The right wing is coming for Wikipedia
wbur.org
wbur.org
"We are building Grokipedia @xAI.
Will be a massive improvement over Wikipedia.
Frankly, it is a necessary step towards the xAI goal of understanding the Universe."
Can you give examples where it's an activist manual or a propaganda organ? My impression is that everything is well-sourced and fairly reliable. At least, more so than the vast majority of information sources on the Web.
Although I suppose on some level, there is something inherently left-wing about a free, common, public source of information that's accessible and editable by anyone, whereas conservatives would probably prefer to privatize and commercialize it.
But I guess it's good that conservatives also see the value it in.
https://thecritic.co.uk/the-left-wing-bias-of-wikipedia/
https://www.allsides.com/blog/wikipedia-biased
As to the claim that Wikipedia articles are 'well-sourced and fairly reliable' this is true for articles which are not in any way related to politics but misleading or sometimes even downright false where it concerns politically charged subjects, partly due to the (ab)use of the 'Perennial Sources' list which in for the most only allows sources which abide to the 'progressive' narrative. By banning sources which do not follow the narrative it is difficult to sometimes impossible to add corrections to biased articles since those corrections relate to facts only published on such sites. This often leads to lengthy discussions on the Talk pages for those articles where editors defend their deletion of such corrections by claiming the sources are banned or untrustworthy - this based on the Perennial Sources list [1] which lists heavily biased propagandist sources like MSNBC, ABC, CNN, Al Jazeera, SPLC, ADL, the Atlantic and many others as 'reliable'. In this way Wikipedia treats sources like pseudo-democratic countries treat parties: just ban the parties and candidates which don't tow the line and let the world marvel at your party or candidate 'winning' every election 'fair and square'.
The problem with Wikipedia's bias is very well known, just point a search engine at the question 'does wikipedia have a political bias' (or something along those lines) for examples. Articles on politically charged subjects - and there seem to be more and more of those - end up like talking points for the desired narrative instead of informative overviews of the subject matter. Such articles are then used as 'proof' of the position espoused in the narrative, as 'teaching material' to further the narrative, as input for LLM training runs which leads to those models ending up being more biased and more.
Yes, Wikipedia has a significant political/ideological bias towards the 'left' or 'progressive' side.
As to there being something 'left-wing' about a 'free, common, public source of information that is accessible and editable by anyone' I beg to differ. I consider this to be neither left-wing nor right-wing, liberal nor libertarian. Where ideology comes in to play is when someone with an ideological bias starts removing viewpoints which do not fit some desired narrative, especially when this is done in an organised fashion so as to crowd out dissenting viewpoints. As it stands now on Wikipedia it is those with a left-wing bias who are largely responsible for such activities. I won't claim that there is something inherently left-wing about the desire to silence those with dissenting views because I know this not to be true. I do claim this is inherently authoritarian and that this behaviour is what has dragged down Wikipedia. It would be a good thing for those in charge of keeping the project alive to realise that it stands or falls by its general reliability which has been severely affected by the actions of these activist editors.
A long-ish answer but that's because I've been around Wikipedia for a long time - since its inception - and consider it a damn shame that the project has been subject to ideological capture.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Per...
> When Education...
Education versus indoctrination seems to be the difference in view here. Notice the downward trend in educational outcomes and relate that to the 'progressive' dominance in education.
> Journalism
More or less the same as above, there is a difference between a journalist and a peddler of agitprop. Most of what goes for 'journalism' in the legacy media falls under the latter instead of the former while the 'new' media mostly lacks the means to do 'real journalism'.
> Knowledge
See above and realise that the term 'different ways of knowing' and the pointless discussions on things like 'indigenous knowledge' and 'standpoint epistemology' are things stemming from the 'progressive' side.
> Science
It is getting quite repetitive but there is a difference between science as in the process of applying the scientific method to gain insight and knowledge and Science™ as a producer of dogma. Ask your latest supreme court justice if she can define what a woman is and you'll soon understand the difference.
> Fact Finding
Rinse and repeat, it is the 'progressive' side which uses terms like 'my truth' and 'your truth'.
What you're summing up is not a 'difference between left and right' but the result of a thorough indoctrination by one of the extremes into thinking 'the other side' is comprised of drooling idiots. For a true comparison you should remove the opinions of the extreme outliers on the 'left' and 'right' and soon you'll find that there is not that much difference between rational people who happen to lean more towards the right or left. The one problem here is that it has become practice on the 'progressive' side to 'center the margin' [1] in an appeal to 'support the oppressed in their struggle against the oppressors' which then creates new marginal opinions which in turn are centred until it is margins all the way down.
For perspective, I'm a European - Dutchman living in Sweden, both relatively 'progressive' countries. It used to be that we considered American politics to consist of two parties, one right (R) and once centre-right (D) compared to the wider spectrum seen here with everything from Lenin-Stalin-Mao-hailing communists to blood-and-soil ultranationalists and everything in between. This has changed, especially in the last 15 years due to the radical left-wing slide of the 'democratic' party which now voices opinions which are comparable to those of European socialist parties. I suspect they do not represent the political opinion of the majority of their potential voter base and with that I don´t see these opinions becoming mainstream other than in the 'deep blue' cities but the American left is now in many ways comparable to and in some ways more radical than their European 'comrades'. Reading or listening to speeches by people like JFK or Bill Clinton in the current situation makes you wonder whether they are in the same party as Obama or Harris or any of the grandstanding loudmouths like Jeffries or 'the squad'.
It is quite remarkable how a country so big with so much potential has managed to produce a political class so dysfunctional and incompetent. Not that we're much better off here in Europe mind you but that is another discussion for another day.
[1] search for the terms or peruse some of the following for an idea of what 'centring the margin' leads to: https://kalamu.com/neogriot/2015/03/21/pov-bell-hooks-femini..., https://primarygoals.com/teams/models/center-margin/, https://www.newamerica.org/family-centered-social-policy/pol..., https://wagner.nyu.edu/files/faculty/publications/Arrival%20..., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_Theory:_From_Margin_t..., https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/3003214/1/Naegler_and_..., ... - the list is endless
The modern GOP opposes those ideas. If you want to contend that core argument, feel free. Otherwise:
> Education versus indoctrination
It's interesting you bring that up, considering the slide in outcomes is rather intense in areas with non-public forms of irrational indoctrination.
> journalist and a peddler of agitprop ... 'journalism' in the legacy media
And yet, Fox News, the largest and most popular Legacy Main Stream media player falls, very obviously into the later description of "agitprop".
> ask your latest supreme court justice
Ah. I do not posses a Supreme Court justice. I do not presume any justice is, "my", or "your" justice. It's rather reductive to refer to someone that way, especially a person of African American descent.
> Rinse and repeat, it is the 'progressive' side which uses terms like 'my truth' and 'your truth'.
Yeah. You cannot invalidate other people's personal experiences. That's, uh, pretty basic. Empathy is unpopular with some folks right now.
> I suspect they do not represent the political opinion of the majority of their potential voter base
That's rather true for the extreme maggots running executive branch, sure.
> > ask your latest supreme court justice
> Ah. I do not posses a Supreme Court justice.
I have been assuming you're an American all the time and made my remarks based on those assumptions. If you are an American this latest supreme court justice is 'yours', if not she isn't.
Assuming that you are indeed an American I can only conclude you assume I meant 'your (...) supreme court justice' in an ideological way - why? Is that a normal way to talk about justices in your circles? It is not in mine.
It is _extremely_ common to speak that way about government officials in conservative circles in the United States. Not centrist, liberal or progressive ones, because such language is reductive and problematic.
It is also _extremely_ common to use the dog whistle[1] of "define a woman" in American Conservative circles. American conservatives often use such bigotry to justify political violence against those they see as less than themselves[2].
If you want to say, "your Supreme Court's latest Justice", or "your nation's newest Justice", feel free.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_whistle_(politics)
[2]https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-rich...
I was asking you whether this was normal in your circles, not whether you think it to be common outside of your circles. For that information I would not ask you but others.
Notice the following:
* You automatically assumed that I was a conservative.
* You assumed that I was using the term 'your justice' as a reference to ideological instead of national identification.
* You have now listed a long list of things which according to you apply to those other people who you do not agree with (conservatives, republicans, etc.).
* When I asked a direct question on whether something applied to your circles you again deflected by claiming this thing applied to others without actually answering the question.
* You tried to imply 'racist' motives by referring to the mentioned supreme court justice's race as 'african american' as if this factor were in any way related to the discussion.
* When called out on this you bring up the tired old trope of 'dog whistles' - the secret signs which supposedly are used by those very same other - but not by you - to further their nefarious goals but which you somehow know how to recognise even though you are most definitely not part of the groups which would use them, fittingly illustrated (given the context of this thread) using a severely biased Wikipedia link.
If your approach to these issues is common in the USA it is no wonder that American politics is so polarised.
You 'othered' people from the get-go. Why are you so upset about others doing it?
> You automatically assumed that I was a conservative.
Where did anyone call you a conservative? Referring to conservatives in the 3rd person is not referring to you?
Why are you taking things personally?
> You assumed that I was using the term 'your justice' as a reference to ideological instead of national identification
Because that is often how it is discussed. Having never met a person who uses the words the way you are using them, so why assume that someone is using a term in a novel way? In Dutch, are you going to assume people are using terminology to mean something, while technically correct, that no one you have met uses? Props if so, but that's sounds like a tall tale.
> You have now listed a long list of things which according to you apply to those other people who you do not agree with
They apply to many people. If you do not have personal experience, that's fine.
But, don't try to invalidate other people's lived experiences.
> When I asked a direct question on whether something applied to your circles
There was no deflection. Simply a response. If you cannot parse the response, it can be clarified to your benefit.
> You tried to imply 'racist' motives
Explaining why something is racist is not prescribing intent. Why are you prescribing intent, but while criticizing others by falsely reading into their intent?
> When called out on this you bring up the tired old trope of 'dog whistles'
Pretending something isn't a problem is a rather poor defense.
> using a severely biased Wikipedia link.
Maybe you're the one with a rather large bias? Or maybe small bias? Who knows.
Then you really should know better than this, man. I'm Dutch, and from my perspective it's pretty obvious which way US media and the society as a whole is biased. There's barely any political left there.
> This has changed, especially in the last 15 years due to the radical left-wing slide of the 'democratic' party which now voices opinions which are comparable to those of European socialist parties.
You mean they finally support universal healthcare? Guaranteed maternity leave? 5 weeks of vacation plus unlimited sick days, like every single European country has?
From a European perspective, most of the Democratic Party is still well right of center. There is a real left wing, but it's very small. Bernie, AOC, Liz Warren and a few others; those would be actual left of center compared to Europe.
> I suspect they do not represent the political opinion of the majority of their potential voter base
Indeed. Most voters do want all those sensible things that mainstream Democrats still refuse to support.
> Obama or Harris
...are also still fairly right-wing on economic issues. Refused to support Medicare for All, Harris didn't want to condemn the genocide in Gaza, and was campaigning with Republicans and CEOs. She's about where European moderate right-wing neo-liberal parties are.
> It is quite remarkable how a country so big with so much potential has managed to produce a political class so dysfunctional and incompetent.
I do agree with that. That they not only elected Trump, but re-elected his circus of incompetence is incomprehensible. (And it's true, Europe is also headed towards more fascism. It's bizarre, what's going on right now.)
> https://thecritic.co.uk/the-left-wing-bias-of-wikipedia/
This one is vague on specific instances of bias, but gets most concrete when it claims that Wikipedia treats treats 3 specific biased left-wing sources, Alternet, Counterpunch and Daily Kos, as more reliable than than the Daily Mail. But all three of those sites are red on Wikipedia's own Perennial Sources list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Per...
But, claims the article, these three sites are linked to a lot on Wikipedia, and then links to https://archive.is/PWPNB for evidence, but the vast majority of those links are from Talk pages and User pages, not articles.
So this is incredibly misleading.
> https://www.allsides.com/blog/wikipedia-biased
This one is much better, and much more nuanced, but doesn't actually say that Wikipedia is biased in any way. It cites a lot of criticism, investigates it, but doesn't conclude there's actual bias.
The most concrete point of criticism seems to be that articles on socialism and communism don't list the atrocities of various communist regimes, but those atrocities receive plenty of attention on the pages of those regimes, and frequently have their own pages as well.
So no, I don't think you've made your case here.
> heavily biased propagandist sources like MSNBC, ABC, CNN, Al Jazeera, SPLC, ADL, the Atlantic
Those are incredibly mainstream sources. I'm sure they show some bias in some ways (I wouldn't trust Al Jazeera to be unbiased about Qatar, for example, but they're pretty good on other topics), but they're not exactly Fox News, which is an actual heavily biased propagandist source.
Your choice of words suggests you're the one that's biased.
I expect to receive many downvotes for this, despite providing high-quality and authoritative sources. Which is not unlike what happens on Wikipedia :)
[1]: https://davidrozado.substack.com/p/is-wikipedia-politically-...
[2]: https://www.piratewires.com/p/how-the-regime-captured-wikipe...
[3]: https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/
[4]: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5022797
There is no bias to the left. The USA has shifted so far to the right that balance now looks leftist.
This isn't due to a quality problem. Daily Mail articles are usually highly accurate and they publish voluminously. It's because leftists on Wikipedia ban conservatives as part of their relentless ideological war, as they do in every other context.
Six decades of personal exposure to The Daily Mail and UK tabloid gutter press says otherwise.
Leaving aside its questionable history as a paper founded by an admirer of Mussolini and a supporter of Nazi Germany, its questionable present having remained in ownership by family within which the apples remained firmly attached to the tree, The Daily Heil has a business model predicated upon clickbait, outrage, deliberately misleading and emotionally loaded falsehoods and the entire gantlet of fake news predating modern social media, mobile devices, the world wide web, and the internet.
eg: Woman, 63, 'becomes PREGNANT in the mouth' with baby squid after eating calamari (2012)
~ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2159692/Woma...
I question whether in fact you've read the rag in question, your comment has the hallmark of deliberate trolling.
You could have cited ANY story from the long history of the Daily Mail to demonstrate some kind of inaccuracy. It would have been only a single data point and not that useful, but you could have done it. But like always with this claim by the left, you picked a story that is fully accurate. In fact it's just a retelling of a medical case report written by doctors:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21834723/
There's nothing inaccurate in the Daily Mail's coverage of this story.
Instead:
- You reacted to the headline for dumb aesthetic reasons
- You made assumptions instead of checking
- You engaged in nonsensical ad hominem attacks. The New York Times famously ran interference for Stalin. Do you consider that questionable history to disqualify all NYT coverage for Wikipedia too?
Your response is a perfect encapsulation of the problem that Wikipedians have. Like all leftists you aren't actually concerned about accuracy, you just hate any news source not controlled by your ideological allies, and want to censor them all out of existence.
In a truly random U.S. sample you would expect Republican identifiers to be nearly as numerous as Democratic identifiers.
Not sure where you got your numbers from.
A better solution would be to create a Wikiproxy which adds the missing viewpoints to Wikipedia articles without throwing out the baby with the bathwater. This will be impossible for some articles which are too heavily slanted but even there such articles can be included as an addendum to real NPOV articles. Such a proxy should do away with the 'Perennial Sources' scam which is used by Wikipedia to keep out dissenting voices, relying on editors to weed out nonsense.
Now that I think of it there might be a way to get something off the ground fairly quickly by creating a 'meta-encyclopedia engine' which pulls in articles from several user-definable sources, e.g. Wikipedia, Britannica, Everything2 and whatever other sources [1] and allows editors to comment on subjects by referring to content from upstream articles as well as by adding their own content.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_online_encyclopedias
Can't find the link I wanted, it was on HN this year, IIRC.
Is an editor "evil" for deleting or debating the addition of a politically charged article? Come on.
I weep for this country: if we had a voting system that allowed multiple parties (>2) to really compete, we could have an intellectually honest right wing.
Do you consider the left wing to be intellectually honest in your country? If so, why? Could you explain in your own words why the right wing is not intellectually honest while the left wing supposedly is? It all sounds rather strange to me considering the way left-wing politics is so often driven by feelings instead of facts.
This one is easy. The right wing is peddling lots of conspiracy theories and misinformation, and is more likely to embrace those that don't originate with them. This isn't just true in US politics (where the effect is blatantly obvious), but it's also something I see (to a lesser degree) in Dutch politics, for example.
I don't know why this is the case, and I don't think it's universally the case, but at this particular moment in history, it's very much the case.
> It all sounds rather strange to me considering the way left-wing politics is so often driven by feelings instead of facts.
I'm afraid the opposite is true. Again, look at US politics, but also for example the irrationality around the Brexit vote. That was entirely driven by feelings, not facts. Conservative politicians promised nonsensical and contradictory things, and obviously were unable to deliver.
The left in the US ranges from "preserving the ante-Trump status quo for the administrative state and rule of law and centrism" to "publicly funded healthcare and more action on climate change".
The right, which to your credit is most of the Republican party, is silent or else cheering the destruction of the United States government and are either tree sonally malicious in their desire to weaken our economy and national security, or path etically ignorant to the fact it's already happened.
The right operates on feelings of misplaced anger and economic and geological ignorance.
This seems to presume that the desireable middle ground would be the average of two US parties. But Wikipedia is global. (Not to imply it would be fine for the US, but that's another argument)
Conservatives are making up their own reality as they lie and hate their way through life. What I make of that editor ratio is that Wikipedia will remain truthful and less corrupt when presenting factual information - and not yet another propaganda mouthpiece.
Academia has always leaned left - make of that what you will.
Are you suggesting DEI?
Always happy to oblige.
But honestly, I find this sort of upfront self-victimization annoying and not conducive to honest debate.
> Wikipedia’s volunteer editor community leans heavily left wing politically.
I think they lean heavily towards verifiable facts. In some countries, those may be the same thing, but I don't think that's universally the case.
Hacker News has become like Reddit, where facts and logical arguments don’t matter. If your post isn’t sufficiently leftist, it will be downvoted.
It’s a pity, and it reflects badly on the left. They have some crazies in their camp.