User:Bloodofox/Cryptozoology
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Imagine opening a perfectly mainstream and easily available encyclopedia only to find geology articles dominated by "Creation science", pieces on mental health focused on gay conversion therapy, or the book's climate science section dominated by climate change denialism. Wikipedia does not have these problems, but in other areas promotional coverage of pseudoscientific concepts continue. For example, as Wikipedia editors who seek to improve Wikipedia's coverage of folklore-related topics know all too well, the platform has a major problem with overcoming the promotion of the pseudoscience of cryptozoology on the platform.
In part due to Wikipedia's historic lack of academics involved in folklore studies (folklorists), cryptozoologists have dominated Wikipedia's folklore coverage from an early period. In turn, rather than sober and scholarly discussion of the development, implications, and complications of figures and entities from the folklore record, readers find wild-eyed fringe theories. Because this issue encompasses thousands of articles, category listings, and templates, solving this problem requires organization and an underlying understanding of associated topics, some of which are complex.
As with other examples of fringe and pseudoscientific material on the platform, this issue is compounded by Google's intention to use Wikipedia to counteract the influence of fringe theories on Youtube. This document explains the problem and offers solutions. Please note that as efforts continue to improve Wikipedia's coverage of folklore-related topics, the information on this article will become less relevant.