Ukraine
Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2025 8:49 am
Now that newsorgs are reporting that Ukraine has been kicked out of/defeated in Kursk, editors are scrambling to find any journalist, article, commentator that they can use to spin the retreat positively.
Even David Axe, someone who can always be trusted to play fast and loose with the truth to push a Western/pro-UA narrative, has said it was a disaster.
Nevertheless, editors managed to dig up something.
The funny thing in all this is that Wikieditors think that Wikipedia dictates reality, or at the very least dictates the perception of reality. All this does is it makes people distrust Wikipedia even more. Most people/wikipedia readers, unlike the editors, aren't idiots, they know that a retreat = defeat, and no amount of statements by current and former officials will convince them otherwise. Regular people see this and think "what else is Wikipedia lying about?"
Wikipedia is not a learning resource, it is a place where people want their biases and preconceived notions to be confirmed. On one hand they say "Wikipedia is a sum of all human knowledge" on the other "Wikipedia doesn't write the truth, just follows reputable sources". To Wikipedians, this is not a contradiction, it is how liberal academia and analytical philosophers see knowledge and truth -- knowledge is (socially) constructed and the truth is unattainable. In such a worldview, reality isn't important, but what we all think and believe is. That is why narratives are very important to them. Not grand narratives mind you, but personal and group narratives. It's all one big narrative contest, and Wikipedians are winning.
Maybe I'm being paranoid, but I am pretty sure publications are aware of Wikipedia policies, namely that headlines are not considered reliable. If you search for "Ukraine Kursk defeat" or something to that effect, you'll find articles with headlines to that effect, but you'll be hard-pressed to find a Western outlet that has written "Ukraine is defeated in Kursk" or "Russia achieves victory in Kursk" in the body of the article.
Then Wikipedia editors can claim that no RS is saying Russia won/Ukraine lost and can do what they did for the Battle of Bakhmut [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Batt ... /Archive_5] where it took months of arguing with the usual suspects "Slatersteven" and "Manyareasexpert" for it to be considered a Russian victory. The reason RSs weren't saying it is because they had moved on from the battle, Russia was advancing westwards and there was no need to talk about the battle. But Wikieditors claimed they needed RS to literally say "Ukraine lost to Battle of Bakhmut", anything else is WP:OR.
Since Manyeareasexpert and Slatersteven are established wikipedia editors with decades of service and proven track record of pushing Western narratives, "policies" like STICK, BLUDGEON, CON do not apply to them. IAR when you need to push pro-UA narratives.
When this war is over, expect a war on Wikipedia when editors refuse to call it a Russian victory. It will be impotent and futile seething against reality, which will have asserted itself by that point.
Even David Axe, someone who can always be trusted to play fast and loose with the truth to push a Western/pro-UA narrative, has said it was a disaster.
Nevertheless, editors managed to dig up something.
Western researchers assess the outcome of the operation differently.[56] In March 2025, when Russian forces retook Sudzha, military analyst Michael Kofman assessed the Ukrainian incursion as a tactical success, which, however, had not changed the overall dynamic in the war.
They really think that people will read Wikipedia and think "hm, Ukraine getting their asses kicked in Kursk, losing tens of thousands of soldiers while accomplishing nothing, in fact accelerating Russian advance on other fronts, was actually a victory for Ukraine!"Former military advisor Nico Lange views the operation as a success.[345]
What would a Wiki article on the Ukraine war be without shoving in mention of the North Koreans. North Koreans fighting Ukraine is not a conspiracy theory, of course, since it comes from reliable sources like the South Korean intelligence service and the Ukrainian SBU, laundered through Western media which repeats any claim by a Western official as if it were an undisputed fact.According to one of the soldiers, Russia had amassed a significant force to retake Sudzha, including "large numbers of North Korean soldiers".[346][relevant?]
The funny thing in all this is that Wikieditors think that Wikipedia dictates reality, or at the very least dictates the perception of reality. All this does is it makes people distrust Wikipedia even more. Most people/wikipedia readers, unlike the editors, aren't idiots, they know that a retreat = defeat, and no amount of statements by current and former officials will convince them otherwise. Regular people see this and think "what else is Wikipedia lying about?"
Wikipedia is not a learning resource, it is a place where people want their biases and preconceived notions to be confirmed. On one hand they say "Wikipedia is a sum of all human knowledge" on the other "Wikipedia doesn't write the truth, just follows reputable sources". To Wikipedians, this is not a contradiction, it is how liberal academia and analytical philosophers see knowledge and truth -- knowledge is (socially) constructed and the truth is unattainable. In such a worldview, reality isn't important, but what we all think and believe is. That is why narratives are very important to them. Not grand narratives mind you, but personal and group narratives. It's all one big narrative contest, and Wikipedians are winning.
Maybe I'm being paranoid, but I am pretty sure publications are aware of Wikipedia policies, namely that headlines are not considered reliable. If you search for "Ukraine Kursk defeat" or something to that effect, you'll find articles with headlines to that effect, but you'll be hard-pressed to find a Western outlet that has written "Ukraine is defeated in Kursk" or "Russia achieves victory in Kursk" in the body of the article.
Then Wikipedia editors can claim that no RS is saying Russia won/Ukraine lost and can do what they did for the Battle of Bakhmut [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Batt ... /Archive_5] where it took months of arguing with the usual suspects "Slatersteven" and "Manyareasexpert" for it to be considered a Russian victory. The reason RSs weren't saying it is because they had moved on from the battle, Russia was advancing westwards and there was no need to talk about the battle. But Wikieditors claimed they needed RS to literally say "Ukraine lost to Battle of Bakhmut", anything else is WP:OR.
Since Manyeareasexpert and Slatersteven are established wikipedia editors with decades of service and proven track record of pushing Western narratives, "policies" like STICK, BLUDGEON, CON do not apply to them. IAR when you need to push pro-UA narratives.
When this war is over, expect a war on Wikipedia when editors refuse to call it a Russian victory. It will be impotent and futile seething against reality, which will have asserted itself by that point.
