6 ms·

From my experience with trying to contribute to the Hebrew version, try contributing focusing on expanding an existing article and watch what happens. In my cas

by onyva 7y ago

From my experience with trying to contribute to the Hebrew version, try contributing focusing on expanding an existing article and watch what happens. In my case there was a very strong push back even against adding links that expand on issues mentioned which imho helped to balance an obvious slant. I gave up after a while. At university of course you’re warned not to use Wikipedia, it’s not acceptable as a reference and many examples are presented of experts in their field who contributed articles, which were then rewritten to the point where there was nothing left, other than the revised version of the moderators and the small mafia that runs the Israeli Wikipedia. There’s also the examples of the Croatian version which was taken over by neonazis and even the ministry of education had to publish a warning.

draugadrotten 7y ago
The political bias of wikipedia editors is horrible in most smaller countries. You mention Israel and Croatia. I can add Sweden. For an example, compare the wikipedia entries of the two largest parties in the Swedish parliament. One, Socialdemokraterna, starts with a blurb on how the party provides public welfare and the party slogan ("av var och en efter förmåga, åt var och en efter behov"). Compare with the second largest party, Sverigedemokraterna, which has an entire section devoted to listing scandals, controversial quotes and shunnings. Whatever you think about the two ideologies, these two wikipedia entries alone should be enough proof that there is a (left) political bias of wikipedia editors. I use wikipedia often because it has a lot of information in it, but would never rely on it as a source of fact. It is a google result like any other, and must be treated with caution.
- woodpanel 7y ago
  I can echo your concern. German wikipedia has the same troubles. That's why it's not uncommon amongst anyone I've aksed or observed to habitually fact-check a German wiki-page with a quick hop into the English version (If there is any ideological classification involved). There at least, Wikipedia's promise, that the heterogenity of writers creates informational breadth and balancedness, seems to be more kept. In contrast to the German version, the English articles often have dedicated "criticism"-chapters, that also leave the criticism uncommented. The German versions often start with a political classification right away. If the classification is contested, then it stays there and just gets slighty changed into reported speech. If any counter-arguments to that classification make it into an article, then they are almost always commented, often with a counter-argument to the counter-argument from groups that created that classification in the first place, litteraly giving them the last word.
  - swebs 7y ago
    >The German versions often start with a political classification right away. If the classification is contested, then it stays there and just gets slighty changed into reported speech. If any counter-arguments to that classification make it into an article, then they are almost always commented, often with a counter-argument to the counter-argument from groups that created that classification in the first place, litteraly giving them the last word. It's exactly the same in English Wikipedia for anything to do with current politics. Try reading any article about President Trump.
- onyva 7y ago
  I don't think it's left vs. right in this case. Without going into specifics, and considering the description of the process as was mentioned by the one of the commentators, the example I'm referring to was specifically a link to the academic paper from which a certain quote was paraphrased ... I first tried to add a direct quote from the writer's paper, which was removed, and then a link to her paper, which was removed. What they were trying to achieve is to minimize the importance of that source, by qualifying it as "some researchers claim" sort of qualifier. It's really not about the content, but equal and balance representation of authentic and reliable sources. ie. a research paper which was already referenced. Not every "opinion" and slant is important, but preferring a paraphrase to direct quote is obviously an attempt to minimize the source.
- moksly 7y ago
  Does your central parties have as many outrageous scandals as your far right party? Because if they don’t, what you say, doesn’t suggest any sort of bias. I know in my country things are somewhat similar, and you’ll find less scandals listed on the central parties than you will for the left or right wing parties. That is mainly because the central parties don’t go around talking about how the holocaust never happened (right wing) or how violence against the police is warranted (left wing) though.
  - Proziam 7y ago
    Scandals from one party or the other are rarely covered equally in the news of any country. The US is not alone in the divisiveness of our politics, nor in the lack of unbiased reporting.
  - watwut 7y ago
    The centrism bias should be considered bias too. The "truth is in the middle" or "both sides must be the same" is quite often just not true - in politics, work and personal life.
- Proziam 7y ago
  Almost all social platforms on the internet have a left-leaning tilt because, at least partially, the left (historically) organizes much better than the right does. This is one of those "well duh" statements once it's said out loud, considering the left's entire platform is about unification and social issues in most countries. That said, there are signs that point to a change in that recently (the second amendment rallies and sanctuaries around the US as examples). This is extremely visible on Reddit, to the point that even moderates on the left can find it exhausting.
  - bawolff 7y ago
    Is that true? I've always thought that the right was mildly more hierarchial (which i would describe as "organized") and the left a little bit more grass roots. That said i have no sources and another ancedote doesn't mean much.
    - Proziam 7y ago
      The vast majority of large social movements have their origins in the left. Climate change, most social justice movements, the push for higher minimum wage, immigration reform, etc. In general, people leaning 'right' are less interested in social initiatives on the whole. In the US, one of the most common talking points from the right is the desire to be 'left alone' by the government or social movements. The only issue the right seems to really be organized about (in the US) is guns, and that's because a huge percentage of military folk lean that direction.
      - bawolff 7y ago
        Large grass roots social movements are not the only way to be organized though. I agree that the left seems to better be able to capitalize on that type of movement in recent history, but i dont think it follows that the right is disorganized, just organized differently. (Then again this is the trump ers and he is not really the establishment right wing im thinking of-To me at least he seems to be riding a wave of fairly disorganized [but powerful] right wing populism, so maybe you are right in regards to him)
- dexen 7y ago
  >The political bias of wikipedia editors There is the problem of sourcing. Per the Wikipedia's policies[0], any contributions must be grounded in reliable sources, which in case of recent events boils down to big name news publications. Given that most of the big name media seems to gravitate towards either progressive, or socialist views, the contributions are likely to end up with a derived slant. The other aspect is notable in cases of a conflict between the netizens (or generally the consumers) and the media[1], where Wikipedia is self-bound to side with the media's reporting on themselves. As far as I can tell, Wikipedia has no provision for resolution of this conflict of interest. -- [0] "If no reliable sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources [1] terribly sorry about bringing up the specter of echo Tnzretngr pbagebirefl | rot13 in 2020
- tomtomtom777 7y ago
  You may be correct but your proof suffers from the the fallacy of the middle ground. Unbiased reality by no means implies that the number of scandals, controversial quotes, achievements or even the relevance of the party slogan must be similar for both sides.
  - posterboy 7y ago
    Given that it is politics, there could not be no scandal at all, however it be framed. I can't read it, so I won't say there were none present, though.
- guerrilla 7y ago
  Maybe if the social democrats, moderaterna or any other party were caught being literal nazis as often as Sverigedemorkaterna then they'd all have more similar Wikipedia pages.
TuringTest 7y ago
You can learn a lot about a topic you care by reading the Talk page and its archives; most relevant information that people wants to add has been discussed at length there, evaluating all pros and cons of the proposed text, and the biases and analysis of the quality of sources. Some small amount of talk is "oversighted" (hidden from view to all but administrators), but that's typically only for scandals who affect living persons. Also you'll have to wade through inflamed battles with unbridled passions, but the main issues of conflict become clear. That said, there are two kinds of articles: hot topics which get the above treatment for any suggested change (either for political or fanboyism reasons); and abandoned gardens where no one cares and weeds grow, marked with warning signs. These were created either by copying a public domain old encyclopedia, or by a passionate editor in the earlies , and have seen few since then. Either way, the most valuable resource of Wikipedia has always been the References section. You can skim the definition and safely ignore the rest of the article, and still use it as the starting point for learning about an unknown topic by searching the most promising sources of a well-curated collection of relevant links, that would be hard to find anywhere else using a search engine.
sien 7y ago
This was pretty similar to my experience trying to add up to date participation numbers to Australian sport. There is a big survey done in Australia, the Ausplay survey: https://www.clearinghouseforsport.gov.au/research/smi/ausplay/results/national https://www.clearinghouseforsport.gov.au/research/smi/auspla... 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. 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?
- FalconSensei 7y ago
  > The reason was fairly obvious, it shows that soccer/football is the most played team sport in Australia I'm not familiar with Australian culture, can you explain why would that be obvious?
  - sien 7y ago
    Good point. Sorry. Some older Australians are parochial about sport. Soccer is seen as foreign and something not really Australian. It's similar to the way soccer has been described as un-American in the US.
instagraham 7y ago
> At university of course you’re warned not to use Wikipedia, it’s not acceptable as a reference The reason for this is too often misconstrued as being that Wikipedia is somehow misleading. The reality is that you do you reference something that is not a primary source. When everything on Wikipedia ostensibly has to link to something, it is just lazy to cite "wikipedia" as source for something. I mean, I imagine you couldn't just say "New York Library" as a source for a fact either in university. You'd cite the actual source.
- MaxBarraclough 7y ago
  Interestingly Wikipedia itself promotes the use of secondary sources, discouraging over-reliance on primary and tertiary sources. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_primary_and_secondary_sources_for_biology_articles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_primary_...

by onyva 7y ago

draugadrotten 7y ago

The political bias of wikipedia editors is horrible in most smaller countries. You mention Israel and Croatia. I can add Sweden. For an example, compare the wikipedia entries of the two largest parties in the Swedish parliament. One, Socialdemokraterna, starts with a blurb on how the party provides public welfare and the party slogan ("av var och en efter förmåga, åt var och en efter behov"). Compare with the second largest party, Sverigedemokraterna, which has an entire section devoted to listing scandals, controversial quotes and shunnings. Whatever you think about the two ideologies, these two wikipedia entries alone should be enough proof that there is a (left) political bias of wikipedia editors. I use wikipedia often because it has a lot of information in it, but would never rely on it as a source of fact. It is a google result like any other, and must be treated with caution.

woodpanel 7y ago
I can echo your concern. German wikipedia has the same troubles. That's why it's not uncommon amongst anyone I've aksed or observed to habitually fact-check a German wiki-page with a quick hop into the English version (If there is any ideological classification involved). There at least, Wikipedia's promise, that the heterogenity of writers creates informational breadth and balancedness, seems to be more kept. In contrast to the German version, the English articles often have dedicated "criticism"-chapters, that also leave the criticism uncommented. The German versions often start with a political classification right away. If the classification is contested, then it stays there and just gets slighty changed into reported speech. If any counter-arguments to that classification make it into an article, then they are almost always commented, often with a counter-argument to the counter-argument from groups that created that classification in the first place, litteraly giving them the last word.
- swebs 7y ago
  >The German versions often start with a political classification right away. If the classification is contested, then it stays there and just gets slighty changed into reported speech. If any counter-arguments to that classification make it into an article, then they are almost always commented, often with a counter-argument to the counter-argument from groups that created that classification in the first place, litteraly giving them the last word. It's exactly the same in English Wikipedia for anything to do with current politics. Try reading any article about President Trump.
onyva 7y ago
I don't think it's left vs. right in this case. Without going into specifics, and considering the description of the process as was mentioned by the one of the commentators, the example I'm referring to was specifically a link to the academic paper from which a certain quote was paraphrased ... I first tried to add a direct quote from the writer's paper, which was removed, and then a link to her paper, which was removed. What they were trying to achieve is to minimize the importance of that source, by qualifying it as "some researchers claim" sort of qualifier. It's really not about the content, but equal and balance representation of authentic and reliable sources. ie. a research paper which was already referenced. Not every "opinion" and slant is important, but preferring a paraphrase to direct quote is obviously an attempt to minimize the source.
moksly 7y ago
Does your central parties have as many outrageous scandals as your far right party? Because if they don’t, what you say, doesn’t suggest any sort of bias. I know in my country things are somewhat similar, and you’ll find less scandals listed on the central parties than you will for the left or right wing parties. That is mainly because the central parties don’t go around talking about how the holocaust never happened (right wing) or how violence against the police is warranted (left wing) though.
- Proziam 7y ago
  Scandals from one party or the other are rarely covered equally in the news of any country. The US is not alone in the divisiveness of our politics, nor in the lack of unbiased reporting.
- watwut 7y ago
  The centrism bias should be considered bias too. The "truth is in the middle" or "both sides must be the same" is quite often just not true - in politics, work and personal life.
Proziam 7y ago
Almost all social platforms on the internet have a left-leaning tilt because, at least partially, the left (historically) organizes much better than the right does. This is one of those "well duh" statements once it's said out loud, considering the left's entire platform is about unification and social issues in most countries. That said, there are signs that point to a change in that recently (the second amendment rallies and sanctuaries around the US as examples). This is extremely visible on Reddit, to the point that even moderates on the left can find it exhausting.
- bawolff 7y ago
  Is that true? I've always thought that the right was mildly more hierarchial (which i would describe as "organized") and the left a little bit more grass roots. That said i have no sources and another ancedote doesn't mean much.
  - Proziam 7y ago
    The vast majority of large social movements have their origins in the left. Climate change, most social justice movements, the push for higher minimum wage, immigration reform, etc. In general, people leaning 'right' are less interested in social initiatives on the whole. In the US, one of the most common talking points from the right is the desire to be 'left alone' by the government or social movements. The only issue the right seems to really be organized about (in the US) is guns, and that's because a huge percentage of military folk lean that direction.
    - bawolff 7y ago
      Large grass roots social movements are not the only way to be organized though. I agree that the left seems to better be able to capitalize on that type of movement in recent history, but i dont think it follows that the right is disorganized, just organized differently. (Then again this is the trump ers and he is not really the establishment right wing im thinking of-To me at least he seems to be riding a wave of fairly disorganized [but powerful] right wing populism, so maybe you are right in regards to him)
dexen 7y ago
>The political bias of wikipedia editors There is the problem of sourcing. Per the Wikipedia's policies[0], any contributions must be grounded in reliable sources, which in case of recent events boils down to big name news publications. Given that most of the big name media seems to gravitate towards either progressive, or socialist views, the contributions are likely to end up with a derived slant. The other aspect is notable in cases of a conflict between the netizens (or generally the consumers) and the media[1], where Wikipedia is self-bound to side with the media's reporting on themselves. As far as I can tell, Wikipedia has no provision for resolution of this conflict of interest. -- [0] "If no reliable sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources [1] terribly sorry about bringing up the specter of echo Tnzretngr pbagebirefl | rot13 in 2020
tomtomtom777 7y ago
You may be correct but your proof suffers from the the fallacy of the middle ground. Unbiased reality by no means implies that the number of scandals, controversial quotes, achievements or even the relevance of the party slogan must be similar for both sides.
- posterboy 7y ago
  Given that it is politics, there could not be no scandal at all, however it be framed. I can't read it, so I won't say there were none present, though.
guerrilla 7y ago
Maybe if the social democrats, moderaterna or any other party were caught being literal nazis as often as Sverigedemorkaterna then they'd all have more similar Wikipedia pages.

TuringTest 7y ago

You can learn a lot about a topic you care by reading the Talk page and its archives; most relevant information that people wants to add has been discussed at length there, evaluating all pros and cons of the proposed text, and the biases and analysis of the quality of sources. Some small amount of talk is "oversighted" (hidden from view to all but administrators), but that's typically only for scandals who affect living persons. Also you'll have to wade through inflamed battles with unbridled passions, but the main issues of conflict become clear. That said, there are two kinds of articles: hot topics which get the above treatment for any suggested change (either for political or fanboyism reasons); and abandoned gardens where no one cares and weeds grow, marked with warning signs. These were created either by copying a public domain old encyclopedia, or by a passionate editor in the earlies , and have seen few since then. Either way, the most valuable resource of Wikipedia has always been the References section. You can skim the definition and safely ignore the rest of the article, and still use it as the starting point for learning about an unknown topic by searching the most promising sources of a well-curated collection of relevant links, that would be hard to find anywhere else using a search engine.

sien 7y ago

This was pretty similar to my experience trying to add up to date participation numbers to Australian sport. There is a big survey done in Australia, the Ausplay survey: https://www.clearinghouseforsport.gov.au/research/smi/ausplay/results/national https://www.clearinghouseforsport.gov.au/research/smi/auspla... 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. 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?

FalconSensei 7y ago
> The reason was fairly obvious, it shows that soccer/football is the most played team sport in Australia I'm not familiar with Australian culture, can you explain why would that be obvious?
- sien 7y ago
  Good point. Sorry. Some older Australians are parochial about sport. Soccer is seen as foreign and something not really Australian. It's similar to the way soccer has been described as un-American in the US.

instagraham 7y ago

> At university of course you’re warned not to use Wikipedia, it’s not acceptable as a reference The reason for this is too often misconstrued as being that Wikipedia is somehow misleading. The reality is that you do you reference something that is not a primary source. When everything on Wikipedia ostensibly has to link to something, it is just lazy to cite "wikipedia" as source for something. I mean, I imagine you couldn't just say "New York Library" as a source for a fact either in university. You'd cite the actual source.

MaxBarraclough 7y ago
Interestingly Wikipedia itself promotes the use of secondary sources, discouraging over-reliance on primary and tertiary sources. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_primary_and_secondary_sources_for_biology_articles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_primary_...