[rustynails]

I'm inclined to strongly agree with smsm42. There is something deeper than funding journalists. Ideologies (special interest groups) are far too powerful and connected through other means to simply disappear. They will collaborate and infiltrate anything that has visibility and a reputation.

Will Wikipedia shut out these ideologies? Of course not. It will favour some ideologies over others and you at straight back to where we are now. This was well summarised in the article about WWIII yesterday on HN. The crux of the WWIII article covered all forms of bias, but ideologies still equally applied to the pitfalls identified.

Let's say for a minute the Wikimedia board put one of each ideologist type on the board (1 for each religion, sex, ethnicity, colour of skin, sexual orientation, etc). It would exclude some ideologies (eg. ISIS) and favour others (eg. Christianity). Subgroups would form among the wider group and political correctness would kick in (especially if it stroked the preferences of editors, founders, lead sponsors, vocal readers, etc).

As somebody else mentioned here, Wikipedia is a basket case on anything controversial. Often, one side of a topic is watered down by mods with an agenda and the opposing view is given carte blanche. I read the comments by editors after I saw how extreme some of the articles were. Editors for one side were exasperated at the lack of impartiality.

I don't have an answer. Simplisticly, you could start with egalitarianism and exclude special interest groups. Reject political correctness. If it is divisive (eg. Special interest groups), then block them all. However, this isn't tenable and limits some worthy/essential discussion. As soon as you allow divisiveness (eg. Special interest groups), you are destined to fail.

Even if egalitarianism won out (ie. no divisiveness), the authors would still inject their own prejudices. I believe wired tries to be egalitarian, but, the authors who support certain ideologies still slip in one-sided comments frequently. They do this sufficiently frequently that I can usually pick the ideologies supported by their staff. To their credit, they are very mild compared to most other outlets.

There are conflicting needs, too many politicised groups, too much to gain/lose. Unless the wikimedia leadership has a plan to stop the failures inherent in Wikipedia, this will fail too. Power struggles and division will ultimately (I suspect quickly) corrupt wikimedia. It will become a war of numbers (as somebody else said). They will also follow the funding.