Wikipedia called a Darwinist "grudge factory"

In an article titled "Wikipedia seen as grudge factory?: Competitor looms" on the Post-Darwinist blog, Denyse O'Leary said,

Recently, there have been some serious problems with widely consulted Wikipedia entries on major intelligent design figures that read like poison pen letters. The trouble is, anyone can edit a Wiki entry. This problem is hardly likely to be confined to the intelligent design controversy, as a recent scandal and ban on school use has spotlighted.

The "recent scandal and ban on school use" are described as follows by an article in the Christian Science Monitor:
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Students in history classes at Middlebury College this spring may have to change the way they do research for papers or tests. Although they can consult the online encyclopedia Wikipedia for background, they are not allowed to cite it as a source.

Professors who drafted the new policy at the Vermont college praise the free website as a "wonderful innovation." They note the more than 1.6 million entries, the up-to-date bibliographies, and the links to relevant, often more reliable sites. But they caution that its open-editing system, which allows anyone to write or edit entries anonymously, carries a risk of error.

Just this month a dark cloud fell over Wikipedia's credibility after it was revealed that a trusted contributor who claimed to be a tenured professor of religion was actually a 24-year-old college dropout. He was also one of the appointed "arbiters" who settled disputes between contributors.

Among these appointed "arbiters" are a clique of Darwinists who have been tyrannizing Wikipedia by insisting that only entries that they approve be allowed. For example, these Darwinists at Wikipedia refused to list Of Pandas and People as a banned book because the book was not on the American Library Association's list of banned books. The ALA hocused-pocused that Judge Jones never expressly banned Pandas and that the book was only mentioned in a statement that was banned. Then I pointed out that the ALA rules say that a book that was only "challenged" as part of a curriculum qualifies for the ALA list of banned books and that the Kitzmiller v. Dover complaint demanded that Pandas be removed from classrooms, and the ALA still would not budge. Then I pointed out that the ALA's own records showed that the book was previously "challenged," and the stubborn jackasses at the ALA still would not budge! Then the clowns at Wikipedia rewrote the whole banned-book article rather than concede that Pandas qualified as a banned book under the old article's rules! I proposed just listing the book on Wikipedia and then adding links to off-site discussions of the controversy over listing the book, but my proposal fell on deaf ears. What in hell were the Wikipedia and ALA jerks trying to prove by not listing Pandas as a banned book? The Darwinist hypocrites want to have their cake and eat it too -- to give themselves a false feeling of tolerance, they want Pandas to be banned but not included in lists of banned books. On Wikipedia, this scandal is documented here, here, and here. My blog's articles about this scandal are here, here, here, and here.

Darwinist tyrannization of Wikipedia is also discussed here.

Also, there was a dispute over whether to include in William Dembski's biography some comments that DaveScot had posted on my blog. That idea was finally killed.

This loss to Wikipedia's credibility is really sad because Wikipedia's scientific articles were once praised as being comparable in accuracy to those of the online version of the vaunted Encyclopedia Britannica.

It has been reported that a rival to Wikipedia will soon be launched and that this rival will supposedly correct these problems of Wikipedia:

One of the founders of Wikipedia is days away from launching a rival to the collaborative internet encyclopaedia, in an attempt to bring a more orderly approach to organising knowledge online.

Wikipedia –- which is available to be written and edited by anyone on the internet –- is one of the most visible successes of mass collaboration on the web, with many of its 1.4m articles appearing high in search results.

However, its openness has also drawn charges of unreliability and left it vulnerable to disputes between people with opposing views, particularly on politically sensitive topics.

The latest venture from Larry Sanger, who helped create Wikipedia in 2001, is intended to bring more order to this creative chaos by drawing on traditional measures of authority. Though still open to submissions from anyone, the power to authorise articles will be given to editors who can prove their expertise, as well as a group of volunteer “constables”, charged with keeping the peace between warring interests.

However, readers who post biased views are not the only problem -- the "editors" and volunteer "constables" who already tyrannize the present Wikipedia are also a problem, regardless of their qualifications. I suggest that one way to resolve disputes is just to post the disputed item along with (1) a brief note that the item is disputed and (2) links to off-site websites where the dispute is discussed or debated. This approach has the following advantages: (1) there is no appearance that the item is undisputed or endorsed by Wikipedia and (2) the Wikipedia text is not cluttered up with long debates over disputed items.

Wikipedia has long been one of my favorite references and I very much want to see its integrity restored.