Wikipedia Co-Founder: Site’s Neutrality Is ‘Dead’ Thanks to Leftist Bias

[Burnt Reynolds 5,058]

 

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Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia, published a blog post this month declaring that the online encyclopedia’s “neutral point of view” policy is “dead” due to the rampant left-wing bias of the site. Noting the article on President Donald Trump, Sanger contrasted its extensive coverage of presidential scandals with the largely scandal-free article on former President Barack Obama.

Sanger also criticized Wikipedia’s coverage of religion and other controversial topics. After Fox News reported on his blog post, many Wikipedians ignored the bias Sanger identified and instead responded by attacking the conservative outlet as well as Sanger.

On May 14, Sanger published a blog piece titled “Wikipedia Is Badly Biased” and started by declaring Wikipedia’s “Neutral Point of View” policy dead. Having founded the online encyclopedia with Jimmy Wales and having been involved in the original drafting of the policy, Sanger offered particular insight into its development and its practice in recent years. On the current policy’s rejection of providing “equal validity” to different views, Sanger stated this went directly against the original policy’s intent and that “as journalists turn to opinion and activism, Wikipedia now touts controversial points of view on politics, religion, and science.”

Providing examples, Sanger noted former President Obama’s article excludes most notable scandals during his Administration, such as the bungled ATF Fast and Furious operation that armed Mexican cartels who killed a U.S. border agent or the targeting of Tea Party groups by the IRS. By contrast, Sanger pointed to Trump’s article containing overwhelmingly negative sections on the President regarding his “public profile” as well as investigations and impeachment. The sections critical of Trump and his presidency are nearly as long as those dealing with his presidency overall. He further criticized Wikipedia repeatedly saying Trump makes false statements rather than attributing such characterizations to sources.

 

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After his post was covered by Fox News, editors on Wikipedia posted about his remarks on a discussion page for the site’s other co-founder, Jimmy Wales, where users bring issues to his attention and seek his comments. While Wales has yet to respond to Sanger’s criticism, many other editors responded to the news, though most avoided addressing his concerns about political bias. Instead, editors mainly focused on criticizing Fox News with one of the first editors responding stating “fact and neutrality have their own bias, and one largely at odds with Fox.” One cynically suggested Sanger’s criticism was him angling for a position at the network.

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2020/05/26/wikipedia-co-founder-sites-neutrality-is-dead-thanks-to-leftist-bias/

 

The separation of liberalism and leftism is hastening. Today's leftism isn't really liberal, in many ways, it hearkens to old (and rejected) conservatism using tactics like mob justice, feelings-based reality, and infantile methods of avoiding challenges to viewpoints. It's going to result in a huge rift, and in some ways already has. As someone who prescribes largely to liberal viewpoints, I will say, it's about time. Fed up of the left's authoritarian anti-liberal facade. All they can do at the moment is wreak havoc, and the only way conquer it is to stop being soft and placating. 

Edited May 26, 2020 by Burnt Reynolds

[Steeleballz 7,550]

33 minutes ago, Burnt Reynolds said:

 

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2020/05/26/wikipedia-co-founder-sites-neutrality-is-dead-thanks-to-leftist-bias/

 

The separation of liberalism and leftism is hastening. Today's leftism isn't really liberal, in many ways, it hearkens to old (and rejected) conservatism using tactics like mob justice, feelings-based reality, and infantile methods of avoiding challenges to viewpoints. It's going to result in a huge rift, and in some ways already has. As someone who prescribes largely to liberal viewpoints, I will say, it's about time. Fed up of the left's authoritarian anti-liberal facade. All they can do at the moment is wreak havoc, and the only way conquer it is to stop being soft and placating. 

 

    Yeah, you sure don't see any of those things from the right any more.  

[Dashinka 24,512]

51 minutes ago, Steeleballz said:

 

    Yeah, you sure don't see any of those things from the right any more.  

Still, the Tea Party types were nothing like the fascist Antifa characters.  The leftist activists of today bear no resemblance to those of the past that actually respected our founding as well as the freedoms the Constitution guarantees.

[Nature Boy 2.0 8,370]

2 hours ago, Steeleballz said:

 

    Yeah, you sure don't see any of those things from the right any more.  

Politics is now nothing more than rabid college football rivals with little basis in reality. 

 

Example. When a Florida player gets arrested its because they are all godless criminals and cheaters

 

When a GA player gets arrested,  its becuse the Athens Ga police dept has it in for players. 

[Ban Hammer 13,346]

13 minutes ago, Nature Boy 2.0 said:

 

When a GA player gets arrested,  its becuse the Athens Ga police dept has it in for players. 

isn't that how GA has tryouts - the ones who can outrun the cops get a place on the team?

Edited May 26, 2020 by Ban Hammer

[Steeleballz 7,550]

6 minutes ago, Nature Boy 2.0 said:

Politics is now nothing more than rabid college football rivals with little basis in reality. 

 

Example. When a Florida player gets arrested its because they are all godless criminals and cheaters

 

When a GA player gets arrested,  its becuse the Athens Ga police dept has it in for players. 

 

  Ninety five percent of politicians use and promote those types of tactics because that's all that works today. The ones that don't are the dinosaurs. They are gone or they are on the way out.  Politicians who are conciliatory, or try to build consensus, or think they can work with the other side just seem to end up angering people of on both sides of the aisle now, and eventually get replaced by the newbie with the best rhetoric of the moment. 

 

  

[Burnt Reynolds 5,058]

Politics is indeed in a bad place in the US, and while its customary to blame the institutions, who certainly have plenty of blame, the one thing people never stop to blame is themselves, even though they partake in those very people having the power they have. One of the best ways they do it is forgetting very basic concepts like freedom. 

 

In the case of Wikipedia, they were far more trustworthy, albeit non-academically, when good faith and well-grounded policies were adhered to by the userbase. Whether one wants to play the chicken or egg game and waste time wondering whether it was the upper or lower who changed first/influencing the other, the lower refused to be steadfast in concepts that made Wikipedia what it was, and Wikipedia does not exist without them. They allowed bad faith acts to become normative. Should be very easy to contrast these two circumstances and understand the connection.

 

Maintaining a Republic requires a steadfast synergy to basic underpinning foundations, even if people disagree on many other smaller things. While one can argue that both sides have abandoned them, the degrees of which each side has is not the same, one side has been very, very overt and comprehensive in its malicious behavior. 

Edited May 26, 2020 by Burnt Reynolds

[TBoneTX 45,309]

More and more, I use Wikipedia articles for the links within them, to reach outside sites that might be more complete, factual, or objective.