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| Ed Martin's Wikipedia article before and after he antagonized the Wikipedia Cult |
I have a lot of trouble getting people to grasp that Wikipedia is a cult. That is essential to understanding Wikipedia—why it is rejects external criticism and internal reform, and why it is essential to revoke its parent foundation's tax exemption.
This is not a new insight. It has been made for literally decades, and from all points on the political spectrum. In 2005, a writer for the far-left British organ The Guardian pointed to "the quasi-religious fervour surrounding the 'rightness' of Wikipedia," and said the following.
What I realised. . . is that Wikipedia, and so many other online activities, show all the outward characteristics of a cult. Which, by my (computer's) dictionary definition, means "a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object; a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister; a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing; a person or thing that is popular or fashionable, esp. among a particular section of society, 'a cult film'."
One of the characteristics of cults is revenge against its enemies.
In Scientology, it is known as "fair game." Individuals so targeted may be "deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed."
Wikipedia can't deprive its enemies of property but it can savage their reputation, and do so easily. That brings us to the illustration at the top of this article.
On the left is how the article on Edward R. Martin Jr., U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, appeared on April 24, just before he sent a letter to the Wikimedia Foundation posing pointed questions and raising the possibility that the Foundation's tax exemption may be yanked. My post on the letter, suggesting how the Foundation would respond if it was honest, is here.
On the right is how the article appears today. In a short period of time, Martin has gone from obscure politician to Enemy of the Wikipedia Cult.
At the very top of the article he is now smeared, labeled a fascistic, "far-right" politician, with "a history of making incendiary claims about opponents and causing ethical and legal controversies."
The trashing of Martin's article is consistent with the generally hysterical reaction to Martin's letter in Wikipedia forums, such as this one.
Today Jewish Insider reported that "23 bipartisan members of Congress told the Wikimedia Foundation: ‘It is clear that more needs to be done to ensure Wikipedia remains free of bias, antisemitism and pro-terrorist content.’" While these congresspeople have the safety of being in a group, don't be surprised if they are singled out for Wikipedia smear jobs.
But that's just collateral damage. The main takeaway here is not that Wikipedia editors are defensive, thin-skinned boobs, which many of them are, but that Wikipedia, as a cult, is not capable of fixing itself in any meaningful way.
I made that point in a post a few weeks ago in which I said that the ADL, which had just issued a report on Wikipedia, "naively disregards Wikipedia's rigid, cultlike culture."
I went on to say:
I like that it [the ADL] recommends that search results downgrade Wikipedia. Its recommendations on LLMs ("large language models" used in artificial intelligence) are excellent. I think its recommendations for the government are also great. I hope the ADL makes a major effort to implement all of these suggestions.
I also generally agree with its recommendations for Wikipedia. But there's a problem.
The problem is that they fly in the face of the reality of Wikipedia, which is that it is a cult, hidebound and rigid, self-governed by a great mass of anonymous people, that it rewards groupthink and mediocrity, is intrinsically and structurally left-leaning and antisemitic, and anxious to retain all these repulsive qualities.
Sure, I want Wikipedia to make major structural changes and I also want pigs to fly.
Wikipedia will never change internally. Cults don't. Wikipedia won't. It must not be subsidized by the U.S. taxpayer.
