On 17 January 2018 at 13:24 Harry Mitchell <hjmwiki@gmail.com> wrote:

Would it be worth Wikimedia UK's while to put out a blog post talking about quality control processes (ad-hoc as they are) on Wikipedia? Not so much as a direct reply -  both because these articles look like they're just filling empty column inches, and because we obviously can't prove a negative (that "Russian trolls" *aren't* running amok on political articles). Rather as a timely reminder of what Wikipedia is about and how the 'wisdom of the crowd' makes it quite difficult to grossly distort its content. I could say something about what admins do, though there I'm sure there are people who spend more time on politicians' biographies than I do.

As you say, proving the negative is out of reach.

I would say, take the lesson of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well to heart. Along with straightforward lying, selective quotation, guilt by association, and the reporting of rumour as truth, there is a lot of it about these days.

I'm glad to see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie has had some recent attention, while we're on the topic of propaganda techniques everybody should know about.

Charles

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