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Wikipedia is 20

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Re: Wikipedia is 20

#32

I've been funding Wikipedia for years and use it several times daily. It has indeed grown into an amazing source of knowledge documenting this world. However there are insidious problems building up. For example, I've noticed that they are starting to encode a lot of biases into its articles, particularly on topics that are part of the political sphere. These articles often reflect a US progressive-left worldview rat…

> These articles often reflect a US progressive-left worldview rather than a balanced view that reflects differing opinions from multiple sides of the aisle. There is also a distinct Western and English cultural bias in how articles describe and frame other countries, other cultures, and other religions.

The problem is real as I've mentioned elsewhere, but it's overwhelmingly a sourcing problem. There simply aren't many sources about non-Western or traditionalist (as opposed to modern/progressive) worldviews.

Re: Wikipedia is 20

#35

One reason Wikipedia was able to grow so quickly was because of its scale. Instead of relying on a few posh journal editors like Britannica, anyone could contribute. And while you have edge cases of people trolling and some misinformation, you also have a much larger labour pool of people dedicated to helping, not for a paycheque, but their own personal reasons.

> One reason Wikipedia was able to grow so quickly was because of its scale.

I've carefully studied all three definitions of "scale" my dictionary offers up, and come to the conclusion that this sentence either means absolutely nothing ("It is big because it is big"), or something really strange ("Wikipedia grew because of its plate-like skin coverings").

Re: Wikipedia is 20

#37
post #19

I've been funding Wikipedia for years and use it several times daily. It has indeed grown into an amazing source of knowledge documenting this world. However there are insidious problems building up. For example, I've noticed that they are starting to encode a lot of biases into its articles, particularly on topics that are part of the political sphere. These articles often reflect a US progressive-left worldview rat…

Could you share an example of a biased article? I haven’t really noticed that (at least for the visible, high profile articles) - the coverage has been as balanced as anywhere. Where it might get “extreme” is on niche topics that few people care about. For example I remember some articles associated with the whole “audiophile” scene were claiming some silly things without much evidence behind them, but that’s pretty…

One example is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_th..., which is about a term called "Cultural Marxism" which has been used by some mainstream right-leaning people as well as some right-leaning extremists (particularly in the past). If you look at the article itself, it titles this article as a "conspiracy theory" and specifically features the conspiracy theory version of "Cultural Marxism" in its opening sentences. However, the term as commonly used in modern times, does not refer to that particular conspiracy theory but is more like a shorthand for leftist ideology that features collectivism, particularly when it infiltrates academic institutions (and not the notion of a coordinated mass conspiracy).

From a quick Google search, I was able to find other articles that draw this distinction clearly (example https://spectator.us/whats-wrong-cultural-marxism/). However, the Wikipedia article doesn't draw this distinction well, and it seems intent on casting the phrase "Cultural Marxism" as racist, and so it features the worst interpretation of it. It sources articles that are also written primarily to repudiate right-wing political figures or intellectuals like Jordan Peterson. The related debate and edit wars are apparent when you look at the "Talk" page for this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Cultural_Marxism_conspira.... Note that the Talk page mentions the article is controversial, is in dispute, that there have been attempts to recruit editors to change the article, there have been circular sources introduced, and so forth.

That's just one example, but if you dig deep enough into any topic that has a left- and right- perspective and a Wikipedia article, you'll find the same. Wikipedia is, in my view, developing a US-centric English-centric left-leaning bias. All that said, I still love Wikipedia and will continue to use it everyday. I just worry that like all human-centric institutions, it is itself a target, a theater of battle in the on-going ideological wars.

Re: Wikipedia is 20

#39

Plenty of subtle agenda-pushing on Wikipedia if you're paying attention

Here is an example for people asking for one.

As an experiment I tried to get some fairly innocuous numbers into participation in Australia sport.

There is a big survey done in Australia, the Ausplay survey:

https://www.clearinghouseforsport.gov.au/

They have extensive tables on adult participation.

Two editors would not let this data into the sport in Australia article. The reason was fairly obvious, it shows that soccer/football is the most played team sport in Australia. Roy Morgan, a statistical agency also had similar figures. Some Australians don't like the fact that soccer/football is by far the most played team sport in Australia according to to the Ausplay Survey and Roy Morgan.

There was much time spent in the talk pages spent asking these two what would be acceptable for quoting these sporting statistics. The answer was nothing.

If you can't get fairly unobjectionable material like that into wikipedia what else is being blocked?

Re: Wikipedia is 20

#40
I am surprised that the comments haven't mentioned the role of SEO in Wikipedia's growth and defensibility.

Wikipedia's habit of deep interlinking helped it rank back in the early aughts when the SEO rules were rather simple. Add to that the subdomain-driven localization strategy and many other moves that were considered SEO best practices back in those years when the on-page factors used to matter.

But that was just the start. Wikipedia killed it in SEO when it was easy to do so, but it also did one other thing that most SEO-driven sites (eg: About) didn't do correctly - it cared deeply about the content quality and also resisted to run ads (anyone remember Jason Calacanis' articles on how they are leaving $100m on the table? See [1]). So when Panda came around, Google correctly rewarded Wikipedia with #1 rankings for over 50% of its terms (!!), and Jason Calacanis had to shut down Mahalo which got destroyed by Panda.

Wikipedia's dominance continues because it's basically impossible to overcome its lead in inbound links and domain authority. Add to that a surprisingly under-the-radar company culture which has avoided any major blow ups despite its community wielding so much leverage over the world's education and having to make a lot of difficult calls on a daily basis.

Well done.

[1] https://calacanis.com/2006/10/28/wikipedia-leaves-100m-on-th...

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