Given the mountain of evidence for Wikipedia's left wing bias[1][2][3][4], it seems something ought to change, but hard to answer "how?"
I expect to receive many downvotes for this, despite providing high-quality and authoritative sources. Which is not unlike what happens on Wikipedia :)
Trying to identify and remove bias in any direction is a worthy goal. That said, an evenhanded and factual approach to doing this may result in more negative sentiment towards people or organizations that deny facts; push fringe ideas without the benefit of widespread public support, or evidence, or academic consensus; or who have similarities with historical people or organizations who have come to be viewed negatively with the benefit of hindsight.
Wikipedia needs some 'right wing' to offset the heavy 'left-wing' bias on nearly every article which has some political tangent, no matter how distant. It was supposed to be an encyclopedia, not an activist manual or propaganda organ but in many ways it has turned into the latter. You may - for some unfathomable reason - agree with the lefties who rule the roost among the editors so you may not realise just how much resistance the site has against publishing things which go against whatever desired narrative there happens to be but that does not make it right. Just like Michael Jordan realised 'Republicans buy sneakers too' it is time for Jimmy Wales (et al) to realise conservatives use encyclopedias too or it will end up not being known as an encyclopedia but as a political platform. There's plenty of those already and it would be a damn shame if Wikipedia remained stuck in that mire. Come on, Wales, wake up and smell the coffee (or tea or whatever you prefer) and realise the 'progressive' grip on the media is weakening. The site should be neither 'left' nor 'right' but 'factual' as facts neither care about your feelings nor about your ideology.
> It was supposed to be an encyclopedia, not an activist manual or propaganda organ but in many ways it has turned into the latter.
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.
Can you provide some examples? I often see this FUD and then something like, “they don’t even include the conservative viewpoint” and then I click on the link and see the conservative viewpoint.
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[ 0.19 ms ] story [ 32.2 ms ] threadI 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
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.
"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."
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1972992095859433671
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.