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Why is this article dead? I thought it was great and definitely makes you think. I myself am not from the U.S., so most of it I had no idea of either way. But I

Why is this article dead? I thought it was great and definitely makes you think. I myself am not from the U.S., so most of it I had no idea of either way. But I think there's still a gem in this article. I thought the dilemma of neutrality vs objectivity was also interesting. It seems these goals are directly at odds, and if you are writing an encyclopedia you can only achieve one. You can give multiple sides an even amount of attention, including a possibly, objectively wrong perspective. Or, you can forego neutrality and go for objectivity. But, many social issues are precisely subjective and fuzzy. I understand wanting an objective picture, I can even imagine why fox news might not be top of the shelf journalism, but TFA makes a point: sometimes they can be the only ones reporting on a side. And if you are neutral, you must not take sides. The example of Switserland was interesting, as they had to tolerate the nazis as well to remain truly neutral. Do you want neutrality? Or objectivity? Then, what is objective in some of these issues, where we simply don't have all the information, or worse, fuzzy and subjective issues?

11thEarlOfMar 5y ago
No to mention that the author is the co-founder of Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Sanger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Sanger
- jfengel 5y ago
  Who left almost immediately, and has been railing at Wikipedia ever since. (He also said a lot of negative things about Wikileaks, cited in the Wikipedia article you link.)
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    "Almost immediately", not really. He had major influence on Wikipedia's early policy decisions, including NPOV itself. And he's not even wrong about verifiability and reliability of sourcing being sometimes in tension with NPOV; it's just that the latter is meaningless without the former.
legitster 5y ago
> And if you are neutral, you must not take sides. Except OP's actual examples aren't of Wikipedia "picking a side", it's that Wikipedia is ignoring his side of things. It's one thing to say Switzerland is going to stay neutral to the Nazis. But that doesn't mean Switzerland is somehow required to hand out Nazi leaflets that it is delivered.
- bruce343434 5y ago
  Your example is skewed. A correct analog would be "Switserland is handing out leaflets for the allies but not the axis". Which would of course not be neutral.
eldavojohn 5y ago
Honestly the section of the article on "The Antifa/BLM riots" was absolute garbage. He frames it that "National Democrats generally supported the rioters; portrayed them as “mostly peaceful” activists against fascism and racism, even contributing money to their defense; took seriously the notion that we should “defund the police” or backed similar police “reform” proposals; and stubbornly minimized the months of bloodshed, danger, and destruction the riots caused." But then he notes that at least one article included all this information and also agrees that the main article does a great job in neutrality. Then he has a problem with how monument removals was framed. sigh okay this guy is clearly cherry picking. Trash article from someone trying to stay relevant.
- ErikVandeWater 5y ago
  Please provide the exact quote where he says the main article does a great job in neutrality. What I see is that he says there is good coverage of relevant facts but the way in which the article writes about them is obviously biased.
  - eldavojohn 5y ago
    It's literally the start of the second paragraph: > A neutral treatment would, of course, give broad factual coverage of such things as where the rioting took place, how many people were arrested, and numbers of injuries and deaths attributable to the rioting. The main Wikipedia article actually seems to do a good job there, as far as I can tell. Sorry he said "good job" and I said "great job". I suppose there is a difference there and I apologize for that.
    - ErikVandeWater 5y ago
      Again your summary is misleading. He says there is good broad factual coverage but the interpretation is very biased.
      - eldavojohn 5y ago
        Why don't you quote his article and then the wikipedia "interpretation" that is "very biased"? Let's take concrete examples. I'll start, here's an excerpt from the section in question in Larry Sanger's article: > The rest of the article—which, I confess, I did not read entirely, as it is very long He cares so much about the bias that he can't be bothered to find it. The only thing I saw (and I mentioned in my original post) is that he took issue with the description of statue removal phrasing. So he skips through three long articles, doesn't read them all but finds what he's looking for. This is largely how people operate today, they start with what they want to believe then they go looking for it.
wrycoder 5y ago
It's not dead atm, but it has been flagged. I found it interesting reading and certainly pertinent to the HN community. I would hope that the mods would remove the flag.

11thEarlOfMar 5y ago

No to mention that the author is the co-founder of Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Sanger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Sanger

jfengel 5y ago
Who left almost immediately, and has been railing at Wikipedia ever since. (He also said a lot of negative things about Wikileaks, cited in the Wikipedia article you link.)
- zozbot234 5y ago
  "Almost immediately", not really. He had major influence on Wikipedia's early policy decisions, including NPOV itself. And he's not even wrong about verifiability and reliability of sourcing being sometimes in tension with NPOV; it's just that the latter is meaningless without the former.

legitster 5y ago

> And if you are neutral, you must not take sides. Except OP's actual examples aren't of Wikipedia "picking a side", it's that Wikipedia is ignoring his side of things. It's one thing to say Switzerland is going to stay neutral to the Nazis. But that doesn't mean Switzerland is somehow required to hand out Nazi leaflets that it is delivered.

bruce343434 5y ago
Your example is skewed. A correct analog would be "Switserland is handing out leaflets for the allies but not the axis". Which would of course not be neutral.

eldavojohn 5y ago

Honestly the section of the article on "The Antifa/BLM riots" was absolute garbage. He frames it that "National Democrats generally supported the rioters; portrayed them as “mostly peaceful” activists against fascism and racism, even contributing money to their defense; took seriously the notion that we should “defund the police” or backed similar police “reform” proposals; and stubbornly minimized the months of bloodshed, danger, and destruction the riots caused." But then he notes that at least one article included all this information and also agrees that the main article does a great job in neutrality. Then he has a problem with how monument removals was framed. sigh okay this guy is clearly cherry picking. Trash article from someone trying to stay relevant.

ErikVandeWater 5y ago
Please provide the exact quote where he says the main article does a great job in neutrality. What I see is that he says there is good coverage of relevant facts but the way in which the article writes about them is obviously biased.
- eldavojohn 5y ago
  It's literally the start of the second paragraph: > A neutral treatment would, of course, give broad factual coverage of such things as where the rioting took place, how many people were arrested, and numbers of injuries and deaths attributable to the rioting. The main Wikipedia article actually seems to do a good job there, as far as I can tell. Sorry he said "good job" and I said "great job". I suppose there is a difference there and I apologize for that.
  - ErikVandeWater 5y ago
    Again your summary is misleading. He says there is good broad factual coverage but the interpretation is very biased.
    - eldavojohn 5y ago
      Why don't you quote his article and then the wikipedia "interpretation" that is "very biased"? Let's take concrete examples. I'll start, here's an excerpt from the section in question in Larry Sanger's article: > The rest of the article—which, I confess, I did not read entirely, as it is very long He cares so much about the bias that he can't be bothered to find it. The only thing I saw (and I mentioned in my original post) is that he took issue with the description of statue removal phrasing. So he skips through three long articles, doesn't read them all but finds what he's looking for. This is largely how people operate today, they start with what they want to believe then they go looking for it.

wrycoder 5y ago

It's not dead atm, but it has been flagged. I found it interesting reading and certainly pertinent to the HN community. I would hope that the mods would remove the flag.