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25 Years of Wikipedia

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Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#141

Post by LasEspuelas »

EcommerceFlow wrote: post #136

The Wikipedia "reliability" list shows wild, almost laughable biases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Per... Surely people don't think sources such as Mother Jones are more 'reliable' than The New York Post, Fox News, or The Heritage Foundation? Not a coincidence there. Having such obvious biases does nothing but damage the Wikipedia brand, and at this point has me anticipating Ai replacement…

This is the comment on the Mother Jones entry: "There is consensus that Mother Jones is generally reliable. Almost all editors consider Mother Jones a biased source, so its statements (particularly on political topics) may need to be attributed. Consider whether content from this publication constitutes due weight before citing it in an article."

They acknowledge it is a biased source and they make a distinction between reliability and bias. Not familiar with the publication.

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#142

Post by konne88 »

I do believe that Wikipedia is one of the least biased sources out there, but there is definitely bias. Here is a concrete example. Compare the introduction paragraph of the English circumcision article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumcision) with the German one (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zirkumzision).

The English intro talks a lot about medical advantages of the procedure: "reduced rates of sexually transmitted infections and urinary tract infections. This includes reducing the incidence of cancer-causing forms of human papillomavirus (HPV) and reducing HIV transmission among heterosexual men in high-risk populations by up to 60%; ... Neonatal circumcision decreases the risk of penile cancer.[14] ... Some medical organizations take the position that it carries prophylactic health benefits that outweigh the risks," and has one sentence of it being controversial worldwide "others hold that its medical benefits are not sufficient to justify it."

The German one has not a single sentence in the intro about advantages, but a whole paragraph on how it's controversial. "Die Zirkumzision als Routineeingriff ist besonders bei Minderjährigen umstritten, ... Von vielen Kinderschutzverbänden und einem Teil der Ärzteorganisationen wird die nicht medizinisch begründete Beschneidung abgelehnt, da sie den Körper irreversibel verändere und bei nicht einwilligungsfähigen Jungen nicht im Einklang mit Gesundheitsschutz und Kindeswohl stehe.[6] Im angelsächsischen Bereich gibt es schon länger eine gesellschaftliche Debatte zwischen Gruppen von Gegnern der Beschneidung („Intaktivisten“-Bewegung) und Befürwortern. Umstritten sind insbesondere medizinischer Nutzen und Risiken, bei Kindern auch ethische und rechtliche Aspekte sowie die Beurteilung im Hinblick auf die Menschenrechte, vor allem das Recht auf körperliche Unversehrtheit."

I'm not sure who's right, but it's hard to not see some bias here.

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#143

Post by UebVar »

gwbas1c wrote: post #123
mr_mitm wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a very touchy subject for Wales. It caused him to walk out of an interview after 48 seconds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uswRbWyt_pg

Without context, it looks like the interviewer was a jerk and ambushed him. I've seen plenty of stalling like that on major news programs, and the interviewer always knows to move on (and possibly edit something in to provide context.) --- That being said, "who started what" and "who had what idea" are silly topics to obsesses about. It always come down to who put the long-term work in. I think Wales was "in the righ…

The interview started with the most mundane question "Who are you?", and the very first sentence of Wales is either a lie or misleading. The journalists asks for clarification (thats a journalists job, btw), and in his second sentence of the interview Wales insults the journalist. I'm pretty sure who is the jerk here.

It also was Wales who bought up the topic, not the journalist. If he considers it a stupid topic he does not want to talk about, why is it the very first thing he talks about?

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#144

Post by mmooss »

psunavy03 wrote: post #111
burnt-resistor wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporate editors, boiler room political operations, and random conspiracy cranks are given a bothsideism platform to edit and narrate facts in their favor. https://en.ejo.ch/public-relations/manipulation-wikipedia https://imemc.org/article/59294/ https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2026-01-14/lon... https://avim.org.tr/en/Analiz/THE-DARKNESS-BEYOND-WIKIPEDIA-... https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/cong…

"Bothsidesism" is a tired argument. Somehow if you don't think that one side of a debate is utter evil and the other side is as pure as the driven snow, you're engaging in "bothsidesism" if you acknowledge there are any shades of gray in the world. Which is a childish argument for anyone older than a high school sophomore.

> tired

What relevance does that have to truth? I'm tired of online disinformation; should I say it's a tired issue and therefore irrelevant?

Denial that bothsidesism exists, or being tired of dealing with the problem, is irrelevant.

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#146

Post by dfxm12 »

jamespo wrote: post #112
rvnx wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs have their issues too. In everyday life, you cannot read 20 books about a topic about everything you are curious about, but you can ask 5 subject-experts (“the LLMs”) in 20 seconds some of them who are going to check on some news websites (most are also biased) Then you can ask for summaries of pros and cons, and make your own opinions. Are they hallucinating ? Could be. Are they lying ? Could be. Have they been…

This may shock you, but wikipedia provides multiple sources, it even links to them. Where do you think the LLMs are getting their data from?

To further this, articles also have an edit history and talk page. Even if one disagrees with consensus building or suspects foul play and they're really trying to get to the bottom of something, all the info is there on Wikipedia!

If one just wants a friendly black box to tell them something they want to hear, AI is known to do that.

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#147

Post by thunderbong »

In the 2000s, in the tech world, the open source successes that were being talked about was always Apache and Linux.

When Wikipedia started gaining a bit of traction, everyone made fun of it. It was the butt of jokes in all the prime time comedy shows. And I always felt like telling the critics - "Don't you see what is happening? People all over the world are adding their own bits of knowledge and creating this huge thing way beyond what we've seen till now. It's cooperation on an international scale! By regular people! This is what the internet is all about. People, by the thousands, are contributing without asking for anything else in return. This is incredible! "

A few years later, Encyclopedia Britannica, stopped their print edition. A few years after that I read that Wikipedia had surpassed even that.

The amount of value Wikipedia brings to the world is incalculable.

And I'm very fortunate to be alive at a time where I can witness something at this scale. Something that transcends borders and boundaries. Something that goes beyond our daily vices of politics and religion. Something that tries to bring a lot of balance and objectivity in today's polarized world.

Thank you, Wikipedia.

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#148

Post by NoboruWataya »

FiveOhThree wrote: post #24

I can't be the only one who feels that Wikipedia's quality has really started to go downhill over the past 5 or so years. I've noticed more and more articles which read as ridiculously partisan, usually around subjects with any link to politics or current events. That's probably linked to the increasing polarisation in the US, but I get the impression that the sites neutrality policies have gradually been chipped awa…

There is pretty much no way this was ever not going to happen, given Wikipedia's position and structure. It is a massive repository of knowledge, that is consulted by millions if not billions of people around the world on a regular basis, that is (in theory) editable by anyone and that has articles on just about every conceivable topic, including many politically charged ones. There must be immense pressure to use it to propagate all kinds of narratives. Given all of that, I think it does as good a job as can be expected of remaining objective, but absolutely you need to be careful when reading articles on politically charged topics (which is true of all media).

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#150

Post by amiga386 »

zozbot234 wrote: post #84
FiveOhThree wrote: post #24

I can't be the only one who feels that Wikipedia's quality has really started to go downhill over the past 5 or so years. I've noticed more and more articles which read as ridiculously partisan, usually around subjects with any link to politics or current events. That's probably linked to the increasing polarisation in the US, but I get the impression that the sites neutrality policies have gradually been chipped awa…

Wikipedia was always insufficiently neutral about political or social topics. At a bare minimum, you need to check whether there are any highlighted controversies in the article talk page.

Wikipedia itself knows how much shit it's in. Every ongoing conflict and culture-war issue is a "contentious topic", which is Wikipedia code for "editors are at each others' throats"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contentious_topics#L...

They have a giant pile of editors banned from topics until they can play nice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Editing_restrictions...

But you do give a great tip: at minimum, check the talk page. If it's longer than the article itself, run away.

Some articles are so far gone, even the talk page is locked down like Fort Knox. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gaza_genocide

That page even has an FAQ!

> Q1: Why does this article state that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, even though this is heavily contested and neither the ICJ nor the ICC have issued a final judgment?

> A1: A September 2025 request for comment (RfC) decided to state, in Wikipedia's own voice, that it is a genocide. The current lead is the result of later discussion on the specific wording.

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