>Shouldn't it be minimized? I think it's increasing on Wikipedia. I think there's too high of a barrier for actual experts to write/edit. What's left is primarily idealogues with a certain leanings resulting in a positive feedback loop to more bias. I don't think anyone should want an echo chamber where an encyclopedia is supposed to exist. It's not there yet, but this is exactly how they form - see reddit.
I find this kind of a fascinating social phenomena.
I guess to give a personal example, I was trying to update a few pages about a country's Olympic history - that is, their Olympic bids, a few athletes, etc.
Unknowingly, I had stumbled across a particular power-editor's fiefdom, because they created all these pages and they were very aggressive in policing their articles to meet a certain style, tone and their beliefs.
Searching this person's username up (they went by their real name), they were closely related to that country's Olympic committee and an employee of a Ministry of Sport of sorts. The articles had lots of anonymous IP address edits from an university network this person was affiliated with in their program portfolio.
There was a clear conflict of interest, and I tried to point that out when they mass-reverted my edits, but they seemed committed to accusing me of edit warring by not sandboxing my changes and waiting for their personal review and approval, and quoted at least 12 different Wikipedia policies on notability, style, acceptable citations, etc. I still feel I was in the right, but I didn't have the willpower or stamina to fight against several requests for comments, speedy deletions, etc. They did get a warning from an administrator and some detractors in the discussion threads, but they weren't willing to let it go and at that point, it wasn't fun anymore for me. I have better things to do than to fight factual and nitpicky disputes on Wikipedia.
I find this kind of a fascinating social phenomena.
I guess to give a personal example, I was trying to update a few pages about a country's Olympic history - that is, their Olympic bids, a few athletes, etc.
Unknowingly, I had stumbled across a particular power-editor's fiefdom, because they created all these pages and they were very aggressive in policing their articles to meet a certain style, tone and their beliefs.
Searching this person's username up (they went by their real name), they were closely related to that country's Olympic committee and an employee of a Ministry of Sport of sorts. The articles had lots of anonymous IP address edits from an university network this person was affiliated with in their program portfolio.
There was a clear conflict of interest, and I tried to point that out when they mass-reverted my edits, but they seemed committed to accusing me of edit warring by not sandboxing my changes and waiting for their personal review and approval, and quoted at least 12 different Wikipedia policies on notability, style, acceptable citations, etc. I still feel I was in the right, but I didn't have the willpower or stamina to fight against several requests for comments, speedy deletions, etc. They did get a warning from an administrator and some detractors in the discussion threads, but they weren't willing to let it go and at that point, it wasn't fun anymore for me. I have better things to do than to fight factual and nitpicky disputes on Wikipedia.