h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This entry ranting against Wikipedia was written by a well-known troll at the Wikipedia site.

The evident author is John Patrick Ennis, who, under his self-assumed "religious name" of Sollog, claims to have authored many accurate prophecies about major world events. He also claims to have made several important mathematical discoveries. His claims are not taken seriously by very many people.

Sollog is the founder of the Temple of 'Hayah. Whether it has any members other than himself is an open question.

He (or, possibly, one of his followers) created a laudatory "Sollog" article on Wikipedia. You can read that original version here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sollog&oldid=8104488

Alas for Sollog, Wikipedia is open-edited, so other people could (and did) amplify on the entry so that, while it still reported his preposterous claims, it no longer took them at face value. They also added information that he would've preferred to keep suppressed, such as his criminal record. You can read whatever is the latest revision here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sollog -- but if it seems odd to you, it may be that Sollog has changed it again; click on the "Page history" link at the top to see earlier versions.

Sollog, unable to control the article the way he wanted to, went on a rampage. Along with constantly trying to rewrite the article, and filling the talk page -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sollog -- with an incredible amount of calumny and obfuscation, he vandalized other Wikipedia articles and launched personal attacks against Wikipedia's founder, Jimmy Wales, and his family. (I think that Sollog's "WikipediaSucks" site has actually been cleaned up a little. He apparently took down some of the more vile personal attacks. I'm not completely sure of this because I didn't make a record of the site as it was when I last checked it, but I think it was more offensive in its earlier version.)

Sollog gets particularly torqued at any reference to Howard Altman, a reporter who's catalogued some of his zanier doings. The Wikipedia article has several links, but you might be amused at this account by Altman of one of Sollog's court appearances: http://www.citypaper.net/articles/050996/article016.shtml

I see that he's written a few h2g2 entries about his prophecies and the Temple. Somehow I'm guessing they won't be in the Edited Guide anytime soon.

Yes but I must say, the editorial issues raised here have some merit. It is true that on Wikipedia you see only what administrators want you to see. Their NPOV ("neutral point of view") standard is actually quite subjective.
Nerd42

Is that actually true? By that I mean, is there not only a potential for abuse, but actual widespread deletion of things the moderators personally dislike? What kinds of things?

Wikipedia has a known bias because of failure to include -- some articles just don't get written in the first place. For example, small towns in the U.S. and the U.K. have articles, while some larger cities in the Third World don't (at least not yet). That's not because of censorship. It's because all the content is written by volunteers, who can't be ordered to write something just because the Editorial Board thinks the article is needed. (In fact, partly for that reason, there is no Editorial Board.)

I don't agree, however, that there's deletion of articles that "the administrators" personally dislike. First, we're not talking about a handful of employees like the Italics. As of today there are 614 active administrators. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_administrators ) Admin status is granted "liberally to anyone who has been an active Wikipedia contributor for a while and is generally a known and trusted member of the community". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators They're hardly a clique. They represent a wide range of nationalities, relgions, political viewpoints, etc.

The main vehicle by which articles are deleted is the Articles for Deletion page. Anyone can go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion and propose that an article be deleted. The listing will remain active for at least five days so that the community (admins and non-admins) can comment. Thereafter, the article will remain unless there was a consensus (supermajority) to delete.

Some pieces of obvious trash meet the criteria for speedy deletion by a single admin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion For example, a few minutes ago an admin deleted an article that consisted of a person's name and the text "Complete Gangster", with nothing more.

Whether it's a speedy deletion or a regular deletion, every deletion is recorded on a publicly available log. Any user (admin or non-admin) who questions a deletion decision can list it on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_review so that the community can consider undeleting it.

Black Carrot asks whether there's "actual widespread deletion of things the moderators personally dislike". In my opinion, there isn't. I'd be interested in seeing any evidence to the contrary.

Oh, I know how wikis work - the writer of this article might not, but I have a pretty good general understanding. I contribute myself.

But still, Wikimedia's brand of NPOV can often be subjective. One example, (in my opinion) of the Wikimedia Project's NPOV subjectivity is that on WikiNews, the "Religious" portal has been replaced by a "Spirituality" portal so as to not offend Bhudists and other people who are "spiritual" but not members of organized religions. This effectively hides stories on religion behind an obvious (to me in my opinion) appeal to political correctness.
Nerd42

A fair point. Wikipedia is, for the most part, a really big conversation among generally well-balanced and well-informed people, with the result of that conversation forming a handy pamphlet, rather than experts writing what they know and other experts making sure they're telling the truth. So, take things with a grain of salt.

I've noticed, BTW, that it never seems to steer me wrong, in the several years I've been using it. That's something I always think of when someone tries to convince me it's chock full of lies and misinformation.

Well ... it has for me, but I usually smell a rat anyway when this happens. I still like h2g2 better - the style around here appeals to me more. I just wish the search was faster...
Nerd42

I've had almost no involvement with Wikinews, so I'm not familiar with that project's categorization scheme. I can say that having a general category for "Spirituality", to include but not be limited to organized religion, doesn't strike me as unreasonable. On Wikipedia, there's a category for "Belief", which has "Religion" and "Spirituality" as separate subcategories. There's usually more than one way to categorize things, and as long as readers can find what they want without undue hassle, I'm generally not inclined to get worked up about the subject.

At any rate, saying that Wikipedia's sister project uses a category name based on "political correctness" is certainly much different from your original charge that "on Wikipedia you see only what administrators want you to see." I thought of an example of a fact that I thought a rigid adherence to "political correctness" might find distasteful -- the allegation of marital infidelity by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (I'm an American, so, to me, support for King would be part of "political correctness".) The Wikipedia article on King includes it. It isn't even stated as a mere allegation, but presented as fact. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King%2C_Jr#King_and_the_FBI

One example doesn't prove the case, of course. Still, I'd be interested to know what basis you had for your assertion. In my experience, the administrators have not engaged in censorship based on their personal views.

Well, the trouble with critisizing Wikipedia is if you do it loud enough your examples are eliminated/replaced, so any and all examples of wikimedia PCPOV (Politically Correct Point of View) have to be under the category of "here's whats on the site right this minute and has been for a while and has been kept the way it is despite complaints" subject to change. Since these are examples (i.e. circumstancial/annicdotal evidence) it's more of a sort of general support for PC.

The word "Religion" is replaced by "Spirituality" on Wikinews.

There is a double-standard on abortion politics at present. (I'm involved in arguing about it on talk pages LOL) The main Pro-Life article is called "anti-abortion movement" whilest the main Pro-Choice article gets to be called "Pro-choice" and "abortion rights movement" with no "pro-abortion legalisation movement."

An example of the previous example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Pro-life_protest.jpg In the caption where this image is used in an article, the protesters were referred to as "Anti-Abortion" ... I took the liberty of chanigng it to pro-life, citing the letter (see the link) and the image title, and my edit gets reverted. It was resolved by not calling them anything, just "demonstrators"

Political correctness. I could keep adding more stuff but I'm too busy trying to fix them instead of talking about it here I usually lose though. Seriously, it's becoming PCPOV - even in their article on political correctness.

Actually, there's an article called "Pro-life" at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-life even though many supporters of reproductive rights consider that term misleading. (Abortion is a notoriously contentious topic, with the opposing sides not even using the same terms.)

I agree with your general point that complaining about specific alleged defects in Wikipedia is somewhat misguided, because you might as well just fix them instead.

Your initial comment in this conversation gave the impression of wholesale deletions by an Orwellian thought police. When we look at the specifics, though, we see that there is an article called "Pro-life". There's another one about the "Anti-abortion movement". The latter article has a picture of the demonstrators. The photo caption tells when and where the so-called "March for Life" occurred (using that name for it but without the description "so-called", which represents my personal POV).

Thus, the information about opposition to abortion rights is there. You recount how the photograph of a demonstration at which participants denounced Roe v. Wade went from calling them "Anti-abortion demonstrators" to calling them "Pro-life demonstrators" to calling them "Demonstrators". If that's your complaint, then it seems you're not disputing my answer to Black Carrot, namely that there are NOT wholesale deletions, whether based on political correctness or any other bias.

By the way, the category "Abortion" and its subcategories include more than 100 Wikipedia articles. I haven't even looked at most of them, but I'll go out on a limb with a hypothesis: There are very few other websites where the coverage of the issue, taken as a whole, provides more information or does so in a more balanced fashion. The advocacy sites on both sides have their place, of course, but Wikipedia aims at filling a different need, and succeeds a great deal of the time.