Criticism of Wikipedia

Logo of the encyclopedia Wikipedia

Criticism of Wikipedia has existed since it was founded in 2001. Most of the common criticisms were made in Wikipedia's early years up to around 2008. In view of its meanwhile central importance as an encyclopedic online reference work, the citability of Wikipedia was and is often specifically problematized and rejected in a scientific context; In view of the large number of authors involved, the majority of whom contribute anonymously or under a pseudonym, the criteria of citability cannot be met. Studies show that the criticism of the lack of reliability in this encyclopedia has by no means been done away with; However, this does not speak against problem-conscious use as a source of information. While Wikipedia continues to be banned from use by many teachers in the education sector, social practice shows in many cases that the online encyclopedia is not only used by journalists for documentary purposes, but also in the academic, political and legal sectors.

Criticisms

The points of criticism mentioned early on included:

• Some critics complained that Wikipedia produced distorted views that were owed to its own creation process, and that its goal as a "project to create an encyclopedia" was hampered by group dynamics within the user structure.

• In contrast to conventional encyclopedias, Wikipedia does not guarantee the correctness and completeness of its articles. Every internet user can change and even deliberately falsify their content. Since the introduction of the screening system in May 2008 (in German Wikipedia and some other language versions, but not in English), obvious vandalism can only find its way into a Wikipedia article if a sifter insufficiently checks changes or posts incorrect content himself.

In the second decade of Wikipedia's existence, the criticism has become more nuanced and part of the more general discussion of the use of the Internet and digital media as a source of information as well as the culture of plagiarism that began earlier . In 2008, there was a colloquium at the Zurich Central Library that dealt with the citation of Wikipedia in a differentiated manner. The German Bundestag dealt with Wikipedia in 2011 and the Federal Agency for Political Education now has an online dossier on Wikipedia with generally positive contributions from scientists to Wikipedia. Rules for citing Internet sources have been drawn up that also apply to Wikipedia, there are serious scientific issues involved in working on Wikipedia and there are also general demands for a "seminar course in the first semester in which lecturers and students work together in the Edit the 'big' Wikipedia and follow the development of individual articles. ”Such seminars are now also offered.

In 2012, Thomas Wozniak spoke of “ten years of fear of contact” between science and Wikipedia. The view that Wikipedia had to be denied citability for the most part or in full and that this would damage the scientific standards, was taken for example in 2011 and 2014. On the other hand, this criticism was also turned against the German scientific community itself; Gabi Reinmann formulated this as follows in 2012: “At the end of June, the Bundestag's own commission of inquiry for the scientific community spoke out in favor of comprehensively supporting the open access principle, that is: free access to scientific publications and findings. Open educational resources such as online textbooks, blogs, podcasts, videos, and events with several hundred or thousand participants go in a similar direction. In Germany, free educational resources that are available to anyone interested are also rare. And as a university professor you can still make headlines in Spiegel online if you post your lecture on YouTube and arrange the attendance time a little differently than a hundred years ago. "

In the following subsections, several areas of criticism are presented in more detail.

Failure to meet the encyclopedic claim

Grimme Online Award for Knowledge and Education, given to Wikipedia in 2005

The critic Robert McHenry - former editor-in-chief of the Encyclopædia Britannica - questioned Wikipedia's claim to be an encyclopedia in 2005 , because the term implies a level of personal responsibility and reliability that, in his opinion, cannot be achieved with an openly changeable source . McHenry put it:

“To the ordinary user, the tower oil and uncertainty that may lurk beneath the surface of a Wikipedia article are invisible. He or she arrives at a Wikipedia article via Google, perhaps, and sees that it is part of what claims to be an 'encyclopedia'. This is a word that carries a powerful connotation of reliability. The typical user doesn't know how conventional encyclopedias achieve reliability, only that they do. "

“The content-related conflicts and the uncertainties that lurk beneath the surface of a Wikipedia article remain invisible to ordinary users. He may come to the Wikipedia article through Google and see that this is part of what claims to be an 'encyclopedia'. This word has a strong connotation with reliability. The typical user doesn't know how conventional encyclopedias achieve this reliability, only that they do. "

Wikipedia critic Andrew Orlowski wrote in 2005 (in connection with the Seigenthaler affair ):

“If what we today know as 'Wikipedia' had started life as something called, let's say - 'Jimbo's Big Bag O'Trivia' - we doubt if it would be the problem it has become. Wikipedia is indeed, as its supporters claim, a phenomenal source of pop culture trivia. Maybe a "Big Bag O'Trivia" is all Jimbo ever wanted. Maybe not.
For sure a libel is a libel, but the outrage would have been far more muted if the Wikipedia project didn't make such grand claims for itself. The problem with this vanity exercise is one that is largely created for itself. The public has a firm idea of ​​what an 'encyclopedia' is, and it's a place where information can generally be trusted, or at least slightly more trusted than what a labyrinthine, mysterious bureaucracy can agree upon, and surely more trustworthy than a piece of spontaneous graffiti - and Wikipedia is a king-sized cocktail of the two. "

“Had what 'Wikipedia' is today started as ' Jimbo's lucky bag of trivialities' , so to speak, the current problems would hardly have arisen. In fact, Wikipedia is, as its followers claim, a great source of trivialities in popular culture. Maybe a 'colorful surprise bag' is all Jimbo ever wanted. Maybe not.
Of course - slander is still slander, but the outcry would have been quieter if the Wikipedia project had not made such a high claim to itself. The problem with this arrogant vanity is largely self-inflicted. The public expects from an 'encyclopedia' that one can trust its information in principle, or at least trust more than what a convoluted, obscure bureaucracy can agree on. And it's more trustworthy than a few spontaneous graffiti - but Wikipedia is a huge mishmash of the latter two. "

Jerry Holkins of Penny Arcade wrote that one in an essay on one of his webcomics

"The answer [to the criticism of Wikipedia] is: the community-oriented basic feature of the system means that the correct information will ultimately prevail, even if there should be occasional confusion due to violently clashing opposing views."

However, Holkins only gives the usual justifications of third parties here. In fact, he mocks that point of view with one

"Proposal of a kind of 'quantum encyclopedia' in which true information exists and does not exist at the same time, depending on the exact moment of observation when I have to rely on your crazy arguing mob for my information."

A number of academics have criticized Wikipedia for failing to be a reliable source. In some schools and universities, Wikipedia may not be used as a source for writing homework. Some educational institutions have historically excluded Wikipedia altogether; others have allowed it to be used solely as a source for collections of external references.

Some academic circles are now positive about Wikipedia as a source of knowledge. The first known reference to Wikipedia appeared on August 2, 2002 in the online journal Science in the article A White Collar Protein Senses Blue Light .

Missing assessment

The lack of an authoritatively guaranteed responsibility and an institutionalized peer review is the focus of criticism. Here are a few examples of criticism made since 2004:

Hiawatha Bray of the Boston Globe wrote in July 2004:

“So of course Wikipedia is popular. Maybe too popular. For it lacks one vital feature of the traditional encyclopedia: accountability. Old-school reference books hire expert scholars to write their articles, and employ skilled editors to check and double-check their work. Wikipedia's articles are written by anyone who fancies himself an expert. ”

“Sure, Wikipedia is popular. Maybe too popular. Because it lacks a central characteristic of a traditional encyclopedia: credibility. Traditional reference works hire professionals to write their articles and they employ trained editors to review and double-check their work. Wikipedia articles, on the other hand, are written by anyone who thinks they are an expert. "

In an October 2004 interview with the Guardian on Wikipedia, librarian Philip Bradley said :

“Theoretically, it's a lovely idea, but practically, I wouldn't use it; and I'm not aware of a single librarian who would. The main problem is the lack of authority. With printed publications, the publishers have to ensure that their data is reliable, as their livelihood depends on it. But with something like this, all that goes out the window. "

“It's a great idea in theory, but I wouldn't use it in practice; I don't know a single librarian who would do this. The main problem is the lack of authority. With printed publications, editors need to ensure that their information is reliable as their livelihoods depend on it. But with something like this it all goes down the drain. "

Robert McHenry , the former editor-in-chief of the Encyclopædia Britannica, made a similar statement in November 2004 :

“The user who visits Wikipedia to learn about some subject, to confirm some matter of fact, is rather in the position of a visitor to a public restroom. It may be obviously dirty, so that he knows to exercise great care, or it may seem fairly clean, so that he may be lulled into a false sense of security. What he certainly does not know is who has used the facilities before him. "

“The user who visits Wikipedia to learn about a topic or to check facts is more likely to be in the situation of a public toilet visitor. It may be obviously dingy there, so that he realizes that he must exercise great caution. Or it appears pretty clean, so he can easily lull himself into deceptive security. In no case does he know who may have used the facility before him. "

Due to the possible lack of the necessary qualifications to work on a topic, the contributors themselves may often not be well-versed in the areas they work on. The cultural critic Paul Vallely expressed this fact in a comment in the Independent on Wikipedia in 2006 as follows:

“Using it is like asking a stranger in a bar. He could be a nuclear physicist . Or he could be a complete moron. "

In 2013 an article in Der Spiegel magazine stated:

“While at Brockhaus doctors and professors judge what one knows or should know, Wikipedia authors are often committed laypeople . They relate to one another like professional judges to lay judges , and so you come across articles of inferior quality on Wikipedia. In addition, there are occasional lobbyists or press officers who like to try to make articles about companies or politicians more attractive. But none of this is detrimental to the rapid acquisition of Wikipedia knowledge. "

Controversial comparisons with established encyclopedias

In 2005, the scientific journal Nature had 50 selected articles from the English language Wikipedia compared with the Encyclopædia Britannica with the help of the review by experts from various disciplines. The report from December 2005 came to the following conclusion: " Wikipedia comes close to Britannica in terms of the accuracy of its science entries " (German : " Wikipedia comes close to Britannica in terms of the correctness of its scientific articles"). The report presented a study in which 42 articles in both encyclopedias were reviewed by designated experts in their respective fields. The review found that the average Wikipedia article had four errors or omissions and the average Encyclopædia Britannica article had three.

This investigation did not go without negative criticism. For example, Andrew Orlowski wrote an editorial for the register in which he claimed:

“Nature sent only misleading fragments of some Britannica articles to the reviewers, sent extracts of the children's version and Britannica's 'book of the year' to others, and in one case, simply stitched together bits from different articles and inserted its own material, passing it off as a single Britannica entry. "

"Nature only gave reviewers misleading parts of some Britannica articles, and sent excerpts from the children's edition and Britannica's 'yearbook' to others ; and in one case mended parts from different articles with their own additions and issued it as a regular Britannica article. "

Encyclopædia Britannica's prompt concerns led Nature to publish more details about their research methods. The company then responded to the traditional encyclopedia in its official statement entitled Fatally Flawed :

“That conclusion was false, however, because Nature's research was invalid. As we demonstrate below, almost everything about the journal's investigation, from the criteria for identifying inaccuracies to the discrepancy between the article text and its headline, was wrong and misleading. "

“The conclusion was wrong because Nature's study itself was invalid. As we shall show below, almost everything regarding the investigation of the journal was inaccurate and misleading, from the criteria for finding inaccuracies to contradictions between the text and the lemma of an article. "

The comparison with German-language encyclopedias, which is favorable for Wikipedia, is, however, undisputed. As early as October 2004, the German-language Wikipedia won a direct comparison of the article contents of a small number of samples (60 to 70 articles) against the digital reference works Microsoft Encarta Professional 2005 and Brockhaus Multimedial 2005 Premium, carried out by the computer magazine c't . A short time later, a dictionary comparison in the weekly newspaper Die Zeit confirmed this result. The role model function of the German-speaking offshoot is repeatedly emphasized in the press, for example in November 2006:

“Germany is now a pioneer in terms of quality. The German articles stand out in international comparison. Nowhere is the Wiki community so close to the objective encyclopedia model. It was agreed early on that 'fan articles' (for example, contributions to every minor character in the Star Wars universe) should be kept out of the encyclopedia. "

In 2007, the star commissioned a study, which he published under the title “Wikipedia beats Brockhaus” , which evaluated a random selection of articles in terms of correctness, completeness, topicality and comprehensibility, with Wikipedia achieving a better average grade of 1.7 than Brockhaus 2.7. However, studies on the quality of Wikipedia are methodologically not unassailable.

Doubtful sources

In the case of dubious content, Wikipedia requires authors to substantiate this with individual references. In an effort to establish quality standards for such evidence, for example, blogs are expressly undesirable as a source in many Wikipedia language editions . These individual references, which should usually come from external sources, should be checked and thereby the information contained in the articles verified. However, many articles do not contain such evidence. Nor do they always differentiate between “true”, “false” and “opinion”.

Interaction between Wikipedia and the media from the perspective of the satirical magazine Titanic

Some of the information on Wikipedia, especially on current political issues, comes from reports in mainstream media. Since many media on their part use contributions from Wikipedia for their reports, sometimes without checking them, there is a reciprocal relationship between Wikipedia and other media. If the media adopts incorrect information from a Wikipedia article, this can result in the incorrect media report subsequently serving as evidence for the Wikipedia article and the false report thus - accepted by readers and authors - spreading more and more.

A well-known example of this is an incident in the German-language Wikipedia in February 2009: an anonymous blogger deliberately inserted a wrong first name (in addition to the numerous correct ones) into a politician's biography. This false name was then adopted by a large number of German media outlets, which copied it from Wikipedia. The error was noticed and corrected by Wikipedia, but the correction was initially reversed because the Wikipedia relied on the media, which listed the invented first name copied from Wikipedia.

Content-related influences

Wikipedia itself confirms the problem of content influencing. The project page "Wikipedia: Researching with Wikipedia" of the English language Wikipedia , part of the Wikipedia infrastructure, not the encyclopedia itself, explains:

“Wikipedia's radical openness means that any given article may be, at any given moment, in a bad state: for example, it could be in the middle of a large edit or it could have been recently vandalized. While blatant vandalism is usually easily spotted and rapidly corrected, Wikipedia is certainly more subject to subtle vandalism and deliberate factual errors than a typical reference work. "

“The radical openness of Wikipedia means that any article can be in a bad state at any time: it may be in a major remodeling process, or it may have been recently damaged (vandalized). Obvious vandalism can easily be identified and corrected quickly, but Wikipedia is more affected than typical reference works by subtle vandalism and deliberate falsifications. "

Strict relevance criteria and quick deletion

Caricature of a "fire vulture"

The relevance criteria of the German-language Wikipedia have been criticized in the blogosphere and subsequently in other media since around 2009 . They are too restrictive, which leads to the deletion of numerous articles that are actually worth preserving. Many articles are also deleted too quickly so that they cannot be improved in the first place. This frightens authors because the deletion of entire articles devalues ​​their workload or is even perceived as censorship . Declining numbers of active authors are also a consequence of this, as is a cycle in which authors remain in the project after the experience that their own work has been deleted, but then at least as extensively sort out the content of other authors. Ultimately, deletions also marked the mainly male authors and administrators and made it difficult for potential female authors to work successfully on their specifically female topics.

imbalance

Marc Graham of The Guardian notes that Wikipedia reflects a significant imbalance between the global north and global south . In particular, knowledge about countries and events on the African continent, but also about some South and Central American countries and the South Pacific, is extremely underrepresented. ( See also: Section "Digital Divide" in the article "Wikipedia" .)

The historian Maren Lorenz criticizes the fact that Wikipedia has a very traditional, male-dominated view of history, which primarily represents points of view of events and military history. She attributes this to the social composition of the editors, which largely consist of male hobby historians interested in science and technology. Peter Haber confirmed this finding in September 2010 at the CPOV conference. The prevailing view of history on Wikipedia can be described with the slogan “Great men make history”. There is a risk that Wikipedia will make this historical image socially acceptable again. ( See also: Section “Male Dominance” .) Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight explained that women were rarely referred to in the past, that historical sources often mentioned women only briefly and that the influence of the husband was usually brought to the fore be. To the modern reader, your contribution could therefore appear smaller than it was, which represents a hurdle for its representation in Wikipedia.

Influence by interest groups (lobbying)

→ For the problem of covert influence in general see also: Astroturfing and guerrilla marketing .

Due to the increasing popularity and widespread use of Wikipedia, different interest groups , including from politics, religion and business, are increasingly looking to influence the content of articles. In 2007, the journalist Günter Schuler believed he recognized in Wikipedia “the targeted hijacking of article content for the respective political point of view as well as the practice of enhancing articles for PR purposes”. The WikiScanner caused a sensation in the press, because with this contribution unregistered users can be clearly assigned to the networks of the companies or organizations from which they come. For example, in 2006 it became known that changes had been made to politicians' biographies in the United States , some of which were clearly due to computers in the US Congress . In 2005, a similar case was made public in which biographies of German politicians were processed by computers from the German Bundestag ; and the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung also used (2007 or earlier) one of its own computers to delete an entry that it did not like. In 2015, Wikipedia administrators exposed a network of paid authors who published texts to promote their customers, and 381 accounts were blocked.

Another danger is the influence of extremist forces. Günter Schuler pointed out, for example, that right-wing extremists could use Wikipedia to make their ideological ideas accessible to a larger readership for propaganda purposes due to the “arbitrariness of content” of the “neutral point of view” . As a countermeasure, he called for the introduction of a specific anti-discrimination and anti- fascism label.

The susceptibility to one-sided influence by various kinds of interest groups is not a specific problem for Wikipedia, but a general problem on the Internet. This is how the appearance of state trolls was first described in 2003 . On one organized influence of the Internet on behalf of the Russian government , for example, the general public but was only in connection with the Ukraine conflict attention from 2013 onwards.

In 2007, the political scientist Margret Chatwin examined the campaign-like influence of the New Right on Wikipedia using the example of the weekly newspaper Junge Freiheit . Chatwin comes to the conclusion that it is above all the guaranteed anonymity that enables the New Right to carry “people's education from the right” into the encyclopedia on a broad scale. Like hardly any other medium, Wikipedia offers the possibility of shaping social discourses and relieving or reoccupying certain concepts and values, whereby the actors can resort to defamation and deception. Chatwin criticizes "the lack of an editorial review and in particular a specialist editorial team on contemporary history and political topics", which it considers to be "the greatest deficit of Wikipedia".

In an article published in 2013, the historian Peter Hoeres criticizes biographical entries on scientists and other public figures on Wikipedia. Too much emphasis is placed on the presentation of controversies and the political classification, while at the same time too little attention is paid to the actual scientific work. In addition, the source selection in individual articles is too one-sided. This is "especially the case with people who are perceived as not politically correct."

Although Wikipedia calls for an ideologically, religiously and politically neutral standpoint , it is not immune to authors who want to give certain articles a certain thrust and sometimes also exceed the limit of good taste. Some of these incidents are listed below on Wikipedia:

• In November 2005, in the article on the Congressman for Virginia , Eric Cantor , the claim that he "müffele of cow dung", introduced. Jimmy Wales remarked in an interview in 2006 that such changes are "definitely not cool".
• In January 2006 it was revealed that some White House employees had launched a concerted campaign aimed at enhancing the biographies of their employers on Wikipedia, while at the same time adding negative information to the articles of their political opponents.
• References to an election campaign promise by Martin Meehan to give up his political office in 2000 were erased by his staff.
• A US Congress employee added a comment in the article about Bill Frist that he was "incapable".

A large number of other changes were of IP addresses of the US House of Representatives carried out.

Undercover investigative reporters for the Bureau of Investigative Journalism revealed in December 2011 that the London PR agency Bell Pottinger systematically manipulated various Internet resources, including Wikipedia entries. Shortly afterwards, several Wikipedia user accounts that could be assigned to Bell Pottinger were blocked in the English language Wikipedia.

There were also politically motivated attempts at manipulation in the German-language Wikipedia. Some anonymous users apparently tried to influence the North Rhine-Westphalian election campaign in 2005 by making tendentious changes in the articles of the Spitzenkandidaten . Peter Schink wrote in the Netzeitung ,

“That paragraphs in an article about Jürgen Rüttgers were manipulated in order to put the CDU top candidate in a better light. [...] The article by NRW Prime Minister Peer Steinbrück (SPD) was also manipulated - ... to his disadvantage. His voluntary activities were overwritten with 'Secondary Employment'. "

Some of the addresses used in this incident came from the state capital Düsseldorf, some from the network of the German Bundestag .

So-called edit wars can also be waged by people and groups with different political views with the aim of grossly falsifying the content of an article. In 2006, for example, after the death of Kenneth Lay , chairman of the Enron company , after the death of a heart attack, various agents added the suspicion that it was a suicide before the official cause of death was announced. Such edits were repeatedly removed and reinserted; in the end, the article actually stuck to the fact that it was a heart attack. At this point there was not the slightest hint that Lay's death might have been caused by an unnatural cause. The version history of this article has been picked up by the press and Frank Ahrens covered it in his column in the Washington Post .

In the largest case of systematic copyright infringement discovered to date , the entire subject area of philosophy was inundated with articles from older GDR encyclopedias shaped by the Marxist - Leninist state philosophy over a period of two years from 2003 to 2005 . All other philosophical perspectives were pushed to the sidelines, so that the ideology of dialectical materialism , which has only been very marginally widespread since the collapse of Soviet communism, temporarily occupied a large space in the German-language Wikipedia. In 2005, Detlef Borchers spoke of “slurrying up” and “filling up” in this context. A different ideological representation of philosophical facts became possible after the deletion of the affected article groups due to copyright infringement.

Since 2018 , Markus Fiedler and Dirk Pohlmann have been trying to uncover a left-wing , pro- American and pro- Israel “clique” who have infiltrated Wikipedia through publications on the YouTube platform . In this context, they published the real name of a user who had put unpleasant members of the Left Party , to which he himself belonged, in connection with anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism . When the user took legal action against it, Fiedler and Pohlmann got the right in a preliminary injunction . The court argued that in this case the public interest in information outweighed the right of personality . The two also publish on the Russian state broadcaster Russia Today and on KenFM , where it is rumored that the mainstream media are controlled by a pro-American lobby. The journalist Thomas Urban therefore certifies that they have their “own agenda”.

Paid writing

In January 2014, a study by the journalist Marvin Oppong was published on behalf of the Otto Brenner Foundation , in which he examined the influence of paid contract authors (companies, PR agencies, foundations, etc.) on Wikipedia. In this he comes to the conclusion that “PR and manipulation” are “omnipresent” in the German-language Wikipedia. In particular, "companies, [...] associations, parties and individuals" would try "in the most varied of ways and ways to improve their public image by intervening in the articles in the online encyclopedia". As an example, he cites the article on Daimler AG, in which a critical section on Nazi forced labor was deleted. As a conclusion, Oppong describes that the "Wikipedia community [...] cannot master the problem itself". He also describes ten proposed solutions, including, for example, increasing user verification, creating “independent control bodies” or promoting media skills in training institutions. The study was picked up, disseminated and positively rated by various media, for example in the Süddeutsche Zeitung , the Spiegel and the Neue Zürcher Zeitung .

In February 2014 examined a job of the European University Viadrina that of Johannes Weberling is passed, the significance of the study. It came to the conclusion that it offered "wild speculation, deliberate omissions and little new". Oppong seems to have "made a conscious decision not to be too precise and to scandalize the subject of 'Covert PR in Wikipedia'". For example, certain requirements such as “verified users” have been implemented for years. The accusation against a well-known Wikipedia user that he was paid and / or edited in his own interest was "pure speculation". The changes “did not go beyond what every other author on Wikipedia does”. Another criticism is that "in most media [...] the results of the study [were] adopted almost uncritically, without questioning them in detail". Wikipedia researcher and organizational theorist Leonhard Dobusch also criticized the study at netzpolitik.org . This would "sometimes very strongly [read] as if it were just a matter of substantiating the initial thesis - Wikipedia is defenselessly exposed to the superiority of PR". Editing in the sense of PR on Wikipedia was “easier to understand than is the case in conventional media”.

Political scientist, Wikipedia administrator and founder of the Wikipedia project Dealing with Paid Writing , Dirk Franke, judged the debate to be important, but he does not see any threat to the quality or neutrality of the articles. He considers Oppong's arguments to be exaggerated. For example, the manipulations mentioned by Oppong in the article by Daimler AG were deleted after just one minute. Wikipedia has a "very committed community that also constantly monitors each other". The corresponding control mechanisms are sufficient, and "Wikipedia is primarily about classic educational topics - not about articles about companies, politicians or celebrities".

According to the spokesman for the Wikimedia Germany association , 9 of the 10 proposals by Oppong had already been implemented or in progress before the study was published. The OBS study therefore does not come up with any new suggestions for improvement.

After a warning in May 2019, the German Council for Public Relations issued a complaint in April 2020 against the German-language edition of Wikipedia due to "insufficient transparency and sender identification". For readers it is "not immediately apparent whether the articles were created by the authors on their own initiative or on behalf of service providers".

Anonymous writing

Wikipedia has been scolded by many for the ability to allow users to edit articles anonymously. This allows those who make malicious changes to remain anonymous and make it difficult to track them. So wrote Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger :

“A widespread anonymity leads to a characteristic problem, namely, the increasing attractiveness of the project for people who only want to cause trouble, or who want to weaken it, or who want to change it into something that it is by agreement not - in other words : the ' troll problem'. "

It is true that anonymous agents automatically leave an IP address that administrators can use to complain to the relevant Internet provider or to withdraw write access to Wikipedia from all participants of a service provider. However, such measures must be weighed up because constructive employees may also be excluded. Experienced computer users are in a position to bypass blocking of write access using a proxy . It has often been suggested to introduce login as a requirement for write access. Since December 6, 2005, only registered users can create new pages in the English language Wikipedia. However, according to Jimmy Wales, this change has not worked:

“The original idea was to slow down the creation of nonsense articles by certain users. The result was that these users now create an account and the articles are even more difficult to find than before. "

Vandalism and hoaxes

In 2005, Wikipedia made massive headlines because of the Seigenthaler affair . A then unknown " vandal " wrote a biographical article about John Seigenthaler Sr. in the English Wikipedia , which contained numerous false and defamatory allegations. This page went unopposed for months until it was discovered by a friend of Seigenthaler's Victor S. Johnson, Jr. This prominent example of a hoax entry was only completely deleted by Jimmy Wales following Seigenthaler's intervention . The author later revealed himself and explained that he had only allowed himself a joke with a work colleague who knew the Seigenthaler family and did not know that Wikipedia was not a joke encyclopedia. Similarly, countless other articles have been maliciously altered, either to damage the reputation of a particular person or to damage Wikipedia itself. There have even been cases of Wikipedia critics who personally smuggled false information into Wikipedia in order to “test the system” and demonstrate its unreliability.

Wikipedia provides the authors with various (technical) tools (the administrators have a few more) to combat such malicious changes. Supporters of the encyclopedia claim that the overwhelming majority of such attacks are discovered and repelled within a very short time: an investigation by IBM has shown that most vandalism can be eliminated within about 5 minutes. Nevertheless, this is not a matter of course. Vandalisms such as emptying articles or inserting obscene photographs are usually quickly undone. More cleverly smuggled adulterations may linger much longer. In 2006, for example, a user made changes to the English article on Martin Luther King Day that were extremely racist and were not corrected for 3½ hours.

Regardless of the optimism, there have been a few incidents in which defamatory, unfounded or deliberately false allegations in various versions of Wikipedia articles persisted for a significant period of time, the Seigenthaler affair being the best-known example internationally to this day. Other examples often mentioned by Wikipedia critics are the "Article on the fictitious Bicholim conflict" and the article on the phantom island Sandy Island . The latter error is a typical example that errors occurring in other sources are also reflected in Wikipedia.

Learned-sounding and article-style disinformation is harder to spot. If someone put in an addition that a person "farts all the time" it would be quickly deleted. For this reason, vandalists often try to write articles with a learned-sounding style, as the following example from a biography article on Wikipedia shows:

“Never the one to be embarrassed by life's peculiarities, Larry King has often been said to have a bit of a flatulence habit while on air at CNN, which isn't curbed by having guests in the studio. A favorite moment of his, and an often repeated story, involved an interview conducted with former President Jimmy Carter who, after some length of time in studio, chided Larry & asked him to please stop, or he'd have to end the interview. Larry ever present in the moment adeptly steered the conversation to global warming and the effects of bovine emissions on the ozon. "

“ Larry King is reported to have a tendency to flatulence , which he, the human being, does not contain during his broadcasts on CNN despite his guests. The interview with the former President Carter is a well-known and well-attested case . After a while he reprimanded Larry in the studio and asked him not to do so, as otherwise he would have to end the interview. With his presence of mind, Larry brought up the topic of conversation on global warming from the depletion of the ozone layer from biogas produced by bovine digestion. "

The vandalism was removed after five hours with the next regular post.

Another example was found in the article al-Qaeda . From November 6, 2005 to January 11, 2006, the wrong information was given here for two months, stating that the word potty was another permissible translation variant

"Al-Qaida (= basis, rule, base, foundation, the seated person; as an EDP term also database but also" potty " )".

The detection of vandalism is a difficult ongoing task. Most malicious changes are discovered through “ Recent Changes, ” which lists all of the recent edits. However, what is approved here, while incorrect, can easily go undetected for weeks or months. Additionally problematic that this vandalism partly to long after the elimination in the Wikipedia in Wikipedia clone find. The above example, "Al-Qaeda" could be translated as "child's potty", was found for example in B. on November 15, 2007 in the transfer of the article to another website.

Quality issues

System-inherent distortion of content

Wikipedia is accused of displaying content in a distorted manner due to the system. There is a tendency to attach disproportionate importance to curiosities, whereas basic articles are often neglected. In a dossier of the weekly newspaper Die Zeit of September 7, 2006, the then head of the German Historical Institute in Washington, the historian Christof Mauch , examined the article George Washington as an example . He

"Criticizes the fact that curiosities about the condition of Washington's teeth or his ownership of a pirate ship take up more space than the statements about Washington's worldview [...] The article processes the literature on George Washington largely uncritically. It is not written from a single source; rather, it has a patchwork character. The language is strikingly simple. Overall, the article is a collection of mostly correct, but sometimes arbitrarily compiled facts that lack internal order, objective depth and color . "

In an interview with the Guardian , Dale Hoiber, Editor-in-Charge of the Encyclopædia Britannica , explains that

“People write about things that interest them and that way a lot of topics are left out; for this, current news events are presented in great detail. The last time the entry on Hurricane Frances was over five times the length of the entry on Chinese art , and the entry on Coronation Street was twice as long as the article on Tony Blair . "

Even if the criticism of these specific examples no longer applies, it would be possible to make other similar comparisons of this type. The authors of the German-language Wikipedia concede major structural problems here - for example with regard to basic and overview articles.

Systemic Distortion of Perspective (NPOV)

An even more difficult problem to solve is that even when content is presented in a complete and balanced way, it does so in a way that is neutral from the point of view of those involved alone at a given point in time. The idea of ​​neutrality of the current or future readership can, however, differ from this.

There have been several occasions attempts the differences between a neutral point of view (NPOV, Neutral Point Of View to address) and the perspective of new accounts that represent the views of any larger group, but do not match the perspective of the average Wikipedia dryer. In response to this, a WikiProject Countering systemic bias arose in the English Wikipedia . The project staff track down such differences, which they believe should be resolved, and list them on a project page.

But the concept of the neutral standpoint itself has also been criticized: it is misleading, unworkable and occasionally even leads to untenable results. Some critics (and also some employees) are therefore of the opinion that NPOV is an unattainable ideal, even if they do not want to rule out that it is desirable and possibly also possible to approach it. Other critics claim that NPOV is practically the "standpoint of the masses ". This has the effect that views compatible with the masses are privileged over more radical views .

“Anti-elitism” as a weakness

In addition to the problem of deliberate incorrect entries, there is the much more difficult problem to narrow down, that in the medium term, half-knowledge will prevail in the content. In a society characterized by the division of labor, only a minority has specialist knowledge. However, this minority always runs the risk of being falsely "corrected" by the majority . The American computer scientist and artist Jaron Lanier describes such collectivist approaches on the Internet as “digital Maoism ”. The danger that the content of Wikipedia does not depict, reinforce and pass on the state of knowledge of society but rather the common prejudices of the majority society cannot be completely overcome even through administrative processes and corrective intervention by authors.

The former editor-in-chief of Nupedia , Larry Sanger , expressed the opinion on Kuro5hin.org that "anti- elitism " - the deliberate contempt for expertise - is widespread among the authors and supporters of Wikipedia. Another problem is the dominance of difficult people, of users with an excess of time and thus a valuable “currency” in the struggle to enforce a version, as well as of trolls and their supporters.

See also : Section "Paid writing"

See also : Section "Censorship"

Structure and style

The Swiss historian Peter Haber , who dealt intensively with the importance of Wikipedia for the historical sciences, remarked in 2010: “The weaknesses of Wikipedia [are] precisely there [...] where many suspect its greatest strength: it is not particularly suitable good for getting a first overview of a complex topic […]. It is a highly demanding task to introduce a historical topic in a tight space. Such contributions are not suitable for being written cooperatively ”.

Linguistic style

The American historian Roy Rosenzweig expressed in an essay from June 2006, which contained both praise and criticism, criticism of the linguistic style and of the inability to separate the central essential from the odd curiosity. Nonetheless, he acknowledged that Wikipedia was "surprisingly correct in its reproduction of names, dates and events in American history" (Rosenzweig's own field of study) and that the few factual errors that he found were "insignificant and without consequences": There were "some Mistakes already widely believed, but wrong ideas again ", many of which can also be found in Microsoft Encarta or the Encyclopædia Britannica:

“Good historical writing requires not just factual accuracy but also a command of the scholarly literature, persuasive analysis and interpretations, and clear and engaging prose. By those measures, American National Biography Online easily outdistances Wikipedia. ”

“Good historiography not only requires factual correctness, but also the mastery of scientific literature, technically convincing analyzes and interpretations as well as clear and authoritative language. If you apply these standards, the American National Biography Online easily surpasses Wikipedia. "

Roy Rosenzweig has compared the Abraham Lincoln articles on Wikipedia and the American National Biography Online, compiled by Civil War specialist James McPherson , and acknowledged that both are factually accurate and depict the important stages in Lincoln's life. However, he praised "McPherson's stronger integration into the contexts [...], his virtuoso handling of quotations to capture Lincoln's voice [...] and [...] his ability to express profound thoughts with just a few words". As a contrast, he cited an example of the linguistic style of Wikipedia, which he perceives as "babbling and clumsy". He compared "the skill and the sure judgment of an experienced historian", as with McPherson and others, to the "antiquarianism" of Wikipedia, which he compared with American Heritage magazine . He admitted that although extensive references were often made available in Wikipedia, he complained that these were not always "the very best". On the other hand, he admitted:

"Not all historians write as brilliantly as McPherson and [Alan] McBrinkley, and some of the better Wikipedia articles contain more vivid portraits than some lovelessly and schematically ( sterile and routine entries ) lemmas in the American National Biography Online".

Rosenzweig also criticized the "rambling NPOV guideline, which has the consequence that it is almost impossible to guess any comment on the story in Wikipedia." As an example he cited the conclusion of the Wikipedia article on William Clarke Quantrill . Although he generally praised this article, he nevertheless pointed out the allegedly only phrase-like conclusion:

"Some historians [...] see him as an opportunistic , bloodthirsty outlaw, while others continue to see him as a daring soldier and local folk hero."

Criticism is also raised by the fact that in the discussion of individual articles authors often use abbreviations and technical terms that are hardly used elsewhere. This creates an imbalance and makes it more difficult for newer Wikipedians to understand and cooperate. A glossary, which has existed since 2004, helps to alleviate this problem.

Differences in quality

Many Wikipedia critics, but also Wikipedia authors, have found that the quality of the articles fluctuates greatly, even if one excludes controversial topics from the discussion. Some articles are excellent in every way: supervised by authors with specialist knowledge of the subject area, with numerous useful and informative references, and written in an appropriate, factual lexicon style. On the other hand, Wikipedia articles can be amateurish, content-wise, or simply wrong. For the unfamiliar reader, it is difficult to decide which articles contain correct information and which do not. In addition, Wikipedia contains a large number of extremely brief articles ( stubs ) that offer little more than a mere short definition of a term.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales admits that the enormous differences in quality between different articles and subject areas cannot be overlooked, but considers the average quality to be "quite good", especially since it improves with every passing day.

Difficulty in timely content control

The more frequently a Wikipedia article is visited, the more often the content is also checked (“100-eye principle”). The risk that errors can remain in an article for a long time is therefore increased in remote subject areas. But even in articles that are often visited and changed at high frequency, an error can slip into the text undetected among the mass of other changes and remain there unnoticed. As long as such incorrect information has not been noticed and corrected, this article will convey incorrect knowledge, which can thus be spread to other websites (see also the section "Doubtful sources" ).

This specific criticism is one of the most discussed weaknesses on Wikipedia. The media are happy to pick up on undetected errors, such as the “Wikifehlia” campaign by the BILD newspaper, or even place incorrect information on Wikipedia for demonstration purposes , such as the Süddeutsche Zeitung at the end of 2006. The American satirist Stephen Colbert created an allusion to the content control that was in need of improvement Wikipedia uses the word wikiality .

Protection of minors

Individual educators sometimes criticize Wikipedia for the insufficient guarantee of youth protection in their view . Since there is no age verification , minors can also view content that the critics consider pornographic . Among other things, the then President of the German Teachers' Association, Josef Kraus, criticized Wikipedia in 2014 and demanded that it remove the content rated as pornographic and raise awareness of this problem from parents, schools and also from the Federal Testing Agency for Media Harmful to Young People .

Legal issues

Personal rights

A violation of personal rights can exist if a comparatively insignificant person receives an entry in the online encyclopedia against their declared will.

Daniel Brandt's Wikipedia Watch said in relation to the article about Daniel Brandt, which was once looked up in the English Wikipedia:

"Wikipedia is a potential threat to all that is the privacy (privacy) care. [...] A higher degree of responsibility in the Wikipedia system, as discussed above, would also be the very first step towards a solution to the data protection problems. "

In January 2006, the parents of a deceased hacker with the pseudonym Tron obtained an injunction against Wikimedia Germany in a Berlin court , in which the association was prohibited from going from the web address http://www.wikipedia.de/ to the German-language Wikipedia http: //de.wikipedia.org/ as long as the real name of the hacker was mentioned in Wikipedia. The injunction was lifted on February 9, 2006.

copyright

The open nature of a wiki offers no protection against copyright and other legal violations. If there is a corresponding suspicion, active users check articles to see whether they have been copied from other sources or translated from other language versions. Machine-translated articles have cumbersome syntax and misleading vocabulary and relate e.g. Some of the phenomena are difficult to understand because they are culture-specific. If the suspicion is confirmed, the administrators will delete them after a period of objection. However, this procedure does not offer complete security.

Attentive observers keep pointing out certain images and articles that represent copyright violations.

Images are often uploaded under the wrong license , a problem that the English Wikipedia in particular faces. In Germany, images that do not have a traceable license are usually deleted after a short time. The German language Wikipedia claims to have a well-functioning infrastructure that takes care of copyright problems.

However, the community of authors is largely powerless against specifically smuggled in copyright-protected texts, the origin of which is difficult to identify or prove. On November 28, 2005, Detlef Borchers reported online on Heise that the voluntary supervisors of the German-language Wikipedia were struggling with a tremendous case of mass copyright infringement:

"Several hundred entries in Wikipedia apparently come from GDR encyclopedias - they violate the principle that the lexicon may not contain any possibly protected texts so that it can be freely cited."

Sasan Abdi commented on the vulnerability of the system to the specific approach of the article setter on ComputerBase :

“For critics of the free dictionary, the recent incident is an unexpected boost. The very principle of 'Wiki', which allows anyone to post their articles, seems almost inevitably susceptible to such incidents. It is not for nothing that anonymous authors with different IP addresses have fed so much questionable material into the Diamat view of Wikipedia in the past two years alone that the counter-readers could hardly keep up with the deletion. "

Since then, there have been repeated, albeit considerably smaller, incidents of this kind, such as a series of acquisitions from Microsoft's Encarta that had to be removed. Conversely, numerous cases are known in which the copyrights of the authors of Wikipedia have been violated by copying articles from Wikipedia without observing the license and incorporating them into other websites.

Threat to traditional media

Wikipedia has been criticized for posing an economic threat to the publishers of traditional encyclopedias. Some lexicons cannot compete with a product that is basically free of charge, but on the other hand lexicons and other basic works are increasingly being put on the Internet for free use.

Development of traditional encyclopedias

In the following, the development of some traditional reference works is roughly outlined.

The Brockhaus Encyclopedia was the Brockhaus publishing house do not appear according to an announcement in February 2008 in the future more than printed output. Publishing house spokesman Klaus Holoch said: "The time when you put an excellent encyclopedia one and a half meters in size on the shelf in order to pick out what you want to know seems to be over". The Bertelsmann subsidiary inmediaONE announced in the summer of 2013 that direct sales of the Brockhaus Encyclopedia would be discontinued in 2014 and that online updates would only be available for another six years.

The editors of the Encyclopædia Britannica assured in 2005 that they did not feel threatened by Wikipedia. “The basic idea of ​​Wikipedia is that continuous improvement will lead to a perfect end result; this claim has not yet been proven by anything, ”said Ted Pappas, the editor in charge of the reference work to the Observer . In 2012 the printed edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica was discontinued. It now only appears digitally.

Meyer's Konversations-Lexikon , which was put completely online in 2006, was discontinued in 2009. Microsoft Encarta only existed from 1993 to 2009. Gabler's business dictionary has also been available in an online version since mid-2009.

The Historical Lexicon of Switzerland was first published in 1998 as an online version and from 2002 also in printed form (13 volumes each in German, French and Italian, a Romansh edition has been published since 2010). The Swiss Idiotikon (Swiss German Dictionary) has been available digitally since 2010.

Potential threats from Wikipedia and the Internet

Nicholas Carr wrote in his 2005 essay The amorality of Web 2.0 - speaking of the so-called Web 2.0 as a whole:

“Wikipedia might be a pale shadow of the Britannica, but because it's created by amateurs rather than professionals, it's free. And free trumps quality all the time. So what happens to those poor saps who write encyclopedias for a living? They wither and die. The same thing happens when blogs and other free on-line content go up against old-fashioned newspapers and magazines. Of course the mainstream media sees the blogosphere as a competitor. It is a competitor. And, given the economics of the competition, it may well turn out to be a superior competitor. The layoffs we've recently seen at major newspapers may just be the beginning, and those layoffs should be cause not for self-satisfied snickering but for despair. Implicit in the ecstatic visions of Web 2.0 is the hegemony of the amateur. I for one can't imagine anything more frightening. "

“Wikipedia may be a poor copy of Britannica because it is created by amateurs, not professionals; it's free. Freedom always beats quality. Well, what happens to the poor people who have worked on dictionaries for a living? They get sick and disappear. The same thing happens when blogs and other free online offers are juxtaposed with traditional print media . Of course, the traditional media recognize the blogosphere as a competitor. She is a competitor. And, given the laws of the market, it could well turn out to be the superior competitor. The layoffs we recently saw from major newspapers may only be the beginning; and such layoffs should give us cause not to glee, but to despair. The ecstatic visions of Web 2.0 go hand in hand with the predominance of the lay amateur. For my part, I can't think of anything more frightening. "

Peter Praschl wrote in 2013:

“Most of what Brockhaus wanted (like all encyclopedias that no longer exist), Wikipedia has long been able to do much better. It is faster, more up-to-date [...], more reliable after the knowledge and insight production, more nervous knowledge as it were. Wikipedia is more democratic than any printed encyclopedia could be, not only because anyone can take part in it and access is free, but also because the production process of imparting knowledge is transparent on discussion pages and in the version stories that accompany each article power."

The Internet cannot generally be held responsible for the fact that certain traditional products such as newspapers, magazines or printed encyclopedias have sales difficulties: “Products that are not bought are not left because of the Internet, but because they are not worth it to customers. "()

It remains to be seen whether Wikipedia - or similar projects - will completely replace the traditional form of publication. For example, Chris Anderson , the editor-in-chief of Wired , wrote in 2006 in the journal Nature that Wikipedia's “wisdom of the masses ” approach will not be able to replace the leading scientific journals with their strict peer reviews . Anderson brings an economic argument based on the limited space in prestigious journals and the large number of publications fighting for this scarce space:

“So the rise of the online 'peer' has shown that there is another way of tapping collective wisdom. But it's not going to eliminate traditional peer review anytime soon. The reason why can be explained in the economic terms of scarcity and abundance. Closed peer review works best in scarce environments, where many papers fight for a few coveted journal slots. Open peer review works best in an abundant environment of online journals with unlimited space ”

“So the advent of online peer has shown that there is another way to tap into collective knowledge. But that doesn't mean that it will replace traditional peer review in the near future. The reason for this can best be explained with the economic terms shortage and abundance: The 'closed peer review ' works best when resources are scarce, where many contributions have to fight for a few, highly sought-after places. The 'open peer review ' works best when there is almost no space in online journals "

Relatively new is a criticism of Wikipedia that sees it as a threat to traditional education systems and rejects cooperation between scientific institutions and Wikipedia. Combined with the complaint that “more than half of German students consider Wikipedia to be considerably more reliable than the online editions of renowned encyclopedias [...] (no further questions were asked about printed works)”, Wikipedia and the Internet are generally decaying in “information literacy of all learners in schools and universities, especially including the future so-called public elites in politics, economy, media and justice”. “Today's pupils and students are the working people and often even the 'elites' of tomorrow. They can and will determine or legitimize their decisions and actions just as 'quick and dirty' as they learned at their training centers - or not. "

Employee structure

Group dynamics

It was predicted that Wikipedia would end up as "a bunch of Flame Wars ". This fear was taken seriously by the Wikipedia community, who developed the concept of Wikiquette to address this problem.

In an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung in 2006, the virtual reality expert Jaron Lanier reported on his observations regarding the working atmosphere in a cooperative working environment such as Wikipedia: "But if you read the history of the individual entries, how there is a fight for formulations [... ] People are mean to one another. These conflicts are bad, ugly and have nothing to do with civilized behavior. It is not without reason that they are called edit wars. "

For Lanier, the idea of ​​the much- invoked swarm intelligence is a wrong track. The underlying concept - if as many people as possible do the same thing, then something big emerges - is an illusion:

"The 'wisdom of the crowd' could only work if the Internet were used to locate the few ways that exist in the crowd and to get them to cooperate"

His conclusion is then that in truth it is always only committed individuals or small groups who produce creative ideas.

Fans and lobbyists

Various authors have complained that working on Wikipedia is tiring when it comes to conflict. Stubborn users or user groups with idiosyncratic views could assert their opinion, because no normal person would have the time and inclination to constantly work against their distortions.

Other employees complain that informal alliances within Wikipedia regularly collaborate in order to suppress certain points of view. They claim that certain pages are "taken over" by fans and lobbyists, who then often delete the posts of new employees. This problem seems to arise mainly on controversial issues. Sometimes this leads to edit wars and page locks. An arbitration committee was set up in the English Wikipedia to deal with the causes of the worst excesses. In the German-language Wikipedia you can get a so-called third opinion or submit a vandalism report, this is processed by an administrator (who, in case of doubt, consults a second administrator). This can admonish the vandal and block the controversial article for him or block him as an author for a certain time (in extreme cases unlimited).

To curb Editwars stronger, has Jimmy Wales in the English Wikipedia, the three revert rule (Engl. For three times reset control ) was introduced, according to reset users the same item within 24 hours, more than three times, threatening the withdrawal of write permission. ( See also: Section "Weighting" .)

censorship

Every now and then it is suggested that critical remarks and comments on certain topics are systematically excluded, deleted or reversed by self-appointed censors . Even attempts to reach a compromise by integrating diverging perspectives in the article would be thwarted by unyielding “vandal writers” who simply eradicated undesirable perspectives.

Other users claim that some Wikipedians try to suppress uncomfortable criticism of Wikipedia. They refer to the use of the Wikipedia Review and Wikipedia Watch websites , which are critical of Wikipedia. These websites have been excluded as a reference source for some Wikipedia articles. Critics complain that these sites are being locked out because of their anti-Wikipedia views. Administrators point out that these pages, especially Wikipedia Review , do not meet the standards for Wikipedia citation , and note that many websites and publications that have a critical relationship with Wikipedia are used as sources.

One of the guidelines of Wikipedia is to "adequately present" all perspectives on a matter without claiming, suggesting or implying that only one of these perspectives is correct.

( See also: Section "Anti-Elitism as a Weakness" .)

Abuse of power

Jimmy Wales (parody)

Some authors have left Wikipedia after they accused administrators (in Wikipedia also the Arbitration Committee ) of abuse of power . The power structure of the Wikimedia Foundation with the management style of its founder Jimmy Wales dominated Trustees ( "Board of Trustees") as well as the special rights of Wales as a Wikipedia author ( "Founder rights") have stirred controversy. James Heilman , one of three members of the WMF Board of Trustees elected by the Wikipedia community, was expelled from the Board of Trustees during a meeting on December 28, 2015.

Lack of discussion culture

Over time, discussion rules, layout rules and much more have been practiced. In the beginning, some things were discussed for a very long time - and in phases in a circular manner. An example of this is the ongoing debate about the alternative British or American English, in the German-language Wikipedia comparable to the use of Austrian Standard German instead of Federal German Standard German , especially in sections that concern Austria. The often very rough and unfriendly tone of differences of opinion is also criticized.

In the study The Rise and Decline of an Open Collaboration System , after a rapid increase in authors in the English Wikipedia up to 2007, a sharp decline in the number of active authors was found, especially due to the departure of new authors. On the one hand, the frighteningly complicated set of rules of Wikipedia is one reason for this, so that incorporations by new authors are often revised due to rule violations. On the other hand, a break in the “welcoming culture” is responsible for it. The number of active authors and new authors has also been steadily declining in German-language Wikipedia since 2007. Since then, suggestions for improving the number of authors have been drawn up at the annual WikiCon conference - but so far without any significant success.

Political positioning

Protest banner of the German-language Wikipedia during the shutdown on March 21, 2019

As a result of an opinion poll within the German-language Wikipedia , it was switched off on March 21, 2019 to protest against the planned copyright reform of the European Union . This language version of Wikipedia was switched off for 24 hours. According to Christian Meier von der Welt , the campaign can be considered a success because it attracted a lot of media attention. However, this also led to criticism and the topic of political activism in Wikipedia was discussed. Meier ( Welt ) was surprised that only 139 users were necessary to switch off Wikipedia, he notes that there were protests against the switch off: "The core of the criticism was the instrumentalization of Wikipedia for political purposes". According to Lukas Schneider from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , Wikipedia betrays its goal of objectivity and loses its credibility. The action also shows how dangerous digital monopolies are. Elisabeth Nöfer and Gunnar Hinck from the daily newspaper as well as Michael Hanfeld from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Christian Meier note the low voter turnout within the Wikipedia community. Hanfeld criticized the protest website for making it look like all Wikipedia authorship was behind the protest. However, he referred to the discussion page on the opinion sheet, which gave a completely different picture. John Weitzmann, responsible for politics and law at Wikimedia Germany , defended the action and said there were no irregularities in the vote. According to Jörg Hunke from the Berliner Zeitung, the Wikipedia community is plagued by the question of whether Wikipedia is not endangering its neutral position through the action.

Male dominance

Discussion between the writer Lena Falkenhagen and the Wikipedia author Uwe Rohwedder about gender-equitable language in Wikipedia

→ Main article : Gender gap in the English language Wikipedia

The goal set in 2011 by the former managing director of the Wikipedia Foundation, Sue Gardner , of increasing the percentage of women who write on Wikipedia to 25%, could not be achieved. Among the various reasons, u. a. Established communication and power processes on the basis of numerical superiority, in addition to the tone of voice, the fixed group dynamic structures, combined with the enormous pressure to adapt that weighs down on female authors in this male domain. Another important reason is assumed to be lack of time due to the double or multiple workload of many women. The currently lower average number of women who have acquired programming skills also means that women either do not take notes or, in view of the tendency towards more and more mechanization of Wikipedia, which gives programmers clear advantages in decision-making issues (also with regard to writing blocks that are easier to bypass) ) to withdraw in the event of a conflict.

A special role feminist issues and projects a: Inspired by the example of the female-dominated LinuxChix founded in November 2006, a group longtime English Wikipedia authors WikiChix in order to which it considers always respond strongly male-dominated Wikipedia and to show how uncomfortable many Women felt in such an ambience. An example of this frustration - although not directly mentioned by the WikiChix group - was the attempt to create the article Feminist science fiction in the English Wikipedia , a process that led to heated arguments, which ultimately, for many, was unsatisfactory through a change the title in Women in Science Fiction was terminated in October 2002. The article Feminist science fiction was only re-created in June 2006.

The existence of a mailing list exclusively for female participants also led to controversy, the discussion list of which was finally moved from the servers of the Wikimedia Foundation to the Wikia platform .

In the issue of his television program Neo Magazin Royale, the satirist Jan Böhmermann addressed the composition of Wikipedia authors as predominantly male and German with no migration background. He then initiated the creation of the article potato (slang) to check whether such an article, the term of which offends this group of people, would survive in Wikipedia.

Imposture

In 2007, the user of the account with the pseudonym Essjay hit the headlines for revealing his pretended identity as a professor. The impostor Essjay had risen to the level of administrator and member of the arbitration tribunal in the English language Wikipedia . Wikipedia's credibility suffered from this case as it only uncovered deficiencies in the control system from other users.

See also

• Literature on Wikipedia

Web links

German-language Wikipedia

• Wikipedia: Our responses to criticism
• Wikipedia: Quality assurance in Wikipedia
• Wikipedia: Exterior mirror (list of critical receptions of specific encyclopedia entries / articles)
• Wikipedia: Wikipedistik / comparisons

English language Wikipedia

• Reliability of Wikipedia (reliability of Wikipedia)

External websites

• Die Anarchische Wiki-Welt , ZEIT article , September 18, 2008
• Writer of knowledge , article in the taz about the discussion culture in Wikipedia, January 8, 2011
• The rough tone at Wikipedia alienates more and more authors , article in the WAZ , April 4, 2011
• Criticism of online encyclopedia: Long-time Wikipedia author warns: You shouldn't believe everything in the lexicon , article in Stern , November 6, 2017
• Wikipedia: The net utopia ends up in reality , article in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung , April 11, 2019
• Manipulation in the encyclopedia: Purchased truths on Wikipedia , article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung , June 25, 2019

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Bazon Brock: The network is the hell of the new world. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung - FAZ.NET. May 2, 2010, accessed January 28, 2016 . 
2. ↑ Arno Frank: Pack with an opinion. About crush stupidity . Berlin 2013.
3. ↑ Andreas Möllenkamp: Who writes Wikipedia? The online encyclopedia in the imagination and lifeworld of its most active authors . Master thesis. Leipzig 2007 ( PDF; 1.4 MB ).
4. ↑ Jan Hodel: ZB colloquium on the citability of Wikipedia. October 31, 2008, accessed January 28, 2016 . 
5. ↑ Roger Cloes, Tim Moritz Hector: Development and importance of the voluntary knowledge offers posted on the Internet, especially with regard to the Wiki initiatives . Info letter WD 10 - 3010 - 074/1. Ed .: Scientific Services of the German Bundestag . 2011 ( PDF; 270 kB [accessed on May 2, 2016]).
6. ^ Dossier: Wikipedia. In: bpb.de. Federal Agency for Civic Education, accessed on October 13, 2018 . 
7. ↑ The HIS Hochschul-Informations-System GmbH his.de lists important scientific papers under the keyword Wikipedia. In the 2007 summer semester, there was a “Writing for Wikipedia” course at the Institute for Media Studies at the University of Basel and an evaluative workshop discussion at the historical seminar there. The related materials and reports are published on the Internet: wiki.histnet.ch , wiki.histnet.ch (PDF; 151 kB), hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de . At the University of Vienna there was a research seminar "Wikipedia and the historical sciences " in 2010 (see wiki.hist.net and cpov.de )
8. ↑ Marc Scheloske: Is Wikipedia citable? Dealing with scientific sources wissenswerkstatt.net (meaning: citable)
9. ↑ z. B. Department 06 History at the University of Marburg qis.uni-marburg.de
10. ↑ Thomas Wozniak: Ten years of fear of contact: The historical sciences and Wikipedia . An inventory, in: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaften 60/3 (2012), pp. 247–264.
11. ↑ Maren Lorenz: The trend towards the Wikipedia document. In: Research & Teaching 7/13. March 3, 2011, accessed January 28, 2016 . 
12. ↑ Thomas Wozniak: Mandatory citation for Wikipedia articles - and if so, for which ones and how? In: Mittelalter.hypotheses.org. May 17, 2014, accessed January 28, 2016 . 
13. ↑ Gabi Reinmann: Acting, thinking and wanting on the Internet. Through education for the self-determined handling of digital media. (No longer available online.) December 12, 2012, archived from the original on February 21, 2016 ; accessed on January 28, 2016 .  Quoted from the speech manuscript of the lecture “Digital Thinking - How the Digital Revolution is Changing Our Lives” on November 7, 2012 in Bonn ( PDF; 532 kB ), see also Research & Teaching 7/13 of December 12, 2012.
14. ^ Robert McHenry: The Faith-Based Encyclopedia Blinks. In: TCS Daily at Ideas in Action. December 14, 2005, accessed December 5, 2015 . 
15. ↑ Andrew Orlowski: There's no Wikipedia entry for 'moral responsibility'. In: The Register. December 12, 2005, accessed December 5, 2015 . 
16. ↑ "response [to criticisms of Wikipedia] is: the collaborative nature of the apparatus means that the right data tends to emerge, ultimately, even if there is turmoil temporarily as dichotomous viewpoints violently intersect."
17. ↑ Holkins derides this view as "propos [ing] a kind of quantum encyclopedia , where genuine data both exists and doesn't exist depending on the precise moment I rely upon your discordant fucking mob for my information." Source: penny-arcade.com
18. ↑ Wikipedia a lesson on verifying research
19. ↑ A White Collar Protein Senses Blue Light (access only for subscribers)
20. ↑ Hiawatha Bray: One great source - if you can trust it. In: The Boston Globe. July 12, 2004, accessed December 15, 2015 . 
21. ↑ Simon Waldman: Who knows? In: The Guardian. October 26, 2004, accessed December 9, 2015 . 
22. ^ Maximilian Sterz: media competence and critical reception: Wikipedia in school. In: netzthemen.de. September 20, 2006, accessed December 9, 2015 . 
23. ↑ http://culteducation.net/group/1256-general-assembly/8745-the-big-question-do-we-need-a-more-reliable-online-encyclopedia-than-wikipedia.html ( Memento from 13 October 2014 in the web archive archive.today )
24. ↑ Alexander Kühn: Printed out. In: Der Spiegel 25/2013 p. 73
25. ^ J. Giles: Special Report Internet encyclopaedias go head to head . In: Nature . December 15, 2005, doi : 10.1038 / 438900a ( entry at nature.com ).
26. ↑ Andrew Orlowski: Nature mag cooked Wikipedia study. March 20, 2006, accessed December 13, 2012 . 
27. ↑ Fatally Flawed. (PDF) Encyclopædia Britannica, March 2006, accessed December 13, 2015 . 
28. ↑ Issue 21/04
29. ↑ Alex Rühe: Wikipedia forgeries - In the down feather flurry. Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 3, 2006, accessed on February 4, 2011 . 
30. ↑ stern.de ( Memento from November 24, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), see also stern.de
31. ↑ Dietmar Schiller, Karl-Peter Fuchs, Markus Kattenbeck, Christian Sax: Quality of Wikipedia - a comparative study . In: Open Innovation - New Perspectives in the Context of Information and Knowledge ?, Contributions to the 10th Symposium for Information Science and the 13th ICT Conference of Scientific Societies, April 2007 ( online ).
32. ↑ TITANIC Infographic , Startcartoon, December 2008, titanic-magazin.de
33. ↑ Marcel Machill, Markus Beiler, Martin Zenker (University of Leipzig): Journalistic Research on the Internet ( Memento from October 17, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), Vistas, Berlin 2008, Media Research Series of the State Institute for Media North Rhine-Westphalia, Volume 60, ISBN 978 -3-89158-480-4 , p. 26
34. ↑ BildBlog: How I made Baron von Guttenberg Wilhelm , accessed on February 3, 2011.
35. ↑ Kai Biermann : I was surprised how many people adopted the mistake ; in: Zeit Online from February 13, 2009.
36. ^ Wikipedia: Researching with Wikipedia . In: en.wikipedia.org , December 24, 2010, accessed January 18, 2011.
37. ↑ representative for many media: Manfred Dworschak: Lust loss in the lexicon machine, Spiegel Online, December 1, 2009, on the Internet: spiegel.de
38. ↑ Hendrik Werner: Wikipedia and the dilettantes at the delete key . Welt Online, November 25, 2009, Online
39. ↑ ^{a b} Konrad Lischka : Participation Encyclopedia: Men write full Wikipedia. February 2, 2011, accessed November 5, 2015 . 
40. ^ Wikipedia's known unknowns , guardian.co.uk, accessed April 24, 2010
41. ^ Maren Lorenz : Wikipedia. On the relationship between the structure and effectiveness of a secret leading medium ; in: Werkstatt Geschichte 43 (2006), pp. 84–95.
42. ↑ Peter Haber : On the source criticism of Wikipedia. A research report ; on the Internet: vimeo.com
43. ↑ Stephen Harrison: The Notability Blues. In: Slate . March 26, 2019, accessed May 10, 2020 . 
44. ↑ Wikipedia inside, p. 8, Unrast, Münster 2007
45. ↑ Wikipedia WikiScanner . See also true or false? In: Süddeutsche.de v. May 17, 2010 sueddeutsche.de
46. ↑ Evan Lehmann: Rewriting history under the dome: Online “encyclopedia” allows anyone to edit entries, and congressional staffers do just that to bosses' bios. In: The Lowell Sun, January 27, 2006
47. ^ Richard Meusers: Who is manipulating Rüttgers' wiki entries? In: Spiegel Online from May 19, 2005
48. ↑ Torsten Kleinz: Nestbeschmutzer in Wikipedia - Strategy 1: Die Löschtruppe In: FOCUS-Online published and accessed on August 27, 2007
    Version difference and whois query
49. ↑ Kornelius Friz: 381 sock puppets unmasked. faz.net of September 2, 2015, accessed October 11, 2019
50. ^ Günter Schuler, interviewed by Patrick Gensing: Right-wing extremism on the Internet; “Persistent and sometimes clever” Interview in: Zeit Online Zuender 45/2007. Last accessed March 24, 2009
51. ↑ Internet brigades in Russia - "Web Brigade's" ( Memento of March 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) CNN, March 21, 2009
52. ↑ Felix-Emeric Tota: Twelve hours a day in Putins Sinn faz.net, March 19, 2015
53. ↑ Margret Chatwin: Reach for the sovereignty of opinion. Internet campaigns by “Junge Freiheit” using the example of Wikipedia . In: Stephan Braun , Ute Vogt (ed.): The weekly newspaper "Junge Freiheit". Critical analyzes of the program, content, authors and customers ; VS Verlag , Wiesbaden 2007, ISBN 978-3-531-15421-3 , p. 238
54. ^ Margret Chatwin: p. 264
55. ↑ Peter Hoeres: gardener of the rhizomes. Tell a story digitally on Wikipedia (= EPub-Ebook). Ripperger & Kremers, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-943999-36-5 .: Chapter Biography-Politics, quotation p. 20. In a revised version, published in the anthology Wikipedia und Geschichtswwissenschaft, ed. by Thomas Wozniak et al. has been published, the article is available online in Open Access: http://www.degruyter.com/viewbooktoc/product/433564
56. ^ Vandalism treatment in the article about Eric Cantor in the English language Wikipedia of November 1, 2005.
57. ↑ Senator staffers spam Wikipedia. lawnorder.blogspot.com, January 30, 2006, accessed February 6, 2016 . 
58. ↑ Melanie Newman, Oliver Wright: Caught on camera: top lobbyists boasting how they influence the PM. In: Independent. December 6, 2011, accessed May 4, 2016 . 
59. ↑ Christian Körber: “Arab Spring” as a acid test. In: ORF.at. December 17, 2012, accessed May 4, 2016 . 
60. ↑ David Pegg: Revealed: The Wikipedia pages changed by Bell Pottinger. In: The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. December 7, 2011, accessed May 4, 2016 . 
61. ↑ netzeitung.de ( Memento from May 21, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
62. ↑ Berlin-Jurist: Comments on manipulation by IPs on the Wikipedia article about Jürgen Rüttgers. May 26, 2005, accessed December 16, 2015 . 
63. ↑ washingtonpost.com
64. ↑ Detlef Borchers: Wikipedia in the battle of world views (update). In: Heise Online. November 28, 2005, accessed December 21, 2014 . 
65. ^ Matthias Holland-Letz: Wikipedia: Suggested for deletion. ( Memento from May 29, 2019 in the Internet Archive ) In: Journalist from May 27, 2019.
66. ↑ Thomas Urban: Skilled labor shortage In: Süddeutsche Zeitung of October 4, 2019, accessed on October 11, 2019
67. ^ Marvin Oppong: Covert PR in Wikipedia. Global knowledge in the sights of companies . P. 93.
68. ↑ European University Viadrina , Wiki-Watch department of the Faculty of Law: “Hidden PR in Wikipedia” - the study in the fact check . February 14, 2014.
69. ↑ ^{a b} Petra Sorge: The Tool of the Spin Doctors , Cicero from January 23, 2014
70. ^ Swiss radio and television : Are PR agents breaking Wikipedia? February 25, 2014.
71. ↑ Influence of corporations on their Wikipedia articles is increasing. In: Badische Zeitung . February 6, 2014.
72. ^ German Council for Public Relations: DRPR reprimands Wikipedia Germany , April 17, 2020, accessed on April 20, 2020.
73. ↑ Explanations
74. ↑ Larry Sanger : Toward a New Compendium of Knowledge (longer version) ( Memento November 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) September 15, 2006 (and getting slowly out of date!)
75. ^ Jimmy Wales: Experiment on new pages. December 5, 2005, accessed February 6, 2016 . 
76. ↑ Torsten Kleinz: Scientist for Wikipedia . In: c't . No. 15/2006 , July 10, 2006. pp. 100-102 (contains an interview with Wales)
77. ^ John Seigenthaler: A false Wikipedia “biography” In: USA Today of November 29, 2005.
78. ↑ Author of wrong biography apologizes In: Süddeutsche Zeitung of December 12, 2005.
79. ↑ Effective Vandalism - Experimentation Results. In: Wikipedia Review. August 26, 2006, accessed December 26, 2015 . 
80. ↑ Fernanda B. Viégas, Martin Wattenberg, Kushal Dave: Studying Cooperation and Conflict between Authors with history flow visualizations . In: CHI2004 . Vienna 2004 ( alumni.media.mit.edu [PDF; 871 kB ]).
81. ↑ Martin Luther King Jr. Day
82. ↑ Conceived war has been on Wikipedia for years. In: The world digital. January 9, 2013, accessed December 26, 2015 . 
83. ^ Vandalism processing in the article about Larry King in the English Wikipedia of May 11, 2006, 10:22 pm.
84. Jump up vandalism in the article on Larry King in Wikipedia, May 12, 2006, 03:37
85. ↑ Comparison of the versions of Al-Qaeda from November 6, 2005, 8:50 a.m. and January 11, 2006, 3:41 a.m.
86. ↑ Al-Qaida , haben-gross.com (November 15, 2007) ( Memento of October 20, 2007 in the web archive archive.today )
87. ^ Kerstin Kohlenberg: The anarchic Wiki world. In: The time. September 7, 2006, accessed December 5, 2015 . 
88. ↑ Digital Maoism: The hazards of the New Online Collectivism In: Edge from May 30, 2006, in an abbreviated German translation: Digitaler Maoismus In: Süddeutsche Zeitung from June 16, 2006
89. ↑ Larry Sanger: Why Wikipedia Must Jettison Its Anti-Elitism. In: Kuro5hin. December 31, 2004, accessed December 13, 2015 . 
90. ↑ Christian Staas: The more controversial, the better - what good are the history articles in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia? - A conversation with the historian Peter Haber. In: The time . July 8, 2010, accessed December 5, 2015 . 
91. ^ Roy Rosenzweig: Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the past. The Journal of American History, Volume 93, No 1, 6/2006, pages 117-146.
92. ↑ https://www.sfu.ca/cmns/courses/2012/801/1-Readings/Rosenzweig-%20Can%20history%20be%20open%20source%20.pdf Roy Rosenzweig: Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the past. The Journal of American History, p. 130.
93. ↑ https://www.sfu.ca/cmns/courses/2012/801/1-Readings/Rosenzweig-%20Can%20history%20be%20open%20source%20.pdf Roy Rosenzweig: Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the past. The Journal of American History, pp. 130f.
94. ↑ Help: Glossary , accessed April 7, 2019.
95. ↑ Examples?
96. ↑ bild.t-online.de ( Memento from January 1, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
97. ↑ Alex Rühe: Wikipedia forgeries - In the down feather flurry. Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 3, 2006, accessed on February 4, 2011 . 
98. ^ Housed forgeries - Chronology of the clean-up work. Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 3, 2006, accessed on February 4, 2011 . 
99. ↑ colbertnation.com
100. ↑ [1] , [2] , [3] , [4] , [5] , [6] .
101. ↑ wikipedia-watch.org . Archive link.
102. ↑ Wikipedia Watch. Retrieved September 24, 2010 . 
103. ↑ “Wikipedia is a potential menace to anyone who values ​​privacy. […] A greater degree of accountability in the Wikipedia structure, as discussed above, would also be the very first step toward resolving the privacy problem. ” Source: Archived copy ( Memento of the original from May 23, 2016) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
104. ↑ according to Tron (Hacker) #name controversies
105. ↑ heise.de
106. ↑ computerbase.de
107. ↑ Brockhaus: "We will be the knowledge navigator on the net". In: Welt online. February 12, 2008, accessed January 14, 2016 . 
108. ↑ ^{a b} Peter Praschl: An adieu that speaks volumes . In: Welt am Sonntag . June 16, 2013, p. 43 ( online ).
109. ^ Brockhaus Enzyklopädie Digital, inmediaONE GmbH Gütersloh. ( Memento from July 20, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
110. ↑ theguardian.com
111. ↑ Nicholas Carr: The amorality of Web 2.0. In: roughtype.com. October 3, 2005, accessed December 5, 2015 . 
112. ↑ Don Alphonso: Now die faster without internet! The usual suspects: When a magazine is starving, the blame lies with the network and its users who are unwilling to buy. The crisis-ridden Focus could suffer for completely different reasons. In: faz.net . August 30, 2014 ( faz.net ).
113. ↑ Chris Anderson: Scientific publishers should let their online readers become reviewers . In: Nature . 2006, doi : 10.1038 / nature04992 ( nature.com ).
114. ↑ Maren Lorenz: The trend towards the Wikipedia document. Why Wikipedia is scientifically not quotable. In: Research & Teaching , Vol. 18 (2011), 2, pp. 120–122 ( online ) (here, too, “quotable” means quotable)
115. ↑ ^{a b} Stefan Holtel, Konrad Buck: Interview with Jaron Lanier - Ugly, uncivilized and evil. Süddeutsche Zeitung, December 12, 2006, accessed on February 4, 2011 . 
116. ↑ Expert retention, respect for other contributors, and the "widely distributed" ikkyu2 essay . See the debate about the Danube Tower and its media coverage, for example the Danube Tower divides the Wikipedia community. derStandard.at, November 19, 2009, as well as the article by Mathieu von Rohr: Inside the world knowledge. In: Der Spiegel. No. 16/2010 of April 19, 2010.
117. ↑ wikipediareview.com
118. ↑ wikipedia-watch.org , archive link.
119. ↑ wired.com
120. ↑ meta.wikimedia.org
121. ↑ heise.de
122. ↑ Aaron Halfaker, R. Stuart Geiger, Jonathan Morgan, John Riedl: The Rise and Decline of an Open Collaboration System: How Wikipedia's reaction to popularity is causing its decline . In: American Behavioral Scientist . tape 57 , no. 5 , 2013, doi : 10.1177 / 0002764212469365 (English, umn.edu [PDF]).
123. ↑ Wikipedia Statistics German
124. ↑ ^{a b} Jörg Hunke: Wikipedia offline protest against copyright reform - a controversial action. In: Berliner Zeitung . March 21, 2019, accessed March 24, 2019 . 
125. ↑ ^{a b} https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/wikipedia-ist-offline-protest-gegen-die-uryrightVO-16099502.html
126. ↑ ^{a b} https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article190658459/Wikipedia-Fuer-die-Abschalt-stimmten-nur-139-Autoren.html
127. ↑ That's why Wikipedia is offline today. In: Spiegel Online . German Press Agency , March 21, 2019, accessed on March 24, 2019 . 
128. ^ Benjamin Emonts: Why Wikipedia goes offline. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . March 20, 2019, accessed March 24, 2019 . 
129. ↑ David Zajonz: Wikipedia goes offline in protest. In: Tagesschau.de . March 21, 2019, accessed March 24, 2019 . 
130. ↑ Corinne Plaga: Why Wikipedia was offline for one day. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . March 21, 2019, accessed March 24, 2019 . 
131. ↑ See also www.idea.de: "Lügen mit System". Sunday newspaper warns against Wikipedia: texts often come from activists. 19th January 2020.
132. ↑ https://taz.de/Archiv- sucht/!5579562 /
133. ↑ ^{a b c} Michael Hanfeld : 139 votes for Wikipedia's "Blackout". In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . March 23, 2019, accessed March 24, 2019 . 
134. ↑ Wikipedia was offline all over Germany - there is a reason. In: Merkur.de . March 23, 2019, accessed March 24, 2019 . 
135. ↑ Andreas Kemper , Charlott Schönwetter: Reproduction of male power relations in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia . In: A. Heilmann, G. Jähnert, F. Schnicke, C. Schönwetter, M. Vollhardt (eds.): Masculinity and reproduction. To the social place of historical and current masculinity productions . Springer VS, Luxemburg / Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-658-03984-4 , pp. 271-290 .
136. ↑ WikiChix Homepage ( Memento from January 1, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
137. ^ Anne Newitz: Wikipedia vs. Women. WikiChix was recently formed by women contributors sick of how male-dominated Wikipedia has become. The question of their move raises is as old as feminism itself. Alternet.org, December 19, 2006, accessed July 1, 2013 . 
138. ↑ Die Telelupe: Wikipedia - Neo Magazin Royale with Jan Böhmermann - ZDFneo on YouTube , April 18, 2019, accessed on May 20, 2019.
139. ^ Online lexicon: Wrong professor plunges Wikipedia into crisis . welt.de , March 6, 2007, accessed October 5, 2019.