Paid anti-gun lobbyists engaged in anti-gun edit war on Wikipedia (allegedly).
I’m saying “allegedly” because these folks probably have an army of lawyers and I’m just stating opinion here, reporting what others on Wikipedia have said.
There are a few people on Wikipedia who have been making edits to gun-rights articles, (allegedly) removing even encyclopedic wording that shows open carry, CCWs and gun ownership in a positive light.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Open_carry#Massive_Conflict_of_Interest_in_Editing
Do the other editors realize that ForwardThinkers is the NEW EDITING NAME of a full-time paid lobbyist for The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV)–a gun control group? In fact, “CSGV “was his old editing sign-in name. Talk about conflict of interest! ForwardThinkers has been repeatedly warned in the past not to make substantive edits to gun rights pages by other editors and admins, yet he persists in doing so. This sort of meddling by paid lobbyists and their cronies is POISONING wikipedia, and compromising its neutrality.
Here’s where ForwardThinkers admits he’s “the Director of Communications” for anti-gun rights group the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence:
Here’s an example of an edit this user, ForwardThinkers, made:
ForwardThinkers stripped most of the useful and true information from the article on Concealed Carry. (It was later reverted by more neutral and senior editors.)
If you look at the edit history of this user,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Forward_Thinkers
they pretty much sit around all day, every day, making edits on Wikipedia, and these edits are later reverted by other editors. Me thinks they might be paid to do this.
Also, this user, PeaceLoveHarmony, is “engaged in an edit” war, according to more senior Wikipedia editors, and has been threatened with getting kicked off the site for editing gun-rights articles in a negative light.
This user: SaltyBoatr
Engages in a lot of edits of RKBA articles, including adding a “connection” between Open Carry and “extremist groups” here:
But that user is unlikely to get spanked, he abides by the rules of Wikipedia, and also edits non-RKBA articles, stuff on sports, etc. That goes a long way on Wikipedia for not seeming “spammy” or “sockpuppty.” In fact, he’s been awarded a “BarnStar” (Wikipedia award for outstanding service.)
This non-spammy user GB fan, actually removed the link to OpenCarry.org link on the Open Carry article on Wikipedia, but it was simply a “notability challenge”, a common and needed filtering technique on Wikipedia. Several users challenged the challenge, here,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Open_carry#Removal_of_OpenCarry.org_link
and the link was returned to the site.
ACTION?
I’m only pointing this out. I’m not asking people to challenge this on Wikipedia, unless they are long-time Wikipedia users with many useful edits, and who understand the way Wikipedia works. Any new user who jumps in and starts making feisty edits will usually have their edits deleted. There’s a protocol, and it has to be followed. And old users have more sway than new users, especially old users with many useful edits, with attribution, on a number of topics.
I’d say if there are any long-time Wikipedia users with many useful edits, and who understand the way Wikipedia works, they keep an eye on the anti-gun editors and challenge edits, with verification, and with explanation on the talk page for the article.
– Michael W. Dean
This isn’t a shocker. The biggest drawback to Wikipedia is people who make partisan edits to information. Luckily, Wikipedia does have challanges like the ability to challange the neutrality of the article. One approach people can use is not taking uncited info as truth.
The semi-famous (and a rock star in the historic computer BBS world) Jason Scott, was a massive and excellent contributor to Wikipedia early on. He finally got frustrated with it and gave up.
He wrote this excellent essay “The Great Failure of Wikipedia”:
http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/808
This paragraph from the essay sums it up well:
“This is what the inherent failure of wikipedia is. It’s that there’s a small set of content generators, a massive amount of wonks and twiddlers, and then a heaping amount of procedural whackjobs. And the mass of twiddlers and procedural whackjobs means that the content generators stop being so and have to become content defenders. Woe be that your take on things is off from the majority. Even if you can prove something, you’re now in the situation that anybody can change it. And while that’s all great in a happy-go-lucky flower shower sort of way, it’s when you realize that the people who are going to change it could have absolutely no experience with the subject whatsoever, then you see where we are.”
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MWD
Nice one, Michael. The same thing happened with the climate change subject. That guy got caught and ousted as well. But not until after years of acting as super-editor with a huge amount of power to make changes.
SaltyBoatr has long been pushing his anti-gun agenda on Wikipedia. He did this initially under his old user name of BruceHallman dating back about 5 years on Wikipedia, but he changed his nom de guerre upon receiving death threats. He still uses that name at times for sailboat article editing. He also uses several other names on Wikipedia, too, changing from user name to user name depending on topic. He lives in Pacifica, CA and pushes a decidely leftwing agenda on all articles. I no longer edit on Wikipedia largely because of Bruce. As for the CSGV VP, yes, he did get nailed initially upon showing up on Wikipedia. But , the admins in league with him simply let him change his name and continue pushing the admin-favored CSGV agenda. He often works at his CSGV office, while doing edits on Wikipedia, with his new ForwardThinkers user name. The IP addresses, when traced, proved it. My blood pressure has gone back to normal, by simply not fighting the constant left wing agenda edits and by simply giving up on Wikipedia.
Good to know the details and history, Miguel. Thank you!
MWD
Figures he lives in Pacifica, CA.
As I recall from my time in the Bay Area, Pacifica is where people live who find San Francisco to be too right wing.
MWD