• Welcome to Baptist Board, a friendly forum to discuss the Baptist Faith in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to all the features that our community has to offer.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!

Wikipedia Propaganda

shodan

Active Member
Site Supporter
[quote from an article that introduced this topic]

Thoughtcop - William Connolley

In George Orwell’s 1984 Winston Smith and thousands of co-workers diligently work to re-write history. It has been clear to many that much the same thing has been going on over at Wikipedia. It turns out that one of the champions of the historical rewrite is a fellow by the name of William Connolley, who has taken it upon himself to re-write the thermal history of the planet at Wikipedia to juice-up global warming fears.

Lawrence Solomon, from Canada’s National Post explains…

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/12/18/370719.aspx
 

shodan

Active Member
Site Supporter
Thoughtcop

From the article linked above:

All told, Connolley created or rewrote 5,428 unique Wikipedia articles. His control over Wikipedia was greater still, however, through the role he obtained at Wikipedia as a website administrator, which allowed him to act with virtual impunity. When Connolley didn’t like the subject of a certain article, he removed it — more than 500 articles of various descriptions disappeared at his hand. When he disapproved of the arguments that others were making, he often had them barred — over 2,000 Wikipedia contributors who ran afoul of him found themselves blocked from making further contributions...
 

Johnv

New Member
Wikipedia is just that: a wiki. A wiki is a user-input site, and relies primarily on individuals contributing and correcting information. That's why it's typically not a valid source for information, unless the information includes citations. On the OP topic, the "global warming" entry is rather detailed, contains extensive citations, and includes a section on debate and skepticism (including links to other wikipedia articles on arguments against global warming). As such, it's a bit of a stretch to imply a "propaganda" on a part of wikipedia.
 

shodan

Active Member
Site Supporter
Wikipedia is just that: a wiki. A wiki is a user-input site, and relies primarily on individuals contributing and correcting information. That's why it's typically not a valid source for information, unless the information includes citations. On the OP topic, the "global warming" entry is rather detailed, contains extensive citations, and includes a section on debate and skepticism (including links to other wikipedia articles on arguments against global warming). As such, it's a bit of a stretch to imply a "propaganda" on a part of wikipedia.

The incidents detailed at the above link show nothing less than a propaganda campaign by Connolley who was given administrator status by Wikipedia.

Your examples may show that they have sought to remedy this outrage.

I simply will not go there anymore. I have seen the same prejudice and slant in the past regarding articles on Christians and Christian organizations that are not liberal.

Of course, those promoting the global warming agenda make many citations, the trouble is that much of the work cited is based on Climategate stuff. The media are always quoting those pushing the agenda and censoring world class climatologists who expose the falacies, like Richard Lindzen of MIT, John Christy of U. of Alabama-Huntsville, etc.
 

preachinjesus

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
I don't know of anybody who uses Wikipedia without some kind of lens or tries to pass it off as a qualified source.

Occassionally I will hit up a topic on it for some general knowledge. I never consider it completely objective or the final place for research. Often it is a good starting place.

I don't know of any academics or serious thinkers (conservatives, moderates, liberals, and anyone else) who allow it to be used in research or presentations. It will never replace established norms for academia.
 

Jim1999

<img src =/Jim1999.jpg>
Conservatives are not always the most reliable sources either. Test everything to see if it is so.

Cheers,

Jim
 

donnA

Active Member
Why should anyone care if they are 'biased?'
because apparently many rely on them for information, never bothering to search out real facts for themselves, in this way they spread inaccuracies and untruths.
 

Johnv

New Member
because apparently many rely on them for information, never bothering to search out real facts for themselves, in this way they spread inaccuracies and untruths.
There's no reason for this other than sheer laziness. Every wikipedia article will have a citation. All one has to do is to look at the citation to check its validity. But some don't do that. They just take what Wikipedia (or any other wiki) says, and takes it as Gospel.

That's somewhat human nature, though. Just look at this, or any BBS. You'll see people post links as sources as though they were authoritative, yet many of those links are commentaries or blogs.
 

shodan

Active Member
Site Supporter
There's no reason for this other than sheer laziness. Every wikipedia article will have a citation. All one has to do is to look at the citation to check its validity. .

Hardly anyone has the expertise to evaluate the validity of most footnotes. That requires a lot of time.

So, in other words, all we have to do is look at the IPCC's footnotes and say, YUP, its true.
 
Top