I am not immediately pulling to mind the reasons. I think I recall seeing a graph of Wikipedia edits going down over time (and serious editors leaving on-net) which is a bad sign for the health. It is also not uncommon for me to hear instances of politically motivated edits.
As one example, this week I was told that Maria Montessori—originator of the Montessori school of education—was an avowed and extreme racist, but that people who are involved in Montessor education reliably edit it out of her Wikipedia page (as can be evidenced by its absence on the page, but repeated presence on the talk page).
(I also heard accusation she was a eugenicist, but I failed to find corroboration of that fact while writing this comment.)
Almost everyone that considered themselves scientifically minded and rational at the dawn of the 20th century was an eugenicist, bad genetics was considered a real concern and danger to address. Doesn’t mean they all were straight up Nazis but it was one of the big fashionable positivist beliefs.
To the extent that the effect is as big as you’re making it out to be (surely it’s “big”, IDK the exact magnitude though), this seems to be mostly explainable by people trying to apply their new great toy to everything around them. A man with a hammer sees everything as a nail etc.
I am not immediately pulling to mind the reasons. I think I recall seeing a graph of Wikipedia edits going down over time (and serious editors leaving on-net) which is a bad sign for the health. It is also not uncommon for me to hear instances of politically motivated edits.
As one example, this week I was told that Maria Montessori—originator of the Montessori school of education—was an avowed and extreme racist, but that people who are involved in Montessor education reliably edit it out of her Wikipedia page (as can be evidenced by its absence on the page, but repeated presence on the talk page).
(I also heard accusation she was a eugenicist, but I failed to find corroboration of that fact while writing this comment.)
Almost everyone that considered themselves scientifically minded and rational at the dawn of the 20th century was an eugenicist, bad genetics was considered a real concern and danger to address. Doesn’t mean they all were straight up Nazis but it was one of the big fashionable positivist beliefs.
To the extent that the effect is as big as you’re making it out to be (surely it’s “big”, IDK the exact magnitude though), this seems to be mostly explainable by people trying to apply their new great toy to everything around them. A man with a hammer sees everything as a nail etc.
Sure, my main point was “it doesn’t say much about someone of the time other than they were buying into a fad”.