11 ms·

A Wikipedia editor's campaign to discredit anti-war campaigners (2018)

134 points by hliyan 6y ago

Karunamon 6y ago
Prior thread (2018): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17109290 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17109290
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jimbob45 6y ago
To those who don’t know: the Discussion page on Wikipedia is freely accessible to anyone who wishes to debate content like this. It can be very helpful when the actual page is missing information. I’ve found good information on them more than once.
- EGreg 6y ago
  I actually want to move away from celebrity culture and privately owned platforms, means of distribution, and audiences, and towards platforms based on collaboration, where people have to duke it out and address all serious arguments before the public sees it. It might take slightly longer but our society wouldn't be so divided. Individual people can't all be expected to be experts on climate change, vaccines, 5G and so on. I give an extensive explanation on the economics of free speech here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8HbvC6vqIY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8HbvC6vqIY I interviewed Noam Chomsky on it last week here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUPZ8rSESZo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUPZ8rSESZo And we are building it here (sorry for the bad design so far): https://rational.app/ https://rational.app/
  - Benjamin_Dobell 6y ago
    > where people have to duke it out and address all serious arguments before the public sees it This has come up a bit recently. However, I think you're underestimating the effect of "Sea Lioning" and alike. Experts are often busy, doing important things in their respective fields. They don't have time to duke it out.
    - harwoodleon 6y ago
      I think it could be a fairer way of including experts. Text has a way of levelling trolls and experts.
  - cassonmars 6y ago
    Seems like an interesting idea, but it’s light on details such as how consensus is actually achieved. Infobombing is a common tactic (sometimes called the Gish Gallop), where one person will spew multiple claims and sources (which are in of themselves quite often wrong), shifting the burden of fighting not only each incorrect point but refuting each citation, usually exhausting the opposition, especially when they are a minority view (see how well transgender topics fare against “moderate” views even on here for example).
    - EGreg 6y ago
      One person would not have much power in the collaborative system, unlike the current system where someone who amassed a lot of followers can spew whatever they want for a long time.
  - matkoniecz 6y ago
    > I give an extensive explanation on the economics of free speech here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8HbvC6vqIY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8HbvC6vqIY If you are posting ad for your product - why you expect people to go through an extensive explanation in a video form?
    - EGreg 6y ago
      No, if I posted links to the actual product on HN comments I'd be accused of "shilling" it by someone and downvoted for that. (Search this page for the word "shilling" for instance, it's already happened.) So often I prefer to discuss the broader topic until the product is good enough to just submit to HN as a submission. I encourage you to watch the video discussion with Noam Chomsky, or read the text on rational.app for TL;DR
      - bawolff 6y ago
        Shilling with extra steps is still shilling. If you're going to do that might as well actually write out what your proposal is so we can skim it. A paragraph (or page) of someone being self promoting is something i might read if its on topic and sounds like they have something insightful to add. A video has almost zero chance.
        EGreg 6y ago
        Seems many people think differently than you.
  - Kim_Bruning 6y ago
    2 critical questions: It seems you want to have debates in the back-end before publishing anything. What have you learned from Nupedia, and how do you expect your system to work differently? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nupedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nupedia It seems you want to use a scoring/voting system. These have some known issues when you're trying to find facts. Have you considered how to prevent gaming? One famous (albeit fortunately failed) example of such an attempt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill
EGreg 6y ago
It's an interesting question ... in the age of the Internet, how do we properly do the "tokenomics" of a site to find out the most helpful ways to find out the truth and make it costly to vandalize. For well-known subjects, you can sort of start a public challenge and whoever wins gets to keep the points. But what about for esoteric subjects, or unresolved questions like whether Assad gassed his own people? Or tripling elephants from Colbert? At my company we're currently implementing the platform and we want to better understand how each set of rules and incentives leads to results, so if anyone has any links or papers on this, please share.
- duskwuff 6y ago
  This is possibly one of the most tone-deaf attempts to shill a cryptocurrency I've seen yet. Bravo.
throwawaysea 6y ago
Is Wikipedia Biased? https://www.allsides.com/blog/wikipedia-biased https://www.allsides.com/blog/wikipedia-biased
thomasfromcdnjs 6y ago
I just assume every page on Wikipedia is left based at this point, I don't mind, seems to do the job. I think most right leaning people in the digital age realise that you have to get your information from further sources at this point.
- DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
  To paraphrase Colbert: Reality has a left-wing bias.
  - MrScruff 6y ago
    It does until you go too far left...
    - Jonnax 6y ago
      Lol. Today it seems people who use the phrase "far left" refer to people pointing out racism/sexism. Seems like there's people even calling The New York Times far left these days. Whilst 40 years ago it was workers strikes where they threatened to destroy an employer's assets or environmental activists attacking polluters.
      - redis_mlc 6y ago
        Now leftists burn downtowns. And avowed socialists get elected (AOC.)
- tdeck 6y ago
  This viewpoint is not relevant to or supported by the article. The article describes a Wikipedia editor using his position to oppose labor MP George Galloway and labor leader Jeremy Corbyn. It's hard to see how this is "left based".
  - thomasfromcdnjs 6y ago
    I was implying that the left does what the originally linked "offender" does all the time without scrutiny. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration_to_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration_to_the_Uni... ^ Case in point, the first three paragraphs on illegal immigration to America contain no American conservative figures and/or counter points. Now you can argue that the top 3 paragraphs are factual, and potentially the absolute truth of the matter. But I feel like that might be a little bit unfair if you catch my drift.
harwoodleon 6y ago
With the consistency of edit history and stacked time card, I would guess that Mr. Cross is perhaps a few people or maybe an agency of some kind.
known 6y ago
Has anyone tried editing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chosen_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chosen_people within the context of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_writings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_writings
redis_mlc 6y ago
FYI: against W policy, it's common for PR firms outside the US to specialize in managing W pages. So if you hear about a non-US page that's heavily biased, somebody is likely paying a PR firm to do that. It happens in the US, but it's done more quietly to avoid bans. In Europe, you can probably find ads offering to do it, like "SEO and W optimization", etc.
dinamic 6y ago
This story makes me wondering whether Wikipedia has any means to defend against possible malicious foreign campaigns carries out by non-democratic countries (Russia/China) to discredit western personalities, society and institutions.
- disabled 6y ago
  It does have power over what it allows to be published, although it does not have the staff to enforce violations. As a Croatian-American who speaks Croatian, it is best to avoid the Croatian language Wikipedia pages about wars, with some more recent than others. It is quite hateful, xenophobic, and nationalistic. The news source I provided is investigative journalism for Balkan countries funded via European Union. > "Wikimedia Foundation Inc, the US-based non-profit charitable NGO, is the owner of the Croatian version of Wikipedia." [1] > "However, the Wikimedia Foundation is not the founder of the Croatian version, nor does it accept that it is responsible for the accuracy of its articles. It insists that it does not have any power over Croatian-language Wikipedia entries." [1] Other reads are provided for reference [2][3][4]. [1] Wikipedia Not Responding to Inquiries on Croatian Entries: https://balkaninsight.com/2018/04/23/wikipedia-not-replying-to-inquires-on-croatian-entries-04-20-2018/ https://balkaninsight.com/2018/04/23/wikipedia-not-replying-... [2] Croatian Wikipedia Removes ‘Polish Genocide of Germans’ Claim: https://balkaninsight.com/2018/03/29/croatian-wikipedia-removed-claims-on-polish-genocide-over-germans-03-29-2018/ https://balkaninsight.com/2018/03/29/croatian-wikipedia-remo... [3] How Croatian Wikipedia Made a Concentration Camp Disappear: https://balkaninsight.com/2018/03/26/how-croatian-wikipedia-made-a-concentration-camp-disappear-03-23-2018/ https://balkaninsight.com/2018/03/26/how-croatian-wikipedia-... [4] Croatia Wikipedia Alters Jasenovac Camp Entry Again: https://balkaninsight.com/2018/08/29/croatia-wikipedia-further-disputes-research-on-jasenovac-camp-08-29-2018/ https://balkaninsight.com/2018/08/29/croatia-wikipedia-furth...
  - Kbelicius 6y ago
    I have good news. For years there were campaigns to remove croatia wiki moderators but all were unsuccessful until recently when, with the involvement of global community, some moderators and their sockpuppets were removed. Subsequently the rest of the controversial moderators were removed since without the others sockpupets they could not maintain their position.
gobonobo 6y ago
The Max Blumenthal fan club want everyone to think Philip Cross is some sort of CIA bogeyman that controls Wikipedia. He's prolific, but far less influential than he's made out to be.
- rurban 6y ago
  Well, being paid by the CIA or MI5 is the most likely theory. But point is the agenda, not the affiliation. Not all the goons are influental, but he is (like most media figures), and their policies and practices align.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > Well, being paid by the CIA or MI5 is the most likely theory. "Most likely theory"? What? The most likely theory is that he's convinced of his worldview. There are incredible amounts of people who are true believers of whatever they subscribe to. They're certainly not all paid, or we'd see much larger intelligence budgets everywhere.
    - notahacker 6y ago
      One hypothesis involves intelligence agencies being unaware that it is possible to edit from other Wikipedia accounts and having opinions almost as strong on jazz as geopolitics. The other relies on there being a person with a lot of time on his hands who generally believes what he reads in the Times and responds to provocation on Twitter, and George Galloway not jumping to the correct conclusion.
- pjc50 6y ago
  Of course someone who works for Russian state TV is going to say their enemies are CIA.
- pydry 6y ago
  He's more prolific than any person would be. There's no indication he's a person and every indication that his persona is run by an institution that doesn't like anti war campaigners. Craig Murray graphed his contributions here: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/05/the-philip-cross-affair/ https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/05/the-philip-c... In fairness his views do seem to match up with Jimbo Wales (who is, as a good friend of Tony Blair/Gordon Brown, not exactly anti war). He might be an institutional construct but there's plenty of institutions other than the CIA he could be fronting. It's also possible he's basically a sockpuppet for Jimmy Wales, judging by the way he lashes out on Twitter at people questioning who Philip Cross really is. So he clearly is pretty influential.
throwaway81523 6y ago
I followed this case closely when it was going on. The accusations of that guy were completely overblown. He did not seem to be on any kind of campaign or operating as part of any organization. He was a guy with some opinions and with a lot of time on his hands, who edited a lot in many different subject areas. His editing in most areas was in fact quite good, but in the area of UK politics he had a Tory bias that got out of hand some of the time. That type of thing is very routine, whether it's about politics, computer languages, or anything else. Wikipedia's dispute resolution system handled it ok, I think. After a lot of examination of what had been going on, he was prohibited (at least at the time, those prohibitions can usually be lifted after a while) from further editing about UK politics, but he stayed active in the other areas where he was perfectly ok. There was an occasion or two where he brushed up against his prohibition and caused some temporary localized drama, but that also happens all the time and is no big deal. The pages taking him to task made him sound like an agent of the Illuminati which was ridiculous.
- MrScruff 6y ago
  Also many of the people mentioned are more ‘anti-west’ than ‘anti-war’. Not really questioning that this editor appears biased but let’s call it what it is, which is basic tribal left/right politics.
belorn 6y ago
Rather than to rehash an 2018 debate about a particular editor social media posts is in conflict with their edits on Wikipedia, where did the discussing end up afterward? I think the answer is in an Arbitration a month or so after this article was written (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/BLP_issues_on_British_politics_articles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests...). I did not find any more Arbitration Requests after this date, and the topic ban has not been appealed.
- pydry 6y ago
  If it's clear he has the backing of Jimmy Wales (as evidenced by wikipedia's weirdly explosive reaction on twitter to people questioning this), what would be the point?
- k1m 6y ago
  I worked on the article posted here. I think it's come up again because anti-war US writers are now noticing more hostile editing of their pages[1]. Philip Cross was banned from editing in the area of British politics (which, in my opinion, was done reluctantly by Wikipedia arbitrators after Hacker News[2] and later BBC[3] exposure), the account now continues with the same kind of editing, but targetting people that fall outside the area of the topic ban. Here's an example: Philip Cross had little interest in Max Blumenthal's Wikipedia entry prior to the Wikipedia topic ban (edited only 11 times from 2007 until Cross was banned from British politics in July 2018[4]). Since then, it's been edited by Cross 552 times[5]. According to WikiWho, Cross is responsible for 56% of all content on Max Blumenthal's Wikipedia page. Before the ban, Cross was responsible for 0.9% of the content. [1] https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1381746315659509763 https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1381746315659509763 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17109290 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17109290 [3] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csws6q https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csws6q [4] https://xtools.wmflabs.org/articleinfo/en.wikipedia.org/Max%20Blumenthal/2007-01-01/2018-07-30 https://xtools.wmflabs.org/articleinfo/en.wikipedia.org/Max%... [5] https://xtools.wmflabs.org/articleinfo/en.wikipedia.org/Max%20Blumenthal/2018-07-30/2021-04-13 https://xtools.wmflabs.org/articleinfo/en.wikipedia.org/Max%...
walrus01 6y ago
Whatever this piece is, it lost all credibility in my opinion when it started citing RT and Sputnik.
- MrBuddyCasino 6y ago
  By now, the same should be true of CNN and NYT. Yet...
  - walrus01 6y ago
    And yet the whataboutism (an old and tired rhetorical tactic) actually attempts to equate the situation for freedom of the press, civil rights, human rights and a functioning democratic/republic form of government in the USA and Russia. They are in no way equal to each other. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Russia
    - boomboomsubban 6y ago
      How can you bemoan whataboutism when your entire argument was an ad hominem attack? Even though Russia's track record on liberal values is worse than America's, RT can print truthful things.
      - walrus01 6y ago
        by definition, an ad hominem attack is on the character or morals of a single individual. RT/Sputnik are large state run corporations.
        boomboomsubban 6y ago
        The term "ad hominem" had changed beyond it's literal Latin translation, but I guess I can swap it to "your entire argument was an association fallacy."
        6y ago
Roark66 6y ago
>The story has now also been picked up by RT and the Sunday Herald. Seriously quoting RT (or Sputnik) in a serious article is giving them legitimacy they don't deserve. As for the substance of the article. Based on the edits they show it seems the guy really is manipulating the entries. Hiding genuine info and adding stuff that may be/is unsubstantiated. However this bit is going a bit too far: >The operation runs like clockwork, seven days a week, every waking hour, without significant variation. If Philip Cross genuinely is an individual, there is no denying he is morbidly obsessed. I am no psychiatrist, but to my entirely inexpert eyes this looks like the behaviour of a deranged psychotic with no regular social activities outside the home, no job (or an incredibly tolerant boss), living his life through a screen. A "deranged psychotic" ? Maybe he is a pensioner with nothing better to do with his time? Judge him by the malice of his edits, not by the time he spends making them.
- rob74 6y ago
  Well, we usually just call these people trolls, but if they are really a single person who is devoting that much time to the activity of smearing people they don't like via Wikipedia, I don't think calling them a "deranged psychotic" is an exaggeration...
- pydry 6y ago
  He said it got picked up by RT. So what? It's ancillary to the story. Deranged psychotics and pensioners do not show this pattern of behavior. This account is clearly being operated by a team who clock in and clock out. If the account were editing pages in a way through Russian government would approve of I guarantee that you would not have a shadow of a doubt that this was definitrly not an obsessed pensioner and neither would I.
- amadeuspagel 6y ago
  > Seriously quoting RT (or Sputnik) in a serious article is giving them legitimacy they don't deserve. If these are some of the only outlets picking up this story, they deserve whatever legitimacy they get from that. I'm sure the authors of that website would prefer to quote the NYT and the WSJ, but these haven't picked up the story. More fundamentally, outlets that are seen as reliable sources by wikipedia are probably biased towards it. If you look for example at articles about wikipedia from the NYT[1] and the WSJ[2], even if they are about problems with it, the framing is always that wikipedia is working on a problem. So critical reporting about wikipedia is likely to come from outlets seen as "illegitimate". To demand to ignore those is to demand to ignore most critical reporting about it. > If Philip Cross genuinely is an individual That's the key part here. [1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awsj.com+wikipedia&oq=site%3Awsj.com+wikipedia&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.4432j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awsj.com+wikipedia&oq=... [2]: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anytimes.com+wikipedia&oq=site%3Anytimes.com+wikipedia&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.5024j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anytimes.com+wikipedia...
Sporktacular 6y ago
So Phillip Cross is accused of conflicts of interest. He could move to edit other pages but insists on continuing without explanation. From the diffs he has a pretty clear agenda and isn't in it to just fact check, fix grammar, check sources etc. What really troubles me is how little concern editors have for the precariousness of WP's reputation. Spewing legalese while missing the larger point, misstating the case in escalation to arbitration, dismissing the claims within minutes of hearing a defence etc. Wikipedia's model is at high risk to opinion farms and any suggestion that that is happening should be taken very seriously by editors, lest they look like they're complicit. When that happens it will quickly suffer repetitional damage that will take much, much longer to repair. But they want to debate the rules and definitions, make counter accusations... To dawdle over such an obvious case is going to be hard to forgive.

134 points by hliyan 6y ago

Karunamon 6y ago

Prior thread (2018): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17109290 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17109290

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jimbob45 6y ago

To those who don’t know: the Discussion page on Wikipedia is freely accessible to anyone who wishes to debate content like this. It can be very helpful when the actual page is missing information. I’ve found good information on them more than once.

EGreg 6y ago
I actually want to move away from celebrity culture and privately owned platforms, means of distribution, and audiences, and towards platforms based on collaboration, where people have to duke it out and address all serious arguments before the public sees it. It might take slightly longer but our society wouldn't be so divided. Individual people can't all be expected to be experts on climate change, vaccines, 5G and so on. I give an extensive explanation on the economics of free speech here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8HbvC6vqIY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8HbvC6vqIY I interviewed Noam Chomsky on it last week here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUPZ8rSESZo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUPZ8rSESZo And we are building it here (sorry for the bad design so far): https://rational.app/ https://rational.app/
- Benjamin_Dobell 6y ago
  > where people have to duke it out and address all serious arguments before the public sees it This has come up a bit recently. However, I think you're underestimating the effect of "Sea Lioning" and alike. Experts are often busy, doing important things in their respective fields. They don't have time to duke it out.
  - harwoodleon 6y ago
    I think it could be a fairer way of including experts. Text has a way of levelling trolls and experts.
- cassonmars 6y ago
  Seems like an interesting idea, but it’s light on details such as how consensus is actually achieved. Infobombing is a common tactic (sometimes called the Gish Gallop), where one person will spew multiple claims and sources (which are in of themselves quite often wrong), shifting the burden of fighting not only each incorrect point but refuting each citation, usually exhausting the opposition, especially when they are a minority view (see how well transgender topics fare against “moderate” views even on here for example).
  - EGreg 6y ago
    One person would not have much power in the collaborative system, unlike the current system where someone who amassed a lot of followers can spew whatever they want for a long time.
- matkoniecz 6y ago
  > I give an extensive explanation on the economics of free speech here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8HbvC6vqIY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8HbvC6vqIY If you are posting ad for your product - why you expect people to go through an extensive explanation in a video form?
  - EGreg 6y ago
    No, if I posted links to the actual product on HN comments I'd be accused of "shilling" it by someone and downvoted for that. (Search this page for the word "shilling" for instance, it's already happened.) So often I prefer to discuss the broader topic until the product is good enough to just submit to HN as a submission. I encourage you to watch the video discussion with Noam Chomsky, or read the text on rational.app for TL;DR
    - bawolff 6y ago
      Shilling with extra steps is still shilling. If you're going to do that might as well actually write out what your proposal is so we can skim it. A paragraph (or page) of someone being self promoting is something i might read if its on topic and sounds like they have something insightful to add. A video has almost zero chance.
      - EGreg 6y ago
        Seems many people think differently than you.
- Kim_Bruning 6y ago
  2 critical questions: It seems you want to have debates in the back-end before publishing anything. What have you learned from Nupedia, and how do you expect your system to work differently? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nupedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nupedia It seems you want to use a scoring/voting system. These have some known issues when you're trying to find facts. Have you considered how to prevent gaming? One famous (albeit fortunately failed) example of such an attempt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill

EGreg 6y ago

It's an interesting question ... in the age of the Internet, how do we properly do the "tokenomics" of a site to find out the most helpful ways to find out the truth and make it costly to vandalize. For well-known subjects, you can sort of start a public challenge and whoever wins gets to keep the points. But what about for esoteric subjects, or unresolved questions like whether Assad gassed his own people? Or tripling elephants from Colbert? At my company we're currently implementing the platform and we want to better understand how each set of rules and incentives leads to results, so if anyone has any links or papers on this, please share.

duskwuff 6y ago
This is possibly one of the most tone-deaf attempts to shill a cryptocurrency I've seen yet. Bravo.

throwawaysea 6y ago

Is Wikipedia Biased? https://www.allsides.com/blog/wikipedia-biased https://www.allsides.com/blog/wikipedia-biased

thomasfromcdnjs 6y ago

I just assume every page on Wikipedia is left based at this point, I don't mind, seems to do the job. I think most right leaning people in the digital age realise that you have to get your information from further sources at this point.

DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
To paraphrase Colbert: Reality has a left-wing bias.
- MrScruff 6y ago
  It does until you go too far left...
  - Jonnax 6y ago
    Lol. Today it seems people who use the phrase "far left" refer to people pointing out racism/sexism. Seems like there's people even calling The New York Times far left these days. Whilst 40 years ago it was workers strikes where they threatened to destroy an employer's assets or environmental activists attacking polluters.
    - redis_mlc 6y ago
      Now leftists burn downtowns. And avowed socialists get elected (AOC.)
tdeck 6y ago
This viewpoint is not relevant to or supported by the article. The article describes a Wikipedia editor using his position to oppose labor MP George Galloway and labor leader Jeremy Corbyn. It's hard to see how this is "left based".
- thomasfromcdnjs 6y ago
  I was implying that the left does what the originally linked "offender" does all the time without scrutiny. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration_to_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration_to_the_Uni... ^ Case in point, the first three paragraphs on illegal immigration to America contain no American conservative figures and/or counter points. Now you can argue that the top 3 paragraphs are factual, and potentially the absolute truth of the matter. But I feel like that might be a little bit unfair if you catch my drift.

harwoodleon 6y ago

With the consistency of edit history and stacked time card, I would guess that Mr. Cross is perhaps a few people or maybe an agency of some kind.

known 6y ago

Has anyone tried editing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chosen_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chosen_people within the context of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_writings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_writings

redis_mlc 6y ago

FYI: against W policy, it's common for PR firms outside the US to specialize in managing W pages. So if you hear about a non-US page that's heavily biased, somebody is likely paying a PR firm to do that. It happens in the US, but it's done more quietly to avoid bans. In Europe, you can probably find ads offering to do it, like "SEO and W optimization", etc.

dinamic 6y ago

This story makes me wondering whether Wikipedia has any means to defend against possible malicious foreign campaigns carries out by non-democratic countries (Russia/China) to discredit western personalities, society and institutions.

disabled 6y ago
It does have power over what it allows to be published, although it does not have the staff to enforce violations. As a Croatian-American who speaks Croatian, it is best to avoid the Croatian language Wikipedia pages about wars, with some more recent than others. It is quite hateful, xenophobic, and nationalistic. The news source I provided is investigative journalism for Balkan countries funded via European Union. > "Wikimedia Foundation Inc, the US-based non-profit charitable NGO, is the owner of the Croatian version of Wikipedia." [1] > "However, the Wikimedia Foundation is not the founder of the Croatian version, nor does it accept that it is responsible for the accuracy of its articles. It insists that it does not have any power over Croatian-language Wikipedia entries." [1] Other reads are provided for reference [2][3][4]. [1] Wikipedia Not Responding to Inquiries on Croatian Entries: https://balkaninsight.com/2018/04/23/wikipedia-not-replying-to-inquires-on-croatian-entries-04-20-2018/ https://balkaninsight.com/2018/04/23/wikipedia-not-replying-... [2] Croatian Wikipedia Removes ‘Polish Genocide of Germans’ Claim: https://balkaninsight.com/2018/03/29/croatian-wikipedia-removed-claims-on-polish-genocide-over-germans-03-29-2018/ https://balkaninsight.com/2018/03/29/croatian-wikipedia-remo... [3] How Croatian Wikipedia Made a Concentration Camp Disappear: https://balkaninsight.com/2018/03/26/how-croatian-wikipedia-made-a-concentration-camp-disappear-03-23-2018/ https://balkaninsight.com/2018/03/26/how-croatian-wikipedia-... [4] Croatia Wikipedia Alters Jasenovac Camp Entry Again: https://balkaninsight.com/2018/08/29/croatia-wikipedia-further-disputes-research-on-jasenovac-camp-08-29-2018/ https://balkaninsight.com/2018/08/29/croatia-wikipedia-furth...
- Kbelicius 6y ago
  I have good news. For years there were campaigns to remove croatia wiki moderators but all were unsuccessful until recently when, with the involvement of global community, some moderators and their sockpuppets were removed. Subsequently the rest of the controversial moderators were removed since without the others sockpupets they could not maintain their position.

gobonobo 6y ago

The Max Blumenthal fan club want everyone to think Philip Cross is some sort of CIA bogeyman that controls Wikipedia. He's prolific, but far less influential than he's made out to be.

rurban 6y ago
Well, being paid by the CIA or MI5 is the most likely theory. But point is the agenda, not the affiliation. Not all the goons are influental, but he is (like most media figures), and their policies and practices align.
- luckylion 6y ago
  > Well, being paid by the CIA or MI5 is the most likely theory. "Most likely theory"? What? The most likely theory is that he's convinced of his worldview. There are incredible amounts of people who are true believers of whatever they subscribe to. They're certainly not all paid, or we'd see much larger intelligence budgets everywhere.
  - notahacker 6y ago
    One hypothesis involves intelligence agencies being unaware that it is possible to edit from other Wikipedia accounts and having opinions almost as strong on jazz as geopolitics. The other relies on there being a person with a lot of time on his hands who generally believes what he reads in the Times and responds to provocation on Twitter, and George Galloway not jumping to the correct conclusion.
pjc50 6y ago
Of course someone who works for Russian state TV is going to say their enemies are CIA.
pydry 6y ago
He's more prolific than any person would be. There's no indication he's a person and every indication that his persona is run by an institution that doesn't like anti war campaigners. Craig Murray graphed his contributions here: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/05/the-philip-cross-affair/ https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/05/the-philip-c... In fairness his views do seem to match up with Jimbo Wales (who is, as a good friend of Tony Blair/Gordon Brown, not exactly anti war). He might be an institutional construct but there's plenty of institutions other than the CIA he could be fronting. It's also possible he's basically a sockpuppet for Jimmy Wales, judging by the way he lashes out on Twitter at people questioning who Philip Cross really is. So he clearly is pretty influential.

throwaway81523 6y ago

I followed this case closely when it was going on. The accusations of that guy were completely overblown. He did not seem to be on any kind of campaign or operating as part of any organization. He was a guy with some opinions and with a lot of time on his hands, who edited a lot in many different subject areas. His editing in most areas was in fact quite good, but in the area of UK politics he had a Tory bias that got out of hand some of the time. That type of thing is very routine, whether it's about politics, computer languages, or anything else. Wikipedia's dispute resolution system handled it ok, I think. After a lot of examination of what had been going on, he was prohibited (at least at the time, those prohibitions can usually be lifted after a while) from further editing about UK politics, but he stayed active in the other areas where he was perfectly ok. There was an occasion or two where he brushed up against his prohibition and caused some temporary localized drama, but that also happens all the time and is no big deal. The pages taking him to task made him sound like an agent of the Illuminati which was ridiculous.

MrScruff 6y ago
Also many of the people mentioned are more ‘anti-west’ than ‘anti-war’. Not really questioning that this editor appears biased but let’s call it what it is, which is basic tribal left/right politics.

belorn 6y ago

Rather than to rehash an 2018 debate about a particular editor social media posts is in conflict with their edits on Wikipedia, where did the discussing end up afterward? I think the answer is in an Arbitration a month or so after this article was written (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/BLP_issues_on_British_politics_articles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests...). I did not find any more Arbitration Requests after this date, and the topic ban has not been appealed.

pydry 6y ago
If it's clear he has the backing of Jimmy Wales (as evidenced by wikipedia's weirdly explosive reaction on twitter to people questioning this), what would be the point?
k1m 6y ago
I worked on the article posted here. I think it's come up again because anti-war US writers are now noticing more hostile editing of their pages[1]. Philip Cross was banned from editing in the area of British politics (which, in my opinion, was done reluctantly by Wikipedia arbitrators after Hacker News[2] and later BBC[3] exposure), the account now continues with the same kind of editing, but targetting people that fall outside the area of the topic ban. Here's an example: Philip Cross had little interest in Max Blumenthal's Wikipedia entry prior to the Wikipedia topic ban (edited only 11 times from 2007 until Cross was banned from British politics in July 2018[4]). Since then, it's been edited by Cross 552 times[5]. According to WikiWho, Cross is responsible for 56% of all content on Max Blumenthal's Wikipedia page. Before the ban, Cross was responsible for 0.9% of the content. [1] https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1381746315659509763 https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1381746315659509763 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17109290 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17109290 [3] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csws6q https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csws6q [4] https://xtools.wmflabs.org/articleinfo/en.wikipedia.org/Max%20Blumenthal/2007-01-01/2018-07-30 https://xtools.wmflabs.org/articleinfo/en.wikipedia.org/Max%... [5] https://xtools.wmflabs.org/articleinfo/en.wikipedia.org/Max%20Blumenthal/2018-07-30/2021-04-13 https://xtools.wmflabs.org/articleinfo/en.wikipedia.org/Max%...

walrus01 6y ago

Whatever this piece is, it lost all credibility in my opinion when it started citing RT and Sputnik.

MrBuddyCasino 6y ago
By now, the same should be true of CNN and NYT. Yet...
- walrus01 6y ago
  And yet the whataboutism (an old and tired rhetorical tactic) actually attempts to equate the situation for freedom of the press, civil rights, human rights and a functioning democratic/republic form of government in the USA and Russia. They are in no way equal to each other. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Russia
  - boomboomsubban 6y ago
    How can you bemoan whataboutism when your entire argument was an ad hominem attack? Even though Russia's track record on liberal values is worse than America's, RT can print truthful things.
    - walrus01 6y ago
      by definition, an ad hominem attack is on the character or morals of a single individual. RT/Sputnik are large state run corporations.
      - boomboomsubban 6y ago
        The term "ad hominem" had changed beyond it's literal Latin translation, but I guess I can swap it to "your entire argument was an association fallacy."
        6y ago

Roark66 6y ago

>The story has now also been picked up by RT and the Sunday Herald. Seriously quoting RT (or Sputnik) in a serious article is giving them legitimacy they don't deserve. As for the substance of the article. Based on the edits they show it seems the guy really is manipulating the entries. Hiding genuine info and adding stuff that may be/is unsubstantiated. However this bit is going a bit too far: >The operation runs like clockwork, seven days a week, every waking hour, without significant variation. If Philip Cross genuinely is an individual, there is no denying he is morbidly obsessed. I am no psychiatrist, but to my entirely inexpert eyes this looks like the behaviour of a deranged psychotic with no regular social activities outside the home, no job (or an incredibly tolerant boss), living his life through a screen. A "deranged psychotic" ? Maybe he is a pensioner with nothing better to do with his time? Judge him by the malice of his edits, not by the time he spends making them.

rob74 6y ago
Well, we usually just call these people trolls, but if they are really a single person who is devoting that much time to the activity of smearing people they don't like via Wikipedia, I don't think calling them a "deranged psychotic" is an exaggeration...
pydry 6y ago
He said it got picked up by RT. So what? It's ancillary to the story. Deranged psychotics and pensioners do not show this pattern of behavior. This account is clearly being operated by a team who clock in and clock out. If the account were editing pages in a way through Russian government would approve of I guarantee that you would not have a shadow of a doubt that this was definitrly not an obsessed pensioner and neither would I.
amadeuspagel 6y ago
> Seriously quoting RT (or Sputnik) in a serious article is giving them legitimacy they don't deserve. If these are some of the only outlets picking up this story, they deserve whatever legitimacy they get from that. I'm sure the authors of that website would prefer to quote the NYT and the WSJ, but these haven't picked up the story. More fundamentally, outlets that are seen as reliable sources by wikipedia are probably biased towards it. If you look for example at articles about wikipedia from the NYT[1] and the WSJ[2], even if they are about problems with it, the framing is always that wikipedia is working on a problem. So critical reporting about wikipedia is likely to come from outlets seen as "illegitimate". To demand to ignore those is to demand to ignore most critical reporting about it. > If Philip Cross genuinely is an individual That's the key part here. [1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awsj.com+wikipedia&oq=site%3Awsj.com+wikipedia&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.4432j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awsj.com+wikipedia&oq=... [2]: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anytimes.com+wikipedia&oq=site%3Anytimes.com+wikipedia&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.5024j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anytimes.com+wikipedia...

Sporktacular 6y ago

So Phillip Cross is accused of conflicts of interest. He could move to edit other pages but insists on continuing without explanation. From the diffs he has a pretty clear agenda and isn't in it to just fact check, fix grammar, check sources etc. What really troubles me is how little concern editors have for the precariousness of WP's reputation. Spewing legalese while missing the larger point, misstating the case in escalation to arbitration, dismissing the claims within minutes of hearing a defence etc. Wikipedia's model is at high risk to opinion farms and any suggestion that that is happening should be taken very seriously by editors, lest they look like they're complicit. When that happens it will quickly suffer repetitional damage that will take much, much longer to repair. But they want to debate the rules and definitions, make counter accusations... To dawdle over such an obvious case is going to be hard to forgive.