"Wikipedia Is Badly Biased": https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/
By cofounder Larry Sanger
By cofounder Larry Sanger
Case example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_intimacy
The majority of the article is woman-centered, even though there's no evidence that it's highly gender-biased, and the only information pertaining to men is that if they have fear-of-intimacy then they might be a sex offender.
Otherwise, the article barely communicates anything meaningful. How do attachment types relate to fear-of-intimacy? Are they causative or merely correlative?
Then there's of course poor writing throughout such as this:
> Fear of intimacy has three defining features: content which represents the ability to communicate personal information [...]
What the hell does that mean? "Content?" Like a YouTube video or something?
This is just the latest example I've come across, and happens to be one of the least encyclopedic bodies I've text I've ever read. So much of what I read on Wikipedia is of a similar low caliber. People scan over Wikipedia articles but don't think critically, in part because Wikipedia has devolved into writing that can't decide what its audience is and won't get to the point. As I've said before, check out the Talk sections of the pages you visit, and you'll find some of the most arrogant responses from Wikipedia's inner circle of editors.
What makes me LOL the most is supposedly scientific articles that are written as if there is no debate behind a scientific idea, despite there being no such thing in science as "case closed." Wikipedia often behaves like it's a peer-reviewed scientific journal, yet has none of the chops to act as such. Anything that you read on Wikipedia that suggest that there is "no evidence" for something is likely to be some buffoon's ignorant opinion on the actual literature.
And no, I can't just "edit" Wikipedia to fix these issues. I've tried. Both my home IP address and my phone IP address is banned from them, despite my having never set up an account with them.
> What the hell does that mean? "Content?" Like a YouTube video or something?
It's taken directly from the source cited (page 2 of https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Development-and-Valida...). I'm not an expert in the field and have no idea if this is a good paper, but it has received 267 citations which does convey some impact.
> The fear-of-intimacy construct takes into account three defining features: (a) content, the communication of personal information;(b) emotional valence, strong feelings about the personal information exchanged; and (c) vulnerability, high regard for the intimate other. We propose that it is only with the coexistence of content, emotional valence, and vulnerability that intimacy can exist. Consider, for example, the customer who talks to an unknown bartender about his or her troubles. Although there may be personal content
It's clear that it's not the noun "content" but the adjective, defined as "pleased with your situation and not hoping for change or improvement".
I hope the Wikipedia editors are more literate and willing to research than that. I don't think I want to read your version of wikipedia.
No, it's not the adjective. The other 2 features are nouns, so this one must also be a noun, since it's a parallel construct. Also, they're all "features", so they have to be nouns by definition. And what would the adjective even be describing?
In this case, the "content" refers (I guess) to the content that's being communicated, though it's poorly phrased.
The Wikipedia excerpt is badly written, whether you agree with the GP or not about the article being biased towards women. It's not even a paraphrase of the original source, which claims the content is the communication itself, whereas the article claims the content "represents the ability to communicate personal information" — which is pretty meaningless.
If it was clear, I wouldn't have brought it up. Judging by the Talk section of that page, I'm not the only one who finds that choice of words confusing. It doesn't really matter if it's lifted from a cited article; that article isn't the Wikipedia page.
> I hope the Wikipedia editors are more literate and willing to research than that. I don't think I want to read your version of wikipedia.
What specifically do you object to? A better choice of words? Not being unnecessarily gender biased? Not misrepresenting the state of research?
If you were able to edit this wiki page, what particular studies about fear of intimacy in men would you cite in the sections you add?
Also, is this bit
> Anything that you read on Wikipedia that suggest that there is "no evidence" for something is likely to be some buffoon's ignorant opinion on the actual literature
meant to be ironic?
I'd love to see his article on Jesus that absolutely no one would "take issue with".
Making a flat statement that the gospels are "not independent nor consistent" is not settled or universal assessment. An article written in NPOV would discuss the variety of citeable interpretations and the debate between them over time.
The Earth is round is not a universally accepted statement either. NPOV doesn’t mean living equal time to everyone with an opinion.
For example, is this accurate or isn't it?
>Examples have become embarrassingly easy to find. The Barack Obama article completely fails to mention many well-known scandals: Benghazi, the IRS scandal, the AP phone records scandal, and Fast and Furious, to say nothing of Solyndra or the Hillary Clinton email server scandal—or, of course, the developing “Obamagate” story in which Obama was personally involved in surveilling Donald Trump. A fair article about a major political figure certainly must include the bad with the good. Beyond that, a neutral article must fairly represent competing views on the figure by the major parties.
And if so, then wikipedia is indeed badly biased. Whether or not Larry Sanger is isn't that interesting. But a bias at wikipedia - a source blindly trusted by millions - is a very interesting and concerning state of affairs.
I disagree. This thread started with "By cofounder Larry Sanger" - so the argument started with an implication that larry sangar should be listened to due to who he is. You can't both claim his argument holds extra weight due to who he is well also claiming its irrelavent who he is. You have to pick one.
As far as the obama article goes - im not an american and i havent heard of those scandals before, so honestly i dont know if their ommision is appropriate or not (it should be noted that libyan intervention is mentioned in his article).
However, i think this is asking the wrong question. Nothing is 100% neutral. I don't doubt you can find biased things in wikipedia. It is made by humans not revealed through divine revelation. The important question in my mind is how does it stack up against other sources. Is it mostly neutral relative to other information sources? That's how i would like to judge it.
It's written in the tone of a sore loser. A person who fought for regressive policies, against people with better arguments and more accurate facts. A person who now, having lost the fight for the policy, retreats into their echo chamber and decries the debate as "not making room for my facts."
It's apparently impossible to write any neutral statement that does not receive 100% unanimous support from every single person on the planet earth:
> A great many Christians would take issue with such statements, which means they are not neutral for that reason alone
> In another place, the article [the Wikipedia article about Jesus] simply asserts, “the gospels are not independent nor consistent records of Jesus’ life.” A great many Christians would take issue with such statements, which means they are not neutral for that reason alone. In other words, the very fact that many Christians, including many deeply educated conservative seminarians, believe in the historical reliability of the Gospels, and that they are wholly consistent, means that the article is biased if it simply asserts, without attribution or qualification, that this is a matter of “major uncertainty.” Now, it would be accurate and neutral to say it is widely disputed, but being “disputed” and being “uncertain” are very different concepts.
Put in context, Sanger is saying something that seems reasonable. I wouldn't expect Wikipedia to need unanimous support from Christians on all their articles, but it seems to me that maybe the article on Jesus should have some qualifications in there from, you know, the people who actually study and practice the faith centered on Jesus? It seems reasonable to me, but maybe I'm thinking about this too hard and the fumes from the "trashfire" are messing with my thinking.