By: Elijahandskip (Wikipedia lead coordinator of the Current Event WikiProject)
Whistleblower Article on Conservapedia.
I have discovered a cover-up happening on Wikipedia where they are trying to rewrite history. The cover-up is where bad things against US governors, Republican and Democratic governors, is being excluded from their governance history on Wikipedia.
Let me explain the background for this and it will make more sense. Let us start with Ohio Governor Mike DeWine. So on August 24, 2020, Ohio Representative John Becker drew up 10 articles of impeachment against Gov. DeWine. Information about the 10 impeachment articles being drafted was added to Wikipedia’s article about Mike DeWine. The information was also added to a new Wikipedia article titled “Impeachment Inquiry against Mike DeWine” which was completely incorrect as no impeachment inquiry had been started against Gov. DeWine. Representative Becker had only announced that he had drafted the 10 articles of impeachment. A week after the new Wikipedia article’s creation, it was moved into their draft space. Wikipedia’s draft space is where an article still exists, aka, all the information is still accessible on Wikipedia, but it does not get indexed on Google. That was perfectly fine since the articles hadn’t been submitted yet. Keep in mind that information was still listed about the articles being drafted against Gov. DeWine on Wikipedia’s article on Mike DeWine.
About a month later, the article in draft space was renamed to “Impeachment articles against Mike DeWine”. After it was renamed, it was moved back into Wikipedia’s main space. A few hours after being moved back into main space under the new name, it was nominated for deletion. After a discussion taking place over the next week, it was determined on October 1, 2020, that the article did not belong on Wikipedia. Keep in mind, information about the impeachment articles being drafted against Gov. DeWine was still mentioned and listed on Wikipedia’s article about Mike DeWine.
All went quiet in the world of Ohio politics until November 30, 2020. Then, bam, Representative John Becker with 3 other Representatives sponsored 12 articles of impeachment against Gov. DeWine. Once again, A Wikipedia article under the title “Impeachment articles against Mike DeWine” appeared on Wikipedia. By December 1, 2020, the day after the article was created, a Wikipedia admin began a deletion discussion for the article. A week later, on December 7, 2020, it was detected. Keep in mind, information about the impeachment articles being submitted against Gov. DeWine, was mentioned and added to the Wikipedia article about Mike DeWine. Wikipedia also determined not to add any information about the impeachment articles being submitted against a current US Governor was not notable enough to add to their Current Event Portal, which has an average daily page view of 6 million people. That was a major shock. It made national American news about the articles being submitted as impeachment articles against a US Governor does not happen often, but Wikipedia decided that it was not worth noting for November 30’s top current events.
After that discussion I thought Wikipedia was done making discussions on the attempt to impeach Mike DeWine, since we knew by December 7 that it wasn’t going anywhere. I was wrong.
On December 15, 2020, a 30 day long discussion began on Wikipedia on the topic of mentioning, aka dedicating an entire section on Mike DeWine’s article about the attempt to impeach him. In the actual discussion description, it never mentioned removing the information completely from the article. Keep that in mind. The admin who began the deletion discussion on November 30 of that other article even made the comment and I quote, “this RfC isn't about the information being in the article, is it? It's just about having a named subsection, isn't it?” The admin was so wrong.
On January15, 2021, the discussion ended with 6 votes to keep, 6 votes to delete and 1 vote to rename the section. The rename is equal to a keep vote, so really there was more keep votes than delete votes. But on January 15, the discussion was closed with a delete vote. Keep in mind, the original discussion was about having a subsection for the impeachment attempt. Even an admin thought that was what it was about. However, all information about the impeachment attempt was removed from Mike DeWine’s article.
On January 26, 2021, a new short discussion happened on Wikipedia about the fact that there was no mention about it. The discussion closed 45 minutes after it began with 3 editors, including one who has edited Wikipedia for over 12 years, quickly voting to keep all information about the impeachment attempt removed from his Wikipedia article.
That raises a serious problem. Wikipedia apparently has the authority to rewrite history in a way to help people seem better. I am a strong Republican, and I discovered this cover-up happening to a Republican Governor’s Wikipedia article. There is no party line issue happening here. This is a blatant cover-up happening which is trying to help US Governor rewrite their history during their governance.
Imagine if Governor DeWine wins the 2022 election and is re-elected as the Governor of Ohio. In 2023, a freshman in high school could be given the assignment to research an Ohio politician. They might choose to pick Gov. DeWine to research. Like most high school students, they might go to Wikipedia to see the sources listed. They probably won’t be allowed to actually list Wikipedia as a source, but even my high school teachers encouraged us to use the sources on Wikipedia. If there is no mention about the impeachment attempt against Gov. DeWine, that freshman won’t have any idea that there was even an attempt to kick him out of office. Wikipedia has rewrote history so people see only the good things about Governor DeWine’s history. I don’t have a strong opinion about the impeachment attempt, but I do have a strong opinion about people trying to exclude history that makes someone seem good or bad.
Governor DeWine’s Wikipedia article wasn’t the only one involved in this coverup. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s article is also caught up in this coverup on Wikipedia.
On November 18, some Michigan Representatives introduced a House Resolution with 4 articles of impeachment against Gov. Whitmer. Information was added to her Wikipedia article and an article titled “Impeachment articles against Gretchen Whitmer” was created. The article was decided to be deleted as it wasn’t a lot of information and it was expected to go nowhere. I am ok with that. But some editors backed by Wikipedia admins took that deletion of the separate article as the means of saying it was not notable for Wikipedia. Thus, they removed all information about the attempt to impeach Gov. Whitmer from the Wikipedia article about Gretchen Whitmer.
Governor Whitmer is a Democrat and Governor DeWine is a Republican. There are clearly no party lines causing this. This is a deep cover-up on Wikipedia to exclude attempts to impeach US Governors from history. If you were to add information about the impeachment attempts to their articles, it will be removed and you could even face an attempt to get you banned on Wikipedia. I searched through the archives of Wikipedia and discovered 4 discussions on Wikipedia about muting/banning users involved in the discussions about the impeachment attempt against Gov. DeWine and I discovered a different discussion about getting users banned/muted related to the impeachment attempt against Gov. Whitmer.
I don’t know about you, but this needs to be fixed. Wikipedia should not have the power or ability to rewrite history by excluding bad things about Republican or Democratic politicians.