How to get bias into a Wikipedia article
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
The best example, Einstein:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein's_religious_vie...
"Albert Einstein's religious views have been studied extensively. He said he believed in the "pantheistic" God of Baruch Spinoza, but not in a personal god, a belief he criticized." And there's no citation re "pantheistic." That is, as stated the claim appears to support the view that there were Einstein's words that mention the "pantheistic" as the most important thing of "Spinoza's" God.
If fact, the only quote, of course not cited in Wikipedia, where Einstein explicitly mentions "pantheism" is apparently:
http://www.einsteinandreligion.com/spinoza.html
"I'm not an atheist and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist."
The only fair description would be "he was an agnostic" and that's all. Instead, the "pantheism" is effectively promoted before, making "agnosticism" his second choice, which it wasn't. Specifically, he quotes Spinoza in order to point to the previous thinker that rejected the belief that the soul exists separately from the body. That's why he mentions him (as seen in the full quote linked above).
He was frequently quoted to declare himself agnostic, whereas he mentions Spinoza's God only in one mail.
Still, try to remove obviously lying "pantheistic" pseudo quote/promotion from Wikipedia's texts about Einstein.
And the same thing is repeated for a lot of other scientists!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzSMC5rWvos around 1:31.
People often have very good reasons to pick the labels they do, but those reasons are often fairly nuanced. The only way to respect that nuance is to honor the label. And you don't even have to be Neil deGrasse Tyson to run into relabelling.
Whether that relabeling is done by a Pew poll that labels you as a religious person because you attended a single religious service one year because you were curious about an unknown slice of culture, or by a friend trying to soften your image by labeling you as something they think is less offensive, it's infuriating.
I can't imagine how frustrating this has to be for someone who actually has the burden of having a voice that people are interested in hearing; when someone reduces a careful and intimate response to a fairly personal question to not only a single word, but the wrong word.
It makes me sick.
It's absurd that Neil DeGrasse Tyson's (or Einstein's) full exact sentences can't be quoted in the Wikipedia article about him exactly only when it's about the contested topics.
We've had all sorts of problems with this: there was an actor a few years ago who gave an interview to a British gay magazine talking about how he was out as gay. But then the prospect of him becoming big in Hollywood came along and his agent wanted to erase this, or sort of have it fade away into ambiguity. What do you do in those kinds of circumstances?
The flip side of that is I've cleaned up horrible biographies written by people who absolutely loathe particular people without even a faint hint of neutrality.
Why can't we see Einsteins quote from 1954 in the main article about him
"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. These subtilised interpretations are highly manifold according to their nature and have almost nothing to do with the original text"
instead of referring to "pantheistic" "Spinoza's God" out of his letter 1929 to interpretations of which he referred also in 1954:
"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."
Even where the quotes exist (the separate article) they are intentionally shuffled to appear that he at the end it's important that he believed in "Spinoza's God" (by placing that quote after the later ones and hiding the context).
The answer is: those that win edit wars are religious, and they try to obscure his words "The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses." If the "smartest man" says that, and they do believe in God, they feel "stupid," and they simply can't accept that, facts be damned.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Tyson#Views
"Tyson has argued that the concept of intelligent design thwarts the advance of scientific knowledge."
Which as far as I see he didn't say in that specific form and which can even be interpreted by ID followers as "so he said that ID is stronger than scientific knowledge" (using the meaning 2 of thwart: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/thwart "To oppose and defeat the efforts, plans, or ambitions of").
Try to change that to his message that "ID is stupid" which would be less manipulative recapitulation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEl9kVl6KPc
With false first presentations of Einstein as "a pantheist" and Tyson as somebody who appears to acknowledge the strength of "ID"(!) at this moment religious fanatics obviously succeeded in their manipulative influence to Wikipedia articles.
The only quote that can be properly written there in Wikipedia citing the video linked would be "Intelligent Design is philosophy of ignorance." That's what he actually said there.
The actual quote and the manipulative interpretation are by no means interchangeable.
ID absolutely does not vilify "scientific knowledge" per se. The whole point of ID is that it is a pseudoscientific rebranding of creationism, run by "Discovery Institute" that purports to find evidence for God.
Galileo, Huygens, Liebniz, Kepler and Newton are the first few that spring to mind. It used to be that (some at least, I didn't do a survey) of the biography boxes included "religion" as a characteristic.
For these named at least their religious beliefs were an active and important element of their lives and places their work in perspective.
Personally I find it lacking wrt NPOV to not include that information in the biography box.
---
In response to your specifics re Einstein the cited wikipedia page includes (and included on 18 Sept the quote you claim to be missing (at least a form of it):
>"Your question [about God] is the most difficult in the world. It is not a question I can answer simply with yes or no. I am not an Atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a Pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. May I not reply with a parable? The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza's Pantheism. I admire even more his contributions to modern thought. Spinoza is the greatest of modern philosophers, because he is the first philosopher who deals with the soul and the body as one, not as two separate things.[19]" //
I don't think it does justice to Einstein's beliefs to say "'he was an agnostic' and that's all". For example the statement - though I've not looked at the wider context - that:
>"[...] Christianity as Jesus Christ taught it [...] is capable of curing all the social ills of humanity" Einstein "Ideas and Opinions" (1954), NY, Bonanza Books [via Wikipedia]
seems quite contrary to Bertrand Russell's position of whom it could equally be said 'he was an agnostic and that's all'.
"If one purges the Judaism of the Prophets and Christianity as Jesus Christ taught it of all subsequent additions, especially those of the priests, one is left with a teaching which is capable of curing all the social ills of humanity."
Wikipedia at least didn't omit the parts that you do -- you omitted "If one purges the Judaism of the Prophets and" and "of all subsequent additions, especially those of the priests, one is left with a teaching" -- so you're more malicious in this occasion, intentionally omitting Einstein words which are important the parts of the whole sentence.
Completely different context. Try to purge the teaching of both from the later additions -- almost nothing would remain -- the earliest written records of Christianity are Paul's writings, and he was a main priest. The Gospels are even later written, obviously by priests too. The rest of the Bible is even later, everything written by priest. Of course, once the humanity would accept such a purge (to drop everything written by priests) it would result in much higher level of global consciousnesses and therefore curing of social ills.
And again the "Spinoza God" quote is published 1930, his 1954 response is clear "I do not believe in a personal God." and "If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." That are his words in 1954 written by him directly, he died in 1955.
I read the quote as applying equally to either Judaism or Christianity but I can see how it can be intended to include both sets of teaching taken together. The only point of the quote was to show that he wasn't "simply an agnostic" in the same way that Russell was "simply an agnostic". That's it.
Can you demonstrate to me what malice I performed? Perhaps your massive axe got in the way while you were grinding it and you misread my comment.
Now you're paragraph beginning "Completely different context" absolutely does put words in to Einstein's mouth beyond that shown in the quote. Presumably you have an additional source you didn't mention that enlarges on the point made in that minute quote? A corollary of what you state is that none of the Gospels nor Epistles represent Christianity - how then did Einstein know what Jesus taught. Your interpretation makes the quote in question nonsensical.
I await your source with interest.
"If" (condition)
"one purges" (action to be done: purge)
"the Judaism" (object 1)
"of the Prophets" (of what)
"and"
"Christianity as Jesus Christ taught it" (object 2)
"of all subsequent additions, especially those of the priests," (of what for object 2)
(then)
"one is left with a teaching which is capable of curing all the social ills of humanity."
He didn't claim "to know what Jesus taught." He suggests the benefit to humanity in purging the teachings of all additions especially of those of the priests and prophets. That clearly means also to purge the teachings of Paul's writings and of Gospels as they were written by priests, and then of course of the rest of the Bible and everything written by Christians in the following 2000 years. In Judaism, that also means practically everything. Try it yourself. As soon as you can't believe the priests and use their interpretations you'll have to turn to the scientists or to use scientific methods yourself.
>Nevertheless, he also expressed his belief that "if one purges the Judaism of the Prophets and Christianity as Jesus Christ taught it of all subsequent additions, especially those of the priests, one is left with a teaching which is capable of curing all the social ills of humanity."
The disjunctive arrives from the first comma and that there aren't any conjunctive prepositions linking your object1 and object2. Thus the disjunct statements combined in this form are
A) "if one purges the Judaism of the Prophets one is left with a teaching which is capable of curing all the social ills of humanity".
Wherein I'm not sure which group of prophets are antecedent here. "The prophets" in Christian theology refers to the minor prophets of the latter part of the OT.
and B) "if one purges Christianity as Jesus Christ taught it of all subsequent additions, especially those of the priests, one is left with a teaching which is capable of curing all the social ills of humanity."
As I said I accept the alternate reading that these two teaching, those arrived at through A and B, combined should instead be used to create the ultimate teaching.
However you appear to believe that he said it didn't create any teaching, it created an absence of teaching. You've heavily modified the scope of his intent without there being any indication as to how it should be modified. You say the Gospels were "written by priests" and so should be purged. Yet they are primary sources of what "Jesus Christ taught" (and indeed were not written by priests). He claims this process leaves one with an ultimate teaching. But your bowdlerised version of the methodology leaves one with nothing.
You appear to want this to say "imagine no religion" (or words to that effect), that such a thing would cure humanity of all social ills - despite this being outside of Einstein's area of genius I still can't believe he was such a fool.
Primarily the point was that based on my reading Einstein and Russell take importantly distinct positions, both agnostic. That categorising their attitudes to religion, and hence the scope of agnostic beliefs, as indistinct is unhelpful verging on disingenous. I'll hold that position for now unless you have much better arguments than you've so far put.
>Try it yourself. //
Ha. I became an atheist as a child until I realised that position is scientifically unsound. Going forward I studied philosophy, maths and physics. Then I became a Christian based on personal experiences.
Studying - and being presented as trustworthy - Haeckl and Hubble at high-school taught me not to trust someone for their reputation; neither the teachers nor the purportedly eminent scientists.
I use scientific methods which rather preclude me "turn[ing] to the scientists" who are as likely as any priest to have a bias. Ultimately I'm a pyrrhonist but practically, beyond first axioms [trustworthyness of sensedata, continuity of time dimension(s), and such] I'm a Christian as that is the empirical conclusion.
It doesn't matter one jot about _your_ argument - the point in contention is something entirely different, it is what Einstein referred to in a single line statement as the "Christianity as Jesus Christ taught it".
You wish to say that Einstein considered all the religious sources to be false, no? Then you leave Einstein saying that all that is required to cure all of humanities social ills is to teach nothing of Judaism and Christianity (all other religions would be allowed of course within this statement). Do you genuinely believe that to be first something Einstein would say and second to be true. It's laughably naive.
Your condescension does nothing to further your argument.
I'm going to end with this:
>'In an interview published by Time magazine with George Sylvester Viereck, Einstein spoke of his feelings about Christianity.[21] Viereck was a German born Nazi sympathizer who was jailed in America during World War II for being a German propagandist. At the time of the interview Einstein had been under the impression that Viereck was Jewish. Viereck began by asking Einstein if he considered himself a German or a Jew, to which Einstein responded, "It's possible to be both." Viereck moved along in the interview to ask Einstein if Jews should try to assimilate, to which Einstein replied "We Jews have been too eager to sacrifice our idiosyncrasies in order to conform."[21] Einstein was then asked to what extent he was influenced by Christianity. "As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene."[21] Einstein was then asked if he accepted the historical existence of Jesus, to which he replied, "Unquestionably! No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life."[21]' [ibid] //
That doesn't sound like the response of a man who is trying to say the gospels are all false. Perhaps these points represent different views at different times. But nonetheless the onus still lies with you to demonstrate your presented interpretation of the previously mentioned quote is correct.
My interpretation is of a man who categorically denied the existence of personal god, held a Newtonian belief in mechanistic causality which appears to some extent to contradict his own scientific revelations, admired Christianity as presented in the gospels but hated the later religious authorities that he saw as perverting Jesus message. A man who denied being atheist and always had a nagging feeling that there was some form of deity an author of the 'laws' that we reveal through our scientific endeavour.
And yes a person who's agnosticism was categorically divergent from that of Russell, ergo my initial comment.
"I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves. An individual who should survive his physical death is also beyond my comprehension, nor do I wish it otherwise; such notions are for the fears or absurd egoism of feeble souls."
and Einstein explicitly wrote in 1954:
"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated." (The texts written by others claiming that he was "believer" were published during his life too, just like Wikipedia does it now. The statement continues:)
"I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly." (That obviously refers both to the God of Old Testament and Jesus as Christians understand him "a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves").
"If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."
Further on, also in 1954:
"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. These subtilised interpretations are highly manifold according to their nature and have almost nothing to do with the original text."
And then he dies in 1955. He was cremated immediately, which was his wish: http://npaphistory.wikispaces.com/file/view/New+York+Times+o...
That's as clear as it can be.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vitoria
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batalla_de_Vitoria
You don't need to be able to speak Spanish - just check out the list of the battle commanders. (And if you do speak Spanish, you can see how the description of the battle differs quite radically too...)
I'm not sure what the solution to this and the main article's problem is, though, other than vigilance.
Generally, it helps to not rely on a single point of information. The more sources and viewpoins you consider, the more accurate the picture becomes. Even reading very biased sources can help you get a clearer picture when you intersect their information with a source from the "other" side. Also, as long as you speak only one language, you will miss out a lot as the media copy from each other and there often is bias in the language itself. For example, consider how different the meaning of "liberal" has become in English and German, even though it meant the same originally. Or consider the fact that Germans tend to use faecal terms to curse while in English, sexual terms are more common. This can subtly influence the way we think about things. Generally, the easier it is to express a viewpoint in a language, the more prevalent that viewpoint becomes. For example, before the term "political correctness" was added to the English language, it was much harder to comlain about it.
I diverted a little from the original point. Considering multiple sources in multiple languages helps a lot.
If you only read German, Swiss newspapers offer an interesting change in point of view.
Bullshit.
:)
(But I fully agree with the rest of what you say).
"Bullshit" is vulgar slang, not cursing. You don't yell "Bullshit" when you stub your toe.
Personally, I usually just say "ow".
As is often the case, the Daily Mash illustrates the truth:
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/paper-cut-sparks-...
Spanish historians know more about spanish battle commanders.
Because it quite patently is. The English language article about the battle makes little mention of any Spanish contribution, and portrays it as basically Wellington and the British vs. the French; the Spanish article highlights the Spanish contribution, almost describing the battle as a Spanish victory with some help from the other allied forces. My gut feeling is that the English language article is more reliable - it includes a numerical breakdown of the allied army which (if correct) shows the relative unimportance of the Spanish contribution, the map of the battle shows the commanders were all British, etc. But of course, I'm English, and I bring my own bias to the table...
Are both articles well cited?
Just for the record, though, the English article includes 9 citations, including a primary source (Wellington's notes), while the Spanish article mentions 4 history books (and 3 novels and a comic) yet doesn't specifically cite them in the text. Again, I suspect the English article is probably more accurate, but as use of citations is also a characteristic of fraudulent scientific papers this difference certainly isn't a completely dependable indicator.
People with a mission to tell The Truth have a lot more patience and determination than a bunch of regular wikipedia editors.
Burn out happens a lot, and part of the reason is the constant bickering around every single edit to an article for years. Some edits are inconsequential, but poke the wikipedians making or defending those edits as biased and you're helping your biases stay. Goad and provoke those wikipedians and you get to disrupt ANI pages as well. (Luckily, most WP editors realise the hot button topics and tread carefully; leaving us with megabytes of meta discussion over -, --, --- etc.)
I guess WP could employ a small core of people to edit the articles, using a carefully crafted selection of sources; and to deal with propagandists. They'd be trained to use troll-defeating tactics and conflict resolution.
The Truth™ is usually biased. I'm not sure if that's what you wanted to express with your comment, but it's exactly those people who want to get out the(ir) truth who have the most patience and determination.
I hope it is apparent that that approach wouldn't work and is antithetical to the fundamental principles of Wikipedia.
""" It is important to know, though, that in the battle over reliable sources anything goes - lying, trickery, the basest chicanery. Jaakobou complained that Peace Now - a group devoted to researching the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank - had made up a citation from a government report on the West Bank settlement of Mitzpe Ha'ai that appeared on the group's website. "I went ahead and checked their claim that an official report requested by the Prime Minister stated something on Mitzpe Ha'ai. The Mitzpe was not mentioned in the original," he wrote in the discussion on the Reliable sources noticeboard. When someone pointed out the section and page where the settlement was mentioned, he claimed that the mention did not include the specific information that was included in the article. When the original passage was quoted in its entirety, he still didn't give up; he claimed that the addition of a satellite photo of the settlement on the web page made the citation unreliable ("citing the content to Peace Now is problematic, since they add their own words and images to wiki-reliable information").
The point is: never give up. If you don't win this time, maybe you will win next time. """
I hope that these types of tricks start getting taught in schools so that young people learn to recognise them at an earlier age. More important than analysing Moby Dick.
Besides, what you describe can't really be tested on a standardized, fill-in-the-bubble test. And to the extent that it can, there would be endless arguments about the correct answer.
Great suggestion, but hard to implement pragmatically.
Which I suppose is all part of the fun of political debate...
The article makes it clear that Jaakobou is dishonest (which is a different concept from Jaakobou actually being dishonest, but if the part I quoted is true, I'm satisfied that he is). In the original there is formatting that was stripped out by my copy-paste into a hacker news comment. Finally, as I parse it, the text "citing the content to Peace Now is problematic [...]" is a statement that the article attributes to Jaakobou, not a claim by the author.
Personally I think he was attempting to be impartial though towards the end it became apparent that he was more pro-BDS than peace (now you know how I feel about this).
Let's not even talk about TV, TV pure is evil. Internet is at least what we make of it. TV is a propaguanda machine that shapes and controls the world.
Disclaimer: I'm only talking about a possibility. I'm not familiar with this topic. And BTW, I'd say this article is fine if it only has "article-level" bias.
Rules of etiquette
Much has already been written on the subject of wikietiquette, and behaviors that are considered disruptive. As a propagandist, your only concern in this area should be not to get topic-banned. Remember that your objective is not to convince anyone of the rightness of your way. This is an impossible task and therefore a waste of time. Opposing editors will never be convinced by your arguments, and the best you can hope for is to get them neutralized by goading them into a gross violation of civility, about which you can then complain at Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement. But even this is unlikely and risky, as the other players on the article talk page are probably just as savvy as you. Editing styles of propagandists range from feigned extreme politeness (Jaakobou) to sarcasm and baiting (Supreme Deliciousness). This is largely a matter of personal preference, and really makes no difference to the end result.
There are, however, two principles that you should follow.
Don't budge
Compromise is for wimps. You have a message to deliver; don't let others force you into compromise.
Don't give up
If at first you don't prevail, you may decide to step out of the fray for a while. But always come back. Wikipedia editors come and go, but your cause is eternal. Follow Jaakobou's example: He was losing the battle for his biased lead at Gideon Levy, so he stepped out of the talk page before consensus could be reached. Without him (but with others more compromising), agreement was reached on the text of the article. Nine months later, Jaakobou returned and tried to reintroduce the same lead that had been rejected. When I said that there was a consensus on the wording of the article, Jaakobou protested that he was not part of that consensus and had never agreed with the wording of the lead as it stood. He was absolutely right - he ducked out at just the right moment, thus preserving his right to return and fight again. and again. and again...
Is there an easy way to search for deleted articles and read the discussion history for them?
Seed distrust, misinformation and be obvious that this article is biased, make no attempt to hide it, this blatant display will despite the reader knowing about it, build trust in the article and writer. Its magnificent. Use this trust to point out the negative sides of the Arabs in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Step back and watch as the readers take your/the Israeli side, as the trust built from exposing bias is still valid as previously mentioned. Go Israel. There is no Israel lobby in USA, but there is an Arab one. Its called an Israeli salad not Arab salad. And so on...
I suspect he's actually partial to the Palestinian side, actually, although he tried to use examples from both partisan sides to paint a general picture of propaganda on wikipedia.
(Disclosure: I personally believe that Israeli policies and practices toward Palestinians constitute apartheid.)
GP is not the only one in this thread to have this opinion.
Now that this has been brought to light, can everyone who was about to comment please take your own biases up for review?
Being on the "right" side doesn't mean you can skip careful reading and critical thought, does it?
In short, as Einstein said: Nationalism is an infantile disease; the measles of mankind. IMHO the OP needs to grow up and broaden their perspective. By distributing such rants (s)he is attracting interest in the deliberate abuse of Wikipedia for partisan goals, which is not in its spirit. It's not something to be proud of.
Yep. Though in your list of groups/causes you forgot "environmental". For example, there's the saga of William M. Connolley, described in part here:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100020515/...
I need to echo my sibling commenters. You can't know that. You can't know that because it is; there's no other way for text to be.
Need to look up a song and artist, anime character, or what years a car was available, I am pretty much going to trust what I read there, not so with much else anymore.
(At least you need to do that on climate/environment - I've never looked into middle east)
It's debatable whether at that point it's still satire though.
http://www.conservapedia.com/Conservapedia_proven_right
http://www.conservapedia.com/Conservapedia_proven_wrong
I sometimes wonder if someone would end up with a better world view by reading http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/07/wiki-inventor/
HN : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4199260
from the Wired article: "The federated wiki is an attempt to solve these problems. As a starting point, he has built a new piece of software — dubbed The Smallest Federated Wiki — to demonstrate the concept. The radical idea of the wiki was to put an edit button on every page. The radical idea of the federated wiki is to put a “fork” button on every page."
"The similarities between the federated wiki and GitHub are not coincidental. “The radical code sharing that’s implicit to GitHub was an inspiration,” Cunningham says."
If I look up, say, resistor colour codes, a car or TV show, the the info Im looking of is as good as fact. The colour codes are correct, the car specs should be pretty much correct, and the general TV info is correct.
If I know Im delving in to something opinion based, for example, political or general history, I treat it as a starting point.
Problem comes when the subject falls in tot he middle, for example looking up a person. Some of I I assume to be correct like date of birth, home town, etc. Or at least its probably as correct as anywhere else. But often trivial type thing turn out to be little more than folk lore. But, if that matters, its very wise to look for something the person's own pages, if they exist. Or at least google the claim to see if its likely to have weight.
So, I think its fair to think some subject are likely to be acceptable as fact, other not so much.
Part of me thinks there should be a separation between things that can be seen as fact, and things that are likely to contain some sort of bias. No idea how that can reasonably be achieved though.
If you go read some of the Balkan Wikipedias, you'll have blatant nationalist propaganda and completely contradictory viewpoints. What one wiki will decry as chauvinism, another calls national identity. Most blatant is the propaganda in the Macedonian Wikipedia.
Just have two sections in the article: Each clearly biased in a different direction (maybe use colors and do it per paragraph).
Historically newspapers used to do that, each paper was clearly biased a certain way and you knew that when reading it.
Insist on accuracy of course, but the slant in the way something is written can matter a lot even if completely accurate.
http://www.amazon.com/Side-Parallel-Histories-Israel-Palesti...
It is an interesting idea. You may find that book interesting.
Are you suggesting that having a different opinion is trolling?
You can generate megabytes of meta discussion by sticking to a fringe viewpoint and exploiting the weird wiki culture. At that point it doesn't matter if you sincerely believe the nonsense or if you're just doing it for shits and giggles.