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The Dangers of Open Content
gihan_ripper writes "Recently released open movie Elephants Dream found itself in hot water with Catalonians after accidentally using an offensive word instead of 'Català' in the subtitle menu. The cause? Designer Matt Ebb had used Wikipedia to look up the Catalan word for Catalan on a day when the entry had been vandalized. He writes about this experience on the Elephant Dream blog.
We may have scoffed at John Seigenthaler over his criticisms of Wikipedia, but it gives us pause for thought when we to heavily on Wikipedia."
Some information contained in sounds (acoustic) or printed, some pixels on a screen - whatsover.
That input is then interpreted by the cybernetic matrix in an individuals brain and comes, with some collisions, marked with a label "offensive" out of the system possibly provoking an emotional/fanactic response in the human body.
Where is this matrix coming from? Instinct, early childhood conditioning, social patterning, ongoing education, successful repetition of behavioral patterns.
In essence, anyone blaming somebody else for "offensiveness" in words is trying to make the other responsible for the content of the own interpretation matrix.
Is the other responsible? Hardly.....
So, lay off that stupid blame game and grow up!
For example, the FSLN article has an introduction, and then begins "The FSLN was formally organised in 1961 by recent KGB recruits Carlos Fonseca Amador, Tomás Borge Martínez and Silvio Mayorga." The rest of the article goes on in that sort of tone. I don't know how many people in the world think the main purpose of the FSLN was to establish a satellite of the USSR "two days driving time from Harlingen, Texas", but obviously that is what is considered in this article. Most educated, professional people (at least those outside the US anyhow) in the world would consider this article laughable, and certainly not encylopedic. Microsoft and Encarta, or Encyclopedia Britannica, are not exactly FSLN boosters, but their articles are not silly like this.
This is just one example of many. There is a response that "anyone can edit" and that anyone can just go in and fix it, but that is simply not true. Anyone who edits this article would be descended on by one or more people who believe that, to quote from the article "During the following three years the KGB handpicked several dozen Sandinistas for intelligence and sabotage operation in the United States. In 1966, this KGB-controlled Sandinista sabotage and intelligence group was sent to the U.S.-Mexican border" (you see, the FSLN had nothing to do with conditions in Nicaragua, since the world revolves around the U.S.). So one would waste time on a stalemate for weeks, and ultimately, the admins and ArbCom would back those people up. Once upon a time there were admins or experienced users who would have helped someone tackle this page, but they have been driven off. Jimbo Wales political sympathies have been stated in the past (he ran the Ayn Rand list for years, to give you a clue), and the one appointee to the ArbCom (who he appointed twice, since he couldn't get elected) seemed to be picked only because he edits with a Zionist point of view, he's editing the Lebanon pages currently. Editors with a different political point of view are driven off. The Wikipedia partisans say on Wikipedia there are only "trolls" and "good users" or whatever, but this is more their almost cult-like Manicheanism then reality. The "Criticism of Wikipedia" page forbids links to pages critical of Wikipedia like Wikipedia Review. If Wikipedia is so "open", why do Arbitration Committee members zealously defend the "Criticism of Wikipedia" page from links to a forum of people critical of Wikipedia? Like many others, I have given up on Wikipedia. Unlike most people who grew tired of Wikipedia's nonsense, I continue to edit on alternative wiki encyclopedias. I also post to Wikipedia Review as well.