Wikipedia Sucks!

https://www.axios.com/2022/07/08/news-r ... rtisanship (From Gallup polling)

And it's getting worse. Falling since at least the 1990s, among all political demographics.

English Wikipedia hasn't altered any of its policy to reflect the fact that its now established no one trusts most of their sources.

I don't understand why an Encyclopedia has to have articles on non-established topics. (or why anyone would read them) Would probably do them well to delete all their articles on things after at least the 1990s

The press lies and is hostage to special interests. Different factions delude themselves into thinking their preferred press doesn't lie.

I don't think deleting post-90s stuff will help because the press was lying back then also. It would make a less polarized encyclopedia (or whatever Wikipedia is), since the press was less polarized.

I was a writer and editor for my university's student newspaper, and I was a subscriber to my local newspapers for most of my adult life. At various times I was a daily reader of the Seattle Times, Seattle PI, Los Angeles Times, Daily Breeze, Japan Times, Washington Post, and several small town newspapers. Of all of those the Washington Post was my favorite. I read it for years over the various times that I was living in the Washington DC area.

When I returned to DC about six years ago, I subscribed to it again. To my dismay, I found that it had drastically changed under Jeff Bezos' direction. The writing and editing were horrible. The articles read like editorials. The paper openly promoted one particular political philosophy. I canceled my subscription after about a year. The LA Times and NY Times are now like that also. It's like reading a partisan political blog, and one that isn't written very well.

I think the mainstream media has lost the plot for a number of reasons. Primarily, of course, it's because of the Internet. Because people can get their news, or something approaching it, for free, it means less resources for the published media to cultivate and employ the best writers and editors.

With less money to go around, it seems to make aspiring "journalists" more willing to sell their souls to the establishment in order to earn a consistent salary. Globalist corporations have purchased many of the mainstream media outlets in the West and are making sure that they support the current neoliberal capitalist fascism.

Progressives like to trash Fox News, but they don't seem to realize that conservatives and libertarians (I'm libertarian) don't trust it either. Fox News, for the most part, is controlled opposition. Murdoch's kids and/or their close families who run it now I believe contribute more money to the Democratic Party than they do to the Republicans. Just before and after the 2020 election, Fox went whole hog against Trump, and immediately lost almost 50% of their viewership. After Biden's inauguration, they returned to their populist agenda. That's why Republicans are wary of it.

Of course, this is a big problem for Wikipedia. If the "reliable sources" all have an agenda, then how can any articles be objective and neutral?

Bezos is now openly censoring his own newspaper.

https://anntelnaes.substack.com/p/why-i ... ngton-post

Good.

Archer wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 06, 2025 6:33 pm

Good.

So, who do YOU trust right now as a source of American political news?

oranges33 wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 09, 2023 3:25 pm

I don't understand why an Encyclopedia has to have articles on non-established topics. (or why anyone would read them) Would probably do them well to delete all their articles on things after at least the 1990s

Yeah, dream on. Not happening.

WP was started by "somewhat sane" people, but they left it open because they had previously started Nupedia, which was heavily restricted--and turned into a slow-moving battleground. A few years after it started, WP filled up with crazies and sockpuppets of crazies.

I've already said many times that Sanger and Wales could have anticipated WP would become a warground, and made some blunt non-negotiable restrictions from the beginning, like no BLPs and no fanboy drivel. A subject index would have been helpful in showing areas that needed content--the "category" system is a terrible substitute, difficult to use.

But they didn't. And it grew like kudzu--because it was unrestricted, so crazies showed up to control it. And the crazies won. Crazies ended up writing most of the "official policies" they use to browbeat their enemies every day.

ericbarbour wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 06, 2025 8:30 pm

oranges33 wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 09, 2023 3:25 pm

I don't understand why an Encyclopedia has to have articles on non-established topics. (or why anyone would read them) Would probably do them well to delete all their articles on things after at least the 1990s

Yeah, dream on. Not happening.

WP was started by "somewhat sane" people, but they left it open because they had previously started Nupedia, which was heavily restricted--and turned into a slow-moving battleground. A few years after it started, WP filled up with crazies and sockpuppets of crazies.

I've already said many times that Sanger and Wales could have anticipated WP would become a warground, and made some blunt non-negotiable restrictions from the beginning, like no BLPs and no fanboy drivel. A subject index would have been helpful in showing areas that needed content--the "category" system is a terrible substitute, difficult to use.

But they didn't. And it grew like kudzu--because it was unrestricted, so crazies showed up to control it. And the crazies won. Crazies ended up writing most of the "official policies" they use to browbeat their enemies every day.

"No BLPs and no fanboy drivel" would contradict the original ideals of "the sum of human knowledge", but I recall seeing Sanger said somewhere on Justapedia (during the discussion about the Jesus article) that it's important to have editors or administrators who can be trusted to enforce the spirit of the rules without perverting it (such as into the toxic messes on WP presently). That's not to mention that a content committee is paramount in order to provide conclusive and amicable resolution to content disputes instead of letting all these devolve into edit wars and thus, acrimonies or worse.

ericbarbour wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 06, 2025 8:19 pm

Archer wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 06, 2025 6:33 pm

Good.

So, who do YOU trust right now as a source of American political news?

Nobody, of course.

Archer wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 06, 2025 11:38 pm

Nobody, of course.

At one time there was a political party for you. (Joking....or am I?)

Sound familiar? Conspiracy paranoia is NOT a new thing in this country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_Nothing