Just curious, can you give an example?
The problem in my mind is that on subjects where I'm not as well educated I may well not notice the bias because I don't know what may or may not be disputed for a given subject matter.
Obviously everything on Wikipedia should be sourced but it's entirely possible to be selective of which sources you use.
with https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Julius_Evola&oldi...
Don't tell me him being antisemitic is such a paramount piece of information that it needs to appear in literally the first sentence.
Any more defensible examples?
My problem with Wikipedia is that some articles are fiercely gatekept by individuals who have clear bias and the community does little about it. A great example of this would be the Alcoholics Anonymous page.
Any time someone tries to add information about the ineffectiveness of AA's all-or-nothing treatment of substance abuse, the abuse/harassment that goes on in groups, the documentary that revealed said abuse and harassment - one of a small handful of accounts, who rarely participate on any other page, immediately revert the edit with a gish-gallop of claimed wikipedia violations.
Now, aside from the fact that reverting edits is supposed to be something of last resort - the reasons they cite for removing stuff strain credulity all the time. For example, they dismiss the documentary because it apparently wasn't screened in enough festivals and theatres. Which...might be a thing (it really isn't), if one were trying to cite it as a source...but you can't even mention the existence of the documentary, a demonstrable fact, without that being shot down as well due to the documentary not meeting their standards for a documentary.
I believe they also cited a wikipedia rule that says that "both sides" type coverage of a subject needs to be proportionate to how mainstream/fringe each "side" is. So by their reasoning: because there aren't many people talking about the problems with AA, the AA article shouldn't have any mention of the problems with AA.
They justify all this by claiming the AA is under "attack" and they are "defending" AA from the evil people (did I mention that AA is closely tied to Christianity?)
Wikipedia is controlled by a very small number of people who use an exhaustive policy manual to justify whatever actions they want to take, defend viewpoints they like and attack those they don't. It's sort of like how US federal and state laws are extensive that just walking to your mailbox, you probably break some sort of law and could be detained by police for it.
That's the core problem. Wikipedia isn't governed by the truth or fact, but by who knows the policy manual best.
Especially when the example is a philosopher and the thing being described is one of their philosophies.
Not at all. The "BRD" policy puts reverting at the centre of the recommended approach to editing.
> Consider reverting only when necessary. BRD does not encourage reverting
It's bizarre that you think it "puts reverting at the center of the recommended approach to editing" when the policy specifically says it doesn't even encourage reverting.
IME, the majority of edits on WP seem to be reverts. I don't see much evidence of reverting being discouraged.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BOLD,_revert,_discus...
It's an "explanatory supplement" to the Consensus policy. The problem with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines is that arguably there are so many of them that you can almost always find one that says what you want it to say. :)
And if not, WP:IAR will do the trick. That, too, is policy:
In fact the article was deleted…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/del...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_right-wing_terrorist...
In other words, there’s a bias in the editors to not make it, but there’s no malicious bias that deleting an actual article would imply.
Someone first moved it to userspace, causing it to become a redirect: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:List_of_left...
Which then triggered it’s deletion.
Some things cannot be expressed or explained without political language or terminology because they are inherently political. For what it's worth I think Wikipedia did a great job with that article.
If that's proof of bias is another matter.
Are we reading the same article? It says 'Evola viewed Jews as corrosive' and that he believed the Protocols of the Elders of Zion were broadly accurate even if they were fake.
I doubt that scanning a Wikipedia article is sufficient qualification to announce that someone has been confirmed an antisemite or not, but I'm sure victims of antisemitism are grateful for your judgement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Farrakhan
I'm not trying to underplay what he is saying, but dismissing him in the first sentence on a supposedly neutral article really rubs me the wrong way.
I would rather have dinner with a antisemite than a paedophile.
Wiki's intro currently states:
> Giulio Cesare Andrea Evola (19 May 1898 – 11 June 1974), better known as Julius Evola, was an Italian philosopher, poet, and painter whose esoteric worldview featured antisemitic conspiracy theories and the occult. He has been described as a "fascist intellectual", a "radical traditionalist", "antiegalitarian, antiliberal, antidemocratic, and antipopular", and as "the leading philosopher of Europe's neofascist movement".
It does not appear to portray antisemitic beliefs as "the single most important or relevant fact about him". It presents them as an important fact, just as Washington's intro includes slaveholding before moving on to the table of contents.
Ultimately, the relevance is subjective.
I think you've misunderstood the point of an encyclopedia, personally.
Take https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Gentzen instead; he was an unquestionable Nazi and it’s pretty well documented in the entry, although not central to the article.
Try better
As an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_...
>The Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory is a series of unevidenced claims centered on the false allegation that while Joe Biden was vice president of the United States, he engaged in corrupt activities relating to the employment of his son Hunter Biden by the Ukrainian gas company Burisma.[1] They were spread primarily in an attempt to damage Joe Biden's reputation during the 2020 presidential campaign.[2] United States intelligence community analysis released in March 2021 found that proxies of Russian intelligence promoted and laundered misleading or unsubstantiated narratives about the Bidens "to US media organizations, US officials, and prominent US individuals, including some close to former President Trump and his administration."
The article begins by immediately labeling the accusations “unevidenced” and “false” and then suggests that it is a foreign intelligence plot, an allegation which is itself a conspiracy theory. The article then continues to debunk the accusations point by point all in the introduction of the article, placing the refutation prominently at the top so that the only impression the reader is left with is that there is nothing to it. Only in the final sentence does it reluctantly concede that:
>The article's veracity was strongly questioned by most mainstream media outlets, analysts and intelligence officials, due to the questionable provenance of the laptop and its contents, and the suspicion it may have been part of a disinformation campaign.[8][9][10] It was later confirmed that at least some of the laptop materials were genuine and Hunter Biden himself said that the laptop could be his.[11]
They backed up one editor at the highest levels, after people wised up that he edited Wikipedia an average of 30 times per day, every day, over 14 years; almost entirely making edits against left wing and anti-war causes: [1]
They've also literally destroyed someone's life, lied about it, and then patted themselves on the back for fixing the problem nearly a year too late: [2]
With regard to Irish national politics, I can attest that they leave out serious scandal information regarding the top two parties politicians, while leaving out important good stuff and including all sorts of bs about independent and left wing politicians; from what I've seen they do the same everywhere.
[0] - https://thegrayzone.com/2020/06/10/wikipedia-formally-censor...
[1] - https://www.mintpressnews.com/phillip-cross-the-mystery-wiki...
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...
But yes, it's the endemic failure to tell "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" that is so worrying. The Wikimedia Foundation wants to become the "essential infrastructure of the [global] ecosystem of free knowledge".
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/...
Even if one were to agree that such a global infrastructure monopoly is a desirable thing to have, one would have to need one's head examined to want an organisation in charge of this infrastructure that regularly resorts to lying by omission to suit its own self-interest.
I've been a WP editor since a couple of years after it was founded. I don't bother trying to edit anything on the Middle East - those articles are patrolled by zionists, with support from the very top. Articles about those states that are the remnants of Yugoslavia seem to be edited by various kinds of authoritarian bigots.
To get the best out of WP, you have to be clear that many editors have an axe to grind; if something smells fishy, have a look at the talk page, and see if people have been challenging it. And have a look at the edit history.
What's remarkable is that WP is as good as it is. But I'm not happy with the idea of one website becoming the touchstone of human knowledge.
Exactly. It's a remarkable constellation of interests. People are invited to exercise anonymous influence on the most widely propagated information source on the planet, on condition that they work for free. Big Tech profits from the free content thus produced.
I love Wikipedia, but it's a very human project. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, all mixed together.
""" This article weirdly claims, or implies, a thing that no serious Biblical scholar of any sort would claim, viz., that Jesus was not given the title “Christ” by the original Apostles in the New Testament. The Wikipedia article itself later contradicts that claim, so perhaps the editors of the above paragraph simply meant the two conjoined words “Jesus Christ,” and that Jesus was rarely referred to with those two conjoined words in the New Testament. But this is false, too: the two words are found together in that form throughout the New Testament. """
This is wrong. Or rather, wikipedia is completely right in this case. In fact, the line quoted in the article is fully taken from Encyclopedia Britannica. The line is very clear of what it mean, and while it is true that Jesus (son of Joseph) was probably titled "messiah" (or Christ if you want) after meeting with John the Baptist (from the gospels), "Jesus Christ" as a name probably came later. Some bad translations of the gospel or Paul's letter might say otherwise, but don't found your knowledge on translation. And the historiography tends to agree with Wikipedia/me/anybody who had catechism.
Another article ruined. I can't read further after that, if the author is wrong about that, he might also be wrong on things i'm not an expert on, so i won't be able to take anything i read on this seriously. People should just stop talking about history in political articles, they ruin it every time. Or maybe they should everytime, and allow history geeks to classified them easily in the "untrustworthy" category.
I'm not the guy, i just linked the blog which had examples. My reading of the blog isn't that he's taking a position but rather pointing out how the wiki page is clearly written by someone who does not believe Jesus ever existed. That Christians wouldn't write the article that way.
Yeah I'm OK with Wikipedia being biased against misinformation.
Early in the pandemic, a conspiracy theory emerged that the virus had been bio-engineered by China at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. One early source of this theory was former Israeli secret service officer Dany Shoham, who gave an interview to The Washington Times regarding the lab.[28][29] Later, US politicians began propagating the idea, including Senator Tom Cotton, President Donald Trump, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.[29] One scientist from Hong Kong, Li-Meng Yan, fled China and supported the idea. Many authorities debunked the conspiracy theory, including American biologist Richard Ebright, NIAID director Anthony Fauci, prominent scientists, and the US intelligence community.[29][failed verification] The conspiracy theory spread widely on social media, but subsequent scientific investigation showed that the virus originated in bats.[25]
So you agree with Wikipedia being biased against the misinformation of the lab leak? You're even fine with them asserting it's a conspiracy theory and shutting down conversation about the possibility?
and the senate minority concluded that it was a lab leak; https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/aug/2/house-gop-re...
I was kind of unclear here intentionally. The source being wild has been disproven. This leaves lab leak as the only viable theory. So while it hasnt been proven, it sure as hell is the current theory.
The point I was making is that the political position set by wikipedia proves the bias. If they reported in a neutral fashion they would have NEVER called it a conspiracy theory. They might have said that we lack the evidence of it being a lab leak and wild source is quite likely over lab leak.
The bias is proven though and then the person I replied to was alright with them ignoring 'misinformation' but this is tantamount to agreeing with the bias.
>There was a senate investigation that biden killed (https://nypost.com/2021/05/25/biden-team-shut-down-inquiry-t...) Why he cancelled it, who's to say, but it COULD be something to do with this; https://nypost.com/2021/11/29/joe-biden-expected-10-percent-...
If you step back, early in the covid lab leak story is that the lead scientists from said wuhan lab published in nature mag the source appears to be bat. Afterall, it is indeed quite related. I believe what this says is that it wasn't an intention leak, they just didn't think they did it.
The follow up theory is that it was intention but not by them. Intentional by someone who was actively in a cold war with china... who might that be... oh right...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/peter-daszak-should-...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Counsel_investigation_...
In the first paragraph -
> The Mueller investigation culminated with the Mueller Report, which concluded that though the Trump campaign welcomed Russian interference and expected to benefit from it, there was insufficient evidence to bring any conspiracy charges against Trump or his associates.
This makes it sound like there was something underhanded there, and their source for it was some opinion piece news article rather than the report itself. The fact is that the report conceded that they found no evidence which linked Trump or his campaign of colluding, conspiring with Russia.
The alleged hacking or leaking of Clinton and DNC information under the Obama administration by Russians or other hackers was nothing to do with Trump. He "welcomed" it like any politician welcomes bad news for their opponent, but it's a total mischaracterization of the report, which is really a incredibly problematic indictment of the wild conspiracy theories, lies, and misinformation pushed by many politicians and corporations and people around this.
And major related articles from this one, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links_between_Trump_associates.... When you look at other kinds of misinformation or even unproven allegations made by less favorable sides of politics, the articles often lead with "unsubstantiated claims", "without evidence", etc. This Trump Russia conspiracy theory clearly should be treated the same way, but it is not, wikipedia is still attempting to keep it alive and is trying to salvage the reputations of those who perpetuated it and those who fell for it.
The initial article contained unverified reports that the suspect was himself gay, and that that was his motive for the attack. ...and mods on Wikipedia were deleting any edits that referenced the fact that the suspect's father was a former Taliban official that was admitted under the Obama administration, and was politically active in Florida, attending a number of Hillary Clinton talks despite video evidence.
References to the suspect verbally professing his allegiance to ISIS was constantly struck from the article with constant rewrites that the motive was that he himself was gay.
It was wild to see the disinformation being pushed by mods.
For a more recent example that was posted on HN a few days ago: the proposed deletion of a page on mass-killings under Communism. Most of the arguments on the discussion page were from power-editors complaining that the page was "making Communism look bad" and that it was used for "anti-revolutionary talking-points". While the deletion is still being voted on, gives you an insight into the culture.
> An administrator or other editor is in the process of closing this discussion. Please do not contribute further to it; the result should be posted shortly.
but nothing changed sine 29th November