Wikipedia's political bias problem

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CrowsNest
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Wikipedia's political bias problem

Post by CrowsNest » Wed Mar 21, 2018 6:59 pm

Nothing illustrates Wikipedia's problems with political bias being misrepresented as neutrality, than these recent comments by prominent Wikipedian and all-round shitlord Guy Chapman (User:JzG, who signs simply as "Guy", even though he's not even the only "Guy" on Wikipedia)......
Wikipedia is not censored for the protection of cherished delusions. Broflakes and snowflakes alike will find some of our content offensive due to tying their sense of self to ideas that are objectively wrong. We have had this from the earliest days of Wikipedia, around evolution. Reality has a liberal bias, at least as measured by the current Overton window, and that is not our problem to fix. Guy (Help!) 12:30, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

(someone interjects to remind Guy of MPOV)

You are right, "reality has a liberal bias" is sloppy wording. It's just that the conservative agenda right now is dominated by ideas such as climate change denial, creationism and trickle-down theory, all of which are absolutely contradicted by reality. So to say reality has a liberal bias is a common shorthand for a huge source of conflict that conservatives have with Wikipedia and other sources. We don't give equal weight to truth and falsehood. Guy (Help!) 19:17, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
What this utterly self-absorbed arrogant prick doesn't seem to realise, is that in politics, especially on a global scale, "Conservative" is not and likely never will be shorthand for a climate-change denying Bible-bashing adherent of Reaganomics.

This is a warped description even of a significant proportion of the current American right, but in places like the UK, someone of this description has zero chance of being selected to even be a candidate of a major party, let alone of gaining high office.

These are views that in Britain, are only to be found on the fringes, on the edges of the mainstream parties and in the fringe parties, and it shows in the resultant political landscape, as well as our media and public discourse.

Indeed, the current British government is a Conservative administration, and they are very busy levying climate change taxes, they have already legalised gay marriage, and while they still believe economic prosperity is achieved by ensuring individuals and the private sector can flourish, you'd have a hard time spotting the specifics of their agenda which promotes it. Tellingly, the UK is still running a huge debt, and 'austerity' measures are merely reducing the size of of the annual budget defecit, not the debt.

So his assessment of what is reality, and thus where the middle lies, is false. If this person is evaluating reliable sources and editing Wikipedia articles on this flawed basis, then he is undoubtedly ensuring Wikipedia is not neutral, but is biased to the left.

People with brains who engage with Wikipedia spot their liberal bias almost immediately, even many liberals happily admit it, they just do nothing in the belief it somehow advances their cause. Which of course, it does not, it only fuels the alt-right in their efforts to decry the liberal conspiracy.

Shitlords like Guy are the reason why. There are or course Wikipedians who rail against him and his kind, but that is all that they can do, they have little to no effect on how the website is actually run or how the content looks. If you think Guy doesn't represent the consensus view of politics and neutrality on Wikipedia, try altering an article he believes is neutral. At best, you will simply fail your changes being reverted as biased. At worst, you will find yourself blocked.

But why? It's because Guy is an old school power user on Wikipedia, which means when he says something, such as accuse you of being a bad person who isn't on Wikipedia for the right reasons, there's going to be at least ten or even twenty or so fuckwits who will fall into line behind him without even examining the facts (or worse, probably realise someone from the right is being shafted, but will happily support it to maintain Wikipedia's liberal slant). And the great secret Wikipedia doesn't like anyone knowing - that's more than enough editors to organise a Wikipedia lynching. No appeal or any kind of cogent case for the defence will change the outcome.

So called citic site Wikipediocracy is no better. They're as blind (and most likely willfully) to this inherent bias as the Wikipedians are, which is understandable because most of the posters there are die-hard Wikipedians, whose issues with the site have little to do with its political bias.

Wikipedia has a political bias problem, and if you don't agree, it's probably because you're part of the problem. So sort your life out and accept what true neutrality looks like, or chances are you're going to be dogmeat for an alt-right militia in the End of Days. Don't expect the moderate right to help you out, they will have already saught and been granted poltical asylum in Britain.

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Re: Wikipedia's political bias problem

Post by CrowsNest » Sun Apr 08, 2018 3:45 pm

If anyone wants an academic study that underpins my thoughts above, I recommend the following.....

Wikipedia's “Neutral Point of View”: Settling Conflict through Ambiguity

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10. ... 011.534368

It's from 2011, but as anyone knows, there's been virtually no evolution in this area since then.

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Re: Wikipedia's political bias problem

Post by CrowsNest » Sat Apr 21, 2018 12:43 pm

Uh oh.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... ingyouwant

Can you feel it? The temperature, rising. The stakes, getting higher. The complaints, getting louder. The air is thick with threats, and talk of conspiracy and a biased judiciary. Lists are being drawn up even, the good Mexicans and the bad Mexicans. All pretence that evidence matters and WP:ASPERSIONS are forbidden, if only for the appearance of justice being served even when it clearly isn't, is gone.

What we have here, is a powder keg. One false move, one arrogantly dickish action (where is Volunteer Marek?), and kaboom!

As is to be expected, the trigger edit for this latest flare up isn't some complex and nuanced issue, it is a 100% defensible edit that would be absolutely and completely uncontroversial if the vast majority of Wikipedians were capable of editing without bias and following their own clear rules.

Essentially, MrX wants to be able to accuse The Donald of treason in the introduction of his Wikipedia biography, without noting the rather important fact that he denies it (not only is that material information in general, for Trump it is absolutely necessary clarification, since he can't be relied on to reflexively deny even an accusation of treason).

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =837207612

It hasn't closed yet, but I see no reason to believe this won't end in the usual manner - the neutrality defender being unjustifiably hit with a very big stick, and the obviously biased editor who clearly wants Wikipedia to be used as an offshoot of the Democratic party, and who is gaming the system to eliminate his opponents, being let off.

They shouldn't really be worrying about this winding up at ArbCom for them to make some pathetic show of being seen to be dealing with the scourge of partisan editing in the arena of US Politics for a third time. They should be worrying about this going mainstream.

You simply cannot keep this stuff under wraps forever. Sooner or later, someone, most likely a soon to be banned Wikipedian, will conclude the time and effort of translating all this wikispeak into a form a journalist or respected blogger can deliver to the public, will be worth the shitstorm it will unleash.

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Re: Wikipedia's political bias problem

Post by CrowsNest » Sat Apr 21, 2018 1:14 pm

Unsurprisingly, as happened last time Mr X tried (and succeeded) in getting Anythingyouwant removed from the field of play, after 'discussion' of the 'issue' on the 'talk page', it turns out the majority of Wikipedians believe his edit was indeed correct and has been reinststed, and this aspect of the dispute has concluded quicker than it is taking the Administration to investigate MrX's charges based on that edit that Anythingyouwant is a really really bad person who is out to destroy Wikipedia with his biased editing.

Also unsurprisingly, that pointless discussion hasn't seen any of the flagrantly anti-Trump editors blocked for being duplicitous shits. Even though they were basically arguing from two completely incompatible positions at the same time - that the text as it stood carried no accusation of treason (so no denial is needed), but also, it does carry an implicit charge, but because it is a super serious one a denial need not be included because it can safely be assumed a US President would deny such as serious charge.

I will repeat, several Wikipedia administrators watched this behaviour occurring, and did nothing. In their eyes, this is all perfectly normal, exactly how Wikipedians are supposed to discuss things to get to a consensus. It is not supposed to be normal. By policy, Wikipedians are supposed to get warned and then blocked for persistently making arguments on talk pages that are simply utter nonsense, designed merely to inflame and frustrate those who are bringing policy and common sense to the table. You cannot have your cake and eat it, decide which bullshit reason you want to stand by, and then accept when it is inevitably demolished, as both of these easily are.

The presence of an implicit accusation in that text is obvious, blindingly so. Only a moron or a game player would deny it. And as I said above, if there has ever been an American President in history who you might not expect to reflexively and automatically deny he has done anything that a judge would call treason, it is him. And these game playing assholes know that, because they obsessively track every last thing Trump does, for faithful recording in Dempedia.

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Re: Wikipedia's political bias problem

Post by sashi » Mon Apr 23, 2018 12:00 pm

Anythingyouwant was also interviewed in the WaPo article "Wikipedia editors are essentially writing the election guide millions of voters will read". I certainly hope he'll get back in touch with Chris Alcantara. I'd be happy to provide further information about MrX's collaboration & encouragement of the desysopped admin Cirt violating his topic ban to impugn politicians he didn't like just after the election, as well as encouraging Cirt's efforts to get quite a few good faith scribblers banned. Cirt, MrX and Neutrality definitely need to be written about. I don't know where Cirt has been mentioned before other than on a Brian Lamb interview on CSpan (where he was not mentioned by name; only his pushing a vulgar Dan Savage meme was mentioned.) Of course, he has frequently been mentioned on Wikipedia Review (1 & 2) and Wikipediocracy, but that's not mainstream press. "Neutrality" got caught priming Tim Kaine's entry just prior to his being announced as HRC's running mate by the Atlantic. Who knows, maybe Tarantino will be able to provide a clearer link between "Neutrality" and the Democratic Underground, as he seems to be aware of a connection.

I'd also be happy to point Mr. Alcantara (or any serious journalist) to the information about the Chief Communications Officer of the Clinton Foundation's $200K contract for training the previous Chief Communications Officer and other c-level employees of the WMF and setting communications policy.

Thanks for posting this CN; I'd been following the saga too. (It still hasn't been closed.)

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Re: Wikipedia's political bias problem

Post by CrowsNest » Fri Apr 27, 2018 12:24 pm

Unbelievable......
Anythingyouwant is indefinitely topic banned from all edits about, and all pages related to post-1932 politics of the United States and closely related people, broadly construed. They may appeal this sanction using the methods outlined here. If the sanction is upheld then they may appeal every six months thereafter to me or using the methods linked to in the prior sentence. Constructive editing in other areas would make an appeal more likely to be viewed very favorably by me. --NeilN talk to me 14:23, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
I will repeat, this is how they close a case of an editor whose edit to uphold Donald Trump's right to respectful treatment by Wikipedia, was retroactively shown by their own horrendously anti-Trump community to be 100% correct, which shows just how wrong it was for the reporter to have removed it and dragged them to AE.

And isn't it funny how, after all that institutional foot stomping about how bad it was that admins could act unilaterally at AE, that there should be extended discussion whenever there is disagreement, it turns out that when it concerns someone seen as a defender of Trump, that discussion is evidently just for show, and the ensuing result is allowed to pass as a unilateral act, without any objection other than stating the fucking obvious, that the action doesn't have universal support, but will be allowed to stand because it is unilateral.

You cannot make this shit up. But they do genuinely seem to think people are fucking stupid, and can't see what they're doing. They literally do not care, safe in the knowledge this sort of thing is well outside the field of vision of muggles. As I just said in the Drmies thread, there can be no excuse, none whatsoever, for not advocating that these people's actions on Wikipedia, merit real world consequences. It is that blatant.

If NeilN loses his job for this epic example of obvious shitbaggery borne out of clear bias, I would lose not one minute of sleep. Being desysopped after an ArbCase that outlines his long history of disgraceful conduct just like this, not that it is ever going to happen, really doesn't even come close to being a suitable act of compensation.

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Re: Wikipedia's political bias problem

Post by sashi » Sun Apr 29, 2018 6:30 pm

sashi wrote:CCO of the Clinton Foundation's $436K contract for training the previous Chief Communications Officer and other c-level employees of the WMF and setting communications policy.


Sorry, I hadn't checked the source again. Just fixing the amount, which my memory had cut in half.

Coincidentally, I learned of "Neutrality" making the news for the Kaine clean-up job on NeilN's talk page. ^^

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Re: Wikipedia's political bias problem

Post by ericbarbour » Mon Apr 30, 2018 4:29 am

Please, don't ever make the mistake of taking Guy Chapman at his word. He is a raving nutball and a classic internet troll, who sucked up to Jimbo a very long time ago and is now "permanently embedded" in the "cult". He is not rational and he is not an "intellectual" by any wild stretch of the imagination. His perpetual pursuit of "quack" medicine content on WP would constitute a valid reason to participate; if only he wasn't also a complete freak. Who literally starts editwars just for the fun of it.

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Re: Wikipedia's political bias problem

Post by hyatt » Tue May 01, 2018 4:17 am

While researching everyone's favorite Wikipedia controversy I noticed that Zack Exley, who co-founded the Democratic Party's New Organizing Institute, oversaw a large expansion of the Wikimedia Foundation staff. How many of these new hires were from Exley's group of PR operatives? This could explain Wikipedia's political bias problem.

Some events in 2010 that may or may not be significant:
Google donated $2 million to Wikipedia in February 2010.
Exley was hired in June 2010.
Wikimedia Foundation Report, September 2010
November 2010 was the infamous personal appeal from Jimmy Wales campaign.

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Re: Wikipedia's political bias problem

Post by CrowsNest » Tue May 01, 2018 8:43 am

That might explain the WMF's ideology (if them simply being a San Francisco based tech company wholly dependent on free kulture isn't sufficient), but it doesn't really explain the screaming bias of the Wikipediots.

I suppose Google prefers Democrats, even though they aren't super supportive of their goals, but I wouldn't have thought it was something that keeps them awake at night. Unlike the WMF, they can at least deploy real power (money and technology) should a Republican administration ever make moves they don't like. The WMF can only harness people power, which isn't worth much.

Exley managed to get Gordon Brown elected, and his Wikipedia funding efforts certainly worked, so he's clearly no idiot. His success for the WMF is grounded merely in the fact people who don't get what Wikipedia really is, are fools easily parted from their money. His failure was in thinking the community can be guided and motivated the same way a political movement can.

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