{"id":3136,"date":"2006-12-06T01:01:20","date_gmt":"2006-12-06T08:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2006\/12\/06\/wiki-vandals\/"},"modified":"2006-12-06T01:08:18","modified_gmt":"2006-12-06T08:08:18","slug":"wiki-vandals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2006\/12\/06\/wiki-vandals\/","title":{"rendered":"Wiki-vandals"},"content":{"rendered":"

I didn’t know I had a Wikipedia entry<\/a> until about a year ago. I discovered it by googling my name — a vice that I’m sure most writers indulge in, some more than others. I tried to abstain, or, at least, not indulge too often, but the temptation to go back and see how the entry was evolving was — is — a bit too much for me to resist. Because, for those who don’t know about Wikipedia, anyone is free to edit and re-edit entries: they are also free to create new ones, to add and subtract, in a cybernetic demonstration of the Hayekian<\/a> theory of spontaneous order<\/a>. Entries are changed as knowledge develops. and new facts are discovered.<\/p>\n

That was how I came to witness the “edit wars” waged on the territory of my entry. Go here<\/a> to see the long history of that sometimes bitter conflict, an epic battle carried out by such Wiki-warriors as “WillbeBack,” “Huysmanns,” “Darth Jesus,” and a host of others too numerous to mention here. Suffice to say that some — most — editors were constructive: that is, they worked to refine and expand my entry, adding new biographical details and describing my work and ideas, rather than editorializing. Wikipedia has strict rules about that: it is the great sin of POV (pushing a Point of View), and repeated instances can result in the suspension or even explusion of the miscreant from the realm of encyclopedic knowledge that is Wikipedia.<\/p>\n

An “edit war” occurs when there is a dispute that goes back and forth, with rival factions battling for hegemony: in such cases, when even a persistent minority-of-one can vandalize an entry at will, an entry is locked down, frozen, so that only registered Wikipedia members can edit it — and a close watch is kept on the premises for any sign of POV-pushing.<\/p>\n

My entry has been locked down twice in the past two days, on account of the persistent efforts of two — or possibly just one — “editor.” Here<\/a>‘s an example of their vandalism: it’s always the same old smears, mindlessly excreted like a foul odor on a bus. What’s interesting is the efforts of the mainstream Wikipedians — the majority that cares about expanding and preserving the record of human knowledge – to fight off and restrain the fanatics. Spontaneous order works. Wikipedia works.<\/p>\n

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I didn’t know I had a Wikipedia entry until about a year ago. I discovered it by googling my name — a vice that I’m sure most writers indulge in, some more than others. I tried to abstain, or, at least, not indulge too often, but the temptation to go back and see how the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[676],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-3136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-antiwar-movement"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3136\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3136"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}