User:Jacobgreenbaum

I was interested to see Wiki, but dismayed by what I found. My initial approach was via the Middle East pages, since that's what I was looking up at the time, but the strong pro-Israeli line taken there was disturbing.

After making a few comments on this (my first attempt was ridiculously biased in itself - see Talk:History of Israel, but I immediately encountered the attitude of "if I don't like it, I'll delete it, rather than edit it to show a Neutral Point of View), and attempting to NPOV a couple of sub-sections (all of which quickly reverted to their previous pro-Israel lines), I had a look around elsewhere in the encyclopaedia.

I found an epidemic of articles "adopted" by two sides, each reverting the other's changes. This seems common throughout the project - see Abortion and Creationism and even Gdansk for examples (examine the history and talk pages to see what I'm talking about. Or pick your own examples - there are plenty of them, especially in pages which discuss Israel).

All of which leads me to the conclusion that Wiki is basically a talk board, not an encyclopaedia. I think I see why that is: There is no system for accepting or rejecting changes. Instead, all changes are accepted, with the result that whichever partisan group has the last word (most recent revision) on an article has their partisan viewpoint expressed in that article.

I know that's not how it's supposed to be, but that's the impression I have of the site. Which led me to make this statement on the Talk:Terrorism against Israel board. On my travels around Wiki, I've noticed that my opinion is far from an isolated one. Consider User talk:GrahamN in particular.

There is Jennifer too, watch her log. --GayCom

It seems to me that this project has need of some structure, in the same sense that the Linux project has structure. That might mean accepting changes only after they've been voted on, with an overall neutral editor in place to help ensure that changes contribute to NPOV, rather than detracting from it. Or it might mean something else. The introduction of the Wikipedia:NPOV dispute page by GayCommunist might be a good starting point, as are the Wikipedia:Votes for NPOVing, Wikipedia:Votes for rewrite and Wikipedia:Votes for deletion pages, but they need some structured change control methodology behind them.

I do feel, though, that Wiki will need some serious changes in how it manages changes if it's going to become an unbiased encyclopaedia.

Until then, I'll continue to think of it as a talk board.

A few comments:

As I see it, the problem is not that of edit wars, or "the last word". It's about having the energy and time to "create facts on the ground" in the articles, and then draw every "attack" into a long and exhaustive argument that the opponent finally caves in to, and disappears. There are people who disagree with the pro-Israeli camp controlling these articles right now, but there simply aren't enough, and they simplay don't have the time and effort necessary to spend.

I also think the underlying problem is that the issues are so important to some people that they become blinded to their own NPOV violations. That is, I honestly think most of the pro-Israeli people maintaining the Middle East articles think they have an NPOV. They are generally satisfied with presenting and defending their own viewpoint - because they see the articles as largely NPOV or even pro-Palestinian slanted.

Uriyan actually made a post to the Wikipedia mailinglist recently, calling for the Middle East pages to be protected so that anonymous users couldn't edit them - because of his concerns about "attacks" on them!

The problem with the Middle East articles has been there for a long while, and I don't think it will go away by itself. Wikipedia's dynamics will certainly not "mould them into NPOV" by themselves (and by our editing efforts). I also don't believe that it will be possible to make the general opinion of Wikipedia authors agree that system restrictions/sanctions are necessary - it is simply too dangerous for Wikipedia, and this issue is simply not important enough to that many.

Actually, the two only solutions I can think of are:

Build a concensus to have all the Middle East articles deleted, since Wikipedia is unable to generate NPOV information on the issue. Slanted information is worse than none.

Split every article into two, and build consensus to let each "camp" flavour their own version they way the feel they have to. It appears to be impossible to do this within a single article - perhaps two separate ones might do it. I still worry there will be endles bickering over wording, and endless small "facts" working themselves in everywhere.

Generally, I share your feeling that this is hurting Wikipedia greatly. I have been away from the site for long periods largely because of this. Really depressing stuff. -- GayCom