Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia written collaboratively by people from all around the world. Wikipedia is the first mainstream wiki encyclopedia and certainly the most well known of all wikis. It is a truly international effort and a testament to the success that can be achieved with the MediaWiki software [1]. As of November 2019, Wikipedia has nearly 51,400,000 articles in 296 languages.
The Wikipedia website states:
| “ | Because Wikipedia is an ongoing work to which anybody with Internet access can contribute, it differs from a paper-based reference source in some important ways. In particular, mature articles tend to be more comprehensive and balanced, while other (often fledgling) articles may still contain significant misinformation, unencyclopaedic content or vandalism. Users need to be aware of this in order to obtain valid information and avoid misinformation which has been recently added and not yet removed.[Reference needed] | ” |
Anticreation Bias on Wikipedia
Many CreationWiki authors have expressed frustration with Wikipedia and its apparent double standards. Wikipedia claims to take a neutral point of view (NPOV) and in most cases it seems to follow it quite well for most topics. However, Wikipedia, it's editors, and administrators have shown very little concern for this policy when it comes to creation science and intelligent design, for which a consistently very negative view is shown. An example is the classification of creation science and Intelligent design as pseudosciences. This is a rather standard anti-creationist tactic which has been implemented by Wikipedia.
Articles for Deletion
An example of this negative bias towards creationism and ID within the pages of Wikipedia was the nomination to delete an article titled, "Views of Creationists and mainstream scientists compared." Although voting based on your personal opinion of the topic was and still would be a blatant violation of voting guidelines, the administrators left the votes up.
| “ | The title of the page is inherently wrong, as it suggests that creationism is a scientific view. | ” |
| “ | ...comparing religious doctrine to scientific theory is comparing apples and oranges, and thus non-encyclopedic. | ” |
| “ | By opposing "creationism" to "mainstream science", the article title suggests that creationism is a scientific POV. | ” |
| “ | Creationism is not science. | ” |
| “ | Delete, since creationism is ultimately based on untestable religious beliefs... | ” |
| “ | Creationism isn't an alternative scientific theory: it is one of many alternatives to science. | ” |
The contributor who nominated the article for deletion was a staunch anticreationist, who had vandalized the article several times and considered anticreation website Talk.Origins Archive to be "the most balanced treatment on the web to date"!
Creationist Pages Deleted
Wikipedia has established a recurring pattern of discriminating against Creationists by deleting their Wikipedia pages. Wikipedia maintains a project page on Creationism which is apparently used to delete the pages of Creationists,[2] ironic since it has deleted the portal page for Creationism itself.
Günter Bechly
Günter Bechly, a renowned paleontologist, lost his job at a museum and had his Wikipedia page deleted after he publicly came out as a Creationist in 2015.[3] This is part of a recurring pattern of Wikipedia deleting Creationist pages.
The page was deleted 19:09, October 6, 2017 by Jo-Jo Eumerus.[4]
The old page can be seen at Archive.org.[5]
Russell Humphreys
Russell Humphreys had his page on Wikipedia deleted.
The page was deleted 23:25, August 20, 2024 by Liz.[6]
The old page can be seen at Archive.org.[7]
Scott Minnich
Scott Minnich had his page on Wikipedia deleted.
The page was deleted 21:11, October 13, 2021 by Eddie891.[8]
The old page can be seen at Archive.org.[9]
Jack Cuozzo
Jack Cuozzo had his page on Wikipedia deleted.
The page was deleted 06:37, April 10, 2011 by Sandstein.[10]
On 16:24, July 15, 2014 BDD deleted page Jack Cuozzo (Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2014).
The old page can be seen at Archive.org.[11]
Jan Peczkis/John Woodmorappe
Jan Peczkis, better known as John Woodmorappe, had his page on Wikipedia deleted.
The page was deleted 05:22, May 7, 2014 by FreeRangeFrog.[12]
An archived version of the page has not yet been identified.
Caroline Crocker
Caroline Crocker had her page on Wikipedia deleted.
The page was deleted 03:11, February 18, 2015 by Kurykh.[13]
The page was previously deleted 02:15, February 15, 2006 by ABCD.
The old page can be seen at Archive.org.[14]
Larry Vardiman
Larry Vardiman had his page on Wikipedia deleted.
The page was deleted 06:22, May 27, 2020 by Spartaz.[15]
The old page can be seen at Archive.org.[16]
Jason Lisle
Jason Lisle had his page on Wikipedia deleted.
The page was deleted 20:45, November 13, 2017 by Sandstein.[17]
The page was also deleted 03:18, July 19, 2010 by Courcelles.
The page was also deleted 04:02, 19 February, 2006 by Guanaco.
An archived version of the page has not yet been identified.
John Ashton
John Ashton had his page on Wikipedia deleted, although the content was placed on the Wikipedia user page of John Ashton.
The page was deleted 08:37, May 24, 2012 by SilkTork.[18]
The old page can be seen at the Wikipedia user page of John Ashton.[19]
Creationism Portal
The Creationism portal page was deleted.
The page was previously deleted 22:05, June 9, 2019 by Premeditated Chaos.[20]
The old page can be seen at Archive.org.[21]
List of Arguments for a Young Earth
The Wikipedia page List of Arguments for a Young Earth was deleted.
The page was deleted 12:01, August 14, 2014 by Seddon.[22]
An archived version of the page has not yet been identified.
Trinity School incident
NPOV at Wikipedia would seem to mean rather that they conform to the POV of the editors. Almost all conservative Christian institutions and individuals get treated differently at best or thought to be only believers in lies at the worst. The Trinity School of Apologetics and Theology reportedly had a long battle with Wikipedia over numerous false reports published on Wikipedia.
In spite of documented evidence to the contrary, they were forced to contact the WikiMedia Trustees before the articles containing slander and libel against them were finally removed.[Reference needed]
CreationWiki on Wikipedia
And we have yet another blatant example of anticreation bias in wikipedia. Wikipedia previously had an article about CreationWiki, which has since been deleted. The article was typically found expressing the anti-creationist sentiment said to be found there and retained a clear POV criticism of CreationWiki. Subsequent articles about CreationWiki have been posted that were also rapidly deleted.
In April 2006 there was a proposal to delete the article, and the end result of the discussion (with ten votes to keep and seven to delete) was "No consensus (defaults to Keep)". However, another proposal to delete in August 2006 succeeded, with four votes to delete and two to merge to a separate article on Christian Wikis. However, that latter article was itself deleted in early November 2006.
The behavior clearly demonstrates the aforementioned anticreation views of the Wikipedia editors. It is also noteworthy that the Wikipedia editor who first recommended the deletion of the CreationWiki article is the self-proclaimed head of the Wikipedia Neutrality Project.
Censor of the Year - 2018
Through intimidation and silencing of views counter to evolutionary orthodoxy Wikipedia, with its biased non-neutral point of view, erase articles of people related to Intelligent design like Günter Bechly and Walter Bradley and because the site's editors have engaged in a shameless campaign against the scientific theory of Intelligent Design (ID) and its proponents, drawing censure even from Darwinists Wikipedia was awarded with the "Censor of the Year award - 2018" from Discovery Institute.[23]
Pornography
Many public schools overlook Wikipedia in the use of their programs to keep the internet decent for children to look at. Wikipedia, however, provides access to pornographic pictures and videos, and while censorship measures were attempted in the past by Wikipedia staff, the website's users did not comply[24][25]. Wikipedia contains a gap between its staff and users, is largely unregulated and prone to vandalism. Wikipedia is not an appropriate website for children -- or adults.
Interwiki Linking
Wikipedia has been set up for Interwiki linking. A link like [[Wikipedia:Main Page]] will appear like this: Wikipedia:Main Page and redirect you to Wikipedia's Main Page. To create a titled link, use a format like [[Wikipedia:Creationism|Creationism]], which will simply appear as: Creationism.
| prefix | direction | usage example |
| wikipedia | http://wikipedia.org/wiki/ | [[wikipedia:Main Page]]
|
See also
External links
- Wikipedia Main Page
- About Wikipedia
- Notice to Students: Wikipedia No Longer an Acceptable Source by Casey Luskin. Evolution News & Views. Discovery Institute. November 27, 2007
- Secret mailing list rocks Wikipedia by Cade Metz. 4th December 2007
References
- ↑ Software version of Wikipedia
- ↑ Wikipedia:WikiProject Creationism/Article alerts/Archive 1." Wikipedia.
- ↑ Benjakob, O. (2017, November 17). "A Respected Scientist Comes Out Against Evolution – and Loses His Wikipedia Page." Haaretz.
- ↑ Günter Bechly." Wikipedia.
- ↑ "Günter Bechly Wikipedia Page, Web Archive 9/26/2016." Internet Archive.
- ↑ "Russell Humphreys." Wikipedia.
- ↑ "Russell Humphreys Wikipedia Page, Web Archive 8/14/2024." Internet Archive.
- ↑ "Scott Minnich." Wikipedia
- ↑ "Scott Minnich Wikipedia Page, Web Archive 8/23/2021." Internet Archive.
- ↑ "Jack Cuozzo." Wikipedia.
- ↑ "Jack Cuozzo Wikipedia Page, Web Archive 3/30/2011." Internet Archive.
- ↑ "Jan Peczkis." Wikipedia.
- ↑ "Caroline Crocker." Wikipedia.
- ↑ "Caroline Crocker Wikipedia Page, Web Archive 12/28/2013." Internet Archive.
- ↑ "Larry Vardiman." Wikipedia.
- ↑ "Larry Vardiman Wikipedia Page, Web Archive 8/7/2019." Internet Archive.
- ↑ "Jason Lisle." Wikipedia.
- ↑ "John F. Ashton." Wikipedia.
- ↑ "John F. Ashton, User Page." Wikipedia.
- ↑ "Portal:Creationism." Wikipedia.
- ↑ "Portal: Creationism Wikipedia Page, Web Archive 6/9/2019." Wikipedia.
- ↑ "List of Arguments for a Young Earth." Wikipedia.
- ↑ Tyler O'Neil. "Censor of the Year: Wikipedia". PJMedia. https://pjmedia.com/trending/censor-of-the-year-wikipedia/. Retrieved 5 September 2019.
- ↑ Wikipedia abandons efforts to purge porn from online encyclopedia, Fox News
- ↑ Why is Wikipedia still doling out porn?, Fox News
