FREEP this: Wikipedia's Biased Description of Free Republic

Wikipedia.com | ongoing | liberals

[nerdgirl]

What a joke - the liberals that you find in places like Dmoz and other internet directories have managed to fill the Wikipedia description for Free Republic with all kinds of snipes that make FR look like a marginalized group of extremists.

But, the beauty is that anybody can change a Wikipedia entry. I worked on one of the sections (which shall go nameless!) a bit already - it's easy to spot.

Believe it or not Wikipedia entries get quite a few page views - the site is one of the top 50 sites on the web - so let's get this description to be "fair and balanced"!

Sorry but I can't post the URL to Wikipedia here, - but if you Google wikipedia, "free republic", you'll find the entry.

[johnmecainrino]

That site has been DUmmied down.

[Riley]

It partly reads as if it was written by a disgruntled ex-Freeper who was banned.

[antiRepublicrat]

Sorry but I can't post the URL to Wikipedia here

Why not?

[Borges]

Oooooooh you posted it!!! I'm tellllling! :-)

[Tijeras_Slim]

TLBSHOW works for Wikipedia?

[nerdgirl]

No doubt. But since Wikipedia entries tend to dominate search engine results, there's no reason to let this ridiculous article stand. I'll work more on it later, but wanted to alert other freepers to it in the meantime.

[nerdgirl]

filter won't allow it, I guess a lot of bogus wikipedia stuff has been posted here before, so it's a troll filter I guess.

[Riley]

I took it that this article needed some help. I am on Free Republic as well, so an insider's viewpoint may help make this a decent NPoV article. Many details were missing and I supplied them. Some people on FR come from left but most are conservative. There are a few places where the language showed bias, and some places were not as relevant any more, like Poll FReeping. Lately, Moveon and other Democratic Party front organizations do it a lot more effectivly. I too don't understand the racism, but future edits and discussion can help fix things up. Dominick 23:51, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Hmm..

[tfecw]

Hmm, i thought for the most part it was okay. I think i know the "one part" would it be the piece with the "3" hyper-link at the end of it?

That guy probably got booted cause he's an idiot, not cause of the remarks about GW. Heck I've made a few remarks expressing some disappointment with him. Still here, or at least I think I'm logged in :)

[Vigilanteman]

A few words of advice:

1. Be persistent.
   
2. Be patient.
   
3. Be aware that most of the Wikipedia nazis with time on their hands are lunatic liberals masquerading as reasonable people.
   
4. If you can't reason with them, you can make it very difficult for them to propogandize by going after their other articles and contributions.
   
5. If you have access to more than one terminal, spread things around a bit since the IP address is recorded and leaves a trail for them to go after your articles in like manner.
   
6. However, since most of us have a life beyond posting and, therefore, have fewer articles and modifications to trace, they can eventually be worn down since they have far more to lose in their work than we do in ours.

[LongElegantLegs]

Known as "freeping" a poll, the practice is not unique to the Free Republic forums and is employed by many other activist websites of all political stripes, such as Democratic Underground, where it is called "DU'ng".

hee hee hee! He said dung.

[GSWarrior]

The authors seem more positive in their entry for Democratic Undergound.

[AdamSelene235]

Not a flattering potrayal but not exactly dishonest either. I particularly enjoyed reading JimRob's initial opposition to Bush.

Keyes was a far superior choice just as J. Brown is superior to Miers.

[nerdgirl]

Where is that quote from? Ah I think I see - Wikipedia has various entries - the actual ENTRY for FR is not the one you get by Googling wikipedia, "free republic" - that page appears to be some kind of Talk section. The filter appears to be for article postings, not html tags inside of individual posts, so here is the Free Republic Description on Wikipedia

[Riley]

Cick on the 'Discussion' tab on the top of the entry.

[nerdgirl]

Keep in mind, I've already done some editing in an area that was particularly biased.

Nothing wrong with a little more fine tuning...

[Riley]

I should have read the rest of your post before replying. :-)

[yayforlater]

This comes up every couple of weeks now. To be fair, Wikipedia is open to everyone for editing. Any complaints that it isn't fair or balanced really aren't valid 'cause you can go over there and fix it in just about as much time as it takes to write and complain.

Make sure that you're looking at the actual article page too, and not the "Talk" section.

[nerdgirl]

No problem!

Yikes I really need to get back to work - don't mean to abandon the thread, will be back later! (sooo easy to get sidetracked...)