Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] [PRESS] : Scroll.in : "Wikipedia bans editor for consistent bias in favour of Arindam Chaudhuri's IIPM"

[Rohini Lakshané]

I can recall this thread from 2011:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-May/003209.html


Rohini Lakshané
about.me/rohini
  [image: Rohini Lakshané on about.me]


2015-03-25 14:16 GMT+05:30 Srikanth Ramakrishnan :

> Seems like the longest Indian controversy on Wikipedia has finally come to
> an end.
> On 25-Mar-2015 2:03 pm, "CherianTinu Abraham" 
> wrote:
>
>> *Scroll.in : Wikipedia bans editor for consistent bias in favour of
>> Arindam Chaudhuri's IIPM*
>>
>> http://scroll.in/article/714291/Wikipedia-bans-editor-for-consistent-bias-in-favour-of-Arindam-Chaudhuri's-IIPM
>>
>> *Wikipedia has **banned *
>> *a
>> user from editing entries on the English version of its site for
>> consistently making changes in favour of the controversial New
>> Delhi-headquartered Indian Institute of Planning and Management.*
>>
>> *A user called Wifione repeatedly added positive statements to and
>> removed critical ones from the Wikipedia pages of the institute and its
>> dean, Arindam Chaudhuri, an arbitration committee of the free collaborative
>> online encyclopaedia found on February 13. At the same time, Wifione added
>> negative material to and removed positive content from the pages of Amity
>> University, its dean Ashok Chauhan, and the Indian School of Business in
>> Hyderbad, the committee found.  Wifione might also have been managed by an
>> older user who was banned in 2009, it added.*
>>
>> *“Wifione edited…in a manner consistent with attempts to optimise search
>> engine results [for the institute],” said the report of the committee,
>> whose members are elected by the community of Wikipedia editors, which
>> includes all those who have made at least 600 content changes and have been
>> active in the six months before the election.*
>>
>> *Wifione is the user id of an anonymous person who had been editing
>> articles about the institute since 2009. Wifione was also an administrator,
>> a user whom the Wikipedia community believes can be trusted with
>> adjudicating contentious changes and mediating discussions. These are
>> voluntary positions. Wifione gave up administrator privileges just three
>> days before the committee decided to take them away.*
>>
>> *The Indian Institute of Planning and Management has been at the centre
>> of several controversies. The University Grants Commission does not
>> recognise its degrees, but it has nevertheless sued news organisations for
>> pointing this out. In September, the Delhi High Court rapped the institute
>> for misleading students and restrained it from applying the terms MBA, BBA,
>> management course, management school, business school and B-school to its
>> course offerings.*
>>
>> *Arindam Chaudhuri, the institute’s dean and owner, did not reply to an
>> email that Scroll.in sent him. There is no evidence that Chauhuri or IIPM
>> were associated with Wifione.*
>>
>> *Years of complaints*
>>
>> *Anyone can insert Wikipedia entries or make changes to existing ones as
>> long as the person maintains neutrality, the online encyclopedia's main
>> founding principle. But bias is not always easy to determine.*
>>
>> *If bias is hard to prove, the reasons for it, such as conflicts of
>> interest or commissions, are even harder to establish. Indeed, Wikipedia
>> focuses on ensuring its entries are neutral and does not usually delve into
>> the causes of bias.*
>>
>> *“The basis for an investigation is only the evidence online on
>> Wikipedia,” said Tinu Cherian Abraham, a Wikipedia administrator in
>> Bangalore. “So whitewashing may be visible but personal motivations are
>> hard to prove.”*
>>
>> *For years, many users have been questioning Wifione’s editing of the
>> institute’s entry. Several people had even confronted Wifione on talk
>> pages, which are pages associated with entries on which the public can
>> discuss editorial changes. Many users attempted to restore what they
>> thought was balance, but several administrators, including Wifione, did not
>> allow them to do so.*
>>
>> *In 2011, for example, Utkarshraj Atmaram, another administrator, pointed
>> out biases in Wifione’s editing, and lobbied for changes. But other editors
>> accused Atmaram, who was then a student at the competing SP Jain Institute
>> of Management and Research in Mumbai, of also being biased. Atmaram, who
>> uses his real name on the website, then withdrew from the editorial
>> discussions.*
>>
>> *Another user called makrandjoshi persistently attempted to insert on the
>> institute's page references to unflattering articles about published in the
>> New Delhi-based monthly magazine, The Caravan, and other publications. But
>> administrators suspended this user for his aggressive focus on the
>> institute’s page and a possible bias against it. Administrators have the
>> power to suspend users for temporary periods to deter slanted editing.*
>>
>> *Finally, i

Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] [PRESS] : Scroll.in : "Wikipedia bans editor for consistent bias in favour of Arindam Chaudhuri's IIPM"

[Srikanth Ramakrishnan]

Seems like the longest Indian controversy on Wikipedia has finally come to
an end.
On 25-Mar-2015 2:03 pm, "CherianTinu Abraham"  wrote:

> *Scroll.in : Wikipedia bans editor for consistent bias in favour of
> Arindam Chaudhuri's IIPM*
>
> http://scroll.in/article/714291/Wikipedia-bans-editor-for-consistent-bias-in-favour-of-Arindam-Chaudhuri's-IIPM
>
> *Wikipedia has **banned *
> *a
> user from editing entries on the English version of its site for
> consistently making changes in favour of the controversial New
> Delhi-headquartered Indian Institute of Planning and Management.*
>
> *A user called Wifione repeatedly added positive statements to and removed
> critical ones from the Wikipedia pages of the institute and its dean,
> Arindam Chaudhuri, an arbitration committee of the free collaborative
> online encyclopaedia found on February 13. At the same time, Wifione added
> negative material to and removed positive content from the pages of Amity
> University, its dean Ashok Chauhan, and the Indian School of Business in
> Hyderbad, the committee found.  Wifione might also have been managed by an
> older user who was banned in 2009, it added.*
>
> *“Wifione edited…in a manner consistent with attempts to optimise search
> engine results [for the institute],” said the report of the committee,
> whose members are elected by the community of Wikipedia editors, which
> includes all those who have made at least 600 content changes and have been
> active in the six months before the election.*
>
> *Wifione is the user id of an anonymous person who had been editing
> articles about the institute since 2009. Wifione was also an administrator,
> a user whom the Wikipedia community believes can be trusted with
> adjudicating contentious changes and mediating discussions. These are
> voluntary positions. Wifione gave up administrator privileges just three
> days before the committee decided to take them away.*
>
> *The Indian Institute of Planning and Management has been at the centre of
> several controversies. The University Grants Commission does not recognise
> its degrees, but it has nevertheless sued news organisations for pointing
> this out. In September, the Delhi High Court rapped the institute for
> misleading students and restrained it from applying the terms MBA, BBA,
> management course, management school, business school and B-school to its
> course offerings.*
>
> *Arindam Chaudhuri, the institute’s dean and owner, did not reply to an
> email that Scroll.in sent him. There is no evidence that Chauhuri or IIPM
> were associated with Wifione.*
>
> *Years of complaints*
>
> *Anyone can insert Wikipedia entries or make changes to existing ones as
> long as the person maintains neutrality, the online encyclopedia's main
> founding principle. But bias is not always easy to determine.*
>
> *If bias is hard to prove, the reasons for it, such as conflicts of
> interest or commissions, are even harder to establish. Indeed, Wikipedia
> focuses on ensuring its entries are neutral and does not usually delve into
> the causes of bias.*
>
> *“The basis for an investigation is only the evidence online on
> Wikipedia,” said Tinu Cherian Abraham, a Wikipedia administrator in
> Bangalore. “So whitewashing may be visible but personal motivations are
> hard to prove.”*
>
> *For years, many users have been questioning Wifione’s editing of the
> institute’s entry. Several people had even confronted Wifione on talk
> pages, which are pages associated with entries on which the public can
> discuss editorial changes. Many users attempted to restore what they
> thought was balance, but several administrators, including Wifione, did not
> allow them to do so.*
>
> *In 2011, for example, Utkarshraj Atmaram, another administrator, pointed
> out biases in Wifione’s editing, and lobbied for changes. But other editors
> accused Atmaram, who was then a student at the competing SP Jain Institute
> of Management and Research in Mumbai, of also being biased. Atmaram, who
> uses his real name on the website, then withdrew from the editorial
> discussions.*
>
> *Another user called makrandjoshi persistently attempted to insert on the
> institute's page references to unflattering articles about published in the
> New Delhi-based monthly magazine, The Caravan, and other publications. But
> administrators suspended this user for his aggressive focus on the
> institute’s page and a possible bias against it. Administrators have the
> power to suspend users for temporary periods to deter slanted editing.*
>
> *Finally, in December 2013, the case caught the eye of Wikipediocracy, a
> website that acts as a watchdog for Wikipedia. It wrote an explosive *
> *post* *
> analysing all of Wifione’s changes. Several news organisations then wrote
> about Wikipedia’s reluctance to address the issue. Still nothing hap

[Wikimediaindia-l] [PRESS] : Scroll.in : "Wikipedia bans editor for consistent bias in favour of Arindam Chaudhuri's IIPM"

[CherianTinu Abraham]

*Scroll.in : Wikipedia bans editor for consistent bias in favour of Arindam
Chaudhuri's IIPM*
http://scroll.in/article/714291/Wikipedia-bans-editor-for-consistent-bias-in-favour-of-Arindam-Chaudhuri's-IIPM

*Wikipedia has **banned *
*a
user from editing entries on the English version of its site for
consistently making changes in favour of the controversial New
Delhi-headquartered Indian Institute of Planning and Management.*

*A user called Wifione repeatedly added positive statements to and removed
critical ones from the Wikipedia pages of the institute and its dean,
Arindam Chaudhuri, an arbitration committee of the free collaborative
online encyclopaedia found on February 13. At the same time, Wifione added
negative material to and removed positive content from the pages of Amity
University, its dean Ashok Chauhan, and the Indian School of Business in
Hyderbad, the committee found.  Wifione might also have been managed by an
older user who was banned in 2009, it added.*

*“Wifione edited…in a manner consistent with attempts to optimise search
engine results [for the institute],” said the report of the committee,
whose members are elected by the community of Wikipedia editors, which
includes all those who have made at least 600 content changes and have been
active in the six months before the election.*

*Wifione is the user id of an anonymous person who had been editing
articles about the institute since 2009. Wifione was also an administrator,
a user whom the Wikipedia community believes can be trusted with
adjudicating contentious changes and mediating discussions. These are
voluntary positions. Wifione gave up administrator privileges just three
days before the committee decided to take them away.*

*The Indian Institute of Planning and Management has been at the centre of
several controversies. The University Grants Commission does not recognise
its degrees, but it has nevertheless sued news organisations for pointing
this out. In September, the Delhi High Court rapped the institute for
misleading students and restrained it from applying the terms MBA, BBA,
management course, management school, business school and B-school to its
course offerings.*

*Arindam Chaudhuri, the institute’s dean and owner, did not reply to an
email that Scroll.in sent him. There is no evidence that Chauhuri or IIPM
were associated with Wifione.*

*Years of complaints*

*Anyone can insert Wikipedia entries or make changes to existing ones as
long as the person maintains neutrality, the online encyclopedia's main
founding principle. But bias is not always easy to determine.*

*If bias is hard to prove, the reasons for it, such as conflicts of
interest or commissions, are even harder to establish. Indeed, Wikipedia
focuses on ensuring its entries are neutral and does not usually delve into
the causes of bias.*

*“The basis for an investigation is only the evidence online on Wikipedia,”
said Tinu Cherian Abraham, a Wikipedia administrator in Bangalore. “So
whitewashing may be visible but personal motivations are hard to prove.”*

*For years, many users have been questioning Wifione’s editing of the
institute’s entry. Several people had even confronted Wifione on talk
pages, which are pages associated with entries on which the public can
discuss editorial changes. Many users attempted to restore what they
thought was balance, but several administrators, including Wifione, did not
allow them to do so.*

*In 2011, for example, Utkarshraj Atmaram, another administrator, pointed
out biases in Wifione’s editing, and lobbied for changes. But other editors
accused Atmaram, who was then a student at the competing SP Jain Institute
of Management and Research in Mumbai, of also being biased. Atmaram, who
uses his real name on the website, then withdrew from the editorial
discussions.*

*Another user called makrandjoshi persistently attempted to insert on the
institute's page references to unflattering articles about published in the
New Delhi-based monthly magazine, The Caravan, and other publications. But
administrators suspended this user for his aggressive focus on the
institute’s page and a possible bias against it. Administrators have the
power to suspend users for temporary periods to deter slanted editing.*

*Finally, in December 2013, the case caught the eye of Wikipediocracy, a
website that acts as a watchdog for Wikipedia. It wrote an explosive **post*
*
analysing all of Wifione’s changes. Several news organisations then wrote
about Wikipedia’s reluctance to address the issue. Still nothing happened,
probably because decision-making in Wikipedia is so dispersed and no one
has a big stake in pursuing such cases.*

*Finally, in January 2014, Wikipedia’s founder, Jimmy Wales, took a stand
after users on his talk page informed him of the Wikpediocracy article. “It
would be best if he just do