Gregory's ServerWhen I was active at the wikipedia there were a group of other writers who would follow me around and mark my articles on women and black people for deletion. They marked my edits CN even when there was a citation. They reworded everything I wrote to minimize the contributions of minorities to history, and hint at theories of racial inferiority. I'd just go to the library and bury them in more citations. It was kind of violent TBH.
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@futurebird i remember playing on wiki for a month or so, long time ago... it was VERY frustrating, at least trying to work on INTERESTING articles. yeah a lot of arguement and not enough structure to organize the arguement and then i realized if i was gonna make such effort, it might as well be for MY OWN writing. @futurebird @futurebird  @celesteh @tarheel I used to be a huge fan of wiki moderation until well-connected WP:N maximalists started deleting perfect good pages and information because it didn't pass their bar for notability. It's been a downhill slope from there. @celesteh @tarheel I only half agree (for context, my experience is being a nonwhite Wikipedian since 2004, admin since 2005). I don’t disagree with the idea that systemic white supremacy is present throughout Wikipedia (and it’s institutionalise in reliable source policy, or really in the evil trio of verifiability, notability and reliable sources that is *also* the bulwark that keeps disinfo out) @celesteh @tarheel On one hand, most Wikipedians are well meaning liberal(ish) people whose views uphold the patriarchy because they haven’t been asked to examine them. For ever person who feels “knowledge equity” is an outside imposition, there are several others who say “this is a great idea”. But only a handful who ask “how can I change” @celesteh @tarheel Anti-Blackness plays out differently. A tech-utopian sees “bias-free application of the rules”. A person whose life experience teaches them to see racism sees the racism in those rules and pushes back. And another “difficult editor who had so much promise” is banned because they can’t follow what the established folks genuinely see as the neutral application of rules I had a long fight once with an idiot editor on wikipedia who kept "correcting" my edits. @futurebird this is sad :( why do people have ro be so terrible? I hope they werent successful at censuring these things   @futurebird I had a very similar experience on the Hebrew Wikipedia. the editors there are notoriously conservative, to the point where there was an actual discussion as to whether Wikipedia should misgender trans people. one of them even asked at one point to have me blocked for being, I kid you not, "a transphobe-phobe".  @futurebird i'm still furious about what i saw on the wikipedia talk page for Linnaeus, where someone was like "we should mention his scientific racism" and was argued down with "but everyone thought that way, he wasn't unusual" alkjdf;lkj;lkajd @futurebird (in much, much lower stakes, i also saw a wikipedia page for a family of mites that uses a name that is not actually officially accepted. the ICZN still has to rule on it, and even if they can't keep the original name, the one Wikipedia uses may not be chosen. it's just annoying)  @futurebird That’s horrible! I’m really sorry you had that experience. Makes me re-think my support. I appreciate you sharing this experience so we know what is going on. @futurebird Sad. Just think about how impoverished their lives must be to pursue you like that. I will donate even less than nothing to Wikipedia now! @futurebird A guy I follow here on Mastodon who is shaping up to be a real good follow posts this about Wikipedia: https://hachyderm.io/@thomasfuchs/109489626114442816 I'm shocked, to say the least - I'm one of the people who has been known to donate to Wikipedia every year or so. Never again.  @NoTwit @futurebird Wikipedia's money drives are basically scams. It already has enough money to IIRC run at more than the capacity it's currently running at for the next 3 decades or so, pretty much all of the money donated goes to the executives  @futurebird this is why instead of wikipedia, i contribute to extremely niche fandom wikis about topics that interest me which haven't been updated in three years and have four pages
@futurebird This is why I don't edit Wikipedia, even when there is misinformation on a topic that I'm an expert on. I just don't have the energy to fight about it. @futurebird Becoming aware of that kind of thing, and wikipedia not fixing that, is the main reason I found other charities to give to. @futurebird Holy Schnarkies! Without your voice I wouldn't have been aware of this and I'm a sustaining donor to wikipedia. That is absolutely unacceptable. Thank you for bringing this to our attention! @chadbruner @futurebird just to reiterate what I said in another reply, Wikipedia's donation drives are scams, it has enough money to run at IIRC twice its current capacity for the next 3 decades, pretty much all of that money goes to the executives, none of it is actually used to keep it up and running Very much reminded of law school experiences. Like, in class hypotheticals on some "Would a reasonable person walk down this dangerous alley...at night?" And many of us thinking, yes, you dick, the people who live there  @futurebird You are not the only one. https://medium.com/@kamy1/racist-wikipedia-da005c564d13 This article is a few years out of date and some of the issues were addressed but its still mostly the same. 90% of editors are cishet white men who will push everyone else out. Just a random example of wikipedia being this way: the effort to keep deleting categories such as NYPD Police Brutality @futurebird Were you futurebird there too? I’ve been wondering if you were ever since I got here  @futurebird something that most of white people not only never experienced but haven't even considered. I am sorry. @futurebird We need a Wiki encyclopedia that specifically includes "fighting white supremacy" in their bylaws because it takes effort to be an island of inclusiveness in the West. If you try to be an "unbiased source" and you literally just present Western culture as it is today, you've already lost the inclusiveness/diversity/factual accuracy fight. |
@futurebird Bloody Hell.