Krekouche et al.:

Apologies for my not having engaged with the comments about Wikipedia with the attention they deserve. 

Krekouche cites the paragraph from the entry on the beginning of the Iraq War to show that others have posted material about the illegality of the U.S. aggression.  True enough.  It is also true that the entry is rich in valuable information.  And that the entry only became this rich via the labors of Wikipedia's legion of contributors.  (See the History for this particular entry.  All in all, somewhere on the order of 7,000 - 7,500 revisions since the very first entry was split-off from a different one back in December 2004. )

However, the paragraph contains links to other entries about the Legitimacy of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Bush Doctrine, and Preemptive war (among others that we needn't concern ourselves with).  Finally, Krekouche shows that Wikipedia contains an entry for Crimes against the peace.  

I regard all of these as great online resources.  No doubt about it.  (Though with the caveat that I'm not checking any of them closely.) 

Also, Suyi E provides a link to a "defense of Wikipedia by Danah Boyd."

Perhaps it is worth stating that I do not expect Wikipedia to be perfect.  In fact, Wikipedia wouldn't need to be anywhere perfection to be extremely valuable.

The four most important features of the Wikipedia portfolio include its open-sourcedness (or wikiness); the enormity of its portfolio; its availability over the Internet; and the fact that its content is free to its users. 

It is clear that the reason its portfolio is as huge as it is derives from the fact that it is open-source.  Since everybody is encouraged to produce content (with the obvious stipulations), many people do.  Wikipedia is a great idea.  But like all the others, cast adrift in an all-too-human world.

David Peterson
Chicago, USA

David, this is rather stunning info ( did you just google this?), this would explain a lot about wrongful edits.. simply put , the wikipedia is vulnerable to misinformation ..

David, you say:

"But the point is that content is determined by content people, not by people on the basis of their knowledge of software. Wikipedia reverses this. As does the so-called free software as a social movement clique, where, to belong to the clique, one needs to be into software. But technological expertise forms a tightly closed universe. Knowledge of software hardly creates a commons."

My previous comments on the technical requirements for contributing to Wikipedia pertain to your remark above.

Additionally, from your comments it appears you misunderstand the free software "movement". It is not attempting to be a progressive social movement. As it relates to such a thing, most proponents of free software see it as just a part of a much larger progressive attitude towards an ideal society. But that is a byproduct of the true aim: simply free software alternatives not bound by monetary and use-restrictions. The various free and open software licenses like GNU are voluntarily adopted by those who wish to use it. Just like as a writer you can choose to copyright your work or explicitly state under which circumstances others can quote or use it. The same goes for software. The general idea behind the "movement" being that the various common open licenses allow others to modify the work in any way they wish, as long as they keep the work free for others to use and any changes they make are also made available free to others. This is why capitalist entities like Microsoft fight tooth-and-nail to demonize free software. Closed-software companies like Microsoft sell "license codes" (strings of numbers) for $80-$200 a pop and anything free and open is a direct and real threat to their capitalist model.

Usually the free software as a "social movement" labels come from the other side in their attempts to label anything open or free as ominous precursors to communism and totalitarianism. Microsoft used to pretty bluntly state that free software amounted to communism (and by this they meant the evil Soviet bogeyman kind, not the nice one).

As far as the dangers of it becoming a "tightly closed universe", its no more true than if any group of scientists or technical workers come up with licenses for their work so that it was open and freely available to others without constraints by their universities or sponsors.  

If I'm still missing the meaning of what you're talking about then please expand your statements on open software.  Thanks. 

Friends: 

Now, here's a software-savy person not using it for destructive purposes: Virgil Griffith.

"Tracking Wikipedia's Not-So-Neutral Editors," Brock Read, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 14, 2007
"Wikipedia Spin Doctors Revealed," Thomas Claburn, Information Week, August 14, 2007
"See Who's Editing Wikipedia -- Diebold, the CIA, a Campaign," John Borland, Wired, August 14, 2007
"A Move To Unmask the Wikipedians," Chris Wilson, U.S. News & World Report, August 14, 2007
"New Online Tool Unmasks Wikipedia Edits," Brian Bergstein, Associated Press, August 15, 2007
"Wikipedia 'shows CIA page edits'," Jonathan Fildes, BBC International, August 15, 2007
"Companies and party aides cast censorious eye over Wikipedia," Bobbie Johnson, The Guardian, August 15, 2007
 "CIA edited Wikipedia entries on Ahmadinehad," Daily India.com, August 16, 2007
"New Tool Exposes Edits in Wikipedia," John Blau, PC World, August 16, 2007 
"Firms accused of rewriting their entry on Wikipedia," Rhys Blakely, The Times, August 16, 2007
"Is Wikipedia becoming a hub for propaganda?" David George-Cosh, Toronto Globe and Mail, August 16, 2007
"Seeing Corporate Fingerprints in Wikipedia's Edits," Katie Hafner, New York Times, August 19, 2007

David Peterson
Chicago, USA 

suyi , I like wikipedia but I guess when relating to political opinions, the wiki should be monitored to include a broader scope of opinions and include some verification ..otherwise , the wiki will become as bad as the articles on Chomsky on the Guardian, just make the comparison between Chavez and Bush.. Last year I was teaching digital video and photography to students and I told the students not to cheat and get the answers to test on wikipedia, or I would fell them of course they all did what I wanted and they all went on Wikipedia to read and they all got good marks.. :) Its a valuable source of info, but its like David said, sometimes , a troll , a cousin of the rat, a republican to corrupt the info. I Like the article by Dana Boyd..

See a defence of Wikipedia by Danah Boyd

I like Wikipedia. I first found out about Anarchism (i.e. what it's proposers, not detractors, say it means) there. I use it and Z Net as a first resource when checking for information and it's been very helpful.

Krekouche:

About your second paragraph: Learning how to use a keyboard, turn a computer on and off (also being able to buy one and have an ISP), and some elementary skills related to surfing the Internet, aren't my point.  Technological selection (beyond the $$$$$ required) is the case when a lot of intellectual energy and motivation and learning are required to utilize the technology.  Whatever relevant concerns you've raised about content-related decision-making (no need for me to restate them), no decision about content should fall to people by reason of their technological expertise.

David Peterson
Chicago, USA 

I would have to say that this "technological selection" is much less severe than the selections for academic false-prophets-of-the-court who operate under guises while in complete subconscious servitude of the power elite. These news people, political and history scholars, and others with the "proper" and selected qualities are the servile vanguard of a mostly make-believe humanity with their ability to write the news and write our encyclopedias and history books.

It seems clear to me that learning to use a computer, learning to browse to an internet page and pressing a couple of "edit" links pales in comparison to the "selectional" qualities needed to contribute to the knowledge base of Western academia and the audience of the print-world. Yes, there are some technical requirements for a person to be able to sign on to Wikipedia and contribute their knowledge, but the steps needed are slight next to the requirements for a potential contributor to the imperial knowledge base we call American history books and the encyclopedia Britannica: go through twenty years of highly indoctrinating schooling, worship your mentors and bosses and hope to be given a position where you can use your skills in a confined and skewed manner that bends to the worldviews of power (where you are basically a research automaton, scouring for information and facts then fitting it into a predefined framework that does not fit with logic or freethinking.)

To contribute to Wikipedia, or even submit to any internet forum, or submit an article to ZNet, you don't need to have academic credentials, or be very computer savvy. You do need to have a computer, navigate to an internet webpage, and know a little about formatting text, but this is still far easier to do than say, becoming a writer for the New York Times, or say, an author of a school textbook.

So let's pose the following: Assuming that there are tens of thousands of potential contributors "out there" without academic credentials (myself), and also without computer and technical knowhow, but still have tremendous knowledge and talent to contribute to society, which path is easier, which path leads to more benefits to society in terms of freedom of speech and thought? (a) Gaining access to a computer and learning to modify text on a webpage and contributing what you have to offer, or (b) indoctrinating yourself with 20 years of schooling, becoming a servant to American ideological power structures, and writing mainstream newspaper and encyclopedia Britannica articles?

 

Krekouche and Cyrano:

There are countless helpful, educational, and valuable entries at Wikipedia.  The people who understand the software often put up tables and diagrams that provide great information and resources: See, e.g., "Major Topics in Iraq" (which provides a wealth of links) as well as the material listed under "Membership" within the entry for 'NATO'. 

Under such cases, Wikipedia works because it is replicating what it best and most valuable about the encyclopedic mission: Providing well-rounded correct material about the world.  (Or a mirror of the world, to repeat the title of one early encyclopedic effort that was made possible by the innovation of moveable type in the 15th Century.)  Wikipedia's other contributions are that its material is available free to users via the Internet (though somebody is funding this); that it is for all practical puposes open-ended and as capacious as the human mind and the world require it to be (print never could accomodate this); and that the users themselves can contribute to it, improve it, update it, and so on. 

In my opinion, this means that most of what Wikipedia is is an online version of what print encyclopedia's are, with the advantages and disadvantages that the Internet provides.

One clear disadvantage is the process of technological selection created by familiarity with the Internet and various softwares in particular.  Johannes Gutenberg's moveable-type innovation also conferred on Gutenberg and everyone else who possessed a certain degree of mastery at using moveable type or financing its use the power to oversee, select or reject, and edit the inputs of others, along with the ideology that told everyone how virtuous and democratizing the whole of this was.  (We all recall the historical bit about how the Bible went from a document for the well-educated elites to a document for the masses through its various "vulgar" editions.)

In our day, an enormous bias is built into the system of Internet knowledge, whereby knowledge of software confers a false and ultimately power-based expertise, rather than knowledge itself.  Nowhere is this more operative than among the "Free Software as a Social Movement" clique.  Whereas (say) the New York Times employs experts at the various technologies that publish the daily print editions, manage the Times's website, and load and maintain its vast electronic archives, the editorial reins and content-production remains in another group's hands.  (Who we might call the experts at legitimation (and so on).)  But the point is that content is determined by content people, not by people on the basis of their knowledge of software.  Wikipedia reverses this.  As does the so-called free software as a social movement clique, where, to belong to the clique, one needs to be into software.  But technological expertise forms a tightly closed universe.  Knowledge of software hardly creates a commons.

If anybody would like to show me how Wikipedia escapes this dilemma -- or ZNet, for that matter -- please do.  But what I've found is a lot of software expertise conferring a lot of power, and those who possess this power resorting to age-old pseudo-legitimations about how they are using it in the service of all things good.

"FOX News Changes Wikipedia to Smear Rivals," Brian Boyko, Geeks Are Sexy, August 14, 2007

David Peterson
Chicago, USA           

David, writing an experiment on the wikipedia is a great idea excepted that I do not have the level of literacy and clarity that most people seem to benefit in znet blogs..

I agree that statement is a fact, and the current Iraq War entry includes this Kofi Annan quote about the war's illegality deep inside the article.

 The are serious legal questions surrounding the conduct of the war in Iraq and the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war. On September 16, 2004 Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the United Nations, said of the invasion, "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter. From our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal."

Undoubtedly this fact should be mentioned in the beginning, among countless other needed edits. 

Adding the quote from Justice Jackson to the Iraq War article would probably "make the cut".  The quote is however already included in an entry on crimes against peace.

Krekouche and Cyrano:

People monkey with Wikipedia's entries all the time.   Now.  I'm not sure which entry would be the best one to try this little experiment.  But one reasonable test of Wikipedia's fabled neutrality would be to find which entry is the most appropriate to host a simple declarative sentence to the effect that in March, 2003, the U.S. and British governments launched a war of aggression against Iraq, and that this war was in violation of the Charter of the United Nations (and so on).  (See 'Iraq war (disambiguation)' for a list of the best possible candidates.  And more precisely: '2003 invasion of Iraq'.)

There are no two "conflicting verifiable perspectives" on this topic, no two ways of looking at this particular event of contemporary history.  Fidelity to the facts themselves precludes anyone from hemming and hawing about it; and to treat it differently -- that is, to treat the fact that there are people who assert something otherwise as evidence that there are multiple and conflicting perspectives, rather than multiple false and deceptive perspectives -- would be to abandon genuine neutrality in favor of Great Power biases.  Nothing more.

If a statement such as this -- that in March 2003, the U.S. and U.K. governments committed illegal aggression against Iraq, in violation of the UN Charter -- can be incorporated into the relevant Wikipedia entry (or entries), and if no one deletes it or tries to revise or balance it with some kind of false mitigating assertion, we'd have found one non-trivial case in which Wikipedia works as an open-source historical record. 

Might anyone care to undertake this experiment?

David Peterson
Chicago, USA 

Postscript. Of course, we could -- and in my opinion should -- add even more to our proposed Wikipedia experiment.  My favorites include calling the invasion of Iraq a "supreme international crime" (in Nuremberg's sense).  

Hey David and Kroukouche.. I don't know, even evil doers like Bush get better review than Chavez on Wikipedia, it is as if the Bush Ministry of Disinformation wrote the review on Chavez..

I agree David, the wiki should be used for technical stuff only..

Krekouche:

According to current statistics (soon to be outdated), as of some time on Monday, August 13, there were approx. 1,947,000 entries within Wikipedia's English-language universe alone.  Given the scale of this evolving totality, all that we can hope for, at best, is to illustrate something accurate about it based on the most meager of anecdotes (i.e., relative to the whole).

The very fine weblog maintained by Brian Leiter, a professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, once made the point that  ("Martha Nussbaum and Wikipedia: A Case Study in the Unreliability of Information on the Internet," June 17, 2007): 

A scholar who actually knows something about [Martha] Nussbaum's work posted a corrected entry...only to have it promptly undone by an anonymous editor who deemed it "unsourced"!  I invite readers who have some patience for dealing with Wikipedia's hordes of ill-informed (and often biased) anonymous editors to see about getting the current version in line with the accurate version.

But this is just one anecdote.  Clearly, you'd be able to list countless others where the same or a related problem didn't arise, or was corrected sufficiently upon occurring to meet any reasonable criterion of wikiness. 

My point is that as a so-called wiki-sourced platform, and an anonymous one on top of this, Wikipedia is as vulnerable as the human species is.  Here is where something more permanent is required to fight back the tide as well as the vagaries of the wind.  However many and large the "groups of astute and somewhat apolitical folks who constantly monitor for vandalism and statements not based in fact," is it likely they are larger in number than the political folks who do not share these motivations?   Or will the former turn out to be like King Canute holding back the tides of invaders and vandals? 

It's hardly a trivial point that Wikipedia's own guidelines for sourcing exclude anything that appears within the Wikipedia universe of entries.  (See "Wikipedia: Reliable sources" > "Tertiary source," where we read that "Tertiary sources are publications such as encyclopedias that sum up other secondary sources, and sometimes primary sources. (Wikipedia itself is a tertiary source.)"  Although the entry no longer states this, at some point in the past it also used to state that "Wikipedia articles may not cite Wikipedia articles as a source, because it is a wiki that may be edited by anyone and is therefore not reliable."  (Though you'll have to check the History of this entry to see when and why this particular sentence eventually was excised from it.)

Of course there are efforts to outdo Wikipedia.  See, e.g., "Can Wikipedia Ever Make the Grade?" Brock Read, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 27, 2006.

More another time.

David Peterson
Chicago, USA

I have to disagree with you about Wikipedia. In my opinion Wikipedia is a wonderful thing. Outright lying or propaganda is actually handled decently well. There are large groups of astute and somewhat apolitical folks who constantly monitor for vandalism and statements not based in fact. Yes, you still sometimes get politically biased or false information. But, compare the entry for Hugo Chavez on Wikipedia and his entry on Encyclopedia Britannica. In Britannica, the author waits a whole two sentences before telling the reader how Chavez was imprisoned for attempting a coup on the government. Wikipedia on the other hand is much more fair and starts with an outline of Chavez's claimed ideologies (even using the term "neoliberal globalization", let's see that on Britannica!).

A full side-by-side comparison of these two entries would reveal a lot by the pro-western "sole authority" information sources and how they relate to an open information center like Wikipedia (albeit with an English version still full of EuroAmerican political bias).

Another snippet from the Wikipedia entry on Chavez about the 2002 coup:

 The coup against the democratically-elected Venezuelan government was approved and supported by Washington, acting through senior officials of the U.S. government, including Otto Reich and convicted Iran-contra figure and George W. Bush's "democracy 'tzar'" Elliott Abrams, who have long histories in the U.S.-backed "dirty wars" in Central America in the 1980s, and links to death squads working in Central America at that time.

Again, Wikipedia is not flawless but obviously much more democratic and more well-rounded in the information, as the above shows.

Cyrano:

Wikipedia is a very flawed approach to the development and archiving of electronically accessible information in that 100 percent of it -- unless the moderators place padlocks over the revisions of particular entries -- is open to revision, and anyone interested in exploiting Wikipedia's openness can use it to disseminate falsehoods.  The mere fact that there are huge entries devoted not simply to 'Hugo Chavez', but also to 'Criticism of Hugo Chavez', shows how highly motivated people are over this one topic. -- What's the point?  Take a look at the histories of each of these two entries (see History I and History II). 

And there are a lot of other entries at Wikipedia that suffer from the same fate.  For example, anything that touches on the Arab - Israeli conflict. 

Wikipedia permits individuals (or individuals working on behalf of organizations) to tell the truth or to lie outright anonymously. -- What do you suppose the outcome is going to be?

David Peterson
Chicago, USA

David, This post on wiki makes me fumes.. Criticism of Hugo Chavez - wikipedia's has become unreliable

( amazing the bullshit propaganda that lays around..)

quote : though you'd never know this by a study of the actual performance of the U.S. "intelligence" community.

David that is rather unreal , It look like the study and the whole intelligence is being manipulated again for some obscure purpose.

From an outsider perspective, the whole ordeal that lead to the suveillance act - with the executive branch, your congress and senate look sectarian in nature, it is like the people involved created parallele world where paranoia is the norm.. its so artificial and unfounded , the result, I am afraid, would give a false sens of security..

I am disturbed to find out as to whether these people described above actually believe or not the theory they receive before passing such laws. What surprise me is how the madness of a few can influence your country's politics..

 

What good can you expect from jerks that stoled elections?

Cyrano:

I believe the concern you raise in your second paragraph is immensely important: Whatever serves to increase the "madness and the paranoia of those in power" is bad, and its badness overall rises or falls in direct correlation with the power of those possessed by it. "Intelligence," after all, ought not to be an elaborate circle-jerk -- though you'd never know this by a study of the actual performance of the U.S. "intelligence" community.

The quote by Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R.-MI) that you've reproduced from today's report in the Post illustrates how mad and paranoid he is.  Nor would I be surprised to learn -- apropos the point you raise toward the end -- that inside the "intelligence" institutions, everybody is paranoid and nobody trusts anybody.  We can only speculate how many lives were upended in the aftermath of 9/11.  There must have been so much internal recrimination and finger-pointing that spooks were imagining double-agents behind every door.

Most important, you are right to assert that none of the new spying laws will "decrease or counter terrorism," meaning possible future attacks against U.S. territory.  Here we find a fundamental ignorance at work.  In human history, the only sure way to be safe is to stop fighting one another.  What never works is to guarantee the never-ending character of the fight by engaging in it more and more ferociously, and then locking everyone up behind the ramparts, just in case.   

David Peterson
Chicago, USA

David, the reasons given by the military regime seem at odds. I don't believe the new spying laws with help decrease or counter terrorism as such, however these agency will be able to collect any form of information without fear of repercussions.. One problem I could see is that all the information gathered will increase the madness and the paranoia of those in power . ( that is scary). I've learned that any information including personal information can be used to inflict coercion and control if not to create chaos in any work environment. Whatever useful information will be kept. I think one of the main reason for this sort of paranoia may also be due to the growing gap between the rich and the poor; witness the new wall between Mexico and the US, I don't think this new Act will protects americans at all. I think it will have potential to divide the poor. David you provided with this link: How the Fight for Vast New Spying Powers Was Won from which I took this quote: Throughout this period, Republican lawmakers promoted the administration's version of the bill as a powerful response to the terrorism threat. Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), a former chairman of the House intelligence panel, told colleagues, for example, that "this is about protecting the homeland, and it is about protecting our troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan." It is yet possible that with this new surveillance act terrorist organizations will be more careful, thus it is unlikely to be any help at all. A thing is more likely the troops in IrAq , Afghanistan and Pakistan have becomes a target for surveillance and so does the giant corporations involved, I don't think the later has been ignored. There is also one fundamental natural law this regime neglect with this desire to increase surveillance in that very often the ones doing the surveillance becomes the subject of surveillance of or the observer becomes the observee...a bit like walking to the zoo and watching animals watching us.. The main threat to this paranoid regime is the fact that it has become a object of surveillance and regardless of the security and pseudo act it writes, if a pissed off terrorists organization decide to create chaos , it will do so at will because where there is a will to malice there is ways to do it.. The Surveillance Act is just an example to this malice, essentially their fight are against the poor and the have-not. It could be possible that this regime fear a new insurgency coming from the poor. excuse the typos.. I love the new catcha software, spam has decreased.

Cyrano:

Even the two most recent lengthy analyses of how this unconstitutional Act was passed swallow most of the Washington regime's rationale: 

"Reported Drop in Surveillance Spurred a Law," Eric Lichtblau et al., New York Times, August 11, 2007
"How the Fight for Vast New Spying Powers Was Won," Joby Warrick and Walter Pincus, Washington Post, August 12, 2007 

Notice that nothing concrete has been divulged to the public.  Yet, what is the likelihood that the FISA court, not just once but twice in 2007, suddenly ruled that the warrantless invasions of privacy and unreasonable searches of U.S. citizens that this regime had been committing at least since September 2001 under its secretive and unconstitutional "Terrorist Surveillance Program" were violations under FISA?  On top of which comes the regime's allegation that "chatter" has increased while the National Security Agency's (et al.) capacity to monitor it has decreased by some 75 percent, leaving a large "intelligence gap," and therefore who knows what else?

Why believe a single word this regime says?

David Peterson
Chicago, USA

Hello David, Sk and Suyi, Bush probably celebrated with a vacation after betraying americans with the Surveillance and Secret Act ..

David, there seem to be a pattern here.. between fucking up his own country, the warring others for the profit of his croonies and the number of vacation taken . These transgressions given; american writer Paul Street would not hesitate to label Bush an asshole, me am a bit too polite about it :)

 

What bug me much about this Act is that the Bush administration can hide any form of spying on its citizens with complete impunity. It only have to claim that there is information in there that would harm the national security of the US. It is choosing paranoia over the legitimacy of the courts. I think US citizens choose challenges the constitutionality of this new law since the outcome is decided outside the courts and most often without any sort of proof whatsoever.. People should remember that this government is attempting to legalizes torture: it takes only a bunch of sick minded people to plan crimes and yet it is sold as a normal thing to the media and public. I personally fumes whenever I hear national "security and homeland security " in any Hollywood movies ; I eject the movie. Its sickening - pick your hollywood bullshit title- a high percentage contains paranoid propaganda its not even funny as it does not relates to anything real; and americans consumes this bull and feels proud to be brainwashed. Its all a lie, like the nice story the TV is telling about the american soldier who gave his life for his country when the truth is he gaves his life for Cheney's oil. Its a sad thing, the US has becomes a Barney's make believe playground and only a few are revolting.

Suyi E and SK:

Man.  You guys are good at digging up video clips.

David Peterson
Chicago, USA

Where are the Senators and House members from the 51'st state (SI)? Going by that clip, surveilance doesn't seem that much more intrusive and may even come with some fringe benefits...

Dick Cheney '94: Invading Baghdad Would Create Quagmire