Editing Wikipedia

Juan_Golt · 2014-08-29T19:16:18+00:00

I get it. Social change doesn't happen via an encyclopedia.

When feminists show up in numbers and create pages that say we are all misogynist trad-cons, it's 'consensus'. When we show up to correct it, it's brigading.
Since the 'consensus' is that we are all hateful jerks, we will be treated as such until the mainstream understanding changes.
The mainstream uses sites like Wikipedia as a reference for their understanding. Good luck MRM!

I appreciate that you came here to explain this to us, but I've read the Wikipedia page on the MRM. It's effectively a straw man at this point. It mischaracterizes many of our views then spends a huge amount of time on criticism of each of these. Mostly using the same old cliches 'father just don't want custody' etc... I'm disappointed, but not surprised.

DougDante · 2014-08-30T13:20:18+00:00

Wikipedia's coverage of the men's rights movement is hopelessly biased, and neither NPOV nor intellectual as you have claimed.

Go look at Men's rights movement

The first thing to understand is that the article is framed in terms preferred by feminists. For example.

The men's rights movement contests claims that men have greater power, privilege or advantage than women

In general, we claim that both men and women face problems, but acknowledging that claim is not beneficial to a feminist narrative. See the FAQ.

Now look at the section on Domestic Violence

Men's rights activists assert that domestic violence by women is ignored and under-reported

It's a "claim". No, it's settled science. And the CDC's own studies show men and boys who seek help don't get it.

They state that women are as aggressive or more aggressive than men in relationships[81] and that domestic violence is sex-symmetrical

That's the minority strawman viewpoint put forward. Some claim that. Most claim that male victims are discriminated against, because it's settled science and the general consensus. This claim, like all claims of anti-male discrimination is downplayed, lest wikipedia acknowledge what everyone knows is true.

Men's rights advocates have been critics of legal, policy and practical protections for abused women,[83][90][91] campaigning for domestic violence shelters for battered men

A small minority perhaps, I think most advocates are less critical of protections for women, and more interested in providing equal protection for men and women, and equal due process for men and women, as is required under VAWA 2013. In fact you'll see many examples of that in our mractivism subreddit.

But remember, that activism can't exist, because if it does exist, it would address a problem which wikipedia is carefully avoiding through editorial decisions.

Men's rights activists point to differential prison terms for men and women as evidence of discrimination

"differential prison terms" is as close as wikipedia gets to acknowledging the settled science that men face discrimination in all stages of the criminal justice system, as in Prof. Starr's research shows large unexplained gender disparities in federal criminal cases: University of Michigan Law conveniently available to Wikipedia editors in the FAQ. But that science must be avoided, because it undermines wikipedia's narrative that men's rights concerns are illegitimate.

The section on child custody tries to conflate the political fight over "parental alienation syndrome", a dispute over a medical term, with the undeniable act of parental alienation, in a careful mechanism to deny the other exists, when intellectual experts like the American Bar Association say it's widespread:

“[A] twelve-year study commissioned by the Family Law Section of the American Bar Association of over 1,000 divorces found that ‘parental alienation,’ the programming of a child against the other parent, occurs regularly, sixty percent (60%) of the time, and sporadically another twenty percent.”

Father? What Father? Parental Alienation and Its Effect on Children By Chaim Steinberger: NYSBA Family Law Review

Again, this intellectual discourse is easily accessible in the FAQ!

So if you want an NPOV coverage, go and fix your biased coverage, and if you want intellectual coverage, go fix your carefully constructed avoidance of settled science, but your claims that Wikipedia's coverage of the men's rights movement is NPOV and intellectual are simply inconsistent with the facts.

And perhaps your suggestion is that I join Wikipedia and help? (Actually, I have, but with different subjects) No thank you, I believe that the nature of the committees etc Wikipedia has setup is visible in their work product, ignoring real problems of corruption and discrimination that are causing innocent boys, men, and LGBT victims to suffer, and misrepresenting people who are trying to solve those problems. I'd rather focus on helping victims than waste my time trying to get you to cover that properly.

iethatis · 2014-08-29T19:58:06+00:00

Perhaps you could offer some concrete advice for making effective edits?

Also, looking at the current article for the Men's Rights Movement, it is pretty clear that most of the editing has been agenda-driven, and selectively uses sources that are against the movement.

For instance, this quote is a disgrace:

The MRM is considered to be a backlash or countermovement to feminism, often as a result of a perceived threat to traditional gender roles.

"Is considered" by whom, exactly?

The entire article has a polemical tone, moreover it ignores the scholarly sources which support the viewpoints held by MRAs

notnotnotfred · 2014-08-29T14:55:36+00:00

Wikipedia is not friendly to MRAs.

It will remain unfriendly to MRAs.

First is, Canvassing is strongly discouraged. Now Canvassing is contacting other people to participate in a discussion.

...

However, since /r/mensrights is an activism related sub posting here about content on Wikipedia is viewed as disruptive canvassing.

wikipedia: Project feminism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Feminism

Legolas-the-elf · 2014-08-29T21:13:46+00:00

As far as I can tell, the MRM is more prone to being vandalised on Wikipedia than doing the vandalising. There are people who do nothing but hang out on MRM-related pages adding attacks on it and looking for ways to tear it down. Have you seen this submission for example? What are you doing about people like this?

sillymod · 2014-08-29T14:42:22+00:00

Thanks for posting this. We had asked someone from Wikipedia to do so in the past.

To the /r/MensRights members:

The side channel discussion is that Men's Rights advocates may be banned from Wikipedia if canvassing and other bad Wiki-editing procedures continue. So don't do it.

Wikipedia is part of the establishment, and the establishment is slow to change. Trying to force change on the establishment just makes it get defensive. It does not work.

So, in summary, unless you are an expert at writing proper wikipedia articles, stay the fuck off of Wikipedia editing.

guywithaccount · 2014-08-30T02:56:21+00:00

Thank you for bring Wikipedia's strong political bias to our attention, telling us how and why Wikipedia will discriminate against us while allowing our opponents to misrepresent us and themselves. Thank you for confirming that Wikipedia does actually have different rules for MRAs and feminists. Thank you for confirming that Wikipedia is not, and does not intend to be, neutral or credible. It is so often the case that, when discrimination seems to be the order of the day, we have only our suspicions and bits of circumstantial evidence to confirm our suspicions.

The only reasonable response to discrimination of this kind and extent is, of course: fuck you and the horse you rode in on. You may take that back to the other Wikipedia editors to share.

As an aside, I will never, ever give Wikipedia one thin dime of my money.

CSDarrow · 2014-08-31T15:25:44+00:00

Periocically, I edit a lot on the Men's Rights related pages even though techniqually I am not an MRA. My views on every subject are nuanced, diverse and defy labelling, I can simulataneously upset eveyone in a room. I was drawn to editing on Wikipedia after stumbling on the Men's Rights page and being hit by a strong sense of 'wrongness'. I am a big believer in common sense tests, this page failed that. Common sense tests are an acknowledgement of the fact that the whole is more than the sum of its parts, even if each part passes scrutiny.

I don't think Wikipedia is plaqued by bad faith editing; I think it is plaqued by humans, we have strong opinions and cognative biases. I think an underlying principle of Wikipedia is that given time pages will iterate on their own to fair and encyclopedic entries, and I believe this will eventually happen to the Men's Rights page. Excessive direct intervention will interfer with this process and comes with its own problems. The question though is what are accpetable timelines for this to occur? In the meantime the entry is unencyclopedic and peoples opinions are being affected. Wikipedia does not exist in a vacuum devoid of other responsibilities.

The final product of human endevour is the result of human actions, which in turn are a product of the enivironment and tools you give them. Peoples behaviour can not be directly changed effectively; ultimately you have to change the environment and tools, doing this iteratively till the product is acceptable. I am not being original here, this is a well known principle in many quarters. The problems here are structural and are not going to be solved by a sanctioning here and a rule tweek there. Jimbo Wales et. al. had great vision but of late seem to have closed their eyes. Those at the top level of Wikipedia need to step and up give it another few iterations, the precise nature of which I wouldn't presume to know.

tl;dr Wikipedia's problems are deeply structural, cosmetic changes are not enough.

ZimbaZumba · 2014-08-29T15:24:24+00:00

Hi Kyohyi, Thank you for posting here, I have read your edits in the past and have always respected you. I have more of a rant than a question.

One of the problems with Gender related pages imo is bad faith editing by a particular group of editors. This is Reddit so I can say what the fuck I like, and I refer to for example Sonicyouth, Binkersnet, Cailil as being the worst offenders and there are many more. The tactic is to simply point blank refuse to concede any point they disapprove of so blocking consensus. They expect unreasonable burdens of proof for points they disagree with, and expect the thinnest of hearsay as adequate for those they do. They confound the discussion to their advantage and rush through their own points with brigading; they bully and Wikilaywer till the cows come home and use every trick in the book to get other editors banned or otherwise sanctioned. Some of the sources in support of the vilest of comments are utterly absurd. They lobby Admins behind the scenes and become Admins themselves, Cailil's misuse of being an Admin is obscene. The Wikipedia page Sexism is the poster child of this absurdity.

Wikipedia has mechanisms to deal with this through the Admins and various NoticeBoards, in particular Reliable Sources and Undue Notice boards. However some of the Admins patrolling those pages are just as bigoted , eg Bbb23. The same tactic is used on the Noticeboards, ie swamp the discussion with comments and disingenuous crap till the discussion disappears into the ether. The checks and balances are not working.

The Five Pillars upon Wikipedia is based, together with their subclauses, form a very impressive set of guidelines. I am never failed to be impressed by those who put them together. However an institution is more than a set of rules it is a state of mind, and requires trusted individuals with discretionary power at points in the system. A failure to recognize that fact is why exporting democracy to the 3rd world is a disaster; Wikipedia is becoming an analogue.

In short Wikipedia needs an effective Reliable Sources and Undue Noticeboards policed by skilled and neutral individuals who make a final decision. The same goes for the other important noticeboards. An element of public esteem associated with these positions may attract good people. There are many academic editors and Editors in Chief on Wikipedia. I believe this will also affect both the culture and the Admins. An institution's culture ultimately comes from the top and Jimbo Wales also needs to get his act together.

TL;DR Wikipedia has to change its culture, it needs neutral and skilled people in positions of discretionary power to achieve this.

kizzan · 2014-08-29T15:26:15+00:00

I stopped reading anything on Wikipedia because I figured if they censored MRAs from the MRA topic and therefore someone that knows nothing about it is not getting info from both sides, it makes me question everything on that website.

jpflathead · 2014-08-30T17:18:47+00:00

Hey /u/Wikipedia-Kyohyi you write

Linking to Wikipedia from this sub has caused problems at Wikipedia

But if I would were at the wikipedia, I would revert your entry with a big floosh because you have not cited any damn thing. So... [Examples needed.]

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE give us specific citations of precise locations where /r/mensrights have caused problems.

PLEASE ADDRESS where reddit's feminists communities have specifically called for brigading, and nominated a perfectly fine article for deletion PRECISELY BECAUSE THEY FELT IT SUPPORTED MENS RIGHTS like here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Woozle_effect

http://www.reddit.com/r/againstmensrights/comments/1wxaoa/discovered_wikipedia_page_with_clear_mra_bias/?sort=confidence

Discovered Wikipedia page with clear MRA bias, looking for help from wiki veterans

To this end, I would like to flag the article as poorly sourced, biased, and not deserving of its own page, but my complete lack of familiarity with how Wikipedia is moderated is a bit of a roadblock. If there are any subscribers to /r/againstmensrights[10] who have experience editing Wikipedia, I'd love to hear your suggestions about how to deal with the issue.

...

I am apt to dismiss your bullshit anyway, because /r/mensrights however much it might cause brigading at the wiki is a SMALL SMALL effect compared to:

Organized feminist editing brigades, where students are given class credit for editing the wikipedia
All of the culture wars that already exist on wikipedia that make the entire known universe know what a fucked up, heavily politicized, heavily warred reference wikipedia is.

And also, for what it's worth, I am very tired of all the wiki wars, all the entrenched wiki nazi editors hovering over their pages reverting what are actually perfectly good and perfectly well sourced edits just because they feel they some how own a page.

My suggestionto you, is regardless of how the mods may hae asked you to write this post is to spend your time wisely and figure out how to make wiki adhere better to its first principles:

Anyone can edit
Assume good faith

Then address brigading at large, and address the organized feminist campaigns to politically edit wikipedia.

Then give us some specific examples of troubles caused specifically by /r/mensrights.

Because I gave wikipedia actual evidence of brigading from /r/againstmensrights and wiki does nothing.

Thank you.

DavidByron2 · 2014-08-29T14:38:22+00:00

We know that wikipedia has a feminist / anti-male bias. Do you accept that, and do you accept that what you just said are "the rules" are routinely violated by wikipedia itself in encouraging feminists to create and edit ideologically?

First is, Canvassing is strongly discouraged

Or perhaps canvasing is celebrated?

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2013/apr/29/wikipedia-women-problem/

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/02/02/where-are-the-women-in-wikipedia

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/08/19/women-contributors-still-face-hurdles-at-wikipedia/

http://suegardner.org/2011/02/19/nine-reasons-why-women-dont-edit-wikipedia-in-their-own-words/

articles and discussions related to Mens Rights are under Article Probation

But only if the content itself is not in line with feminist ideology of course. Got to keep it biased. Feminist pages are not subject to the same "scrutiny" because editing them would just be considered vandalism.

Wikipedia even encourages people to pay editors to push feminist ideology:

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/09/06/wikistorming-colleges-offer-credit-to-corrupt-wikipedia/

http://dailycaller.com/2014/02/02/wikipedia-is-very-masculine-so-feminists-pledge-to-fix-it/

There's even pages on wikipedia about wikipedia's proud violation of all these "rules" you're saying apply to men's rights advocates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FemTechNet

Perhaps you'd like to address these concerns before you bullshit us some more?

blueoak9 · 2014-08-29T19:13:26+00:00

"First is, Canvassing is strongly discouraged. "

Well it's not discouraged strongly enough is it? You discouragement of canvassing is a quite selective and that is quite obvious.

As you admit yourself....

"Second is that articles and discussions related to Mens Rights are under Article Probation."

How do you justify this policy? Are articles related to feminism likewise under article probation? And if not, why not?

2014-09-10T16:44:14+00:00

wikipedia used to be good. now I agree with the guys bashing it more and more. a 'default' encyclopedia deserves better then mainstreaming feminist ideas and borrowing itself in bureaucracy.

wyrn · 2014-09-10T18:56:17+00:00

The thing about Wikipedia is that one of its fundamental tenets is "verifiability, not truth". The contrapositive of which is that because of people like you who think that this is a good idea Wikipedia is full of false information parroted from self proclaimed "authoritative" ideologues.

Have fun being unreliable, the rest of us will just happily click on the little "X" when your little banner shows up pestering us for donations. You have a quite lucrative Wikimedia foundation there, use it. We will not support your lies anymore.

nicemod · 2014-08-29T17:54:33+00:00

In accordance with a promise made by moderators in our private discussion with OP, I have temporarily stickied this post.

This is not an endorsement of the content, and there are no policy changes. It's to facilitate discussion.

Xsinthis · 2014-08-29T15:05:35+00:00

Why don't feminism articles and communities have the same restrictions?

MRSPArchiver · 2014-08-29T14:17:35+00:00

Post text automatically copied here. (Why?) (Report a problem.)

JohnKimble111 · 2014-08-29T16:39:47+00:00

While this post is welcome and it's useful to lecture everyone on how to behave, you're not going to achieve anything until some of the feminist gangs on Wikipedia start behaving themselves and stop sabotaging any articles related to men's human rights. In 95% of the cases raised here, people here are only responding to misandry/bias inserted by organised feminist activists. Another editor type of concern is circumfetishishs who associate with known paedophiles and promote MGM on Wikipedia because they get a sick thrill out of mutilating a child's genitals, can't you see why the ownership of articles by such vile people is of concern?

If you don't want angry inexperienced editors to come from this subreddit to come to Wikipedia to fix hopelessly misandirst and biased articles then how about some of the neutral senior editors at Wikipedia (not feminists!) step up to the plate, show they're serious about tackling Wikipedia's anti-male problem and at least get rid of the most blatant biases that no sane editor can dispute (I'm not suggesting you make things perfect, just deal with the worst of the worst).

The circumcision article would be a good place to start, though there are plenty of other gender related articles which would surely make any neutral editor's blood boil.

Perhaps other would like to make a few suggestions - remember nothing that's borderline or simply somewhat biased. I'm only suggesting that the worst of the worst be fixed for now.

xNOM · 2014-08-29T18:46:39+00:00

Third Wikipedia is slow and reactive, particularly regarding changes to established social norms. What this translates to, is that if there is new evidence that suggests the way things have been done for the last 30+ is wrong will probably be dismissed until that evidence has a substantial following.

A substantial following by who? Climate change due to human activity does not have a "substantial following." Are you suggesting the mob should determine what is and isn't a fact?

rg57 · 2014-08-30T02:12:49+00:00

"the way things have been done for the last 30+ is wrong"

First, feminists are not the entirety of the gender equality movement. Second, what is exceptional about advocating for equality?

How is it that Wikipedia cannot see, or will not see, the hatred directed at men by feminists, and then enabled that to be reflected on articles about men's rights?

There is no reason to repeatedly defame the MRM in the opening paragraph of the article describing it. Criticism and controversy properly belongs (as in most other articles) in a separate section near the bottom.

Is it too much to ask for basic civility? Or are smaller movements fair game for hate, just because you can?

aussietoads · 2014-08-30T04:32:12+00:00

Why bother with wikipedia at all.? There is nothing there that can't be sourced directly. And it's not just MRA entries that are subject to political and ideological mangling. The whole site is a mish mash of information and misinformation.

-Fender- · 2014-09-11T00:13:40+00:00

If possible, could you please answer /u/DougDante's comment? I would be very interested to know how someone claiming to be unbiased would take clear evidence of Wikipedia's bias on this subject.

humankin · 2014-09-11T03:08:58+00:00

I disagree with how wikipedia is handling this but I'm glad you've put forth the effort to tell us the situation.

groops · 2014-08-31T00:25:13+00:00

Kyohyi, thanks for posting here. I'd love to see productive editors coming from an MR standpoint myself, and have tried to train MR-perspective people on how to edit Wikipedia before, both here and offline.

Kuramo · 2014-08-30T04:36:05+00:00

Anti-male bias is one of many reasons why I didn't/won't donate to Wikipedia.

So much so that I am thinking about buying a non-free-edit virtual encyclopedia where only respectable researchers make contributions. Wikipedia, via its librarians, filters information and all knownledge which is not pro-feminist is marked with a (citation needed) note.

If it were me, Wikipedia should be only edited by impartial researchers, if not then it should die.

edit: I have found Citizendium, take a look it is not so bad.

edit2: Conservapedia is more accurate for social topics like feminism and so on. Feminism article: http://www.conservapedia.com/Feminism At

Buckfost · 2014-08-30T14:41:30+00:00

What is being done about the religious groups canvassing? I have seen workshops where Jews are being taught how to edit wikipedia to make it suit their agenda. What about "feminist mass edit of wikipedia day"?

Title	Editing Wikipedia
Author	Wikipedia-Kyohyi
Upvotes	23
Comments	163
Date	August 29, 2014 2:17 PM UTC (11 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/2ex4k5/editing_wikipedia/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/editing-wikipedia.996366 https://theredarchive.com/post/996366

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