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The article references https://infogalactic.com https://infogalactic.com as a WP alternative. Constrast: https://infogalactic.com/info/Graham_Linehan https://i

The article references https://infogalactic.com https://infogalactic.com as a WP alternative. Constrast: https://infogalactic.com/info/Graham_Linehan https://infogalactic.com/info/Graham_Linehan with: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Linehan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Linehan - I think the author may have a point. Regardless of what you think about the person in question, the former seems far more encyclopaedic and neutral (though perhaps missing a necessary paragraph on his unpopular beliefs).

woodruffw 4y ago
The counterpoint to this is that Wikipedia's article contains everything that the other one does, and also contains all of the things that Linehan is currently well known for.
- LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
  No, subtly different. It contains all the things, and the proper slant on those things, that activist editors want GL to be known for regardless of the actual prevalence of people talking about that. I doubt even 1% of people who know his name know that he's involved in "gender critical" debate, let alone his views. Further, these ideological corrections are always biased because they're based on outrage articles and nobody writes counterpoint articles in which nothing happened and nothing is wrong. "Dog does not bite man". Nobody is going to pen a Guardian article saying "GL can tell the difference between the type of people who give birth and those who do not" because we all can and it's just not interesting. But if a few people working for Pink News and Gawker write that GL's statements are actually dog-whistles designed to stigmatize "fake women" or something, then all of a sudden 100% of the sources agree that he's committing literal violence against trans folx. Another article was attempting to trans an 18th century person. They said "Oh, it's okay, we'll also accept reliable sources that say they weren't a trans man" as if such a source could even exist. The point isn't his positions but that Wikipedia is a platform for activists to pick and choose which words to amplify or to amplify pushback against, and our rules for academic sources break down entirely in a culture war where new sources can be spun up in an instant. This is giving undue weight to certain elements and ignoring others.
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    This is a lot of defense, which is sort of irrelevant. All I've said is that Linehan's current public status and notability centers around each of the things mentioned in his Wikipedia article, which is...exactly what Wikipedia is supposed to be for. The material content of his positions isn't that important to me; only that Wikipedia doesn't conveniently omit those positions.
    - LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
      The problem is the undue weight given to the opinion of those who show up for editing and debating "reliable" sources, and political purity tests during these events. Self-selected editors often don't share the interests of readers of their articles. There's a no-false-balance policy which means the moon-landing-hoax theory doesn't need to get mentioned on every article related to space. Why is your view, or anti-view, important enough that it should be mentioned, such that you'd say it was omitted if it wasn't there?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dsr_ 4y ago
Cess pits are useful. Infogalactic, not so much. Complaining that Wikipedia is a source of propaganda and then citing Infogalactic as a balance is a mistake on the order of comparing Reuters and the Babylon Bee. I refer you to https://infogalactic.com/info/Bibhorr https://infogalactic.com/info/Bibhorr
- implements 4y ago
  I was specifically citing the contrast between the two articles. I know little of IG, but IG’s is what I’d expect an encyclopaedic article on this subject to look like, with (as I said) the inclusion of a paragraph about his views on sex and gender. WP’s puts his views (ideologically slanted as anti-trans rather than as he sees them gender critical) front and centre, and thereby characterises him as a bad person. Many people believe he is, but it’s not WPs place to authoritatively decide that, or the “Which is more real, sex or gender?” debate, or brand dissenters as immoral wrong-thinkers, or format articles to assert that stance. Ideally, WP should be far more factual and neutral. NB: This isn’t meant to be about the Trans issue, I used that subject as an illustration of the kind of thing I personally see as ideological bias in WP.
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    The "anti-trans" label is a rejection of false balance, not a particular ideological stance. It's roughly in line with Wikipedia's broader policy of rejecting "softening" labels that groups use to obscure their positions. Compare, for example, the white supremacists who call themselves "race realists."
    - implements 4y ago
      That’s the stated rationale, but with respect I disagree that it isn’t ideological or slanted. In my experience in the UK people who describe themselves as gender critical are older left-leaning (majority lesbian) women and hold their long held (1970s onwards) beliefs in good faith and from a position of pro-female / pro same sex-attracted rights, and resistance to gender as a useful social construct. They’re not anti-trans by primary motivation - it’s that the logical consequence of what they believe about the nature of sex and gender leads them to believe that “Trans-X aren’t X”. But from an opposing ideological viewpoint this is deemed definitionally transphobic, and the slant becomes evident when it’s asserted that this transphobic sentiment is and must be at the heart of what motivates gender critical beliefs - “They espouse their beliefs as racists espouse ‘race realism’ - as a guise to discriminate against the other”. But in this case it’s simply not true, and denying that citing “false balance” is in itself biased and disingenuous.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
The wikipedia one has an extensive edit history going back to 2006, the Infogalactic one seems to have a single revision, presumably copied from Wikipedia at some point in 2016.

woodruffw 4y ago

The counterpoint to this is that Wikipedia's article contains everything that the other one does, and also contains all of the things that Linehan is currently well known for.

LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
No, subtly different. It contains all the things, and the proper slant on those things, that activist editors want GL to be known for regardless of the actual prevalence of people talking about that. I doubt even 1% of people who know his name know that he's involved in "gender critical" debate, let alone his views. Further, these ideological corrections are always biased because they're based on outrage articles and nobody writes counterpoint articles in which nothing happened and nothing is wrong. "Dog does not bite man". Nobody is going to pen a Guardian article saying "GL can tell the difference between the type of people who give birth and those who do not" because we all can and it's just not interesting. But if a few people working for Pink News and Gawker write that GL's statements are actually dog-whistles designed to stigmatize "fake women" or something, then all of a sudden 100% of the sources agree that he's committing literal violence against trans folx. Another article was attempting to trans an 18th century person. They said "Oh, it's okay, we'll also accept reliable sources that say they weren't a trans man" as if such a source could even exist. The point isn't his positions but that Wikipedia is a platform for activists to pick and choose which words to amplify or to amplify pushback against, and our rules for academic sources break down entirely in a culture war where new sources can be spun up in an instant. This is giving undue weight to certain elements and ignoring others.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  This is a lot of defense, which is sort of irrelevant. All I've said is that Linehan's current public status and notability centers around each of the things mentioned in his Wikipedia article, which is...exactly what Wikipedia is supposed to be for. The material content of his positions isn't that important to me; only that Wikipedia doesn't conveniently omit those positions.
  - LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
    The problem is the undue weight given to the opinion of those who show up for editing and debating "reliable" sources, and political purity tests during these events. Self-selected editors often don't share the interests of readers of their articles. There's a no-false-balance policy which means the moon-landing-hoax theory doesn't need to get mentioned on every article related to space. Why is your view, or anti-view, important enough that it should be mentioned, such that you'd say it was omitted if it wasn't there?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

dsr_ 4y ago

Cess pits are useful. Infogalactic, not so much. Complaining that Wikipedia is a source of propaganda and then citing Infogalactic as a balance is a mistake on the order of comparing Reuters and the Babylon Bee. I refer you to https://infogalactic.com/info/Bibhorr https://infogalactic.com/info/Bibhorr

implements 4y ago
I was specifically citing the contrast between the two articles. I know little of IG, but IG’s is what I’d expect an encyclopaedic article on this subject to look like, with (as I said) the inclusion of a paragraph about his views on sex and gender. WP’s puts his views (ideologically slanted as anti-trans rather than as he sees them gender critical) front and centre, and thereby characterises him as a bad person. Many people believe he is, but it’s not WPs place to authoritatively decide that, or the “Which is more real, sex or gender?” debate, or brand dissenters as immoral wrong-thinkers, or format articles to assert that stance. Ideally, WP should be far more factual and neutral. NB: This isn’t meant to be about the Trans issue, I used that subject as an illustration of the kind of thing I personally see as ideological bias in WP.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  The "anti-trans" label is a rejection of false balance, not a particular ideological stance. It's roughly in line with Wikipedia's broader policy of rejecting "softening" labels that groups use to obscure their positions. Compare, for example, the white supremacists who call themselves "race realists."
  - implements 4y ago
    That’s the stated rationale, but with respect I disagree that it isn’t ideological or slanted. In my experience in the UK people who describe themselves as gender critical are older left-leaning (majority lesbian) women and hold their long held (1970s onwards) beliefs in good faith and from a position of pro-female / pro same sex-attracted rights, and resistance to gender as a useful social construct. They’re not anti-trans by primary motivation - it’s that the logical consequence of what they believe about the nature of sex and gender leads them to believe that “Trans-X aren’t X”. But from an opposing ideological viewpoint this is deemed definitionally transphobic, and the slant becomes evident when it’s asserted that this transphobic sentiment is and must be at the heart of what motivates gender critical beliefs - “They espouse their beliefs as racists espouse ‘race realism’ - as a guise to discriminate against the other”. But in this case it’s simply not true, and denying that citing “false balance” is in itself biased and disingenuous.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

The wikipedia one has an extensive edit history going back to 2006, the Infogalactic one seems to have a single revision, presumably copied from Wikipedia at some point in 2016.