Original Research versus Point of View, was Re: [WikiEN-l] The3RR policy sho

[slimvirgin at gmail.com]

Some of the LaRouche insertions are transparent rubbish, Tony, but
some not. I only cited the Star Wars example because it was an obvious
one. Less obvious examples of propaganda are: The LaRouche movement
claims the only reason LaRouche has a bad name is that a series of
meetings took place in the 80s between intelligence officers and
journalists in order to plan a "Get LaRouche" black operation, which
resulted in a barrage of negative media reports about him. There's no
evidence other than LaRouche claims that this campaign existed. The
LaRouche editors tried to edit this information into the LaRouche
articles. Of course, they are allowed to do that because the pages are
about LaRouche and his beliefs, but they expanded on it and inserted
details that were absurd and links which seemed to verify it. A group
of editors opposed them, so the LaRouche editors created a new page
about these meetings and inserted the information there instead, and
linked to it from the LaRouche page.

Another tactic that LaRouche has is to sign up respectable people to
be officers or members of his organization. Why these people agree to
become involved is beyond me, but some do. The LaRouche editors then
create Wikipedia pages about these people, who would otherwise not be
written about, extol their virtues, and link to them from the LaRouche
pages, thereby creating the impression to the casual, non-LaRouche
expert that "Hey, this LaRouche guy can't be all bad. Look at how nice
some of his officers are."

The only reason this stuff hasn't spread like wildfire throughout
Wikipedia is because a number of editors have opposed them since they
first started last May (not always the same group of editors, because
editors get worn out and give up) and so the material is reasonably
contained. But it's an exhausting job. If you want to join in, you are
more than welcome, because one or two of us could do with a break.

Slim


On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 19:59:47 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway
<minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> So what?  It's transparent rubbish. <snip> Let them quote their own sources forever.  The minute they pretend an external source endorses this nonsense, politely correct the edit.  You could manage this group of pages with one eye shut.