So I had heard that the Barak Obama wikipedia entry had a lot of “edit warring” going on where people were rapidly adding and removing facts and information. So I went to investigate myself. Sure enough, if you look in the old revisions for the page, you can find this old revision that has a section labeled “Controversy”. The only thing in this section is three links to men that have had some sort of controversial relationship with Obama in his past (the section is at the bottom of the article, above the Notes section). The three men mentioned are Bill Ayers, Reverend Wright, and Tony Rezko. However, if you look at The most current version of the article (I linked it’s “oldid” revision because the page might change yet again by the time you read this), this “Controversy” section has been completely removed. In addition, the page has been locked for editing because of all the controversy.Politics aside, I don’t think anybody will dispute that these three men knew Obama and had some sort of relationship with him. And it’s obvious that these relationships are controversial, by definition. You may have your own opinion about what these men mean to Obama, and what kind of man he is having dealt with them in the past. That is NOT what I am concerned about here. I just think it shows how innacurate Wikipedia can become when simple facts like the above (Obama’s relationship with these men has been controversial) cannot stand in the article due to people’s political beliefs and their ability to edit Wikipedia to match their political agenda.
Lost a lot of respect for Wikipedia
- Post author:yacoubean
- Post published:March 13, 2009
- Post category:Uncategorized