Comment by Kim_Bruning
4 years ago
Wikipedia should not be made more democratic. Democracies are very bad at making encyclopedias. :-P
Note that pretty much any scoring or measurement system invented by man has ended up being subverted and exploited. Especially when there is something to be gained.
This is a classical case of "who watches the watchers". If Wikipedia is not to be made "more democratic" it should at least be possible for the "demos" (people) to point out the flaws in the organisation. While such a system can be gamed just like the current editorial system has been gamed successfully by turning parts of Wikipedia into a propaganda channel it is one more step to be taken for those who wish to game the system. In the absence of a neutral arbiter [1] some form of meta-moderation could help to point out the flaws.
Democracies don't have to make encyclopedias but they can criticise those who make (or, in this case, break) them.
[1] "Let's use machine learning to implement such a neutral arbiter!" - remember the twitter chat bot which supposedly turned racist by mere exposure to Twitter discourse.
The current system is based on "rough consensus" and the formation of smart mobs.
This does have internal checks and balances. It just doesn't quite work like a democracy system works to run a country. Nor does it have to, of course.
I'm interested in hearing what parts of wikipedia (and which wikipedia) you think have been turned into a propaganda channel. That is highly undesirable and should definitely be dealt with if still the case.
> I'm interested in hearing what parts of wikipedia (and which wikipedia) you think have been turned into a propaganda channel.
As to "which Wikipedia" the answer is that of the versions I frequent - English, Dutch, German, Swedish and French - the English-language one seems to be the most affected. Native German and French speakers (who are more likely to have those versions at #1) may want to comment on whether my assessment is correct.
As to "what parts" the answer is less clear since this is a moving target. Anything related to politics is a clear target for ideologically-motivated editors so those parts are a good example but it does not stop there. Articles related to current affairs, media and culture have attracted activist editors as well. There are plenty of studies which show Wikipedia is politically biased to the "left" [1,2,3,4,5,6], this is not simply an issue of a few parts of the site having been taken over.
[1] https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Do-Experts-or-Collecti... ("Harvard study: Wikipedia articles are more left-wing than Encyclopedia Britannica")
[2] https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/17-028_e7788... ("Harvard researchers: left-wing editors are more active and partisan on Wikipedia")
[3] http://wikipediocracy.com/2018/08/26/wikipedia-sources-metho... ("top-cited news outlets on Wikipedia are mainly left-wing")
[4] http://archive.is/dDr7X ("pages on American politicians cite mostly left-wing news outlets")
[5] https://thecritic.co.uk/the-left-wing-bias-of-wikipedia/ ("editors who support right-leaning views are over six times more likely to be sanctioned at Arbitration Enforcement than those who support left-leaning views")