User:Filll/WikipediaCriticism

When I see this sort of criticism, I am struck by how unrealistic it is. People expect there to be "one right answer" and "one truth" that agrees with their own personal opinion. If Wikipedia does not agree with their own personal bias, then they complain. Bitterly. Loud and long.

For example, if a contributor does not believe that men landed on the moon, this contributor will complain bitterly if the article about the moon landings on Wikipedia is written from the viewpoint that men actually landed on the moon. If articles debunking the moon landing deniers are linked in or mentioned, this will be viewed as evidence of a secret plot of the evil global media / Jews/ Americans/ Bilderbergs/ Council on Foreign Relations / Vatican/ Masons/ etc.

If Wikipedia is not written from the viewpoint of a given contributor, such as a moon landing denier, then all kinds of charges of bias and unfairness will be levelled. Of course, if Wikipedia acquiesces and allows the moon landing articles to be written only by moon landing deniers, then another group will charge that Wikipedia is biased etc.

The same is true on just about every issue. For example, the Miquelon and St. Pierre article discusses the origin of the name Miquelon. Several scholarly texts discuss the name "Miquelon" as being of Basque origin, which was mentioned in the article. There are also many other pieces of evidence that the early visitors to the island were Basques. This is standard knowledge that appears in many reference books and is taught in many schools. I was taught this in school growing up and required to memorize it.

However, there are people in Spain who are sensitive about Basque nationalism and Basque separatist movements. So an editor from Spain was highly incensed that our Wikipedia article should suggest that the name "Miquelon" was of Basque origin, but had no references to suggest that Miquelon is not a name of Basque origin, but instead is Spanish. This turned into a minor dust-up, and I am certain the Spanish editor went away positive that Wikipedia is biasd that they would take the word of textbooks and scholarly publications over his own personal say-so.

As another example, I have encountered several Polish editors at Frere Jacques who claim that it is well known that Frere Jacques is supposed to be a pilgrim on the Way of St. James who has not woken up his fellow travellers in time. They had no references for these claims. I looked and looked but could find none. The references they suggested were in foreign languages, and when translated, did not support their claims.

On the other hand, I had dozens of other references in scholarly journals and other sources for the identity of Frere Jacques which did not agree with their theory. However, the Polish editors were positive that it should be obvious to me and everyone else that their own personal theory, unsupported by a single reference, should be the correct one and should be the main or maybe even the only theory discussed in the Frere Jacques article. And when I did not give in, they went away furious and fuming about the "bias" in Wikipedia and the terrible unfairness.

After dealing with a few of these situations, and then reading the complaints of people about the bias and unreasonableness and errors in Wikipedia, I am struck by how silly this is. How many left wing extremists think Bill O'Reilly is unbiased? How many right wing extremists think that Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter was a good president? Have any of these people complaining actually read the articles in World Book Encyclopedia or Encyclopedia Britannica? This sort of complaint is just pure nonsense.