Cla68's doomsday scenario about Wikipedia begins to become reality

[Cla68]

I think the Israel-Hamas/Hezbollah/Houthi/Iran war has sucked most of the oxygen out of the room and has postponed the reckoning to Wikipedia on the Holocaust stuff. We'll see.

[ericbarbour]

I think the Israel-Hamas/Hezbollah/Houthi/Iran war has sucked most of the oxygen out of the room and has postponed the reckoning to Wikipedia on the Holocaust stuff. We'll see.

I have no doubt that, like the presidential election, a large number of left-leaning WP insiders are extremely disgruntled with Israel over the handling of the Gaza war. But I also suspect that they are terrified of speaking out, because of WP's long and BRUTAL history of Israel/Palestine editwarring that went on for years and literally drove people insane/away.

Just like the election, where a number of Democrats (some of them Muslims who live in the Midwest) had this idea that Harris would have been "soft on Israel" and therefore stayed home, throwing it to Trump. Since it appears that Trump's approach won't be any different, it makes those Democrats look very foolish.

WP politics is just like real-world politics.....stupid, insane and messy.

[Ram24]

Do editors edit less after a US election? I can imagine the leftists feeling less motivated in spreading their propaganda if there isn't an election coming up.

[ericbarbour]

Do editors edit less after a US election?

You are certainly welcome to TRY and develop a statistical analysis. Good luck finding reliable figures in their demented little world of half-truths and manipulations. Most of what I'm listing here is basically useless.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... se_reports
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category: ... statistics

This WAS a useful page--until they started blanking some columns in January 2010, which is also (what a SURPRISE) also when major traffic and article-creation figures began to decline. Then they blanked ALL of them in December 2018.
https://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm

[Cla68]

Do editors edit less after a US election? I can imagine the leftists feeling less motivated in spreading their propaganda if there isn't an election coming up.

I haven't checked, but I imagine the established activist editors and admins who have been most engaged in managing the political articles will continue to do so at about the same level. It's a holy crusade for them and they're likely addicted to it. They lost the US election but now consider themselves "the resistance." There will be an important election in the UK in a couple of years or so pitting the populist Euro-skeptics against the establishment Tories and Labor, so that will keep the leftist editors busy trying to influence also.

[ericbarbour]

Agreed, the real addicts are always pushing the same buttons every day.....

[Ognistysztorm]

I think the Israel-Hamas/Hezbollah/Houthi/Iran war has sucked most of the oxygen out of the room and has postponed the reckoning to Wikipedia on the Holocaust stuff. We'll see.

Actually, it's going to the opposite instead. Wikipedia's issues has gained even greater attention from that and there are now frequent calls to ask the Congress to investigate the issue. If the trends continue, Kumioko will be the biggest winner in approximately one or two years from now.

[Archer]

Just like the election, where a number of Democrats (some of them Muslims who live in the Midwest) had this idea that Harris would have been "soft on Israel"

I doubt they'd use such euphemistic diction. Perfidious, willing sponsors of crimes against humanity is probably more befitting a description of both, not to mention most of congress. The only difference it makes is that one cannot point out the obvious hypocrisy of a so-called "progressive" supporting war crimes. Even this is a moot point since Biden supported it for a year and a majority of democrats and republicans in congress continue to vote in favor of aid and weapons to Israel. It's a farce and nobody with self-respect should vote for a candidate who doesn't even have the spine to call mass murder or the irrational (and arguably criminal) sponsorship of a treacherous 'ally' what they are.

[Ognistysztorm]

It's now open at here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... articles_5

[Archer]

It's now open at here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... articles_5

Looks like they're going to adopt these two motions.

Uninvolved administrators may impose word limits on all participants in a discussion, or on individual editors across all discussions, within the area of conflict. These word limits are designated as part of the standard set of restrictions within the Arab-Israeli conflict contentious topic. These restrictions must be logged and may be appealed in the same way as all contentious topic restrictions.

All participants in formal discussions (RfCs, RMs, etc) within the area of conflict are urged to keep their comments concise, and are limited to 1,000 words per discussion. This motion will sunset two years from the date of its passage.

I'm sure they'd impose a limit of zero words if they could get away with it, and not just for I/P related discussions. This is entirely consistent with Wikipedia's modus operandi. Wikipedia's function (or one of them) is to launder propaganda as public consensus. The reader will tend to presume that content withstands public scrutiny and represents a common agreement, so to speak. Readers probably interperet this in one of two ways - as evidence of its correctness, or failing that, then as a social norm that one must respect. This is probably very effective becuase it doesn't depend upon whether or not the information itself is actually believed. On the other hand, it cannot bear open and public discourse as that would undermine the pretense of consensus.