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Wikipedia Embraces the Dark Side
By Helen Buyniski
 
Wikipedia is the fifth most popular website on the internet. It presents itself as a “people’s encyclopedia,” a neutral utopia in which anyone can edit an article in their area of expertise, adding and correcting facts to enhance the sum total of the world’s knowledge. In theory, it is a miracle of decentralized wisdom in which anyone, anywhere, can edify themselves (for free!) on any topic. But if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Wikipedia defines acceptable content by three main pillars – no original research, neutral point of view, and verifiability. These rules are even more strictly enforced for biographies of living persons, given the legal risks of publishing false and defamatory information. Such rules are necessary, as a truly democratic content platform always risks sinking toward the lowest common denominator. As a result, Wikipedia’s vaunted standards have lent it the sheen of respectability, to the point that most people, looking to be quickly informed on a topic for purposes of conversation or even for journalism, search no further than its Wikipedia page.
These three rules should ensure some degree of quality control. But Wikipedia’s rules are not evenly applied across the site. This is nowhere more apparent than in the area of non-conventional modern and traditional medical systems, including Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM), where a group of so-called Skeptics has flagged hundreds of pages for editorial scrutiny, rewriting biographies and “debunking” non-conventional therapies, then hovering over the pages to prevent other interested parties from altering their content. A concerted effort, in the form of a Wikipedia training course called “Guerilla Skepticism on Wikipedia,” has sent hundreds of Skeptics to Wikipedia to edit articles on topics they believe to be unscientific, whether or not they have any expertise in those areas.
The Skepticism WikiProject purports to be “dedicated to creating, improving and monitoring articles related to scientific skepticism, including articles about claims which are contrary to the current body of scientific evidence. The project ensures that these articles are written from a neutral point of view, and do not put forward invalid claims as truth.”1 Yet the sources they use most often do not follow Wikipedia’s guidelines. Where medical claims are concerned, the Skeptics have relied heavily on Quackwatch, a repository of unsourced allegations founded by Stephen Barrett, a discredited former psychiatrist with a grudge against alternative practitioners. Wikipedia emphasizes the need to include independent sources written from a balanced, disinterested viewpoint rather than the “viewpoint of people with an axe to grind.”2 Self-promotion and personal financial benefit are also cited as abuses to be avoided through reliance on independent sources. This further disqualifies Barrett, who made his name and income as an “expert witness” in lawsuits against alternative practitioners, despite his own lack of expertise in the field, and has been frequently cited by journalists3 and authors4 as the expert he wasn’t.
Let Wikipedia explain why Quackwatch is not a reliable source: “Anyone can create a personal web page or publish their own book, and also claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published media, such as books, patents, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, personal or group blogs (as distinguished from newsblogs, above), content farms, Internet forum postings, and social media postings, are largely not acceptable as sources.” Not clear enough? “Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer.”5 There is no way to argue for the inclusion of Barrett’s screeds in a neutral, reliable article that does not run afoul of Wikipedia’s content policies in multiple ways. This matter has been brought to the attention of Wikipedia administrators repeatedly, yet they refuse to act on it. Why? If Barrett is such a brave truth-teller, surely his information is available on other, more reputable sites.
For an organization that claims to be based on transparency – readers can track article edits in real time and (at least theoretically) have their concerns heard by the people operating Wikipedia—the site’s behavior regarding its Skeptic problem is troublingly opaque. If Wikipedia is supposed to be an egalitarian, democratic “people’s encyclopedia,” where all are empowered to have their voices heard, how has it developed this Orwellian double-standard wherein “some editors are more equal than others”? Their refusal to follow their own standards is intellectually dishonest, disingenuous and exists in utter betrayal of their sta

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