Here's a black-pill and a white-pill.
One of the greatest articles I've ever read in Wikipedia was about
Ian Smith, the Prime Minister of Rhodesia. You would expect from the left-wing bias of the site to think that a white man who led a white-minority government of an African nation against the orders of decolonization by the British would has his reputation defaced in this article. However, this page surprised me in a way that I pretty much binge-read it thoroughly and got me interested in Rhodesia. (I highly recommend you read it, preferably the versions between
15 March 2014 to
21 April 2020 for reasons to be explained later)
The intent of the article written by the retired Wikipedia user Cliftonian (
his edits) was to analyze the tragedy that surrounds this question: was Smith an unabashed racist that many African leaders and the British have labelled him as, or was Smith a committed leader who attempted to make the best out of Rhodesia's situation for both whites and black against all odds? The article is surprising extremely neutral, of which it mentions people, both black and white, who revered Ian Smith, but also mentioned Smith's most prominent critics and opponents, including the Zimbabwean government and the British government. The article then finally shows in his Legacy section that in the end, black Zimbabweans expressed sadness when Smith died, and thus Smith is permeated as a positive figure compared to the black nationalists that have since ruled the country following the dissolution of Rhodesia.
On 8 February 2014, Cliftonian had this article
reviewed for good article status by a user from Madagascar named
Lemurbaby, who then referred the Ian Smith article as one of the top 100 best articles that he has ever read on Wikipedia. Encouraged by this, Cliftonian then
nominated the article for Featured Article status on 8 March 2014, of which admins
Tim Riley and
Brian Boulton approved it, with the latter referring the article as the one of the best political biographies that he has ever read and commended Cliftonian for handling such a controversial yet deep figure. Cliftonian has devoted similar treatments to many Rhodesia-related articles such as the
Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) which warranted significant praise to become
a featured article by admins such as
Nick-D and Tim Riley back in August 2013 and the pro-apartheid Rhodesian politician and Battle of Britain war veteran
William Harper which also
allotted similar praise from admins such as Boulton, American user
Coemgenus, and South African user and apartheid-analyst
Katangeis in April 2016.
Wikipedia's articles on Rhodesia are among the best in the site because thanks to Cliftonian's efforts, the articles uses detailed neutral language and information backed by highly reliable citations that saw light into Rhodesia's most prominent events and figures, and thus plays up to Wikipedia's strengths in comparison to other encyclopedias on the subject because of the reason above. Unfortunately, these articles will soon have to face the shifting tides as the website grows even more left-leaning during the late 2010s and 2020s. In 2018-2019, several activist users came up to
attack the Ian Smith article as "white-washing", "pro-Smith," and "not negative enough" with a thorn up their ass:
Zubin12, a Singaporean, and
SharabSalam, a Yemeni user. During this timeframe,
Cliftonian retired from Wikipedia in the beginning of January 2019 and purged all remnants of his presence on the site.
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Some lunacy by a-logs and reasonable responses to them
Finally, Zubin12 reported the article in April 2020 (hence the dates above) to the admins at the time to review it for demotion from featured article of which the admins at that time (including Nick-D) soon
removed the featured article status and good article status since the Ian Smith article relied too much on primary sources that were too "pro-Smith." The admins soon went after Cliftonians' other Rhodesia-related articles that were labelled as featured articles and the
Rhodesia's UDI and
William Harper were both dethroned as featured articles. At this point, you would think this article would be pozzed to a revision of newer historical sources that will deface Smith, and you'll be almost correct. Several users
have asked for rewrites because the article hasn't been changed much and still has that "pro-Smith" bias following the article's demotion from being a featured article.
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Well in the end, your notions are wrong, and the Ian Smith article has
remained unmolested for the most part. Several of the "pro-Smith" and "anti-Mugabe" language was neutralized in the lead section and changes were made to Smith's legacy section to make it more "neutral-sounding." Nevertheless, the last sentence of the article still represents the final view that sums up the treatment of Ian Smith's article by Wikipedians, "if Zimbabweans had to choose between Smith and Mugabe, it would not be Mugabe." In addition to the article's critics, the Ian Smith article
still has lots of supporters within the Wikipedia community, even a user (Katangeis) who specializes in writing on the horrors of apartheid in South Africa saw the Ian Smith article as neutral and doesn't need to be changed.
UDI and
William Harper's articles were also unmolested as of this post.
Rational in a sea of revisionism
In the end, the revisionists of Wikipedia could not implement these changes because there are still Wikipedia users who have read the article saw only neutrality and have prevented significant revisions. In the end, the users who demanded change of this article to fit a pozzed narrative have simply become inactive in the site.
- Ian Smith is still not categorized as a "white supremacist" in Wikipedia's category/tagging system.
- The article still mentions how there are critics who took the first sentence of Smith's quote, "I don't believe in majority rule ever in Rhodesia—not in 1,000 years. I repeat that I believe in blacks and whites working together. If one day it is white and the next day it is black, I believe we have failed and it will be a disaster for Rhodesia" to make him look like a racist.
- The article remarked Smith's legacy to include his role as the prominent and loved leader of the democratic opposition against Mugabe's tyranny.
At this point, you can still link people the Wikipedia article on Ian Smith because the
article is still THAT good, and it will remain my hidden gem and a whitepill on Wikipedia to share with you guys.