This is my newbie post. I am not a "disgruntled banned Wikipedia user," but at this point, there are so many restrictions on my editing that I am pretty much limited to correcting typos. And, I am disgruntled.

I am of the opinion that we live in a period of history where the major institutions that supposedly dispense knowledge, the media and academia, are so corrupted that they exist primarily to dispense disinformation. When I encountered Wikipedia two years ago, my initial response was to think that it represented an opportunity to crack this controlled environment (because it is presented to the public as "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit.") I learned soon enough that I was wrong, and that Wikipedia was set up to conform as closely as possible to the status quo of the media/academia.

My second response was to hope that, at the very least, on Wikipedia one could exclude the most egregious propaganda, by insisting on compliance with the Wikipedia policies on verifiability, NPOV, and so on. This led me rapidly into confrontations with Chip Berlet's acolytes (Adam Carr, SlimVirgin, Will Beback nee Willmcw,) and then with Chip Berlet himself after he joined Wikipedia as Cberlet. I went through three ArbCom cases, and to my amazement, lost all three. My opinion of the ArbCom is now probably similar to that of other posters here at the Review.

So, what is the real purpose of Wikipedia? If I understand Daniel Brandt correctly, he seems to have a theory that eventually it will make somebody a lot of money. I have also corresponded with a guy named Bob Feldman who writes about Gatekeeping (see for example this,) and he sees Wikipedia as an example. Any other theories?

I'm just a disgruntled Wikipedia user myself, not banned and not officially restricted (though in practice restricted very much by those who do not like that I'm not a mindless editing 'bot and therefore track what I do). Hi, how's it going?

Anyway, I frankly find your opinion on academia a tad overly cynical, not to say close to what a conspiracy theorist would say about it. As for the purpose of Wikipedia, I'd like to think the sum of human knowledge... but from the behavior of too many of the administrators, it has to be something else. I get the feeling that the purpose for a lot of the admin staff is to power trip... because that's what they do.

I've always found the term "conspiracy theorist" to be a trifle misleading, because it all depends on who is doing the theorizing. For example, the notion that terrorism is somehow linked to Islam strikes me as a conspiracy theory, but it is not treated so in the press, because there is a consensus that this is a reasonable thing to suggest (this is much the way things work at Wikipedia.) The fact that crimes have been committed by Muslims does not justify the notion that "Muslims are collectively out to get us." However, this notion is tolerated and sometimes promoted.

I could have said, instead, that academia is massively incompetent, judging from the manifest failure of the doctrines that have been promoted during my lifetime, especially in economics. However, I am also aware of examples where someone in the academic community argued for a relatively competent approach, and was ostracized for it (again, not unlike the way Wikipedia functions.) It is clear that academia is "managed," in particular by the way in which foundation grants are disbursed (I suppose that you could say that this resembles a conspiracy of sorts.) I think that the foundation grants to Wikimedia ought to be carefully scrutinized.



I don't think it's quite that simple. I believe that one can detect an institutional POV, and the admins that promulgate it are the ones who are given the most leeway to violate policy at their pleasure. I believe that Lir was right, for example, in charging that Wikipedia enforces a sort of pro-Laissez Faire bias in articles on economics, although I don't think the specific example he cited makes the case. I see it in a broader pattern of edits.

I think it already has, more than 4 million dollars have been invested in Jimbo's spinoff Wiki Cities -- as such, Wikipedia could be seen as an advertisement for his other project.


Yep, thats the #1 problem with Wikipedia; with no constitutional setup, no sense of user civil rights, and no checks and balances, the result is petty tyranny.


Well, no single example will 'make the case'; although, I have cited more than one example, so Im not sure which one you are referring to. In any case, one of the difficulties in criticizing Wikipedia, is that its constantly changing, and its thus difficult to document a 'broader pattern of edits' -- regardless, I think its clear that decisions ultimately come to Jimbo, as the ultimate arbitrator, and he has hardly shown himself reluctant to force his POV into articles.

Well, from my experience, which is probably not unique, the "institutional POV" of Wikipedia is to be found in decisions by the Arbcom. I got into a scrap with the Berlet Wikiclique over articles about LaRouche, it being my contention that those articles were full of Original Research by Berlet, in addition to a fair amount of simple propaganda in the form of quotes out of context, speculation, and so on. In the course of the two "LaRouche" ArbCom cases, the ArbCom made some rather remarkable findings, such as that EIR and other LaRouche publications would be considered automatically to be Original Research and unacceptable as source material. This came as something to a shock, even to Jimbo (see this message from Jimbo.) Berlet's little helpers, SlimVirgin and Will Beback, have extrapolated from this that any editor with whom they disagree is probably a "LaRouche activist" or "LaRouche sympathizer" (they have used this, for example, on Northmeister, who is neither,) and it follows that any edits from such activists or sympathizers may be construed as "promotion of LaRouche," regardless of whether they mention LaRouche or any of his ideas. I'm not making this up. SlimVirgin permanently blocked BirdsOfFire using this rationale. The fact that the ArbCom tolerates this (and Fred Bauder goes so far as to endorse it) means that Wikipedia's bias against LaRouche goes far beyond what you will find in publications like the Wall Street Journal or National Review. So, this is one aspect that is not constantly changing, until some future ArbCom reverses the decisions, or SlimVirgin and Will Beback get de-sysopped. Maybe other posters here have similar stories to tell.

I dont know much of anything about LaRouche; but I remember back in 2002, I was accused of being a LaRouche fanatic as well; just to annoy them, I edited my user page to proudly proclaim that I was indeed a fan of LaRouche.

LaRouche is a very controversial guy; for example, last July the LaRouche organization circulated a mass leaflet entitled "Cheney's Guns of August Threaten the World" in which they claimed that the Bush administration was contemplating the use of nuclear weapons against Iran. Eight months later, Seymour Hersch made a similar claim in the pages of the New Yorker.

I should also mention that the ArbCom decisions have the effect of giving a blanket endorsement to the use of Chip Berlet AKA User:Cberlet as a source, despite the fact that numerous editors have made the case to the ArbCom that Berlet has an extremely dubious reputation as a "researcher" and his website is essentially a blog. Fred Bauder opined in the "Nobs01 and others" case that Cberlet was a "model editor." I think this rises to the level of "institutional POV" for Wikipedia.

Absolutely, Jimbo has completely failed in his 'quest' for NPOV -- I suspect this is part of the reason that Larry Sanger has become so disgruntled with the project, as is its no longer a forum for collaborative editing; but it is now a battleground between different POV-pushers, who fight over key positions within the cabal -- or rather, it always was such a battleground; because Jimbo never managed to come up with a workable system for dispute resolution.

Larry, of course, got pushed out of the cabal; which is part of the reason that he dislikes me so vehemently after nearly three years, and he thus blames me (in part) for Wikipedia's downfall -- apparently I had something to do with causing too many arguments, which resulted in Wikipedia's currently hostile political situation. In any case, Jimbo's friends now dominate the cabal, and thus Wikipedia has developed a cultish 'hivemind' mentality in which they believe that Jimbo somehow magically manages to prevent his POV from being expressed within articles, despite his possession of ultimate authority in every single dispute.

NPOV is Larry's baby I thought.

Right, I think that's why Larry is upset; because Jimbo really hasn't followed through on the project's original plan, although he continues to claim that NPOV is the goal.

Yes, it should have in big bold print "Created by Larry Sanger - all questions about it should go to Larry Sanger". I mean, rightly or wrongly, it was his idea. His criticism of the latest NPOV attack was quite telling.

I still disagree with NPOV, Sanger's version or not, though.

For reference:

Article criticising NPOV
Larry Sanger's response

Just now saw this thread and thought it was worth pinging to the top ...

Jonny