So what's next in Iran?
I thought I'd put my predictions here to see if they unfold as I suggest. Reuters has just reported that Iran's air force is holding exercises over the Gulf. I believe that this is a key step in the Supreme Leader's strategy. Since Ahmadinejad can't suppress the protesters he needs to take a radical step. This is the invasion of Bahrain. It is actually a brilliant move.
a. Bahrain is across the Gulf from Iran. Control of Bahrain effectively means control of the Gulf, enabling Iran to block American sea access to Iraq and Kuwait.
b. Bahrain was part of Iran until 1783, and on several occasions the Iranians have offered the Bahrainis a chance to rejoin Iran, the last time I recall being 1970.
c. Bahrain has a Shiite majority but is ruled by Sunnis. There is also a strong Islamist movement in Parliament.
d. The US Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain.
e. An attack on Bahrain would therefore force the US to respond in kind with an attack on Iran. This would, in turn, cause a rift between many of the protesters and the Americans. War creates solidarity with the regime and refocuses attention against a common external enemy.
f. Without sea access to Iraq, the US would be forced to station more troops in Saudi Arabia and Turkey, pissing off local Islamists.
g. A war in the Gulf, no matter how short, could severely hinder the flow of oil and reduce supplies to the West. Prices would skyrocket, which is hardly desirable in the current economy. It would be a replay of 1973, but during a recession.
h. Pakistan would not be happy with the situation, given its current importance in the war against terror. If the US occupies Iran, Pakistan becomes less important to US strategic interests, its own economy takes a hit, and local Islamist factions are strengthened.
i. The Russians would be very unhappy with additional American encroachments on its former (Soviet) border. What results is a replay of the Great Game, this time with the Americans in the role of the British.
All in all, the protesters in Iran are taking a bold step that could eventually lead to real democracy in that part of the world. On the other hand, Ahmadinejad still has some really powerful cards that he can play. It will be interesting ...
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Friday, June 5, 2009
In Defense of Cults?
There's been a lot of news about the Scientology issue on Wikipedia, and rightfully so. But today I came across something rather interesting: it appears that Scientology is not the only cult that has exploited Wikipedia with self-promotional articles. Another cult, no less dangerous, which has succeeded in doing so under the radar is Falun Gong.
The truth is that I know very little about Falun Gong. I've seen their protests when I lived in New York, and found them to be quite chilling. In my mind I identified them with other victims of Chinese repression: internet censorship, the occupation of Tibet (which is a rather complicated issue, despite Richard Gere and the Beastie Boys), and the Tiananmen Square massacre of twenty years ago.
Today, however, I cam across some information about Falun Gong on another site that I frequent. The person who posted is not Chinese, but American, and his concern is about his parents, who were also drawn in to the cult. I am copying here his summary of their beliefs:
*Belief that alien technology is used in computers and can warp people stopping them from taking up the faith. Falun Gong believers are of course protected from alien brainwashing
* Illness is caused by karma and if you use modern medicine it pushes the illnesses into another dimension and it will come back in another form. Only by following their book and doing their meditative exercises can you live an illness free life. If you do get sick that is just small amounts of karma coming to the surface. If you are seriously ill you should not take up the faith because your reason for joining will be to be cured and that is not a genuine reason.
* Attachments are evil
* Films and video games featuring demonic themes ie Buffy TVS and Anne Rice novels are evil and warp people
* Anti-homosexuality
*A rejection of inter-racial marriages (In my case this was very difficult for me to accept because their [his parents'] marriage is an inter-racial one)
Speaking with someone who knows more about them, I was told that Falun Gong also have plenty of money and that they don't disclose their business links. In that sense they sound eerily like Scientology.
The problem is that unlike Scientology, no one is watching their Wikipedia pages, so that the information reads more like promotional literature than anything else. In the opening paragraph I learn that they are a "spiritual discipline" and that they teach "the principles truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance." In the following paragraph I am told that this twenty-year old cult "has a heritage in a centuries-old tradition of "cultivation practice" and that a prominent Sinologist regards them as "one of the most important phenomena to emerge in China in the 1990s." The following paragraph is all about how these supposedly innocent people are being persecuted by the Chinese government. It is just propagandistic foreplay to Section 3.2: "Persecutions in Mainland China," a summary of a more extensive article, "Persecution of Falun Gong."
There is, all in all, just one paragraph about the controversy surrounding Falun Gong in the main article (at the beginning of the section on Academic Attention), and it is quickly countered.
So my question is: Why the disparity? Even if I wonder about the the consequences of banning Scientology, I can understand why it happened. On the other hand, why is Falun Gong allowed to use Wikipedia as a propaganda platform to promote its homophobic, racist, anti-technology, anti-medicine bullshit? Shouldn't it be accorded the same attention? According to Wikipedia, this is a group with 70-100 million followers (personally, I don't believe it, but that's another story). The imbalance is startling.
So, David Gerard and others, perhaps it's time to look into this as well. I'd do it myself, but you know ...
The truth is that I know very little about Falun Gong. I've seen their protests when I lived in New York, and found them to be quite chilling. In my mind I identified them with other victims of Chinese repression: internet censorship, the occupation of Tibet (which is a rather complicated issue, despite Richard Gere and the Beastie Boys), and the Tiananmen Square massacre of twenty years ago.
Today, however, I cam across some information about Falun Gong on another site that I frequent. The person who posted is not Chinese, but American, and his concern is about his parents, who were also drawn in to the cult. I am copying here his summary of their beliefs:
*Belief that alien technology is used in computers and can warp people stopping them from taking up the faith. Falun Gong believers are of course protected from alien brainwashing
* Illness is caused by karma and if you use modern medicine it pushes the illnesses into another dimension and it will come back in another form. Only by following their book and doing their meditative exercises can you live an illness free life. If you do get sick that is just small amounts of karma coming to the surface. If you are seriously ill you should not take up the faith because your reason for joining will be to be cured and that is not a genuine reason.
* Attachments are evil
* Films and video games featuring demonic themes ie Buffy TVS and Anne Rice novels are evil and warp people
* Anti-homosexuality
*A rejection of inter-racial marriages (In my case this was very difficult for me to accept because their [his parents'] marriage is an inter-racial one)
Speaking with someone who knows more about them, I was told that Falun Gong also have plenty of money and that they don't disclose their business links. In that sense they sound eerily like Scientology.
The problem is that unlike Scientology, no one is watching their Wikipedia pages, so that the information reads more like promotional literature than anything else. In the opening paragraph I learn that they are a "spiritual discipline" and that they teach "the principles truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance." In the following paragraph I am told that this twenty-year old cult "has a heritage in a centuries-old tradition of "cultivation practice" and that a prominent Sinologist regards them as "one of the most important phenomena to emerge in China in the 1990s." The following paragraph is all about how these supposedly innocent people are being persecuted by the Chinese government. It is just propagandistic foreplay to Section 3.2: "Persecutions in Mainland China," a summary of a more extensive article, "Persecution of Falun Gong."
There is, all in all, just one paragraph about the controversy surrounding Falun Gong in the main article (at the beginning of the section on Academic Attention), and it is quickly countered.
So my question is: Why the disparity? Even if I wonder about the the consequences of banning Scientology, I can understand why it happened. On the other hand, why is Falun Gong allowed to use Wikipedia as a propaganda platform to promote its homophobic, racist, anti-technology, anti-medicine bullshit? Shouldn't it be accorded the same attention? According to Wikipedia, this is a group with 70-100 million followers (personally, I don't believe it, but that's another story). The imbalance is startling.
So, David Gerard and others, perhaps it's time to look into this as well. I'd do it myself, but you know ...
Friday, May 29, 2009
Scientological Aspirations
I can certainly sympathize with the decision by Wikipedia to ban Scientology. If anyone deserves to be banned, it is them. On the other hand, I think it raises a lot of longterm issues that may or may not have been considered. Rather than condemn or condone the decision, I am going to go through some of these issues one by one, in no particular order.
1. The CoS has a reputation as a very litigious organization with lots of money backing it up. If they decided to involve WP in a protracted lawsuit, does Wikipedia have the resources to handle it? I am skeptical.
2. Who would the CoS sue? As I read it, the decision was made by the Arb Com, not the WMF office. That is a good thing. The WMF bases its legal claims on it being a service provider, rather than a content provider. As such, it has no say in matters of content. Could that be challenged? If so, the impact would reach far beyond the CoS. Anyone else with a gripe against Wikipedia could threaten the Foundation in the same way. In that sense, it is important that the Foundation remain as completely uninvolved in the ensuing debate as possible.
3. On the other hand, what would the WMF do if the CoS decided to go after the Arb Com members who made the decision? Would the WMF assist them with legal protection? Would it hang them out to dry? Could it afford the former? How would the latter approach affect the willingness of volunteers to assume various responsibilities such as Arb Com or even Board (actually, the Board is insured, but no one else is)?
4. What will the PR impact of the decision be? Right now it is good, but that could all be turned around rather quickly. Might Wikipedia get the reputation as "The encyclopedia that anyone except Scientologists can edit"? To be totally honest, that is not a fair assessment. Scientologists weren't banned: an IP address was. On the other hand, most people aren't that careful in making those kinds of distinctions.
5. Assuming that the CoS decides to forgo the legal route, are there any other strategies that they might use to fulfill their agenda, and is WP prepared for them? For example, rather than paying a lawyer, they might decide to pay the WMF some hefty sum--say $5 million--and ask for a seat on the Advisory Board in return. Heck, they could even ask for a Board seat eventually or a position as special adviser to the CEO. That is just one contingency that comes to mind, and I am sure there are others. Is the WMF prepared for that? Alternately, they might simply get the same people to use different IPs and have them slowly climb up the ranks: admin, bureaucrat, steward, etc. There is a lot that can be done if a large enough group is committed to it.
6. Banning a group is an almost unprecedented act in Wikipedia (though the Senate ban of a few years ago was fun). Is it setting precedent? Is there a slippery slope down the road? What other groups might get banned in the future?
To be totally honest, I don't know what to do in this situation. I don't even know how legitimate my concerns are, but they are concerns nonetheless. To quote Rachel Maddow, I hope that someone talks me down.
1. The CoS has a reputation as a very litigious organization with lots of money backing it up. If they decided to involve WP in a protracted lawsuit, does Wikipedia have the resources to handle it? I am skeptical.
2. Who would the CoS sue? As I read it, the decision was made by the Arb Com, not the WMF office. That is a good thing. The WMF bases its legal claims on it being a service provider, rather than a content provider. As such, it has no say in matters of content. Could that be challenged? If so, the impact would reach far beyond the CoS. Anyone else with a gripe against Wikipedia could threaten the Foundation in the same way. In that sense, it is important that the Foundation remain as completely uninvolved in the ensuing debate as possible.
3. On the other hand, what would the WMF do if the CoS decided to go after the Arb Com members who made the decision? Would the WMF assist them with legal protection? Would it hang them out to dry? Could it afford the former? How would the latter approach affect the willingness of volunteers to assume various responsibilities such as Arb Com or even Board (actually, the Board is insured, but no one else is)?
4. What will the PR impact of the decision be? Right now it is good, but that could all be turned around rather quickly. Might Wikipedia get the reputation as "The encyclopedia that anyone except Scientologists can edit"? To be totally honest, that is not a fair assessment. Scientologists weren't banned: an IP address was. On the other hand, most people aren't that careful in making those kinds of distinctions.
5. Assuming that the CoS decides to forgo the legal route, are there any other strategies that they might use to fulfill their agenda, and is WP prepared for them? For example, rather than paying a lawyer, they might decide to pay the WMF some hefty sum--say $5 million--and ask for a seat on the Advisory Board in return. Heck, they could even ask for a Board seat eventually or a position as special adviser to the CEO. That is just one contingency that comes to mind, and I am sure there are others. Is the WMF prepared for that? Alternately, they might simply get the same people to use different IPs and have them slowly climb up the ranks: admin, bureaucrat, steward, etc. There is a lot that can be done if a large enough group is committed to it.
6. Banning a group is an almost unprecedented act in Wikipedia (though the Senate ban of a few years ago was fun). Is it setting precedent? Is there a slippery slope down the road? What other groups might get banned in the future?
To be totally honest, I don't know what to do in this situation. I don't even know how legitimate my concerns are, but they are concerns nonetheless. To quote Rachel Maddow, I hope that someone talks me down.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Just a mainstream news medium ...
On the jacket of their album Aqualung, Jethro Tull wrote: "In the beginning Man created God; and in the image of Man created he him." A similar sentiment could probably be used on the cover of any upcoming Wikipedia CD-ROM: In the beginning Sue recreated Wikipedia; and in the image of Sue created she it."
The reason I say this is a recent interview in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. In it Sue "defined Wikipedia as a "just another mainstream news medium." Wikipedia, Gardner said, "will never say anything as Wikipedia. It will only quote relatively well-respected sources, including other media. So it's natural for Wikipedia to reflect public discourse as it fluctuates, and news is the first draft of history."
It's an interesting comment, no doubt, reflecting Sue's background as a pop culture journalist. But since when is Wikipedia a "mainstream news medium," instead of an encyclopedia? And is it really a "mainstream news medium" after all?
In a perfect world, mainstream news media take responsibility for their coverage. Is that something the Wikimedia Foundation is prepared to do? Will it publish "Corrections" like the New York Times and other newspapers do? Will it follow the first two rules of journalistic ethics, to: "Test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error, and "Diligently seek out subjects of news stories to give them the opportunity to respond to allegations of wrongdoing." I have yet to see another news medium argue that "I know that more or less the same mistakes can be found in the New York Times" (quoted from the same article). Will Wikipedia "Always question sources’ motives before promising anonymity"? Or are anonymous IP's, sock puppets, and user names not subject to that?
Then again, what kind of news medium has a policy of No Original Research? That is not a news medium, but rather a news aggregator, like Google News or Yahoo News. Is it a news medium that just depends on whatever stories come over the wire? I think this TEDTalk about trends in news coverage says it all (it's my favorite TEDTalk and well worth the time. It's also quite reflective of Wikipedia's focus on pop culture). And if Wikipedia is "just a news medium," what exactly is Wikinews?
Then there are the core foundation myths that Wikipedia so frequently promotes. Is it now "the newspaper that anyone can edit"? Will we start hearing stories about a young Jimmy Wales, sitting on the floor of his parents house and clipping out articles from the daily newspaper? Will Andrew Lih have to change his book's title to: "The Wikipedia Mainstream: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created a News Medium" (it's no longer "the Greatest" when compared to Google or Yahoo!, or even to CNN, Le Monde, or The New York Times).
In short, what the hell is she talking about?
The reason I say this is a recent interview in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. In it Sue "defined Wikipedia as a "just another mainstream news medium." Wikipedia, Gardner said, "will never say anything as Wikipedia. It will only quote relatively well-respected sources, including other media. So it's natural for Wikipedia to reflect public discourse as it fluctuates, and news is the first draft of history."
It's an interesting comment, no doubt, reflecting Sue's background as a pop culture journalist. But since when is Wikipedia a "mainstream news medium," instead of an encyclopedia? And is it really a "mainstream news medium" after all?
In a perfect world, mainstream news media take responsibility for their coverage. Is that something the Wikimedia Foundation is prepared to do? Will it publish "Corrections" like the New York Times and other newspapers do? Will it follow the first two rules of journalistic ethics, to: "Test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error, and "Diligently seek out subjects of news stories to give them the opportunity to respond to allegations of wrongdoing." I have yet to see another news medium argue that "I know that more or less the same mistakes can be found in the New York Times" (quoted from the same article). Will Wikipedia "Always question sources’ motives before promising anonymity"? Or are anonymous IP's, sock puppets, and user names not subject to that?
Then again, what kind of news medium has a policy of No Original Research? That is not a news medium, but rather a news aggregator, like Google News or Yahoo News. Is it a news medium that just depends on whatever stories come over the wire? I think this TEDTalk about trends in news coverage says it all (it's my favorite TEDTalk and well worth the time. It's also quite reflective of Wikipedia's focus on pop culture). And if Wikipedia is "just a news medium," what exactly is Wikinews?
Then there are the core foundation myths that Wikipedia so frequently promotes. Is it now "the newspaper that anyone can edit"? Will we start hearing stories about a young Jimmy Wales, sitting on the floor of his parents house and clipping out articles from the daily newspaper? Will Andrew Lih have to change his book's title to: "The Wikipedia Mainstream: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created a News Medium" (it's no longer "the Greatest" when compared to Google or Yahoo!, or even to CNN, Le Monde, or The New York Times).
In short, what the hell is she talking about?
Friday, May 1, 2009
Aussaresses
I was discussing Frantz Fanon today, and I was suddenly reminded of Paul Aussaresses. I am pretty sure most people here haven't heard of him, but it was a fairly prominent news story about five or six years ago, so I thought it would be interesting to raise.
After World War II, France was involved in two overseas wars to maintain its empire: in Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos) and in Algeria. The war in Algeria got particularly nasty, and its repercussions can still be felt today, even though it happened almost fifty years ago. France wanted to keep Algeria, but the population, mostly Arab and Muslim, wanted them out. To achieve that, they launched a terrorist campaign against the French (there were over a million French people living in Algeria at the time), until De Gaulle finally gave up in 1962 (if you've read or seen "Day of the Jackal," the background story is that the people who tried to assassinate De Gaulle were French military men who thought he surrendered).
The French government declared that anything was legitimate to defeat the FLN(Front de Libération Nationale), including torture. After all, the FLN were terrorists. Sound familiar? Paul Aussaresses was a French officer in that war.
Now let's skip ahead almost 40 years. In 2000, Aussaresses defended the use of torture in Algeria in an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde. He later repeated his assertions on US television on 60 Minutes, adding that the same techniques should be used against al-Qaeda. You can watch a piece of the interview at the bottom of this post. This interview was done in 2002. Back in France, Aussaresses wrote a book about his experiences, including a defense of torture.
Remember, this was forty years later! Nevertheless, Human Rights Watch insisted that he be tried for war crime--for waterboarding. President Chirac of France agreed.
At his trial, he was defended himself the same way that people defend torture today: if a bomb was about to go off, wouldn't you torture someone? Sadly, there is nothing original in what we see today.
The results were fascinating. Aussaresses was fined 7,500 euros, and his publishers were fined 15,000 euros. The court ruled that while the statute of limitations for torture had passed, he would be fined for what amounted to defending it in his book, and his publishers were fined for publishing it.
Personally, I am not comfortable with that. It seems like a gross violation of free speech. Nevertheless, it shows how seriously another democratic country took charges of torture, and even the defense of torture, for events that happened a lifetime ago. To quote: "Ironically, at least from a moral point of view, Aussaresses's crime was not that he had committed crimes against humanity (an actionable charge from which he is shielded by a general amnesty for military personnel issued by Charles de Gaulle) but for talking/writing about the deeds he committed in the name of France." When we discuss the US response today, it is probably worth considering.
After World War II, France was involved in two overseas wars to maintain its empire: in Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos) and in Algeria. The war in Algeria got particularly nasty, and its repercussions can still be felt today, even though it happened almost fifty years ago. France wanted to keep Algeria, but the population, mostly Arab and Muslim, wanted them out. To achieve that, they launched a terrorist campaign against the French (there were over a million French people living in Algeria at the time), until De Gaulle finally gave up in 1962 (if you've read or seen "Day of the Jackal," the background story is that the people who tried to assassinate De Gaulle were French military men who thought he surrendered).
The French government declared that anything was legitimate to defeat the FLN(Front de Libération Nationale), including torture. After all, the FLN were terrorists. Sound familiar? Paul Aussaresses was a French officer in that war.
Now let's skip ahead almost 40 years. In 2000, Aussaresses defended the use of torture in Algeria in an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde. He later repeated his assertions on US television on 60 Minutes, adding that the same techniques should be used against al-Qaeda. You can watch a piece of the interview at the bottom of this post. This interview was done in 2002. Back in France, Aussaresses wrote a book about his experiences, including a defense of torture.
Remember, this was forty years later! Nevertheless, Human Rights Watch insisted that he be tried for war crime--for waterboarding. President Chirac of France agreed.
At his trial, he was defended himself the same way that people defend torture today: if a bomb was about to go off, wouldn't you torture someone? Sadly, there is nothing original in what we see today.
The results were fascinating. Aussaresses was fined 7,500 euros, and his publishers were fined 15,000 euros. The court ruled that while the statute of limitations for torture had passed, he would be fined for what amounted to defending it in his book, and his publishers were fined for publishing it.
Personally, I am not comfortable with that. It seems like a gross violation of free speech. Nevertheless, it shows how seriously another democratic country took charges of torture, and even the defense of torture, for events that happened a lifetime ago. To quote: "Ironically, at least from a moral point of view, Aussaresses's crime was not that he had committed crimes against humanity (an actionable charge from which he is shielded by a general amnesty for military personnel issued by Charles de Gaulle) but for talking/writing about the deeds he committed in the name of France." When we discuss the US response today, it is probably worth considering.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Calling Jimmy Wales
This is an unusual post, even for me. People familiar with Wikipedia know how kooks of all sorts can twist and turn articles to push their favorite pseudoscience, be it creationism, homeopathy, flat earthism, or the much verified fact that waving a pigeon over the stomach of a jaundiced patient is a tried and true remedy.
But Wikipedia is not the only website to attract these kinds of intellectual cretins. Recently, YouTube has faced the same problems, particularly with the rabid creationists. On the other hand, people who use YouTube as an educational medium to promote science sometimes have a hard time of it. Just ask Thunderf00t.
While reading Pharyngula's blog today, I learned that the James Randi Educational Foundation, which also had a YouTube channel, has been banned. I am not certain why, but the word on the street is that too many kooks complained about it, and if you click the link I just provided, you will see why so many kooks don't llke him.
Thunderf00t and others have responded boldly:
I would like to call on Jimmy Wales to respond too, and I will do it in a personal message here.
Jimmy, you have always been a supporter of Randi and his work, and one of the little perks I had when working at the office was skimming through your subscription to Skeptic's Magazine that was delivered there. You have also spoken time and again about the importance of free speech and the problems of internet censorship. You are also one of the few people who can pick up the phone and call Sergei and Larry (after all, Google owns YouTube), and tell them this is wrong.
We may not like each other very much. We may disagree virulently about just about everything. Still, I'd like to think that there are at least some basic values that we still share, and that this is one of them.
I'll probably never know if you actually did anything about this, but I hope you will.
D
But Wikipedia is not the only website to attract these kinds of intellectual cretins. Recently, YouTube has faced the same problems, particularly with the rabid creationists. On the other hand, people who use YouTube as an educational medium to promote science sometimes have a hard time of it. Just ask Thunderf00t.
While reading Pharyngula's blog today, I learned that the James Randi Educational Foundation, which also had a YouTube channel, has been banned. I am not certain why, but the word on the street is that too many kooks complained about it, and if you click the link I just provided, you will see why so many kooks don't llke him.
Thunderf00t and others have responded boldly:
I would like to call on Jimmy Wales to respond too, and I will do it in a personal message here.
Jimmy, you have always been a supporter of Randi and his work, and one of the little perks I had when working at the office was skimming through your subscription to Skeptic's Magazine that was delivered there. You have also spoken time and again about the importance of free speech and the problems of internet censorship. You are also one of the few people who can pick up the phone and call Sergei and Larry (after all, Google owns YouTube), and tell them this is wrong.
We may not like each other very much. We may disagree virulently about just about everything. Still, I'd like to think that there are at least some basic values that we still share, and that this is one of them.
I'll probably never know if you actually did anything about this, but I hope you will.
D
Monday, March 9, 2009
BHPs (Biographies of Happy People)
Hello All,
It's been a while, but that's actually a good thing. It means one of two things: either Wikipedia hasn't screwed up too badly recently, or I've been busy. Actually, it's a bit of both. And yet, there is something that I feel is worth commenting on about the Cuckoo's Nest that Wikipedia has become. And this comes straight from the desk of Nurse Ratched.
It seems that she has posted an email to the WMF mailing list bemoaning the sorry state of BLPs (for the uninitiated, Biographies of Living People). As the person who first came up with the idea of tagging those biographies (one very good thing that Jimmy did was to actually insist on this tagging, despite the controversy that ensued over the proposal), I would like to add my two cents to the discussion.
It seems from Sue's initial email that the problem is what to do about people who complain about their articles, or in some cases even threaten to sue the WMF because of their articles. Her solution is to have the Board discuss it and come up with certain guidelines. I was very pleased by an early response by Mike Godwin, who wrote: "My strong belief is that the Foundation can make *suggestions* to the community about what content policy should be, but that it must remain up to the community whether to adopt such policies and how to enforce them. This is a very sensible approach. Wikipedia has always relied on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to defend itself. Since I am not a lawyer, I should probably not be rephrasing it, but in short this protects sites from the actions of their users under the argument that the website is merely a bulletin board, and the people responsible for the content are the people who post it. As some bloggers point out, it is very difficult to sue Wikipedia. Personally, I do not understand how it can maintain their status as a bulletin board if the board gets involved in article content, but I am confident that Mike Godwin has figured that out.
The real problem, as I see it, is Sue's basic premise, summed up in her statement: "I am sure that BLP subjects have been complaining about their portrayals since Wikipedia's very early days." Of course they have. Just ask Jimmy. In fact, he wrote this foolish comment: "In my experience, virtually no BLP complaints that I have heard in person were invalid." Virtually none? Give me a break. Ask Brad about Miss Venezuela some time (a woman who called repeatedly insisting that the article on the reigning Miss Venezuela did not highlight every single aspect of her stunning beauty, and as such did not do her justice). Or Congressman Darrell Issa, for example, who was not thrilled over mention of his indictment for car theft. Or ask the Scientologists.
But the real problem is that the issue Sue raises is too narrow, and this seems to me disingenuous. You see, she is focusing on people (and groups) who complain about their articles and want them whitewashed, but at the same time ignores people who use Wikipedia as a platform for self-promotion ... and that is no less egregious.
In most cases, it is harmless. I recently worked for an award-winning film director, whose publicist posted an article about them on Wikipedia. It is a good article. Every day I read Joseph Romm's great blog http://climateprogress.org/. While I generally like his content, I do get a bit queasy when he points people to his article on Wikipedia as his semi-official biography (as he does in this post). While I like Romm, I recognize that he is a controversial figure to many, and having such an official-like bio makes it much more difficult to critique Romm or even discuss some of the controversy surrounding him. He is not one of the complainers, but does that mean that an article about him that he oversees is a good NPOV source.
Of course, these two cases are relatively harmless, but I do want to add one more to the equation. Since I live in St. Pete, I will pick a local article ... how about "Nationalist Coalition," described as "an American white activist organization." To quote more extensively about this group: "The Nationalist Coalition organizes and puts on family-friendly cultural events, such as barbecues, dinners in restaurants, concerts, and an annual Winterfest which includes music, poetry, and talks."
Sounds lovely, doesn't it? Unfortunately, I like to check anything I find on Wikipedia, I like to check with more reliable sources, in this case, the Southern Poverty Law Center. And there they are, listed in St. Petersburg. It turns out that the organizers of those family friendly poetry readings are a group of neo-Nazis (for Mike Godwin, this is not a case of Godwin's Law. When the SPLC says that they're Nazis, there is good reason to believe that they're Nazis).
Unfortunately, this is not one of the problems that Sue and the Board will be discussing. Their focus seems to be on who is complaining (remember what Jimmy said earlier about "In my experience, virtually no BLP complaints that I have heard in person were invalid."), rather than on right or wrong, accurate or inaccurate.
Of course, there is some logic behind that. A powerful person or group may lose in court to Wikipedia, but they could, theoretically draw out the case long enough to bring the WMF to bankruptcy. In fact, that is sometimes claimed to be a strategy used by Scientologists. On the other hand, the focus on "complaints" or "threats," and by extension, the potential financial damage they may cause, while real, is also the greatest threat to real NPOV.
Is Wikipedia about to become "the encyclopedia that is nice to everyone"? If so, it loses any validity it claims as "the sum of human knowledge."
It's been a while, but that's actually a good thing. It means one of two things: either Wikipedia hasn't screwed up too badly recently, or I've been busy. Actually, it's a bit of both. And yet, there is something that I feel is worth commenting on about the Cuckoo's Nest that Wikipedia has become. And this comes straight from the desk of Nurse Ratched.
It seems that she has posted an email to the WMF mailing list bemoaning the sorry state of BLPs (for the uninitiated, Biographies of Living People). As the person who first came up with the idea of tagging those biographies (one very good thing that Jimmy did was to actually insist on this tagging, despite the controversy that ensued over the proposal), I would like to add my two cents to the discussion.
It seems from Sue's initial email that the problem is what to do about people who complain about their articles, or in some cases even threaten to sue the WMF because of their articles. Her solution is to have the Board discuss it and come up with certain guidelines. I was very pleased by an early response by Mike Godwin, who wrote: "My strong belief is that the Foundation can make *suggestions* to the community about what content policy should be, but that it must remain up to the community whether to adopt such policies and how to enforce them. This is a very sensible approach. Wikipedia has always relied on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to defend itself. Since I am not a lawyer, I should probably not be rephrasing it, but in short this protects sites from the actions of their users under the argument that the website is merely a bulletin board, and the people responsible for the content are the people who post it. As some bloggers point out, it is very difficult to sue Wikipedia. Personally, I do not understand how it can maintain their status as a bulletin board if the board gets involved in article content, but I am confident that Mike Godwin has figured that out.
The real problem, as I see it, is Sue's basic premise, summed up in her statement: "I am sure that BLP subjects have been complaining about their portrayals since Wikipedia's very early days." Of course they have. Just ask Jimmy. In fact, he wrote this foolish comment: "In my experience, virtually no BLP complaints that I have heard in person were invalid." Virtually none? Give me a break. Ask Brad about Miss Venezuela some time (a woman who called repeatedly insisting that the article on the reigning Miss Venezuela did not highlight every single aspect of her stunning beauty, and as such did not do her justice). Or Congressman Darrell Issa, for example, who was not thrilled over mention of his indictment for car theft. Or ask the Scientologists.
But the real problem is that the issue Sue raises is too narrow, and this seems to me disingenuous. You see, she is focusing on people (and groups) who complain about their articles and want them whitewashed, but at the same time ignores people who use Wikipedia as a platform for self-promotion ... and that is no less egregious.
In most cases, it is harmless. I recently worked for an award-winning film director, whose publicist posted an article about them on Wikipedia. It is a good article. Every day I read Joseph Romm's great blog http://climateprogress.org/. While I generally like his content, I do get a bit queasy when he points people to his article on Wikipedia as his semi-official biography (as he does in this post). While I like Romm, I recognize that he is a controversial figure to many, and having such an official-like bio makes it much more difficult to critique Romm or even discuss some of the controversy surrounding him. He is not one of the complainers, but does that mean that an article about him that he oversees is a good NPOV source.
Of course, these two cases are relatively harmless, but I do want to add one more to the equation. Since I live in St. Pete, I will pick a local article ... how about "Nationalist Coalition," described as "an American white activist organization." To quote more extensively about this group: "The Nationalist Coalition organizes and puts on family-friendly cultural events, such as barbecues, dinners in restaurants, concerts, and an annual Winterfest which includes music, poetry, and talks."
Sounds lovely, doesn't it? Unfortunately, I like to check anything I find on Wikipedia, I like to check with more reliable sources, in this case, the Southern Poverty Law Center. And there they are, listed in St. Petersburg. It turns out that the organizers of those family friendly poetry readings are a group of neo-Nazis (for Mike Godwin, this is not a case of Godwin's Law. When the SPLC says that they're Nazis, there is good reason to believe that they're Nazis).
Unfortunately, this is not one of the problems that Sue and the Board will be discussing. Their focus seems to be on who is complaining (remember what Jimmy said earlier about "In my experience, virtually no BLP complaints that I have heard in person were invalid."), rather than on right or wrong, accurate or inaccurate.
Of course, there is some logic behind that. A powerful person or group may lose in court to Wikipedia, but they could, theoretically draw out the case long enough to bring the WMF to bankruptcy. In fact, that is sometimes claimed to be a strategy used by Scientologists. On the other hand, the focus on "complaints" or "threats," and by extension, the potential financial damage they may cause, while real, is also the greatest threat to real NPOV.
Is Wikipedia about to become "the encyclopedia that is nice to everyone"? If so, it loses any validity it claims as "the sum of human knowledge."
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