[WikiEN-l] Neo-nazis to attack wikipedia

Mon Feb 7 21:22:00 UTC 2005

David Gerard wrote:
> Chad Perrin (perrin at apotheon.com) [050208 04:33]:
> 
> 
>>I'm not sure that anything at all "needs to be done" to deal with the 
>>matter.  In fact, there's not really anything necessarily wrong with POV 
>>getting into an article, as long as no POV is pushed as the only valid 
>>POV.  Rather, multiple POVs* might be a more desirable status of an 
>>article than no POV at all, where each is clearly identified as being a 
>>particular perspective with identified adherents.  Thus, if Stormfront 
>>troopers swarm in and add some biased information as though it were 
>>gospel, rather than actively oppose it, editors should simply . . . edit 
>>it.  Tidy up the language, make it non-repetitive, collect it in one 
>>section, and label it as a particular perspective.
> 
> I'm sure S*ll*g was very pleased with the results ;-)

I think I missed a reference, there.

>>Where a Stormfront (darn, the militant racists get all the cool names) 
> 
> They've given up on the cool uniforms, though. Foolish move.

Agreed.

> 
>>activist enters some figures identifying the amount of money supposedly 
>>cost the country by Zionists, stick it into an appropriate POV corral 
>>and provide some academic analysis of where those figures might 
>>originate.  If treated properly, such attempts to monkeywrench the 
>>bias-mitigating machinery of Wikipedia can actually become a rich source 
>>of information.
> 
> You'll explode their heads and risk your own trying to get a decent
> checkable reference out of them, thoguh.

Search for it independently, then.  If you don't find a reference, edit 
it out if need be WITH A NOTE to the effect that it is unsubstantiated 
at this time, and will be re-entered at such time as it can be 
substantiated (note probably delivered both on the talk page and in a 
note for the history page).  Editing other people's contributions out 
should include justifications, anyway, and should not be done as a first 
resort, in my considered opinion.  Don't edit what someone else has said 
without being positive you know the reasons for what came before your 
edit, even if your own edit requires attempts at independent verification.

Besides, if their heads explode you'll have reduced the population of 
people introducing problematic edits into controversial articles.

> 
>>I guess, in short, my point is that a lack of bias and a lack of 
>>point-of-view are two different and separate things.  Points of view are 
>>good.  Bias is favoritism to a particular point of view, and that's bad. 
>> Tell me if I'm wrong.
> 
> Mmm. Report and attribute them, don't just say them.
> 
> Really, I've found they're really bad at checkable references on even the
> simple stuff - e.g. "This organization believes ..." It's actually really
> annoying.

I certainly don't disagree with that.  Activists do tend to have that 
problem, and it definitely does tend to be annoying.

--
Chad