When Indian Twitter Tried to Explain How Wikipedia Works to Its Founder Jimmy Wales

Almost every professor in the country must have at least once in their lives told a class full of students to not cite Wikipedia in their assignments. The few who defied those orders were castigated for not bothering to do the bare minimum and check out a more reliable website to copy from.

The mistrust and trauma that probably has roots in that harsh assessment became apparent on Thursday night, in one of the most hilarious exchanges Indian social media has seen in the last week.

The drama unfolded on Twitter, where pretending to be an expert on every topic is a prerequisite. A few more observant Indian tweeters were quick to notice that a recently added page “Tablighi Jamaat 2020 Coronavirus Hotspot” was removed from Wikipedia.

Rather than assume there may be good reason for this omission, though, our everyday Byomkesh Bakshis immediately arrived at the conclusion that there must be a conspiracy behind it all, and didn’t hesitate to make their concerns public.

Just googled and found this,@Wikipedia how much were you paid for this?
How much will our media and woke intellectuals hide their wrong doings? pic.twitter.com/jnMUIYkram

— Nicki minach (@nickiminachhh) April 16, 2020

These assertions caught the attention of none other than the founder of Wikipedia himself, Jimmy Wales, who swooped down on the thread to address concerns that he was paid to delete the article.

Hi Nicki,

Wikipedia doesn't work that way. We don't accept payment to include things, nor to delete them.

The relevant discussion is here:https://t.co/xwMuxEccjq

— Jimmy Wales (@jimmy_wales) April 16, 2020

Unconvinced, the first accuser hit back, this time with a tone most wouldn’t dare to take with the founders of their own companies, let alone the founder of a massively successful international company that they don’t work for.

Hi Jimmy, this article was important for people to know the current hotspots in India, kindly restore the article, since it wasn't islamophobic to mention the current hotspots.

Regards.

— Nicki minach (@nickiminachhh) April 16, 2020

Again, Wales attempted to explain that this wasn’t how the website worked…

I don't recommend that you do that – it is important to join the discussion. In actual fact, the article was incredibly poorly written and has zero sources. https://t.co/W19OXEBwFY

This isn't about religious sentiments, it's about not putting junk into Wikipedia.

— Jimmy Wales (@jimmy_wales) April 16, 2020

Followed immediately by a slightly more detailed explanation for why the article was removed — mainly due to lack of cited sources.

I don't recommend that you do that – it is important to join the discussion. In actual fact, the article was incredibly poorly written and has zero sources. https://t.co/W19OXEBwFY

This isn't about religious sentiments, it's about not putting junk into Wikipedia.

— Jimmy Wales (@jimmy_wales) April 16, 2020

Understandably it didn’t take too long before the students who were chastised for using Wikipedia in school, showed up.

Wikipedia, who literally anybody can edit .
Suddenly it doesn't allows "junk".
Damn !

— AJAATASHATRU PANDIT 🇮🇳 (@ajaatPandit) April 16, 2020

I'm sorry sir, I disagree. Most of the articles in Wikipedia have absolutely zero cited sources. This is nothing but leftist propoganda.

— Ritalean (@ritaleaan) April 16, 2020

Again, the website’s founder took time out of his busy lockdown schedule to respond. This time, his frustration was slightly more apparent.

Not "suddenly" – we've always been very strict.

Anyone can try to edit – and cry their eyes out if they do it badly and their work is deleted. Nothing new in that.

— Jimmy Wales (@jimmy_wales) April 16, 2020

"Most of the articles in Wikipedia have absolutely zero cited sources." This is transparently false and easy to check.

It isn't really helpful to your cause, whatever it is, to make things up out of thin air.

— Jimmy Wales (@jimmy_wales) April 16, 2020

Almost every article on Wikipedia has sources. Are you on drugs?

— Jimmy Wales (@jimmy_wales) April 16, 2020

Other tweeters headed down to the kitchen to prepare a bowl of popcorn, as the thread heated up.

for anyone feeling unproductive right now just remember that the founder of Wikipedia is spending his quarantine diligently responding to shitposts and trolls https://t.co/6Z5uCHW7dD

— NathanAB (@NathanAB_) April 16, 2020

Attempts in India to blame the Covid-19 pandemic on Muslims has had an unusual sideeffect: Jimmy Wales has entered hand-to-hand combat on Twitter with Hindu nationalist handles. https://t.co/hlndSgpGm2

— Shoaib Daniyal (@ShoaibDaniyal) April 17, 2020

One user, meanwhile, accused Jimmy Wales of being “racist” for assuming all Indians aren’t fluent in English.

pic.twitter.com/pF6oujlK26

— Prakrut Chauhan (@imprakrut) April 16, 2020

Before going on to correct another Indian tweeter’s grammar…

Do you even English?

— Ritalean (@ritaleaan) April 17, 2020

Eventually the argument seemed to have ended once the founder conceded that articles were reviewed and deleted on his site every day.

Of course there are a great many things that should be deleted from Wikipedia. New bad things are entered and deleted every day. This is the normal operation of Wikipedia.

Twitter lynch mobs aren't really helpful to the pursuit of truth.

— Jimmy Wales (@jimmy_wales) April 16, 2020

He shut his computer down, but not before coming to one final conclusion — which again most Indians on social media already know really well — that Twitter is unhealthy…