Wikipedia Has issues With Dubai and Egypt - http://clapway.com/2016/01/11/wikipedia-has-issues-with-dubai-and-egypt-123/

Arabic Wikipedia has seen a significant decline in growth due to lower broadband penetration and regional instability, which is a problem for places like Dubai and Egypt. That added to the lack of source material has limited the amount of Arabic language articles available on the website.

Arabic Wikipedia Has Over 400,000 Entries, But It is Not Enough

The project to bring in Arabic Wikipedia is technically a successful one. However, the platform still is not satisfied with the amount of articles considering the number of people who speak Arabic worldwide. Persian Wikipedia, for example, has 20% more entries than the Arabic version. That’s considering that there are 6 times more people speaking Arabic than there are Persian.

There are also some technological issues involved. Several Arabic-speaking regions have lower levels of literacy and lower broadband penetration. This means that there are less materials being translated to Arabic. The decline has been more significant in recent years.

Egypt and Dubai Have Stories That Need to Be Told

Editors have to find good sources to make good entries. Having more entries available in the desired language helps, hence why Wikipedia is pushing for more entries in countries like Dubai and Egypt. Wikipedia is looking to raise awareness of this shortage of material. Most notably, the United Arab Emirates. These countries allow pervasive internet filtering. Certain police bodies, like in Dubai, consider pervasive internet filtering punishable by law. These countries are hostile against the use of VPN technology.

Internet Filtering in Dubai, Egypt and the Arabic Region

Regulators and police are very adamant about internet filtering rules. These are people who don’t understand the internet, so they have no problem enforcing laws against is spread. However, there is hope for Arabic content in the region. The spread of the Arabic language has become a positive in terms of avoiding censorship. Hopefully, as time progresses, these internet filtering regulations can be lifted.

Countries like Egypt, where turmoil lurks at every corner, need Wikipedia to share their history. Wikipedia is a great outlet for political dissent, and it can be used for the better if these regulations are lifted. Until then, Wikipedia can do little more than raise awareness for the lack of content, and encourage people to write history on their platform.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFGeH-bB8pI

Wikipedia Has issues With Dubai and Egypt

Is #Wikipedia a new critical place for heated, interweb #debate? - http://clapway.com/2015/08/18/wikipedia-edit-wars-evidence-tampering-in-politically-controversial-topics433/

Wikipedia⎯our go-to information giant for all things under the sun and above⎯may be tainted, after all. Especially when it comes to politically charged science issues.

Wikipedia is subject to edit-wars over politically controversial issues

Wikipedia was launched more than a decade ago and has become one of the most accessed websites globally. It is the sixth most popular website with over thirty thousand active editors working on three million edits to the four million articles found on the English version of the website. The secret to the establishment and upkeep of one of the massive, accurate, most up-to-date fountains of information relies on the “bold, revert, and discuss” cycles implemented by Wikipedia. Volunteer editors are asked to make ‘bold’ edits, which could involve adding, deleting, or even rewriting article content. This could then be ‘reverted’ by another editor if they do not agree with the said edit. Following reversions, editors are encouraged to discuss the article on a dedicated “talk” page.

This method usually takes care of the due diligence required to publish accurate information, much like the peer-review process scientists undergo before they can publish. In fact, Wikipedia has built another filter into its system to prevent content of questionable content from getting out. It does not allow editors more than three reverts on a page within 24 hours. Despite these checks and controls, Wikipedia is seeing a surge in edit-wars often associated with politically controversial topics.

Politically controversial topics show higher edit rates on Wikipedia

Scientists from the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, devised a method to study if the edit-wars on Wikipedia had any predilection towards political controversy. In a study published in PLOS ONE they looked at the editing behaviors associated with “politically controversial” (not scientifically controversial) and “politically uncontroversial” topics from 2003 to 2012.

The topics in the former category included acid rain, global warming, and evolution, whereas heliocentrism, general relativity, continental drift, and the standard model in physics constituted the latter category. These topics were compared on the basis of three metrics: 1) daily edit rate, 2) mean edit size (number of words added, deleted, changed etc), and 3) mean number of page views per day. They found that the edit rate for the acid rain topic was significantly lower than that for global warming and evolution, but greater than each of the uncontroversial topics. Moreover, the edit sizes for controversial topics were also categorically higher than uncontroversial ones.

Thus, topics whose scientific validity has been established unequivocally could still be subject to sabotage based solely on them being involved in the political quagmire. This study, though limited in its ability to make causative associations, brings up concerns about the reliability of Wikipedia as a source.

Is Wikipedia a reliable source of information?

In light of the edit-wars, information on Wikipedia needs to be scrutinized and compared with other sources of primary literature. Meanwhile, improved algorithms devised to identify hot-button issues and rate editors’ credibility could make Wikipedia more reliable.

In the end, when it comes to science, it pays to ask questions, and it never hurts to hear from different sources.

What political topics interest you? Comments welcome below.

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Wikipedia Edit Wars: Evidence Tampering in Politically Controversial Topics