In my spare moments, I've taken to contributing to Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia which everyone agrees is surprisingly good, given it's communal philosophy (anyone can edit anyone else's article, and it takes a lot to get barred from doing so).
This encyclopedia never reaches an "edition" - it's constantly in flux. I've taken interest in a few articles: a few related to Israel, autism, and Norwegian matters. Different annoyances at different places.
The Controversies in Autism article was at first written by someone who clearly had what's called a "no cure" agenda. This is to say, the (controversial) view that autism is nothing like a disorder and shouldn't be treated: autistic people are simply wired differently than the rest of us and should be allowed to be themselves.
This article got the NPOV label, which is to say that its neutrality was questioned. I ended up adding several sections, reducing and rewriting several others, and seeing subsequent revisions by others. It's not bad at this point if you want to take a look. For good measure, I created a brand new article called Biomedical Intervention for Autism.
Then, there's Israel.
I've actually made very few revisions to articles in the English-language edition, because there is already raging debates there. At any given moment, versions reflect a certain state in the debate, but the articles are reasonably coherent and very informative. It's always worth reading the discussions page, though.
In the Norwegian edition, the entry on Israel was a f***ing disaster, with blatant errors that bordered on revisionism and a certain bias that probably reflects the sad, ignorant state of Norwegian public opinion more than the writers' ideology. One example: under capital, there were two entries: Jerusalem, listed as a "de facto" capital; and Tel Aviv, listed as a "de jure" capital. The English edition simply had "Jerusalem (disputed)." I corrected the de jure/de facto distinction, pointing out that while the international community may dispute the legitimacy of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, it has not (yet) dictated to Israel that Tel Aviv should be the capital instead.
A minor editing war broke out, with people pointing out that since the Norwegian embassy was in Tel Aviv, it had to follow that Israel's legal capital was Tel Aviv. I repeated my point several times and finally said I would not give up on this one. For the moment, I've prevailed.
Lots of other historical revisionism, too. The Iraqi, Lebanese, Jordanian, Egyptian, and Syrian armies intervened to protect the Palestinians. Irgun, Stern, and Haganah were terrorist organizations. Israel declared its independence from Great Britain. The most important fact to mention when it comes to Israel's military is Mordechai Vanunu. Etc. Etc.
Lots of work left to do.
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