Wikipedia trying to rewrite History concerning Obama

[GarfieldJL]

Specifically they are deleting mentions of his ties to Ayers, they've even temp banned someone for fixing it and posting sources to back up the fix.

 

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,507244,00.html

[SkinWalker]

...

[Yar-El]

Specifically they are deleting mentions of his ties to Ayers, they've even temp banned someone for fixing it and posting sources to back up the fix.

 

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,507244,00.html

Good find Garfield. Wikipedia has been well known for biased editing. Some colleges have banned its use from being cited in essays and reports. It doesn't surprise me that this has happend. It was only a mater of time. Nice find.

 

We should go in an tweak the article ourselves.

[GarfieldJL]

Good find Garfield. Wikipedia has been well known for biased editing. Some colleges have banned its use from being cited in essays and reports. It doesn't surprise me that this has happend. It was only a mater of time. Nice find.

 

Thank you, it wasn't hard considering it was on page one.

 

We should go in an tweak the article ourselves.

 

It is much more entertaining to watch the back and forth as the staff of wikipedia tries to explain themselves.

[Yar-El]

Thank you, it wasn't hard considering it was on page one.

 

It is much more entertaining to watch the back and forth as the staff of wikipedia tries to explain themselves.

We have to remember that history is written by the victor. Wikipedia should have executed their unbiased stance; thus, allowing the inclusion of Obama's past affiliations.

 

Wikipedia should remember - Obama's personal associations are not based upon opinion. They have proven to be facts.

 

I don't know if there is any debating on this subject, but it is a topic of interest to some people. - Yar.

[True_Avery]

Quite frankly wikipedia is by definition a biased source. To think otherwise is simply cutting your own argument to shreds. It is banned from many schools because every single entry, regardless of sources, is a biased entry and not all of them are even remotely correct.

 

Personally, I would like to see the entry in question before I give judgment. The person was banned for "point of view junk", which -could- have meant he did in fact enter something that was biased junk, whether that be liberal or conservative junk.

 

Fact is a lot of the Ayer/Obama stuff is speculation, and if the person did post speculation and presented it as fact then it he deserved to be banned. For all we know, he posted some bull and then sourced blogs.

 

Again, an example of bad journalism in the form of poor elaboration, poor research, and sourceless speculation.

 

And before you pull a red herring, I am not pointing out Fox News in general. Most articles nowadays are poorly researched and they force you to speculate on what it actually means instead of presenting facts.

[Yar-El]

Fact is a lot of the Ayer/Obama stuff is speculation, and if the person did post speculation and presented it as fact then it he deserved to be banned. For all we know, he posted some bull and then sourced blogs.

Obama's connection with Ayers is fact; however, the type of relationship they had is based upon speculation. I'm awed at how many people take Wikipedia as the god given truth.

[GarfieldJL]

Obama's connection with Ayers is fact; however, the type of relationship they had is based upon speculation. I'm awed at how many people take Wikipedia as the god given truth.

 

Well the Fox News Article sources what the article originally had and what wikipedia took out.

 

 

Since it was the staff that removed pretty much all mention of Ayers, this is an issue involving the staff of wikipedia and they can't claim it was just some random individual.

 

In fact the staff just came out and blamed Conservatives, and now the situation has escalated because a news organization is calling them on it.

[jrrtoken]

Awhile back, a couple people threw up the "Wikipedia is liberal" thing, treating Wikipedia as one single entity which edits itself, rather than a massive community of contributors.

 

Their solution? Conservapedia.

 

That's right; Combat bias with even more bias. For example:

A liberal is someone who rejects logical and biblical standards' date=' often for self-centered reasons. There are no coherent liberal standards; often a liberal is merely someone who craves attention, and who uses many words to say nothing.[/quote']

[True_Avery]

An internet site being biased?! Call the news stands jim! We have a story for a slow day!

 

Please. If you have a problem with a forum being biased, go to another forum. If you have a problem with a news organization being biased, watch another one. If you don't like your soup, ask for a different bowl.

 

http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page

 

There, your own personal heaven. Because the beauty of the internet is there is actually no requirement for unbiased websites. You have the fee right to post anything anywhere under the rules of the website. Why? Because someone owns that website and on the internet, they make the rules unless it breaks some international law like child porn.

 

If you hate wikipedia, go to http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page . The website's articles personally make me hate being apart of the human race, but you may find them more to your fancy.

 

Homosexual, bisexual, and transsexual groups spend tens of millions of dollars every year to market and normalize their aberrant lifestyles, yet after all these years there is not a single, serious national group dedicated specifically to exposing and countering their agendas...

http://www.conservapedia.com/Image:Liberal_Brain.jpg

 

Enjoy!

 

EDIT: PX got it in before me, but my point still stands.

[GarfieldJL]

Awhile back, a couple people threw up the "Wikipedia is liberal" thing, treating Wikipedia as one single entity which edits itself, rather than a massive community of contributors.

 

Their solution? Conservapedia.

 

Okay I really don't think that is a solution either, because quite frankly it makes it look like Ann Coulter is a liberal based on what I'm seeing...

 

That's right; Combat bias with even more bias. For example:

 

Which is why I probably wouldn't use them as a source without some other sources to back it up. It's also why I usually check newsbuster links for other sources before I post stories from newsbusters. I generally trust newsbusters but I still like to verify things.

[jrrtoken]

Which is why I probably wouldn't use them as a source without some other sources to back it up. It's also why I usually check newsbuster links for other sources before I post stories from newsbusters. I generally trust newsbusters but I still like to verify things.

Alright, but if you apply the same logic toward Newsbusters, then how do you know that it's 100% accurate?

[GarfieldJL]

Alright, but if you apply the same logic toward Newsbusters, then how do you know that it's 100% accurate?

 

Newsbusters tends to be accurate because they take the time to actually source things often the very things they are reporting about. It's also why some bloggers such as littlegreenfootballs and Drudge Report are more credible than some other blog sites.

 

Fact is though in this wikipedia situation, there is quite a bit of evidence to prove the wikipedia staff have been behaving in an unethical manner.

[jrrtoken]

Newsbusters tends to be accurate because they take the time to actually source things often the very things they are reporting about. It's also why some bloggers such as littlegreenfootballs and Drudge Report are more credible than some other blog sites.

How do you know that? People can forge almost anything and report it as the truth, especially on the Internets. How do you know that they aren't just making stuff up?

[True_Avery]

Fact is though in this wikipedia situation, there is quite a bit of evidence to prove the wikipedia staff have been behaving in an unethical manner.

Umm, your point?

 

There is no requirement for them to act "ethically" by your standards.

[SkinWalker]

Few people that take academia serious consider Wikipedia an a priori truth, god-given or otherwise.

 

I personally find WP useful for my blog, where I'll link to things that offer general concepts to readers (like "Last Glacial Maxmimum" or "Human Evolution"). WP is useful for getting a quick general concept and to locate secondary sources which cite primary. I would never cite Wikipedia unless I were using a Creative Commons photo or graphic -nor would I recommend anyone cite Wikipedia since its a tertiary source. Primary and secondary sources are preferable in any research or academic writings.

 

As far as the Wikipedia entry on Obama, looking at the Talk Page, there seems to be a consensus that there needs to be something written on the Obama/Ayers connection, but they're hashing out precisely how to word it. The problem they're faced with is constant vandalism by extremists that oppose Obama at the cost of logic and rational discourse and fringe media like Fox and WorldNut Daily will exploit the curtailment and moderation of such extremists to their own ends.

 

In the end, there was a connection between Obama and Ayers and it did, indeed, cause a stir so it should be covered by WP. I'm betting it will be soon, but in the mean time there's no reason why they should simply permit wholesale vandalism of the page by left and right wing extremists who battle back and forth over the issue.

 

There doesn't seem to be, however, any support for the OP which alleges with much hyperbole that "Wikipedia is rewriting history."

[GarfieldJL]

Umm, your point?

 

There is no requirement for them to act "ethically" by your standards.

 

Well actually there is, it adds to the growing concern about the mainstream media being ran by Obama's Chief of Staff. Additionally, if wikipedia is a nonprofit they can get in serious trouble from a legal standpoint, furthermore they could potentially get in trouble for false advertising.

 

Seriously, they advertise as trying their best to keep it unbiased, but they deliberately do things to support the Democrats, that's false advertising. Furthermore, they've also lost credibility to many people.

[True_Avery]

Well actually there is, it adds to the growing concern about the mainstream media being ran by Obama's Chief of Staff. Additionally, if wikipedia is a nonprofit they can get in serious trouble from a legal standpoint, furthermore they could potentially get in trouble for false advertising.

No, they cannot get in trouble. There are no laws requiring you to be unbiased online.

 

And no, they are not falsely advertising because they are not selling anything.

 

Seriously, they advertise as trying their best to keep it unbiased, but they deliberately do things to support the Democrats, that's false advertising. Furthermore, they've also lost credibility to many people.

What people? How many people honestly take wikipedia as pure fact?

 

That seems like a problem with the ignorance of the people instead of the bias of wikipedia. You aren't helping, however, by pinning this solely on democrats.

 

Again, it is not their ethical, moral, political, etc responsibility to be unbiased. Wikipedia is by definition a biased source and should be treated as such.

[jrrtoken]

Well actually there is, it adds to the growing concern about the mainstream media being ran by Obama's Chief of Staff. Additionally, if wikipedia is a nonprofit they can get in serious trouble from a legal standpoint, furthermore they could potentially get in trouble for false advertising.

Okay.

Seriously, they advertise as trying their best to keep it unbiased, but they deliberately do things to support the Democrats, that's false advertising. Furthermore, they've also lost credibility to many people.

I guess you can apply the same logic with Fox News' slogan of "Fair and Balanced", right?

[GarfieldJL]

I guess you can apply the same logic with Fox News' slogan of "Fair and Balanced", right?

 

Depends, compared to a lot of the other news organizations you can take it two ways.

 

1. They are the most fair and balanced network on Television
   
2. They balance out the liberal leaning networks
   

 

Fact, is Hillary Clinton even claimed that Fox News was the most balanced news network of the bunch.

 

Anyways, Fox News is a for profit, and they can argue that they are referring to their news segments and not the commentators, their news segments are actually rather balanced.

 

The other issue here is that wikipedia is actively deleting any mention of things that are politically embarassing for Obama despite the fact they are true, and Fox News made no such effort on their site.

[TriggerGod]

Fact, is Hillary Clinton even claimed that Fox News was the most balanced news network of the bunch.

 

surveys show 9/10 americans care about what Hillary Clinton says.

 

 

Now, what do you expect from a website that is able to be openly edited by anybody with an internet connection and half a brain? Of course there are going to be people who will edit these articles to fit how they think. Liberal, Conservative, and otherwise.

 

In conclusion:

Show spoiler

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[GarfieldJL]

Now, what do you expect from a website that is able to be openly edited by anybody with an internet connection and half a brain? Of course there are going to be people who will edit these articles to fit how they think. Liberal, Conservative, and otherwise.

 

If it were just a back and forth between people editting articles that would be one thing but this involves the wikipedia administrative staff, which isn't just any random passerby.

[TriggerGod]

If it were just a back and forth between people editting articles that would be one thing but this involves the wikipedia administrative staff, which isn't just any random passerby.

 

Admins are still real people. And real people are still biased.

 

And after reading through that article again, I saw that the only thing the admins did was ban the guy for 3 days and deleting the article. Since it was only up for '2 minutes', I doubt many people know exactly what he put on the article. Although that picture might help. Albeit a little.

 

I guess this proves once more that the internet is srs busnes.

[GarfieldJL]

Admins are still real people. And real people are still biased.

 

And after reading through that article again, I saw that the only thing the admins did was ban the guy for 3 days and deleting the article. Since it was only up for '2 minutes', I doubt many people know exactly what he put on the article. Although that picture might help. Albeit a little.

 

I guess this proves once more that the internet is srs busnes.

 

Actually we do have a rough idea what the person put.

 

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/03/08/wikipedia-scrubs-ayers-wright-obamas-page

 

 

There are some other sources in the newsbusters article.

[Pho3nix]

Now, what do you expect from a website that is able to be openly edited by anybody with an internet connection and half a brain? Of course there are going to be people who will edit these articles to fit how they think. Liberal, Conservative, and otherwise.

Well, It's not really that 'black and white'. Most of the articles I've read on Wikipedia (and trust me, I've read quite a lot) are extremely neutral.

 

I never bash Wikipedia for this reason, the "anyone can edit" policy is an overly simplified explanation of how the website actually works, you can't just edit any article to your pleasing and not have it reverted to It's original form if you don't use proper citations and sources.

 

Technically, anyone can edit the article on John McCain and replace everything with "McCain ****ing sucks" -- but that doesn't mean the article stays that way. It gets reverted back to it's original form within minutes.