Wikipedia - popular information service controlled by shady weirdos?

[Calum]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/06/wikipedia_and_overstock/print.html

you do occasionally see things like this. basically wikipedia's website is that popular that if they control the content on it, that content becomes, in many people's minds, "the truth".

what does this mean for the "real" truth and how it can survive?

If you ask Judd Bagley and Patrick Byrne what's going on, they'll tell you the ban is part of much larger attempt to discredit their views on naked shorting. They believe that a small group of people is using Wikipedia as means of controlling public opinion.

"When you think of how the public consciousness of an issue can develop, one of the first things that's going to happen in today

[worker201]

In a way that's true.  I mean, nothing can be the real truth, so of course Wikipedia can't.  They do have an enormous effect on the way things are presented, though.

But is that a bad thing?

Here's the link to the Naked Shorting page at Wikipedia.  It briefly mentions that Overstock was involved in a lawsuit, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to the whole page.  Seems okay to me.  It's not like Wikipedia is somehow denying the truth by not providing a soapbox for Bagley and Byrne.  It's not like Wikipedia is somehow denying the truth by not having a page dedicated to the details of that suit either.

A case can be made that the things that are being left out are either not part of the objective truth, or not important to the overall general truth.  One can get a pretty good beginner's grasp of the issue without knowing what is missing.  It's when you want to go deeper that the opinionated and detailed sources become important.  Wikipedia is a first stop, not a one-stop.  A better question would be whether it succeeds in this capacity or not.  I think it does.

[Calum]

hmm, that's true.

or is it?

[davidnix71]

Wikipedia isn't about The Truth. That's the real problem. They try to pretend to be "open-minded" and "balanced" but that's not always good journalism.

Scientology is treated with kid gloves. Not only is the COS in the next city over from Wiki headquarters, but they tend to sue. Now either the claims of COS are true or they aren't. If they aren't, then you aren't doing anyone a favor by not pointing that out. All Hail Xenu! :|

Same problem with the Tata air car. It's pretty easy to do the math and demonstrate that it won't work as advertised unless the laws of physics change, but Wiki doesn't have the cohones to just call it for what it is.

[worker201]

Scientology is treated with kid gloves. Not only is the COS in the next city over from Wiki headquarters, but they tend to sue. Now either the claims of COS are true or they aren't. If they aren't, then you aren't doing anyone a favor by not pointing that out. All Hail Xenu!

That's not a fair example, because talking about Xenu would be similar to posting the Coca-Cola formula - it's a protected trade secret, whose secrecy has been upheld in court many times before.  Wikipedia would be breaking the law to speak the truth about Scientology.

[davidnix71]

"If salvation were something money could buy, then the rich would live and the poor would die." A tax-free religion, like COS, that demands large sums of money to tell people how they must be saved is morally vile. Wikileaks.org has made the full OT Series available for free (sourced from the Netherlands spinoff of COS).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JHS8adO3hM

[worker201]

They may be morally vile, but they still have rights.  They may be a bunch of liars, hardly deserving of tax-free status, but they deserve the same protection as Methodists and Lutherans.

Penn says it is morally wrong to not tackle somebody who is going to be hit by a bus.  But it is vain and foolish to tackle a delusional paranoid who is standing on the sidewalk convinced that he is going to be hit by a bus.  To restate - religious people have a moral imperative to save you, but you do not have a moral imperative to save them from religion.  Because joining the CoS is as dangerous as getting a bad haircut.  Actually, it's exactly like getting a bad haircut.  You laugh at those people, you don't make laws against them.

[davidnix71]

I grew up in Tampa, next door to their headquarters in the Fort Harrison Hotel.

Laughing at them isn't what I did. I don't think it proper to laugh at people in that state, or to associate with "church" leaders that take financial advantage of people in that state. But society is actually safer from groups like CoS when people are cynical and distrustful of organized religion in general. Teller saw virtue in that man. The man wasn't after his money.

The Methodists and Lutherans will tell you their belief and doctrine for free and leave you alone if you tell them to. I'm a Baptist. We'll do the same. If you don't want what we have to offer, we will offer it to someone else. If you are broke and need food or clothes we will clothe and feed you.

The CoS would evaporate if their were no tax privileges for religion and non-profits organizations. Christian charity wouldn't go away though. The church business model would have to change, but their are Christian churches in countries without the legal or financial privileges of the West. I don't believe the CoS actually has a "right" to sell their religion and at the same time demand to be tax free. That's not why the tax priviege was established. I also know evil when I see it, but am constrained by God to wait for Him to deal with them.