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The Campaign to Delegitimize Wikipedia
- insane_dreamer 2y agoWhatever else you may think of Jimmy Wales, the fact that he has resisted temptation to turn Wikipedia into a mega-profitable ad-powered site or sell to Google or someone else is pretty unprecedented in recent tech history. Could have easily joined the "tres commas club".
- ZeroGravitas 2y agoApparently it was a strike by Spanish contributors that stopped his original plan to use adverts, so props to them. https://www.wired.com/story/wikipedia-spanish-fork/ https://www.wired.com/story/wikipedia-spanish-fork/ I was always mildly suspicious of Jimmy Wales but he seems to have done well. Considering what a grifter his co-founder Larry Sager has become, he's a saint by comparison.
- insane_dreamer 2y agoI didn't know about that, thanks for the link; major kudos to them. Still, Wales has had many opportunities to "sell out".
- IndrekR 2y ago* Larry Sanger, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Sanger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Sanger
- dhdjruf 2y agoHow is he a grifter? I don't see any mentions of bitcoin or ai in his wiki. Jimmy wales has a masters in finance. Larry Sanger has a PhD in philosophy. Who would you trust more a guy with a finance degree or a guy with a PD in philosophy with great interest in ethics?
- ZeroGravitas 2y agoHe's always dabbled in right-wing culture war type stuff with his various Wikipedia alternatives but more recently he's been into QAnon and anti-vax stuff. I'd got the impression he was doing it partly to get right-wing funding for his various projects but maybe he's a true believer and I'm doing him a great disservice by calling him a grifter and not a lunatic.
- like_any_other 2y agoWikipedia is as legitimate as they get, but that doesn't mean it's perfect. Readers should be aware of its bias in which sources it allows (which has knock-on effects on which facts and stories cannot be included because no "reliable" sources report on them, while left-leaning sources are unmotivated to report them): Wikipedia’s list of deprecated sources currently contains 16 right-leaning sources: Breitbart, the Daily Caller, the Daily Mail, the Daily Star, the Epoch Times, FrontPage Magazine, the Gateway Pundit, Infowars, LifeSiteNews, News of the World, One America News Network, the Sun, Taki’s Magazine, VDare, WorldNetDaily, and Zero Hedge – and just one left-leaning source, Occupy Democrats. Other politically biased sources have also been deprecated, but it is harder to position them on the left-right political axis, such as media companies controlled by the Russian or Chinese government. ... but a similar standard has not been applied to lower quality, left-leaning sources such as CounterPunch, AlterNet, and the Daily Kos. According to Ad Fontes Media‘s widely-used media bias chart (which is commonly cited in discussions on the reliable sources noticeboard), CounterPunch, AlterNet, and the Daily Kos are all less reliable than the Daily Mail. This is significant because the Daily Mail, a deprecated right-leaning source, is often used as a benchmark for judging whether other right-leaning sources should be deprecated. All three of these left-wing sources are widely used at Wikipedia. https://thecritic.co.uk/the-left-wing-bias-of-wikipedia/ https://thecritic.co.uk/the-left-wing-bias-of-wikipedia/
- pflenker 2y agoThe amount of deprecated sources doesn’t tell you anything about any bias without the number of allowed sources.
- decimalenough 2y agoHere's the list, have a browse and try to find any that are (US) conservative and green ("generally reliable"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Per... There's a few economically conservative sources (Economist, WSJ, etc) but I don't think there's any politically conservative ones.
- tim333 2y agoGiven Musk's self professed commitment to free speech he should be ok with outlets having a different slant to his own.
- bdangubic 2y agohe’s committed to free speech as much as dj khaled is committed to his diet
- TacticalCoder 2y ago[dead]
- insane_dreamer 2y agoCalling for journalists to be fired for publishing facts doesn't say much for "dedication to free speech", does it. (Not that I thought it was anything but a cover.)
- mitchbob 2y agohttps://archive.ph/2025.02.08-005538/https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/02/elon-musk-wikipedia/681577/ https://archive.ph/2025.02.08-005538/https://www.theatlantic...
- decimalenough 2y agohttps://archive.is/2025.02.08-005538/https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/02/elon-musk-wikipedia/681577/ https://archive.is/2025.02.08-005538/https://www.theatlantic...
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoWikipedia is so obviously biased that its founder even talked about it a few years back. The editor cabal, rules on sources, the incorporation of guidelines that use progressive stances, etc all create this skew.
- Frederation 2y ago[flagged]
- insane_dreamer 2y agoDoesn't seem biased to me and I use it all the time. I don't expect it to reflect the gospel truth, but it cites sources so I can always look those up (and I do) to see where that piece of information is coming from. Plenty of stuff on there I disagree with but still way better than anything else out there.
- jjmarr 2y ago[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- acdha 2y agoThat’s a serious citation needed, starting with defining what you consider “leftism”. For example, economics departments are often criticized for being too right-wing but given their influence on public policy it’s disingenuous to try to define them as outside of academia.
- insane_dreamer 2y agogotta love these sweeping unsubstantiated statements, very reliable!
- kccoder 2y agoIs that because reality has a liberal bias?
- esbranson 2y agoYes, that is one of the issues. Numerous biases appear to be propagated by academia, of which several are discussed in academia and Wikipedia.
- brox 2y agoMolly White, a prolific Wikipedia editor, has written a good overview of how information source reliability is handled in practice: https://www.citationneeded.news/elon-musk-and-the-rights-war-on-wikipedia/ https://www.citationneeded.news/elon-musk-and-the-rights-war.... There's a process for how decisions about source legitimacy and reliability are made, and these "decisions aren’t made lightly and are frequently revisited: there have been over fifty discussions about the Daily Mail’s reliability, for example, with both sides being vehemently argued".
- bad_username 2y agoSince about 2014 I have zero trust in English Wikipedia on anything remotely connected to politics, history or philosophy, and partially culture. It has been working very hard to appear neutral but be very far from neutral.
- insane_dreamer 2y agotrue neutrality is impossible since we all have some inherent biases, but it does cite its sources, which is important and allows you to then decide if you want to trust the source or not also, for a lot of people "not neutral" means "it says stuff I don't agree with"
- ddxv 2y agoDo you have any examples of what where it is very far from neutral? How do you define neutral?
- esbranson 2y agoFair enough. Many editors like myself are still getting skeleton articles written on government and law, and I'm doubtful the politics articles could've ever been that good without such basic information.
- w0de0 2y agoThe only functioning large-scale Odonian syndic, after all the promise of the early valley. It provides immense value to dispossessed peoples across our world. Of course the propertarians wish to discredit and destroy it!
- esbranson 2y agoIn general, yes, Elon and friends are correct. There are numerous articles on the topic. As long as Elon and friends don't offer solutions, they can remain so, otherwise mockery and some good laughs will likely be in order.