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

[Sxeptomaniac]

Reading between the lines, communicat's posts here scream "fringe lunatic", not "reasonable critic".

Reasonable critics do not jump straight to "censorship" because they couldn't get their personal viewpoint shoved into WP, and don't attempt to reframe simple bias as intentional censorship. That they imply it's some kind of universal WP conspiracy to hide "the truth" strongly indicates a fringe viewpoint not actually backed up by evidence.

We are talking military history buffs, not religious fanatics, after all. Anyone really into history is going to read a lot of less-than-flattering things about their country's involvement in war. While some are going to cling to particular beliefs, many history buffs love studying different aspects of the story. A reasonable editor probably would have some difficulty, but they'd probably find at least a few allies along the way.

[communicat]

Reading between the lines, communicat's posts here scream "fringe lunatic", not "reasonable critic".

Reasonable critics do not jump straight to "censorship" because they couldn't get their personal viewpoint shoved into WP, and don't attempt to reframe simple bias as intentional censorship. That they imply it's some kind of universal WP conspiracy to hide "the truth" strongly indicates a fringe viewpoint not actually backed up by evidence.

We are talking military history buffs, not religious fanatics, after all. Anyone really into history is going to read a lot of less-than-flattering things about their country's involvement in war. While some are going to cling to particular beliefs, many history buffs love studying different aspects of the story. A reasonable editor probably would have some difficulty, but they'd probably find at least a few allies along the way.

Ah! Surprise, surprise! Here we have yet another deviationist shooter-of-messengers. Never mind "fringe lunatics" and all the rest. Why not just apply your mind to the message and forget the messenger for a while? The message here being that WP's World War II article relies on about 400 conservative mainstream Western accounts of the war, without reference to any non-Western (or even Western) accounts that deviate from the mainstream Anglo-American POV. So what do you have to say about that evidence, Mr Military History Buff?

[Sxeptomaniac]

Ah! Surprise, surprise! Here we have yet another deviationist shooter-of-messengers. Never mind "fringe lunatics" and all the rest. Why not just apply your mind to the message and forget the messenger for a while? The message here being that WP's World War II article relies on about 400 conservative mainstream Western accounts of the war, without reference to any non-Western (or even Western) accounts that deviate from the mainstream Anglo-American POV. So what do you have to say about that evidence, Mr Military History Buff?

I yield to your devastating argument; it *must* be censorship.

Note that you've just fully outed yourself as a fringe lunatic, as you've just admitted you've been pushing non-mainstream theories. For it to get no mention in WP at all, it's way, way out there. It really isn't hard to get something into WP; all you need is a halfway decent source. If you got nowhere, then "deviate from the mainstream" is code for "I'm the only one who believes this."

Call me what you want, but right now I'm judging you to be on the crazy scale right below the guy who was out to prove the Rotary is a front for Mason world-domination, but a bit crazier than the one out to prove Amish/Old Order Mennonites are evil. Like both of them, you immediately discount those who disagree with you with an unusual label; "deviationist" is a new one, I'll give you that.

BTW, I never said I was a military history buff. I tend to prefer the big picture as far as history goes. However, I've worked with a few different people who primarily do military history on WP, and they have generally been pretty open people. If you'd gotten into trouble in certain areas related to religion or nationalism, I'd be more inclined to question my first impression of you, but you pretty much keep verifying that first impression.

[timbo]

>>basically Mr. communicat is of the opinion that US and Britain "betrayed" the Soviet Union as early as 1941 and conspired to get Hitler and Stalin to fight each other.

"Betrayed" is polemic language, but other than that this is actually a more or less standard left wing interpretation of the political situation. It's actually very much in the mainstream of discourse on the topic, not tinfoil hat brigade by any stretch — maybe even a majority view in academia.

t

This post has been edited by timbo: Tue 9th August 2011, 4:28am

[communicat]

>>basically Mr. communicat is of the opinion that US and Britain "betrayed" the Soviet Union as early as 1941 and conspired to get Hitler and Stalin to fight each other.

"Betrayed" is polemic language, but other than that this is actually a more or less standard left wing interpretation of the political situation. It's actually very much in the mainstream of discourse on the topic, not tinfoil hat brigade by any stretch — maybe even a majority view in academia.

t

My point exactly. "Fringe" and "mainstream" are subjective concepts and they depend for their definition on demographic location, and where you are standing at any given time in relation to the subject. So what gives some politically-biased WP editing cabals the "right" to ignore NPOV and to determine on the basis of their own personal political beliefs what is and what is not to be censored / deleted / reverted on the basis of alleged "political POV-pushing"? The rules are quite clear, but their implementation is highly questionable, and it has brought WP into disrepute, especially in academia.

[Jagärdu]

>>basically Mr. communicat is of the opinion that US and Britain "betrayed" the Soviet Union as early as 1941 and conspired to get Hitler and Stalin to fight each other.

"Betrayed" is polemic language, but other than that this is actually a more or less standard left wing interpretation of the political situation. It's actually very much in the mainstream of discourse on the topic, not tinfoil hat brigade by any stretch — maybe even a majority view in academia.

t

My point exactly. "Fringe" and "mainstream" are subjective concepts and they depend for their definition on demographic location, and where you are standing at any given time in relation to the subject. So what gives some politically-biased WP editing cabals the "right" to ignore NPOV and to determine on the basis of their own personal political beliefs what is and what is not to be censored / deleted / reverted on the basis of alleged "political POV-pushing"? The rules are quite clear, but their implementation is highly questionable, and it has brought WP into disrepute, especially in academia.

HA. That's a humorous thought. Someone who links to a truther website complaining about how wikipedia censors their truther views talks about "disrepute ... in academia." Wonderful. BTW, I already answered your cultural relativism argument. It's the English Language Wikipedia and it necessarily has a bias towards what is mainstream in the English speaking world. Nothing novel about that at all.