5 ms·

Wikipedia is fine. Bias cant be avoided, only made explicit, and the fact that you think it can means you should probably move to Conservapedia or whatever slop

Wikipedia is fine. Bias cant be avoided, only made explicit, and the fact that you think it can means you should probably move to Conservapedia or whatever slop Musk will release.

chermi 1y ago
Shouldn't it be minimized? I think it's increasing on Wikipedia. I think there's too high of a barrier for actual experts to write/edit. What's left is primarily idealogues with a certain leanings resulting in a positive feedback loop to more bias. I don't think anyone should want an echo chamber where an encyclopedia is supposed to exist. It's not there yet, but this is exactly how they form - see reddit. Yeah, yeah, let me guess, the truth has a liberal bias. But continue to insist that everyone pointing should just move somewhere else, that will certainly make it less biased and more factual.
- spelk 1y ago
  >Shouldn't it be minimized? I think it's increasing on Wikipedia. I think there's too high of a barrier for actual experts to write/edit. What's left is primarily idealogues with a certain leanings resulting in a positive feedback loop to more bias. I don't think anyone should want an echo chamber where an encyclopedia is supposed to exist. It's not there yet, but this is exactly how they form - see reddit. I find this kind of a fascinating social phenomena. I guess to give a personal example, I was trying to update a few pages about a country's Olympic history - that is, their Olympic bids, a few athletes, etc. Unknowingly, I had stumbled across a particular power-editor's fiefdom, because they created all these pages and they were very aggressive in policing their articles to meet a certain style, tone and their beliefs. Searching this person's username up (they went by their real name), they were closely related to that country's Olympic committee and an employee of a Ministry of Sport of sorts. The articles had lots of anonymous IP address edits from an university network this person was affiliated with in their program portfolio. There was a clear conflict of interest, and I tried to point that out when they mass-reverted my edits, but they seemed committed to accusing me of edit warring by not sandboxing my changes and waiting for their personal review and approval, and quoted at least 12 different Wikipedia policies on notability, style, acceptable citations, etc. I still feel I was in the right, but I didn't have the willpower or stamina to fight against several requests for comments, speedy deletions, etc. They did get a warning from an administrator and some detractors in the discussion threads, but they weren't willing to let it go and at that point, it wasn't fun anymore for me. I have better things to do than to fight factual and nitpicky disputes on Wikipedia.
tines 1y ago
> Bias cant be avoided, only made explicit This is so untrue and this is a harmful belief. And I'm pretty much as liberal as they come.
- pastage 1y ago
  Agree it is very bad for everyone to think like this. The problem is that on subject that divide you will always have two sides. Some times you need to tone down articles too much to not be biased to either way. So I also agree that there is a place for multiple articles on the same subject. Also Wikipedia has the problem of being one type of article many subjects really need a other way to explain it. Even facts can be slander.
- TheRoque 1y ago
  It's true though, it's literally how your brain works. It's full of biases.
  - Levitz 1y ago
    Yes, biases which ideally you are aware of and try to account for. For example, it would be stupid for me to entirely dismiss all of Wikipedia just because I know that there are some horribly biased articles and it'd be a disgrace if I shrugged such behavior off saying "hey, we all have biases, can't help it". That's what a child or even an animal would do.
  - adastra22 1y ago
    What about math and physics?
    - TheRoque 1y ago
      They try to work hard and get rid of bias through various methods: peer reviews, precise methodology (randomization, blind tests etc.). And of course, even those sciences are not perfect, subject to biases, and evolve. This applies only to a subset of fields, in a lot of fields you either don't have the time to remove biases this way or it's impossible because it's inherently subjective. Besides, if you needed unbiased perfect opinions before taking any decision, the world would be stuck and slow.
dns_snek 1y ago
> Conservapedia This is the first time I've heard about it. Is that meant to be a satire website? I can't tell anymore.
- bawolff 1y ago
  No, it was a fork from like a decade ago. https://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page https://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page It started out crazy but it only got crazier as time went on. The biggest problem with wikipedia competitors, is the only people who tend to put in effort to make one are usually crazy.
  - GaryBluto 1y ago
    I notice this with a lot of projects/communities. The only people who tend to create change are usually eccentric.
    - morshu9001 1y ago
      like the xorg fork
  - dns_snek 1y ago
    The page on the Second law of thermodynamics has a chapter on "Liberal abuse of second law of thermodynamics". I wasn't sure if I was reading an imitation of The Onion that tries to take itself too seriously.
    - int_19h 1y ago
      It's founded by the son of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyllis_Schlafly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyllis_Schlafly, so that brand of crazy is basically vintage. That said, it is indeed so insane that trolls sometimes become contributors just to see how far they can push it. There were several known cases of trolls going far enough undetected to get various admin rights (to block etc).
TylerE 1y ago
> Conservapedia If you want a site that tells you that Jews launched a genocide of Nazis. Conservapedia is intellectual cancer.

Wikipedia is fine. Bias cant be avoided, only made explicit, and the fact that you think it can means you should probably move to Conservapedia or whatever slop Musk will release.

chermi 1y ago

Shouldn't it be minimized? I think it's increasing on Wikipedia. I think there's too high of a barrier for actual experts to write/edit. What's left is primarily idealogues with a certain leanings resulting in a positive feedback loop to more bias. I don't think anyone should want an echo chamber where an encyclopedia is supposed to exist. It's not there yet, but this is exactly how they form - see reddit. Yeah, yeah, let me guess, the truth has a liberal bias. But continue to insist that everyone pointing should just move somewhere else, that will certainly make it less biased and more factual.

spelk 1y ago
>Shouldn't it be minimized? I think it's increasing on Wikipedia. I think there's too high of a barrier for actual experts to write/edit. What's left is primarily idealogues with a certain leanings resulting in a positive feedback loop to more bias. I don't think anyone should want an echo chamber where an encyclopedia is supposed to exist. It's not there yet, but this is exactly how they form - see reddit. I find this kind of a fascinating social phenomena. I guess to give a personal example, I was trying to update a few pages about a country's Olympic history - that is, their Olympic bids, a few athletes, etc. Unknowingly, I had stumbled across a particular power-editor's fiefdom, because they created all these pages and they were very aggressive in policing their articles to meet a certain style, tone and their beliefs. Searching this person's username up (they went by their real name), they were closely related to that country's Olympic committee and an employee of a Ministry of Sport of sorts. The articles had lots of anonymous IP address edits from an university network this person was affiliated with in their program portfolio. There was a clear conflict of interest, and I tried to point that out when they mass-reverted my edits, but they seemed committed to accusing me of edit warring by not sandboxing my changes and waiting for their personal review and approval, and quoted at least 12 different Wikipedia policies on notability, style, acceptable citations, etc. I still feel I was in the right, but I didn't have the willpower or stamina to fight against several requests for comments, speedy deletions, etc. They did get a warning from an administrator and some detractors in the discussion threads, but they weren't willing to let it go and at that point, it wasn't fun anymore for me. I have better things to do than to fight factual and nitpicky disputes on Wikipedia.

tines 1y ago

> Bias cant be avoided, only made explicit This is so untrue and this is a harmful belief. And I'm pretty much as liberal as they come.

pastage 1y ago
Agree it is very bad for everyone to think like this. The problem is that on subject that divide you will always have two sides. Some times you need to tone down articles too much to not be biased to either way. So I also agree that there is a place for multiple articles on the same subject. Also Wikipedia has the problem of being one type of article many subjects really need a other way to explain it. Even facts can be slander.
TheRoque 1y ago
It's true though, it's literally how your brain works. It's full of biases.
- Levitz 1y ago
  Yes, biases which ideally you are aware of and try to account for. For example, it would be stupid for me to entirely dismiss all of Wikipedia just because I know that there are some horribly biased articles and it'd be a disgrace if I shrugged such behavior off saying "hey, we all have biases, can't help it". That's what a child or even an animal would do.
- adastra22 1y ago
  What about math and physics?
  - TheRoque 1y ago
    They try to work hard and get rid of bias through various methods: peer reviews, precise methodology (randomization, blind tests etc.). And of course, even those sciences are not perfect, subject to biases, and evolve. This applies only to a subset of fields, in a lot of fields you either don't have the time to remove biases this way or it's impossible because it's inherently subjective. Besides, if you needed unbiased perfect opinions before taking any decision, the world would be stuck and slow.

dns_snek 1y ago

> Conservapedia This is the first time I've heard about it. Is that meant to be a satire website? I can't tell anymore.

bawolff 1y ago
No, it was a fork from like a decade ago. https://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page https://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page It started out crazy but it only got crazier as time went on. The biggest problem with wikipedia competitors, is the only people who tend to put in effort to make one are usually crazy.
- GaryBluto 1y ago
  I notice this with a lot of projects/communities. The only people who tend to create change are usually eccentric.
  - morshu9001 1y ago
    like the xorg fork
- dns_snek 1y ago
  The page on the Second law of thermodynamics has a chapter on "Liberal abuse of second law of thermodynamics". I wasn't sure if I was reading an imitation of The Onion that tries to take itself too seriously.
  - int_19h 1y ago
    It's founded by the son of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyllis_Schlafly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyllis_Schlafly, so that brand of crazy is basically vintage. That said, it is indeed so insane that trolls sometimes become contributors just to see how far they can push it. There were several known cases of trolls going far enough undetected to get various admin rights (to block etc).

TylerE 1y ago

> Conservapedia If you want a site that tells you that Jews launched a genocide of Nazis. Conservapedia is intellectual cancer.