The Battle for the Wiki

The Wikipedia is an online user-created encylopedia where ideological and factional debates fight for the heart and soul of the content.

Don’t like the content? Dispute it. And the denziens of judgement will push it through a path toward alteration.

Something I posted online became the basis for an entry. And, as you can see, the dispute over whether to keep it online or dump it raged on for a while: the sides were “Yes, barely. Keep.” to “Sheer Idiocy. DUMP!”

I notice, from bloglines, that the two sides over the facts and basic tenor for the entry on Lyndon LaRouche are currently being disputed. Thus, we find revision after revision after revision, and a wikipedia entry in complete limbo.

I can’t say that I’m terribly interested in the content, but I find the process a little fascinating. Just try to give a “neutral point of view” on a political cult figure / truth-teller. And try to convince two sides of the correct “facts” that matter and / or actually exist.

You could pare it down to its most noncontroversial elements. But, the LaRouche Youth Squad would demand nothing short of a glorified portrait. (And if you wish to parallel it to something more understandable, replace “LaRouche” with “Reagan” and the fight to get something named after Reagan in every county in America.) Vice-versa too, I suppose.

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