Wikipedia ideology project Options

[Herschelkrustofsky]

Spare us the patriotic BS, we all know how communists, LaRouchians, neo-Nazis, scientologists, fundamentalists, micronationalists, iridologists, and the like are all treated on Wikipedia; there is really only one eccentricity tolerated on Wikipedia, and that is 'very strange sexual preference', which is mainly a random fluke resulting from Wikipedia's pornographic founder effect. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/huh.gif)

from A frustrated admin speaks his mind

That was a succinct listing of POVs that are demonized or forbidden at Wikipedia. I'd like to put together a picture of those POVs that are preferred and protected at Wikipedia, in order to produce an overview of what I call the IPOV (Institutional Point of View.)

Let's start with Jimbo and the Ayn Rand stuff. That fits generally into what is called a libertarian (with a small l, to differentiate it from the party) outlook. Basically, it is the negation of the concept common to some of the ideologies that are forbidden on Wikipedia (Communism and LaRouchism): that society has a moral duty to look after the well-being of it's weakest members, to foster their intellectual development and sustain them at a dignified standard of living. The libertarian view is that it's every man for himself, period, and government must not impose any moral standard on society or its individual members. For the quote-unquote leftists, this translates into the counterculture, where everyone ought to "do his own thing, as long as it doesn't interfere with the rights of others to do the same." For the quote-unquote rightists, it has evolved into neo-conservatism, which takes it a step farther: do your own thing, and go ahead and interfere with the rights of others, if you are big enough to kick their asses. This outlook also overlaps heavily with Social Darwinism, which in my book is essentially the same as regular Darwinism (we can debate this further if anyone is interested.)

Where am I going with this? Well, I have noticed that there are a number of articles that are zealously protected from the introduction of any significant criticism of the subjects. These include Neoconservatism, Counterculture, Frankfurt School, Leo Strauss, and Privatization. And you find a lot of the commonly held beliefs about the great divide between Right and Left break down at Wikipedia (and in society more generally.) Putative Leftist Chip Berlet defends Neocons, accusing their critics of anti-Semitism, for example. And the ArbCom makes an astonishing special rule for Chip in the Nobs01 and others case, where it is determined that criticism of public figure Chip Berlet shall be considered equivalent to personal attacks on Wikipedia editor Cberlet. I also saw that 172, who I think someone here described as a "progressive," launched a monster edit war to defend Privatization from criticism. User:172 now has noted on his user page that he has been called a "stone neo-con" by the Wikipedia Review (actually it was by me, writing in the Wikipedia review, and I believe that I said that he "struck me as being a stone neo-con.")

So, add Chip Berlet to the list of zealously protected articles. And, add Animal rights as well, which fits into the whole Darwinism angle because the animal rights advocates equate animals morally with people. Historically, whenever this is done, the dominant tendency is treat humans as if they were animals, and not the other way around. SlimVirgin painstaking sanitized the article, removing any reference to the fact that the Nazis were ardent advocates of Animal rights. And while we're on this topic, I think I disagree with Lir about the unusual sex stuff. Part of the whole counterculture drive in the 60s was to break the cultural assumption that sex has a socially important or moral function in society, i.e., that is strongly linked to love. If it is just another animal instinct, as the Darwinians insist, then the promotion of more and more odd expressions of sexuality is coherent with the rest of what I am trying to put together in coherent form as IPOV.

I've gone on long enough about this. I'm interested in what others think.

[Lir]

I think I disagree with Lir about the unusual sex stuff. Part of the whole counterculture drive in the 60s was to break the cultural assumption that sex has a socially important or moral function in society

I'm really not sure what you mean, or are objecting to; I've simply noticed that a significant number of the admins apparently engage openly in deviant and perverse sexual behavior which is definitely not practiced by the mainstream population, and that Jimbo Wales is a former pornographer -- although I suppose that I have opinions on the morality of such behavior, I'm not trying to make any such argument here; Im simply noting that Wikipedia favors one subculture over another, and Im suggesting that Jimbo has influenced this development.

In any case, I should have also mentioned Wikipedia's pro-libertarian bias; in fact, my first edit war at Wikipedia was in regards to this issue, as I noted that the anarcho-capitalist faction had been redirecting links at the anarchism page, such that the reader was continually directed towards articles on capitalist libertarianism; because of that edit war, I was already labelled as a trouble maker, and things went downhill when I started editing the Christopher Columbus page, and again got into an edit war, where I correctly claimed that Columbus was a slavetrader (to the vehement disagreement of the admin Zoe). Anyways, the point here, is that the libertarian issue undoubtedly derives from Jimbo's POV.

So, in conclusion, Jimbo supports 'kinky sex stuff' and 'libertarian capitalism' -- and so does his website!

[Herschelkrustofsky]

I think I disagree with Lir about the unusual sex stuff. Part of the whole counterculture drive in the 60s was to break the cultural assumption that sex has a socially important or moral function in society

I'm really not sure what you mean, or are objecting to; I've simply noticed that a significant number of the admins apparently engage openly in deviant and perverse sexual behavior which is definitely not practiced by the mainstream population, and that Jimbo Wales is a former pornographer -- although I suppose that I have opinions on the morality of such behavior, I'm not trying to make any such argument here; Im simply noting that Wikipedia favors one subculture over another, and Im suggesting that Jimbo has influenced this development.

I was disagreeing with the statement that "'very strange sexual preference'... is mainly a random fluke." I think it is completely consistent with all the other philosophical outlooks mentioned. I might even go so far as to suggest that the various types of libertarians have difficulty with the concept of love, and so for them, sex becomes more and more a matter of desperation.

[Saltimbanco]

I don't think it's a matter of ideology so much as sociology - it is not so much that libertarians etc. are preferentially promoted/supported as that a social entity bent on control has formed, and there are no limiting pressures on it. That the entity first took root among libertarian-leaning people is incidental; it could as easily have taken root among socialists or any other group.

In a normal human society, a democratic-like decision making process will almost always lead to a bifurcation of society. Each individual will want to have his values represented as accurately as possible, but will realize that, in order to have his valued represented at all, he must belong to a coalition that represents a majority of the population. Such coalitions will take on a life of their own, each of them trying to find a mix of values to promote that will make it the prefered coalition of a majority of the population ... but only a bare majority of the population, because subgroups of members of a super-majority coalition can develop a mix of values that more accurately match their own, serving them better, while still maintaining majority support. (Really, the type of person who does best in a democratic decision making process is one who values only control: he will throw his lot with, and adapt his stated values to suit, whichever coalition he believes is most likely to win out - can you say, "Karl Rove?")

In Wikipedia, however, another tool is available: expulsion. Once a single coalition has taken control, it will move to expel anyone who challenges its dominance, and thus it does not have to dilute its values in order to maintain a majority. And it can also begin to carve out its own members, eliminating those who previously had forced a dilusion of the coalition's values. The only limiting factors are external: the controlled entity can start to become so out-of-step with the rest of the world that it loses relevance. And this is arguably what is happening to Wikipedia: the controlling coalition has driven away so many people, and imposed so narrow a field of acceptable viewpoints, that it is producing crap: I expect that, among major articles on Wikipedia, the current versions of the majority of them are less informative and more poorly written than ithey were six months ago.

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[Herschelkrustofsky]

I don't think it's a matter of ideology so much as sociology - it is not so much that libertarians etc. are preferentially promoted/supported as that a social entity bent on control has formed, and there are no limiting pressures on it. That the entity first took root among libertarian-leaning people is incidental; it could as easily have taken root among socialists or any other group.

In a normal human society, a democratic-like decision making process will almost always lead to a bifurcation of society. Each individual will want to have his values represented as accurately as possible, but will realize that, in order to have his valued represented at all, he must belong to a coalition that represents a majority of the population.

I have no quarrel with what you say, but I think it is worthwhile to get a handle on the ideology of those who control Wikipedia, regardless of how they came to control it. Of course, we should not overlook the fact that Jimbo founded Wikipedia and now plays a deciding role in determining the makeup of the ArbCom. The ArbCom claims that they "regulate conduct, not content," but from my experience, the two are often confused and conflated.

The other thing that I would say is that the diverse forms of left-wing and right-wing libertarianism are more or less the official ideology of the Establishment in the English-speaking world. As has been noted elsewhere, Laissez-faire is the official economic ideology of Wikipedia, and it has been imposed on most of the world through Globalization and Free Trade policies of the supranational bureaucracies such as the IMF, World Bank and WTO. The ruling cabal at Wikipedia often seems to be preoccupied with sucking up to whatever institutions are regarded as the alpha dogs. They hunger for acknowledgements like this.

[Saltimbanco]

All right, then. I tend to think that there are different strands of mutually re-inforcing editors/admins on Wikipedia. Some of the major ones:

Libertarianism
Sexual peculiarities
Zionism
"Political Correctness" (in quotes because it takes on odd forms: Columbus cannot be said to have believed in slavery, e.g.)

If you buy into more than one of these, you can probably also get enough support to push through your POV on unrelated matters. The big thing, though, is that if you try to undo any of the obvious crap in Wikipedia that has been inserted by one of the cabals, you'll get swarmed by harassing and abusive editors and admins.

And the poor kids, who probably don't care too much about any of these to begin with, get drawn into them just to participate in what passes for society in Wikipedia.

[guy]

Zionism? So Wikipedia's been taken over by the learned Elders of Zion?

[Saltimbanco]

Right - anyone who suggests Zionist influence over anything must be anitsemitic, right?

Here's an experiment for you, guy: go to Wikipedia:IDF and, either somehow under "Code of Conduct" or under a new section ("Controversies"?), put some information about the physical evidence and the admissions from IDF soldiers that they have killed POWs (a war crime) as indicated in two 1995 Time Magazine articles: A Soldier's Confession and Opening Grave Wounds. And then see what happens to it, and to you.

Or, if guy is already banned, someone else can take on this project.

I'll just sit back and laugh. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/biggrin.gif)

[jorge]

Zionism? So Wikipedia's been taken over by the learned Elders of Zion?

There is a problem in that there aren't enough pro Palestinian or at least people who are neutral who can look at things from the Palestinian perspective to counter the large number of pro Israeli editors who can be found at every afd/cfd voting delete on something to do with Israel or removing something from a Palestinian related article which doesn't fit in with their version of NPOV (anything critical of Israel or that makes Israel look bad is not NPOV to them).

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[Herschelkrustofsky]

Right - anyone who suggests Zionist influence over anything must be anitsemitic, right?

Actually, there is a heavy overlap between neo-conservatism and a particular form of Zionism. But it is important to recognize that there are various forms of Zionism. Labor Zionism is pretty benign stuff. Religious Zionism is an oxymoron, championed by the aptly named Rabbi Kook. But the really bad stuff is Revisionist Zionism, which is a variety of Fascism -- hence the affinity to neoconservatism. It is significant that Adam Carr's boss, Michael Danby, is an admirer of the founder of Revisionist Zionism, Ze'ev Jabotinsky (I'm not linking to the Wikipedia article on Jabotinsky, because it has been sanitized to a ridiculous extent.) And Chip Berlet says that critics of neoconservatism are also anti-Semitic.

[guy]

Here's an experiment for you, guy: go to Wikipedia:IDF and, either somehow under "Code of Conduct" or under a new section ("Controversies"?), put some information about the physical evidence and the admissions from IDF soldiers that they have killed POWs (a war crime) as indicated in two 1995 Time Magazine articles: A Soldier's Confession and Opening Grave Wounds. And then see what happens to it, and to you.

No, I'll go and make pro-Zionist edits regarding Joel Leyden and his news agency.

Religious Zionism is an oxymoron

It's not an oxymoron ("a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction"); it's a truism in a religion where people are supposed to pray for the return to Zion and the restoration of Jerusalem.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

Religious Zionism is an oxymoron

It's not an oxymoron ("a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction"); it's a truism in a religion where people are supposed to pray for the return to Zion and the restoration of Jerusalem.

Yes, but for religious Jews, the restoration of Jerusalem was supposed to be done by God, not the British Foreign Office. See Jewish reaction to Zionism.

[Selina]

Herschel is a LaRoucheist, LaRouche was an anti-semitic nazi holocaust denier: [[Political_views_of_Lyndon_LaRouche#Jews_and_the_Holocaust]]

[Saltimbanco]

No, I'll go and make pro-Zionist edits regarding Joel Leyden and his news agency.

And what do you imagine you'd be demonstrating?

[omobomo]

Herschel is a LaRoucheist, LaRouche was an anti-semitic nazi holocaust denier: [[Political_views_of_Lyndon_LaRouche#Jews_and_the_Holocaust]]

OK, so what does that make "Guy"?

Me, I'm an anti-Zionist, pro-Palestinian Jew.

[guy]

No, I'll go and make pro-Zionist edits regarding Joel Leyden and his news agency.

And what do you imagine you'd be demonstrating?

That people who are pro-Zionists on Wikipedia also get attacked.

OK, so what does that make "Guy"?

A pro-Zionist Methodist.

[Saltimbanco]

And what do you imagine you'd be demonstrating?

That people who are pro-Zionists on Wikipedia also get attacked.

Not a very interesting demonstration, really. What you should want to demonstrate is that reasonable pro-Zionist edits get people attacked. The Israel News Agency seems basically a glorified blog. (Sorry, Joel.) If an article about it is inserted, and then deleted on the grounds that it is not noteworthy, does it prove very much about attitudes toward Zionism? It might be said to prove that a pro-Zionist article does not necessarily avoid deletion, but does anyone argue that every pro-Zionist article should be preserved, regardless of how trivial its subject is?

On the other hand, I noticed just now that an editor of the Israel article has recognized the annexation of the Occupied Territories. Let's watch what happens with that.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

Herschel is a LaRoucheist, LaRouche was an anti-semitic nazi holocaust denier: [[Political_views_of_Lyndon_LaRouche#Jews_and_the_Holocaust]]

This crap originates with Chip Berlet and his ilk. I am surprised to see it repeated here.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

I just discovered, in the Wikipedia article on Ayn Rand, some very interesting quotes, comparing Randism to Scientology.

[nobs]

ArbCom makes an astonishing special rule for Chip in the Nobs01 and others case, where it is determined that criticism of public figure Chip Berlet shall be considered equivalent to personal attacks on Wikipedia editor Cberlet.

Yes indeed, and Mr. Fred Bauder, a fellow traveller in the NLG/KGB network, never responded how a verifiable citation to a reputable published source, as per Wikipedia's policies, constitutes a "personal attack".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arb...stion_from_nobs

See also discussion on policy changes to WP:V after the Nobs & others case.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_tal.../archive3#Query

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[Herschelkrustofsky]

Tolerance for the egotistical self-interest of those who best serve the process might be the means whereby such obvious ideological biases as those exhibited by some administrators are tolerated.

I respectfully disagree. Take, for example, the case of Adam Carr. I don't think that there is a single long-term editor of Wikipedia that doesn't recognize that the guy is in a state of perpetual infantile rage, hardly one who might "best serve the process." But, he is tolerated because he conforms to the ideology. I had, briefly, an email dialogue going with Jimbo (see this thread) where Jimbo tried to provide a plausible rationale for the status quo at Wikipedia, but when I brought up the example of Adam, Jimbo clammed up.

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[Somey]

Take, for example, the case of Adam Carr. I don't think that there is a single long-term editor of Wikipedia that doesn't recognize that the guy is in a state of perpetual infantile rage, hardely one who might "best serve the process." But, he is tolerated because he conforms to the ideology.

But Carr seems (to me, at least) to be a special case. Personally, I don't think he's serving the process or conforming to the ideology. From what I've seen, Carr is the classic example of the "Junkyard Dog," or the quintessential hatchet-man. He's tolerated because he pisses people off who the top-level types would prefer to have disappear. In most cases they probably do disappear - I would imagine that cases like yours (Herschel) are a small minority, where someone doesn't give up and is eventually banned, basically just for not giving up.

Another thing they probably like about him is the fact that he claims to be a "critic," when in fact his criticisms are actually rationales for either dismissal, or even greater abuse of, unfavored editors. For example, his idea for protecting articles once they reach a certain "ideal" state is really just another way of dismissing and devaluing the value of public input by arbitrarily deciding on a point at which an article either sufficiently conforms to the preferred ideology, or sufficiently offends any persons or groups being negatively targeted.

At the same time, article protection would probably be a good idea if the ideal state were determined by accuracy and expert review, as opposed to adherence to the protecting admin's various personal preferences.

That doesn't mean that someone's conformance to a preferred ideology is less important to them than his/her usefulness as an editor-bashing device. It's just that it's a big community, and there are a lot of roles that have to be filled to make it work (or not work) the way they want it to. And I think you have to assume that there are also plenty of people (including many admins) who genuinely want the system to be free of ideological biases, and act accordingly... but I suspect they're at a distinct disadvantage under the current set of policies.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

Take, for example, the case of Adam Carr. I don't think that there is a single long-term editor of Wikipedia that doesn't recognize that the guy is in a state of perpetual infantile rage, hardly one who might "best serve the process." But, he is tolerated because he conforms to the ideology.

But Carr seems (to me, at least) to be a special case. Personally, I don't think he's serving the process or conforming to the ideology.

I don't think he's unique -- the case of 172 also comes to mind, as another editor who seems always to be in the middle of a tantrum. And Adam does conform to the ideology, as I understand it -- he hates leftists, he hates traditional conservatives, he loves anything with a "neo" attached to it.

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[Somey]

This is all true, if we accept the idea that the system was designed this way intentionally. But then we'd almost have to assume also that it was designed this way maliciously -- which is a big assumption, when you consider that it's software, and relatively new software at that. To me it just seems much more likely that it was designed this way in ignorance of the way people would behave once the site became highly extensive, popular, and influential - in other words, a highly attractive target for power-grabbers. There was really no existing model for the designers to work from, after all, other than maybe real-life politics -- which they probably had little or no understanding of. So, whatever human engineering was done, or whatever behavioral tendencies were considered (if any), were probably geared almost entirely toward getting more people to contribute as much material as possible in a short amount of time.

The way I see it, three things were probably used as overriding considerations in the design: anonymity, socialization, and goal-attainment. Anonymity removes the primary barrier to entry; socialization (i.e., community development via talk pages, etc.) fosters loyalty and emotional attachment; and goal-attainment (barnstars, high edit-counts, adminship, etc.) gives people an objective - and in the process, creates a hard-core of worker drones who do a lot more that they would if there were no way to achieve status and authority over others. Everything else was just added later as a band-aid for the problems that inevitably resulted from the system growing beyond the capacity for any one group of human beings to control it.

So yes, the Adam Carrs of the world do serve the process, but only if we accept that the process, by design, is supposed to lead to territorialism, abuse of unfavored editors, and the unfair advancement of preferred ideologies. Rather than say that's the intended process, I'm just much more comfortable believing that the leadership simply didn't consider these possibilities and now doesn't want to face up to the mess they've created, so their response is simply to pretend that everything is A-OK. And that, of course, would include things like allowing Mr. Carr to attempt to take ownership of topics related to Australian politics in exchange for his being a loyal hatchet-man.

Hopefully that made sense... I'm getting over a cold, actually!

[Herschelkrustofsky]

The project lacks a clear meta-ideology because it relies on individuals and groups staking out territories, within which the defend their individual and often conflicting ideologies. That's how SlimV gets her way in "animal rights" articles that discuss animal research on only the most general terms as a means of introducing opposition arguments -- she sticks to her territory and doesn't mess with the hundreds of science articles where animal research is treated as a legitimate basis for much biomedical research.

Not to be contentious, but my view (expressed earlier in this thread, to an extent) is that SlimVirgin's advocacy of "animal rights" is entirely consistent with neo-conservatism, which in turn is a euphemism for fascism. SV does not see "animal rights" as a scientific issue; she is interested in the topic philosophically, insofar as the topic has the effect of defining what we mean by human. If we say that animals are like humans because they have the capacity to suffer, that implicitly establishes, in turn, a definition of what we ought to mean by "human." Conversely, if we define "human" has "having the capacity to discover universal principles and consciously apply them to change our species' relationship to nature," that not only excludes animals from the definition, it also implicitly sets the priorities, politically and culturally, for human society, in a way rejected by neo-liberals, neo-conservatives, Ayn Rand, Jimbo, and the cabal.

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[guy]

Rather a sweeping oversimplification to say conservatism = neo-conservatism = fascism or even conservatism = libertarianism. In Britain, you can see the difference vividly in the debate over immigration policy, where the libertarians and the right-wing business lobby want copious immigration to provide cheap labour whereas the fascists are waving the "white England" banner.

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