European-American University™

Wikipedia woes: what happens when the neutral point of view isn't neutral?

In this paper we address a number of issues concerning online encyclopedia Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org).

Wikipedia seems like a great idea. An open access encyclopedia which anyone can edit, dealing with the majority of subjects of interest to the modern reader, all for free on the internet. And for many of its editors it is a great idea. Hours of (more or less) innocent enjoyment can be had in editing articles, sharing knowledge and discussing areas of interest with others.

Unfortunately, there's a series of problems attached to Wikipedia, and they have a particular impact on self-regulating universities.

In many areas of the project, editors will never come up against the difficulties we describe below. Even in contentious areas where there is obvious disagreement and divided viewpoints, the discussion is usually somewhat measured and an attempt is made to achieve neutrality. This is not the case in an area such as private postsecondary education where there are major establishment and political interests at stake, and where an establishment cabal is capable of exerting a stranglehold over what is allowed to be posted in pursuit of their own agenda. This area is unique because it is one where the establishment can only win on the basis of presenting its opinions as dogma. It cannot win on the facts alone, and it cannot win if the facts are presented in a genuinely neutral or balanced manner. The only answer is to ensure tight control of what is allowed to be presented on this subject and to hide behind arguments of public protection when challenged.

We could enter into a lengthy discussion of some of the detail of the weaknesses of Wikipedia that the accrediting cartel exploit, but we don't need to. Brilliant cartoonist David Malki ! (yes, he does spell his name with an exclamation point) has summarized the position for us:

Read more of Malki !'s wit at www.wondermark.com.

The cartoon above also illustrates the principal problem of Wikipedia when it comes to discussing self-regulating universities. It is no secret that mainstream media and state agencies in the United States, influenced by anti-competitive interests on behalf of accrediting agencies and public sector universities, wish to see legitimate non-state-regulated private university education that constitutes genuine competition for the public sector eliminated. In practice this means targeting institutions that will not submit to state accreditation processes or which do not have such processes available to them. This action is designed to remove any competitive edge self-regulated providers might have over the state universities by destroying their reputations, and preferably to drive them out of business altogether.

The first thing to ask when examining any source material is cui bono? - who benefits from it? With the exception of their websites, most self-regulating private universities have no access to large-scale media such as newspapers or television. They are denied that access because the media, being generally of an authoritarian persuasion, often sees its role as protectionist towards the state and towards state universities in particular, and will not generally carry material critical of the accreditation cartel, which musters powerful lobbying forces in its favor.
 
The state and its universities, by contrast, have easy access to the media and have no difficulty in persuading media sources to disparage their competitors. Because diploma mills are a serious problem within the private sector, the accreditation cartel has attempted to persuade legislators and the media that there is no legitimate education outside state control and that all unaccredited schools are degree mills or diploma mills. Their attention is particularly directed at legitimate self-regulating institutions which are not diploma mills but that do not seek accreditation, because it is these schools which constitute the greatest competition for the cartel's interests. By directing attention at the problem of diploma mills, the cartel hopes that legislators and the media will also eliminate legitimate self-regulating schools in a broad-brush approach, thus reinforcing their monopoly. In recent years, this argument has proved effective in various state legislatures.

Most of what you will read in the media, and much of what is available on the internet about the legitimate self-regulating private, postsecondary sector has been placed there by state competitors with the explicit intention of furthering the agenda described above.

Wikipedia's policies explicitly favor the mainstream media as a source, and exclude most of the source material that self-regulating universities have access to. When the administrators of self-regulating universities offer to correct articles or promote a neutral point of view, their contribution is removed or simply held to be inadmissible due to being original research (which is prohibited under Wikipedia rules) or a conflict of interest - which is an argument not applied with equal force by Wikipedia to state institutions. Information taken from the websites of the institutions concerned is tagged with weasel words such as "the university claims..." even when documents and authorities have been produced by the university to support their assertions. Indeed, university websites themselves may find themselves barred from quotation as "unreliable" sources on the very subject they address and officially represent! Because the majority of Wikipedia's editors are from the U.S.A. and/or represent U.S. interests, it is a U.S. statist viewpoint that prevails, even in the case of foreign institutions with no presence in that country and no students there. In addition, any viewpoint, even if appropriately sourced, that is held to be that of a "small minority" by the Wikipedia community is automatically accorded less weight, if it is allowed to appear at all.

This means that Wikipedia could hardly have been better constructed as a statist instrument for attacking self-regulating universities. The fact that it further permits its editors anonymity and by nature trusts consensus over expertise serves to complete the circle. We cannot say how many of those editors are paid lobbyists for state sector institutions, the accrediting agencies and the public sector academic unions, but those lobbyists - as well as many statists who simply support their cause without requiring a financial motivation - are certainly out there in some numbers.

Wikipedia makes the telling claim, "Please be advised that nothing found here has necessarily been reviewed by professionals with the expertise necessary to provide you with complete, accurate or reliable information." This should be borne in mind prominently when reading Wikipedia content.

The last issue here is the unhealthily close relationship between Wikipedia and the search engine Google, which has dramatically increased in popularity over the last few years. Google accords Wikipedia pages artificially high rankings as well as those pages (such as answers.com) which "scrape" or copy Wikipedia content. This ranking is not the outcome of purely automated factors, although Wiki pages are deliberately designed to mesh with Google's ranking criteria through their link policies. It is also the case that Google appears to consider Wikipedia a "trusted source" and is therefore happy to allow it free rein. This unfortunate alliance has meant that, for the purpose of harming the Google search results of an independent institution with mainstream rivals through the dissemination of negative publicity, Wikipedia offers a powerful tool.

No webmaster can control the Internet; one might as well try to nail Jell-O to the wall. Remedies such as legal action for defamation are not normally available unless the parties concerned are based in the same country. Wikipedia claims that it is merely an innocent disseminator; in its view, any defamatory action is committed by its editors, who are usually anonymous and whose IP details are flushed from the system every 2-4 weeks. Even where victory is won over one site, those that "scrape" it are often located in different jurisdictions, rendering the whole business a pointless expense of time and money. Nevertheless, it would be foolish to discount legal options entirely.

Aside from this, though, there are things that can be done. The most important of these is to ensure that the other side of the argument is put across and is readily available to those who wish to find it. The paper you are reading here is part of this process. We believe that although a number of people may read negatively-biased Wikipedia articles, a proportion of those people will be sufficiently intelligent not to accept what is presented there on face value, but instead to do their own investigation and make up their own minds.

These people are the sort of people who turn to private-sector higher education to meet their educational needs. They are men and women who recognize that mainstream education's flaws and failings offer no answer to the problems of today, and that the world is in need of educational alternatives that cater specifically to the individual rather than those that merely run with the herd.

Read on with this external link about evaluating sources on the Internet.

References
School sues over Wikipedia posts (The Register)
Wikipedia Watch