Comment by andrewstuart | Hacker News Reader

Comment by andrewstuart | Hacker News Reader

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"Wokepedia". This guy certainly has an axe to grind. Looks like urging people not to donate is in fact a right wing attack on Wikpedia - "The Daily Telegraph" of course being a Murdoch newspaper.

From the authors Wikpedia page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Orlowski

"Writing for The Daily Telegraph in May 2021, Orlowski said that the Wikimedia Foundation was "flush with cash" and passing money to the Tides Network, which he described as "a left-leaning dark money group"; he referred to Wikipedia as "Wokepedia" in an allusion to the term "woke".[24] In another article for The Daily Telegraph, in December 2021, Orlowski said the Wikimedia Foundation's urgent fundraising banners on Wikipedia were "preposterous" given that it held assets of $240 million and had a $100 million endowment, and the Wikimedia Foundation Deputy Director had said in 2013 that the Foundation could be sustainable on "$10M+ a year".[25] In August 2022, Orlowski claimed that Wikipedia had "become a tool of the Left in the battle to control the truth", referencing the recent controversy over Wikipedia's definition of a recession.[26]"

Slight correction - Telegraph isn't Murdoch. It's owned by the surviving billionaire Barclay brother [1]. If anything though it's even more biased than any Murdoch paper (eg in the UK The Times).

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

I'd wondered whether it was a clever ploy to GET me to donate to Wikipedia/media/whatever, what with all the comments ranting in right-wing style. Kind of like Nike or whoever, gesturing to causes they don't really do anything to support, in order to goad political rants against then and elicit a larger backlash and more money they'd have had if they kept quiet.

HBomberguy has a good video on the subject. You can use people ranting about 'wokeness' to make money, and while it's amusing and gratifying to indulge that 'ha, I showed you, I don't agree with your ranting against this thing!' it's engaging in pseudo-political behavior that's in a sense wasted. Throwing more money at Wikipedia isn't really helping them be more woke, it's helping them be better at using that to ask for money.

I'm not actually going to give them money today but that's because I gotta tend to my own affairs: if I had a bunch extra I'd send some Wikipedia's way on the grounds that at least they're annoying the right people?

After reading the article and others on that website I'm donating to Black Lives Matter and some LGBT org.

Definitely don't donate to BLM, though. https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/04/us/black-lives-matter-executi...

I definitively donated to some BLM org which may or may not be this one, and i'll keep doing it

Wait so you would keep donating even if you know they are thieves?

Just checked here: The BLM org I donated was not this one you linked, but i'm seeking this one specifically to make a new donation, just because your bad faith argument.

I believe them more than i believe you

>Looks like urging people not to donate is in fact a right wing attack on Wikpedia

That's muddying the waters. If Wikipedia has deceptive donation drives, then who reports it should be completely irrelevant.

It's relevant because he's not really disclosing his motivations. He clearly has other reasons for disliking wikipedia but he fails to disclose them in this article.

How are his motivations relevant to how wikimedia spends donations (and thus whether you should donate)?

If wikimedia was actually spending all donations on blackjack and hookers for execs, would it matter that the person reporting it was reporting it because he really hates wikis as a concept?

I think the GP's point is that the motivations aren't relevant. Nothing in our discussion hinges on, e.g., the author's trustworthiness.

So when an oil company writes a report on the viability of solar power then that doesn't affect how we should view the report?

His motivation absolutely affects how he reports on this issue. He's not a neutral observer and so he picks and chooses which facts he includes and puts his own spin around the issues.

What specific facts in the reporting do you take issue with? Are you just arguing for the sake of arguing?

> So when an oil company writes a report on the viability of solar power then that doesn't affect how we should view the report?

But why do you think it does affect how you view the report? Because the company is likely to lie, right? So you should perhaps examine the report more carefully. But that has nothing to do with the report's factuality. It may affect how likely it is to be true, but once you've determined it to be one or the other, who reported it is completely irrelevant.

Likewise, if Wikipedia is in fact dishonest when it asks for donations, and you first heard that completely true fact from a Nazi, are you going to conclude that actually it was false all along? In other words, is your reality determined by the opposite of what your political adversaries say?

The actually makes a very basic factual error.

> Indeed, in the 2012/13 year the Foundation budgeted for $1.9m to provide all its free information on tap.

$1.9m is was the capital expenditure budget for 2012/3 (ie cost of servers etc).

But I'm sure that his motivations had nothing to do with the fact that he found a conveniently small expense figure to mislead with.

Are you saying 1.9M is only the cost of the hardware, excluding the cost of bandwidth, power, etc.? Then what's the actual number? The misreporting is only relevant if the actual number is meaningfully different.

EDIT: And I insist, all that's relevant is the error itself. The political affiliation of the person who made the error shouldn't matter.

See https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2013-March...

If he's presenting a factual summary of what's going on, his "motivations" are irrelevant.

If he's not presenting a factual summary of what's going on, his "motivations" are likewise irrelevant.

If you can refute his claims, by all means do so, but vague ad hominems don't impress me.

An editor or author can, in a biased way, choose to disclose things that are all true, but incomplete, thereby giving a false impression of a larger picture. I think it is absolutely in the consumer's (of any given text) interest to understand the potential biases of the content producer, even if all of the content itself is "facts".

Are there any examples of such facts being incompletely disclosed, or are we just assuming their existence without further analysis based on the writer's political affiliation?

Not sure why accurately reporting his track record of attacking Wikimedia with a clear - and self admitted - right wing bias is a 'vague ad hominem'.

His "track record" has nothing to do with whether his claims are true, either.

Either his claims are factual, or they aren't.

If they are not factual, they should be refuted, but appealing to his "motivations" or "track record" is not a refutation. It is an ad hominem attack, i.e., a logical fallacy.

You can claim completely true things, while also omitting other completely true things that radically change the situation. Examining whether or not someone is presenting facts in order to argue a political stance vs neutrally reporting is an important and basic media literacy skill.

Okay, so let's talk about those facts that are being omitted, not about the political affiliation of the people omitting those facts.

No one has said it's a refutation but it's entirely relevant and not an ad hominem at all - unless you think that his record is something to be ashamed of?

As I said above:

> So when an oil company writes a report on the viability of solar power then that doesn't affect how we should view the report?

> His motivation absolutely affects how he reports on this issue. He's not a neutral observer and so he picks and chooses which facts he includes and puts his own spin around the issues.

The point in contention appears to be whether or not Wikipedia funnels donations to left-wing causes.

The truth of that claim has no causal relationship with his opinions. I mean, obviously someone who disagrees with funneling donations to left-wing causes would be more likely to complain about it, or even possibly make something up. But that in itself has no bearing on whether the claim is actually true.

Does Wikipedia funnel donations to left-wing causes or not?

You have presented no evidence one way or the other. Instead, you have attacked his "motivations" and "track record". That is a textbook ad hominem.

See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Equity_Fund

"The Wikimedia Foundation Knowledge Equity Fund is a new US$4.5 million fund created by the Wikimedia Foundation in 2020, to provide grants to external organizations that support knowledge equity by addressing the racial inequities preventing access and participation in free knowledge."

> The point in contention appears to be whether or not Wikipedia funnels donations to left-wing causes.

Did you actually read the article? This point is not made anywhere in the article.

No point in discussing this further.

Because it's about the person making the argument rather than about the argument itself.

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