Why this Site?

  • Our Mission:
  • We exist to shine the light of scrutiny into the dark crevices of Wikipedia and its related projects; to examine the corruption there, along with its structural flaws; and to inoculate the unsuspecting public against the torrent of misinformation, defamation, and general nonsense that issues forth from one of the world’s most frequently visited websites, the “encyclopedia that anyone can edit.”
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  •  Visit the Wikipediocracy Forum, a candid exchange of views between Wikipedia editors, administrators, critics, proponents, and the general public.
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The Wikipedia FAQK

by Lore Sjöberg

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What is Wikipedia?

Wikipedia is a new paradigm in human discourse. It’s a place where anyone with a browser can go, pick a subject that interests them, and without even logging in, start an argument. In fact, Wikipedia is the largest and most comprehensive collection of arguments in human history, incorporating spats and vendettas on subjects ranging from Suleiman the Magnificent to Dan the Automator. As an unexpected side effect of being the perfect argument space, it’s also a pretty good place to find information about all the characters from Battlestar: Galactica.

Why do people talk about Wikipedia so much?

Wikipedia is such a powerful argument engine that it actually leaks out to the rest of the web, spontaneously forming meta-arguments about itself on any open message board.

Yes, but what is there to argue about?

Well, Wikipedia exists in a state of quantum significance flux. It’s simultaneously a shining, flawless collection of incontrovertible information, and a debased pile of meaningless words thrown together by uneducated lemurs with political agendas. It simply cannot exist in any state between these two extremes. You can test this yourself by expressing a reasonable opinion about the site in any public space. Whatever words you type, they will be interpreted by readers as supporting one of these two opposing views.

What should I know if I want to contribute to an argument nexus (or “article”) on Wikipedia?

It will help to familiarize yourself with some of the common terms used on Wikipedia:

meat puppet: A person who disagrees with you. non-notable: A subject you’re not interested in. vandalism: An edit you didn’t make. neutral point of view: Your point of view. consensus: A mythical state of utopian human evolution.

…continue reading The Wikipedia FAQK

Down the Rabbit Hole

By March Hare

Today’s story began when we investigated one of the usual Wikipedia feuds. A Wikipedia editor with a background in science criticized the work of a more prominent editor, claiming that many of the articles she created or embellished contained “made up information, inaccurate information, random pieces of information that give undue weight to what she has added, and plagiarism”. After the usual shouting and insults on both sides, some credentialled editors stepped in and determined that the critic was right. In one article, which received a million views a year, the editor had written that the average winter temperature in polar deserts like Greenland and Antarctica was between –2 and +4 °C. The mistake had been there for almost a year. She had written that birds in cold deserts avoid “the problem of their feet becoming chilled by maintaining their lower limbs at external temperatures”, even though penguins’ feet would freeze solid if they dropped to -30 °C, and the poor things would die of frostbite and gangrene. Nearly all the articles selected for review showed problems. The problem was the editor’s use of published sources. She could not use them verbatim, because of copyright violation, and so she changed the wording. But in changing the wording, in many cases she managed to change the meaning also.

She is extremly hardworking, patient etc. but the fact she is constantly peppering articles with mistaken paraphrases, original research and other factual errors is extremly worrying, especially because she is completely blind to the errors she is making.

The critic was right, but on Wikipedia it is considered bad manners and bad faith to criticise the work of an editor in good standing. The editor was popular in the ‘Good Article’ group on Wikipedia, and contributors lined up to defend

…continue reading Down the Rabbit Hole

Announcing Wikipediocracy’s Student Microgrant Program

Beginning June 1, 2014, Wikipediocracy will launch a $1,000 microgrant program that is intended to fund the news reporting efforts of college journalism students. Qualifying applicants will submit short proposals describing how they would write provocative news stories about Wikipedia, with an emphasis on unexplored and innovative topic areas that have been neglected heretofore by the mainstream news media.

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In the past 30 days, there have been over 800 news stories that mention “Wikipedia” in the body of the article, and over 150 have mentioned the “Wikimedia Foundation” in the copy. In numerous cases, mainstream journalists (from Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, Salon, Fox News, Daily Dot, The Register, and others) have cooperated extensively with Wikipediocracy to inspire or inform their published works about Wikipedia. Obviously, Wikipedia and the governing charity organization that runs its servers are popular fodder for journalists to write about.

But at Wikipediocracy, where we tend to take a more critical view of some of the supposed wonders of crowdsourced “free” knowledge and of the governance practices of the Wikimedia Foundation, we are concerned that today’s field of journalism frequently paints an unrealistically rosy picture of Wikipedia. As one example, we see many journalists complete an interview with Jimmy Wales, republishing word-for-word what his public relations handlers would be pleased to see, without supplying even a single voice in counterpoint that might dispute what Wales professes to be truth.

Wikipediocracy is networking with university professors in Journalism and related fields (e.g., English or Creative Writing), to inform their undergraduate classes of this extra-curricular opportunity to earn $50 per news story, with another chance to win a $300 grand prize, or $100 runner-up prizes, for the “best in class” news articles submitted during the 2014-2015 academic

…continue reading Announcing Wikipediocracy’s Student Microgrant Program