
There’s a War Going on over Kamala Harris’s Wikipedia Page - ingve
https://theintercept.com/2020/07/02/kamala-harris-wikipedia/
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Traster
I think wikipedia is basically in a no-win situation on this. Is Harris'
connections to Steve Mnuchin important? I don't know. I know a republican
would tell you yes and a democrat would probably tell you no. Hell, a
Republican might well tell you that it's an important fact about Harris'
career whilst simultaneously not recognising that it's probably an important
fact that should reflect very poorly on Steve Mnuchin who is currently serving
a Republican president. I can see you could make an argument for either
frankly - sweetheart deals are a problem and so is special treatment. Also she
was a DA for 7 years and AG for 6 years and frankly it would be a miracle if
she didn't have a few controversial decisions or dealt with some well known
people. You could see a mirror of this article about her using her office to
target a republican. I can certainly say the quote from the article seems to
be leading - I know the article wants to imply that Harris' decision not to
prosecute Mnuchin is linked to his donation to her campaign. I don't find that
compelling and I certainly think its pushing a biased agenda.

Personally I would like to see Wikipedia take a step back in these political
situations, draw clear lines about what should be in articles and draw those
lines in such a way as to minimise the pay off for editorialising. You could
for example, minimise her CV to literally just which jobs she had and when,
and then you could have a separate article for the Attorney General of
California, where specific instances can be documented.

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clawedjird
I agree that this is a difficult position for Wikipedia to be in, but I don’t
think the solution is to simply scrub posts of most of their content. The
reality is, for better or worse, that Wikipedia will be the first (or perhaps
only) stop for many voters researching political candidates. If a voter can’t
even determine the basic characteristics of a candidate’s political identity
(there’s a pretty wide gulf between the profile of a “tough-on-crime”
prosecutor or AG and a “progressive reformer,” for ex.) from Wikipedia’s entry
on that candidate, Wikipedia will provide very limited utility to them.

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bb88
The way most candidates should handle something like this, is to put out a
book. Then reporter's questions can be addressed by saying, "Well, I wrote a
book about it last year, and apologized for my past behavior, you can read the
details there."

~~~
Traster
The problem with that is Kamala Harris didn't know what political position she
needed to have last year. Last year's book might have needed to be a complete
apology for her stance as tough on crime or it might have needed to be
trumping her strong record. Only the events of the last year have made it
clear exactly what position she wants to take.

~~~
sukilot
That's why politicians should write multiple books to cover every possibility.

~~~
tetris11
and thus the ghost writer industry turned to statistics to predict the tide of
their topics for their esteemed hosts, whilst wall street made bets on which
book ending would make it to final print.

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sukilot
At the end of the day, a wiki (or any UGC system) is only as good as the
admins who have the final say on what is published.

As good a Wikipedia is, it's dangerous for it to be the only "legitimate" one.
Thanks to the open license, there should be many forks by people striving to
do better or with a different editorial tilt (without needing to all the way
to fringe like Conservapedia and even Rationalwiki.) Even Uncyclopedia
deserves some competition.

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collyw
I have noticed that Wikipedia has become pretty terrible for anything
political recently. It's got a very left wing bias and doesn't come off as
objective at all.

~~~
devwastaken
Its generally difficult for political positions that lack evidence to take a
seat at the table of sourceable information.

If you have specific points then that may be discussable, but making grand
general statements like that doesnt yield any productive discussion.

~~~
collyw
Ok, here is an example:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Racial_views_of_Donald_Tr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Racial_views_of_Donald_Trump)

~~~
devwastaken
In this example the argument is made that all statements should be treated
equally, but the argument is also made that the weight and intentions of
statements matters more. I'd argue that's true given that public figures and
people in general walk back their statements after being called out. It
doesn't mean they don't mean the original statement. So in the search for
truth the most honest and supported position is the evidence presented on
Trump's racism. Which is sourced.

So I'm not following on how that's a good example of 'bias' unless there's
something specific I'm missing.

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elijahwright
Language is by its nature non-neutral.

