User:BenMcLean
Wikipedia is a great source for finding out anything related to fantasy. Like if you want to know how a lightsaber works or the difference between dilithium crystals and trilithium crystals, Wikipedia is extremely reliable and full featured.
The only problem is that it's usually wrong about anything involving the real world. This is because it's mission is fundamentally self-contradictory. Wikipedia's mission is to
1. provide a neutral point of view
and
2. rely exclusively on reliable sources.
These two goals are mutually exclusive, because sources considered reliable in mainstream press and scholarship do not in fact provide a sociopolitically neutral point of view. Part of the problem is with Wikipedia's reliance on academic perspectives, which have extreme levels of partisan political and cultural bias However, Wikipedia often goes beyond the level of bias normally present in academic research by compiling all of the most radical statements in the research from multiple sources to create a combined narrative that is, all together, far more politically radical than would have been accepted through peer review in academia if it was all put together in the same individual source. No one can dispute this combined narrative because the individual sources really do say what they individually say. Wikipedia is thus an indicator of the most radical Leftist edge of what academia and media sources are saying, not a neutral sampling of them. Wikipedia thus adds an extra layer of sociopoiltical bias on top of the bias already existing in the sources.
When covering the topic requires the article to quote wrongthinkers by absolute necessity, such quotes will be sandwiched between refutations both before and after, just to ensure that no one might read what the wrongthinker said and be convinced. Goodthinkers do not get sandwiched.
On top of this, the radical Leftists who run Wikipedia make up arbitrary rules to disqualify massive numbers of people who would outvote them on any controversial issue. They have had to make up so many of these that there is a page dedicated to topics with these special arbitrary rules. You will find an endorsement of a Left-of-center position either explicitly or implicitly is being promoted by Wikipedia and enforced with arbitrary rule changes on every single one of those topics. Special arbitrary rules on Wikipedia have never, ever, defended anyone or anything against the far Left. The regular rules sometimes stop vandalism of pages about conservatives, but these special arbitrary rules always side with the Left and never with the Right AFAIK. The universal nature of this claim of mine could be refuted by even one counter-example, but even then, it would still be true for the overwhelming majority of cases even if not in every single case. I have never heard of such a counter-example, however. So far as I have ever heard, this applies to every single case without exception.
Another great example of what I am talking about is the page of Sarah Jeong in August 2018. She's made extreme racist comments on social media, this fact is widely reported in the mainstream media, giving plenty of reliable sources, and Wikipedia protects the page to prevent anyone from citing mainstream sources on a mainstream press story. Why? Because politics. The plan there is to tie the page up for at least long enough for the press storm to blow over, so that Wikipedia acknowledging the story doesn't help the story spread or increase it's PageRank during the vital hours that it's fresh news. You'll find them handling scandals of famous right wing individuals in a completely different way, immediately including any criticism from the press to help blow up the story as much as possible as early as possible.
There are many other problems with Wikipedia which has led me to the conclusion that Wikipedia is a fundamentally bad idea. Trying to contribute, even on innocuous topics, is indirectly helping spread the propaganda. Trying to fix the real problems is a pointless exercise: the rules will be selectively enforced or arbitrarily changed to make sure that those on the wrong end of the political spectrum will not be able to affect Wikipedia and The Narrative will be preserved.
I now regret having written for Wikipedia in the past and wish my past contributions on obscure topics that still appear on the site could be removed, just so I'm not helping the propagandists.
So I am in general not going to be bothering with Wikiepdia much. I'll occasionally try making one edit, just to see if it's unopposed but if it is opposed, there is no point. You will get out-lawyered every time.