The biggest problems with Wikipedia Policies?

[Archer]

Part 3, WP:NPOV and ancillaries (e.g. WP:RS, WP:NOR, etc.) -

Wikipedia should require credible citations and impartiality, yet these policies seem to reduce the role of the editor to information laundering. Wikipedia maintains a list of "reliable" sources, Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources, (which also includes "unreliable" sources), from which the editor is strongly encouraged to source information. These pages also generally disfavor the use of primary sources. WP:NPOV states, "Neutrality assigns weight to viewpoints in proportion to their prominence in reliable sources. However, when reputable sources contradict one another and are relatively equal in prominence, describe both points of view and work for balance." It also discourages the editor from using their own wit, e.g. as in this directive from WP:RS, "This means that we publish only the analysis, views, and opinions of reliable authors, and not those of Wikipedians who have read and interpreted primary source material for themselves." Thus Wikipedia's 'political' content is (at best) a neutral accounting of WP:RSP's reliable sources rather than the article subject itself, and the reader should interpret it as such. The expertise of the editor is wasted.

[ericbarbour]

The expertise of the editor is wasted.

Today this can be claimed with a "straight face". But it is a lie and it is one of WP's oldest lies. They started out as a "hobbyist project" wherein the hobbyist could post whatever the hell he, she or it desired. Expertise or not.

Example: in Feburary 2001, one month after Wikipedia began, Tim Shell started mass-copying material from an Objectivism/Ayn Rand website to Wikipedia without permission or attribution. It was later removed. Who is Tim Shell? "Perhaps the closest friend and business partner Jimmy Wales has ever had." Tim was an early Bomis employee, one of the Wikimedia Foundation's first directors, and one of the most rabid Objectivist libertarians you will ever see. (He's also a big supporter of Israel. And so....)

Also in 2001, someone known only as RK showed up on WP. RK was one of the most determined, biased and fanatical Israel supporters and generators of material about Jewish subjects and antisemitism in WP history. Look at his badly-shredded early contributions from September/October 2001 for some crystal-clear examples. As the book wiki says:

One of Wikipedia's earliest attempts to adjudicate a settlement, well before the existence of Arbcom, was in July 2003--and involved RK's bias. Indeed, RK's habitual tantrums resulted in the formation of the Arbitration committee and the Mediation system. He was also subjected to two RFCs and two arbitrations. RK left Wikipedia in 2012 after years of declining interest.

RK didn't "exactly" leave, he just cut back tremendously in 2012. He still performs very rare edits--always on Jewish subjects. No one has any idea of his real identity to this day. His early abuses, and the "house bias" of important WP insiders towards Israel, opened the door for endless subsequent abuses. 2012 was also when the pile-up of arbitrations over Israel/Palestine battles resulted in considerable unspoken changes to "policy" and "reliable sources" and various other practices. Today coverage of Israel/Palestine is actually far more balanced than it was in 2011--because many Israel pushers were forced out and a few pro-Palestine editors were allowed to continue. Prior to 2011 it was ugly and insane and NOT supported by "policies". "Reliable sources" were ignored if they didn't practically scream "ISRAEL FIRST". I've said plenty about this bullshit already elsewhere.

I could tell you about The Cunctator's history but that's been beaten into a froth by now. He's gay, works for nonprofits in the Boston area, and is an expert on Frisbee golf. And ended up meddling in WP content about American politics constantly, also starting in 2001. He got away with outrages and putting his personal bias into WP content because he sucked up to Wales at every possible opportunity. Until a few years ago, Friends of Jimbo were not beholden to any rules.

There are others but this post is too long already. The first two years of Wikipedia attracted some deeply insane people.

Side note: the primitive wiki software Wikipedia used in its first year was so bad, in 2002 they decided to develop their own. That is where MediaWiki came from. Imported edits from 2001-02 are usually full of errors and omissions. Anyone who was abusing Wp content in the early years will get away with it, because this importation generated a huge mess and it makes a decent excuse to deny things ever happened. And you KNOW they will deny things.

[Archer]

The expertise of the editor is wasted.

Today this can be claimed with a "straight face". But it is a lie and it is one of WP's oldest lies. They started out as a "hobbyist project" wherein the hobbyist could post whatever the hell he, she or it desired. Expertise or not.

I don't quite follow. My point is that Wikipedia rejects academics and experts (not just in politics, but even STEM). If its policy were followed to the letter, Wikipedia would be (and I did say "at best"), a tool for propaganda laundering. This is not an acceptable outcome. It would have been better for WIkipedia to discredit itself and lose public trust than to align itself with the mass media's monolithic narrative. That's how it's supposed to work; liars and propagandists should not be able to go on posing as oracles. Case in point, I/P is still grossly distorted on Wikipedia, perhaps just more skillfully and subtly. The word "lobby" does not appear even once in Wikipedia's page on the "Israel-Hamas war", for instance.

[Archer]

I'll take your word about Wikipedia's earlier history, I was not a member then. While I'm certainly not an expert, I could write more on the topic of Wikipedia's contemporary distortions. The western media is generally quite slanted in favor of Israel. The most telling information comes from primary sources, or so I've heard. For example Instagram posts (though I don't use Instagram), statements from leaders, the actions of the US government and the lobby. South Africa's original application to the ICJ contains a mountain of references, primary and secondary, but hardly any of it is reported by the western media. Wikipedia's policy essentially states that the content should be an unbiased sample/summary of information from the "reliable sources" given in WP:RSP, i.e. the mainstream media. This is classic propaganda laundering; the sample bias, language, and distortions are built-in and passed along but Wikipedia calls it "neutral". Propaganda is more dangerous after it has been laundered than before, so I cannot see that this is an improvement.

Generally, I think Wikipedia policy should be the critic's main target. Unlike nebulous, intangible things like Wikipedia's culture, all of the policy issues I have described in this thread could be fixed today. It wouldn't be hard in the least to sharpen up Wikipedia's policy; I'd do it myself if they'd actually consider accepting these improvements. They have no excuse to leave it as it is.

[Archer]

I suppose I should critique some of the essays. Official policy can be criticized directly, however in the case of essays one must prepare some groundwork. This is not particularly complicated and I have already explained some of this here:

Essays in the WP namespace -

In addition to official policy, Wikipedia's WP namespace contains essays. Each essay bears the ridiculous message "This is an essay on [topic]. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints." How should a new editor know which essays are merely minority opinions and which are "widespread norms"? Many of these essays read like policy and are cited and enforced as though they were policy. Wikipedia does not official call them policy because many of them would contradict Wikipedia's pretenses of objectivity and public consensus, contradict other essays, or, in some instances, even contradict the official policy itself.

The subject of my critique is Wikipedia and so I shall only critique essays I believe represent de facto policy. One substantive indication is the number of links that point to an essay; a high link count is probably a sufficient (but not necessary) feature. For instance, Wikipedia:Truth, not verifiability has a link count of 75 and Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth has a link count of 8,934. Correctness should be the highest priority if one's objective is to build an accurate encyclopedia. "Verifiability" (often a euphemism for "information that can be referenced to a 'reliable' source in WP:RSP") is a more forgiving and flexible term if propaganda laundering is the object. This also supports part three of my critique above (and my replies to Mr. Barbour). Their choice of words is also interesting. Imagine if the essay were entitled "Verifiability, not correctness". It sounds stupid and perhaps even faintly sinister without the connotations of satire and pseudo-skepticism that the word "truth" has been loaded with by the media. Predictably, the essay seems to comprise a not-so-subtle means of excluding, discrediting, or at least minimizing the representation of minority opinions. A couple parts strike the eye as I skim over this boring essay:

"Many times, when everybody considers something to be one way but you find somewhere else that "everybody is mistaken" and things were actually some other way, it's more likely you have found a fringe theory. The stance of Wikipedia on such things is to avoid giving undue weight to such minority ideas, and represent instead the current state of understanding of a topic."

This means the absolute minimum standard for including information in Wikipedia is verifiability. If the information is not verifiable, you must not include it under any circumstances. Merely meeting the absolute minimum standard for inclusion is not sufficient. Material may be verifiable, but still banned by several other content policies, including Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, Wikipedia:Copyright violations, Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons, and by editorial judgment about whether this article is an appropriate place for presenting that information.

The distortion is obvious and unoriginal, being the foundation of many question-begging arguments. Here though it appears to be a means of excluding content, with the issue of correctness thrown out entirely and replaced by a much more convenient standard. These essays are often long and insipid and I find it hard to read them in their entirety. They often state the obvious, overlap with official policy, or emphasize trivialities. The question to ask is "what does this essay communicate that the official policy does not?"

[Archer]

{{Wikipedia essays}} (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Wikipedia_essays) is a common template on Wikipedia, which seems to comprise a hand-picked/curated subset of essays (see the talk page). It appears on many user pages, but more importantly, it also appears on several official pages like WP:Fundamentals, WP:CIVIL and more. The template itself (by hovering on the question mark) displays "Essays contain the advice or opinions of one or more editors. They have no official status and may represent widespread norms or minority viewpoints.", yet clearly these essays are selected for a reason. The official page WP:POLICY implies that all essays in the WP namespace represent "widespread norms"; "Essays the author does not want others to edit, or that overtly contradict consensus, belong in the user namespace." There exists a similar template, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:User_essays. It would seem bizarre that the topic categories of Template:User essays are entirely disjoint from those of {{Wikipedia essays}}, but I'll leave the reader to draw their own conclusion. One thing I forgot to explain earlier is that the use of essays as policy provides cover for their selective enforcement. I've been using the phrase "de facto policy" but much of this is only enforced when it's convenient. In other words, Wikipedia's "de facto" policy of essays and official pages exists to serve only as window dressing and to provide an excuse for doing whatever happens to be expedient, regardless of principle and decency.

To demonstrate how little attention is actually paid to this 'policy' when it's anything less than convenient, consider WP:NOTPOLICY (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... ere_policy). This essay is included in {{Wikipedia essays}}. Now search the phrase "Clearly not here to build an encyclopedia" (an essay) in the list of the five hundred most recent indefinite blocks (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... &wpTarget=). Of course official policy doesn't prohibit them from citing it in this context (even though it's entirely inappropriate), WP:NOTPOLICY is merely an essay. Then again, so is WP:HTBAE. One should now understand how essays are used to provide justification for authority, but without imposing any responsibility.

[Archer]

Summarizing the above, policy essays furnish the pretext for administrative practices that would otherwise seem arbitrary and heavy-handed, yet they do so in such a way that they can be selectively enforced and without making any solid, unqualified and specific commitment to protect editors from abusive admins. The casual observer sees an admin cite an essay and reasonably presumes it that "represents widespread norms". Conversely if an admin elects not to follow this convention in a given instance, this is explained away by disclaimers like "Essays contain the advice or opinions of one or more editors. They have no official status and may represent widespread norms or minority viewpoints." Even this hypocrisy itself is excused; "Wikipedia generally does not have hard-and-fast rules", per official policy itself WP:RULES. Finally, objectivity and fairness are disowned completely as WP:IAR (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... _all_rules) completes this descent into farce. It is only by observing and participating in Wikipedia for a time does one come to understand that policy is not enforced in good faith, yet even in this case policy acts a shield against accountability, demanding the benefit of the doubt with WP:AGF (as if they have any control over what one assumes - WP:AGF exists to control what users can say). I have barely even started to cover essays, yet this exposition is necessary for the reader to understand the common thread here, which I stated at the very beginning but bears repeating:

The wording and structure of Wikipedia's policy makes it easy for Wikipedia's administration to make end runs around their own rules. It seems as though designed with two goals: (1) To give the reader the impression that Wikipedia's content represents an impartial public consensus and that its administration is public and democratic. (2) To accomplish the former without (or to the least extent possible) granting any specific, concrete rights toward users, or imposing any specific constraints/responsibilities upon authority to that effect. The following is an attempt to elucidate the subversive features of several Wikipedia policies, though it is by no means comprehensive.

With that out of the way, I may briefly review a couple of essays. Supposing Wikipedia's policy were made firmer and more objective in the way I describe, I believe one of two things would happen. Either Wikipedia would conform to the policy and improve, or Wikipedia would break its own policy overtly and without the cover of so many built-in qualifications, ambiguities and excuses. Either is fine by me. I don't think they will, but that too would be a reflection of their character. Even having been banned from WPO, my critique is written with a practical and constructive solution in mind, and with honest intent, though I don't ask anyone to take it on faith. If I'm mistaken then anyone is welcome to explain how, and also to ask questions and make comments.

If any of the admins/mods here think it's a good idea to move my posts from this thread into a new thread then I'm fine with that, but if not that's fine too. I've written a rather long critique and I might add to it.

[ericbarbour]

You could ask climate scientist Peter Ditlevsen..........

https://archive.ph/RT9gq

In January 2024, Peter happened to be reading the Wikipedia article for the AMOC. About two-thirds of the way down the page, he came across a few lines critiquing his and his sister’s paper. The description called their paper “very controversial.” There, again, was the “feet of clay.” Annoyed, he logged in to Wikipedia under a pseudonym and started adding sentences. When he checked back later, another editor, someone very steeped in this corner of science, had rejected his edits. He logged in again, now under the name “pditlev,” and gave it another go. This time his account got banned.
“Of course you want to be proven wrong,” Peter says to me, “but you also don’t want to be a fool.”

And his "reward":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... ns/Pditlev

The AMOC article is dominated by one sockpuppet, who showed up in 2022 and is WP:CONTROLling the article. This reminds me of the William Connolley days of editwarring the climate-change articles. If they object to "experts" editing WP content, just who the hell is this? Seems to know a LOT about climate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Info ... oKnowledge

[Archer]

You could ask climate scientist Peter Ditlevsen..........

https://archive.ph/RT9gq

In January 2024, Peter happened to be reading the Wikipedia article for the AMOC. About two-thirds of the way down the page, he came across a few lines critiquing his and his sister’s paper. The description called their paper “very controversial.” There, again, was the “feet of clay.” Annoyed, he logged in to Wikipedia under a pseudonym and started adding sentences. When he checked back later, another editor, someone very steeped in this corner of science, had rejected his edits. He logged in again, now under the name “pditlev,” and gave it another go. This time his account got banned.
“Of course you want to be proven wrong,” Peter says to me, “but you also don’t want to be a fool.”

And his "reward":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... ns/Pditlev

The AMOC article is dominated by one sockpuppet, who showed up in 2022 and is WP:CONTROLling the article. This reminds me of the William Connolley days of editwarring the climate-change articles. If they object to "experts" editing WP content, just who the hell is this? Seems to know a LOT about climate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Info ... oKnowledge

“very controversial” - the language of narrative; it should always put one on guard. I know nothing about climate, so it would be difficult for me to assess this particular episode. I hope you get my point though, which is not that there aren't experts who edit Wikipedia, but that Wikipedia's policy strongly favors (if not outright demands) the laundering of mass media propaganda, and the exclusion of 'outside' editors in general. Wikipedia's I/P articles are a perfect example of this, which are only "neutral" or "balanced" in the sense that they faithfully reflect (more or less) the already-skewed mass media. While the first point (about propaganda laundering) is mostly relevant for political articles, I'm sure many other editors with expertise in STEM fields have been repelled through various abuses of Wikipedia's policy. Most of Wikipedia's articles on computer science and math are astonishingly bad.

[boredbird]

And his "reward":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... ns/Pditlev

How dumb can you get.

You appear to be one of the authors involved in the work cited and as such should not be editing the article. Also the use of "we" in the edit summary indicates that more than one person is using the account.