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Wikipedia Forcing Editors To Disclose If They're Paid
mpicpp sends word that the Wikimedia Foundation is updating its Terms of Use to keep track of editors who are paid for the changes they make. This follows last fall's discovery that a small industry had arisen around public relations firms running Wikipedia editing campaigns for paying clients. The Foundation now says, "If you are paid to edit, you will need to disclose your paid editing to comply with the new Terms of Use. You need to add your affiliation to your edit summary, user page, or talk page, to fairly disclose your perspective. ... Specific policies on individual Wikimedia projects, or relevant laws in your country (such as those prohibiting fraudulent advertising), may require further disclosure or prohibit paid advocacy editing altogether." They add, "undisclosed paid advocacy editing is a black hat practice that can threaten the trust of Wikimedia’s volunteers and readers."
We have wars going on all over wikipedia due to different views and beliefs that far outweigh the business and pr companies.
Many non paid editors have very in-depth political viewpoints, and they attack other groups reporting on information in articles they disagree with.
The worst I've seen are the feminists against male rape statistics and anything male related. I can only assume its because colleges promote such a militant viewpoint on feminism it runs over into other areas of sexual statistics and thus becomes political.
I've seen many editors who are members of originations who delete anything that could be considered a counter argument with the established, but can often be incorrect due to education and their circle of influence related to their school or organization.
Another example. An amateur historian who would find common misconceptions and provide articles to show the common viewpoint is not correct by using government links. Many editors that are enrolled in college history courses would remove his work. He finally just used his personal page and put up the corrections so at least they are online. The point was he was correction known flaws taught in higher education with GOVERNMENT backed evidence.
It sickens me, that the truth can be deleted by editors with agendas. I've seen the history re-written due to lack of publications of news and tv reportings that are from the early 80's and older. But we can have entire animated tv show episodes articles with great detail, as thats the level of knowledge as historically important.
This is why we need all magazines and newspapers online also, the history and reporting of opnion is harder to argue when the only source is wikipedia.
What's astounding is how valuable and reliable a resource Wikipedia has become.
I know people love to scoff at Wikipedia (especially when they're losing arguments) but the fact remains that as a "source of information", this free website that allows anyone to edit posts has become the most useful and important reference resource the world has ever known.
Wikipedia is a hell of a lot more transparent than any encyclopedia ever published, and as long as you realize that Wikipedia is the beginning of your research, not the end, it will never steer you wrong. What's surprising is that the same people who look down their noses at Wikipedia probably believe that the Encyclopedia Britannica was an accurate source of unbiased information.
It remains living proof that the "crowd" can make something awesome and that free can be great.. Even the people who scoff at the idea of Wikipedia and who love to tell you who that they can't believe anyone uses Wikipedia use it regularly. And if they find information that goes against their own beliefs, they can always tell themselves, "Well, it's just Wikipedia" and can go on believing whatever crap they were going to keep believing no matter what information they were given.
I'm trying to think of a readily available reference that's ever been as useful as Wikipedia, and I'm not coming up with anything. Maybe someone can offer a suggestion?
You are welcome on my lawn.