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I don't have much faith in what Wikipedia moderators consider "fair". Go look at Hilary Clintons Wikipedia page vs Trumps during the 2016 election.

bad_username 3y ago
Wikipedia rides its old reputation but it has long been taken over by ideologues. It is still great for information on math, physics, engineering, comp sci, etc. But anything politics, political science, history, and partially philosophy is very biased and this bias is practically impossible to offset.
- renegat0x0 3y ago
  Powers in this world wants control. It is impossible to create a reliable source of political news. Politicians however have no incentive to manipulate math, physics, engineering, etc. Humanistic subjects however are a target as it is commonly used for propaganda, to divert attention from economics, etc. etc. Unfortunately there are many people who can easily be distracted by this hook.
  - tivert 3y ago
    > Politicians however have no incentive to manipulate math, physics, engineering, etc. IMHO, Wikipedia's main problem isn't with politicians (though, IIRC there's likely a fair amount of state-actor editing), it's with zealots. You have to be deeply, deeply weird to be a Wikipedia editor, especially in a controversial topic area. My feeling is most of those editors are motivated by blatant ideological POV pushing, and their bad-faith motivations are only sublimated by Wikpedia's policies. Most of the conflict is in the form of elaborate passive-aggressive bureaucratic walls of text, which only the truly insane would willingly participate in. Over time, as the editor population dwindles, it will become less and less diverse and more and more biased.
eynsham 3y ago
1. What’s wrong with them? 2. Why would unfairness on one specific political topic impugn the judgement of Wikipedia editors generally? 3. Who are these ‘moderators’? Do you mean editors or admins? If you mean the former, any general judgement is pretty hard to justify; if you mean the latter, admins don’t intervene often enough for their misjudgements to cause a problem for the whole website. I’ve substantially edited at least a dozen relatively important articles (which is not that much by Wikipedia standards admittedly) and have never had to interact with an admin on matters of content.
- richbell 3y ago
  > admins don’t intervene often enough for their misjudgements to cause a problem for the whole website Sure, but admins can influence the narrative of specific topics/pages that they care about.
  - eynsham 3y ago
    Yes, obviously in saying they can’t intervene enough to cause a problem for the whole website I envisage the possibility that they could intervene often enough to cause a problem for a part thereof.
    - richbell 3y ago
      Intervening in specific parts _does_ cause problems for the site as a whole: it damages Wikipedia's reputation.
- egberts1 3y ago
  In the same breath, you say "what's wrong with them", which is just as bad as saying "there is no evidence of it" while emoting obfuscating and cobbling the terms of "moderator", "editor", "contributor" together and confuse the input mechanism of Wikipedianship even further. Wikipedian admins are the worst. While it still isn't perfect, my fight with Wikipedia is over introduction of "Deaf" with capital "D" against editors who have no claim in this culture other than their "preservation culture of preconceived notions". Would take 18 years before I rallied enough Deaf Wikipedian editors to muscle past those "old foggities". Yeah, was triggered so I am putting that tidbit of observational data there.

bad_username 3y ago

Wikipedia rides its old reputation but it has long been taken over by ideologues. It is still great for information on math, physics, engineering, comp sci, etc. But anything politics, political science, history, and partially philosophy is very biased and this bias is practically impossible to offset.

renegat0x0 3y ago
Powers in this world wants control. It is impossible to create a reliable source of political news. Politicians however have no incentive to manipulate math, physics, engineering, etc. Humanistic subjects however are a target as it is commonly used for propaganda, to divert attention from economics, etc. etc. Unfortunately there are many people who can easily be distracted by this hook.
- tivert 3y ago
  > Politicians however have no incentive to manipulate math, physics, engineering, etc. IMHO, Wikipedia's main problem isn't with politicians (though, IIRC there's likely a fair amount of state-actor editing), it's with zealots. You have to be deeply, deeply weird to be a Wikipedia editor, especially in a controversial topic area. My feeling is most of those editors are motivated by blatant ideological POV pushing, and their bad-faith motivations are only sublimated by Wikpedia's policies. Most of the conflict is in the form of elaborate passive-aggressive bureaucratic walls of text, which only the truly insane would willingly participate in. Over time, as the editor population dwindles, it will become less and less diverse and more and more biased.

eynsham 3y ago

1. What’s wrong with them? 2. Why would unfairness on one specific political topic impugn the judgement of Wikipedia editors generally? 3. Who are these ‘moderators’? Do you mean editors or admins? If you mean the former, any general judgement is pretty hard to justify; if you mean the latter, admins don’t intervene often enough for their misjudgements to cause a problem for the whole website. I’ve substantially edited at least a dozen relatively important articles (which is not that much by Wikipedia standards admittedly) and have never had to interact with an admin on matters of content.

richbell 3y ago
> admins don’t intervene often enough for their misjudgements to cause a problem for the whole website Sure, but admins can influence the narrative of specific topics/pages that they care about.
- eynsham 3y ago
  Yes, obviously in saying they can’t intervene enough to cause a problem for the whole website I envisage the possibility that they could intervene often enough to cause a problem for a part thereof.
  - richbell 3y ago
    Intervening in specific parts _does_ cause problems for the site as a whole: it damages Wikipedia's reputation.
egberts1 3y ago
In the same breath, you say "what's wrong with them", which is just as bad as saying "there is no evidence of it" while emoting obfuscating and cobbling the terms of "moderator", "editor", "contributor" together and confuse the input mechanism of Wikipedianship even further. Wikipedian admins are the worst. While it still isn't perfect, my fight with Wikipedia is over introduction of "Deaf" with capital "D" against editors who have no claim in this culture other than their "preservation culture of preconceived notions". Would take 18 years before I rallied enough Deaf Wikipedian editors to muscle past those "old foggities". Yeah, was triggered so I am putting that tidbit of observational data there.