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There is definitely interests that have captured Wikipedia. It takes the form of editors that have slowly built up a lot of credibility and power that then use

There is definitely interests that have captured Wikipedia. It takes the form of editors that have slowly built up a lot of credibility and power that then use it years later in some manner that does not agree with the neutral nature of the site. The events leading up to the US 2020 election are burned into my mind. Sure people tend to talk about the craziness of the US far-Right but the non-centrist Left also got attacked and censored. In one case a popular Youtuber on the Left (Kyle Kulisnki) had posted some commentary on independent attack ads that were extremely negative to the Democratic party. That led to a multiple threads on Wikipedia calling for the deletion of his page. After 3 attempts to remove his page by the same editor, it finally got removed on the 4th attempt. [1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Kyle_Kulinski_(4th_nomination) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletio... Watching this whole experience play out in real time was utterly disgusting and showed me how the site has since become captured. Its a shame because despite calls for secondary sourcing in my experience many people do in fact trust Wikipedia whole heartedly. It is really dangerous that leadership did not clamp down on this behavior when it was happening. Now they have exposed themselves to attacks from the far right and eventually people with a lot of exposure (People like Musk) might call them out(if he hasn't already). That will begin the slow slide into half the country not trusting the site at all and their minds being made up no matter what Wikipedia does. Interestingly the page was recreated over a year later after the election was over but the lasting damage has been done. I presume that in the next election it will be targeted again. We see this behavior on other platforms such as Reddit during election season and you can be sure that Musk is whipping up something big for 2024 (and his rivals are probably developing some sort of countermeasure) but I thought I could always count on Wikipedia being a place of refuge. I guess not.

foobarbecue 3y ago
Sounds like a regrettable epsiode. However, looking at the deletion, I see he was deleted as non-notable. Debates about notability are common on WP and not inherently political. Back in the day (2006-2010ish, I think) I was a pretty active member of the Association of Deletionist Wikipedians. I was kind of on a crusade against people who would put up their own pages to try to promote themselves, in violation of the Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia policy. Mainly, I was worried that it would be untenable to keep WP accurate if we had too many pages. I also went on a rampage deleting pages for individual pokemon, which I'm not proud of. There was a well-established consensus at the time that most individual pokemon did not meet the notability threshold (I don't remember the exact criteria, but it had to do with multiple sources of the information being available) and therefore their pages should be deleted. Looking back, that was kinda silly... The Wikipedia is not Paper policy probably outweighs the Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia policy when it comes to Pokemon. Anyway, I don't doubt that there is a political element in the case of this Kyle guy, but it's probable that I would have voted to have him deleted on completely apolitical grounds. (I haven't heard of him and haven't read enough to form a political or notability opinion on him at this point)
- nebula8804 3y ago
  My litmus test in this case would be are other political youtuber of similar or smaller size being deleted? If you go through the page and the previous attempts at deletion you'll see that this was not the case. I also noticed this as well during the event as it was occurring. Thats where I think something more suspicious is occuring.
- B1FF_PSUVM 3y ago
  > went on a rampage deleting pages for individual pokemon, which I'm not proud of I find it amusing that pokemons get pages, but real people don't. Yeah, notability, I get it. Still.
  - gverrilla 3y ago
    """ 36 This is the principle of commodity fetishism, the domination of society by "intangible as well as tangible things" which reaches its absolute fulfillment in the spectacle, where the tangible world is replaced by a selection of images which exist above it, and which at the same time are recognized as the tangible par excellence. """ Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord
    - TeMPOraL 3y ago
      A more charitable take in this case: fictional anime characters may not be as important as real human beings, but Pokemon are shared culture. The right comparison isn't with this or that person, but with poems, or paintings, or landmarks, etc. - all kinds of social objects. And of course, giving back to Debord, we can say that the society of the spectacle is one of infinite supply of manufactured social objects.
- paulmd 3y ago
  > Debates about notability are common on WP and not inherently political. "sometimes it's not political" is not really a defense to the claim of "this time it probably was". Anyway, the problem is there's a lot of valuable content on wikipedia that is essentially borderline according to the rules, but also delivers a lot of value, and this content exists at the suffrage of whether or not they have some greasy nerd as patron or whether another one gets a bee up their ass about it. "Lists" policy is a great example, and I've seen quite a few important lists go through cycles where despite being a de-facto resource for 10 or 15 years, all of a sudden some editor will get a bee up their ass and just delete it all, because WP:Lists. But of course having been the resource for 15 years, nobody external has bothered to collate a list that already exists on wikipedia, but if you point that out then you get the WP:OriginalResearch response. If you revert the changes, they'll lock it for "vandalism", etc. So we just lose that resource that's existed for 10-15 years, unless some other sufficiently greasy nerd pushes back on it. The wikipedia editor cadre sucks, it's the definitive answer to the question of "what's the absolute least power that can go to someone's head". It's a real problem with the public trying to interact with wikipedia, much like stackoverflow answers everyone just knows it's not worth the time and does their damndest not to interact with it if they have any other alternatives. And yes, "anyone can do it" in principle but it's not the public's job to push uphill to try and chase out bad actors in the organization. People won't do it and they'll just go do better things and you'll be left with only the toxic people - it's the "dead sea effect" in action. A sufficient concentration of poison will kill any life that might have any chance of remediating the poison. https://medium.com/@jayhanlon/welcome-wagon-dd57cbdd54d9 https://medium.com/@jayhanlon/welcome-wagon-dd57cbdd54d9 Much like stackoverflow and the "come to jesus" moment a couple years ago when they tried to get SO members to stop being so fucking toxic to newcomers and people trying to ask the questions that let SO create content (to which the community basically shrugged and said they wouldn't "compromise community standards" by not shitting on people/pressing their mod buttons to suppress stuff for arbitrary reasons/etc), the cancer is so ingrown at this point that you can't save the organization without putting policies in that those greasies are going to hate, and that will kill the host organism. So it's terminal. Wikipedia editing is the same as StackOverflow commenting and has been for years. It's not that they're going to go under, but they're not everything they could be either, and there are often distinct points where the quality of the product has gone down over the years rather than up due to these problem children. (I found a comment from myself 5 years ago saying this exact same thing in fact, lol) Powermods on reddit are sort of another case of this too... it's not a great system to have some random greasy nerd from 2008 squatting on some common keyword/brand name while moderating poorly. But now it's entrenched and if you change the policy they're all going to shut down their subs in solidarity, so you have to essentially be willing to hammer down on the whole mod class and come in and replace all of them. It's the old "10% of the employees are real shitasses but they're protected by the union so we can't really do anything about it" problem.
CapstanRoller 3y ago
>the US far-Right but the non-centrist Left No need for such verbal contortion. You're describing the far-right (Republican Party) and center-right (Democratic Party). Left parties in the USA include Green Party, DSA, CPUSA, etc. They are largely irrelevant.
- alexandre_m 3y ago
  The Democratic Party is no longer center-right, not since at least 2016. The progressive faction has taken a lot of place. Just look at AOC and the likes.
  - cool_dude85 3y ago
    What left wing policies did they pass when they won the presidency and both houses of congress in 2020?
    - alexandre_m 3y ago
      The 3.5 trillion budget in 2021 with broader socialism policies would be a good example. However, it doesn't have to be limited to legislations passed, but rather what is widely being discussed and pushed forward by the Democratic factions, the biggest example is the "Green New Deal"; more government intervention, increased spendings, massive expansion of state power.
      - CapstanRoller 3y ago
        Socialism doesn't mean "when the government does stuff" (or "spending money")
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    What far left policies have passed since 2020? And 80 year old Biden a far left progressive?
  - specialist 3y ago
    US House and some States? Sure. US Senate and the solid blue core? Still firmly center-right. For instance, Republicans are very unlikely to be elected in my city. So competitive candidates call themselves Democrats. And to establish their bonafidas, they might even hold a few select leftish positions to brag about. But when it comes to legislating and appropriations, the boring stuff that no one pays attention to, they're just as nimby, reactionary, regressive as any generic Republican.

foobarbecue 3y ago

Sounds like a regrettable epsiode. However, looking at the deletion, I see he was deleted as non-notable. Debates about notability are common on WP and not inherently political. Back in the day (2006-2010ish, I think) I was a pretty active member of the Association of Deletionist Wikipedians. I was kind of on a crusade against people who would put up their own pages to try to promote themselves, in violation of the Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia policy. Mainly, I was worried that it would be untenable to keep WP accurate if we had too many pages. I also went on a rampage deleting pages for individual pokemon, which I'm not proud of. There was a well-established consensus at the time that most individual pokemon did not meet the notability threshold (I don't remember the exact criteria, but it had to do with multiple sources of the information being available) and therefore their pages should be deleted. Looking back, that was kinda silly... The Wikipedia is not Paper policy probably outweighs the Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia policy when it comes to Pokemon. Anyway, I don't doubt that there is a political element in the case of this Kyle guy, but it's probable that I would have voted to have him deleted on completely apolitical grounds. (I haven't heard of him and haven't read enough to form a political or notability opinion on him at this point)

nebula8804 3y ago
My litmus test in this case would be are other political youtuber of similar or smaller size being deleted? If you go through the page and the previous attempts at deletion you'll see that this was not the case. I also noticed this as well during the event as it was occurring. Thats where I think something more suspicious is occuring.
B1FF_PSUVM 3y ago
> went on a rampage deleting pages for individual pokemon, which I'm not proud of I find it amusing that pokemons get pages, but real people don't. Yeah, notability, I get it. Still.
- gverrilla 3y ago
  """ 36 This is the principle of commodity fetishism, the domination of society by "intangible as well as tangible things" which reaches its absolute fulfillment in the spectacle, where the tangible world is replaced by a selection of images which exist above it, and which at the same time are recognized as the tangible par excellence. """ Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    A more charitable take in this case: fictional anime characters may not be as important as real human beings, but Pokemon are shared culture. The right comparison isn't with this or that person, but with poems, or paintings, or landmarks, etc. - all kinds of social objects. And of course, giving back to Debord, we can say that the society of the spectacle is one of infinite supply of manufactured social objects.
paulmd 3y ago
> Debates about notability are common on WP and not inherently political. "sometimes it's not political" is not really a defense to the claim of "this time it probably was". Anyway, the problem is there's a lot of valuable content on wikipedia that is essentially borderline according to the rules, but also delivers a lot of value, and this content exists at the suffrage of whether or not they have some greasy nerd as patron or whether another one gets a bee up their ass about it. "Lists" policy is a great example, and I've seen quite a few important lists go through cycles where despite being a de-facto resource for 10 or 15 years, all of a sudden some editor will get a bee up their ass and just delete it all, because WP:Lists. But of course having been the resource for 15 years, nobody external has bothered to collate a list that already exists on wikipedia, but if you point that out then you get the WP:OriginalResearch response. If you revert the changes, they'll lock it for "vandalism", etc. So we just lose that resource that's existed for 10-15 years, unless some other sufficiently greasy nerd pushes back on it. The wikipedia editor cadre sucks, it's the definitive answer to the question of "what's the absolute least power that can go to someone's head". It's a real problem with the public trying to interact with wikipedia, much like stackoverflow answers everyone just knows it's not worth the time and does their damndest not to interact with it if they have any other alternatives. And yes, "anyone can do it" in principle but it's not the public's job to push uphill to try and chase out bad actors in the organization. People won't do it and they'll just go do better things and you'll be left with only the toxic people - it's the "dead sea effect" in action. A sufficient concentration of poison will kill any life that might have any chance of remediating the poison. https://medium.com/@jayhanlon/welcome-wagon-dd57cbdd54d9 https://medium.com/@jayhanlon/welcome-wagon-dd57cbdd54d9 Much like stackoverflow and the "come to jesus" moment a couple years ago when they tried to get SO members to stop being so fucking toxic to newcomers and people trying to ask the questions that let SO create content (to which the community basically shrugged and said they wouldn't "compromise community standards" by not shitting on people/pressing their mod buttons to suppress stuff for arbitrary reasons/etc), the cancer is so ingrown at this point that you can't save the organization without putting policies in that those greasies are going to hate, and that will kill the host organism. So it's terminal. Wikipedia editing is the same as StackOverflow commenting and has been for years. It's not that they're going to go under, but they're not everything they could be either, and there are often distinct points where the quality of the product has gone down over the years rather than up due to these problem children. (I found a comment from myself 5 years ago saying this exact same thing in fact, lol) Powermods on reddit are sort of another case of this too... it's not a great system to have some random greasy nerd from 2008 squatting on some common keyword/brand name while moderating poorly. But now it's entrenched and if you change the policy they're all going to shut down their subs in solidarity, so you have to essentially be willing to hammer down on the whole mod class and come in and replace all of them. It's the old "10% of the employees are real shitasses but they're protected by the union so we can't really do anything about it" problem.

CapstanRoller 3y ago

>the US far-Right but the non-centrist Left No need for such verbal contortion. You're describing the far-right (Republican Party) and center-right (Democratic Party). Left parties in the USA include Green Party, DSA, CPUSA, etc. They are largely irrelevant.

alexandre_m 3y ago
The Democratic Party is no longer center-right, not since at least 2016. The progressive faction has taken a lot of place. Just look at AOC and the likes.
- cool_dude85 3y ago
  What left wing policies did they pass when they won the presidency and both houses of congress in 2020?
  - alexandre_m 3y ago
    The 3.5 trillion budget in 2021 with broader socialism policies would be a good example. However, it doesn't have to be limited to legislations passed, but rather what is widely being discussed and pushed forward by the Democratic factions, the biggest example is the "Green New Deal"; more government intervention, increased spendings, massive expansion of state power.
    - CapstanRoller 3y ago
      Socialism doesn't mean "when the government does stuff" (or "spending money")
- scarface_74 3y ago
  What far left policies have passed since 2020? And 80 year old Biden a far left progressive?
- specialist 3y ago
  US House and some States? Sure. US Senate and the solid blue core? Still firmly center-right. For instance, Republicans are very unlikely to be elected in my city. So competitive candidates call themselves Democrats. And to establish their bonafidas, they might even hold a few select leftish positions to brag about. But when it comes to legislating and appropriations, the boring stuff that no one pays attention to, they're just as nimby, reactionary, regressive as any generic Republican.