Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Will I Become A Wikipedia Editor?

Here's Naftali Bennet speaking at the workshop for Wikipedia editors last night that I attended:




And here's, in part, how Ha-Ha-Haaretz reported it:

The right's latest weapon: 'Zionist editing' on Wikipedia

...Now the Yesha Council of settlements and another right-wing group, Israel Sheli, are embarking on a Wikipedia battle: Zionist editing on the Web-based encyclopedia. The first course was held yesterday in Jerusalem.

"The idea is not to make Wikipedia rightist but for it to include our point of view," said Naftali Bennett, the director of the Yesha Council.

...The course was designed to teach how to register for, contribute to and edit for Wikipedia.

The organizers' aim was twofold: to affect Israeli public opinion by having people who share their ideological viewpoint take part in writing and editing for the Hebrew version, and to write in English so Israel's image can be bolstered abroad.

...According to Einat Bornstein, another participant in the course, "I came here to have an impact. I think people are afraid to write rightist responses."...


I am still challenged by technology so I am not sure how I will act on this and I think much more demonstrations of how to edit, tips, special notations, etc. could have been included in last night's workshop.

Nevertheless, you can't have plurality and neutrality without balance and multiplicity of editors.

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UPDATE

The NYTimes "Lede" blog mentions the tutorial.

5 comments:

Juniper in the Desert said...

Good luck with this , it is a labour of Hercules. All that muslim re-writing of OUR history.

If I can help, please advise.

David Gerard said...

I've been a Wikipedia editor for several years, and watched advocates and activists on *many* conflicts.

The advice I have is: strict neutrality with excellent citations. Everything else will be removed.

Wikipedia gets waves of activists and is used to dealing with them. The ones who don't take the time to understand Neutral Point Of View, their stuff gets removed. The ones who do, their stuff stays and their cause gets accurately described and represented.

No-one has to take this advice, of course. But I do speak from long experience :-)

Anonymous said...

Looks like it is time to call on the resources of the Electronic Intifada to connect the workshop attendees to their respective Wikipedia accounts. They did a great job exposing CAMERA's subterfuge a few years ago; I'm sure these workshop morons will slip up somewhere and leave an incriminating trail behind. It is only a matter of time.

Bob Jones said...

Please don't become a Wikipedia editor. We don't need more racist, inaccurate mythology inserted into history articles there. It would be better if you stuck to hosting hate-workshops in meatspace.

YMedad said...

Thanks Bob for your advice. Would you be a Wiki editor?