Wikipedia is often criticized for its reliability. Despite the noble intention of Jimbo Wales in allowing anyone to contribute to the largest online encyclopedia, it remains a fact that it tends to attract, well, just about anyone willing to add a view on a given topic. As painfully experienced by Venezuelans, Hugo Chávez has been trying to rewrite history, constructing the notion that before him, the country was nearly uninhabitable due to the excesses of a political class that behaved worse than Roman emperors. It goes without saying that such a simplistic and misinformed idea can only come from a completely ignorant mind. However, some are willing, for ideological and financial reasons, to accept Chávez’s revisionism. These true believers hold editorial power within Wikipedia on entries related to Chávez or Venezuela, which showcases critics’ views on the encyclopedia’s unreliability. There are many examples demonstrating that Wikipedia has effectively become another propaganda tool of Chávez’s expanding media empire. Whether it’s the Venezuelan Information Office, Eva Golinger, Mark Weisbrot, or Venezuelanalysis, pro-Chávez editors have managed to remove information that is well documented according to Wikipedia’s editorial policies but does not align with the version officially promoted by Chávez’s regime. A perfect display of the double standards and circular reasoning of these editors can be seen in a lengthy discussion regarding Venezuelanalysis, published on its talk page of reliable sources.
But then, it’s worth pondering why the propagandistic opinions of completely obscure editors, whose credentials are uncertain, can prevail in Wikipedia entries instead of verifiable facts published by truly reliable sources. Regarding Venezuelanalysis in particular, a site officially funded and managed by Chavista fundamentalists, readers should view the opinions of its editor as valid counterarguments, for example, against reports produced after two years of investigation by Human Rights Watch. Only true believers would give any consideration to such unsustainable positions. However, what is even more disturbing is realizing that one of the two editors (the other is Rd232) who monitor and protect the Chávez entries on English Wikipedia, known as JRSP, has previously edited factual information in the Wikipedia entry of Gustavo Cisneros. Interestingly, the editors who safeguard Chávez’s image also manage the Wikipedia entries of Cisneros and the terrorist murderer Rodríguez Chacín. Surely, a reliable Chavista encyclopedia!