Wait, I thought "bias" was a woke word
Republicans are ruining EVERYTHING.
House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias
161–170 of 180 posts
Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias
#162I used to (and still am) one of the highest ranked editors you can be without becoming an administrator. Wikipedia has its problems, and I spent years fighting them- but I slowly realized there is no better way to do it. Wikipedia is not an arbitrator of truth: everything needs a reliable, secondary source[0]. This means the content has to be notable enough that a reputable source wrote about it, and you cannot refer…
Today, with infinite information you can always find a source no matter how low quality and place it in equal setting with a high quality source.
Then it is suddenly "However"
If someone challenges you, you have infinite time due to obsession or being paid. You can then quote a barrage of wikipedia rules until the other side submits.
If whatever side of the "truth" has a time advantage, they will usually win. That's very common on topics that attract the obsessed, and the end result does not usually correlate with reality
Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias
#163This is McCarthyism. You take a polarizing word, then you attack your enemies by claiming they are that thing, and couch the whole thing in an "investigation" whose outcome is predetermined. There is no merit to discussing if the target is that thing, it doesn't matter. It's an ideological attack. If you take it on its face then the attackers win because you're treating them as if they were honest participants in a d…
Preach. How much time and money will Wikipedia have to waste defending this? Don’t these people have anything better to do? Like lowering prices for everyday Americans instead of running up baseless legal bills?
This is actually one of the most important things they can do. Reality does not conform to their twisted worldviews, so they must pervert publicly available sources of information in order to maintain legitimacy. This means the media, education, and the open internet. And they are readily assaulting all three.
Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias
#164There is a ton of bias on Wikipedia. But this is the nature of anything trying to create a collective understanding of the world that involves multiple authors with diverse viewpoints. But given the way this administration works (looking at their treatment of Universities/Colleges), they will only identify specific types of bias: - criticism of Republicans - criticism of Christian conservatism - pro-LGBTQ+ - criticis…
UC Berkeley students embarrassed themselves on the world stage by attacking the free speech rights of conservative speakers... petualant, threatening and very in the media. People in Berkeley familiar with the history bent their heads in grief to see it. Free speech means that yes, conservatives may also speak in public IMHO
Based on how things are going, looks like they were very much justified.
Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias
#165Not propagating Trump’s lies is organized bias all right.
Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias
#166I don’t trust this administration to perform an unbiased investigation, but it’s not a secret that Wikipedia is a high profile target for anyone who wants to push an agenda. Even trivial topics can attract die-hards who refuse to let an article say something they don’t like. Wikipedia also seeks to have a similar problem to StackOverflow where some users have become very good at working their way into the site’s stru…
It's time to move Wikipedia from the US to a safer haven
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Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias
#167I used to (and still am) one of the highest ranked editors you can be without becoming an administrator. Wikipedia has its problems, and I spent years fighting them- but I slowly realized there is no better way to do it. Wikipedia is not an arbitrator of truth: everything needs a reliable, secondary source[0]. This means the content has to be notable enough that a reputable source wrote about it, and you cannot refer…
Hmm. Anecdotal, however most folks I have spoken with, who don't agree on much at all, do agree that they no longer have a lot of faith in most of those so-called reliable/reputable sources. Hence also not in wikipedia.
Personally, I have seen many articles, esp. of individuals who just before had become publicly visible, re-written drastically enough to cast serious doubt on the objectivity of Wikipedia.
It would appear as a society you can have either foster trust (we may have forgotten how to do this?) or feed a bloated police/surveillance/intel state, but not both?
Am curious about others experiences with these matters!
Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you say that? What makes you say this is McCarthyism which was an accusation made against people in the House? I read the article and it says they are opening a probe into foreign influence peddling and people receiving taxpayer funding to do influence peddling and they asked for information from the CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation. You might disagree those are worth investigating but that sounds a lot more re…
What do you think McCarthyism is?
McCarthyism is generally when someone in power abuses their authority to accuse others without evidence, often for a personal vendetta. A wide-ranging investigation that goes beyond it's scope is carried out. An atmosphere of fear is created. People's reputations get damaged. People's Constitutional rights are violated. Although it can also just mean whenever someone accuses people of a conspiracy without evidence I will use the former definition.
Have any of those things happened here? Whose rights have been violated? Oh and people routinely get dragged in front of Congress by both parties for grandstanding purposes and nothing comes of it. Perhaps something to keep in mind when using scary words.
Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
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It is a bad thing and anyone who thinks otherwise is acting in bad faith.
> It is a bad thing and anyone who thinks otherwise is acting in bad faith.
The problem is that there are people who genuinely believe it is not a bad thing.
> Bad faith (Latin: mala fides) is a sustained form of deception which consists of entertaining or pretending to entertain one set of feelings while acting as if influenced by another.[1] It is associated with hypocrisy, breach of contract, affectation, and lip service.[2] It may involve intentional deceit of others, or self-deception.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_faith
These people are not pretending and saying these things for clicks or whatever. When they say they like this, and want more, it would be prudent to prudent to take them at their word.
Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
Moving Wikipedia elsewhere will likely have to happen. Thought, the US may respond by blocking Wikipedia content as many regimes in the past have: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia
Not to give any ideas, but a likely outcome is a US-based fork that has the offending bias removed, with a "ministry of truth"-y name.
This is exactly what Russia did, but said fork is not particularly popular AFAIK.