At a minimum, Dr. Keeler could have learned how to correctly link diffs and old versions of pages on Wikipedia - most of the "citation" links in their article are completely malformed, leading to a serious verifiability problem that should be as equally unacceptable in a journal article as it is on Wikipedia. I also note that Dr. Keeler's proposed remedy—that the WMF convene a panel of academic experts to supervise relevant pages—is the same as Grabowski & Klein's, and equally unworkable for practical and technical reasons. I don't mind outsiders critiquing Wikipedia, but they should do so from a place of knowledge, which includes knowing what kinds of fixes are actually within the realm of possibility. —Ganesha811 (talk) 13:22, 8 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'll defend Dr. Keeler on the first point. My understanding is that that's an issue with T&F. Copy-pasting the displayed text into the URL bar, rather than clicking the link, ought to work, I think? -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe) 17:59, 8 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've been a member of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America since 2006, and so am somewhat familiar with most of the Wikipedians mentioned in the above letter. Like many other people in the southeastern U.S., a family tradition claims that my great-great-great-great-grandmother was at least part-Native American, but my other 63 ancestors of that generation were not, and I do not feel any connection to any indigenous group. I concentrate on pre-20th century Native American history, and rarely edit around current Native American topics. I do sometimes edit articles about unrecognized tribes and have removed some unsourced claims concerning various branches of the Sapony people, sometimes crossing paths with Yuchitown. I defer to his opinions on such claims (he has found sources to support some claims I have questioned). He edits prolifically in the area of tribes which are not recognized by the Federal government nor by any state government, and I think he does so with a very neutral point of view that always improves the encyclopedia. I think the claim that having "Yuchi" as part of his user name disqualifies him from editing about the Sapony is dreadfully wrong, and, at the least, falls under "casting aspersions". - Donald Albury14:54, 8 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think anyone disagrees with that, really, since the editor who made a claim along those lines (when opening the linked-to "Spam, Vandalism and Bullying By Native Tribes" ANI) earned a WP:BOOMERANG block over the edit-warring and other misconduct that came to light during administrators' evaluation of that report. (Which, as Tamzin describes, then became an indefinite block due to their conduct in the ANI discussion.) FeRDNYC (talk) 06:18, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent work, Tamzin. I had had my fingers crossed that Keeler's paper would not be uncritically summarized in the Signpost as "research". It's great that the Signpost editors chose not to do that, and seeing your thorough critique here makes my day. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 23:44, 8 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Tamzin: Overall, I think this is a very good letter. But I must take issue with the first example you give of CorbieVreccan's promotion of their personal agenda: they promoted an obscure religious movement that they and Mark are prominent figures in, and advocated against the legitimacy of rival pagan movements. This betrays prejudice against CV's religion for being non-mainstream ("obscure"), which is not the same thing as not being notable by Wikipedia's standards (written about at length in reliable sources); the deletion discussion to which you linked was closed as "merge" not "delete" after I folded my cards there (here is the version after my last edit) and the key issue was self-published sources and CV's being the primary author of the main self-published source, which is to say, self-promotion not religious promotion. It's invidious prejudice to judge people badly for their religion, and it's also unconscious bias; I am unsure of the basis of your claim that CV sought to promote Celtic reconstructionism at the expense of other forms of neopaganism (presumably neo-Druidism and other forms of Celtic neopaganism?) but that implies that neopaganism as such is not unworthy of respect. In my opinion, that small part of your letter is both inaccurate and unworthy. Yngvadottir (talk) 01:55, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Yngvadottir: Please don't think that my characterization of CR reflects any personal bias against the religious tradition. I said that it is obscure because it is obscure. And I mentioned this because it is relevant to Corbie's long-term promotion of it, which inflated its significance (and yes, Corbie's own significance, but the two went hand in hand). This is a criticism of Corbie's actions, not of anything about what Celtic reconstructionists believe. I would say just the same about someone who similarly promoted an obscure Jewish movement.As to promoting it at the expense of other movements, I was thinking primarily of their comments about the Witchcraft article, where Corbie often spoke about non-reconstructionist pagan movements in a way that promoted reconstructionism as a more valid system of beliefs. Or at least that's my reading. You are of course welcome to disagree, and either way, thank you for your thoughts. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe) 02:23, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This should come as a surprise to no one. For those who don't remember, two academics released a similar paper last year about antisemitism in Poland. Like this one, it weighed in on a Wikipedia dispute, making accusations against several editors by name, to the effect of manipulating on-site activity. In most circumstances, this would be considered harmful on par with what you'd see in one of the "bad sites". The difference here is that those responsible had a platform that allowed them to publish to a wider audience. For whatever reason, the Arbitration Committee and the community accepted this off-site manipulation, and the effort to influence the topic proved successful. I warned the community twice about the potential threat of other off-site actors using publications to manipulate Wikipedia, but it fell on deaf ears. It has now happened again. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:15, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Out of curiosity, have there been any other instances of academic publications (or similar) making accusations against editors by name, besides this one and the one about antisemitism last year? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:05, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For whatever reason, the Arbitration Committee and the community accepted this off-site manipulation... But that's not really true, @Thebiguglyalien. The paper which led to the Arbitration Committee proposing and accepting the WP:HJP case was only one of the last four "big event" climaxes in a series of decade spanning disputes. The other three were the 2021 Eostrix RfA, the 2021-22 concentration camp ARC, and the 2022 T&S report. For better or for worse, Arbcom prevented subsequent "big events" by opening the case-- whether that would've been some offwiki craziness, or something that would've looked like Fram 1.5 or 2.0. A case was inevitable-- and it's kind of a comedic, dramatic irony that someone would think otherwise-- the kind you'd see in an allegorical Young Adult novel where the main characters need to deal with "bad optics" because they can't tell the rest of the world about some "secret things" for "the greater good". And even then, when concluding the case, the researchers behind the paper still weren't really happy with the result.
So damn we really got the short end of the stick! It sucks, but at the end of the day that's just how it is sometimes. I didn't run for Arbcom because I knew things would be easy, or that Wikipedia has no issues. That's why I think, counter to some of what you say, that academic coverage of the site is a good thing and not the real "misinformation enemy", even if some of the recent stuff has been of inconsistent quality. This site still has a lot of issues in various pockets, and having outside critique and review of them is good. Of course, editors know the site better than most researchers, so we need to keep a critical eye towards coverage as well. I think a bigger problem is the sort of coordinated spam and POV pushing operations, which we are increasingly seeing more of but are of a lower profile... those'll become a more defining issue to combat in this era of Wikipedia. I don't mean to call you out in particular-- I just wanted to put out a rebuttal to the whole "Arbcom was tricked into HJP" narrative, because I know a (small) amount of people might still believe it. Usually I just say nothing when I see something that isn't the whole story, but I think it's important to talk about in terms of the site's history, and because I think naturally critical, newer editors-- such as yourself, Alien-- are going to be the group that dismantles narratives and pushes back against the new spammers and POV pushers. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk)19:35, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I totally agree, the battleground problems were an issue and did warrant a case. There are probably a few other topics that will justifiably get similar cases in the next few years, for whatever catalyst triggers it, and I'll be glad when they do. I assume you as an arb have a better idea of how close we are to this than I do. My grievance is specifically with Finding of Fact #9 and the general lack of response to the fact that, as I see it, people wanted to engage in a Wikipedia dispute and chose to do this by publishing a hit piece against several editors by name. We take canvassing and supervotes seriously, but those are minuscule compared to the type of influence that papers like this exert over a dispute, let alone the chilling effect it has on named editors. If I had access to some platform or audience and used it to shame editors I disagreed with, I'd probably get banned, and rightfully so. But the authors in these cases are forgiven because of their careers. My hope is that, while understanding there are positives to external analysis, these problems will be more readily acknowledged. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:07, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with this ☝🏽 I would have liked to see FoF 9 more along the lines of Revealing personal information of pseudonymous editors in an academic paper is not technically a breach of Wikipedia behavioural policy, and admonishment of outside parties is beyond ArbCom's remit, but it was unnecessary and shitty of the authors to do that. (Aware that one of the authors did have an infrequently used account here.) Folly Mox (talk) 23:41, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Folly Mox, @Thebiguglyalien; Speaking on my view on the matter, Arbcom was always in a rock and a hard place when it came to that particular aspect of the case. That's part of why there was a remedy asking for a White Paper for best research practices on Wikipedia to be formulated by the WMF (still in progress but expected to be finished soon, which unfortunately has led to it also kind of forgotten about in the public view despite being a key part of the case), and not just because of the outing aspect. Like I said in my vote there, I think Wikipedia is very much in The Real World and that this sort of research is only going to become more common. Alien, you have a point about the "chilling effect", but you've also got to turn it around-- we wouldn't want the case to also have a large chilling effect on academics and research efforts. It's like balancing two knife blades on your fingertips, you know? It kind of relates to your point about "a few other topics", Alien-- unless there's some T&S business, I don't see Arbcom opening a case like this in the foreseeable, but there's surely plenty of other areas that neither of us are aware of where we have some messed up coverage-- whether that's on enwiki or elsewhere-- and it's good to have an outside view highlighting and critiquing that. If what I'm saying makes sense... Moneytrees🏝️(Talk)04:02, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Another quick question & comment: Tamzin, did you send this letter to the journal in question and did they decline to publish your response? (For anyone who cares, since some above have already drawn pararells to G&K article to which I have written a response as well - I did send my responce (a formatted version of this) to that journal, and it was declined with the comment "our journal exclusively publishes peer-reviewed articles... unfortunately, due to our current constraints, we are unable to subject your submission to our anonymous peer-review process". I received no responses to my subsequent inquiries.). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here02:23, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I used T&F's correction request form to send a link to the letter in my userspace, plus the omitted private evidence. As of 23:51 UTC on Thursday, it is being considered by the production team. I have no idea whether that means it's being hotly debated among all the editors or whether I'll get a form-letter rejection. Guess we'll see. :) -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe) 02:32, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@XOR'easter and I had similar issues getting a response (to an email we sent) from the publisher of a different clueless paper misrepresenting Wikipedia policies. Journals just do not seem interested in correcting errors--even egregious errors in analysis that lead the authors to a conclusion exactly opposite to what their data say-- when it comes to how this community works. PubPeer hasn't been much better; I think between the two of us we had to submit our comments like 8 times before the moderators let them stay, even though in my experience the same level of detail pointing out errors in molecular biology papers gets through with no delay. JoelleJay (talk) 07:07, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think the problem that PubPeer had with my first attempt at submitting a comment was that my comment explicitly advocated for the paper to be retracted. XOR'easter (talk) 23:52, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't advocate retraction in my comments, though. I think my issue was implying intentional deception for some of the problems--even though my language was no more accusatory than that of someone pointing out an image duplication, moderators might have thought what I was saying was simply an interpretation rather than clear-cut. JoelleJay (talk) 02:37, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I do not wish to delegitimize the core message of Dr. Keeler's piece: And yet The Signpost isn't reporting on this core message, but has instead published this 'death by a thousand (proverbially speaking) cuts'-esque debunking that I can't help but suspect will for many readers amount to a delegitimization of the core message: In its current form, Wikipedia is hostile to Indigenous peoples. Its long-time editors, administrators, policies, and structure, refuse, are not equipped, or are not designed to make the adjustments necessary for meaningful change to occur (page 15 of "Wikipedia's Indian Problem"). It's a missed opportunity that The Signpost didn't emphasize this larger interpretive message and instead published this down-the-line debunking that emphasizes the cuts over the core, that will for some readers reinforce Wikipedia's culture of hostility to scholars and distrust of reliable academic sources.For instance, Gwillhickers has responded to the article with a horrific comment about, among other things, how all civil liberties are thanks to settlers and how Indigenous people who resisted colonization were genocidal. A quote like that would have made for a much more concrete example of racism and colonialism on Wikipedia: That diff appears to be from 17:48, on May 27, 2024. Keeler's article "Wikipedia's Indian Problem" was submitted to Settler Colonial Studies on November 22, 2023 and was published online on May 24, 2024. How could Keeler have included in his article a quote that postdated its submission and publication? In any case, I would argue we need more help seeing what isn't obvious than what is obvious. We're well served when scholars point out the subtler, structural biases and prejudices that aren't nearly as obvious as overt screeds that 'American Indians were actually the genocidal ones' (to paraphrase the diff from Gwillhickers), which—I hope, at least—we can more readily recognize as colonialist. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 05:15, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Hydrangeans: My point about the quote from Gwillhickers is in the context of the preceding sentences: This [context about Corbie] is the kind of added depth that Dr. Keeler's article could have had if he had interviewed a more diverse group of editors. ... He could have also strengthened his own arguments about racism. Obviously he couldn't have cited a response to his own article, but if he had interviewed Gwillhickers, he could have had access to similar comments. Whether the inclusion of remarks like that would have strengthened or weakened his case is, I guess, in the eye of the beholder. I do think that the existing quotes he has from Gwillhickers are pretty darn bad as it is.I do share your sadness that likely some people will be unable to distinguish between "article contained factual errors and an undisclosed conflict of interest" and "article's conclusion was wrong". But I think that if scholars want to not run into that problem, the solution is to avoid factual errors and disclose their conflicts of interest. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe) 05:54, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This opinion piece might have read a bit sadder about that matter if more had been done to highlight the core message and emphasize its importance to the audience in the broad strokes and not solely in specific cases. Instead the editors of The Signpost seem to prioritize circling wagons against perceived threats to institutional reputation lest anyone walk away with the sense that Wikipedia's administrative systems have structural biases that favor settler POVs and settler-constructed sensibilities. Administrators lacking any personally held acrimony is better than administrators personally holding acrimony, but it's no antidote for systemic pressures and structural exclusions. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 18:55, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hydrangeans The core message here is that some editors wish to abuse Wikipedia to right great wrongs, they were appropriately called out, and a fringe academic (who was allegedly involved in the dispute) got all pissy about it. The solution is that editors who believe they're fighting some righteous crusade against imaginary "settler-constructed sensibilities" need to be removed from the project so the rest of us can actually build an encyclopedia. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 19:00, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Thebiguglyalien: I don't think that's really accurate, and actually perpetuates the false narrative that Keeler puts forward about Corbie and Mark. They weren't called out for being on a crusade to right wrongs against Indigenous people. The actual substance of their meatpuppetry was largely tangential to my AN filing and the subsequent ArbCom case, and the community's outcry about their misconduct should not be taken as any sort of statement about the underlying content questions, any more than banning Icewhiz meant the community was pro–Holocaust denial. And while I'm not here to take sides on the various content issues, I will say that at a minimum, anyone who thinks that "the Indians were the real genociders" (paraphrase) should not be editing about Indigenous topics—on competence grounds if nothing else. That's not simply wrong; it's a mockery of basically all contemporary scholarship on the topic. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe) 20:17, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Tamzin, I didn't closely watch the situation with Corbie and Mark, and if it looks like I'm describing all mentioned editors in this light, that's my mistake. My experience in this is limited to the place where I'm quoted in the paper, and that's primarily what I'm speaking to. And yes, I have just as little sympathy for those who are waging their own crusade to push the opposite point of view, especially when it's so blatantly inappropriate. I simply disagree that it's as widespread or embedded as the author and those who share his opinion make it out to be, and I believe they're using that claim to create a battleground environment that lets them push their own point of view. I don't believe that challenging a POV-pusher makes someone a "settler nationalist", as I'm described in the paper—even if that point of view is that we should use questionable sources to give undue weight to historical genocides in tangentially related articles. I don't disagree with anything you've said, but to me this is the crux of the issue regarding the POV pushing and Right Great Wrongs behavior. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:48, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I guess my thing about RGW is like: If the wrong being righted is that Wikipedia is out of line with scholarly consensus, that's a great motivation for an editor to have. If the wrong is that scholarly consensus should change, that's a very bad motivation. I think a lot of the time when we analyze "RGW" behavior, we focus more on attitude and less on who's actually bringing things closer to consensus. This has led to a few topic areas (and I'm not stupid enough to say which) where minority views have won out because the people who hold them have done a good job speaking calmly and looking more presentable. Something about Native American topics in particular seems to draw a lot of people, on both sides, into arguing based purely on how they feel things should be and not based on what the scholarly sources say. (These may be the same thing, but it matters which you cite.) I suspect that the overall balance of scholarly sources does demand that Wikipedia treat Indigenous topics somewhat farther in the direction that Keeler wants than is currently the case, particularly on historical matters... But you wouldn't know that from the debates I've read. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe) 23:35, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's a good point, and something I'll keep in mind about this sort of thing. It's complicated by the fact that POV pushers and RGWers often believe that the facts and the scholarship is on their side whether it is or not, but that really just brings us back to the unfortunate truth that there's no easy answer to this sort of thing. I suspect that this topic area is fraught with it because it's an issue of ethnicity and sovereignty, but the background is unique relative to some of the other disputes based on nationality and ethnicity. And of course, with the possible exception of AMPOL, it's the easiest target for those who wish to promote anti-Western sentiment. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 23:58, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think this is a complaint that should be forwarded to Corbie & Mark Ironie, not Tamzin. By breaking the trust of the community, they poisoned the well of discussion, making it harder to address such issues neutrally, not easier. Keeler essentially believing their very misleading "side" wholesale is part of the problem. SnowFire (talk) 06:48, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The field of settler-colonial studies is founded on the idea that knowledge itself enforces Western hegemonies. In order to enact the decolonization of knowledge, what they view as alternative/indigenous ways of knowing must be given equal credit to Western epistemologies. Louis Botha describes these methods of knowing as fundamentally relational, in the sense that they prioritize the role of the relationships among actors, artifacts, and spaces in the construction of knowledge.[2]
To truly decolonize Wikipedia, we need to retreat from our core content policies that characterize personal knowledge as inferior to dispassionate secondary sources which summarize them. Instead, we would have to acknowledge that indigenous editors fundamentally are more qualified to edit on indigenous topics than settlers, and understand that their lived experiences are more valuable than Western scholarship. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply)23:22, 18 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Chess: The problem with characterizing personal knowledge as equal to or superior to secondary sources is that personal knowledge is often variable and unreliable. There is a story in my family that my great-great-great-great-grandmother was Cherokee. Part of the story was about how she and her husband (my great-great-great-great-grandfather) were killed by Confederate deserters during the Civil War. Several years ago I went looking on the Internet and found many versions of the story, such as this, but the different versions varied considerably on details about my g-g-g-g-grandmother, giving her maiden name as Robertson or Robinson, and her given name as Suki, Sukie, Suzi, Susie, Susan, Sarah, and some other variants I don't recall. She was also variously identified as Cherokeee, Choctaw, or "Indian". The story as I learned it was from a short written account that my grandmother had had for many years when she showed it to us some 55 years ago. The details had drifted a lot in three or four generations. Of course, a lot of older history started out the same way, but when sources derived from legends and oral history have been carefully examined and compared with other sources by historians, we do put more reliance on them. I know that some oral history preserves elements of ancient events (I have read The Edge of Memory), but details get lost and mistakes creep in. Donald Albury01:23, 19 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Donald Albury: I agree, though I don't believe Wikipedia editors know what they're arguing against. As this becomes more prevalent in academia (e.g. how Dr. Keeler believes that his personal involvement does not make him less reliable), we're going to have to decide what to do with journals that don't exert editorial control or do fact-checking because they believe knowledge comes from personal relationships instead of scientific theory. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply)23:48, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
the following letter is a response to a paper written by Tamzin, a Wikipedia editor. Just to clarify, the following is actually a letter written by Tamzin, a Wikipedia editor, in response to a papernot written by Tamzin, yes? FeRDNYC (talk) 05:27, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Axem Titanium Common enough in bad scholarship, some of which sneaks into journals that are supposedly "good". In the end, this is likely because peer review is a lottery. Ask any scholar including myself - papers we consider weak or meh can get accepted in good journals quickly, papers we consider good can get years of unlucky reviews. Peer review is a lottery. Not unlike what we see at WP:GAR and like, there are excellent reviewers and ones who do a cursory skim and miss major problems. Peer review is a bad system, but there are no great solutions (I like PubPeer I've mentioned before, but it is not a perfect fix). And that is assumung peer review actually happens - since there is no record of it publically disclosed in many journals. How can you be sure this very paper here was actually properly peer reviewed? Sure, the journal has a policy, but I've read about and even seen myself cases where journal policies were bent or disregarded by editors, with nobody aware of this outside the editor and the author (and if the editor likes the paper and publishes it despite, for example, insufficient reviews, do you think the author will complain?). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here00:59, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Depends on the journal typically, I'm not that shocked that a small and subjective field like this has drek like this. Usually these types of articles are written by one or two writers. Traumnovelle (talk) 03:45, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Axem Titanium The article Grievance studies affair might be interesting to read. Their findings suggested that many journals are willing to accept expressions of grievance politics as a form of academic study. Obviously it's not definitive without replication, but it's something to keep in mind when critically reading academic publications about identity. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 14:40, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Mistakes aside, I find it quite surprising that an academic article just recaps a publicly available recent conflict on Wikipedia. We need academics to transcribe oral tradition so we can cite it on Wikipedia. We need historians to correct racist narratives that arose from propaganda. We need researchers to rediscover indigenous knowledge and culture that settlers tried to destroy. I don't really see what is being achieved here.The suggestion that the WMF "[create] a network of trustworthy experts who could audit their areas of expertise" is, at least when those experts are paid, completely antithetical to what Wikipedia is. Why should experts in one field be paid when the rest of us volunteer? The author should learn about Citizendium and consider why it is so much less successful than Wikipedia. — Bilorv (talk) 22:06, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It could be a good thing if a group of experts went over the Wikipedia articles about their field and pointed out problems: "This is confusing, this is oversimplified, this over here is outdated...". But the result of that process would deserve no more deferential treatment than any other academic publication. XOR'easter (talk) 00:16, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No good solution here, considering that lack of financial or other incentives discourages many academics from contribution to Wikipedia and like (according to research, including mine). In the end, we get only input from few very motivated folks, some of whom contribute, and some of who just complain about real or perceived (or intentionally misleading) issues. The good news is that the system(s) work(s), more or less (most of academic research is useful and a net positive, and so is Wikiepdia). Unfortunately, every now and then we get collateral damage, like here. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here01:03, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Last year, at a Wikimeetup here in Portland, I sugggested to Maryana that the Foundation hire academic experts in fields that are poorly covered by Wikipedia, who then can provide advice, critical reviews of articles, & bibliographies for editors to consult. (She seemed receptive to the idea.) One reason these areas are poorly covered is because it is difficult to find material to write the needed articles. (I've had to buy materials for this very reason. For example, I own more books about Somalia that are available at my local public library. While this may sound impressive, I only own three books -- hardly enough to fact check many articles about that country.) The Foundation seems to prioritize various praiseworthy social causes over helping volunteers to research & write useful articles. -- llywrch (talk) 21:52, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We need academics to transcribe oral tradition so we can cite it on Wikipedia. We need historians to correct racist narratives that arose from propaganda. We need researchers to rediscover indigenous knowledge and culture that settlers tried to destroy. I don't really see what is being achieved here.: These examples are certainly necessary areas of work (which in many cases have deep wells of resources, if only Wikipedians would leverage them) but does seem to rather conveniently leave Wikipedia out from under the microscope and magnifying glass, as if Wikipedia exists outside the world, always observing and never observed. We certainly need such scholarship as your post describes, and there's good scholarly work that does that, but Wikipedia's participation in the legacies of colonization, racism, sexism, etc. is also a worthwhile subject of academic study (and, I at least would add, are issues worth trying to attenuate and eliminate from the project, even if only to better achieve NPOV—even if I think Keeler's recommendations aren't very plausible, because of making unfortunately naive presumptions about what the Wikimedia Foundation is socially able, but more than that institutionally willing, to do). Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 03:23, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think Bilorv's point is that Wikipedia, willingly and by default, puts itself under scrutiny by having a publicly available history and discussion section for every page, and that the authors of the paper should probably focus on producing material that will actually better our coverage of indigenous people in settler colonial nations rather than write a whole ass """research""" paper because one of them was butthurt about being caught meatpuppeting. The charitable explanation is that they do not understand what consensus means in Wikipedia, and so think that since their POV is the neutral, "consensus" POV (because obviously everyone is absolutely correct in their own minds), they have to go into our articles and "correct" them. Unfortunately, Wikipedia does not lead scholarship - we follow. They need to go fix the settler colonial bias in their fields directly rather than using Wikipedia to do so. If they are successful, we will automatically follow their scholarship. Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI (talk to me!/my edits) 04:41, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If it wasn't clear, I do think Wikipedia has racist biases over and above that of the literature. I'm happy with us being scrutinised. But I don't see effective systemic critique being done by just describing some things that happened on the website (which anybody could see—it's public information) and naming a lot of individual editors. It could be done, for instance, by analysing the sources used in articles about North American history from 1600 to 1800. Or making a persuasive argument about our interpretation of "reliability" and the types of knowledge we don't accept (e.g. oral tradition). Or in many other ways. However, we do already have quite a density of research about Wikipedia in academia, lots of it fundamentally flawed or just not useful or actionable. — Bilorv (talk) 06:29, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Some researcher should do a study of shoddily written academic papers as demonstrated by Keeler's conflicted pseudo-scholarship. Carlstak (talk) 15:25, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The paper directly accusing editors of being "settler nationalists" is absolutely insane to me, in what world is that proper academic practise? The topic areas in question, indigenous history and culture, specifically that of north America in this case, do have some major problems, but backing up LTAs and casting accusations and insults are absolutely unacceptable answers to those problems. The paper does propose an actual solution, but it is not viable for Wikipedia (or any of the projects under the foundation). I am greatly concerned that this was an accepted and published piece of scholarship. Clone commando sev (talk) 01:20, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There seems to be "retaliation" against Native topics since this paper was published. An admin removed Native American tribal citizenship from MOS:CITIZEN without discussion (later restored and discussed) and another editor, who is a top editor on this site, after getting involved in a discussion on Genocide of Indigenous peoples, keeps removing the style guides pertaining to the capitalization of Indigenous when referring to people from WP:Indigenous without discussing. As an enrolled Native American editor who has contributed a lot to this site about my tribe's history and culture, it's difficult to be sidetracked and sucked into dealing with editors who remove guidelines for dubious reasons; the guidelines are meant to help newbies to Native topics write better articles, not "right great wrongs" as some people use as a reason to delete. And as an FYI, I've been contacted a few times from other journalists about what's happening on Wikipedia about this topic, so I don't think it's ending with this paper nor do I think this letter in response really helps anything other than an ego response. oncamera (talk page)04:07, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
WP:INDIGENOUS was added without discussion, you can't add a guideline without any discussion then complain when it's removed without discussion. Guidelines need consensus to be added and this one had none. Traumnovelle (talk) 04:36, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If there was never a clear consensus for a "guideline" to begin with, it was never a guideline in the first place and should just be removed. (t · c) buidhe23:32, 12 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't have to be a guideline to be a practice on Wikipedia. I will always capitalize no matter what. The United Nations updated its editing manual to say it should be capitalized. We have styles guides within the US that says always capitalize and most media outlets in the US and Canada have stated they will always capitalize. The issue becomes when I am reverted simply because someone doesn't like it which seems to be the only evidence for why people are against it. --ARoseWolf14:00, 13 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Donald Albury: Donald, did Keeler ever get back to you with that "list of the articles from which he says Native American history has been removed or blocked from being added" you mentioned on the talk page of WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America? It's been three weeks now. Carlstak (talk) 03:48, 19 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
He said he needed to pull together a list of the WP articles he had left out of his article, but I haven't heard anything else from him. Considering the possibility that he is aware of what has been said on WP, I'm not holding my breath. Donald Albury12:40, 19 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
← Back to Opinion