With all the recent hoo ha it could be that supporters of wikipedia and wikis in general should be rallying around to defend it no matter what, but I’m assuming that here in the blogosphere I’m amongst friends right?
So I’ll not join in on the comparison with Brittanica, the attitude of academics and the nature of truth. Instead I want to tell my story all about what happened to me when I decided to find out for myself how wikipedia works. I started out by adding the odd link here and there, and helping to fill out some obscure nascent pages which had hardly started. Then I started to wonder about the whole “neutral point of view”(NPOV) thing and how that can work with issues which are politically polarised. Take the National question for example. If you have a decision mechanism based on sheer willingness of enough people to assert a majority opinon as to what is neutral, then won’t minority views be squeezed out? What happens to counter-intuitive ideas and will there be a preponderance of popular misconceptions quoted as fact simply because they are by definition popular?
Before long I read something on a frequently edited page which I felt to be incorrect and knew to be controversial. The wikipedia page for England described its capital city to be London, so I corrected it. OK, you might think I’m crazy but please bear with me. A lot of people get confused about the difference between England and the United Kingdom, in particular the English. London is of course the capital of the United Kingdom which comprises at present of Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland. Scotland has a capital in Edinburgh, Wales in Cardiff but England doesn’t have one yet because of the way in which devolved government has been introduced so far. So by most definitions of a capital city London is the capital of the UK, but not of England. There is no government at the level called England. If one were to be introduced then they’d have to decide where to hold the new English parliament, and wherever that was located would become the capital of England. Maybe Birmingham, or Leicester to be more central.
So I changed the tabular data from reading Capital: London to Capital: None.
What did I expect? Well, probably somebody would revert it, then I might revert it back again and need to explain my position a bit more. Perhaps I might convince enough people of my correctness for the “none” to stand, perhaps not. I researched the procedures for resolving “edit wars” just in case, so I knew I wouldn’t be allowed to revert more than 3 times in a period of 24 hours.
What happened? London was added back in the capital with no accompanying argument other than “of course it is” once or twice, so I explained a bit further and reverted within the limit. Result: I received alot of invective and abuse in place of argument and had my login blocked for 24 hours by an admin acting outside of the rules. This alerted other admins who then rallyed around like a marauding clique to back up their friend regardless
of the merits of either side of the dispute.
Then some historical facts began to come to light. It seems that Winchester was the first capital of England, and then London took over for a while. England invaded Wales so London became the capital of something called England which included Wales for a while, then they managed to get some influential Scots to agree to a merger which meant that a new state called the United Kingdom was formed with constituent parts, ruled as a whole from London. The legal entity of (England and Wales) persisted alongside Scotland. There was an invasion of Ireland, rebellion and partition too.
So faced with some cold facts, the Wikipedians attempted to draft a compromise formulation which got sillier and sillier, then they introduced the idea of “de facto” which allowed them to argue that a fact is true because a lot of people believe it to be so. A google search for London and Capital will yield loads of web page which tell us that London is the capital of two places at once, since this is a very popular misconception indeed. End of compromise.
What will happen to counter-intuitive facts and minority views which happen to be correct but then run up against the so called “common sense” ? Well by my experience it may all depend upon how well connected the person asserting them is, so truth in Wikipedia is decided not by some kind of democratic, one person one vote informed majority but by a mob rule of players who are motivated by establishing pecking order reputations which involve a certain amount of fawning to the longer established names.
In other words, it’s not an encyclopaedia at all, it’s a game.
Technorati Tags: wikipedia, seigenthaler, credibility, popularmisconceptions, london, england
Andy Roberts is a writer who initiated DARnet. Contact me on aroberts@gmail.com or @aroberts on twitter
I like Wikipedia and have edited it a few times. Your story is interesting, but of course you realize that the NPOV problem applies not just to Wikipedia but to any publication that desires to be unbiased. It might be interesting to see how others have addressed the concern. I hope you have better luck in the future with Wikipedia.
I have to say I think your wrong but I do have a better reason than of course it is:
In the UK there is a single rule on some issues, for example Forign Policy while other issues have unique rules depending on the area, for example Education.
Education and similar rules are set, useing Scotland as an example in Edinburgh. In England the domestic laws are set by the Wstminster parliment so that makes it the Capital of England.
P.S. Where was this alleged mob rule you encountered? I looked and couldn’t find it.
I think the whole NPOV idea is based on a false premise that such a thing can exist. There’s no such thing as neutral in a society where culture is owned and controlled by the entrenched vested interests of a tiny minority. Urging Wikipedia to conform to a ‘neutral’ point of view is just insisting on an acceptance of conventionality where the conventions are all designed to maintain the status quo. Why would we need another media which sees the word only from the prevailing, narrow point of view? It just puts a very powerful weapon into the hands of those who want to appear fair while suppressing dissent. And the articles are suffering for it. It’s very easy to slap a notice onto an article which puts up a big hand saying “the neutrality of this article is questioned”, I think you just have to insert the code {{NPOV}} or similar, but it’s very difficult to get it removed again! So I’m a bit concerned about the over use of generic templates as well, from which you should be able to tell I’m coming at the Wikipedia from a friendly angle here.
@Tortanick, I refer you to The Midlothian Question.
I love wikipedia, even when it’s wrong.
Check out this joint wikipedia/google search thingy
I made for a home page.
The article as written by Andy on the Wikipedia experience is, essentially, correct, and matches the experiences of many others who have joined in the so-called Wikipedia “community”. Andy is correct, and I found his honest investigation to match not only my own, but those of others who have run into what appears to be a clique of pecking order administrators, and poison-pen Wikipedia “editors” who are destroying Wikipedia in real time.
Wikipedia administrators do seem to be engaged – not in “open community” – but in very bad decision-making. Wikipedia pages continue to be badly sourced, and edited, and many journalists are warned by editors not to use Wikipedia as a source. I know many journalists who have tested Wikipedia: joining the Wikipedia community, and then began editing pages on areas of their expertise, and knowledge. Many have had the exact same experience as Andy and confirmed his own findings about the Wikipedia “community” and “de facto” processes (Request-for-Comments, and Arbitrations) to be just what Andy found them to be – a game.
What is most interesting about Wikipedia is that for all their internal suport amongst the Wikiedpia “community” – that Wikipedia has not found an answer to why newcomers are treated with such hate. A simple review of Wikipedia “Talk Pages” and “Edit Summaries” will reveal a wide swath of comments that cover hate, profanity, team censorship attacks, group banning, and all manner of attacks against a single Wikipedian.
Wikipedia administratiors routinely avoid becoming engaged in attacks. The process seems to be a clique sharing similiar views praising one another for agreeing on anything; then, when any one of them has a personal “grudge” to grind – the administrator (who may be a former Wiki-editor submitted for Wiki-administration & approved) is contacted by the complaining “friend” – alerting the Wiki-admin (as they are called) to the newcomer, or “troublemaker” who happens to be a editing any topic.
This newcomer, a part of the Wikipedia “community” is then blocked. After the block expires, and the Wikipedia editor goes back to editing; they are then accused of taking part in “revert wars” – usually something unheard of by the Wikipedia newcomer. More attacks are made by the clique (now alerted to the “troublemaker”) and more blocks are placed on the newcomer. The group then gangs together to get a Request for Comments on the Wikipedia newcomer, and is bombarded with the rules and principles of Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales.
The newcomer, in reading these principles and guidelines often finds that they very people citing Jimbo Wales are abusing these same principles in their attacks on the Wikipedia newcomer. But, any reference to evidence to the truth of this are ignored while the newcomer continues to be attacked by the Wikipedia clique.
Banning then is discussed, and the newcomer is placed on “probation” – which drives the newcomer AWAY from Wikipedia. This has happened to many newcomers within the first month of joining the Wikipedia “community.” The experiences of Wikipedia editors – by viewing the language, tone of language, on Wikipedia Talk Pages should be reviewed to prove why Andy’s experiences on Wikipedia are correct. The open “community” of Wikipedia is inherently hostile, rude, and avoids many facts known by experts, writers, and editors on a wide variety of subjects. I do not trust any Wikipedia resource based on Wikipedia’s failure to balance itself by handling the biased-views of Wikipedia administrators, and their clique of poison-pen editors. I predict that they will ruin Wikipedia.
So, Andy’s assertions, are correct. And valid. Andy’s experiences, singly, reflects the marco-world problems of newcomers to Wikipedia, and Wikipedia’s serious flaws – especially its confusing “reverts” when edits are saved. Rather than allowing participation as a “community” what I have found is the opposite: a collection of pecking-orders that stand at the ready to “protect” what is obviously NOT an open community – but a poison-pen society working under the guise of a free, online encycolpedia.
Andy is right on with his comments on his experience of Wikipedia. It is a game, played by many “Wikipedians” with too much time on their hands, and poison, not ink, in their pens. I do not expect Wikipedia’s reputation to improve, but to continue to worsen. It has already a poor reputation in many circles around the world, and this reputation is deserved, and due to the bad behaviors of the cliques of Wikipedia’s administrators, its alliance with Wiki-groupie editors, and the failure of leadership of Jimbo Wales.