4 ms·

I stopped donating after what happened with croatian wikipedia, totally controlled by right wing political admins

mandmandam 5y ago
They're extremely biased in Ireland too. Our neoliberal politicians have massive confirmed scandals reduced to 1 line vaguenesses, while their tiniest plaudits merit paragraphs. And vice versa for anyone independent, left wing, anti-war, anti-corruption etc.
- sharikous 5y ago
  Given that you can find allegations of bias going both ways just in this thread, by reading the comments I became convinced Wikipedia is in fact more neutral than I thought. And to you I say Wikipedia is open source, you can edit in stuff yourself. Sure there is some inertia and moderation and some users will engage in edit wars but as long as you add information (e.g. the scandals you mention) there is usually a low resistance to do so. Editing or removing stuff requires more justification but it is feasible too, as long as you have an encyclopedic reason to do so.
Kbelicius 5y ago
IIRC those issues were resolved with the involvement of other admin teams. Don't think there are any admins on Croatian wikipeda that were there a year ago, some were removed by the global team (or whatever it is called) and those that remained were removed by the newly voted admins.
- akolbe 5y ago
  There was a BBC report just a few days ago pointing out climate change denial and related conspiracy theories in Croatian Wikipedia (and other language versions): https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-59325128 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-59325128 What is true is that the Wikimedia Foundation finally, after 10 years, grasped the nettle and had someone take a look at the Croatian Wikipedia earlier this year: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Croatian_Wikipedia_Disinformation_Assessment-2021 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Croatian_Wikipedia_Disinform... Some Croatian Wikipedia admins had their privileges removed, but that in itself doesn't change any of the content. Whether and when the Croatian Wikipedia will become mainstream remains to be seen.
aezell 5y ago
The issue with this kind of thinking is that you can't have the freedom of an impartial supporting organization like Wikimedia without the pitfalls that freedom might trip into in the individual case. Not giving Wikimedia money does absolutely nothing to stop a bad admin or group of admins from making bad choices. Wikimedia has very little control, if any, over things at that level. They can advocate for change but that change must come from the users themselves.

They're extremely biased in Ireland too. Our neoliberal politicians have massive confirmed scandals reduced to 1 line vaguenesses, while their tiniest plaudits merit paragraphs. And vice versa for anyone independent, left wing, anti-war, anti-corruption etc.

sharikous 5y ago
Given that you can find allegations of bias going both ways just in this thread, by reading the comments I became convinced Wikipedia is in fact more neutral than I thought. And to you I say Wikipedia is open source, you can edit in stuff yourself. Sure there is some inertia and moderation and some users will engage in edit wars but as long as you add information (e.g. the scandals you mention) there is usually a low resistance to do so. Editing or removing stuff requires more justification but it is feasible too, as long as you have an encyclopedic reason to do so.

Kbelicius 5y ago

IIRC those issues were resolved with the involvement of other admin teams. Don't think there are any admins on Croatian wikipeda that were there a year ago, some were removed by the global team (or whatever it is called) and those that remained were removed by the newly voted admins.

akolbe 5y ago
There was a BBC report just a few days ago pointing out climate change denial and related conspiracy theories in Croatian Wikipedia (and other language versions): https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-59325128 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-59325128 What is true is that the Wikimedia Foundation finally, after 10 years, grasped the nettle and had someone take a look at the Croatian Wikipedia earlier this year: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Croatian_Wikipedia_Disinformation_Assessment-2021 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Croatian_Wikipedia_Disinform... Some Croatian Wikipedia admins had their privileges removed, but that in itself doesn't change any of the content. Whether and when the Croatian Wikipedia will become mainstream remains to be seen.

aezell 5y ago

The issue with this kind of thinking is that you can't have the freedom of an impartial supporting organization like Wikimedia without the pitfalls that freedom might trip into in the individual case. Not giving Wikimedia money does absolutely nothing to stop a bad admin or group of admins from making bad choices. Wikimedia has very little control, if any, over things at that level. They can advocate for change but that change must come from the users themselves.