Wikipedia - Bulgarian point of view on Macedonia

[Selanec]

I have used Wikipedia since high school, and it is always the go to place for a lot of my research when I begin my studies. I am sure this is the case for a lot of other people, and it wont be a stretch to suggest that most people don't go beyond Wikipedia.

With that being said, I am not sure if you all have noticed, but the English Wikipedia is dominated by Bulgarians (and others?) writing the narrative for a lot of Macedonian topics, with the classic example being that Goce Delcev and Dame Gruev are Bulgarians, as is VMRO, and whenever the Macedonian point of view gets mentioned, it is written in the sense of propaganda (oh, Macedonian nationalists are rewriting the truth to make Dame Gruev Macedonian, when everyone in the West and Bulgaria know him as Bulgarians).

I can imagine this as nonsense, and it is easy to just ignore it and say Wikipedia is irrelevant. But I want to disagree with that statement. As I said above the average person who doesn't read journal articles or is an academic wouldn't look further (who reads books anymore?). 18 Billion page views occur on Wikipedia every month, and that would include a lot of people looking at Macedonian topics for the first time (whatever their background may be). I recently began researching Macedonian topics for fun, and was shocked to see nearly every Macedonian topic has a Bulgarian point of view. It makes me wonder why our "Bulgarian" ancestors fought so hard for a "Macedonia" if it would have been easier to just be Bulgarians.

Secondly, I am not sure how much experience you have had with Wikipedia, but note there is a lot of discussion in the background (click on the talk pages of each article for example) and you will see a lot of Macedonians complaining and providing evidence and documents and showing sources. To which there is a lot of opposition and you see Bulgarians and others saying that the source is not valid, its primary source vs secondary, etc.

I guess what I am saying is, I believe we need to accept the Wikipedia rules, but I do believe the Macedonian side of the story can be given prominence if not more so then equal amounts over the Bulgarian point of view, in regards to the evidence (documents, sources, second as opposed to primary etc.). And at the moment, what I think is happening is, you have for every 1 Macedonian writing on Wikipedia the Macedonian version, 10 Bulgarians come in, 1 reverting the original edit, 2 to say how this person has no idea what he is doing, 3 to replace the text with the Bulgarian version, and 4 people add in images and pictures from Bulgarian archives proving their point or version of events. I believe there needs to be a community effort by the Macedonians, in gathering the evidence, asking the academics and experts, using the right sources, and getting our message across.

I will give you all a few examples I picked semi randomly of these Bulgarian vs. Macedonia conflicts:
-Goce Delcev, Dame Gruev and VMRO (as said already)
-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Sarafov (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:B...ly_Macedonians.)
-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hristo_Tatarchev#References
-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todor_Aleksandrov
-https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9B%D1%83%D0%BA%D0%B0_%D0%94%D0%B6%D0%B5%D1%80% D0%BE%D0%B2 (Bulgarian) vs. https://mk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9B...80%D0%BE%D0%B2 (Macedonian) - I couldn't find an English version of this person
-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Karev
-https://mk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9D%D0%B0%D1%83%D0%BC_%D0%97%D0%BB%D0%B0%D1%82% D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B2 (Macedonian) vs. https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9D...80%D0%B5%D0%B2 (Bulgarian)
-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krste_Misirkov

See also:
-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_in_North_Macedonia

I have been looking through some of the forum here and I see a lot of documents or letters posted going contrary against the Bulgarian position (very little of which I could see on Wikipedia). It would be great if the Macedonians can beat the Bulgarians at their own game by providing the evidence, and updating Wikipedia accordingly.

[maco2envy]

I have been looking through some of the forum here and I see a lot of documents or letters posted going contrary against the Bulgarian position (very little of which I could see on Wikipedia). It would be great if the Macedonians can beat the Bulgarians at their own game by providing the evidence, and updating Wikipedia accordingly.

These efforts will probably be in vain when you're against people like Jingiby who edits full-time and has connections with admins

[Selanec]

Originally Posted by maco2envy

These efforts will probably be in vain when you're against people like Jingiby who edits full-time and has connections with admins

You are not kidding! https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php...target=Jingiby

You can see him reverting and adding his own version of things throughout all the articles.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Most people who are serious about researching history know that Wikipedia is a joke and the only useful part is the very bottom of the articles where the sources are referenced. Other than that, it is nothing but the opinion of biased idiots. Pay little attention to it, it's not like much people take the actual Wikipedia articles seriously, they're continually mocked for their lack of integrity.

[VMRO]

Originally Posted by Soldier of Macedon

Most people who are serious about researching history know that Wikipedia is a joke and the only useful part is the very bottom of the articles where the sources are referenced. Other than that, it is nothing but the opinion of biased idiots. Pay little attention to it, it's not like much people take the actual Wikipedia articles seriously, they're continually mocked for their lack of integrity.

I remember back in Uni if we quoted wikipedia we would get no marks due to not being treated as a primary source.

[Niko777]

Originally Posted by Soldier of Macedon

Pay little attention to it, it's not like much people take the actual Wikipedia articles seriously, they're continually mocked for their lack of integrity.

Professionals don't take it seriously but the average person relies on Wikipedia for trivial questions, quick answers, dates, statistics, etc. A person who knows nothing about Macedonians will do a quick search on Google and be directed to the Macedonians (Greeks) article.

[maco2envy]

A really good breakdown of why wikipedia is not reliable in most circumstances (despite maybe having many references):

https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlike...nreliable_yet/

Although, for science and mathematics wikipedia is excellent. This makes sense since science and math are objective and typically not related to politics or any other form of controversy.