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December 6, 2005
Wikipedia tightens editorial rules after complaint
I wondered how long it would take the right wing hate machine to get around to the great open source efforts that are going on at Wikipedia. For those that don't know Wikipedia is a collective effort to build a global encyclopedia for the masses. Basically people donate their time in the areas of personal interest and contribute to the betterment of humanity by expanding the site. Up until this time there have been no reason to worry too much about the site. Most hackers were only interested in selling something or disgusting people who were there to do their part to make the site better. You have to ask yourself what kind of people would attack a public works project to begin with? Now you know my theory that all things bad on the internet come from one of the three places, conservatives (Neo-cons, Republicans, Neo-Christians, etc.), corporate America and bored teenagers. The latter case I'm willing to ignore because I know they will grow out of it and become happy productive citizens someday when their hormones stop making them crazy. The other two have no other excuse for their behavior. They hate everything that doesn't adhere to their hate ideology. And that's where the problem comes in. There is nothing more horrifying to the members of these two groups than the notion of free and good. The notion makes them physically ill. The notion of doing anything nice for your fellow man and getting nothing in return literally makes them violently angry. They hate people so much that the notion of helping anyone just disgusts them. Which is what we see in this particular case coming to the forefront.
I watched the CNN news report and I had to laugh out loud. The reporter was horrified to learn that she was listed as a Republican puppet with no soul. Hello?? To pretend you don't know that is almost ridiculous for a reporter. If they are so dumb as to think that the American people haven't clued into the reality that the media is nothing more that a propaganda outfit for the radical right then there really isn't any hope for them. But you see that's the issue and why they are bringing this to front folks. The truth provided in a format that is reachable by anyone, that can be updated and corrected with a paper trail. That's not something that the Republicans would ever want or tolerate. The merits of the accusations against John Seigenthaler Sr. seem extremely weak to me. But the point is that until he started whining about the fact that there was something bad being said about him on Wikipedia I had never heard of him. I had never had any reason to look him up. This almost seems like an orchestrated effort by a strong supporter of the radical right hate ideology to try and lead an assault on the free flow of information on the internet. He "claims" that he believes in the first amendment, but then attacks the notion of the freedom of speech. It's the standard insane double talk that has become the norm of the radical right these days. It's hard to know if he's just afraid of the technological advancement or that he just didn't want to spend the few minutes it would have taken to correct the information himself. The reason of course is that the radical right freedom haters need the message to get across and repeated many times in every forum they could find "You need to approach the information with caution." Translation: Any information you don't pay us for is bad for you. Question knowledge, question data, question science, question logic, question reason, doubt everything but us. It's a tired refrain that you are always hearing from the radicals. It's hard to take them seriously after a point, but I suspect that some fools out there are going to buy what they are told and decrease their outlets of information.
Read more over at New Scientist.
Posted by ManDrake at December 6, 2005 5:02 PM
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Comments
I guess no one has told Mr. John Seigenthaler Sr. that he can add information to his own entry?
Posted by: cjmr at December 6, 2005 6:34 PM
He seemed to be aware that he could fix it, but seem determined to make a point rather than fix it. You can watch the video on CNN new video service right now under the Sci-Tech section under the title Wikipedia "facts" debated. You can tell they went into it with a fair and open mind. It's a standard third rate Republican hack job. The fact that Jimmy Wales bothered sit there and tolerate that crap is a disgrace and a fundamental waste of his time.
Posted by: ManDrake at December 6, 2005 6:46 PM
Great news the good folks at Crooks and Liars were so offend by the interview they put it up on their site, so don't waste time seeing it on CNN, when you can get it from them.
Posted by: ManDrake at December 7, 2005 10:23 AM
I did some editing on their entry for the "pentagon papers" and inserted the fact that the whole war was just an example of the us policymakers arrogance and deception and they took it out... i'll go back and add it again...
Posted by: jerry7 at December 7, 2005 12:03 PM