Widipedia To Be Swift-Boated 0

The loonies on the right have already sabotaged Wikipedia at least once.

Now they are going to organize the effort.

Phillybits pointed me to this post from Free Republic:

Wikipedia is a liberal “encyclopedia” that anyone can edit. Unfortunately, it is very popular and very “progressive”, although its stated goal is to present factual information wit a neitral point of view. A perfect example in the Kwanzaa “article” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwanzaa), as is the “article” on abortion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion), and the article on President Bush (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush).

Any attempt to add balance to these articles is met by severe censoring and shouting down or shutting down editors. I suggest people sign up (free and anonymous) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Userlogin) and start politely editing. Once there, to gain “credibility” I suggest you look around and then for the first few days edit only uncontroversial articles for grammar or choppiness or poor citation – you will then be seen as a neutral editor (everyone is an “editor”). I suggest using a different screen name than you do at FR.

There are several interesting components in it.

One is the characterization of Wikipedia as “liberal.” It’s just ones and zeroes, folks–an attempt to use the internet for something other than porn, shopping, and spam.

I followed the links cited in the article and found them generally attempts to present balanced information about the topics.

Balance and objectivity, though, seems to be anathema to the authors of the Free Republic.

Clearly, there is nothing in this post that speaks of “truth”–and in my experience, credibility comes from speaking the truth.

Yet, this author puts “credibility” in quotation marks? I suspect that, for him or her, “credibility” has nothing to do with speaking the truth; rather, it’s merely a tool, a sham, a cloak to be worn to facilitate the spreading of his or her lies.

These folks admit not the possibility that there might be something for them to learn–that there might be something to gain by listening to others. They know they already have the truth and are determined to ram it down the throats of the rest of the world.

It is especially noteworthy that the author of the post I quoted counsels “editing” Wikipedia using stealth tactics.

They know that their lies will not stand the plain light of day. Therefore, they must act as vandals, invading the site with masks over their faces like like conmen, fooling the mark into trusting them, then turning over trashcans and scattering their filth in the dead of night.