Aside from the blatant political bias, Wikipedia is a hornet's nest of intelligence pushing agendas.
[1] https://manhattan.institute/article/is-wikipedia-politically...
Trump DOJ Threatens Wikipedia's Nonprofit Status over Alleged 'Propaganda'
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Re: Trump DOJ Threatens Wikipedia's Nonprofit Status over Alleged 'Propaganda'
#12I've been critical of Wikipedia for years. Can't they come up with a more coherent argument like it put paid encyclopedias out of business so the donations it gets for running ads should be taxed like a business.
Your problem is with nonprofits generally, not Wikipedia specifically. Nonprofit status in the United States has nothing to do with competitiveness and everything to do with an organization’s purpose and operations.
What's wrong with being a tax-paying non-profit?
Re: Trump DOJ Threatens Wikipedia's Nonprofit Status over Alleged 'Propaganda'
#13I've been critical of Wikipedia for years. Can't they come up with a more coherent argument like it put paid encyclopedias out of business so the donations it gets for running ads should be taxed like a business.
Being competitive is not illegal and non-profits are not forbidden from creating better products. I don't understand what about that argument would be coherent.
How do I tell the difference between a profit-maximizing non-profit who says they contribute to the public using what I contributed 10 years ago to Wikipedia and thus not need to pay taxes under charity in 2025? Compared to actually helping? I would hate to be a non-profit surrounded by beggars it isn't sustainable.
Re: Trump DOJ Threatens Wikipedia's Nonprofit Status over Alleged 'Propaganda'
#14Wikipedia is more vulnerable than you think, there are only around 840 administrators on the English Wikipedia, most of them who have been around for nearly 20 years. It would only take a few takedowns of major admins to disrupt the power balance on Wikipedia to a different viewpoint. The next level in the hierarchy, bureaucrats, only have 16 members. Many administrators, including one quite recently got demoted for conflict of interest editing on Wikipedia. Some of the other language Wikipedias already had their administrator's imprisoned by governments.
Re: Trump DOJ Threatens Wikipedia's Nonprofit Status over Alleged 'Propaganda'
#15Aside from the blatant political bias, Wikipedia is a hornet's nest of intelligence pushing agendas. [1] https://manhattan.institute/article/is-wikipedia-politically...
Manhattan Institute lists Betsy DeVos on its Board of Trustees.
Re: Trump DOJ Threatens Wikipedia's Nonprofit Status over Alleged 'Propaganda'
#16There is nothing "alleged" about wikipedia's activites that have absolutely nothing to do with publishing an open source online encyclopedia, and have gone from an "inclusivity" statement into spending money on "programs" in an entirely discretionary manner that has absolutly no possible conection or meaning to an ALL inclusive publishing endevour. knowledge IS power but picking WHO gets to be empowered, and heard is…
I'm intrigued by your comment and others because, if true, they would shift my fundamental understanding of Wikipedia and its use. Would you mind offering some concrete examples of what you've described?
I suspect that we'll find that it's a conflation of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation. There are a lot of long-time Wikipedia editors who will state, sometimes quite forcefully, that the two are not the same thing. (There have been several confrontations over the years between the volunteer editorship and the people who work for the Foundation.)
Re: Trump DOJ Threatens Wikipedia's Nonprofit Status over Alleged 'Propaganda'
#17Aside from the blatant political bias, Wikipedia is a hornet's nest of intelligence pushing agendas. [1] https://manhattan.institute/article/is-wikipedia-politically...
That's a seriously weird paper. They're showing different sentiment around left/right leaning people and claim lack of neutrality without even mentioning the possibility that maybe the criticised people were actually assholes.
Think about the results this way: if you inserted enough praise for Hitler into Wikipedia, their result would show Wikipedia as being more neutral. What does that say about their chosen method?
Re: Trump DOJ Threatens Wikipedia's Nonprofit Status over Alleged 'Propaganda'
#18It is interesting that Russian government also believes that Wikipedia spreads misinformation, Western deceitful propaganda and plainly breaks the laws. Especially in articles related to politics and the war.
Difficult to live in a world where everyone has its own version of "truth".
Re: Trump DOJ Threatens Wikipedia's Nonprofit Status over Alleged 'Propaganda'
#19It is interesting that Russian government also believes that Wikipedia spreads misinformation, Western deceitful propaganda and plainly breaks the laws. Especially in articles related to politics and the war. Difficult to live in a world where everyone has its own version of "truth".
At this point, Trump's and Putin's views very much align. So it makes sense they want to attack the same targets.
Re: Trump DOJ Threatens Wikipedia's Nonprofit Status over Alleged 'Propaganda'
#20Wikipedia is more vulnerable than you think, there are only around 840 administrators on the English Wikipedia, most of them who have been around for nearly 20 years. It would only take a few takedowns of major admins to disrupt the power balance on Wikipedia to a different viewpoint. The next level in the hierarchy, bureaucrats, only have 16 members. Many administrators, including one quite recently got demoted for…