December 5, 2015

Two things happened within the past few weeks to depress me.

The first, which was only mildly depressing, was the apparent, impending failure, once again, of Wikipedia’s Arbitration Committee to ban the community’s poster boy for incivility and harassment.

The second and almost overwhelmingly depressing event was the mass shooting Wednesday in San Bernardino, California. It was the worst mass shooting here in the U.S. since the Sandy Hook shooting in Connecticut three years ago, and it was, according to Los Angeles Times reporter Steve Lopez, the 355th multiple-death shooting here since January 1.

Not only is it gut-wrenching to imagine the pain and suffering of the Inland Regional Center staff, clients, families and neighbors, but as an ex-Wikipedian it is frustrating to standby and watch pro-gun editors set their sights on the new San Bernardino shooting article, as well as older gun-related articles. Their activism editing is not only vile — but against Wikipedia’s NPOV policy as well.

For example, unlike early versions of the San Bernardino shooting article, the word “assault” appears nowhere in the current version (as of December 5, 2015, 22:50 UTC). Despite the fact that the preponderance of sources refer to “assault rifles” or “assault weapons,” these words have been deleted, more than once, from the Wikipedia article.

I have decided to expand the scope of my blog, which was originally about revealing the hostility and incivility in the Wikipedia editing environment, to include exposing the pro-gun activist editing that goes into Wikipedia gun-related articles. Because most of the editors who regularly work on Wikipedia’s gun-related articles are pro-gun, most of these articles are biased toward pro-gun, anti-control viewpoints. Therefore, I shall also shine a spotlight on the individual editors who push this extreme POV.