[flagged]
Yes, I do believe that the majority of Wikipedia articles are unbiased in that people spend their time and effort trying to find the most neutral and fact based way of discussing a topic.
Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney
421–430 of 1001 posts
Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney
#422Here's the letter: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ocNyx34Et19sKtlta0bTPPzSPcp... No claims, no evidence. No sources, except "it has come to my attention" and "information received by my office".
Yikes that letter is alarming. > In view of public criticisms, including those expressed by Wikipedia Co-Founder Dr. Lawrence M. Sanger, regarding the opacity of editorial processes and the anonymity of contributors, what justification does the Foundation offer for shielding editors from public scrutiny? Larry Sanger has been criticizing Wikipedia for more than 20 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Sanger#Cri…
The Heritage Foundation has been open about their desire to strip Wikipedians of anonymity, this is just the government putting that plan into practice:
https://slate.com/technology/2025/02/wikipedia-project-2025-...
Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney
#423Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
Ed Martin made 198 TV appearances on RT in 2023 and 2024. How many RT TV hits did Larry King do? How recently did King appear on RT?
approximately 1,000 over 7 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_King_Now
Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney
#424Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
> That's more relevant. RT has had some fairly legitimate people on it such as Larry King, Julian Assange, John Pilger, Amy Goodman... Many Pulitzer prize and Peabody winners ... It's a mixed bag, people can't be so reductive about it. Can you back up your accusations with facts? I can state that I have not seen any reprehensible reporting from Amy Goodman; but rather the opposite, backed up by facts (e.g. about mass…
Yeah, like 10 seconds of google search. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x61wly8
and https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xvxx8j
Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney
#425The English Wikipedia is a massive target for influence campaigns. I don't think there are any other communities as resilient as it. Just an example: There's certain individual or group that edited under the name "Icewhiz", was banned, and now operates endless sockpuppet accounts in the topic area to influence Wikipedia's coverage on the Middle East. One of them was an account named "Eostrix", that spent years making…
This is the ideal picture of Wikipedia. In reality they are also used to spread propaganda and are happy about it as long as it fits certain naratives.
Wikipedia is, today, a pale shade of what it once was, a source of information.
Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney
#426Earlier quoted context omitted.
So everything wiki mods believe is truth? What about those who never even got a chance to speak out? It's always controlled by. Winners write the history. Now Americans decide what's truth and fact
Wikipedia has at least 15 million articles in languages other than English and around 7 million English articles. Are you asserting that it is standard that Americans are writing and moderating all of these articles in other languages?
In my country, one section mentions English articles (written by amercans) to prove their point.
Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney
#427The English Wikipedia is a massive target for influence campaigns. I don't think there are any other communities as resilient as it. Just an example: There's certain individual or group that edited under the name "Icewhiz", was banned, and now operates endless sockpuppet accounts in the topic area to influence Wikipedia's coverage on the Middle East. One of them was an account named "Eostrix", that spent years making…
To me those links you provided, indicate a lot, of what is wrong for me with wikipedia.
Because it is extremely hard to figure out what is going on. Lots of mysterious abbreviations. Unclear timeline.
I still don't really know it, it seems the scandal is, that he had a sockpuppet account? And there is only "private" evidence (meaning not public)?
"The Arbitration Committee has determined through private evidence, including evidence from the checkuser tool, that Eostrix (talk · contribs) (a current RfA candidate) is a sockpuppet of Icewhiz (talk · contribs). Accordingly, the Committee has resolved that Eostrix be indefinitely blocked."
So having a sockpuppet account is the reason for indefinite ban? Or that in combination with edits he made? Really, really hard to figure out for someone just having a quick look into the topic. And this is what prevented me since the beginning to participate in Wikipedia. I always got this impression. I made some edits here and there, but I think was mostly reverted/deleted/ignored - but no idea, I never felt like making the investment to really dive into it - and that seems required to contribute. Casual contribution seems pointless - and they likely miss out a lot through this.
"But the only reason you know about them is because Wikipedia openly fights them instead of covering them up."
So it seems good if wikipedia is more open - but from this story I just take "private evidence" with me and lots of questions about the whole process.
Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney
#428Earlier quoted context omitted.
Citation needed for anything on the scale we’ve seen - for example, the topic of this discussion is a non-profit having their status threatened for non-specific reasons which appear to be constitutionally-protected speech. If it’s “fairly obvious”, you should have no trouble providing examples of something equivalent to this legal threat.
I recall right-leaning social media sites like Gab, Parler, r/TheDonald, Infowars being taken offline. I can’t read the WP article because it’s paywalled, however I have been suspicious of Wikimedia for a long time. I used to donate to them thinking I was helping to keep the severs running, then being alarmed to find the money was going on all sorts of nonsense. The former CEO (Maher) was blatantly a political/intell…
> I recall right-leaning social media sites like Gab, Parler, r/TheDonald, Infowars being taken offline.
Were these not the actions of private entities rather than official government acts?
Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney
#429Earlier quoted context omitted.
I knew IceWhiz. You are correct that he (or rather "they") eventually was kicked from the site. But he/they operated on the site for years and was the biggest PITA you can imagine. He must have single-handedly scared away two dozen honest contributors with his BS. It is very, very easy to game the rules on Wikipedia. Wars of attrition goes on for years. Normal people don't waste their time. IceWhiz and his meat puppe…
Right. The fact that someone so terrible got 99% approval and only one anonymous investigator was able to stop them makes me think that it's likely a lot of other terrible admins who didn't have an anonymous investigator go after them probably go through the process. And the times I've brought up the fact that Wikipedia can be unreliable before, I've had numerous editors come in and claim that wasn't true and that pe…
Wikipedia isn't supposed to be a source, so "reliable" here has to mean "reliably presenting a full range of notable sources". No editor should be saying you can rely on claims found in Wikipedia, except in the sense of relying that the claims are in the sources.
(Except the claim as stated isn't always in the source anyway. Best to check.)
Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney
#430Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could one of you point me to antisemitic bias on wikipedia just so I have a concrete example at hand?
https://www.adl.org/resources/report/editing-hate-how-anti-i... Read it for yourself.
The ADL destroyed any credibility they had worked to build when they started conflating criticism of israel with antisemitism.