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Comment by thomasfromcdnjs | Hacker News Reader

I just assume every page on Wikipedia is left based at this point, I don't mind, seems to do the job. I think most right leaning people in the digital age realise that you have to get your information from further sources at this point.

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This viewpoint is not relevant to or supported by the article. The article describes a Wikipedia editor using his position to oppose labor MP George Galloway and labor leader Jeremy Corbyn. It's hard to see how this is "left based".

I was implying that the left does what the originally linked "offender" does all the time without scrutiny.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration_to_the_Uni...

^ Case in point, the first three paragraphs on illegal immigration to America contain no American conservative figures and/or counter points.

Now you can argue that the top 3 paragraphs are factual, and potentially the absolute truth of the matter. But I feel like that might be a little bit unfair if you catch my drift.

You are always free to add "conservative figures and/or counter points" if you can support them according to the Wikipedia guidelines. The lack of said counter points on such a high profile topic(1) suggests there aren't any good ones.

(1) Fringe topics are a different matter. A topic which is ignored by most people can contain very one-sided views simply because no one else cares.

I would say that’s a strange response since the article implies the exact opposite of your assumption: that is, a right-leaning editor is applying their politics to entries on left-leaning individuals and organizations.

The text says that one of the targeted people are Jeremy Corbyn, so in this case your assumtion is wrong

Whilst the right certainly disliked Corbyn, his downfall was mainly due to his colleagues in his party, Labour.

So it was (also) left vs left.

I might be wrong as I don't live in the UK. But wasn't it the more Tony Blair like (center left ish) that were against him. Making it more right leaning relative to Corbyn

This is a fairly consistent meme in right wing politics, but I've never actually seen it backed up by evidence.

I also see the far left complain about similar things, but nobody seems to take their complaints nearly as seriously for some reason I genuinely do not understand.

It's because they don't mean the actual left, they really mean "people with nearly identical economic politics to me but are marginally less overtly racist and homophobic". The same people who with a straight face compare Biden to FDR but as a diss instead of a massive (and largely undeserved) compliment.

Interestingly, the cofounder of wikipedia, Larry Sanger (who is right wing) rebelled against it and started his own project: https://larrysanger.org/2019/10/introducing-the-encyclospher...

A few of the other people I talk to, like Thomas Greco, also distrust Wikipedia, and they're not exactly right wing, though they are against big government.

> Larry Sanger (who is right wing) rebelled against it and started his own project

Again?

Sanger has tried multiple times to launch competitors to Wikipedia -- Citizendium, Digital Universe, Infobitt, Everipedia, now something he calls the "Encyclosphere", apparently. None of them have been successful.

Nigel Farage resigns from his party saying it's become overrun by racists.

Robert Bernstein criticizes Human Rights Watch that he founded himself.

I guess they're just bitter right? Why consider anything they are actually saying?

For the record: I actually like Wikipedia and don't really see so much what Larry is talking about. I participated in starting articles on Wikipedia back in 2004, which have now grown and added a lot of useful information. But I'd like to hear him out.

The point is very much that we've now heard him out on about half a dozen different occasions and he's repeatedly shown an inability to deliver.

Its not that Sanger is criticizing wikipedia, its that his criticism isn't particularly insightful (imo) and its been getting repetitive.

Like all monopolies, criticism of wikipedia is essential to wikipedia. There is very little effective competition to wikipedia so criticism is important lest it becomes complacent. Sanger is just failing to deliver.

And it's that Sanger really isn't the expert on Wikipedia (or on community-building in general) that he claims to be. Sure, he was involved with Wikipedia in its early days -- but that was 20 years ago. That experience is largely irrelevant in commenting on Wikipedia as it exists today, because the organization has evolved significantly over that time, and he hasn't been involved in that process.

Wikipedia might have problems, but at this point larry sangar is just desperate to try and reinvent wikipedia with him at the center to stay relevant. He's started an excessive number of wikipedia like sites with some variable changed, some pretty silly like the cryptocurrency one where it was intended you could vote for what the truth was using your crypto wallet (they never actually implemented it but what could possibly go wrong in a plutocracy?). He's just desperately throwing stuff at the wall praying that something sticks.

Like all things, there will probably come a day where wikipedia is disrupted by some new kid on the block, but i highly doubt sanger will be at the center of it.

From what I have seen this is true. Just check Antifa discussion page or the page on classical liberalism. The left wing bias is quite clear and it will probably only grow with the increase in the number militant left wing online warriors and the increasing perception that their views are adopted by society at large and constitute the definition of correct-thinking.

Wikipedia is still important and useful for many articles and subjects, but I currently just ignore their political stance.

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