Wired article on 'clean wehrmacht' wikipedia hygienist!?

edgeworthy

Well-known member
One Woman’s Mission to Rewrite Nazi History on Wikipedia

This is the part that has me really worried.
A particularly revered medal winner, or a high-ranking one, might survive Coffman's purge. But the results aren't pretty. When she arrives at Kurt Knispel's page, it says that he was "one of the, if not the, greatest tank ace of all time." His photo shows a young gunner with shaggy blond hair and a goatee. He flashes a smile, unaware that he is doomed.

Unfortunately for Knispel, his reputation rests almost entirely on stories told by Kurowski, as well as an account in the Wehrmachtbericht, the Nazi propaganda broadcast. Coffman strips away the apocryphal stories of action and adventure, like the one that says Knispel was held back from promotions because he assaulted a superior. When she's done, the article is reduced to four paragraphs, three of which relate to his death, at age 23, when he was struck by a Soviet tank. Later, someone will leave a short, sad note on the article's Talk page: "There used to be a lot of information here about his military career, unconventional attitude to military discipline etc. … Why has it been deleted?"
What happed is that Coffman reduced this ...
Kurt Knispel
to this ...
Kurt Knispel - Wikipedia
And people on other sites are applauding it!? When it is at best an incredibly lazy and poorly researched edit that could be better.
(Coffman very obviously didn't do any meaningful work on it at all.)
And has reduced an article to a worthless stub.
Now taking out the obvious propaganda and questionable sources is a valid point. However, there is more to editing an article than taking out the stuff you find questionable, you also have to do the barest minimum of genuine work to update it.
Coffman couldn't manage this. That's not rewriting history it is vandalising it.

All anyone has to do is look up the entry for Kurt Knispel on the German Language Wikipedia. Which provides vastly more material, all of which is reliably sourced, and without any of the doubtful sources.
Kurt Knispel – Wikipedia
(Bearing in mind that Google translate always manages to produce something anomalous)

[While the affairs of other sites are not our concern, there has been an enormous amount of virtue signaling over this elsewhere. And pointing out that Coffman's editing has done such a bad job is not taken well.]
 

Sobek

Disgusting Scalie
Wikipedia has been taken over by left activist and this is just one of many examples of the Ministry of Truth. Ideologues always have more patience and determination to infiltrate and manipulate places like Wikipedia, and given the massive push against anything remotely right wing since 2014 this is just another example of it all.
 

S'task

Renegade Philosopher
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
Wikipedia has been taken over by left activist and this is just one of many examples of the Ministry of Truth. Ideologues always have more patience and determination to infiltrate and manipulate places like Wikipedia, and given the massive push against anything remotely right wing since 2014 this is just another example of it all.
Wikipedia was biased as early as the late 00s, heck, it was going to have a left leaning bias from the moment the "notability" and "reliable sources" standards were put in place, seeing how their definition of both originally was "appeared in print news media" and "legacy mainstream media", both of which had long had strong left wing biases going back decades at the very point Wikipedia was even founded. Add on the "no original research" rule that prevented people from presenting evidence that said reliable sources were wrong, and well, yeah. There was never a need to ideological capture Wikipedia, it was always a reflection of the already captured mainstream media.
 

Whitestrake Pelinal

Like a dream without a dreamer

Abhorsen

Local Degenerate
Moderator
Staff Member
Comrade
Osaul
I wouldn't trust Conservapedia at all. It is run like AH.com, but by the right, and honestly sounds like a satire (the theory of relativity has caused moral relativism, lol). Infogalactic, by contrast, seems quite good at keeping out opinions. I immediately went to a thing I know is controversial, and they deftly covered it.
 

Whitestrake Pelinal

Like a dream without a dreamer
I wouldn't trust Conservapedia at all. It is run like AH.com, but by the right, and honestly sounds like a satire (the theory of relativity has caused moral relativism, lol). Infogalactic, by contrast, seems quite good at keeping out opinions. I immediately went to a thing I know is controversial, and they deftly covered it.
If I'm remembering it right, Consevapedia tried rewriting the Bible using "conservative language", whatever that means, and it's hard to tell the trolls and the shills apart.
I personally favor infogalactic and use it regularly, but didn't want to list just one source. Sounds like I should have found a better alternative than conservapedia to offer.
 

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
Who would've thought a childless and presumably jobless or underemployed woman could have so much free time to...

Wired said:
...match her output: 97,000 edits, 3,200 pages created, countless debates argued and won. Today, K.e.coffman is a solid member of English Wikipedia’s editorial elite—No. 734 out of 121,000, as of this writing. She keeps a watch list with about 2,000 articles on it. A notification pops up next to the listing whenever someone tries to make a change.

On her User page now, there are sections called “Nazi fancruft” and “Apocryphal nicknames.” There are lists of apologist sources and right-wing publishers. There is an entire offshoot page called “My allegedly problematic behaviour,” where she keeps track of the accusations against her—“campaigning,” “forum-shopping,” “not dropping the stick.” She has even given herself an award for all her heroic work: the Vandal’s Cross of Iron Cross with Swords and Diamonds.
 

Zachowon

The Army Life for me! The POG life for me!
Founder
Is she an actual fuxkibg Nazi? Like, only thing that could make sense.
 

Zachowon

The Army Life for me! The POG life for me!
Founder
Honestly, more likely an actual Communist?

(In one of her posts she tries to claim that the French Daily Newspaper L'Humanitie isn't. And 40% of the stock is directly owned by the French Communist Party)
IDK. Why erase a Nazi's past then?
 

Sobek

Disgusting Scalie
She wasn't erasing the past of a Nazi. She was erasing historical facts that presented a nazi as something a bit more complicated than just another faceless goon of the 3rd reich. Making your enemy less than human is something the entire political spectrum does, but collectivists like fascists and communists are the most adept at it.

And in this case, this benefits communists the most.
 

Zachowon

The Army Life for me! The POG life for me!
Founder
She wasn't erasing the past of a Nazi. She was erasing historical facts that presented a nazi as something a bit more complicated than just another faceless goon of the 3rd reich. Making your enemy less than human is something the entire political spectrum does, but collectivists like fascists and communists are the most adept at it.

And in this case, this benefits communists the most.
I misread what she was doing
That was on me
 

edgeworthy

Well-known member
Does anyone want to know what happened when I tried to suggest that someone on wikipedia should re-edit the article of Feldwebel Knispel, or allow myself to make an attempt. Using the material from the German Language wiki as a guide?

That the response was less than encouraging would be mildly understating it?
Can I say more Stridently Self-Righteous?
I think that the immensely dismissive attitude to the work of Lt.Col George Forty, Curator of the Bovington Tank Museum, and as close to an authoritative source on Armoured Warfare in WW2 as you can get, may be the worst part.
 

bintananth

behind a desk
Does anyone want to know what happened when I tried to suggest that someone on wikipedia should re-edit the article of Feldwebel Knispel, or allow myself to make an attempt. Using the material from the German Language wiki as a guide?

That the response was less than encouraging would be mildly understating it?
Can I say more Stridently Self-Righteous?
I think that the immensely dismissive attitude to the work of Lt.Col George Forty, Curator of the Bovington Tank Museum, and as close to an authoritative source on Armoured Warfare in WW2 as you can get, may be the worst part.
I'm very glad TV Tropes has this policy:

 

Zachowon

The Army Life for me! The POG life for me!
Founder
Does anyone want to know what happened when I tried to suggest that someone on wikipedia should re-edit the article of Feldwebel Knispel, or allow myself to make an attempt. Using the material from the German Language wiki as a guide?

That the response was less than encouraging would be mildly understating it?
Can I say more Stridently Self-Righteous?
I think that the immensely dismissive attitude to the work of Lt.Col George Forty, Curator of the Bovington Tank Museum, and as close to an authoritative source on Armoured Warfare in WW2 as you can get, may be the worst part.
Wow. They are like "UNCONFIRMED SOURCE! WE WONT PUT IT!"
And yet....
I am pretty sure there is a reason The_Chieftian has full access to most countries historical records and doesn't use Wikipedia for a reason
 

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