Censorship at wikipedia Options

[communicat]

Censorship, according to Jimbo, is "antithetical to the philosophy of Wikipedia". But while he's preaching to the Chinese about freedom of information, he somehow manages to turn a blind eye to what's going on in his own backyard. Anyone who doubts that censorship is actually the norm in certain important wikipedia topic areas, should have a look at these off-wiki articles. And no, you won't find any links to them on wikipedia; they've been blacklisted. Here are the links:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/...hip-462070.html

http://www.serendipity.li/wot/sft_wikipedia.htm

http://www.serendipity.li/hr/bacque_on_wikipedia.htm

http://hnn.us/articles/125437.html

http://www.ahealedplanet.net/wikimass.htm

This post has been edited by communicat: Thu 4th August 2011, 10:22am

[Jagärdu]

Censorship, according to Jimbo, is "antithetical to the philosophy of Wikipedia". But while he's preaching to the Chinese about freedom of information, he somehow manages to turn a blind eye to what's going on in his own backyard. Anyone who doubts that censorship is actually the norm in certain important wikipedia topic areas, should have a look at these off-wiki articles. And no, you won't find any links to them on wikipedia; they've been blacklisted. Here are the links:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/...hip-462070.html

http://www.serendipity.li/wot/sft_wikipedia.htm

http://www.serendipity.li/hr/bacque_on_wikipedia.htm

http://hnn.us/articles/125437.html

http://www.ahealedplanet.net/wikimass.htm

What a misleading title and opening description of the topic. What some of these articles describe is a certain form of POV pushing, not "censorship." For instance big corporations editing out unflattering stuff as part of their PR operations. Yes that sucks and it shouldn't happen but is it really "censorhip"? Then you link to 911 conspiracies and fringe books. Seriously? Keeping 911 conspiracy theories out of the encyclopedia isn't something I'd bandy about to criticize them with.

[thekohser]

Jimbo frequently practices censorship. He shouldn't be speaking about it.

[Wikifan]

yea the truthers link totally discredits your arguments.

guess ill have to leave you with....u mad bro?

u mad?

http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2011.../Kobe-U-Mad.jpg

This post has been edited by Wikifan: Thu 4th August 2011, 12:36pm

[Jagärdu]

Jimbo frequently practices censorship. He shouldn't be speaking about it.

You people have a pretty broad understanding of "censorship". Censorship would be oversighting the comment entirely. Evasiveness when confronted with something that makes you uncomfortable because you don't have any answers that wont make you look bad is not censorship. If I had my druthers the term censorship would be stricken from the English language because it is abused all the time in the modern world, especially in places where the new libertarianism of Web 2.0 can be found. That includes Wikipedia of course, but also Wikipedia Review.

[thekohser]

Jimbo frequently practices censorship. He shouldn't be speaking about it.

You people have a pretty broad understanding of "censorship". Censorship would be oversighting the comment entirely. Evasiveness when confronted with something that makes you uncomfortable because you don't have any answers that wont make you look bad is not censorship. If I had my druthers the term censorship would be stricken from the English language because it is abused all the time in the modern world, especially in places where the new libertarianism of Web 2.0 can be found. That includes Wikipedia of course, but also Wikipedia Review.

What if Silver Seren repeated his request for comment on Jimmy's talk page three more times?

What would happen then?

Be honest.

[Milton Roe]

Jimbo frequently practices censorship. He shouldn't be speaking about it.

You people have a pretty broad understanding of "censorship". Censorship would be oversighting the comment entirely. Evasiveness when confronted with something that makes you uncomfortable because you don't have any answers that wont make you look bad is not censorship. If I had my druthers the term censorship would be stricken from the English language because it is abused all the time in the modern world, especially in places where the new libertarianism of Web 2.0 can be found. That includes Wikipedia of course, but also Wikipedia Review.

Wikipedia Review doesn't claim to be WP:NOTCENSORED.

Right now, Jimbo Wales, with a straight face, is suggesting that WP is losing editors due to "convoluted editing templates." Whatever this editing template problem is, it must be a hell of a nasty software thing, since it's affecting recruitment and retention of administrators on WP, also. The journalists asking the softball questions are too ignorant to know about that, and if they do know, are mostly too overworked or lazy to connect the dots to see that Jimbo is self-evidently full of shit, or else they are too jaded to really care whether he is or not. Or all three.

Not only is there a broad class of problems with Wikipedia that WMF will not discuss in public, there's a class that they won't even allow to be discussed on Wikipedia. Hence, the need for Wikipedia Review. A few journalists and others occasionally read here, especially if Google can find the comment topically.

[communicat]

Censorship, according to Jimbo, is "antithetical to the philosophy of Wikipedia". But while he's preaching to the Chinese about freedom of information, he somehow manages to turn a blind eye to what's going on in his own backyard. Anyone who doubts that censorship is actually the norm in certain important wikipedia topic areas, should have a look at these off-wiki articles. And no, you won't find any links to them on wikipedia; they've been blacklisted. Here are the links:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/...hip-462070.html

http://www.serendipity.li/wot/sft_wikipedia.htm

http://www.serendipity.li/hr/bacque_on_wikipedia.htm

http://hnn.us/articles/125437.html

http://www.ahealedplanet.net/wikimass.htm

What a misleading title and opening description of the topic. What some of these articles describe is a certain form of POV pushing, not "censorship." For instance big corporations editing out unflattering stuff as part of their PR operations. Yes that sucks and it shouldn't happen but is it really "censorhip"? Then you link to 911 conspiracies and fringe books. Seriously? Keeping 911 conspiracy theories out of the encyclopedia isn't something I'd bandy about to criticize them with.

Watergate started out as a "conspiracy theory", as Nixon described it. And look where that got Nixon. Same applies to Reagan and the Iran-Contra affair. And look where that got Reagan. I suppose if wikipedia was around at those times, it would have seen "fringe" theories all over the place, as it does now, and so do you.

[Ottava]

I found it odd that the Independent claims that the Catholic Church and the Republican Party have some how taken over Wikipedia and used it to push their PR. If that is the case, then both are really, really failing hard because I don't even see such positives on the pages regarding the organizations let alone on secondary topics. It seems that their opposition has far more sway than them.

By the way, the Independent article only follows IPs, and most IPs that they complain about are IPs targetting their own BLP related article for the most part and are complaining about overly negative bias on the article. That is true for many politicians of either party.

This post has been edited by Ottava: Thu 4th August 2011, 6:01pm

[communicat]

Jimbo frequently practices censorship. He shouldn't be speaking about it.

You people have a pretty broad understanding of "censorship". Censorship would be oversighting the comment entirely. Evasiveness when confronted with something that makes you uncomfortable because you don't have any answers that wont make you look bad is not censorship. If I had my druthers the term censorship would be stricken from the English language because it is abused all the time in the modern world, especially in places where the new libertarianism of Web 2.0 can be found. That includes Wikipedia of course, but also Wikipedia Review.

You're lost in a time-warp, pal. But before you find your way back to the Dark Ages, where you belong, take a look at Wikipedia's stated NPOV policy. It says that a range of viewpoints must be incorporated in any given article, including minority viewpoints. That rule is rarely if ever properly applied. Views that deviate from the "mainstream" are invariably reverted. In other words, censorship. And don't forget, what might be considered a "fringe" view in America may well be a mainstream view in other parts of the world. So who's to dictate what is and what is not "fringe"? I'll tell you who: certain heavily-biased cabalistic retards who pass themselves off as "editors". Maybe you're one of them?

[EricBarbour]

Thanks for reminding me about the Edwin Black article.
Another interview to add to the pile.

(It's funnier than hell that he was helped by Stifle. Normally Stifle would be
helping to defame him.)

[timbo]

God damn, what a bunch of weak links...

2007?

Two truther links?

A piece by Edwin Black that I very much doubt he'd write today?

Hmmmmm.



tim

[Silver seren]

Jimbo frequently practices censorship. He shouldn't be speaking about it.

You people have a pretty broad understanding of "censorship". Censorship would be oversighting the comment entirely. Evasiveness when confronted with something that makes you uncomfortable because you don't have any answers that wont make you look bad is not censorship. If I had my druthers the term censorship would be stricken from the English language because it is abused all the time in the modern world, especially in places where the new libertarianism of Web 2.0 can be found. That includes Wikipedia of course, but also Wikipedia Review.

What if Silver Seren repeated his request for comment on Jimmy's talk page three more times?

What would happen then?

Be honest.

I would probably get in trouble for...something. I don't know what exactly Jimbo and his army of admin talk page watchers would use to get me in trouble.

Likely the generic "blocked for disruptive editing" or something to that effect.

[Milton Roe]

Jimbo frequently practices censorship. He shouldn't be speaking about it.

You people have a pretty broad understanding of "censorship". Censorship would be oversighting the comment entirely. Evasiveness when confronted with something that makes you uncomfortable because you don't have any answers that wont make you look bad is not censorship. If I had my druthers the term censorship would be stricken from the English language because it is abused all the time in the modern world, especially in places where the new libertarianism of Web 2.0 can be found. That includes Wikipedia of course, but also Wikipedia Review.

What if Silver Seren repeated his request for comment on Jimmy's talk page three more times?

What would happen then?

Be honest.

I would probably get in trouble for...something. I don't know what exactly Jimbo and his army of admin talk page watchers would use to get me in trouble.

Likely the generic "blocked for disruptive editing" or something to that effect.

Wasn't there are an ArbComm decision that addressed whether or not you were entitled to simply wipe comments off your TALK page without comment. It was a favorte tick of SlimVirgin's. As I remember, when people-not-liked did it, the Communiteh decided that your TALK page is not entirely "your own."

[radek]

Same applies to Reagan and the Iran-Contra affair. And look where that got Reagan. I suppose if wikipedia was around at those times, it would have seen "fringe" theories all over the place, as it does now, and so do you.

Huh? Reagan got away with IC and two years later people elected his boy, Bush Sr. So it didn't really got him anywhere. A bit of embarrassment maybe but probably less than Clinton with Lewinsky. Yes, sometimes in the real world people get away with stuff they shouldn't get away with. Stalin died a natural death and all.

[EricBarbour]

God damn, what a bunch of weak links...
2007?
Two truther links?

Perhaps, but you still suck, Carrite.

[communicat]

God damn, what a bunch of weak links...

2007?

Two truther links?

A piece by Edwin Black that I very much doubt he'd write today?

Hmmmmm.



tim

Nothing has changed since 2007. Wikipedia is not dynamic. It is static. That's maybe why Jimbo's currently bewailing the shortage of editors. That's why also there's a much ignored wikipedia page WP:WORLDVIEW, (as yet not AFD'd), which highlights bias through omission, i.e. censorship by any other name.

[communicat]

If you'd really like to see some longstanding and still currently ongoing censorship in action, take a look at wikipedia's article on World War II. It's claimed to be one of Wikipedia's "most successful" and the "tenth most visited " article. on wikipedia. It's also probably one of wikipedia's longest articles, relying on nearly 400 reference citations. Curiously, however, nearly all the references are from conservative Western mainstream sources, with only one source that deviates from the mainstream position (i.e. revisionist historian Prof. AJP Taylor). Never mind about what the NPOV rules state about the incorporation of a range of viewpoints on any given subject. The nazi-mentality admin censors like Nick-D and his cabalist sidekicks like Edward321 will ensure you're blocked for "POV-pushing" if you try to add any non-Western (or even Western) source that deviates from the cosy, Western-biased, fairy-tale version of World War II. Namely: it was a good war, the Anglo-Americans won it single-handedly, and the Russians (who lost nearly 50 million lives in the fight against Hitler) are hardly worth mentioning. Encyclopaedic content? No. Censorship? Definitely.

[EricBarbour]

It's also probably one of wikipedia's longest articles, relying on nearly 400 reference citations.

So what, until people decided to shorten it, Fanny Crosby was 283k bytes and had 825 references.

Curiously, however, nearly all the references are from conservative Western mainstream sources, with only one source that deviates from the mainstream position (i.e. revisionist historian Prof. AJP Taylor). Never mind about what the NPOV rules state about the incorporation of a range of viewpoints on any given subject. The nazi-mentality admin censors like Nick-D and his cabalist sidekicks like Edward321 will ensure you're blocked for "POV-pushing" if you try to add any non-Western (or even Western) source that deviates from the cosy, Western-biased, fairy-tale version of World War II. Namely: it was a good war, the Anglo-Americans won it single-handedly, and the Russians (who lost nearly 50 million lives in the fight against Hitler) are hardly worth mentioning.

That's because there aren't enough English speaking Russians editing. And there never will be, as long as things keep declining as they are.

(Did you know that en-WP is loaded with thousands of articles about cities, town, villages, and other places in India? The coverage of Indian geography is almost as good as the coverage of English geography. Because Indian editors who can write in English have been editing. That's one of the major biases of Wikipedia--if large numbers of English-speaking people don't get in there and push their own ethnic or historical POV, it gets ignored. Wikipedia is a wargame, and a drug.)

[radek]

It's also probably one of wikipedia's longest articles, relying on nearly 400 reference citations.

So what, until people decided to shorten it, Fanny Crosby was 283k bytes and had 825 references.

Curiously, however, nearly all the references are from conservative Western mainstream sources, with only one source that deviates from the mainstream position (i.e. revisionist historian Prof. AJP Taylor). Never mind about what the NPOV rules state about the incorporation of a range of viewpoints on any given subject. The nazi-mentality admin censors like Nick-D and his cabalist sidekicks like Edward321 will ensure you're blocked for "POV-pushing" if you try to add any non-Western (or even Western) source that deviates from the cosy, Western-biased, fairy-tale version of World War II. Namely: it was a good war, the Anglo-Americans won it single-handedly, and the Russians (who lost nearly 50 million lives in the fight against Hitler) are hardly worth mentioning.

That's because there aren't enough English speaking Russians editing. And there never will be, as long as things keep declining as they are.

(Did you know that en-WP is loaded with thousands of articles about cities, town, villages, and other places in India? The coverage of Indian geography is almost as good as the coverage of English geography. Because Indian editors who can write in English have been editing. That's one of the major biases of Wikipedia--if large numbers of English-speaking people don't get in there and push their own ethnic or historical POV, it gets ignored. Wikipedia is a wargame, and a drug.)

There really should be much more about the Soviet Union's participation in the World War II article. And yes, Western source do tend spend a whole bunch of time on some minor skirmish on some beach in the north of France rather than the much more massive and consequential developments on the Eastern Front (a book which Cla68 recommend, a "War to be Won", while very good at what it is, is also more or less the quintessential work in this vein, which manages to mention the Soviets only as an afterthought, relatively speaking, nm things like Polish or Yugoslav resistance). So I sympathize with communicat here. But I also paid enough attention to the on-wiki developments to know that that ain't what he got banned for. It's one of those "grain of truth but crazy shit anyway" kind of things.

Also AJP Taylor is about as mainstream as it gets. Definitely not a "revisionist historian".

This is probably the post at which this stuff should be moved to the annex.