Wiki: The Syrian Civil War (Analysed)

So, I’m going to assume that almost everyone is familiar with Wikipedia. I have mentioned it a few times in my previous blog posts. It is well known for being ‘an online free-content encyclopaedia that anyone can edit’, which in my translation basically means that anyone can cite themselves as an expert on anything and everything, even I can! Wikipedia aims to ‘bring knowledge to anyone who seeks it’ and seems to have a page on almost everything. But how accurate are these pages? Can Wikipedia really be regarded as a “reliable” source? In the following piece I will look specifically at the Wikipedia page on the Syrian Civil War.

The Wikipedia page on the Syrian Civil War was first created on 3rd February 2011. The content available on the page when it was created was no more than a few lines. The page simply stated that protests in Syria were expected to begin on the 4th and 5th of February in front of the Parliament in Damascus, in a demand for freedom and the end of the emergency law.

Looking at the page content on the 19th of February 2011 almost two weeks after the protests were said to have begun; the information on the page seemed to have evolved to include details about the various protests that had taken place since the 4th of February. By the 1st of May 2011, the page had further evolved to include the history of Syria and the government, a timeline of events, support for the government, support for the opposition, concessions, and much more. Viewing the page today, the word count stands at approximately 15,000 words giving a detailed account of the Syrian Civil War to date, including background information. It is fair to say that this word count will continue to increase, as the War is still ongoing.

But how accurate is the information on this page? Before even looking into the details given on the page it is important to note than anyone can add or change the content on the page. Thus, the reliability and stability of the page can be questioned from the offset. Looking at the profile of just one of the editors of the page, I can see that the author is not an expert on the topic. For me, the fact that this author has no relevant expertise on the subject, leads me to believe that there is room for errors, misinformation and bias on this page. Almost any edits about ongoing Civil Wars are likely to be controversial as politics is involved! When it comes to politics everyone has their own personal stance, and this is obviously going to be reflected in their writing. I think it is very difficult for an individual to remain completely objective. Furthermore, even less information is given about many of the other editors. Interestingly, in the talk section of the page on editor was “who are you working for”? For all we know, someone is paying them to write what they have!

Taking a closer look at the talk section of the page, which provides editorial disputes over various sections of the page, I can see that there are many ongoing disputes amongst the editors of the page themselves. Looking specifically at the propaganda section, one editor wrote how before they made their contribution, the ‘propaganda section was like propaganda itself’ as it was ‘100% about the Syrian Government’, thus it was not balanced. Following the editors changes, another editor notes how the balancing additions are ‘unprofessional’, and how some of the sources used to balance the section are unreliable. In particular, there is much dispute over the use of ‘Russia Today’ as a source. Many editors argue that because Russia Today is run by the Russian state, it is an unreliable source. The sources are also accused of being censored. One editor wrote: ‘I think censorship is being practiced here. I think it's an abuse of Wikipedia’.

The page is also accused of failure to keep a secular opposition. One editor argues that the most relevant opposition in Syria today are the Islamists, and yet they are not reflected in the article at all. The only reference I could find was: ‘Clan leaders in Syria claim that the armed uprising is of a tribal, revenge-based nature, not Islamist’. Looking at another article I found that the FSA suggest that its top commanders see the Islamists as ‘a threat to stability post regime change’. Surely this information is relevant to the page? However, another editor notes how the page is a summary of the Civil War, and that only a sentence or two needs to be spent on the growing power of Islamists. The editor argues how details about the opposition should go in their main pages.

Although there does appear to be a number of issues between editors on 7 of the subsections that appear in the article, that still leaves a vast number of sections left undisputed. That must mean that these sections are reliable right? Maybe, however, I would still argue that one cannot fully establish the reliability of the information in these other sections. Just because an editor has not disputed it, does not make it wholly reliable!

When I took a closer look at the ratings for the page I found that the current average was 1 in relation to the following categories: trustworthy, objective, complete and well-written. Each of the sections had an average of 576 ratings, which is not a substantial number of votes, for the number of views on the page, but still a noteworthy number.

With the Syrian Civil Page being such an extensive page, it would appear as though much effort has gone into making the article as detailed as possible and attempts have been made to make the information as accurate as possible. In particular, this can be seen by the substantial number of edits that have been made to the page since it was created, and the efforts of the editors to resolve disputes and add or change the content accordingly.

I would argue that the motivations of the editors to make this article are largely to inform the public of what is going on with regards to the Syrian Civil War. I do not believe their motives to be any more or any less. Thus I believe that the page is being written in good faith, however, I still would not consider it to be a reliable source of information, mainly due to nature of Wikipedia. Not only this, but as this is an ongoing political dispute, I believe it to be a highly controversial issue anyway and I believe the page reflects this.