper)”: “Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason self-published media—including but not limited to books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, personal or group blogs, Internet forum postings, and tweets—are largely not acceptable.”
On the other hand, it may qualify as a “Newspaper and magazine ‘blog’”: “Some newspapers host interactive columns that they call blogs; these are acceptable as sources so long as the writers are professionals and the blog is subject to the newspaper’s full editorial control. …” Although there is no actual newspaper or magazine here to back it up, there seems to be an editorial oversight in place.
Therefore, the qualification as a reliable source according to Wikipedia seems to be a boarder line case here for PajamaMedia. Judging now by the more established status of PajamaMedia, I’d say PajamaMedia qualifies. Thus, I’d like to apology for any upset feelings. And, I caused confusion on the amount or conditions of repayment. I may have picked this up on some other German site to that matter. The amount of the subsidy as a fact to back up the grant procedure ought to be re-inserted; being of interest to all.
One thing I would like to point out in conclusion however. The main idea remains that grants or subsidies can and are given to practically all feature-length films produced in Germany. Regarding content, the only limitation is that it “…may not violate the German Constitution or the laws in force in the Federal Republic of Germany, or moral or religious feelings, and they may not show sexual matters or brutalities in a garishly coarse, speculative manner.” (See http://www.ffa.de/downloads/dfff/richtlinie/DFFF-Richtlinie_en.pdf page 7.) Therefore, insinuating any political motivations is uncalled for. What proofs do you have otherwise for this claim?
Some further clarification on grants vs. loans:
The German Federal Film Board (Filmförderungsanstalt (FFA)) [[http://www.ffa.de/]] is the superordinate organization of the German Federal Film Fund (DFFF) [[http://www.ffa.de/content_dfff/dfff_leitfaden.phtml?language=en]].
It is actually the German Federal Film Board (Filmförderungsanstalt (FFA)) [[http://www.ffa.de/]] that “can grant project funding as a conditionally repayable, interest-fee loan…” for ‘Selective funding according to the project principle’ [[http://www.ffa.de/content/profil_druckversion.phtml?sprache=_en]]
This is where I got my information about the repayable loans.
Also under the same “Production funding” heading, “Automatic funding according to the ‘reference’ principle”, a “… producer with headquarters in Germany is entitled to subsidy as a grant…”. This is where the DFFF steps in with its “funding need not be repaid”.
So, sorry that I did not make a good enough difference between the FFA and the DFFF.
It’s of course true that the German government under chancellor Gerhard Schröder opposed the Iraq War in 2002/03. However, since 2005 Germany has been governed by his successor Angela Merkel, who had very publicly supported the course of Blair and Bush back then. See, for example, her February 2003 article “Schröder Doesn’t Speak for All Germans” in the Washington Post.
Mr. Rosenthal fails to give a convincing explanation why Merkel’s government would have had a political incentive to fund a film that discredits her own stance regarding the Iraq War.
What were the party affiliations/ political biases of those who handed out the funds? They were not necessarily in agreement with Merkel. While Merkel does not have the reflexive anti-Americanism of Schroeder and Herta Däubler-Gmelin, there are plenty of Germans who agree with Schroeder and Frau Herta.
The Wikipedia entry in both German and English on Herta Däubler-Gmelin is a prime example of Wikipedia’s bias. Here is what Wikipedia in English says about her father.
German Wikipedia article on Herta Däubler-Gmelin has the following to say about her father:
From World Politics Review, we learn that Hans Gmelin’s history as a diplomat was not something his daughter would be proud of:
Germans of Herta Däubler-Gmelin’s generation are not responsible for the sins of their forbears. That a given German had a Nazi in the family tree is generally irrelevant to events in the 21st century. However, in Herta Däubler-Gmelin’s case, her father’s background does appear to have some relevance. Her outspoken criticism of Americans seems an attempt to expiate the sins of her father: see, the Amis are just as bad.
As such, her father’s Nazi background is relevant, and some mention of it should have been made in the Wikipedia article on her. IIRC, some time in the past two years I have seen some mention of her father’s Nazi background in the German version of Wikipedia, but I lack the language skills to go back and search.
The German version of Wikipedia does have an entry on Hans Gmelin, which discusses his Nazi background, which is also linked to in the German language article on Herta Däubler-Gmelin.
I, frankly, find it rather amazing that after the character of his previous Wikipedia edits was exposed in the above article, “Alandeus”/Alan Benson has the nerve to offer “further clarification” for the benefit of Pajamas Media readers. I will certainly not get involved in any debate with him. But let it be noted for the record that his “further clarification” contains further obfuscation. The German Federal Film Board (FFA)is *not* the “superordinate” organization of the German Film Fund (DFFF). As noted in my original article on “Berlinollywood,” the DFFF is a program of the Department of Culture and Media of the German government. The FFA *administers* the program on behalf of the government or, more precisely, on behalf of the “culture minister,” as the head of the department is colloquially known. See Article 15 of the current DFFF guidelines cited in the above article or the FFA report here — http://www.ffa.de/downloads/publikationen/GB_FFA_2006.pdf — p. 7: “The FFA was commissioned by the federal government to take over the administrative implementation of the DFFF starting January 1, 2007.” The FFA has its own film financing program involving “reference” grants. But that is a different matter.
Forgive my *nerve*, but further clarification can always be helpful. You write that the “FFA is *not* the superordinate organization of the German Film Fund.” However, you go on to cite reference to the opposite: “…FFA was commissioned … to take over the administrative implementation of the DFFF.” Elsewhere in that source, it says that the DFFF is a further column of the FFA. I think we are beginning to split hairs here now about who passes out the money and who supervises whom. The basic issue remains though that I am trying to point out that there is no political favouritism here, to which you have not responded. But then again, I doubt you will, because you “will certainly not get involved in any debate.”
Another example of Wiki censorship is and article that remotely references Global Warming is censored by a cabal of people headed by two censors, William Connolley and Kim D. Petersen. You will find these peoples names under the discussion tab of every topic remotely related to global warming.
I say, to all those howling about WP here, you have to understand what Wikipedia is and how it works. No, it is not an encyclopaedia like a book. No your status as a professor doesn’t mean your word automatically has more weight than mine or anyone else’s. That can’t work in the digital age. There are indeed a huge swathe of rules about how you should edit. I think most people here are upset because they don’t understand the model.
WP is of its time. The reason it’s interesting is that it is an approach working itself out before our eyes. Nobody is says it’s faultless or even the most desirable container for sharing knowledge. But it *is* what evolved and you can be sure that the future will grow through this form into something as yet unthought of. And no, it probably won’t be comfortable for any of us who just got used to Wikipedia.
if you are tired of the liberal bias of wikipedia try conservapedia instead. http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page
I heartily second this… As you can certainly tell from the front page at Conservapedia, THEY certainly have no political axes to grind. Every word there is blissfully free of political bias… /s
The comment above by Anna is on the mark. If you really want to understand the decision-making system at Wikipedia, its utility and its flaws, its strengths and its weaknesses, that information is there for the discovery. Start by trying to understand the concept of “Neutral Point of View” and then maybe the shallowness of complaints like “every time I try to insert criticism of Obama, no matter where I put it, it gets reverted” or “every time I insert ‘…and mass murderer’ next to Che Guevarra’s name, it disappears,” will start to become obvious… If you go into Wikipedia trying to score cheap political points on the other “team,” you’re not grasping the point of the exercise. If you dive into a hot-topic issue trying to score cheap political points, left or right, you won’t.
Conservatives seeking an alternative venue for tendentious writing: please, do investigate Conservapedia. It’s there for you.
The fact is that there are smart conservatives and smart liberals and smart radicals and a big majority of people who don’t care a whit about politics co-existing on Wikipedia. We’ve all got our little missions and we’re doing our best. There is more than ample room for criticism, mistakes made. My own view is that there is inadequate attention to “veracity” and an excessive compulsion with the notions of “notability” and “reliability.” I also have faith in the future. Do remember, this is a project in its infancy.
Wow, this is fascinating. An article, and several comments, from people who tried to use wikipedia to push minute social agendas in unrelated articles and found their entries removed! I’m actually doing research on the viability of wikipedia and this is a great exhibit for the idea that the evaluation policies are actually working.
Seriously? In an article about a motorcycle, you feel it was unfair that your personal opinions about Che weren’t deemed relevant? “OMG the guy that removed my conspiracy theory style footnotes was a German who protested the war. See how they’re all out to GET ME?”
I’ve had my bit of fun posting my political opinions in the articles of certain public figures. Some of the stuff I’ve posted could even be demonstrated objectively. I also know its not relevant to the nature of wikipedia. Wikipedia isn’t an op ed page, its a place for gathering the best consensus of actual facts we can accumulate. Trying to use it to promote personal agendas, especially ones that specific, belies the very nature of the product. Everything I’m reading here illustrates that wikipedia is probably working pretty well.
Wikipedia is unfortunately a cesspool of dihonest liberals and leftists who hone their skills of deception and hide behind a mask of cowardly anonymity. They’re begging for money now again from the public as volunteers leave in droves. May their appeals ring on deaf ears and this ill-advised experiment in Mob Rule be done with once and for all.
With reference to your experiences, know that a very wise rabbi has said: “Liberals (Leftists) are the biggest of all frauds”.
Wikipedia can be a real pita. I thought it was just me, but looks like they are being “selective” with others.
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