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A political newcomer, Greenfield has never held public office, and her life lacks the typical arc of a political climber. In 1988, her husband died in a freak accident; the Social Security benefits she received allowed her family to survive, a story that has become the centerpiece of her campaign. After earning a college degree, Greenfield became the president of a small Des Moines real estate firm.

This has made Greenfield an unusual candidate for national office: Her tragedies have been private, while her ambitions, if not modest, were focused: trying to raise two children as a single parent with a business. Greenfields lack of notabilitywhich she shares with the vast majority of people she is running to representis in many ways a primary theme of her campaign.

Greenfields dilemma is one that can often face female candidates: what might be called a notability trap.

In short, Wikipedias notability litmus test doesnt just advantage political incumbents; it advantages the kind of peopleinsiders, celebrities, menwho already enjoy notable status in a social and economic hierarchy that others in politics may wish to democratize.

Greenfields dilemma is one that can often face female candidates: what might be called a notability trap. Political challengers who are deemed non-notable tend to be women, and they are often faced with only one path to getting a page on Wikipedia: winning their race. In 2018, for example, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez saw her Wikipedia entry appear on June 27, the day after she won an upset primary victory.

In the blue wave later that year, 88 newcomers would win election to Congress. Of the 52 challengers considered notable enough to have Wikipedia entries before their elections, almost 70 percent were men and 30 percent women. And among the 10 challengers already considered notable for their private-life achievements, eight were men: A liquor store magnate; the brother of Vice President Pence; a former NFL wide receiver; and a California man who won the lottery. Meanwhile, among the women not considered notable were a Navy commander, an Air Force captain and sports company executive, a key architect of the auto-industry bailout, a law professor, and an Iowa state official. All received their Wikipedia articles shortly after they won election.

The notability trap has become a topic of controversy outside of politics, too. In 2018, Canadian physicist Donna Strickland was repeatedly denied a Wikipedia page for lack of notability. That changed one day in October, around 9:56 amthe morning she won the Nobel Prize. Strickland shared the prize with a male colleague, Grard Mourou, who has had a Wikipedia page since 2005. Earlier that year, when users attempted to create a page for Strickland, a moderator denied the request, replying that the article's references "do not show that the subject qualifies" for Wikipedia.

For activists, the Greenfield example reflects a familiar pattern. Absences on Wikipedia echo throughout the Internet, and that is universal for any fieldart, politics, and so on, says Kira Wisniewski, the executive director of the organization Art+Feminism, a group founded in 2014 to correct what it saw as gender imbalances in the arts on Wikipedia. Wisniewski pointed to a 2011 survey that suggested more than 90 percent of Wikipedia editors were male, one reason she suspects women might be less likely to have their past achievements deemed notable.

Lih, the Wikipedia expert, is more reluctant to attribute Greenfields rejection to gendersome male Senate candidates, like Al Gross in Alaska, similarly did not have a Wikipedia page for much of this yearbut nevertheless calls Wikipedias political rules a serious problem. Its pretty obvious an article was merited, he says of the Greenfield case, later adding: Were not doing the right thing.

Yet that wasnt so obvious on Wikipedia. As the Iowa race became a virtual toss-up, Greenfields proponents became increasingly heated. They pointed to the growing national interest in the campaign. This draft now clearly exceeds [the] notability threshold, wrote one user.

But the other side insisted that Greenfields life was just not notable, and never would beunless she won. Drop the stick, and move away from the [horse] carcass, wrote Muboshgu. She'll get an article if she wins. Another user evaluated Greenfields biography and wrote, I don't think that gives her a meaningful career outside of her current Senate run, adding that if Greenfield lost, she will very likely be seen as insignificant.

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The Senate Race That Could be Pivotal for Americaand Wikipedia - WIRED

Getty Images / Wikipedia / WIRED

In July 2019 an anonymous Wikipedia editor added a line to the article about Jai Shri Ram, a Hindi expression that translates as Glory to Lord Rama. The editor made what would prove to be an extremely controversial addition, noting the phrase was also used as a war cry.

The edit was the first in a struggle that raged for more than a year, with one side claiming it constituted a form of Hinduphobia and the other side saying it was an accurate portrayal of the religious term, which had been embraced by Indias ruling party BJP and, according to some in the media, had become a dog whistle for nationalists.

The edit war spilled over to other articles on Wikipedia, including one about the 2020 Delhi riots. There, the claim that the war cry was part of a rising trend of beating up Muslims and forcing them to chant Jai Shri Ram by violent Hindu mobs in India, was also noted. The edit to the original page also claimed this trend became more prominent after the Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi was re-elected as Prime Minister of India.

In fact, it was only when Modis nationalist BJP party was reelected, that Manisha, a student from Mumbai who edits Wikipedia under the username Papayadaily, started to notice what she calls widespread anti-Hindu bias on Wikipedia.

Every article on Wikipedia is against the ruling party, and whitewashes the Indian National Congress, she says, referencing the former ruling party which, under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, led the country to independence in 1947. There are even conspiracy theories that there is involvement by members of the Congress, as every article is in their favour, she says.

Another editor, Raj Aryan, who edits under the username Factual Indian Hindu, says that the page for Modi is full of criticism, while that for Rahul Gandhi is full of praise.

I dont side with any party, says Minisha, who identifies as anti-left. This is not a liberal versus conservative debate. Its about hatred and lies and propaganda, she says. Sometimes articles I follow will be changed within minutes. It makes me think this editing is funded effort by either communists or religious minorities. The latter is a thinly-veiled euphemism for the countrys Muslim community, which makes about 15 per cent of the population and is being increasingly targeted by Modis right-wing government. The claims against Wikipedia show how facts are being weaponised as part of Indias political struggle.

Aryan runs FactualHindu, an Instagram account that flags examples of Wikipedias purported bias on social media. Its not just articles about Modi and the BJP that editors like these see as skewed: recently, Aryan lambasted Wikipedia over an article about an early Indian nationalist leader, Subhas Chandra Bose, which the encyclopaedia had labeled a radical.

Such perceived slights seem to strike a chord with some Indian editors, who have now made it their mission to seek out instances of the alleged prejudice across Wikipedia. Wikipedia pages are defaming the Indian culture and its roots, Aryan says, claiming the Wikipedia page for Christianity and Islam were positive, while that for Hinduism was negative and stressed issues like casteism instead of the more progressives sides of the faith.

Allegations of political biases on the part of volunteer-run Wikipedia are common. The open encyclopaedia, now entering its twentieth year, has been accused of partiality by figures on both the left and the right of the political spectrum across the world with regularity.

This trend is worrying to another Indian editor called Subhashish who sees these campaigns as an attempt to tarnish Wikipedia. The fact is that Wikipedia is not a singular body, but a collective and therefore has many many biases. For him, the goal should be to fix these biases, rather than criticising the whole project. Instead, he says, we are seeing political leaders accusing Wikipedia of spreading false information.

Some BJP officials have been vocally opposed to the free encyclopaedia. In August 2020, when Wikipedia began its annual fundraising drive, Nupur Sharma, the BJPs national spokesperson, tweeted the site was no longer neutral and known to carry fake info. She also suggested Wikipedia had been completely taken over by a certain cabal. Others on social media claimed Wikipedia has an anti-Hindu and even anti-India bias, in what local media called a campaign against the open encyclopaedia.

Wikipedia has long been popular in India. In 2011, Hindi Wikipedia, written in the local Devanagari script, became the first non-English Wikipedia to pass 100,000 articles and as of this year received more than 47 million page views. However, English is the main language in which readers in India access and edit Wikipedia. Today, traffic from the subcontinent accounts for roughly five per cent of all the traffic to English Wikipedia. So far this year India is the fourth country by traffic to English Wikipedia compared to seventh in 2017, and tenth in 2012.

Three local editors say that in recent months, there has been a push by the right wing to prove Wikipedia has a particular bias, as Subhashish puts it. Wikipedia articles on everything from Brahmanism and Islamophobia in India, to Jai Shri Ram and the 2020 Delhi riots have been beset by massive edit wars.

Even the article for a local Hindu guru deemed not notable enough for a Wikipedia page a common occurrence caused a stir when deleted, as the gurus followers took to social media to cry foul.

Wikipedia articles on Indian culture, history, and entertainment have also been pulled into the fray. In recent weeks, the most viewed celebrity death on English Wikipedia has been not of RBG, but rather SSR or Sushant Singh Rajput, a Bollywood star whose suicide has inspired massive public attention in India. In a weird turn of events, SSRs suicide also spawned political conspiracy theories on social media, which are spreading like a wildfire in Indias increasingly polarised and politicised society and inevitably spilled to Wikipedia, too.

When Covid-19 hit India, these tensions reached boiling point. It was an article about the origin of the viruss spread in the country that finally thrust Wikipedia into the centre of Indias culture wars. The article is about what is now termed the Tablighi Jamaat coronavirus hotspot in Delhi. It was first created in April, and focuses on a mosque that hosted an event at the beginning of March for the local Muslim community. The mosque later became the focal point of religious and social tensions in India, with many accusing the event of being the actual origin of the viruss spread in the country.

As the highly contested article now carefully states, the religious congregation of the Sunni sect of Tablighi Jamaat in Delhi was a coronavirus super-spreader event, with more than 4,000 confirmed cases and at least 27 deaths linked to the event reported across the country.

The events Wikipedia page became a perfect storm of religious acrimony, political hate-mongering and Covid-19 misinformation. Claims by Hindu politicians that the local Muslim community was to blame for the viruss spread in India, or that Islamic leadership was not doing enough to stop it, grew rampant both on the Wikipedia article and offline. Questionable reports that claimed Muslims had refused to let cops and health officials enter the building to conduct medical examination were noted in the article and stoked tensions around a possibly true statement that the mosque had failed to properly follow social distancing procedures.

Conversely, claims that Muslims were now being targeted in vengeance for the mosque super-spreader event also started to appear in the article. The government hospital in Rajasthans Bharatpur refused to admit to pregnant Muslim woman citing her religion, one edit claimed, showing the tit-for-tat dynamic such articles can take even when their tone is neutral.

Alongside factual information added by regular editors, more politically driven users dragged the article into racist infighting. One deleted version briefly claimed that Muslims arriving at a local medical centre, created a ruckus [...] claiming that the government wants to kill them. Citing unsubstantiated reports by right-wing media, this version claimed that in the hospital, members of the community were seen molesting nurses and spitting on hospital staff... [and even] reportedly found defecating in the hospital corridor.

With editing reaching fever pitch, it became clear no compromise or consensus could be reached, and it was decided to put the articles very existence to a vote. The article was deleted in a highly controversial move that further highlighted how toxic the discourse had become.

There is a lot of reliable coverage of this Islamic religious gathering contributing to the spread of Covid-19 in India, the final decision said, noting that there was a factual basis to the articles existence. At the same time, there are a lot of tensions between Hindus and Muslims in India, and there is also increasing state-sanctioned Islamophobia and persecution of Muslims in India. The issue of Covid-19, was highly volatile and rife with misinformation and keeping the article, it was feared, could have a disruptive impact on the real world.

Contributing to the storm around the article was the fact that its first version was written by an undisclosed paid editor (for-profit editing is only allowed if disclosed in the edit) who has since been banned from the project. To make matters worse, the deletion was reversed in a subsequent vote on April 10, sparking another edit war.

The page spun so out of control that Jimmy Wales, Wikipedias co-founder, waded into the controversy after being called out about the article on Twitter. Wales was accused of taking bribes from Muslims to have the article deleted, and spent some time explaining on Twitter how Wikipedia works to an army of critics. After he called the article poorly written and with zero sources, he pleaded, this isnt about religious sentiments, its about not putting junk into Wikipedia. (Waless press office did not respond to a request for comment about the controversy by the time of publication.)

The ability to maintain what Wikipedians call good faith was gone. After Waless comments and what seemed to be his foreign interference on an Indian issue on behalf of a minority the article began making headlines in India. The Times of India, Indias paper of record and most reliable news source, reported on Wikipedias battle against communalism editing that promoted tribalism over facticity just when reliable information regarding Covid-19 was needed most.

One outlet stood out: OpIndia, a conservative news site that hosts opinion pieces, launched a de facto campaign against Wikipedia and has even interviewed Wikipedias other co-founder-cum-critic Larry Sanger, about Wikipedias left-wing bias. The tensions relating to religious, geopolitical and social views is an ongoing occurrence and such tussles are going to stay no matter what the current issue is. What is really unfortunate is that we have an immoral political environment here in India, says Subhashish, who believes it is a lack of understanding of Wikipedia either due to ignorance or intentional that is the cause of the problem. He blames the media environment and politicians that he says are threatening to ban Wikipedia like they did in China.

Claims that Wikipedia has a liberal bias have long gone hand-in-hand with campaigns by media outlets displeased with the encyclopaedia. Conservapedia was set up in 2009 to provide a more evangelical-friendly version of the encyclopaedia for Americans reluctant to accept what mainstream sources say about climate change and evolution. After The Daily Mail was deprecated as a source on Wikipedia, it too joined a growing chorus of right-wing criticism of Wikipedia. In recent years, Breitbart has also focused on the issue.

Now OpIndia seems to have picked up the mantle, reporting to its readers about a recent decision to downgrade the status of Fox News as a source on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is clearly being politicised by a particular group of people who identify themselves as left-liberal, an OpIndia spokesperson says. They add that the Wikipedias bias can manifest as anti-Hindu on a few occasions, but the bias is not anti-Hindu primarily.

Even Manisha, the editor worried about Wikipedias anti-Hindu bias, agrees the situation has gone too far. She says that the pro-BJP media outlets like OpIndia, that initially helped her call attention to anti-Hindu biases on Wikipedia, are now part of the problem. Initially, people werent aware of how many articles Wikipedia has against a single community in India, she says, referencing the Hindu community. In wake of their work, people started to read and fact check Wikipedia, which is good. But nowadays they sometimes exaggerate, she says.

They report about issues that are not really issues and then people come to edit articles and make them worse. So theres this polarisation and the grey area gets left behind, Manisha says. Everything is now polarised, everything is left or right and there is no common ground.

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A vicious culture war is tearing through Wikipedia - Wired.co.uk

WHO and Wikipedia Partner to Prevent Spread of False Information About COVID-19

Wikipedia, the frequently used online encyclopedia will work with the WHO to provide verified information about coronavirus.

Wikipedia and the World Health Organization announced a collaboration intended to stop the spread of false information about COVID-19 on October 22, according to the New York Times.

The WHO will allow Wikipedia to use information, graphics and videos for free. As part of the partnership, a large chunk of the WHOs material will enter Wikimedia's commons, which means that no permission will be required to reproduce it.

Equitable access to trusted health information is critical to keeping people safe and informed, said WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Another aspect of this collaboration, which is the first between Wikipedia and a health agency, is that info from WHO will be published in 175 languages through Wikipedia instead of the usual six languages.

This could lead to an expansion to include correction of misinformation on diseases like Ebola and AIDS.

About the Author

Nikki Johnson-Bolden is an Associate Content Editor for Occupational Health & Safety.

Continued here:
WHO and Wikipedia Partner to Prevent Spread of False Information About COVID-19 - Occupational Health and Safety

Aftereasilypassingananti-abortion amendment, Louisianagota new flag on its Wikipedia pageWednesday morning. Its redwith a sunbeam and a bird holding an olive branch. Its also the flag used to representGilead, theinfamousdystopianandpatriarchalsocietyon HulusThe Handmaids Tale.

The new state motto?Blessed be the fruit.State nicknamesincludedThe Bayou State, Pelican State and Gilead.While these additionsweretaken downquickly, the flag and seal, which also reads Blessed be the fruit,lasted on the page until a little after noon Wednesday.

Reddit userFwcaseyfirst posted a screenshot to the New Orleans subreddit Wednesday morningwhen the nicknames and mottos were changed. Since the user posted, the flag and the seal were added, a change that appeared a bitless obvious to Wikipedia administrators. After all, bothflagshave birds.

After some sleuthing, another Reddit user DrinkmorecodemoresaidaWikipedia userby the very serious name ofMaster 420 69 was responsible for the changes. Wikipedia has already temporarily suspended that account, whosepast edit historyappears tohave included the addition of this crucial piece of incorrect informationto theentry for skeleton:A skeleton is made up of 205 bones in case you did not know.(Its typically 206 bones.)

The trolling comes after 62% of Louisiana voters approvedan amendmentthat will add language to the state constitution stating it does not include a right to abortion or the funding of abortion. Before there was nospecificlanguage in the constitution about abortion, butthis was aimed at making surecourts do not interpret the state constitution as protecting abortion rightsin the future.

In Orleans Parish, 75%of voters, or127,213 people,voted against the amendment.The surrounding suburbs of Jefferson and St. Bernard parishes both approved the amendment, though by smaller margins than the whole state. InJefferson Parish, 54% of voters approved the amendmentcompared to56% of voters in St. Bernard Parish.

Louisianaalreadyhad whats known as a trigger law on the books since 2006. Thelawwill automatically ban almost all abortions in the state if the Supreme Court decides tooverturnRoe v. Wade, the 1973 decision establishing the right to legal abortion before an embryo or fetus can survive outside the womb.

Abortion rights activists fear the amendment could make it more difficult to challenge anti-abortion laws in the stateordare we say itpass any laws making itanyeasierfor womento access abortion in the future.

The Hulu series is an adaptation of Margaret Atwoods 1985 novel of the same name, and the shows fourth season is set to premiere next year.At Womens Marches in recent years, some have dressed in the signature long which red robes and white bonnets, which the handmaids are forced to wear every day. Its a reminder of whatsome fearcouldhappenif womensreproductiverights continue to be chipped awayat the state and federal levels.

The march brought around 200 people to City Hall Saturday afternoon, but it almost didnt happen when police didnt arrive to clear traffic for marchers.

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Blessed be the Wikipedia trolls: Louisiana's page gets dystopian makeover after election - NOLA.com

(Reuters) - Wikipedia has locked down its main election page ahead of the U.S. presidential election so that only certain editors can make changes, part of preparations to combat potential disinformation and abuses related to Tuesdays vote.

The online encyclopedias articles, written primarily by unpaid volunteers, are relied on by platforms from Alphabet Incs Google to Amazon Incs voice assistant Alexa to give their users information and context.

Were not worried about vandals who want to just mess up an article in order to cause a little trouble. The Wikipedia community deals with those issues for breakfast, Ryan Merkley, chief of staff at the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization which hosts Wikipedia, said in a phone interview.

Were really worried about coordinated actors ... trying to find a way to disseminate information ... in a way that could cause people, for example, to choose not to vote or to influence the outcome of the election based on something that was not true.

Internet researchers say Wikipedia, which says it is committed to neutrality, has emerged as a relatively trusted site, while major social platforms like Facebook and Twitter have struggled to curb viral misinformation.

This year, Merkley said, the Wikimedia Foundation for the first time put together a disinformation task-force to run election exercises with staff and community members.

Last week, community members moved to add extra protections to the 2020 United States presidential election article so only users who have had a registered account for more than 30 days and have made 500 edits on the site can alter the page.

Merkley said Wikipedia has seen the creation of fake accounts, people making false edits to screenshot and share on social media and attempts to use content from unreliable sources or skew articles to a bias.

He said the Wikimedia Foundation had been meeting with industry partners and U.S. government officials, including from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Homeland Security, but that it had not yet seen any state actors flagged by government officials operating on Wikipedia.

A Wikimedia spokeswoman said there are currently 72 English-Wikipedia articles related to the U.S. election and that there are about 2,600 editors watching those pages who get alerts for any edits.

Merkley said staff rarely make interventions but there could be instances around the election, such as direct calls for violence, where they would remove content or take action against a user.

Reporting by Elizabeth Culliford; Editing by Greg Mitchell and Nick Zieminski

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Wikipedia buttons up key pages ahead of U.S. election - Reuters