I have written in the past how Google could theoretically shape a persons perceptions by tweaking the algorithm for search results to promote one point of view over the other. A similar possibility exists in wikipedia. Wiki's editors are human, and have their own thoughts and opinions about the topics they edit. The democratic nature of the system is supposed to prevent a persons opinion from coloring the articles which they edit.
Then came this article from Lawrence Solomon over at the National Post, concerning the wikipedia article about Naomi Oreskes. Naomi Oreskes claim to fame was the paper Beyond the Ivory Tower: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change. This paper reviewed numerous peer reviewed journal articles which supposedly disagreed with the UN stance on Global Warming, and determined that there was no disagreement. Solomon contacted a few of the scientists referenced by Oreskes article and found they disagreed with her assessment of their opinion. Like a good netizen, he attempted to modify the wiki article, to reflect this, only to set off a firestorm of edits and re-edits which eventually caused the folks over at Wiki to lock the article till the mess could be sorted out.
What surprised Solomon was how quickly his changes were undone. So quick, that he questioned whether he had correctly saved them in the first place. This means that certain sections of wiki are constantly monitored for changes, to protect a particular position. Not hard to do, but the diligence of this was surprising to me.
If you wish to promote a particular point of view or remove those embarrassing facts from your past, its not unknown for folks with an agenda to hire people to monitor and modify their articles connected to their interests. Even the Criticism of Wikipedia page acknowledges this with the following:
While Wikipedia policy requires articles to have a neutral point of view, it is not immune from attempts by outsiders (or insiders) with an agenda to place a spin on articles. In January 2006 it was revealed that several staffers of members of the U.S. House of Representatives had embarked on a campaign to cleanse their respective bosses' biographies on Wikipedia, as well as inserting negative remarks on political opponents. References to a campaign promise by Martin Meehan to surrender his seat in 2000 were deleted, and negative comments were inserted into the articles on U.S. Senator Bill Frist and Eric Cantor, a congressman from Virginia. Numerous other changes were made from an IP address which is assigned to the House of Representatives.[57] In an interview, Wikipedia de facto leader Jimmy Wales[9] remarked that the changes were "not cool."[58]
When you are looking for a quick fact check, or background information, wiki is a seductive solution. Here in one place is a collection of articles and information indexed and cross referenced so you don't need to do the heavy lifting yourself. However the veracity of these articles, and the bias of the contributors should give a reader pause.
The incredible number of people who hit wiki everyday for information, are largely unconcerned that the articles are not on par with the Brittanica or other volumes of renown. Nor do they concern themselves that the articles they are reading may not represent both sides of an issue. They are just info junkies looking for a quick fix, and their perceptions and opinions are up for grabs by anyone who wants to spend the time and energy to shape them.
