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This is a current event that is extremely political: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_United_States_Capitol_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Unite

This is a current event that is extremely political: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_United_States_Capitol_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_United_States_Capitol_pro... It cites 462 sources and the parts I read are at least as objective as any news outlet. I know that Wikipedia editors lean left. I'd be interested to see examples of this bias in Wiki entries though.

jjcon 6y ago
One random example I ran across recently of note to HN crowd - the creator of Javscript and Brave, Founder of Mozilla Brendan Eich. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich Under known for it says, “Known for JavaScript, opposition to same-sex marriage” Really? I’m as gay as they come but this just gives me scarlet letter vibes. I sincerely doubt people know this guy for his work opposing ssm (of which there wasn’t any, he was just opposed to it back in the day). People do know firefox, brave, mozilla etc though. In the talk page it is clear there are a couple editors with a vendetta against this guy or something. Maybe an example of personal bias more than a left/right thing but I still found it kinda weird.
- zozbot234 6y ago
  > Really? I’m as gay as they come but this just gives me scarlet letter vibes. I agree, I sure wouldn't want to be known for inventing JavaScript. And the name wasn't even his idea. How unfair!
- gregcoombe 6y ago
  The Wikipedia page dedicates an entire section to explaining that comment, under "Appointment to CEO, controversy and resignation". He was forced out of the CEO position for this political view. It was a pretty significant news story, and I think they are right for including this as part of what he is known for (particularly outside the HN community).
- elliotec 6y ago
  I mean, it's what he's known for. It was a very big deal when it was discovered that he opposed and donated against gay marriage. He resigned as CEO of Mozilla over it. Many people outside of internet communities like HN first learned his name when this all went down. Creator of JS wasn't as big a deal to most people at the time as CEO of a major non profit internet company opposing one of the biggest human rights issues of our time.
  - jjcon 6y ago
    > as CEO of a major non profit internet company opposing one of the biggest human rights issues of our time. Obama, the president of the united states opposed same sex marriage at the time of the donations, as did most americans. I hardly fight it noteworthy considering how widespread it was.
    - tshaddox 6y ago
      Lots of people opposed it at the time. That’s pretty much required in order for it to be one of the biggest human rights issues at the time.
      - jjcon 6y ago
        Which is exactly my point
        godelzilla 6y ago
        Lots of people were nazis too. Not worth mentioning on their Wikipedia?
    - elliotec 6y ago
      The thing of opposing same sex marriage itself isn't noteworthy. The fact it was widely discussed in the context of Brendan Eich particularly was noteworthy. Obama opposing that has nothing to do with what Brendan Eich is "known for" - Obama is known for plenty of things, lots of which are on his wikipedia page.
- Acrobatic_Road 6y ago
  I guess he's known for it in the sense that he made a $1000 donation to support prop 8 and a bunch of people overreacted and he had to resign. Really, he's known for a specific controversy around gay marriage.
  - _hyrb 6y ago
    > SECTION 1. Title: This measure shall be known and may be cited as the "California Marriage Protection Act." > SECTION 2. Article I, Section 7.5 is added to the California Constitution, to read: Sec. 7.5. Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California. If you donate a dollar to supporting this you're 𝚙̶𝚛̶𝚘̶𝚋̶𝚊̶𝚋̶𝚕̶𝚢̶ a dick. Edit: You're definitely a dick if you donate a dollar to this. I tend to not be confident asserting when someone is or isn't a dick and add the word "probably" unnecessarily. Edit 2: I'm sorry for my earlier comments. To clarify, I also think it's overreacting when people oppose interracial marriage. I'm all for people supporting discrimination. People should be allowed to be shitty shitbags and anyone who thinks it's bad is overreacting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_California_Proposition_8#Full_text https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_California_Proposition_8#...
    - Acrobatic_Road 6y ago
      he's not a dick, he's just a christian
      - _hyrb 6y ago
        You're right. I forgot that christians and dicks are mutually exclusive.
        dang 6y ago
        We've banned this account for trolling, or whatever it is that you've been doing with your recent flamey comments. This site is not for that. I'm disappointed, because you posted good comments before that.
- tshaddox 6y ago
  Just an anecdote, but those are the top 2 and only 2 things I know him for. Didn’t know (or at least remember) that he created Brave or was involved with Mozilla. I’d be willing to bet that, indeed, those are the top 2 things he is known for.
  - ricardo81 6y ago
    Same for me. Definitely would be an interesting family fortunes/family feud question
    - mvc 6y ago
      It would have to be a special "software engineer" edition of family fortunes otherwise 99% of contestants wouldn't have a clue who he is.
- danielheath 6y ago
  He lost his job at Mozilla as a result of it being widespread knowledge. It's an objective fact that he is known for it.
- renewiltord 6y ago
  I think you misunderstand the purpose of a summary of a person . It isn't P(think of this subject | think of this person), it's P(think of this person | think of this subject). Likewise, in a summary of a subject, a person would show up if P(think of this subject | think of this person) shows up. So, for instance, Nelson Mandela shows up in the intro to Apartheid and vice versa; Pi shows up in Fabrice Bellard, but Bellard doesn't show up in Pi; Poor Richard's Almanack links to Benjamin Franklin but Benjamin Franklin doesn't mention PRA in its summary.
- BrendanEich 6y ago
  Mostly the handiwork of an editor, David Gerard, who is obsessed with me and has no encyclopedic perspective, just anger and agenda. One reason among many not to support Wikipedia.
Acrobatic_Road 6y ago
It was even worse before. When I read it, the opening line suggested that all of the rioters collectively murdered that cop. I think that was a little too biased for wikipedia. Does anyone have the revision?
- ant6n 6y ago
  „(...) Summoned by Trump,[25] thousands of supporters gathered in Washington, D.C., on January 5 and 6 to demand that Vice President Mike Pence and Congress reject Biden's victory.[26][27][28] The rioters quickly became extremely violent, assaulting a police officer who later died, erecting a gallows on the Capitol grounds, assaulting the press, and desiring to take hostage and harm lawmakers such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Pence, the latter for refusing to invalidate Biden's victory.[29]“
  - concordDance 6y ago
    Yeah, a good example. Having seen 50 solid minutes of raw footage, describing it them as "extremely violent" is about as accurate as describing BLM protestors as criminals (e.g. it describes a very small minority).
    - ant6n 6y ago
      Huh. I was just posting the quote that gp referred to, supposedly implying that the mob as a whole killed a police officer. The text is not written like that, and overall pretty dry and factual. We can argue about the one adverb „extremely“ in front of violent, but that’s not even that much of a stretch (people died). An actually biased text would have used different words, like calling the mob a group of organized fascist insurgents intent on a coup d‘etat, commanded to do so by Trump. Even that would still be arguably correct.
      - Acrobatic_Road 6y ago
        The revision he posted was not the one I was talking about. There was another revision that directly said the mob killed the officer.
toomim 6y ago
This might not be quite the examples you're looking for, but here's a study of Wikipedia's leftward bias from Harvard: https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/41946110/greenstein,zhu_do-experts-or-crowd.pdf https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/41946110/greenst...
- three_seagrass 6y ago
  Are you sure? That article talks about how unbiased Wikipedia is: >Our study finds that crowd-based knowledge production does not result in articles with more biased than articles produced by experts when the crowd-based articles are substantially revised.
  - jjcon 6y ago
    > when the crowd-based articles are substantially revised. You literally just had to keep reading to find the cases where they do show bias
    - brendoelfrendo 6y ago
      That's just saying that highly-trafficked, highly-edited articles are going to be less biased than articles with fewer contributors or sources. That... just makes sense, to me; the more visible or relevant an article, the more people (and potentially experts) will weigh in, and the more crowd consensus will drive out the more blatant biases.
    - arp242 6y ago
      It also mentions there a bias in both directions, depending on the topic. Plus, it only considers US viewpoints/political alignments, and not Canadian, British, Australian, or other countries.
  - toomim 6y ago
    Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia, also gives a number of examples of Wikipedia's bias in this article: https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/ https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/
SoSoRoCoCo 6y ago
> I know that Wikipedia editors lean left. Reality leans left. FTFY. And before you all go downvote happy, just take a look at which direction culture has gone in the past 100 years. More conservative? Nope.
aaron695 6y ago
> I know that Wikipedia editors lean left. I'd be interested to see examples of this bias in Wiki entries though. The removal of the website link to 8kun.top - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8chan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8chan (I have read the talk page, don't need it repeated) It's trivial to find left wing bias, the question is, is it getting worse? Two articles I would normally mention have recently removed their left wing bias - Split-Sleep has had it's page removed (Good) The Lucky iron fish now states it doesn't work (Good) Gell-Mann Amnesia has lost it's page (bad), to prove this is left wing bias you'd have to find equivalent articles. I'm not sure on this one..... > least as objective as any news outlet The internet is getting swamped with (two) decades of archived news and information and now it's splitting into camps. This is a weakness.
concordDance 6y ago
Yikes, yeah, that's a good example of bias. The main bias being describing a group doing something that only a tiny minority did. It's not as bad as saying things like "Muslims then bombed the world trade center", but it's still pretty bad. Based on the 50 minutes of raw footage I've seen, a description of "mostly peaceful" wouldn't be too far off.

jjcon 6y ago

One random example I ran across recently of note to HN crowd - the creator of Javscript and Brave, Founder of Mozilla Brendan Eich. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich Under known for it says, “Known for JavaScript, opposition to same-sex marriage” Really? I’m as gay as they come but this just gives me scarlet letter vibes. I sincerely doubt people know this guy for his work opposing ssm (of which there wasn’t any, he was just opposed to it back in the day). People do know firefox, brave, mozilla etc though. In the talk page it is clear there are a couple editors with a vendetta against this guy or something. Maybe an example of personal bias more than a left/right thing but I still found it kinda weird.

zozbot234 6y ago
> Really? I’m as gay as they come but this just gives me scarlet letter vibes. I agree, I sure wouldn't want to be known for inventing JavaScript. And the name wasn't even his idea. How unfair!
gregcoombe 6y ago
The Wikipedia page dedicates an entire section to explaining that comment, under "Appointment to CEO, controversy and resignation". He was forced out of the CEO position for this political view. It was a pretty significant news story, and I think they are right for including this as part of what he is known for (particularly outside the HN community).
elliotec 6y ago
I mean, it's what he's known for. It was a very big deal when it was discovered that he opposed and donated against gay marriage. He resigned as CEO of Mozilla over it. Many people outside of internet communities like HN first learned his name when this all went down. Creator of JS wasn't as big a deal to most people at the time as CEO of a major non profit internet company opposing one of the biggest human rights issues of our time.
- jjcon 6y ago
  > as CEO of a major non profit internet company opposing one of the biggest human rights issues of our time. Obama, the president of the united states opposed same sex marriage at the time of the donations, as did most americans. I hardly fight it noteworthy considering how widespread it was.
  - tshaddox 6y ago
    Lots of people opposed it at the time. That’s pretty much required in order for it to be one of the biggest human rights issues at the time.
    - jjcon 6y ago
      Which is exactly my point
      - godelzilla 6y ago
        Lots of people were nazis too. Not worth mentioning on their Wikipedia?
  - elliotec 6y ago
    The thing of opposing same sex marriage itself isn't noteworthy. The fact it was widely discussed in the context of Brendan Eich particularly was noteworthy. Obama opposing that has nothing to do with what Brendan Eich is "known for" - Obama is known for plenty of things, lots of which are on his wikipedia page.
Acrobatic_Road 6y ago
I guess he's known for it in the sense that he made a $1000 donation to support prop 8 and a bunch of people overreacted and he had to resign. Really, he's known for a specific controversy around gay marriage.
- _hyrb 6y ago
  > SECTION 1. Title: This measure shall be known and may be cited as the "California Marriage Protection Act." > SECTION 2. Article I, Section 7.5 is added to the California Constitution, to read: Sec. 7.5. Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California. If you donate a dollar to supporting this you're 𝚙̶𝚛̶𝚘̶𝚋̶𝚊̶𝚋̶𝚕̶𝚢̶ a dick. Edit: You're definitely a dick if you donate a dollar to this. I tend to not be confident asserting when someone is or isn't a dick and add the word "probably" unnecessarily. Edit 2: I'm sorry for my earlier comments. To clarify, I also think it's overreacting when people oppose interracial marriage. I'm all for people supporting discrimination. People should be allowed to be shitty shitbags and anyone who thinks it's bad is overreacting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_California_Proposition_8#Full_text https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_California_Proposition_8#...
  - Acrobatic_Road 6y ago
    he's not a dick, he's just a christian
    - _hyrb 6y ago
      You're right. I forgot that christians and dicks are mutually exclusive.
      - dang 6y ago
        We've banned this account for trolling, or whatever it is that you've been doing with your recent flamey comments. This site is not for that. I'm disappointed, because you posted good comments before that.
tshaddox 6y ago
Just an anecdote, but those are the top 2 and only 2 things I know him for. Didn’t know (or at least remember) that he created Brave or was involved with Mozilla. I’d be willing to bet that, indeed, those are the top 2 things he is known for.
- ricardo81 6y ago
  Same for me. Definitely would be an interesting family fortunes/family feud question
  - mvc 6y ago
    It would have to be a special "software engineer" edition of family fortunes otherwise 99% of contestants wouldn't have a clue who he is.
danielheath 6y ago
He lost his job at Mozilla as a result of it being widespread knowledge. It's an objective fact that he is known for it.
renewiltord 6y ago
I think you misunderstand the purpose of a summary of a person . It isn't P(think of this subject | think of this person), it's P(think of this person | think of this subject). Likewise, in a summary of a subject, a person would show up if P(think of this subject | think of this person) shows up. So, for instance, Nelson Mandela shows up in the intro to Apartheid and vice versa; Pi shows up in Fabrice Bellard, but Bellard doesn't show up in Pi; Poor Richard's Almanack links to Benjamin Franklin but Benjamin Franklin doesn't mention PRA in its summary.
BrendanEich 6y ago
Mostly the handiwork of an editor, David Gerard, who is obsessed with me and has no encyclopedic perspective, just anger and agenda. One reason among many not to support Wikipedia.

Acrobatic_Road 6y ago

It was even worse before. When I read it, the opening line suggested that all of the rioters collectively murdered that cop. I think that was a little too biased for wikipedia. Does anyone have the revision?

ant6n 6y ago
„(...) Summoned by Trump,[25] thousands of supporters gathered in Washington, D.C., on January 5 and 6 to demand that Vice President Mike Pence and Congress reject Biden's victory.[26][27][28] The rioters quickly became extremely violent, assaulting a police officer who later died, erecting a gallows on the Capitol grounds, assaulting the press, and desiring to take hostage and harm lawmakers such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Pence, the latter for refusing to invalidate Biden's victory.[29]“
- concordDance 6y ago
  Yeah, a good example. Having seen 50 solid minutes of raw footage, describing it them as "extremely violent" is about as accurate as describing BLM protestors as criminals (e.g. it describes a very small minority).
  - ant6n 6y ago
    Huh. I was just posting the quote that gp referred to, supposedly implying that the mob as a whole killed a police officer. The text is not written like that, and overall pretty dry and factual. We can argue about the one adverb „extremely“ in front of violent, but that’s not even that much of a stretch (people died). An actually biased text would have used different words, like calling the mob a group of organized fascist insurgents intent on a coup d‘etat, commanded to do so by Trump. Even that would still be arguably correct.
    - Acrobatic_Road 6y ago
      The revision he posted was not the one I was talking about. There was another revision that directly said the mob killed the officer.

toomim 6y ago

This might not be quite the examples you're looking for, but here's a study of Wikipedia's leftward bias from Harvard: https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/41946110/greenstein,zhu_do-experts-or-crowd.pdf https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/41946110/greenst...

three_seagrass 6y ago
Are you sure? That article talks about how unbiased Wikipedia is: >Our study finds that crowd-based knowledge production does not result in articles with more biased than articles produced by experts when the crowd-based articles are substantially revised.
- jjcon 6y ago
  > when the crowd-based articles are substantially revised. You literally just had to keep reading to find the cases where they do show bias
  - brendoelfrendo 6y ago
    That's just saying that highly-trafficked, highly-edited articles are going to be less biased than articles with fewer contributors or sources. That... just makes sense, to me; the more visible or relevant an article, the more people (and potentially experts) will weigh in, and the more crowd consensus will drive out the more blatant biases.
  - arp242 6y ago
    It also mentions there a bias in both directions, depending on the topic. Plus, it only considers US viewpoints/political alignments, and not Canadian, British, Australian, or other countries.
- toomim 6y ago
  Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia, also gives a number of examples of Wikipedia's bias in this article: https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/ https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/

SoSoRoCoCo 6y ago

> I know that Wikipedia editors lean left. Reality leans left. FTFY. And before you all go downvote happy, just take a look at which direction culture has gone in the past 100 years. More conservative? Nope.

aaron695 6y ago

> I know that Wikipedia editors lean left. I'd be interested to see examples of this bias in Wiki entries though. The removal of the website link to 8kun.top - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8chan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8chan (I have read the talk page, don't need it repeated) It's trivial to find left wing bias, the question is, is it getting worse? Two articles I would normally mention have recently removed their left wing bias - Split-Sleep has had it's page removed (Good) The Lucky iron fish now states it doesn't work (Good) Gell-Mann Amnesia has lost it's page (bad), to prove this is left wing bias you'd have to find equivalent articles. I'm not sure on this one..... > least as objective as any news outlet The internet is getting swamped with (two) decades of archived news and information and now it's splitting into camps. This is a weakness.

concordDance 6y ago

Yikes, yeah, that's a good example of bias. The main bias being describing a group doing something that only a tiny minority did. It's not as bad as saying things like "Muslims then bombed the world trade center", but it's still pretty bad. Based on the 50 minutes of raw footage I've seen, a description of "mostly peaceful" wouldn't be too far off.