Wikipedia Bias

If you've visited Wikipedia in the last five years, you might have heard about the "Bicholim Conflict of 1640-1641 [which] was a period of armed conflict between the Portuguese rulers of Goa and the Maratha Empire led by Shivaji Bhonsle in the northern regions of Goa [India]".

Except, none of that ever happened: the "Bicholim Conflict" was completely fake, a hoax created by an unknown user.

This is the Bicholim Conflict article that Wikipedia deleted after taking over five years to realize it was a hoax. It's the version as of October, 2010 and retrieved from this.

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Bicholim Conflict
Date Mid 1640 - early 1641
Location North Goa - particularly in region of Bicholim, Pernem and Bardez
Result Treaty of non-aggression
Belligerents

Since March 2009 [1], Wikipedia has had a variant of this smear of the Minuteman Project ("MMP") on their Vigilante entry:

The Minuteman Project has been described as vigilantes dedicated to expelling people who cross the US-Mexico border illegally.

Since that quote was added, Wikipedia has backed up its claim with two highly questionable sources, as will be described below.

First note that the same Wikipedia page gives a different treatment to other groups:

As a cost-saving measure, BBC Nature (bbc.co.uk/nature) gets its listing pages about different species of animals from Wikipedia. That then forces them to implicitly admit that Wikipedia isn't a reliable source (see excerpts from the BBC FAQ below).

What's BBC's suggested fix for spreading possibly inaccurate information to readers of their site? They suggest that experts go fix Wikipedia.

While this is understandable from a money-saving perspective, the BBC is being penny wise pound foolish: they're staking their reputation on Wikipedia.

One of the reasons why Wikipedia appears at or near the top for most search terms is because people keep linking to them (another reason is almost assuredly due to search engines promoting them to the top).

If you realize why Wikipedia should be opposed, but you still need to point to a WP article on your site, you should never under any circumstances give WP a "regular link".

A "regular link" means something like:

<a href="http://wikipedia...">some Wikipedia article</a>

On June 15, 2011, Thomas James Ball immolated himself in front of the Cheshire County (New Hampshire) Superior Courthouse in a protest over men's rights. A story from the Union Leader is here, and a site constructed about the event is here.

For years, Wikiquote has been smearing Rush Limbaugh by falsely pretending that he said the following (en.wikiquote.org/w/index.php?title=Rush_Limbaugh):

You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray [the confessed assassin of Martin Luther King]. We miss you, James. Godspeed.

New York Times reporter David Rohde was kidnapped last year in Afghanistan and, in order not to raise his value to his captors, the NYT was able to get other news organizations to keep the news secret. Another source that agreed to keep it secret was Wikipedia (link).

Valerie Jarrett is a close advisor to Barack Obama who's now part of his administration. Her Wikipedia entry is miraculously missing any negative information on her, despite a few attempts to put some of it in. The entry also fails to note her role in the alleged attempts by Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich to sell the Senate seat vacated by Obama.

[NOTE: This entry was originally posted as a comment by user Chris Johnson on 08/27/2008. This site has no knowledge of this issue and hasn't verified any of the claims.]

Hare Krishna/ISKCON Domination on Wikipedia Hindu articles