I'm from Missouri

This site is named for the famous statement of US Congressman Willard Duncan Vandiver from Missouri : "I`m from Missouri -- you'll have to show me." This site is dedicated to skepticism of official dogma in all subjects. Just-so stories are not accepted here. This is a site where controversial subjects such as evolution theory and the Holocaust may be freely debated.

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Location: Los Angeles, California, United States

My biggest motivation for creating my own blogs was to avoid the arbitrary censorship practiced by other blogs and various other Internet forums. Censorship will be avoided in my blogs -- there will be no deletion of comments, no closing of comment threads, no holding up of comments for moderation, and no commenter registration hassles. Comments containing nothing but insults and/or ad hominem attacks are discouraged. My non-response to a particular comment should not be interpreted as agreement, approval, or inability to answer.

Friday, March 23, 2007

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:
.
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.

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8 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

You encouraged an "editing war" (disinformation campaign) in Wikipedia a few months ago.

Friday, March 23, 2007 11:03:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Britannica isn't very good, either. Look up "intelligent design" (in quotes) in the Encyclopedia Britannica Online edition and the article begins: "argument intended to demonstrate that living organisms were created in more or less their present forms by an 'intelligent designer.'"

And it doesn't get any better: the article might have been written by John E. Jones III, perhaps. One would never suspect that Behe, for instance, believes that all living organisms descended from one-celled life; and that he allows some role for Darwinist processes in their "evolution."

Friday, March 23, 2007 4:39:00 PM  
Blogger Larry Fafarman said...

Voice in the Wilderness said...
You encouraged an "editing war" (disinformation campaign) in Wikipedia a few months ago.

>>>>> You encouraged an "editing war" (disinformation campaign) in Wikipedia a few months ago. <<<<<

I did more than just "encourage" an edit war -- I helped wage one. The book was a perfectly reasonable entry to Wikipedia's list of banned books -- the ones who are to blame for the edit war are the Darwinists who kept deleting the book after each time it was re-inserted. I suggested listing the book along with a brief statement that the listing was disputed and links to off-site discussions or debates about whether the book belonged in the list, but that suggestion was rejected. Like broken phonograph records, the Wikipedia Darwinists kept demanding a "reliable nonpartisan source" that said that the book was banned (even though many of the books in the list were merely "challenged"). That is like asking someone to find a "reliable nonpartisan source" that says that bears shit in the woods.

My edit war was a "just" war. Like Ben Franklin said (I think it was him), "rebellion against tyranny is obedience to god."

The Wikipedia Darwinists completely rewrote the banned books article rather than concede that Of Pandas and People was a banned book according to the rules of the old article. Here is what the banned books article used to look like and here is what it looks like today.

Friday, March 23, 2007 6:41:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

> My edit war was a "just" war. <

And this from someone who complained about double standards!

Friday, March 23, 2007 10:22:00 PM  
Blogger Larry Fafarman said...

Voice in the Wilderness said...

>>>>>> My edit war was a "just" war. <

And this from someone who complained about double standards! <<<<<<

The double standard is that you blame me and not those Darwinist jerks over at Wikipedia and the American Library Association. In fact, it is worse than a double standard because I am innocent and they are not.

My opening post's links to Wikipedia and my own blog show the stubborn stupidity I was up against at Wikipedia and the ALA, respectively.

Saturday, March 24, 2007 12:09:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

> I am innocent and they are not. <

You are a liar. Even the topic of this thread is a lie. The article does not call it a "Darwinist grudge factory". As for censorship, you have admitted it in the past but tried to justify it. Now you are pretending that you don't do it.

Saturday, March 24, 2007 5:10:00 PM  
Blogger Larry Fafarman said...

Voice in the Wilderness moaned,

>>>>>> You are a liar. Even the topic of this thread is a lie. The article does not call it a "Darwinist grudge factory". <<<<<

The title of the article, "Wikipedia seen as grudge factory?: Competitor looms," strongly suggests that Wikipedia is a "grudge factory," and the article itself indicates that Wikipedia is a "Darwinist" grudge factory in particular.

>>>>>> As for censorship, you have admitted it in the past but tried to justify it. Now you are pretending that you don't do it. <<<<<<<

You are really obsessed with your false charge that I practice arbitrary censorship. I didn't even discuss that charge here.

Sunday, March 25, 2007 12:15:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

>>>>>> The article does not call it a "Darwinist grudge factory". <<<<<

> and the article itself indicates that Wikipedia is a "Darwinist" grudge factory in particular. <

The article to which you link does not mention Darwin or Darwinist. Perhaps this is more of your redefinition of words. Not appearing means "indicating".

> You are really obsessed with your false charge that I practice arbitrary censorship. I didn't even discuss that charge here. <

You discussed the banning of books, a false charge you were trying to get into the Wikipedia. Book banning is a form of censorship. (Don't pretend that this is a case of redefinition.)

Sunday, March 25, 2007 10:08:00 AM  

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