It boggles my mind how many people trust Wikipedia and think it's generally above bias. I remember when I used to do edits and they had power users who watched pages and fought adding criticism of the Intellectual Dark Web for years, by removing links to a

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Wikipedia isn't always neutral Anonymous 03/20/23 (Mon) 21:45:24 No.4369

It boggles my mind how many people trust Wikipedia and think it's generally above bias. I remember when I used to do edits and they had power users who watched pages and fought adding criticism of the Intellectual Dark Web for years, by removing links to articles that criticized those influencers, until the momentum turned against them because even people who didn't care about the IDW could tell they had become a total joke.

Wikipedia is also extremely biased and it just depends on who was able to get enough buddies together to push an edit through and prevent someone else from editing the article. Have you even ever tried to edit an article there? The idea that they're neutral or "usually trustworthy" is just…ridiculous on a lot of topics.

The people who founded it were even followers of Ayn Rand which is where the libertarianism came from until it turned into a place where super rich people can pay money for a company and their Wikipedia editors to turn their biographies into flattering resumes, or to find ways to bury or omit sentences, citations, and articles that aren't in their personal best interests. I think a lot of people who think too highly of Wikipedia haven't ever been involved enough to have glimpsed its dark side. Wikipedia's peer review is not the same process as actual peer review. People don't write as many articles on Wikipedia anymore and I think it's because the sheen has worn off.

Anonymous 03/21/23 (Tue) 17:46:32 No.4372

But it's quite influential. Millions of kids and adults read stuff on it daily. It makes from propaganda viewpoint to control it.

Anonymous 03/21/23 (Tue) 17:47:19 No.4373

>>4372
>makes from
sense*

Anonymous 03/28/23 (Tue) 10:32:02 No.4391

>>4369
Don't really think Wikipedia's bias is a serious issue. It's not accepted as a source in journalism or academia, it doesn't hide its bias, and the people who trust it would trust the guy at the bus station to infuse their opinions (i.e. they believe what they want to without criticism).

Anonymous 03/29/23 (Wed) 02:19:28 No.4393

Wikipedia's issues have been common knowledge for years now. I was wondering, though whether there is an alternative to it. It's braindead stupid for it to be just one instance of the "internet encyclopedia" when any group of people can make another, to at least present a different view on contentious subjects. And I don't mean have an alt-rightpedia, the alternative should strive to be as neutral as possible. Two different groups working in parallel with similar (stated) goals, maybe with a different modus operandi, is the logical thing to do.
Well, I don't know of alternatives, I wouldn't assume there are none, just that they are not as mainstream as wikipedia, and we all know mainstream stuff always gets compromised sooner or later. So, uh, if someone here happens to know of such alternatives, now would be a good time to share.

Anonymous 03/29/23 (Wed) 04:28:05 No.4394

>>4393
I'm not convinced a "neutralpedia" in the way you describe is possible as the web is right now, unless someone finds a solid way of *truly* mandating neutrality and *truly* policing this. Wikipedia does try and it has the benefit of having the largest taskforce for the quantity of information, but still fails, sometimes spectacularly. "alternative wikipedias" have been attempted but they always fall prey to their own areas of bias because of the contexts and people by which they're founded.

Maybe a bit of a contrarian statement these days, but I think Wikipedia is something that I think still does a lot of good despite the fuckups. For all of its problems, I've also seen a lot of collaborative beauty. Knowing how and when to use it is part of being an intelligent "digital citizen", something we used to talk a lot about back in the day, when the web was still something we could log off from.

Children have it pounded into their skulls from early ages now that Wikipedia isn't a reliable source, so I don't think insularly it is the source of perceptible social turmoil more than social censorship, misinformation, and propaganda is everywhere on the internet. IMO the biggest problem is how ""news"" (more like blog) sites will scrape stuff off of Wikipedia for breaking issues that haven't been widely seen yet and spread bad edits farther before they can be fixed.

Anonymous 03/29/23 (Wed) 04:55:52 No.4395

The fucking moment when there are better posts in hell than lounge.

Anonymous 03/30/23 (Thu) 08:28:23 No.4398

>>4395
By better you mean controversial, then yes.

Anonymous 03/30/23 (Thu) 18:58:11 No.4399

>>4369
> I think a lot of people who think too highly of Wikipedia haven't ever been involved enough to have glimpsed its dark side. Wikipedia's peer review is not the same process as actual peer review.

academic peer review is bullshit which has held science back for decades, I don't think this is a good argument against wikipedia. In fact I think wikipedia's review process is far better than whatever exists in academia.

I agree with >>4391, I don't think Wikipedia's bias is a serious issue whatsoever. Yes, certain articles are co-opted by terminally online leftists, however that doesn't discount one bit from the fact that wikipedia as a whole is one of the greatest projects humanity has ever undertaken.

[had a bunch of good article links here but keep getting caught in the spam filter]

anyone who shits on wikipedia because of a couple stupid articles is a fool. operating a project of wikipedia's size is difficult and I think the team does a great job.

Anonymous 04/01/23 (Sat) 15:14:03 No.4405

>>4393
>>4394
The concept of a "neutralpedia" isn't possible in general because neutrality is an abstract concept with many definitions that can be enforced in a myriad different ways, especially when it comes to controversial subjects. In my opinion, Wikipedia is doing an alright job at presenting basic facts on non-controversial subjects like biology (although there are schizos who get angry about phrenology no longer being recognized as science or trans people existing) and things which are generally uncontested by most people (like noting the fact that, say, WW1 happened) but it gets really sketchy when it comes to presenting its own perspective on the issue. Any "neutralpedia" would inevitably run into the same problem down the line.
To be honest, I don't like it when any information source claims to be "unbiased" or "apolitical" or whatever. We all have biases, and it would be much better to just be honest about them instead of hiding behind the notion of objectivity.

Anonymous 04/01/23 (Sat) 16:20:14 No.4406

>>4405
I completely agree

Anonymous 04/16/23 (Sun) 16:19:27 No.4453

>>4369
Wikipedia hasn't been neutral in a long time. It's so not-neutral that a co-founder of it has said several times that the site's not neutral and is as a result a poor source of information. Neutrality was never going to be an easy concept but Wikipedia doesn't even try, outright making authoritative statements on subjective topics near every page.
Easy enough to spot if you're looking at the differences between a politican they like and a politican they don't like, not so easy to spot when you're in the middle of some subject you're trying to learn about and you treat them as the alpha and omega on it, which most people browsing the site tend to do.
There's no argument to be made that Wikipedia doesn't heavily bias the information it shows on the site, there's only an argument to be made on whether or not you or others care or whether or not that's a good thing.