6 ms·

wikipedia is now under the effective control of limited number of entrenched editors, mostly subscribing to western establishment's "liberal" ideology, with alm

wikipedia is now under the effective control of limited number of entrenched editors, mostly subscribing to western establishment's "liberal" ideology, with almost absolute power over content. a prime example of this bias, is the article about british empire. comparison of that article with articles about other brutish regimes(ussr, mao's china, etc) is telling, even though it's atrocities far exceeds any other regime, in terms of both quantity and extent.

TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
Do you mean to imply that "conservative" western ideology would be more truthful about British empire?
- claudiawerner 7y ago
  That's not what GP means by "liberal"; "liberal" in this sense refers to the belief and support of the current "democratic" establishment, the right to private property, the idea of human rights, and freedoms defined as matters of separation between people (i.e. the assumption of the person or people attempting to take them away rather than a positive conception in human community). In this view, both US 'liberals' and US 'conservatives' are both liberal. Thus, what GP means by 'non-liberal' includes the critics of liberalism, most notably ones on the left. You can read more about the philosophical notion of liberalism and its critics at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberalism/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberalism/
  - TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
    Thank you.
MatekCopatek 7y ago
While I agree with that assessment, I don't really think it has much to do with Wikipedia itself, it's just how things are in the entire Western culture. History is written by the victors and all that. Consequently, it feels a bit unfair to put this on Wikipedia editors. Kinda like blaming a random restaurant manager for forcing waiters to rely on tips. Yes, if they have enough profits, they can pay people more and fix a small part of the problem. The general issue remains systemic though.
- blattimwind 7y ago
  > Consequently, it feels a bit unfair to put this on Wikipedia editors. Kinda like blaming a random restaurant manager for forcing waiters to rely on tips. Yes, if they have enough profits, they can pay people more and fix a small part of the problem. The general issue remains systemic though. Systemic yet oddly restricted to a particular area.
the_duke 7y ago
Can you provide some links to said atrocities by the British empire? (I'm genuinely curios) There probably are some Wikipedia articles you could link to. Edit: just a few examples * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_concentration_camps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_concentration_camps * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_India * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Britain#Enslaved_Africans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Britain#Enslaved_Af...
- mehrdadn 7y ago
  I was looking this up just now. It seems 29 million died in India alone under British rule due to famine. [1] However there was widespread crop failure in the late 19th century. [2] I don't know how much control they had over what and how every set of deaths occurred, so it's not yet clear to me you can just directly compare number of deaths between empires without taking into account the surrounding context. [1] https://www.quora.com/How-many-people-did-the-British-empire-kill-worldwide/answer/Karthikeyan-Madathil https://www.quora.com/How-many-people-did-the-British-empire... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire#East_India_Company_in_Asia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire#East_India_Comp...
  - twic 7y ago
    The Bengal Famine is a well-studied case where, AIUI, the current consensus is that imperial policies contributed significantly to the suffering and death toll: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943
  - sbmthakur 7y ago
    While it wouldn't be wise to attribute all those deaths to the British Empire, it's important to note that British agricultural practices led to widespread famines and crop-failures. Diversion of food crop land to grow Opium and Indigo led to famines[1]. And the risk of crop-failures was often beared by the cultivator[2]. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrigation_in_India#History https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrigation_in_India#History 2. http://barrett.dyson.cornell.edu/NEUDC/paper_364.pdf http://barrett.dyson.cornell.edu/NEUDC/paper_364.pdf
andrepd 7y ago
Whenever Wikipedia is mentioned in hackernews, it's always the same comment. Have you got anything new to add, or any substantial argument to support your position? As it stands it's a pretty serious accusation and a pretty thin argument.
- pessimizer 7y ago
  I've rarely seen this comment on hackernews about wikipedia. I think you may have been thrown off by the use of "liberal" to think it's a right-wing critique. Incidentally, the complaints I'm used to are that "they keep deleting the thing that I'm involved with that I think is notable" "they won't let me edit myself even though I'm an expert on myself" and "weird editors squat articles." This is a "wikipedia is completely western and whiggish" critique.
derefr 7y ago
I think you mean “English-language Wikipedia”. Try switching to one of the other languages and then putting the article through Google Translate. They’re not the same article semantically! Each language has its own set of editors putting its own spin on things. It’s only to be expected that each language’s editorial policy will be dominated by the cultural hegemony of that language’s speakers, if one exists. (For example, even without government interference, you would expect “Taiwan” to have different first-sentence descriptions in the Chinese–Simplified, Chinese–Traditional, and English Wikipedias.)
- amyjess 7y ago
  > For example, even without government interference, you would expect “Taiwan” to have different first-sentence descriptions in the Chinese–Simplified, Chinese–Traditional, and English Wikipedias.) I agree with your sentiment, but that's not the best example. There is one Chinese Wikipedia, and articles are machine-transliterated between simplified and traditional forms (plus a few more forms using region-specific vocabulary).
  - yorwba 7y ago
    Well, besides Mandarin there are also articles about Taiwan in Cantonese, Eastern Min, Gan, Hakka, Literary Chinese, Southern Min, and Wu. They all seem to be able to agree that it's an island in the Pacific, but differ in the degree to which they mention that the Republic of China controls it. The Hakka article prominently displays the national flag, while the Southern Min one doesn't mention it in the introductory paragraph.
Yizahi 7y ago
At least one Wikipedia should maintain close to facts approach. If you prefer authoritarian "rewrite history" approach then you can consult Russian Wiki, where they rewrote all political and history pages, and I assume Chinese Wiki is the same.
- owl57 7y ago
  you can consult Russian Wiki, where they rewrote all political and history pages Can you link some specific examples?
  - Yizahi 7y ago
    En: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbass Ru: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%BE%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B6%D1%91%D0%BD%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%84%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BA%D1%82_%D0%BD%D0%B0_%D0%B2%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%BA%D0%B5_%D0%A3%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%8B https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%BE%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%83... En: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_military_intervention_in_Ukraine_(2014%E2%80%93present) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_military_intervention_... Ru: none, lol En: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Russian_Federation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Ru... Ru: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5_%D0%9A%D1%80%D1%8B%D0%BC%D0%B0_%D0%BA_%D0%A0%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%B9%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B9_%D0%A4%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%86%D0%B8%D0%B8 https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%BE... En: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War Ru: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%BE%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B6%D1%91%D0%BD%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%84%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BA%D1%82_%D0%B2_%D0%AE%D0%B6%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B9_%D0%9E%D1%81%D0%B5%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%B8_(2008) https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%BE%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%83... For several years they vandalized Kievan Rus' page (in Ru segment) renaming it to Ancient Rus'. For some reason they stopped doing it now , but all changes are still in history. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%B8%D0%B5%D0%B2%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D0%A0%D1%83%D1%81%D1%8C https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%B8%D0%B5%D0%B2%D1%81... En: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 Ru: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Катастрофа_Boeing_777_в_Донецкой_области https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Катастрофа_Boeing_777_в_Донецк... Basically any mention of unfavorable or outright bad mention about current country of a dictator or about any preceding country from which they claim inheritance is censored or obfuscated or buried in a flood of "alternative" opinions.

TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago

Do you mean to imply that "conservative" western ideology would be more truthful about British empire?

claudiawerner 7y ago
That's not what GP means by "liberal"; "liberal" in this sense refers to the belief and support of the current "democratic" establishment, the right to private property, the idea of human rights, and freedoms defined as matters of separation between people (i.e. the assumption of the person or people attempting to take them away rather than a positive conception in human community). In this view, both US 'liberals' and US 'conservatives' are both liberal. Thus, what GP means by 'non-liberal' includes the critics of liberalism, most notably ones on the left. You can read more about the philosophical notion of liberalism and its critics at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberalism/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberalism/
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
  Thank you.

MatekCopatek 7y ago

While I agree with that assessment, I don't really think it has much to do with Wikipedia itself, it's just how things are in the entire Western culture. History is written by the victors and all that. Consequently, it feels a bit unfair to put this on Wikipedia editors. Kinda like blaming a random restaurant manager for forcing waiters to rely on tips. Yes, if they have enough profits, they can pay people more and fix a small part of the problem. The general issue remains systemic though.

blattimwind 7y ago
> Consequently, it feels a bit unfair to put this on Wikipedia editors. Kinda like blaming a random restaurant manager for forcing waiters to rely on tips. Yes, if they have enough profits, they can pay people more and fix a small part of the problem. The general issue remains systemic though. Systemic yet oddly restricted to a particular area.

the_duke 7y ago

Can you provide some links to said atrocities by the British empire? (I'm genuinely curios) There probably are some Wikipedia articles you could link to. Edit: just a few examples * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_concentration_camps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_concentration_camps * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_India * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Britain#Enslaved_Africans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Britain#Enslaved_Af...

mehrdadn 7y ago
I was looking this up just now. It seems 29 million died in India alone under British rule due to famine. [1] However there was widespread crop failure in the late 19th century. [2] I don't know how much control they had over what and how every set of deaths occurred, so it's not yet clear to me you can just directly compare number of deaths between empires without taking into account the surrounding context. [1] https://www.quora.com/How-many-people-did-the-British-empire-kill-worldwide/answer/Karthikeyan-Madathil https://www.quora.com/How-many-people-did-the-British-empire... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire#East_India_Company_in_Asia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire#East_India_Comp...
- twic 7y ago
  The Bengal Famine is a well-studied case where, AIUI, the current consensus is that imperial policies contributed significantly to the suffering and death toll: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943
- sbmthakur 7y ago
  While it wouldn't be wise to attribute all those deaths to the British Empire, it's important to note that British agricultural practices led to widespread famines and crop-failures. Diversion of food crop land to grow Opium and Indigo led to famines[1]. And the risk of crop-failures was often beared by the cultivator[2]. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrigation_in_India#History https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrigation_in_India#History 2. http://barrett.dyson.cornell.edu/NEUDC/paper_364.pdf http://barrett.dyson.cornell.edu/NEUDC/paper_364.pdf

andrepd 7y ago

Whenever Wikipedia is mentioned in hackernews, it's always the same comment. Have you got anything new to add, or any substantial argument to support your position? As it stands it's a pretty serious accusation and a pretty thin argument.

pessimizer 7y ago
I've rarely seen this comment on hackernews about wikipedia. I think you may have been thrown off by the use of "liberal" to think it's a right-wing critique. Incidentally, the complaints I'm used to are that "they keep deleting the thing that I'm involved with that I think is notable" "they won't let me edit myself even though I'm an expert on myself" and "weird editors squat articles." This is a "wikipedia is completely western and whiggish" critique.

derefr 7y ago

I think you mean “English-language Wikipedia”. Try switching to one of the other languages and then putting the article through Google Translate. They’re not the same article semantically! Each language has its own set of editors putting its own spin on things. It’s only to be expected that each language’s editorial policy will be dominated by the cultural hegemony of that language’s speakers, if one exists. (For example, even without government interference, you would expect “Taiwan” to have different first-sentence descriptions in the Chinese–Simplified, Chinese–Traditional, and English Wikipedias.)

amyjess 7y ago
> For example, even without government interference, you would expect “Taiwan” to have different first-sentence descriptions in the Chinese–Simplified, Chinese–Traditional, and English Wikipedias.) I agree with your sentiment, but that's not the best example. There is one Chinese Wikipedia, and articles are machine-transliterated between simplified and traditional forms (plus a few more forms using region-specific vocabulary).
- yorwba 7y ago
  Well, besides Mandarin there are also articles about Taiwan in Cantonese, Eastern Min, Gan, Hakka, Literary Chinese, Southern Min, and Wu. They all seem to be able to agree that it's an island in the Pacific, but differ in the degree to which they mention that the Republic of China controls it. The Hakka article prominently displays the national flag, while the Southern Min one doesn't mention it in the introductory paragraph.

Yizahi 7y ago

At least one Wikipedia should maintain close to facts approach. If you prefer authoritarian "rewrite history" approach then you can consult Russian Wiki, where they rewrote all political and history pages, and I assume Chinese Wiki is the same.

owl57 7y ago
you can consult Russian Wiki, where they rewrote all political and history pages Can you link some specific examples?
- Yizahi 7y ago
  En: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbass Ru: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%BE%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B6%D1%91%D0%BD%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%84%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BA%D1%82_%D0%BD%D0%B0_%D0%B2%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%BA%D0%B5_%D0%A3%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%8B https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%BE%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%83... En: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_military_intervention_in_Ukraine_(2014%E2%80%93present) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_military_intervention_... Ru: none, lol En: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Russian_Federation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Ru... Ru: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5_%D0%9A%D1%80%D1%8B%D0%BC%D0%B0_%D0%BA_%D0%A0%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%B9%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B9_%D0%A4%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%86%D0%B8%D0%B8 https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%BE... En: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War Ru: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%BE%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B6%D1%91%D0%BD%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%84%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BA%D1%82_%D0%B2_%D0%AE%D0%B6%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B9_%D0%9E%D1%81%D0%B5%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%B8_(2008) https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%BE%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%83... For several years they vandalized Kievan Rus' page (in Ru segment) renaming it to Ancient Rus'. For some reason they stopped doing it now , but all changes are still in history. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%B8%D0%B5%D0%B2%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D0%A0%D1%83%D1%81%D1%8C https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%B8%D0%B5%D0%B2%D1%81... En: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 Ru: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Катастрофа_Boeing_777_в_Донецкой_области https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Катастрофа_Boeing_777_в_Донецк... Basically any mention of unfavorable or outright bad mention about current country of a dictator or about any preceding country from which they claim inheritance is censored or obfuscated or buried in a flood of "alternative" opinions.