No Voice For Men on Wikipedia?

[Hersch]

Discuss. Written by James P. Persica, the post provides a look at some controversies at Wikipedia over articles on Men's Rights.

[iii]

Great start on an issue that really does need a whole lot more exposure.

One wrinkle here is the connection to academic acknowledgment that has been trumpeted by certain MRAs and their associates. What am I saying? This academic seems himself to be at least a fellow traveller. And someone who assigns Wikipedia editing as tasks for his students to boot!

[Drowninginlimbo]

Great start on an issue that really does need a whole lot more exposure.

One wrinkle here is the connection to academic acknowledgment that has been trumpeted by certain MRAs and their associates. What am I saying? This academic seems himself to be at least a fellow traveller. And someone who assigns Wikipedia editing as tasks for his students to boot!

Wait, Memills has influence over students? Those poor individuals.

[thekohser]

One of my favorite things about Wikipediocracy blog posts is when they elicit additional info from readers -- info that continues to astound, even the author of the blog post. (It's certainly happened to me on previous posts.)

[iii]

One of my favorite things about Wikipediocracy blog posts is when they elicit additional info from readers -- info that continues to astound, even the author of the blog post. (It's certainly happened to me on previous posts.)

This area is in no short supply of astounding features. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Gender gap task force/Categorization (T-H-L), for example, was quite the tour-de-force with an amazing cast of characters including one nitwit -- myself.

[Zoloft]

This area is in no short supply of astounding features. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Gender gap task force/Categorization (T-H-L), for example, was quite the tour-de-force with an amazing cast of characters including one nitwit -- myself.

That was horrible and fascinating.

I want to make fun of it, but I believe I'd be committing a hate crime if I did, so I'll just be sad instead.

[The Devil's Advocate]

These feminist ideologues frequently and often hatefully tromp dissent and insert gynocentric gender ideology all over Wikipedia, poisoning much of Wikipedia’s content.

Hmmmm, in all fairness, that part is probably true.

[iii]

These feminist ideologues frequently and often hatefully tromp dissent and insert gynocentric gender ideology all over Wikipedia, poisoning much of Wikipedia’s content.

Hmmmm, in all fairness, that part is probably true.

Is that really all fairness? Do you have any evidence of such? A diff perhaps?

[The Devil's Advocate]

Is that really all fairness?

It's like a law of Wikipedia. Where there is a major POV in need of pushing, someone will push it.

[Drowninginlimbo]

Is that really all fairness?

It's like a law of Wikipedia. Where there is a major POV in need of pushing, someone will push it.

So that's a no for "hatefully tromp dissent", a no for "insert gynocentric gender ideology all over Wikipedia", and a no for "poisoning much of Wikipedia’s content", but a yes for "there are feminists on Wikipedia".

[Mancunium]

Men’s rights activists think a “hateful” feminist conspiracy is ruining Wikipedia
The Washington Post, 4 August 2014 link

A Voice for Men, the controversial men’s rights Web site, sees feminist conspiracies in many unassuming places: college stadiums, women’s shelters, hospital delivery rooms. But on Saturday, AVfM managing editor Dean Esmay published an essay decrying “censorship” and “misandry” on a new platform: Wikipedia, that sum of all human knowledge, where Esmay says editors “infected” by a “hateful Gender Feminist dogma” have conspired to silence him and other members of his movement. Granted, Esmay’s movement is pretty controversial. AVfM advocates, among other charming things, for the abolition of marriage, the death of chivalry, and “an end to rape and DV [domestic violence] hysteria.” But even if you find those beliefs distasteful, Esmay’s accusations raise some very important questions about who gets a voice on Wikipedia, and how that voice echoes on the wider Internet. After all, Wikipedia is (famously!) the only reference that anyone can edit — and edit anonymously. But it’s a self-moderating system. It’s open to the biases of its writers and editors. It could, to quote one of Esmay’s less inflammatory phrasings, become “dominated by ideological thugs.”

This, of course, is a side of the site casual readers never see: It’s complex and esoteric and highly bureaucratic, with layers of editors, lengthy discussion boards called “talk pages,” and many, many rules. [...] “It is inherent in the Wikipedia model’s approach that poor information can be added, but that over time those editing articles reach strong consensus, and quality improves,” explains Wikipedia’s editorial oversight page. In the case of the MRA articles, that would appear to be true. While Esmay claims that admins have unfairly overwritten men’s rights articles, or blocked MRA contributors, the talk pages tell a slightly different story. [...] while many of Esmay’s claims may be groundless, they come at a very apt time. Wikipedia recently announced a major overhaul of its editor disclosure policy. A wave of Twitter bots have begun logging when government employees edit Wikipedia — a bit of Internet sleuthing that, among other things, revealed suspicious Russian edits to the page for Flight MH17. After years of accepting Wikipedia as some kind of miraculous human project, plagued only by the occasional error or act of vandalism, there seems to be a renewed interest in the specific humans behind the effort.

Who, exactly, edits Wikipedia? And where do they come from? And what biases or personalities may be at play behind that wall of black-on-white text that so many of us take for fact? These are questions people regularly put to traditional media, but apply less frequently to a source that looks like an impartial reference. These are also all questions worth considering — even if they’re not necessarily worth considering in this case. As the Daily Dot’s Tim Sampson wrote in 2013: George Orwell once said, “He whoever controls the past controls the future.” And in 2013, the surest way to control the past is to control Wikipedia. Sampson was referencing a case in which a right-wing group commandeered the Croatian Wikipedia — gradually, over a long time, and without anyone realizing. [...] Ironically, dissenting views are only allowed on that Wiki’s talk pages — you know, the bureaucratic backwaters that readers never actually see. If Esmay or his ilk sense the hypocrisy there, they’re certainly not telling.

Dean Esmay's blog, A Voice for Men: link

[The Adversary]

Somebody should post on that Washington Post-site and tell them about our blog post No Voice for Men on Wikipedia?,

James P. Persica wrote a much more informed article than Caitlin Dewey, IMO.

(perhaps this tread should be joined with the this one?)

[Drowninginlimbo]

Washington Post article published yesterday on roughly the same subject: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- ... wikipedia/

I'm not sure if the timing is just weird or if she did read the piece. Either way I'm fond of Dewey's writing and am glad this issue has got more attention.

[HRIP7]

Washington Post article published yesterday on roughly the same subject: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- ... wikipedia/

I'm not sure if the timing is just weird or if she did read the piece. Either way I'm fond of Dewey's writing and am glad this issue has got more attention.

I was in Twitter contact with her a couple of days ago.

[Drowninginlimbo]

Washington Post article published yesterday on roughly the same subject: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- ... wikipedia/

I'm not sure if the timing is just weird or if she did read the piece. Either way I'm fond of Dewey's writing and am glad this issue has got more attention.

I was in Twitter contact with her a couple of days ago.

Oh I see, well she seems to have drawn Esmay's attention in the comments so we might have avoided some abuse by not being credited.

His criticisms mostly consist of berating the "Wikipedia Feminist Task Force", despite being a member of the "Wikipedia Men's Issues Task Force", and neither WikiProject really having any influence on the website.

[Cla68]

I notice that the Women in the workforce article only discusses the issues around women's access to the workforce, not the positive or negative (if there are any) impact from giving women access to the workforce. That's a fairly big topic and could include a whole range of issues:

1. Women's role in the workforce during times of national crisis (like WWII) when they step in to work so the men can go off to fight
2. The impact on society, family, and culture by having women in the workforce
3. Effect on productivity, creativity, innovation, etc by having women in the workforce
4. and so on

I started things off with a purposefully provocative edit to test the waters for circling activists. So far, it hasn't been reverted. So, if activists are watching that article, they aren't as on top of it as activists in other topic areas of WP.

[Drowninginlimbo]

I notice that the Women in the workforce article only discusses the issues around women's access to the workforce, not the positive or negative (if there are any) impact from giving women access to the workforce. That's a fairly big topic and could include a whole range of issues:

1. Women's role in the workforce during times of national crisis (like WWII) when they step in to work so the men can go off to fight
2. The impact on society, family, and culture by having women in the workforce
3. Effect on productivity, creativity, innovation, etc by having women in the workforce
4. and so on

I started things off with a purposefully provocative edit to test the waters for circling activists. So far, it hasn't been reverted. So, if activists are watching that article, they aren't as on top of it as activists in other topic areas of WP.

There isn't really a cabal of feminist activists watching every edit on the website. Good referenced edits, even if perceptibly negative, will probably remain in article.

[Cla68]

I notice that the Women in the workforce article only discusses the issues around women's access to the workforce, not the positive or negative (if there are any) impact from giving women access to the workforce. That's a fairly big topic and could include a whole range of issues:

1. Women's role in the workforce during times of national crisis (like WWII) when they step in to work so the men can go off to fight
2. The impact on society, family, and culture by having women in the workforce
3. Effect on productivity, creativity, innovation, etc by having women in the workforce
4. and so on

I started things off with a purposefully provocative edit to test the waters for circling activists. So far, it hasn't been reverted. So, if activists are watching that article, they aren't as on top of it as activists in other topic areas of WP.

There isn't really a cabal of feminist activists watching every edit on the website. Good referenced edits, even if perceptibly negative, will probably remain in article.

It hasn't been reverted, so the article looks like it's fairly activist-free. That means that others can come along and keep adding information to that section and build it up over time like WP claims it's supposed to work. That's one reason why activists are so damaging to WP and why WP's administration should be trying harder to root them out.

[Neotarf]

...I started things off with a purposefully provocative edit to test the waters for circling activists. So far, it hasn't been reverted. So, if activists are watching that article, they aren't as on top of it as activists in other topic areas of WP.

This is pretty much what happened on the Men's Rights Movement article, using original research to add cherry-picked factoids that had not been identified by reliable sources as being men's rights issues. They used the men's rights Reddit group to coordinate. The same thing goes on at a Buddhism article I watch, a coordinated effort to keep inserting a report about a traffic accident a monk was involved in to "prove" they are anti-Islam.