
The Biases of Wikipedia and Moderators Today - codeddesign
https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/
======
XMPPwocky
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chupacabra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chupacabra)

Why is the article so negative here?

They describe it as a "legendary creature". Uh-huh.

Meanwhile, on
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse)
...no mentions of horses possibly being other things. Why? What are they
hiding?

> Sightings in northern Mexico and the southern United States have been
> verified as canids afflicted by mange.[2] According to biologists and
> wildlife management officials, the chupacabra is an urban legend.[3]

And then you go to the article for horses and...hmmm, no citations referencing
articles written by those who argue horses aren't real. Oh, so nobody's ever
seen something they thought was a horse but actually wasn't? Why won't
Wikipedia present both sides? Why is the existence of horses taken for
granted?

It's shameless censorship, and it won't stand.

------
LeoPanthera
Larry Sanger apparently co-founded Wikipedia but I've somehow never heard of
him before. Not sure how that escaped me.

He's apparently famously critical of Wikipedia. The majority of this article
seems to complain about giving facts undue prominence over a "balance" of
viewpoints.

What's the opposing viewpoint to the truth? Lies?

(And his political bias really shows. The Obama article is too positive. The
Trump article is too negative. The article about abortion doesn't say how evil
it is. And the global warming and vaccine pages don't report enough on
"minority viewpoints". It's amazing how consistent the beliefs of the far-
right are.)

From my non-expert perspective, Wikipedia is doing a surprisingly good job.
Even this article actually gives me confidence.

~~~
LyndsySimon
For what it’s worth, I’ve encountered right-skewed articles many times in the
past. They seem to be on less popular topics, but they absolutely exist.

~~~
ScottFree
They exist on far more than just less popular topics. You just never see them.
Anything even slightly right of center tends to get censored for hate speech.

~~~
LeoPanthera
This has never been more appropriate:

[Citation Needed]

------
airza
I don't know how to put this nicely, but i would not say "a neutral point of
view" is synonymous with "the center of the Overton window in the United
States".

~~~
p1necone
You phrased this much less confrontationally than I did, so kudos to you.

------
cmdshiftf4
Any self-moderated online forum will eventually skew to the standards of those
invest the most time in that forum. You can't expect otherwise really.

I also take issue with Sangers pointing out that _scholars_ wouldn't phrase
something in a certain way, or make a certain claim. There's no claim that
Wikipedia has scholarly credentials, quite the opposite in fact.

If you're using Wikipedia for anything but a blurb or jumping-off point on a
given topic, then the joke is on you to be honest. It's certainly nothing
worth getting wound up about.

------
CPLX
Speaking of Wikipedia, here's an article highly relevant to this thesis:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance)

------
GeneralMayhem
This article is insane right-wing propaganda, and if it were written by any
other person, would not be appropriate for Hacker News. The only reason it
makes sense here is that the fact that the author believes this nonsense is
noteworthy (and alarming).

"Neutral" does not mean "every opinion is taken seriously." The opinions that
this article claims that Wikipedia is "biased" against are obviously and
factually false, and in most cases actively dangerous to human lives, Western
democracy, and/or the continuation of the human race.

>The global warming and MMR vaccine articles are examples; I hardly need to
dive into these pages, since it is quite enough to say that they endorse
definite positions that scientific minorities reject.

There is no credible scientific presence, even a minority, that believes that
anthropogenic climate change is not a real and present threat, or that
vaccinations cause any serious harm. Those are crackpot conspiracy theories.
It would be non-neutral - and dangerous both to Wikipedia's credibility and to
human lives - to treat them otherwise.

>The Barack Obama article completely fails to mention... Benghazi

...but there is a link to "the Benghazi attack" in the infobox

>AP phone records scandal

...but there is a subsection about "Government mass surveillance", which links
to a larger article.

>or, of course, the developing “Obamagate” story in which Obama was personally
involved in surveilling Donald Trump

...because nobody, not even Donald Trump, can explain what "Obamagate"
supposedly is. All it appears to mean is "Obama was bad". The idea that it's
specifically tied to surveillance of the Trump campaign - which was completely
justified by the numerous and court-proven connections between that
organization and Russian intelligence - is a a fabrication of this particular
article.

>Wikipedia frequently asserts, in its own voice, that many of Trump’s
statements are “false.” Well, perhaps they are. But even if they are, it is
not exactly neutral for an encyclopedia article to say so, especially without
attribution.

That's not how it works. Trump lies. He lies blatantly, and often. He claims
things that are obviously false, and he does so with an unbelievable
frequency. A large fraction of the things he says in public are either
factually false or total nonsense. To say anything else would be
incomprehensibly biased in the other direction.

~~~
defertoreptar
> A large fraction of the things he says in public are either factually false
> or total nonsense. To say anything else would be incomprehensibly biased in
> the other direction.

The point is that it's not for Wikipedia to say that a person lies. Instead,
it needs to point to specific factual instances and quote experts when
bringing the idea together.

~~~
GeneralMayhem
You're right, an article that simply said "Donald Trump is the 45th President
of the United States, a far-right-wing conspiracy nut, and a habitual liar"
would be, while accurate, not particularly useful. But obviously that's not
what it actually says. Let's take a look, shall we?

Here are the occurrences of the word "false" in Wikipedia's page on Trump, as
of today, excluding where it's clearly quoting a claim by a third party
without Wikipedia appearing to support that claim (e.g., "the suit [against
Trump University] alleged that the company made false statements and defrauded
consumers"). The words "lying" and "lie" do not appear in the body of the
article.

> Trump has made many false or misleading statements during his campaign and
> presidency. The statements have been documented by fact-checkers, and the
> media have widely described the phenomenon as unprecedented in American
> politics.

This is in the intro paragraph. It's not locally cited, but it's a summary of
the article to come; there's an exhaustively referenced section later.

>Journalist Jonathan Greenberg reported in April 2018 that Trump, using a
pseudonym "John Barron", called him in 1984 to falsely assert that he owned
"in excess of ninety percent" of the Trump family's business...

Citation for the conversation provided, and the fact in question is trivially
checkable.

> Fact-checking organizations have denounced Trump for making a record number
> of false statements compared to other candidates.

 _Three_ citation links provided.

> At least four major publications... have pointed out lies or falsehoods in
> his campaign statements

Multiple citations provided, with a quote from the LATimes in the page body
("Never in modern presidential politics has a major candidate made false
statements as routinely as Trump has.")

> Throughout his presidency, he has repeatedly and falsely characterized the
> economy as the best in American history.

Citation to WaPo fact-checker provided. That the economy in 2016-2018 is not
in any way other than SPY highs the best in American history should not be
controversial.

> As president, Trump has falsely claimed he saved the coverage of pre-
> existing conditions provided by ACA, while his administration declined to
> challenge a lawsuit that would eliminate it.

Citation link to Politifact provided. It would also have been an option to
cite Trump's own Twitter feed here.

> Trump falsely asserted that his administration was merely following the law
> [in separating families at the border].

Many citations provided, with a (cited) explanation that Trump explicitly
ended a previous policy which "had made exceptions for families with
children."

> falsely claiming "Anybody that wants a test can get a test [for COVID-19],"
> even though availability of tests was severely limited.

Multiple citations provided for the statement having been made, and for it
obviously being a lie.

> False statements

Section header, with a link to a separate (also extensively sourced) article.

> As president, Trump has frequently made false statements in public speeches
> and remarks.

Three citations to NYTimes and LATimes fact-checkers.

> His falsehoods have also become a distinctive part of his political
> identity.

Citation is to a New Yorker analysis article, which is a bit odd, but that
article is itself well-sourced. In any case, this is not a particularly
controversial statement - that the things he says are false is well
established in context; that those statements are part of his identity is
something he'd probably agree with.

> In September 2016, he acknowledged that Obama was born in the U.S. and
> falsely claimed the rumors had been started by Hillary Clinton during her
> 2008 presidential campaign.

Citation to NYTimes provided for the fact that he said it. No citation should
be necessary for the fact that Hillary Clinton did not start the birther
conspiracy theory (which has its own Wikipedia article).

> Many of the assertions he tweeted have been proven false.

This is in a brief section specifically about his Twitter use, so it's not a
non-sequitor. Citations provided to NYTimes, WaPo, Chicago Tribune fact-
checkers.

> Cohen said he had made the false statements on behalf of Trump

Citation provided, and this is in respect to statements that Cohen pled under
oath to be lies.

\----------

...and that's it. With one potential exception, every time that Wikipedia says
in its own voice that Trump (or one of his associate) lies, it is well-
sourced, specific, and pertinent. No need for concern trolling.

Wikipedia could of course instead say "Trump said X" without pointing out that
X is ludicrously and dangerously false, but that would be a lie by omission,
and Wikipedia would be less valuable as a source of information for it.

------
elliekelly
> Wikipedia frequently asserts, in its own voice, that many of Trump’s
> statements are “false.” Well, perhaps they are. But even if they are, it is
> not exactly neutral for an encyclopedia article to say so

Reporting the _fact_ that someone has lied, in this case repeatedly, is
neutral. And the author not liking that Wikipedia reports those facts is not
evidence of Wikipedia’s bias.

There are plenty of faults with the site’s moderation but this is not an
example of them.

------
p1necone
Perhaps he would perceive
[https://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page](https://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page)
to have less bias...

------
dankememe
Wikipedia is a free enterprise, and therefore completely free to do whatever
it wants, including being biased.

~~~
p1necone
Being _legally_ allowed to do something doesn't make it _morally_ or
_ethically_ okay. Wikipedia is not absolved from criticism just because they
aren't breaking the law.

I think this article is silly, but I'm responding to you in a more general
sense.

------
LargoLasskhyfv
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sorcerer's_Apprentice#Germ...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sorcerer's_Apprentice#German_culture)

 _Die ich rief, die Geister, / Werd' ich nun nicht los_

Also: Genie out of the bottle, Pandora's Box

------
codeddesign
Why was this post flagged? It’s really sad that the common theme in HN is
anti-censorship but at the same time most of the base heavily disapproves of
content that doesn’t fit their ideologies or narratives.

~~~
elliekelly
Some of what he’s suggesting _is_ censorship. For example, that Wikipedia
ought to remove content that mentions a politician has lied.

Advocating censorship under the guise of “free speech” is, in my opinion,
manipulative and disingenuous.

------
xyelos
Sanger has some really _great_ ideas, apparently. From his linked ballotpedia
article on neutrality:

> "A disputed topic is treated neutrally if each viewpoint about it is not
> asserted but rather presented (1) as sympathetically as possible, bearing in
> mind that other, competing views must be represented as well, and (2) with
> an equitable amount of space being allotted to each, whatever that might
> be."

Because, yes, we should _definitely_ give as much space to viewpoints that the
earth is flat as to those that say the earth is round.

~~~
defertoreptar
> Because, yes, we should definitely give as much space to viewpoints that the
> earth is flat as to those that say the earth is round.

As long as scientific sources are referenced and the criticisms are
acknowledged, what's the problem with having a flat earth Wikipedia article?

~~~
LeoPanthera
Nothing. And there is one.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth)

------
mudil
Why is this flagged?!

