How Wikipedia is Poisoning AI:
The Six Sins of Wikipedia
The author was among the first contributors to
Nupedia,
Wikipedia's peer-reviewed predecessor, and to
Wikipedia.
He spent twenty years, on and off, studying
Wikipedia.
Watch “Wikipedia:
Narcissistic Cult, Cabal Exposed”
Malignant Self Love - Buy the
Book - Click HERE!!!
Relationships with Abusive
Narcissists - Buy the e-Books - Click HERE!!!
READ
THIS: Scroll down to review a complete list of the articles - Click on the blue-coloured text!
Bookmark this Page - and SHARE IT with Others!
Go Back to
"Digital Content on the Web" Home Page!
The anonymous user and
top-tier “editor” Slp1 is representative of the culture of narcissism
(grandiosity, entitlement), bullying, and prideful ignorance that is rampant in
the cult or cabal known as Wikipedia.
On her user page, this senior
contributor shockingly boasts: “I tend to edit articles that take my
fancy and have no connection to my professional and academic background.
Articles to which I have made major contributions … including some subjects I
had no interest in at all until I waded in.”
Her Talk page exposes this
pattern of intimidation, power plays, and nauseating hubris. Obsequious editors
such as BlockArranger flatter her to her face and snitch on others, all the
while disparaging her elsewhere: “I
suggest you attempt to not call a spade a spade … she doesn’t own the article”.
This is an explicit reference
to a Wikipedia
policy that advocates giving in to bullies.
But Slp1 and her minion
BlockArranger are the rule, not the exception.
Wikipedia poses such low
barriers to entry (anyone can edit any number of its articles) that it has
initially attracted masses of teenagers as "contributors" and
"editors", not to mention the less savoury flotsam and jetsam of
cyber-life. People who are regularly excluded or at least moderated in every
other Internet community are welcomed, no questions asked, by this wannabe
self-styled "encyclopedia". Most of these wannabes are now gone.
Those who remain are hard-core control freaks and their puppets.
There is nothing new about
the collaborative model that is Wikipedia. Before the age of Gutenberg,
copyists (usually found in monasteries) used to add their notes and comments to
the texts they were copying as they went alone, without indicating which is the
original and which their own contributions. The Talmud had been crowdsourced
from hundreds of luminaries over centuries: its layout resembles the world wide
web with text “hyperlinks” to boot.
The Oxford English
Dictionary (OED), first published in 1928, was the outcome of seventy years of
combined efforts of 2,000 zealous and industrious volunteers. The difference
between Wikipedia and the OED, though, is that the latter appointed editors to oversee
and tutor these teeming hordes of wannabe scholars.
The concept of “mob wisdom”
or “crowd sourcing” is equally dated. Ancient Greek and Egyptian luminaries,
from Eratosthenes to Ptolemy, relied on eyewitness accounts of travellers to
compose their enduring (albeit utterly erroneous) masterpieces. The distinction
between layman and expert is a modern invention, an aberration in historical
terms. Even so, every scholarly article and book submitted for publication
first goes through peer review: scrutiny by qualified experts who suggest
additions and amendments to the material. Once published, authors frequently
act on input by academics and the wider public and issue errata, revisions, and
new editions to reflect this newly-gained knowledge.
“Before today’s internet, the primary way to preserve something
for the ages was to consign it to writing—first on stone, then parchment, then
papyrus, then 20-pound acid-free paper, then a tape drive, floppy disk, or
hard-drive platter—and store the result in a temple or library: a building designed to guard it against rot, theft, war, and natural
disaster. This approach has facilitated preservation of some material for
thousands of years. Ideally, there would be multiple identical copies stored in
multiple libraries, so the failure of one storehouse wouldn’t extinguish the
knowledge within. And in rare instances in which a document was surreptitiously
altered, it could be compared against copies elsewhere to detect and correct
the change.”
(“The
Internet is Rotting” by Jonathan Zittrain in The Atlantic, June 30, 2021)
Wikipedia differs from
traditional “out-sourcing” in that it is indiscriminate: the qualifications,
education, experience, and credentials (expertise) of its contributors are
frequently ignored, or even derided. Wikipedia is thus subject to the tyranny of
the (often narcissistic)
user or the community and their weapons: arbitrary editing, malicious smears,
impersonation (sock puppetry), and other underhanded tactics. It is a
meritocracy of passive-aggressiveness.
Wikipedia has 50,000,000
registered users, but only 1000-1500 active editors, most of whom are busy with
trivial pursuits such as punctuation and engaged in sempiternal edit wars. Many
of them are paid shills. Wikipedia is not an exercise at crowdsourcing: it is a
cabal, a narcissistic cult, replete with arcane lingo, rigid hierarchies, and
aggressively exclusionary behaviors.
Six cardinal (and, in the
long-term, deadly) sins plague Wikipedia. What unites and underlies all its
deficiencies is simple: Wikipedia dissembles about what it is and how it
operates. It is a self-righteous confabulation and its success in deceiving the
many attests not only to the gullibility of the vast majority of Netizens but
to the PR savvy of its sleek and slick operators.
Wikipedia is the true
pioneer of misinformation and confirmation bias online. Regrettably,
Wikipedia’s flawed content is now feeding into AI LLMs and chatbots, poisoning
the entire digital universe.
1. Wikipedia is opaque
and encourages recklessness
The overwhelming majority
of contributors to and editors of the Wikipedia remain anonymous or
pseudonymous throughout the process. Anyone can register and members'
screen-names (handles) mean nothing and lead nowhere. Thus, no one is forced to
take responsibility for what he or she adds to the "encyclopedia" or
subtracts from it.
This amounts to an
impenetrable smokescreen: identities can rarely be established and evading the
legal consequences of one's actions or omissions is easy. As the exposure of
the confabulated professional biography of Wikipedia Arbitrator Essjay in March
2007 demonstrates, some prominent editors and senior administrators probably
claim fake credentials as well. Possibly, most of them.
A software tool developed
and posted online in mid-2007, the Wikiscanner, unearthed tens of thousands of
self-interested edits by "contributors" as diverse as the CIA, the
Canadian government, and Disney. This followed in the wake of a spate of
scandals involving biased and tainted edits by political staffers and
pranksters.
Wikipedia is fully censored
and retroactively faked. Everything in the Wikipedia can be and frequently is
edited, re-written and erased and this includes the talk pages and even, to my
utter amazement, in some cases, the history pages!
In other words, one cannot
gain an impartial view of the editorial process by sifting through the talk and
history pages of articles (most of which are typically monopolized by fiercely
territorial "editors"). History, not unlike in certain authoritarian
regimes, is being constantly re-jigged on Wikipedia!
2. Wikipedia is
anarchic, not democratic
Wikipedia is not an
experiment in online democracy, but a form of pernicious anarchy. It espouses two
misconceptions: (a) That chaos can and does lead to the generation of artifacts
with lasting value and (b) That knowledge is an emergent, mass phenomenon. But
Wikipedia is not conducive to the unfettered exchange of information and opinion
that is a prerequisite to both (a) and (b). It is a war zone where many fear to
tread, monopolized by the most aggressive and possessive. Wikipedia is,
therefoe, a negative filter (see the next point).
3. The Might is Right
Editorial Principle, No Gatekeeping or Curating
Lacking quality control by
design, Wikipedia rewards quantity. The more one posts and interacts with
others, the higher one's status, both informal and official. In the Wikipedia
planet, authority is a function of the number of edits, no matter how frivolous.
The more aggressive (even violent) a member is; the more prone to flame, bully,
and harass; the more inclined to form coalitions with like-minded trolls; the
less of a life he or she has outside Wikipedia, the more they are likely to end
up being administrators, arbitrators, and top editors.
The result is erratic
editing. Many entries are completely re-written (not to say vandalized) with
the arrival of new kids on the Wikipedia block and then ferociously reverted by
territorial or vindictive editors such as the aforementioned Slp1.
Contrary to
advertently-fostered impressions, Wikipedia is not a cumulative process. Its
text goes through dizzyingly rapid and oft-repeated cycles of destruction and
the initial contributions are at times far deeper and more comprehensive than
later, "edited", editions of same.
Wikipedia is misrepresented
as an open-source endeavor. Nothing can be further from the truth. Open-source
efforts, such as Linux, involve a group of last-instance decision-makers
(gatekeepers or curators) that coordinate, vet, and cull the flow of suggestions,
improvements, criticism, and offers from the public. Open-source communities
are not stochastic and personalized.
Moreover, it is far easier
to evaluate the quality of a given snippet of software code than it is to judge
the truth-content of an edit to an article, especially if it deals with
"soft" and "fuzzy" topics, which involve the weighing of
opinions and the well-informed exercise of value judgments.
4.
Wikipedia is against real knowledge
Wikipedia is a cult with cult leaders and arcane, obscure, deliberately obfuscating language and procedures, far more cumbersome than any university, research lab protocols, or peer-reviewed journal. Wikipedia has become an exclusionary and xenophobic in-group.
Wikipedia's ethos is
malignantly anti-elitist. Experts are scorned and rebuffed, attacked, and
abused with official sanction and blessing. Since everyone is assumed to be
equally qualified to edit and contribute (malignant egalitarianism), no one is
entitled to a privileged position by virtue of scholarship, academic
credentials, or even life experience. Wikipedia is a tertiary source and
therefore of zero academic value.
Wikipedia is the epitome
and the reification of an ominous trend: Internet surfing came to replace
research, online eclecticism supplanted scholarship, and trivia passes for erudition.
Everyone's an instant scholar. If you know how to use a search engine, you are
an authority.
Wikipdians boast that the
articles in their "encyclopedia" are replete with citations and
references. But citations from which sources and references to which works and
authors? Absent the relevant credentials and education, how can an editor tell
the difference between information and disinformation, quacks and authorities,
fact and hearsay, truth and confabulation?
Knowledge is not comprised
of lists of facts, "facts", factoids, and rumors, the bread and
butter of the Wikipedia. Real facts have to be verified, classified, and
arranged within a historical and cultural context. Wikipedia articles read like
laundry lists of information gleaned from secondary sources and invariably lack
context and deep, true understanding of their subject matter.
Can Teenagers write
an Encyclopedia?
The vast majority of
Wikipedia contributors and editors are under the age of 25. Many of the
administrators (senior editors) are in their teens. This has been established
by a survey conducted in 2003 and in various recent interviews with Jimmy
Wales, the co-founder of the enterprise.
The truth is that teenagers
cannot do the referencing and research that are the prerequisite to serious
scholarship - unless you stretch these words to an absurd limit. Research is
not about hoarding facts. It is about identifying and applying context and
about possessing a synoptic view of ostensibly unrelated data.
Moreover, teenagers can't tell hype from fact and fad from fixture. They lack
the perspectives that life and learning -structured, frontal, hierarchical
learning - bring with them.
Knowledge is not another democratic institution. It is hierarchical for good
reason and the hierarchy is built on merit and the merit is founded on
learning.
It is not surprising that the Wikipedia emerged in the USA whose
"culture" consists of truncated attention spans, snippets and
soundbites, shortcuts and cliff notes. The Wikipedia is a pernicious
counter-cultural phenomenon. It does not elevate or celebrate knowledge. The
Wikipedia degrades knowledge by commoditizing it and by removing the filters,
the gatekeepers, and the barriers to entry that have proven so essential
hitherto.
Recently, on a discussion
list dedicated to books with a largely academic membership, I pointed out an
error in one of the Wikipedia's articles. The responses I received were
chilling. One member told me that he uses the Wikipedia to get a rough idea about
topics that are not worth the time needed to visit the library. Whether the
rough ideas he was provided with courtesy the Wikipedia were correct or
counterfactual seemed not to matter to him. Others expressed a mystical belief
in the veracity of "knowledge" assembled by the masses of anonymous
contributors to the Wikipedia. Everyone professed to prefer the content
proffered by the Wikipedia to the information afforded by the Britannica
Encyclopedia or by established experts!
Two members attempted to
disproved my assertion (regarding the error in Wikipedia) by pointing to a
haphazard selection of links to a variety of Internet sources. Not one of them
referred to a reputable authority on the subject, yet, based largely on Wikipedia
and a sporadic trip in cyberspace, they felt sufficiently confident to
challenge my observation (which is supported by virtually all the leading
luminaries in the field).
These gut reactions mirror
Wikipedia's "editorial" process. To the best of my knowledge, none of
my respondents was qualified to comment. None of them holds a relevant academic
degree. Neither do I. But I strove to stand on the shoulders of giants when I
spotted the error while my respondents explicitly and proudly refused to do so
as a matter of principle!
This may reflect the difference
in academic traditions between the United States and the rest of the world.
Members of individualistic, self-reliant and narcissistic societies inevitably
rebel against authority and tend to believe in their own omnipotence and
omniscience. Conversely, the denizens of more collectivist and
consensus-seeking cultures, are less sanguine and grandiose and more willing to
accept teachings ex-cathedra. So said Theodore Millon, a great scholar and an
undisputed authority on personality disorders.
5. Wikipedia is not an
encyclopedia
Truth in advertising is not
Wikipedia's strong suit. It presents itself, egregiously, as an encyclopedia.
Yet, at best it is a community of users who exchange eclectic
"information" on a regular and semi-structured basis. This deliberate
misrepresentation snags most occasional visitors who are not acquainted with
the obscure ways of Wikipedia and trust it implicitly and explicitly to deliver
facts and well-founded opinions.
There is a lot Wikipedia
can do to dispel such dangerous misconceptions (for instance, it could post
disclaimers on all its articles and not only on a few selected pages). That it
chooses to propagate the deception is telling and renders it the equivalent of
an intellectual scam, a colossal act of con-artistry.
Wikipedia thus retards
genuine learning by serving as the path of least resistance and as a substitute
to the real thing: edited, peer-reviewed works of reference. High school and
university students now make Wikipedia and AI fed by it not only their first
but their exclusive "research" destination.
Moreover, Wikipedia's
content is often reproduced on thousands of other Website WITHOUT
any of its disclaimers and without attribution or identification of the source.
The other day I visited a website and clicked on its "free
encyclopedia". It is a mirror of Wikipedia, but without anything to
indicate that it is not a true, authoritative, peer-reviewed encyclopedia. The
origin of the articles - Wikipedia - was not indicated anywhere.
It could have been
different.
Consider, for instance the
online and free Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy. Each entry is written by an expert but is frequently revised
based on input from members of the public. It combines the best elements of the
Wikipedia (feedback-driven evolution) with none of its deficiencies. Even
crowdsourced encyclopedias can be authoritative (Scholarpedia and Citizendium,
for example).
6. Wikipedia is rife
with libel and violations of copyrights
As recent events clearly
demonstrate, Wikipedia is a hotbed of slander and libel. It is regularly
manipulated by interns, political staffers, public relations consultants,
marketing personnel, special interest groups, political parties, business
firms, brand managers, and others with an axe to grind. It serves as a platform
for settling personal accounts, defaming, distorting the truth, and re-writing
history.
Less known is the fact that
Wikipedia is potentially and arguably the greatest single repository of
copyright infringements. A study conducted in 2006 put the number of completely
plagiarized articles at 1% of the total - a whopping 15,000 in all. Books -
from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, through David Irving's
controversial work, down to my
own, far humbler, tomes - are regularly ripped off and sizable chunks are
posted in various articles, with and without attribution. Wikipedia resembles
P2P (peer-to-peer) networks such as the first incarnation of Napster: it allows
users to illegally share pirated content using an application (Wiki) and a
central Website (the Wikipedia).
Wikipedia does not provide
any effective mechanism to redress wrongs, address problems, and remedy libel
and copyright infringements. Editing the offending articles is useless as these
are often "reverted" (restored) by the offenders themselves.
My personal experience is
that correspondence with and complaints to Wikimedia and to Jimmy Wales go
unanswered or stonewalled by a variety of minions. Even when (rarely) the
offending content is removed from the body of an article it remains available in
its history pages.
Wikipedia has been legally
shielded from litigation because, hitherto, it enjoyed the same status that
Bulletin Boards Services (BBS) and other, free for all, communities (including
social media) have. In short: where no editorial oversight is exerted, no legal
liability arises to the host even in cases of proven libel and breaches of
copyright. Wikimedia, Wikipedia’s parent company, even enjoys a tax-free
status.
But Wikipedia has been
treading a thin line here as well. Anyone who ever tried to contribute to this
"encyclopedia" discovered soon enough that it is micromanaged by a
cabal of c. 1000 administrators (not to mention Wikimedia's full-time staff,
fuelled by millions of US dollars in public donations). These senior editors
regularly interfere in the contents of articles. They do so often without any
rhyme or reason and on a whim (hence the anarchy) - but edit the articles they
do.
This fact and statements by
Wales to the effect that Wikipedia is actually regularly edited may provoke
victims of abusive Wikipedia into considering class action lawsuits against
Wikimedia, Jimmy Wales personally, and their Web hosting company.
Wikipedia is an edited
publication. The New-York Times is responsible for anything it publishes in its
op-ed section. So does the Encyclopedia Britannica. Radio stations pay fines
for airing obscenities in call-in shows. Why treat the Wikipedia any differently?
Perhaps, hit in the wallet, it will develop the minimal norms of responsibility
and truthfulness that are routinely expected of less presumptuous and more
inconspicuous undertakings on the Internet.
Google-Wikipedia-MySpace
- How Teenagers Hijacked the Internet
A recent (late 2006) study by
Heather Hopkins from Hitwise demonstrates the existence of a pernicious
feedback loop between Google, Wikipedia, MySpace, and Blogspot. Wikipedia gets
54% of its traffic from Google search results. The majority of Wikipedia
visitors then proceed to MySpace or Blogspot, both of which use Google as their
search service and serve Google-generated advertisements.
Google has changed its
search algorithm in late 2005-early 2006. I have been monitoring 154 keywords
on Google since 1999. Of these, the number one (#1) search result in 128
keywords is now a Wikipedia article. More than a quarter (38 out of 128) of
these "articles" are what the Wikipedia calls "stubs" (one
or two sentences to be expanded by Wikipedians in the future). Between 7 and 10
of the articles that made it to the much-coveted number one spot are ... empty
pages, placeholders, yet to be written!
This is Google's policy
now: Wikipedia articles regardless of their length or quality or even mere
existence are placed by Google's algorithm high up in the search results.
Google even makes a Wikipedia search engine available to Webmasters for their
Websites. The relationship between Google and Wikipedia is clearly intimate and
mutually-reinforcing.
Google's new algorithm,
codenamed Big Daddy, still calculates the popularity of Websites by counting
incoming links. An incoming link is a link to a given Website placed on an
unrelated page somewhere on the Web. The more numerous such links - the higher
the placement in Google's search results pages. To avoid spamming and link
farms, Google now rates the quality of "good and bad Internet
neighborhoods". Not all incoming links are treated equally. Some Internet
properties are shunned. Links from such "bad" Websites actually
contribute negatively to the overall score.
The top results in all 154
keywords I have been diligently monitoring since 1999 have changed dramatically
since April 2006. The only common thread in all these upheavals is one: the
more incoming links from MySpace a Website has - the higher it is placed in the
search results.
In other words: if Website
A has 700 incoming links from 700 different Websites and website B has 700
incoming links, all of them from various pages on MySpace, Website B is ranked
(much) higher in the search results. This holds true even when both Websites A
and B sport the same PageRank. This holds true even if the bulk of Website A's
incoming links come from "good properties" in "good Internet
neighborhoods". Incoming links from MySpace trump every other category of
incoming links.
An unsettling pattern
emerges:
Wikipedia, the
"encyclopedia" whose "editors" are mostly unqualified
teenagers and young adults is touted by Google as an authoritative source of
information. In search results, it is placed well ahead of sources of veritable
information such as universities, government institutions, the home pages of
recognized experts, the online full-text content of peer-reviewed professional
and scholarly publications, real encyclopedias (such as the Encarta), and so
on.
MySpace whose 110 million
users are predominantly prepubescent and adolescents now dictates what Websites
will occupy the first search results in Google's search results pages. It is
very easy to spam MySpace. It is considered by some experts to be a vast
storehouse of link farms masquerading as "social networks".
Google has vested, though
unofficial and unannounced and, therefore, undisclosed interests in both Wikipedia
and MySpace. Wikipedia visitors end up on various properties whose search and
ad placement technologies are Google's and Wikipedia would have shriveled into
insignificance had it not been to Google's relentless promotion of its content.
The Wikipedians Fight
Back
This is the fifth essay I
have written about the Wikipedia. Evidently, Wikipedians, Wikipedia, and
Wikimedia are vehemently opposed to free speech when it is directed against
them.
Judge for yourselves:
A group of Wikipedians
apparently decided to take revenge and/or to warn me off. They have authored a
defamatory and slanderous article about "Sam Vaknin" in their
"encyclopedia". To leave no room for doubt, at the bottom of this new
entry about me, they listed all my articles against the Wikipedia. After
repeated complaints and legal threats, the article was removed, though any
"editor" can still write an equally-slanderous new one at any time.
Additionally,
I received an e-mail message from Brad Patrick, Wikimedia's General
Counsel (attorney), asking me to copy him on all future correspondence with
Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, or anyone else associated with the Wikimedia Foundation
and its projects. I declined his "request". He then proceeded to ask
to communicate with my lawyer since "I raised the issue of suing his
client." Couldn't be subtler.
I was also banned from
posting to Wikipedia - my punishment for what Wikipedia calls
"sockpuppetry" (essentially, editing articles without first logging
in to one's account). It is ironic, since the vast majority of Wikipedians -
including the administrator who banned me - edit articles anonymously or hide
behind utterly meaningless handles and screen names. There is not a shred of
proof, of course, that I have edited any article, with or without logging in.
Finally, my name as well as
references to my work were removed from a few articles (for instance, from the
entries about Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Narcissism (Psychology)).
At least one of the "editors" who were responsible for what appears
to be a vindictive act ("Danny") claims to be somehow associated with
Wikimedia's grants commission. Another editor - Zeraeph - has been stalking me
and members of my support groups for almost ten years now.
Interview granted to
Tiempo Magazine (Spain), August 2009
Q: A recent thesis
published by a Spanish university states that the Wikipedia is changing some
patterns and developing certain ways to increase the quality of the articles,
mostly by enforcing discussion and organizational aspects… Do you still think
that the Wikipedia is not an encyclopaedia?
A: The Wikipedia is the massive,
structured blog of an online cult. The cult is
dedicated to the agglomeration of information and disinformation (i.e. data)
and its classification (in the form of articles). It also revolves around the
personality of Jimmy Wales and his "disciples" and, in this sense, it
is a personality
cult and a pseudo-religion. The only thing the
Wikipedia is not is an encyclopedia.
Encyclopedias are authored
by people who are authorities in their respective fields; whose credentials are
transparent and vetted by their peers; and who subject themselves to review by
equally qualified people. The Wikipedia is authored and edited by faceless,
anonymous writers and editors. The fact that they are registered means nothing
as the vast majority of them still hide behind aliases and handles. Some of
them have been proven to have confabulated biographies and fictitious
self-imputed academic credentials.
Most Wikipedia articles
sport references. But references to which material? Only experts know
which books, articles, and essays are worth citing from! The truth is
that the Wikipedians - many of them teenagers - cannot do the referencing and
research that are the prerequisite to serious scholarship (unless you stretch
these words to an absurd limit).
Research is not about
hoarding facts. It is about identifying and applying context and
about possessing a synoptic view of ostensibly unrelated data. The
Wikipedians can't tell hype from fact and fad from fixture. Many of them lack
the perspectives that life, experience, exposure, and learning -structured,
frontal, hierarchical learning - bring with them. Knowledge is not another
democratic institution, it cannot be crowdsourced. It is hierarchical for good
reason and the hierarchy is built on merit and the merit is founded on
learning.
There is nothing new
about the collaborative model that is the Wikipedia. The Oxford English
Dictionary (OED), first published in 1928, was the outcome of seventy
years of combined efforts of 2,000 zealous and industrious volunteers.
The difference between the Wikipedia and the OED, though, is that the latter
appointed editors to oversee and tutor these teeming hordes of wannabe
scholars. The Encyclopedia Britannica (and online encyclopedias such as
Citizendium) are going this route.
Q: Your article ‘The Six Sins of the Wikipedia’ really became a reference
since it was published 3 years ago. Anarchy was one of the sins you described
in it. In fact, although the Wikipedia was called in the beginning a free and
democratic project, after your report –and some other studies and books- Jimmy
Wales and the directors stopped talking about democracy. Now they talk about
the anarchy involved in all the process. Do you feel responsible for some of
these changes?
A. My article has been read by hundreds
of thousands of people and quoted widely in many online and offline media. Yet,
it is not mentioned in the very long Wikipedia article which deals with
criticisms of the Wikipedia. This shows you the true nature of the Wikipedia:
censorship, petty grievances, bias, and one-upmanship are rife. Not exactly the
hallmarks of an encyclopedia.
The Wikipedia is a
veritable battlefield: many topics and personages are blacklisted
and activist editors delete within minutes any mention of them. Another
example: the Birther movement in the USA (people who challenge Barack Obama's
eligibility to become President based on his alleged birth place in Kenya).
Though a fringe group, it is sufficiently prominent to have warranted repeated
references in White House press conferences. Only the Wikipedia keeps ignoring
it and deleting references to it in the Barack Obama article.
I do not believe that my
article had any influence on the culture of the Wikipedia. Procedural matters
are decided by a cabal headed by Jimmy Wales, whose grandiose cosmic-messianic
vision of the Wikipedia shapes it. Wales reacts to criticism by tweaking and
facelifting, not by offering fundamental changes of the model. This is because
he truly adheres to the notions of creative anarchy, crowd wisdom,
and emergent knowledge and because he doesn't know the
differences between data (raw material, some of it relevant) and knowledge
(the finished product).
Q. There have been reported many errors in Wikipedia’s coverage of
current news, mostly due to anonymous editors, partly fixed through the flagged
edition system. Where’s the border between an encyclopedia and a website?
Shouldn’t an encyclopaedia take some time to compile facts of events with some
time to think and cool down the issue rather than “cover” an event?
A. Most print encyclopedias publish
yearbooks. Perspective is important, but so are timeliness and coverage. The
difference between the Wikipedia and other encyclopedias is that the cumulative
knowledge base and authoritative authorship of the Britannica, for instance,
endow even its yearbook with a modicum of timelessness. Wikipedia's coverage,
by comparison, is ephemeral and often misleading because the people who put it
together are ignorant or prejudiced or both.
Q. How would you describe the Wikipedia in relation with other
encyclopaedias?
A. I am an encyclopedia junkie. I
collect work of reference, old and new. As far as I can judge, the Wikipedia's
coverage of the natural and exact sciences is pretty good. Its humanities
articles are an unmitigated disaster, though: they are replete with nonsense,
plagiarism, falsities, and propaganda. I know a bit about psychology,
economics, philosophy, and the history of certain parts of the world. Articles
dealing with these fields are utterly and sometimes dangerously unreliable.
Q. How is your relation with *Wikipedians*? Are you still one of their
enemies?
A. I was invited to write a
few articles for the Nupedia, the Wikipedia's predecessor. When Larry Sanger,
the Wikipedia's true originator, started the Wikipedia, I was among the first
to contribute to it and kept on contributing to it until 2003. I have never
been an enemy of the Wikipedia. I am, however, against the cult that has
developed around it and the fact that it misrepresents itself as an
encyclopedia.
Q. Do you agree with your own points of view after three years?
A. Things have improved a
lot since I have written the article. The Wikipedia is less chaotic; less
anonymous; the articles more rigorously referenced. But these are cosmetic
changes. In the essence, the six "sins" I identified way back still stand:
(1) The Wikipedia is opaque and encourages recklessness; (2) The
Wikipedia is anarchic and definitely not democratic;
(3) The Might is Right Editorial Principle (quantity of edits is
valued over quality and relationships with other editors count more than knowledge);
(4) Wikipedia is against real knowledge because it is against experts
and academic "elites"; (5) The Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia and misrepresents
itself as such; (6) The Wikipedia is rife with libel and
violations of copyrights.
Q. Do you regret of any of the six sins now that some things are changing
in the Wikipedia, like the prohibition for anonymous users to edit?
A. There is no prohibition
on anonymous users to edit. All the Wikipedia users are anonymous to this very
day. The prohibition is on unregistered users to edit. Users need
to have an account and to wait three days before they can contribute new
articles or make major edits. User identities are still unknown as all of them
hide behind aliases and handles.
I am sorry that Wales
didn't have the guts to go all the way and implement a model similar to the
Citizendium and the Britannica: qualified editors to review the contributions
and edits of the teeming masses and make sure that the Wikipedia is not the bloody
and confusing mess that it is now.
Interview granted to Daniel Tynan, May 2010
Q. When did the cult start?
A. I was involved with both the
Wikipedia and its predecessor, the Nupedia. When the Nupedia was shelved and
the Wikipedia launched, the first clusters of contributors regarded themselves
as knowledge-aficionados, akin to an open-source movement. The Wikipedia did
not possess the penetration and clout that it now enjoys. It was a club of
gifted amateurs, to use the British expression. But as the Wikipedia expanded
and attained its current status and prowess, power-hungry,
narcissistic bullies leveraged it to cater to their psychological needs.
Around 2003, the Wikipedia had acquired all the hallmarks of a cult: hierarchy,
arcane rules, paranoid insularity, intolerance of dissent, and a cosmic
grandiose mission.
Q. Approximately how many members/acolytes does it have?
A. The inner core of the
English-language Wikipedia has c. 2000 members. Of these, about 200-300 members
make all the important, strategic decisions. The others monitor articles and
edit them, usually in order to promote and protect their own points of view and
interests. This is not an informal network: it is completely rigid with a
hierarchy, titles, job descriptions, remits, and responsibilities. It is a
stringently edited work, not a loose forum, or a BBS. Many in the
upper echelons (and in Wikimedia, the non-profit that is overseeing the whole
operation) earn salaries and enjoy junkets and perks.
Q. Are there regular gatherings of the tribes? If so,
when and where? Who are its major and minor deities?
A. Wikipedia members meet regularly
all over the globe, in special gatherings dedicated to the
"encyclopedia", its catechism and Weltanschauung, its regulatory
(including enforcement and penal) mechanisms, and its future. Jimmy (Jimbo)
Wales is invariably the star of such conclaves and fulfils
the combined roles of prophet and Dear Leader. The Wikipedia's
narcissistic co-founder deserves a special analysis: he subtly
misrepresents facts (claims that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, that he hold no
special influence over it); Wales ignores data that conflicts with his fantasy
world; he is above the law, including and especially his own laws (was caught
editing his own Wikipedia entry, for instance); talks about himself in 3rd
person singular; minimizes the contributions and role of others (such as the
Wikipedia's real visionary, Larry Sanger); has a messianic-cosmic vision of
himself and his life; sets ever more complex rules in a convoluted world of
grandiose fantasies with its own language (jargon); displays false modesty and
"folksiness"; sublimates aggression and holds grudges; and, all in
all, is an eternal adolescent (his choice of language, peripatetic pursuits).
Wikipedia is its founder writ large: narcissistic, autistic,
solipsistic, and puerile.
Q. What are its holy text(s)?
A. Authoritarian-totalitarian
bureaucracies are marked by strict, rigid adherence to sacred texts - both
foundational and exegetic - and by the blind and ruthless implementation of
codified, arcane rules of conduct. The use of acronyms and ciphers singles
out the initiated and separates them from the hoi polloi. The Wikipedia's
holy scriptures are strewn all over its Website, mainly in the Help and FAQs
sections. Yet, though accessible, they are largely incomprehensible at first
sight. They require months of learning and are ambiguous. This ambiguity
requires frequent intervention and interpretation by a tiny self-imputed elite,
equivalent to the priesthood in established religions. The decisions of these
arbiters are often final and, in many cases, arbitrary. This gives them
enormous power which they use intentionally to drive away competition
by alienating contributors (especially experts and scholars) and
intimidating newcomers (who are often regarded as potential troublemakers).
Q. Are there other cults Wikipedians share affinities
with?
A. All cults are the same: they spawn
a hierarchy, sport arcane rules, suffer from paranoid insularity, do not
tolerate dissent, criticism, and disagreement, and ascribe to themselves a
cosmic grandiose mission. No cult is benign. All cults are run by individuals
with narcissistic traits and the Wikipedia is no exception.
The narcissist is the guru at the centre of a cult.
Like other gurus, he demands complete obedience from his flock. He feels
entitled to adulation and special treatment by his followers. He punishes the
wayward and the straying lambs. He enforces discipline, adherence to his
teachings and common goals. The less accomplished he is in reality – the
more stringent his mastery and the more pervasive the brainwashing.
Cult leaders are narcissists who failed in their mission to "be someone", to
become famous, and to impress the world with their uniqueness, talents, traits,
and skills. Such disgruntled narcissists withdraw into a "zone of
comfort" (known as the "Pathological
Narcissistic Space") that assumes the hallmarks of a cult.
The narcissist's control is based on ambiguity, unpredictability,
fuzziness, and ambient abuse.
His ever-shifting whims exclusively define right versus wrong, desirable and
unwanted, what is to be pursued and what to be avoided. He alone determines the
rights and obligations of his disciples and alters them at will.
The cult's leader acts in a patronising and condescending manner
and criticises often. He alternates between emphasising the minutest faults
(devalues) and exaggerating the talents, traits, and skills (idealises) of the
members of his cult. He is wildly unrealistic in his expectations – which
legitimises his subsequent abusive conduct.
The narcissist claims to be infallible, superior, talented, skilful,
omnipotent, and omniscient. He often lies and confabulates to support these
unfounded claims. Within his cult, he expects awe, admiration, adulation, and
constant attention commensurate with his outlandish stories and assertions. He
reinterprets reality to fit his fantasies.
The participants in the cult are hostile to critics, the
authorities, institutions, his personal enemies, or the media – if they try to
uncover his actions and reveal the truth. The narcissist's cult is
"missionary" and "imperialistic". He is always on the
lookout for new recruits. He immediately attempts to "convert" them
to his "creed" – to convince them how wonderful and admirable he -
and, by extension, the cult - is.
Often, his behaviour on these "recruiting missions" is
different to his conduct within the "cult". In the first phases of
wooing new admirers and proselytising to potential
"conscripts" the narcissist is attentive, compassionate,
empathic, flexible, self-effacing, and helpful. At home, among the
"veterans" he is tyrannical, demanding, wilful, opinionated,
aggressive, and exploitative.
As the leader of his congregation, the narcissist feels entitled to
special amenities and benefits not accorded the "rank and file". He
expects to be waited on hand and foot, to make free use of everyone's money and
dispose of their assets liberally, and to be cynically exempt from the rules
that he himself established (if such violation is pleasurable or gainful).
Hence the narcissist's panicky and sometimes violent reactions to
"dropouts" from his cult. There's a lot going on that the narcissist
wants kept under wraps. Moreover, the narcissist stabilises his fluctuating
sense of self-worth by deriving Narcissistic Supply (adulation, admiration,
attention) from his victims. Abandonment threatens the narcissist's
precariously balanced personality.
Q. Are there other 'cults' or splinter groups Wikipedians consider
rivals (or heretics)?
A. The Internet is overflowing with stories of former
Wikipedians. They all claim to have been punished and mistreated following
their "heresy" and "desertion". I can only recount my
personal experience with any certainty. When I left the Wikipedia, I wrote a
widely-read article titled "The Six Sins of
the Wikipedia". It provoked heated debate and I became the target of
Wikipedians the world over. I was on the receiving end of threats and mail
bombs; the pages of my books in Amazon were flooded with bad reviews; I was
vilified and subjected to an Internet-wide smear campaign, replete
with defamatory and libellous statements; my work was plagiarized in various
Wikipedia articles and repeated requests to remedy the situation were denied;
my entry in the Wikipedia was deleted (after I threatened Wales and his cohorts
with a class-action lawsuit). I do not believe that this was a coordinated,
concerted, condoned, or centrally-directed onslaught. But, it does reflect the
extreme fanaticism and aggressive intolerance of the cult.
Q. How would an outsider recognize a member of this
cult?
A. Easily: try to criticize the
Wikipedia, question its reliability and objectivity, doubt its co-founder,
disagree with the way it is authored or edited, ponder its psychopathology,
muse whether it is a cult. The responses of dyed-in-the-wool Wikipedians
will prove to be violent, disproportionate, fanatical, intolerant, and
malevolent.
Interview with Tom
Panelas - Encyclopedia Britannica (September 2006)
Tom Panelas is the
Encyclopedia Britannica's Director of Corporate Communications
Q. Is the Wikipedia
an encyclopedia in any sense of the word?
A. I don't think it's crucial that
everyone agree on whether Wikipedia is or is not an encyclopedia. What's
important is that people who might use it understand what it is and how it
differs from the reference works they're used to. Wikipedia allows anyone to
write and edit articles, regardless of their knowledge of the subjects on which
they're writing, their ability to write, or their commitment to truth. This
policy has allowed Wikipedia to grow large very fast, but it's come at a price.
The price is that many of
its articles are inaccurate, poorly written, long and bloated, or laden with
bias and spin. Despite what some people would like to believe about Wikipedia,
that its system is self-correcting, many inaccuracies remain for long periods
of time, new ones are added, and, judging from quite a few media reports, sound
information posted by people knowledgeable on a subject is often undone by
others who know nothing about it. This is a natural result of the way Wikipedia
is put together, its willingness to let anyone write and edit and unwillingness
to give precedence to people who know what they're talking about. People who
use Wikipedia should be aware of these liabilities.
Q. The Britannica used to be freely accessible until it was converted, a few
years back, into a subscriber-only resource. Do you regret this decision?
Perhaps if the Britannica were to provide a free authoritative alternative to
the Wikipedia, it would still be the first stop of seekers of information
online?
A. We don't regret the decision to
charge a subscription fee for the premium portions of Britannica Online. Today
our site has thousands of free articles, and those who subscribe to our premium
service pay a fraction of what it cost for access to a high-quality, reliable
encyclopedia only a few years ago. About a hundred million people worldwide
have access to the Encyclopaedia Britannica online, through schools, libraries,
and universities, and they don't pay for it at all.
Britannica has indeed
become an alternative - not just to Wikipedia but to all of the unreliable
information that courses through the public sphere these days, much of it on
the Internet. The Web has been great for enabling publishers like us to reach
many more people than we ever could before, but it's also made it possible for
errors, propaganda, and urban myths to appear in the guise of factual truth. As
more people realize that the contents of the Internet are often not what they
seem to be, they've turned to sources like Britannica, which apply the same
rigorous standards to our online products that we have always used in
all of our products.
Q. "Nature" compared the Wikipedia to the Britannica and resolved
that both suffer, more or less, from the same rate of errors. You hotly
disputed these findings. Can you elaborate?
A. The Nature article was bogus.
Responsible people who paid attention to the facts understand that it's been
discredited and don't even cite it. We spent twenty single-spaced pages
rebutting it, so there's little need for elaboration beyond that. You can read
what we said here
http://corporate.britannica.com/britannica_nature_response.pdf
You can also read what USA
Today
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/andrewkantor/2006-03-30-nature-britannica_x.htm
and Nicholas Carr
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2006/03/britannicas_ind.php
had to say about it.
Q. Peer-reviewed, professionally-edited reference works do have their
shortcomings (elitism, conservatism, lack of pluralism, limitations of
information available to the scholars involved). "Egalitarian"
communal efforts like the Wikipedia do unearth, at times, data not available in
"old-fashioned" encyclopedias. Moreover, the Wikipedia offers a far
wider range of coverage and real-time updates. Can't it complement the
Britannica? Can't the two even collaborate in some ways?
A. It's a myth that professionally
edited reference works are limited or elitist. On the contrary, using a
rigorous editorial method that draws on people who have spent their lives
mastering their subjects produces an excellent balance in perspective. We always
direct our contributors to include all major controversies in their surveys of
a subject, whether those points of view are fashionable or not. This approach
produces good articles for lay readers, who are the people who use
encyclopedias. When the work is done by volunteers who aren't adept at this
kind of work, the results often settle into a comfortable consensus that favors
the viewpoint in vogue among the group of people doing the work. Usually, it's
the people who are trained and experienced in going beyond their own points of
view that manage to do it well.
Also Read:
Thoughts on the Internet's
Founding Myths
The Future of Online Reference
Will Content Ever
be Profitable?
The
Disintermediation of Content
The Future of Electronic
Publishing
Free Online Scholarship -
Interview with Peter Suber
Copyright Notice
This material is copyrighted. Free,
unrestricted use is allowed on a non commercial basis.
The author's name and a link to this Website must be incorporated in any
reproduction of the material for any use and by any means.
The Internet Cycle
The Internet - A
Medium or a Message?
The Internet
in Countries in Transition
The Revolt of the
Poor - Intellectual Property Rights
The Demise of the
Dinosaur PTTs
(Articles are added periodically)
Visit my other sites:
World
in Conflict and Transition
Portfolio Management
Theory and Technical Analysis Lecture Notes
Microeconomics
and Macroeconomics Lecture Notes
Malignant Self Love
- Narcissism Revisited
Poetry of Healing
and Abuse: My Poems
FREE - Read New
Short Fiction (Hebrew)
Feel free to E-Mail the author at palma@unet.com.mk