Balancing Wiki
Offline I've been doing some Wikiing recently, because I notice there is a lot of christian apologetic material unchallenged.
There would be no point to arguing through Wiki, but I think there is to reducing the apologetics. Wiki is a source of information. If the information is biased, then no-one can be served by it.
One example is the Wiki entry for Lysanias who is mentioned in Luke 3:1 (an obvious anachronism, explaining the apologetic desire to invent another Lysanias). With a longish fight I cut most of it away. (See discussion to the entry.)
I've also added a comparative table to the "nativity of Christ" entry, showing how the gospels of Matthew and Luke compare. One christian removed the whole thing, saying that it violated Wiki rules about putting original work and opinions up. It is current still in the entry, but Wikiing takes patience when dealing with christians.
So, I've done a handful of entries and it's been heavy work trying to protect it from the savage apologist. Not much to show. What I was wondering is: are there noble soulless souls out there who can find a page or two to fix up and follow? If your work can be perceived as biased it will be totally trashed, so bringing the ship back to upright is a workable aim against the imbalance of religious commitment. Accurate information will often serve the infidel.
Any takers?
spin
Trust the evidence, Luke
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I'd love to help spin. Can you point us all to particular Wiki pages that are considerably biased toward Christians? I'll take up whatever page I can best help fix.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
Sorry for not coming back on this. I find myself in wars over Wiki. At the moment I've got some nut job throwing up crap on a page about a Daniel vision here. Daniel is taking up my time at the moment. There's so much junk plastered there.
I've dealt with the gospel birth narratives and put in a nice table to show the differences.
I notice there's crap up about christian persecution. I notice that Julian (who christians call "the apostate" and that's how you arrive at the Wiki page on him, "Julian the apostate" ) is charged with persecution against christians -- pure fantasy, but true christian apologetic.
There are lots of things one sees in passing through materials that more fundamentalist christians have tampered with, but one needs to browse through the stuff. I would think that Wiki is a good place for the Rational Response Squad to do some responding, though it must be done as neutrally as possible, which might be difficult for some Rational Responders. It also takes patience, because once you've done work on an entry someone will come along and decide they can "improve" it or else remove it, as was done once with the comparison table on the birth narrative.
I'm sure many people are aware of biblical problems that cause christian apologetics. That's where you can find the sort of mush that can be fixed.
spin
Trust the evidence, Luke
Guess I'm out for they. I imagine they frown on terminology such as "asshat" "fucktard" or "you dumb motherfucker. "
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
I guess you're right.
spin
Trust the evidence, Luke
I'm better at blasting 'em with masterworks of pimp profanity.
That's the heat of youth. Later on you'll appreciate cool cruel logic.
spinTrust the evidence, Luke
I'm almost 35.
Spin, this is (unfortunately) a symptom of the overall ideology of Wikipedia (that expertise is irrelevant, and hearsay from newspaper articles trumps peer-reviewed research) rather than strictly Christian propaganda. Edit wars just happen far too often, and people attempting to keep Wikipedia at least in some semblance of cleanliness are often simply backed into corners (because - of course - they lack expertise) and forced to follow Wikipedia dogma.
Rarely has this been highlighted as profoundly as has been with the Scientology articles. Wikipedia's founder is a sort-of fan of Scientology, and so has been known to step-in from time to time in the Scientology edit wars and give proponents the benefit of the doubt while censoring critics and encouraging 'skepticism' when it comes to issues like the death of Lisa McPherson.
For a little while I attempted to help-out with Wikipedia and enforce good content, but like many of the admin over there, I just gave-up after a while. There's too much legitimate-sounding crap, too much outright graffiti and way too many absurdities in the Wikipedia code of conduct / 'No Original Research' / 'NPOV' rules. To be fair, the overall idea that good information will eventually bubble to the surface does seem to be true in most instances - however, IMHO, this doesn't breed confidence and doesn't nearly justify the rest of the crap there.
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
See what I mean!
spin
I can appreciate all of this, having gone through it all recently.
The events (re the founder) are outside my experience, but I can accept it happening. Nevertheless, so many people turn to Wiki these days that I don't think it can be abandoned due to nasty things happening there. If this is the major source for knowledge to the unknowing, abandonment of Wiki is abandonment of them.
It's just that it is hard going if you know about the topic you are working on. If there is "too much legitimate-sounding crap, too much outright graffiti and way too many absurdities", then there is all the more reason for working to reduce it. At the same time it can be good for the soul because you learn more about the material, in that you find how people can manipulate it and how to deal with such manipulations by getting more knowledgeable about the subject. It's good for you.
spin
Trust the evidence, Luke