5 ms·

Interesting, I did not know Wikimedia was politically aligned. If there's an organisation that I wouldn't like to be politically aligned, it would be an encyclo

by vadfa 5y ago

Interesting, I did not know Wikimedia was politically aligned. If there's an organisation that I wouldn't like to be politically aligned, it would be an encyclopedia. But hey, here we are; enjoy the ride.

maweki 5y ago
There is no objective truth. Especially not for every author and every topic. Even when trying to represent controversy, the problem of false balance is quite real. Maybe we differ on the definition of "political alignment", but there is no way that an entity has no angle.
- yesenadam 5y ago
  (Sorry to slightly derail the topic, but I think this is an important point.) > There is no objective truth. And yet you say that like you think it's the (objective) truth. Or is that just your opinion, or just true for you, etc? I don't think it makes any sense to deny objective truth—it's self-contradictory. When you hear "There is no objective truth", ask "Is that true?". (At least you immediately backpedalled with "Especially for..") I take your point I think—e.g. more than once on HN I've criticized the idea some people have of starting a facts-only objective 'unbiased' news service as totally implausible and naïve. But to deny that anything is or can be true seems rather to throw the baby out with bathwater.
  - maweki 5y ago
    > But to deny that anything is or can be true Where exactly did I deny that? I was merely noting that the an impartial encyclopedia (which is there to document everything in existence) is impossible, as there are indeed issues of controversy in existence. Even in trying to represent the controversy, as opposed to one of the myriad points of views, is a stance in itself and subject to false balance, selection bias, and I guess a few other fallacies. We're not talking about a collection of mathematical formulas here.
    - Jasper_ 5y ago
      Even mathematical formulas come with them a wide variety of assumptions on shared, uncommunicated base axioms. Nobody explicitly points out "assuming we're not modulo 2" after stating "1 + 1 = 2". Context and interpretation matters, and a lot of those disagreements over "objective facts" often come down to different interpretations of the context. There's no such thing as "pure data" without a huge system of definitions underlying the whole thing, which are often unspoken. Do you consider "my website got 10,000 views today" to be unambiguous factual data? If so, what counts as a "view"? Do bot views count? The browser auto-refreshing because it reloaded the tab? What about the exact definitions of "today"? What hours do you start and stop counting? Even the most basic facts succumb to this. There's lots of talk about birthdays and ages in this thread. Well, in South Korea, the cultural standard is that everyone's age goes up by one on New Year's Day (so a baby born on Dec. 31st turns two years old the next day), so someone's age is going to be reported differently when reading Korean media. And I know of someone who was born on April 4th, but because of some mix-ups at the busy hospital, her official records state April 5th instead. She chooses to celebrate it on April 4th, but she couldn't legally buy any liquor herself until the next day. Culture and context matter. Different people have different takes on what is reasonable, and that's why there's no "objective truth" unless you interrogate all of your definitions and standards all the way to the bottom.
mschuster91 5y ago
> If there's an organisation that I wouldn't like to be politically aligned, it would be an encyclopedia. But hey, here we are; enjoy the ride. You forget that Wikipedia is already biased and has been for years despite many complaints (some of which have been featured on HN over the time): - the utter majority of its authors in the English and German are young white males, which has led to numerous cases of "toxic culture"/"hostility to newcomers" issues as well as complaints of bias in deletion requests such as for female authors vs male authors. - the entire Balkan region is, and I say this as a half-Croat, a shitshow everywhere. Nationalists of all kinds, from the individual ethnicities to "Grand Yugoslavia" Titoists, continue past wars in the online world, with both sides resorting to whitewashing of atrocities (Ustasa on the Croatian Nationalist side, Srebrenica on the Serbian side), fake news and other propaganda. An organization such as Wikipedia can only thrive wenn all people of this world are represented by it, and yes, that includes taking a stance on societal structural discrimination.
- elliekelly 5y ago
  Wikipedia needs to implement editor rotation the way CPAs are only permitted to audit a public company so many times before another firm must take over the audit. It keeps things from getting too cozy. Reddit should probably implement the same policy with mods for the larger subs.
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    The pool of applicants for Wikipedia editors and Reddit mods is already small as it is, and neither of it is paid. Reddit also expressly forbids moderators from profiting off their position (which is why the r/wallstreetbets takeover and the oust of u/zjz was reversed in the first place!), and Wikipedia disallows paid editing entirely. Changing that would completely compromise both projects: Wikipedia, as it would immediately lead to "whoever bids the most controls the narrative" orchestrated by shady PR companies eager to white-wash the history of nations and individuals (again, it is already difficult enough to prevent that with the current model), and Reddit would face similar issues. That said, both are in dire need of more paid and fully transparent support staff that mediates issues as well as takes over the load of policing outright abuse either by mods/admins or by mere contributors. Way too much volunteer time is wasted on dealing with low-effort bullshit (which is partially why I left Wikipedia over a decade ago).
jfax 5y ago
The idea of a Free encyclopedia and knowledge for all humanity is a political aim in itself.
- vadfa 5y ago
  Yeah I was expecting someone to drop the "everything is political" hot take.
jrochkind1 5y ago
I think you are responding to this passage from the article? > The Wikimedia Foundation has in the recent past cited the fate of George Floyd and the resulting Black Lives Matter protests as its inspiration for the Knowledge Equity Fund, a $4.5 million fund set up last year to support racial equity initiatives outside the Wikimedia movement. It has declared "We stand for racial justice"… Taking a step back, I wonder what things count as a "political alignment". Like, in general. Is, say, being "against murder" a poltical alignment? Or being for "being kind to people"? Probably not. So, back to this passage, what aspects strike you as a "political alignment", and why? Is being against racism a "political alignment", or perhaps it becomes so when expressed with the term "racial justice"? Are all "moral values" also "political alignments", are these things the same or different? I think they are not quite the same, although probably have overlap. And people can and do certainly disagree on moral values too. But I don't think we would suggest people, including people working on an encyclopedia, either can or should be without "moral values". Where is the boundary at which it becomes a "political alignment"? One obvious one to me, and what I first think of when I hear "political alignment", is supporting a particular political party or candidate or other electoral cause. I don't think wikipedia does that, and generally I don't think it should. (Although even here... supporting or opposing the literal 1930s German Nazi Party, in the 1930s, would I suppose, actually indeed be a "political alignment", but... now that makes me think I wouldn't always want to put "political alignment" off the table either. It may be impossible to act morally in the world without some political alignment... but I still don't want wikipedia supporting particular US parties or candidates -- mainly because it would put into question the fairness or truth-goals of it's articles. I'm honestly not sure where the line is.)
- veltas 5y ago
  Yes, I have found that being "against murder" is political and a matter of political alignment. Especially since the definition of what is murder, or who is protected by murder laws, and the punishments for murder are all controversial. For example, if you believe that fetuses are living humans then you would tend to argue that arguing against abortion was arguing against murder. Where you stand on the death penalty could make you believe the state murders, or the state does not seriously punish murderers. Similarly, whether or not you think specific instances of deaths at the hands of police are murder is political. For example, the nature of acceptable violence in self-defense is controversial (in the US particularly), and the acceptable nature of force used by police is controversial too. And the brand of "Black Lives Matter" does not exist in a vacuum, it been used over a number of years, by many different people, and has become associated (whether these are 'core tenets' or potentially misattributed) with a number of controversial stances, for example anarchist principles, support of disorder, vandalism, violence, revolution, etc. This might be surprising to some, but it is familiar to others. If someone criticizes or dislikes the movement with that context, then are they necessarily dismissive of police brutality against blacks, do they feel blacks don't deserve the same safety as others?

by vadfa 5y ago

maweki 5y ago

There is no objective truth. Especially not for every author and every topic. Even when trying to represent controversy, the problem of false balance is quite real. Maybe we differ on the definition of "political alignment", but there is no way that an entity has no angle.

yesenadam 5y ago
(Sorry to slightly derail the topic, but I think this is an important point.) > There is no objective truth. And yet you say that like you think it's the (objective) truth. Or is that just your opinion, or just true for you, etc? I don't think it makes any sense to deny objective truth—it's self-contradictory. When you hear "There is no objective truth", ask "Is that true?". (At least you immediately backpedalled with "Especially for..") I take your point I think—e.g. more than once on HN I've criticized the idea some people have of starting a facts-only objective 'unbiased' news service as totally implausible and naïve. But to deny that anything is or can be true seems rather to throw the baby out with bathwater.
- maweki 5y ago
  > But to deny that anything is or can be true Where exactly did I deny that? I was merely noting that the an impartial encyclopedia (which is there to document everything in existence) is impossible, as there are indeed issues of controversy in existence. Even in trying to represent the controversy, as opposed to one of the myriad points of views, is a stance in itself and subject to false balance, selection bias, and I guess a few other fallacies. We're not talking about a collection of mathematical formulas here.
  - Jasper_ 5y ago
    Even mathematical formulas come with them a wide variety of assumptions on shared, uncommunicated base axioms. Nobody explicitly points out "assuming we're not modulo 2" after stating "1 + 1 = 2". Context and interpretation matters, and a lot of those disagreements over "objective facts" often come down to different interpretations of the context. There's no such thing as "pure data" without a huge system of definitions underlying the whole thing, which are often unspoken. Do you consider "my website got 10,000 views today" to be unambiguous factual data? If so, what counts as a "view"? Do bot views count? The browser auto-refreshing because it reloaded the tab? What about the exact definitions of "today"? What hours do you start and stop counting? Even the most basic facts succumb to this. There's lots of talk about birthdays and ages in this thread. Well, in South Korea, the cultural standard is that everyone's age goes up by one on New Year's Day (so a baby born on Dec. 31st turns two years old the next day), so someone's age is going to be reported differently when reading Korean media. And I know of someone who was born on April 4th, but because of some mix-ups at the busy hospital, her official records state April 5th instead. She chooses to celebrate it on April 4th, but she couldn't legally buy any liquor herself until the next day. Culture and context matter. Different people have different takes on what is reasonable, and that's why there's no "objective truth" unless you interrogate all of your definitions and standards all the way to the bottom.

mschuster91 5y ago

> If there's an organisation that I wouldn't like to be politically aligned, it would be an encyclopedia. But hey, here we are; enjoy the ride. You forget that Wikipedia is already biased and has been for years despite many complaints (some of which have been featured on HN over the time): - the utter majority of its authors in the English and German are young white males, which has led to numerous cases of "toxic culture"/"hostility to newcomers" issues as well as complaints of bias in deletion requests such as for female authors vs male authors. - the entire Balkan region is, and I say this as a half-Croat, a shitshow everywhere. Nationalists of all kinds, from the individual ethnicities to "Grand Yugoslavia" Titoists, continue past wars in the online world, with both sides resorting to whitewashing of atrocities (Ustasa on the Croatian Nationalist side, Srebrenica on the Serbian side), fake news and other propaganda. An organization such as Wikipedia can only thrive wenn all people of this world are represented by it, and yes, that includes taking a stance on societal structural discrimination.

elliekelly 5y ago
Wikipedia needs to implement editor rotation the way CPAs are only permitted to audit a public company so many times before another firm must take over the audit. It keeps things from getting too cozy. Reddit should probably implement the same policy with mods for the larger subs.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  The pool of applicants for Wikipedia editors and Reddit mods is already small as it is, and neither of it is paid. Reddit also expressly forbids moderators from profiting off their position (which is why the r/wallstreetbets takeover and the oust of u/zjz was reversed in the first place!), and Wikipedia disallows paid editing entirely. Changing that would completely compromise both projects: Wikipedia, as it would immediately lead to "whoever bids the most controls the narrative" orchestrated by shady PR companies eager to white-wash the history of nations and individuals (again, it is already difficult enough to prevent that with the current model), and Reddit would face similar issues. That said, both are in dire need of more paid and fully transparent support staff that mediates issues as well as takes over the load of policing outright abuse either by mods/admins or by mere contributors. Way too much volunteer time is wasted on dealing with low-effort bullshit (which is partially why I left Wikipedia over a decade ago).

jfax 5y ago

The idea of a Free encyclopedia and knowledge for all humanity is a political aim in itself.

vadfa 5y ago
Yeah I was expecting someone to drop the "everything is political" hot take.

jrochkind1 5y ago

I think you are responding to this passage from the article? > The Wikimedia Foundation has in the recent past cited the fate of George Floyd and the resulting Black Lives Matter protests as its inspiration for the Knowledge Equity Fund, a $4.5 million fund set up last year to support racial equity initiatives outside the Wikimedia movement. It has declared "We stand for racial justice"… Taking a step back, I wonder what things count as a "political alignment". Like, in general. Is, say, being "against murder" a poltical alignment? Or being for "being kind to people"? Probably not. So, back to this passage, what aspects strike you as a "political alignment", and why? Is being against racism a "political alignment", or perhaps it becomes so when expressed with the term "racial justice"? Are all "moral values" also "political alignments", are these things the same or different? I think they are not quite the same, although probably have overlap. And people can and do certainly disagree on moral values too. But I don't think we would suggest people, including people working on an encyclopedia, either can or should be without "moral values". Where is the boundary at which it becomes a "political alignment"? One obvious one to me, and what I first think of when I hear "political alignment", is supporting a particular political party or candidate or other electoral cause. I don't think wikipedia does that, and generally I don't think it should. (Although even here... supporting or opposing the literal 1930s German Nazi Party, in the 1930s, would I suppose, actually indeed be a "political alignment", but... now that makes me think I wouldn't always want to put "political alignment" off the table either. It may be impossible to act morally in the world without some political alignment... but I still don't want wikipedia supporting particular US parties or candidates -- mainly because it would put into question the fairness or truth-goals of it's articles. I'm honestly not sure where the line is.)

veltas 5y ago
Yes, I have found that being "against murder" is political and a matter of political alignment. Especially since the definition of what is murder, or who is protected by murder laws, and the punishments for murder are all controversial. For example, if you believe that fetuses are living humans then you would tend to argue that arguing against abortion was arguing against murder. Where you stand on the death penalty could make you believe the state murders, or the state does not seriously punish murderers. Similarly, whether or not you think specific instances of deaths at the hands of police are murder is political. For example, the nature of acceptable violence in self-defense is controversial (in the US particularly), and the acceptable nature of force used by police is controversial too. And the brand of "Black Lives Matter" does not exist in a vacuum, it been used over a number of years, by many different people, and has become associated (whether these are 'core tenets' or potentially misattributed) with a number of controversial stances, for example anarchist principles, support of disorder, vandalism, violence, revolution, etc. This might be surprising to some, but it is familiar to others. If someone criticizes or dislikes the movement with that context, then are they necessarily dismissive of police brutality against blacks, do they feel blacks don't deserve the same safety as others?