Wikipedia and Christian Abuse of Wikipedia

Evidence

Evidence that the DWEECs are not ordinary genuine users may be summarized as follows:

• some characteristic behaviors and consequences that you can check for yourself
• some comments by normal Wikipedia editors
• some specific examples of DWEECs in action, in the form of case studies or "Exhibits"

Characteristic Behaviors and Consequences

Some patterns to look out for:

• The discussion pages on Wikipedia reveal a consistent long-term patterns of behaviour by DWEECs as described under DWEEC techniques. Here are a few DWEEC infested pages.
  • CHRISTIANITY: Christianity, Evangelism, Jesus
  • HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY: Jesus Myth, Christian Mythology, Crusades
  • CRITICISMS OF CHRISTIANITY: Criticism of Christianity article.
  • CATHOLIC DOCTRINE: Abortion, Terri Schiavo (Euthenasia)
  • Some minority interests: Hitler and Hitler's Pope
• It is widely accepted, except by DWEECs, that the pages where the DWEECs operate are poor in quality and fail to convey a neutral point of view. Significantly, the Christianity article was regarded as a particularly good example of a quality Wikipedia article just months before the DWEECs arrived. The Terri Schiavo article is an excellent example of a ruined unreadable article.
• DWEEC involvement in numerous edit wars, frequently being accused of bias, leading to accusations of bad faith, disputed flags being posted, and the article page being locked. At any one time you'll find neutrality warning banners on at least half of the pages listed above.
• A history of non-Christians voicing concerns about imbalance and bias. The DWEECs have been variously described by other editors as a clique, group, federation, cozy club, confederation, coterie and cabal. This pattern started early in 2005 - around the time when most of the alleged DWEECs first appeared on the Christianity page. Within a year all long term non-Christian editors had given up any attempt to contribute to that page.
• DWEECs consistently ignore people who point out that they are failing badly to be objective (and the the good advice "If people are saying you're not objective, then there's a good chance that you're not objective.")
• The following point has been put to the DWEECs: Do you agree that if people can determine your personal beliefs from your edits, then your edits are not objective. None has felt able to agree or to provide a reason why they disagree.
• DWEECs have been trying to prevent any sort of questioning about their activities or indeed any consideration of the weakness of the Wikipedia's consensus approach. In particular Musical Linguist and Tom Harrison have mounted a concerted effort to suppress criticism of their activities. So far they have succeded in getting at least eight editors banned and have tried to prohibit links to this site claiming that it reveals personal information, that it constitutes an "attack" on editors and that it is a "spam site"

Observations by other Wikipedia Editors

Notes and quotations from Wikipedia editors:

LucaviX

LucaviX tangles with KMH03, DJ Clayworth, and Str1977

Of course I agree with your initial point, this article does seem written with... Well lets say a Christian slant. Initially the Persecution section, for example, only portrayed Christians as the victims of persecution and completely omitted things like the Crusades.... Actually there's an exchange going on right now about whether or not the clear and obvious bias by some christian denominations against homosexuals and atheist should be noted. r. --
User:LucaviX 15:21, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Shorne

This article is generally good but one-sided.
Shorne 17:08, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Sophia

The following is in response to DWEEC accusations that Sophia was another user masquerading as someone else. In Wiki speak, a sockpuppet. [Anyone not avowing Christian belief who visited the Christianity page at the time was accused without any evidence of being a sockpuppet]

By the way - I'm under the sock puppet cloud too for daring to question consensus - seems the only reason for anyone to disagree with the cozy christian mainstream view is if they're out to fiddle the system.
SOPHIA 00:43, Christianity Talk Page15, February 2006 (UTC)

Maybe I'm not too chuffed to find out that all the while I was editing in good faith there were suspicions about my integrity for the simple reason that I see things differently to you. I'm afraid I have taken this very personally as I've always tried to be moderate and as NPOV as I can - admitting when I've learned lessons and trying to bridge the gap of the more extreme views. Quite frankly I've got better things to do than waste my time with a load of people who can't be upfront and feel the need to check up behind your back if you differ. SOPHIA 01:08, Christianity Talk Page, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Alienus

What's most unfortunate is that this little cabal is not the only successful one operating...

Both Ann and William [William M Connolly] have a habit of simply deleting any criticism from their talk pages, including warning about WP:CIVIL, WP:RS and so on. This sort of behavior is generally rude for a regular user, but entirely unacceptable for an admin. In return for their additional power, they have an additional requirement to be answerable to the rest of the community. Burying dissent is an admission of guilt.

Alienus's Talk Page 00:22, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't reserve my lack of sympathy for SimplePilgrim; I have lots left over for incompetent and biased admins, including Musical Linguist.

Alienus's Talk Page 23:22, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Trollwatcher

AnnH is a zealous Christian who has been tackled by many editors in the past about her POV edits and systematic bias as an Administrator. She does not take well to any mention of her bias and has a record of finding excuses to ban any editor who mentions it. It is no secret that I, Simple Pilgrim, KH30, and Alenius share this view along with KV and pretty much all non-Christians who have tried to edit articles concerned with Christianity, and also whoever runs the Doubleblue website. She had tried to ban all of us and is currently warring with KV and Alienus. She has a long record of banning those who disagree with her unusually strong religious views.
Trollwatcher's Talk Page 12:28, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

King_Vegita

KV had been asked if he agreed that the DWEECs owned the Cristianity page:

Of course they do because they care about it more than the rest of us. Not many, myself included, are willing to spend the time it takes to NPOV the article. ... They constantly throw out non-applicable policy thanks to Musical Linguist who is an administrator. Str will make multiple reverts and never be reported for doing so.

... They wish to define Christianity as merely being the religion of the victors, as what it is now, and not as what it meant in all ages.... Another problem is that they don't truely work by consensus, or arguments of NPOV.... it truely is a democracy of a sort....... or at least while they have more members. The effort for NPOV tends to be an attempt for a balance between the versions of Str1977 and Tom Harrison, not the full spectrum.

I have seen some pretty crazy actions...... such as Musical Linguist reverting my [citation needed] tags and roundabout suggesting that my adding them (in the face of four citations, I believe all of them dealing with numbers) as being vandalism. ...

Of course, it seems that they do think that consensus is more important than NPOV, and that means their majority and ability to pull in a meatpuppet when necessary (as I've seen administrators come in and revert without discussion to support the Christian view) whenever...... but the second someone does it for the other side, they don't bother to even get all the evidence they could easily get before calling it a sockpuppet and blocking for a violation of the 3RR. Musical Linguist pretty much refused to bother getting the Usercheck done, despite it being at her fingertips...

KV 12:01, 3 April 2006 (UTC) from Trollwatcher's talk page

Simple_Pilgrim

It is difficult to know whether KMH03, Musical Linguist, Tom Harrison and the rest of them are deliberately vandalising Wikipedia or whether their biases are so strong that they simply can't recognise a NPOV [Neutral Point of View] when they see it, at least in relation to any topic with a religious connection.

Simple Pilgrim April 2006 [Wikipedia Page Deleted]

HushThis (on Wikipedia Review pages

With reference to the banning of links to this site by Wikipeda

Attempts to silence criticism is reaching near-Stalinist proportions at our little Ann Randyian encyclopedia these days. It's Animal Farm all over again.

HushThis on Wikipedia Review pages, Thu 20th April 2006, 2:35pm

Donny (on Wikipedia Review pages)

When contributors to the Wikipedia Review inquired into why wikipedia editor Essjay had added this site to the Wikipedia list of spam websites, he threatened to prohibit links from Wikipedia to the Wikipedia Review website too unless they removed their links to this site. Donny's response was robust:

Right, you're going to try to force the Wikipedia Review to enter your brainwashed, whitewashed little world by this act of harassment. Unfortunately the bullshit you can pull on Wikipedia won't work anywhere else, and the endless, pathetic abuse by Wikipedians of the spam blacklist only makes them look worse and worse. Get this: all of it, accusing people of being vandals, trolls, POV, putting them on your little blacklists, blah, blah, blah, all the dirty tricks you can pull on Wikipedia just don't work anywhere else. So, you'll have to grow up and start behaving like an adult, and stop lying and manipulating.

Donny on Wikipedia Review pages, Thu 20th April 2006, 2:35pm

Amorrow (on Wikipedia Review pages)

Referring to Musical Linguist (AnnH) and her habit of "disappearing" any criticism:

..she is forcing her will and her worldview upon others via the destruction of information (in the grand tradition of the Roman Catholic Church that she and I are both members of) and the silencing of other voices.
Amorrow on Wikipedia Review pages, 7th May 2006, 10:47pm

Wikipedia now has over on millions articles and over 800 admins. When someone like Ann comes along and is such a problem, you should advise HER to find other articles to work on, find other users to revert and block and let the rest of the adminship address her "enemies" and let her pet articles take care of themselves. If Ann could be held accountable for her problematic behaviors, even she could be made to see the Wisdom of this adivce.
Amorrow on Wikipedia Review pages, 7th May 2006, 11:28pm

Sparky

Christian Abuse of Wikipedia seems to be something we do see ....

Sparky 20:36, 13 May 2006 on his talk history page.

Sparky & Giovanni33

I ... am concerned about a POV pro-Christian bias I see. Especially in Jewish topics. -
Sparky 03:58, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

... I agree about the pro-Christian bias, of course---as I've seen it myself ... systematic bias of groups with the same POV dominating an article to push a POV is something that should be talked about provided its done in a civil and without any personal attack, nor against any rules or guildlines. Otherwise, it seems the real purpose is simply to silence debate of the problem, and bury the issue. Can you review the site and see if it is ok, now?
Giovanni33 06:07, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Sparky's talk history page 16 May 2006 (UTC)

67.177.36.200

A few basic points on neutrality
Wikipedia is meant to be neutral. People interested in an article are generally those supportive of it, and therefore may not have a neutral point of view, as the user below makes clear in his post "Lack of neutrality"

I'm finding it a bit tedious that this page is being continually vandalised by fundamentalist Christians who want to pretend that there are no criticisms of Christianity by burying everything away in the "Links" section.

If you can have a huge section about persecution of Christians (and how often are Christians persecuted in contemporary society?), then you also need a section on Criticism of Christianity. To remove this section is an act of intellectual vandalism.

It only goes to prove what some of the critics of Christianity say that it is trying to actively suppress truth by ignoring and suppressing the reality of criticism.

You can argue against criticism but you can't pretend it is not an important part of an article on this subject.

[some suggestions for mterial for inclusion in criticisms of Christianity, followed by the following quote of another unnamed editor:]

Lack of neutrality
This section doesn't seem to be as neutral as the wikipedia articles I'm used to. It looks to me as if there is so much effort being put into satisfying the Christian editors that there's a sense of taboo in mentioning information contradictory or offensive to Christians. Almost all of the historical information is presented as fact, and it feels like a zealous Christian is telling me about his religion whilst trying as hard as he can to restrain his bias.

[ pro-Christian response about the Holy Ghost]

This is what I'm talking about. This sounds like a zealous Christian having an orgasm while preaching what he perceives as the divine knowledge that will hopefully end up saving some "lost-soul" who happens to be reading. There are way too many quotes from the bible here. The reader just wants information on what Christians believe. If he wanted information like this, he'd be reading the bible. A simple description of what they believe will suffice....

There should also be a whole section devoted to criticism. There is simply not enough of it, and the criticism that does exist is extremely mild.

Sorry for the long post, but I hope it improves an already great website.--
67.177.36.200 19:31, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Exhibit 1,

Extract from an Administrator's Talk Page.

April 2006. Key points of interest:

• Several people agree that the a group of Christians are acting in concert to enforce their personal views.
• Musical Linguist, Jayjg, Jakew identified as DWEECs or DWEEC sympathizers implicated in manipulation, including a false accusation
• An Administrator criticises Musical Linguist for incompetence and bias

Exhibit 2,

Some Examples from the Terri Schiavo Article.

April 2006. Key points of interest:

• An article completely ruined by AnnH, Str1977 and their fellow Roman Catholics for doctrinaire religious reasons - the ultimate Asymetric Controvery.
• Examples of how to enforce a religious bias - AnnH's claim about it being unacceptable to quote a gravestone on the grounds that it represents a POV is possibly the best example yet of DWEEC manipulation.
• The article currently (Q1 2006) has some 70 notes and references. This raises the question as why the editors who own this page are so unwilling to provide references where they are really needed (eg 3 for the whole of the article on Christianity).

Exhibit 3,

The KMH03 Easter Affair.

May 2006. Key points of interest:

• DWEEC critics silenced unfairly
• Serious abuse by DWEEC Administrators Musical Linguist and Tom Harrison, assisted by Essjay - missusing their Administrator privileges.
• Systemic flaws in Wikipedia processes around accountability