A look at a dispute among Wikipedia administrators and some on the Wikimedia Foundation board after a prolific, long-serving administrator was banned for a year
The once-derided open-source encyclopedia is the closest thing the internet has to an oasis of truth. Tweets: @zoeblade , @redlightvoices , @petersuber , @bernstein , @shinyemptyhead , @buzzfeednews , @mattzeitlin , @jeffgiesea , @bernstein , @bernstein , and @wikielite Tweets: Zo Blade / @zoeblade : Apparently the latest Wikipedia drama is that a prolific editor who was also very rude to people was told to be nice, he refused, and he got temporarily banned. https://twitter.com/... Flavia Dzodan / @redlightvoices : I don't really like the angle of this piece (too much “both side-ism” for my taste) but still... The Culture War Has Finally Come For Wikipedia (See what I mean? it's not a “culture war” when white men are hounding everyone who isn't one) https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ... Peter Suber / @petersuber : .@jimmy_wales, on target: “There are users in the [@Wikipedia] community who have a reputation for creating good content, and for being incredibly toxic personalities....Most of these editors actually cost us more than they're actually worth.” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ... Joe Bernstein / @bernstein : Unlike Twitter and YouTube, Wikipedia has largely kept its culture war hidden. Is that all about to change - and what does that mean for the last best hope for facts on the internet? My new feature https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ... Ciaran Conliffe / @shinyemptyhead : “Wikipedia has been a safe haven from the online culture wars” is such a flat-out ridiculous statement to anyone who has ever looked at the Talk tab for a controversial page. Wikipedia has been the battleground for multiple online culture wars ever since its creation. https://twitter.com/... @buzzfeednews : If the internet has largely been lost to the culture war engulfing much of the Western world, Wikipedia has proven to be an unlikely Switzerland. That era might now be over. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ... Matthew Zeitlin / @mattzeitlin : “An argument rages that threatens to drag [Wikipedia] into the muck with the other major social platforms. And it began, as these fights so often do, with something as seemingly simple as a user ban.” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ... Jeff Giesea / @jeffgiesea : Interesting question raised by Wikipedia drama: Does “no cabal... no elites... no hierarchy” allow for a sustainable mode of governance? https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ... Joe Bernstein / @bernstein : Wikipedia, once derided, is the closest thing the internet has to an oasis of truth. Now a user ban has exposed the deep rifts between Wikipedia's libertarian origins and its egalitarian aspirations, and threatened that stability. My new feature: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ... Joe Bernstein / @bernstein : I know 3000 words about Wikipedia procedure seems NOT WORTH YOUR TIME but my story is about the VERY CONSEQUENTIAL FIGHT for the FUTURE OF THE ONE SITE WE ALL AGREE ON and the SILICON VALLEY WAR OF LIBERTARIANISM V. EGALITARIANISM https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ... @wikielite : @WikiWomenInRed https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ... (The Culture War Has Finally Come For Wikipedia - Buzzfeed) “A picture has emerged over the past half decade of a platform controlled by a small group of white men that is unwelcoming, if not hostile, to newcomers and women.”