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Comment by edent | Hacker News Reader

There are a few problems that need to be dealt with.

First is that "Reality has a well-known liberal bias". Which means lots of people want a "neutral point of view" which reflects their own opinion.

Secondly, there are lots of trolls and bad-faith actors. So a bureaucracy needs to be built up to deal with it in a structured and consistent (not necessarily fair) way.

Thirdly, what can incentivise people? Most editors aren't paid. Introducing money just leads to corruption. So you end up with fake Internet points which can be gamed.

Penultimately, can you appeal? I've had changes reverted, appealed, and reinstated. You can go all the way up the bureaucracy if you want to break out of the echo chamber.

Finally, fork it. If you think you have a better way of doing things - and can't make internal changes - go run your own Wiki and see how long your system lasts without falling to bias.

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> Introducing money just leads to corruption.

Not sure what you mean by that. Corruption exists with or without paid labor, and I cannot for the life or me think how paying the people who do the lion's share of work at Wikipedia would increase the corruption there. Can you explain what you mean?

> First is that "Reality has a well-known liberal bias".

Uh...what? Where is the proof of this?

It's a common expression. I think Stephen Colbert may have been the first to use it.

It's a famous Stephen Colbert quote. Google for the video.

He is quoting political comedian Stephen Colbert, referring to the fact that different political groups all independently believe that their perspective is actually a reflection of reality.

And it is! If everyone's reality == their politically-oriented news.

Which is why objective, quality journalism is so critical to a democracy.

Or, as Daniel Patrick Moynihan (and Schlesinger et al.) succinctly put it, "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts."

To the contrary-- his neocon character is admitting that his perspective does not align with reality. That's a much more scathing critique of the neocons than the generic upshot you wrote above.

There's no "proof." It's a joke made by comedian Steven Colbert (in character as a self-parody of a Conservative and right-wing pundit) during the 2006 White House correspondents' dinner, mocking the Bush Administration's low approval rating as "reality" having a "liberal bias." In the context of post-Trump politics, the joke would be to dismiss unfavorable poll numbers as "reality" being "fake news."

I know i will f(l)agged for this. But have some kind on me, it's just my opinion at the end. I know, through my work, some homo lads. The are not well, most of then needs some kind of help. But criminalizing this was the worst idea we ever have: some of my greatest idols were gay or least post as them: Wilde, Melville, Petronius, Capote... Some of them suffers the criminalization, some of them lived in a period when being gay was not a crimen or was not different at all. Edit: Freddie, I miss you as hell, man.

Yet, 'the facts of life are conservative'.

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