The problem with Wikipedia is that their business model always struggled and left nothing to support much of a rethink. There clearly exists a raft of problems, many of which should have long been resolved. The most serious points to credibility and specific activity by rogues to produce problematic material.
This article brings up the whole meme of holocaust denial as well were legitimate work is demonized in order to protect an obvious and dated propaganda MEME.
The whole topic has been a chronic issue since the end of WWII and actually blocks serious research unnecessarily. Accounting properly for the Genocides of the Twentieth Century has never started. Do we really know exactly how many died among the Armenians in 1918? The turks still prevent original research.
Normative statistical work can only produce estimates and choosing times and dates and effects of other factors can produce an estimate along with an estimate of error level. Thus the proper way to discuss a genocide is to quote say six million clearly missing with an error factor of plus or minus one half million. Then you do collect lists and demand from any denier a resolution.
Wikipedia is a potentially valuable asset, but does need to be directly partnered with Encyclopedia Britannia who has ultimately settled onto a subscription model. With the subscription, you pay for vetted material and you could also attach review branches handily.
The Problem of Wikipedia
The Problem of Wikipedia
Paul Craig Roberts
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2019/11/26/the-problem-of-wikipedia/
Over the course of my life I have watched integrity shrivel up and
die everywhere in the Western world. It is not like it was ever really
abundant, but there was a goodly amount of it, and it had authority.
People, especially those in public life, weren’t shameless as they are
today.
In the past decade I have watched the disappearance of free speech.
An independent media disappeared in the last year of the Clinton regime
when 6 mega-corporations were permitted to concentrate 90% of the media
into their hands. Today free speech protected in the US Constitution is
not valued as highly as the “feelings” of self-described “victim
groups” who are offended by everything from truthful statements to
traditional figures of speech. Even scientific discussion of the genetic
basis of intelligence gives “offense” as does the use of
gender-specific pronouns such as he and she.
Obviously false statements can be self-declared as true as when a
biological male declares himself female and competes in women’s sports.
Those who object to the obvious charade are declared “transphobic” and
have to apologize. Sometimes they are fired for insisting on biological
fact.
Exercising press freedom, as Julian Assange did, today brings charges
of espionage and is misrepresented as a threat to national security.
The media speak with the same voice, and it is the voice that serves the
ruling elites. Truth is nowhere in the picture. The only purpose of
the media today is to control the explanations for the elites. The
media throughout the Western world is merely a Ministry of Propaganda.
The young, never having experienced a free press or free speech, do not
know what they are.
America today is a country that my parents and my grandparents would
not recognize. If they were to be resurrected, they would think they
were living in George Orwell’s 1984. And they would be.
I, and others of my generation, which is now passing away, are unable
to accommodate The Matrix that elites and their media whores have
created for the peoples of the Western world. Consequently, we are
marginalized, despite our accomplishments and our grand honors, and if
we persist we are libeled and slandered.
For example, Wikipedia has described me at various times as “a
conspiracy theorist,” an “anti-semite,” and “a holocaust denier.” These
labels were used despite the facts that I have never written a
“conspiracy theory,” I have many Jewish friends and financial supporters
and have had Israeli house guests, and I have never studied the
holocaust or written about it.
I have been described in this way by Wikipedia despite the absence of
evidence because Wikipedia is part of the mechanism for discrediting
those who challenge official explanations. Whether this is by intent or
from the opportunity that an open source provides to one’s opponents to
libel and slander I cannot say.
Zionists don’t like me, because on occasion I republish on my website
articles by non-zionist Jews and Israeli citizens who are critical of
Israel. It is still possible to criticize US policy without being
labeled “anti-American,” but if you criticize Israeli policy, or
republish someone who does, it means you hate Jews. For me, this is
really funny. My hand-picked principal deputy in the Treasury was a
Jew. My Oxford University professor, Michael Polanyi, to whom my first
book is dedicated, was a Jew. The Nobel prize winner, Milton Friedman, a
Jew, was a supporter of my academic career. My favorite academic
co-author was David Meiselman, a Jew. Ron Unz, a Jew, republishes my
columns, as does Rob Kall, a Jew. Jews contribute to the support of my
website. But according to Wikipedia I hate Jews.
There are many Jews who respect the truth and who fight for it. They
are not in the Israeli government, but they exist. Zionist call them
“self-hating Jews.” In other words, even Jews who criticize Israeli
policies are labeled anti-semites. They are accused of criticizing
Israel out of self-hate. The question many have is why alone among all
countries of the world is Israel so determined to prevent any criticism
of itself. Why only Israel?
Until recently—and who knows, perhaps again tomorrow—Wikipedia was
calling me a “holocaust denier.” The “evidence” was a book review I
wrote of two of David Irving’s books, neither of which was about the
holocaust, but in one of the books Irving reported his findings that
there were massacres and deportations of Jews. He concluded that there
was a holocaust of sorts, but that he had been unable to find any
evidence that there was the organized extermination portrayed in the
official holocaust story. I quoted Irving’s conclusions, and Wikipedia
misrepresented my quotation of Irving’s findings as my views.
A struggle ensued between the Israel Lobby and CIA trolls that
inhabit Wikipedia and a number of my readers who would inform me that
they had corrected the false attribution only to contact me 24 hours
later with the news that the trolls had re-established the
misrepresentation. At the moment the passage reads more or less
correctly:
Review of David Irving’s books, Hitler’s War and Churchill’s War
In 2019, Roberts wrote in a review of David Irving’s books, Hitler’s
War and Churchill’s War that “Irving, without any doubt the best
historian of the European part of World War II, learned at his great
expense that challenging myths does not go unpunished… I will avoid the
story of how this came to be, but, yes, you guessed it, it was the
Zionists”.[37] Roberts reported without endorsement Irving’s conclusion
that “No German plans, or orders from Hitler, or from Himmler or anyone
else have ever been found for an organized holocaust by gas and
cremation of Jews… The “death camps” were in fact work camps. Auschwitz,
for example, today a Holocaust museum, was the site of Germany’s
essential artificial rubber factory. Germany was desperate for a work
force.”
The question that remains in my mind is why, of all the many book
reviews I have written, was a few lines from my report of Irving’s
findings singled out for inclusion in my bio? Was the purpose to have a
cover for misrepresenting the views of a historian, who has spent 40
years studying the subject, as my views, a person who has not spent 5
minutes studying the holocaust?
Attorneys thought that I might have a libel case against Wikipedia
and offered to take a look. I was more interested in Wikipedia’s
invasion of my privacy. I haven’t given permission to be included in
their corpus of work that somehow they must market. The holocaust libel
case bothered me, because it implied my consent to the idea that
denying or challenging some aspect of the holocaust was disreputable and
a reflection on a person’s character. But if those who challenge the
official holocaust story are correct, what is disreputable about being a
“holocaust denier?” As I haven’t studied the holocaust or the works of
those who have, I thought a libel case committed me to a position that I
had not examined. The issue is further complicated by free speech and
free thought issues.
Looking at Wikipedia’s account of me I noticed other strange
emphasis. For example, Wikipedia thinks it is important biographical
information that Darrell Delamaide in USA Today, Luke Brinker of Salon,
and Michael C. Moynihan of The Daily Beast have described “Roberts as a
conspiracy theorist” and “as partaking in Putin worship.” By refusing
to respond to Washington’s provocations in kind, Putin has reduced the
risk of nuclear war. Why is acknowledging this fact “Putin worship?”
Is this accusation anything more than the portrayal of people who do not
help Washington demonize Russia as “Russian agents?”
I have never heard of Delalmaide, Brinker, or Moynihan. Has anyone?
What are their achievements beyond serving as name-callers in behalf of
controlled explanations? This ilk copies the way holocaust views were
fabricated for me by misrepresenting my report on historians’
conclusions about the assassination of JFK as words based on my own
investigations.
To prove my political incorrectness and lack of sympathy for gender
equality, Wikipedia emphasizes that I “opposed gender integration aboard
U.S. Navy vessels,” as did the US Navy. I am also guilty of not
believing in “the existence of white male privilege.” Apparently,
whoever wrote this was so intent on presenting me as politically
incorrect that it did not occur to them why, if white males are
privileged, they, unlike all others, are not protected by quotas and
protections against hate speech and hate crimes. It was the white male
senior engineer at Google who was fired for saying that men and women
are good at different things. Some white male privilege when white
males cannot express their view and cannot even state a correct fact.
There are other equally stupid passages in the Wikipedia account of
me. But it is pointless to change them. The problem with an open
source material like Wikipedia, as opposed to a professional
peer-reviewed source, is that anyone can alter any account to serve any
purpose other than accuracy and truth. Wikipedia by being open sourced
enables falsification. I have concluded that it is best just to dismiss
Wikipedia as an unreliable source. Otherwise it is an endless battle
as there are more trolls than truth-tellers. In a world devoid of
integrity, an open source encyclopedia is unable to provide reliable
information.
Readers have a poor opinion of Wikipedia and Snopes. An example:
HAH! This reminds me of Quackwatch! I won’t even listen to anyone who
says anything about health unless they are labelled a Quack by
Quackwatch! Same with Wikipedia! If Wikipedia likes you, I do not! They are SO not a reliable source. I DO
like them for looking up cities, with info and demographics, but that is
ALL I will really use Wikipedia for! YOU NEED TO CONSIDER IT A BADGE OF
HONOR IF WIKI DOESN’T LIKE YOU!!!! Bet you’re not popular with Snopes
either! OH! And as for a conspiracy theorist! You know that ANYONE who
does not believe everything they say is one of those! Another badge of
honor! For those of us who listen to you, you are a hero, right up there
with Ron Paul! Thanks for all you do, and hope you have a wonderful
Thanksgiving! Love to you and your family! Elaine
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