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.”
  • How you can participate:
  •  Visit the Wikipediocracy Forum, a candid exchange of views between Wikipedia editors, administrators, critics, proponents, and the general public.
  • 'Like' our Wikipediocracy page on Facebook.
  •  Follow Wikipediocracy on Twitter!

Press Releases

  • Please click here for recent Wikipediocracy press releases.

Google Search

New German study on PR in Wikipedia

Posted on April 7th, 2014 11 comments - (Comments closed)

By Marvin Oppong

The case of Sarah Stierch has once again demonstrated that paid editing remains an issue with Wikipedia – not only in the English Wikipedia, but also in the German Wikipedia, the second-largest worldwide. Otto Brenner Stiftung, the scientific division of the German trade union IG Metall, the largest individual trade union in the world, published my study on covert PR in Wikipedia entitled “Covert PR in Wikipedia – companies set their sights on the knowledge of the world”.

Jimmy Wales with German Wikipedia book

The results of the study: PR and manipulation are omnipresent in Wikipedia. Not only companies, but also associations, federations, political parties and individuals are trying to improve their public images by editing the online encyclopaedia’s articles, in a number of ways. Intervention does not stop any of this effectively. Manipulation attempts were made in topics such as nuclear power, the history of companies, controversial political issues, cases of individual misconduct and the pharmaceutical industry. Whether multinational groups, Scientology members or the case of the PR agency Bell Pottinger – there are many instances of people trying to shed a new light on facts and figures. Additionally, the reported cases of covert PR in Wikipedia might only be the tip of the iceberg.

A copy of the study can be ordered free of charge from the Otto Brenner Stiftung website or downloaded. On the website relating to my study you will find all the reactions to this publication plus a download link. My research provoked fierce reactions in the German Wikipedia community. Some critics argued that my study had some “weak points”, was a “nonsense product” or was mere “entertainment journalism”. Other commenters, however, maintained that the issue of “PR in Wikipedia” was important, and they questioned

…continue reading New German study on PR in Wikipedia

Category: Academic criticism of Wikipedia, Bureaucracy, Conflict of Interest, Uncategorized

Islands of Sanity

Posted on February 23rd, 2014 11 comments - (Comments closed)

By Peter Damian

Andreas Kolbe’s piece on Wikipedia versus Britannica went down pretty well, except for one commentator, who objected that “The projects in the science, logic, mathematics, and music are islands of sanity”.

 

 

Really? My own specialism is in the history of logic, particularly medieval logic. It’s a disaster area. I wrote last year about some vandalism to the article on the 13th century logician Duns Scotus, which said that in 2011 Scotus received an honour from the University of Oxford, “together with Lawrence of Arabia, Oscar Wilde, J.R.R. Tolkien and living University members Rupert Murdoch, Bill Clinton, Stephen Hawking and Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck”. When I wrote that, nearly a year ago, I thought it would be immediately removed. Yet it’s still there. I also mentioned vandalism to the article on William Vorilong. That was removed, but there was more added quite recently, including the bizarre claim that Vorilong studied Japanese medieval philosophy, physics and astronomy. It’s still there, and see also the article on the Chinese Da Ming Hun Yi Tu map.

It can be speculated that one of the first people in Europe who consulted the map was William Vorilong, noted philosopher from England, who was shown the map while travelling with japanese visitor Yoshimitsu Kage.

Retrodeductive inference?

.

OK, you object that this is merely boring history, which no one cares about. The real stuff, on modern science and logic and mathematics and so on, is totally reliable. So let’s take a look at some of the articles on logic, starting with the flagship article. Right there in the introduction it says “Avicenna revived the study of logic and developed relationship between temporalis and the implication”. What does

…continue reading Islands of Sanity

Tags: , | Category: Academic criticism of Wikipedia, Philosophy, Uncategorized

Elementary Mathematics on Wikipedia

Posted on October 20th, 2013 17 comments - (Comments closed)

By Adrian Riskin  Department of Mathematics  Whittier College Whittier, CA 90608 ariskin@whittier.edu

Ask any college professor about the accuracy of Wikipedia and they will tell you … well, if they’re a mathematician they may actually tell you that it’s quite accurate. I often recommend that my students look up definitions in Wikipedia and I know that many of my colleagues do as well. In fact I look up definitions on Wikipedia myself. If you want to know, e.g., what a Halin graph is, you could do much worse than the linked article. Yes, it’s semi-literate at best, but it’s informative and not wrong. Furthermore, my colleagues in the humanities and the social sciences are so dead set against Wikipedia that I find myself unable to resist teasing them by remarking on how useful I find it in my professional work.

But you know, I’ve also edited Wikipedia, although very rarely mathematics articles, and found the experience to be toxic and soul-killing and the (non-mathematical) articles mostly worse than useless, even the ones I’ve written myself. I unthinkingly assumed that the difference in quality between the technical mathematical articles and, say, the BLP and POV battlegrounds so familiar to Wikipediocracy readers was due to the calm, logical, sociable nature of mathematicians. But recently it occurred to me that (a) I don’t really read the mathematics articles carefully, but rather just skim through them until I find the bit I need, and (b) I never look at the articles on very basic subjects in mathematics, many of which are among the 500 most frequently viewed articles.

I’m too lazy to pick a technical article on an advanced subject in mathematics and read it carefully, but I did take a look at some of the articles on more basic subjects and was both appalled and relieved. I

…continue reading Elementary Mathematics on Wikipedia

Tags: , , , , , , , | Category: Academic criticism of Wikipedia
« Newer Entries