Not OP and don't have an example to hand, but something I noticed is that with subjects where I understand them well I do tend to notice a bit of a bias, but equally edits are usually accepted too.
The problem in my mind is that on subjects where I'm not as well educated I may well not notice the bias because I don't know what may or may not be disputed for a given subject matter.
Obviously everything on Wikipedia should be sourced but it's entirely possible to be selective of which sources you use.
Welcome to the entire gamut of human endeavour. We don’t live long enough or have brains enough to know everything at once so we delegate information gathering to others.
I don't know anything about the guy but the first few sentences normally summarize the article and that article has an entire section "Views on Jews" and "Third Reich" so putting the antisemite in the first paragraph at least is not that far fetched. From a neutral, never before heard of this guy, point of view.
Seriously? How can you have a 'neutral take' on Julius Evola? Do you want Wikipedia to make a neutral take on the literary merit of the Turner Diaries?
Some things cannot be expressed or explained without political language or terminology because they are inherently political. For what it's worth I think Wikipedia did a great job with that article.
Maybe a more apt comparison is between Louis Farrakhan and David Duke? Both are featured as "Prominent Figures" section of the Antisemitism sidebar but only one has "antisemitic" in the lead.
Those two versions seem like two extremes. I would say his antisemitism belongs in the intro (the bit before the first paragraph header), but not in the first sentence. The style of the older version of the intro is definitely better and more neutral. Then again, I only read the intro and scanned the rest of the article.
Playbook slippery slope, first minor remarks here and there, then clearly labelling someone as "the enemy", or perhaps complete erasure from the website if it suits the purpose.
>The Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory is a series of unevidenced claims centered on the false allegation that while Joe Biden was vice president of the United States, he engaged in corrupt activities relating to the employment of his son Hunter Biden by the Ukrainian gas company Burisma.[1] They were spread primarily in an attempt to damage Joe Biden's reputation during the 2020 presidential campaign.[2] United States intelligence community analysis released in March 2021 found that proxies of Russian intelligence promoted and laundered misleading or unsubstantiated narratives about the Bidens "to US media organizations, US officials, and prominent US individuals, including some close to former President Trump and his administration."
The article begins by immediately labeling the accusations “unevidenced” and “false” and then suggests that it is a foreign intelligence plot, an allegation which is itself a conspiracy theory. The article then continues to debunk the accusations point by point all in the introduction of the article, placing the refutation prominently at the top so that the only impression the reader is left with is that there is nothing to it. Only in the final sentence does it reluctantly concede that:
>The article's veracity was strongly questioned by most mainstream media outlets, analysts and intelligence officials, due to the questionable provenance of the laptop and its contents, and the suspicion it may have been part of a disinformation campaign.[8][9][10] It was later confirmed that at least some of the laptop materials were genuine and Hunter Biden himself said that the laptop could be his.[11]
Wikipedia is a teriary source; its "bias" reflects that of the secondary sources on which it based. The article you refer to has 93 references to major news organizations and other sources. Are there reputable sources that argue the Biden-Ukraine theory is true and well-founded?
Their smearing of independent anti-war media is consistent. MPN, The Greyzone, and others have been disallowed as sources for very flimsy reasons: [0].
They backed up one editor at the highest levels, after people wised up that he edited Wikipedia an average of 30 times per day, every day, over 14 years; almost entirely making edits against left wing and anti-war causes: [1]
They've also literally destroyed someone's life, lied about it, and then patted themselves on the back for fixing the problem nearly a year too late: [2]
With regard to Irish national politics, I can attest that they leave out serious scandal information regarding the top two parties politicians, while leaving out important good stuff and including all sorts of bs about independent and left wing politicians; from what I've seen they do the same everywhere.
But yes, it's the endemic failure to tell "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" that is so worrying. The Wikimedia Foundation wants to become the "essential infrastructure of the [global] ecosystem of free knowledge".
Even if one were to agree that such a global infrastructure monopoly is a desirable thing to have, one would have to need one's head examined to want an organisation in charge of this infrastructure that regularly resorts to lying by omission to suit its own self-interest.
I started to agreed with the beginning of the article, but then this part:
"""
This article weirdly claims, or implies, a thing that no serious Biblical scholar of any sort would claim, viz., that Jesus was not given the title “Christ” by the original Apostles in the New Testament. The Wikipedia article itself later contradicts that claim, so perhaps the editors of the above paragraph simply meant the two conjoined words “Jesus Christ,” and that Jesus was rarely referred to with those two conjoined words in the New Testament. But this is false, too: the two words are found together in that form throughout the New Testament.
"""
This is wrong. Or rather, wikipedia is completely right in this case. In fact, the line quoted in the article is fully taken from Encyclopedia Britannica. The line is very clear of what it mean, and while it is true that Jesus (son of Joseph) was probably titled "messiah" (or Christ if you want) after meeting with John the Baptist (from the gospels), "Jesus Christ" as a name probably came later. Some bad translations of the gospel or Paul's letter might say otherwise, but don't found your knowledge on translation. And the historiography tends to agree with Wikipedia/me/anybody who had catechism.
Another article ruined. I can't read further after that, if the author is wrong about that, he might also be wrong on things i'm not an expert on, so i won't be able to take anything i read on this seriously. People should just stop talking about history in political articles, they ruin it every time. Or maybe they should everytime, and allow history geeks to classified them easily in the "untrustworthy" category.
> 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. Another example is how Wikipedia treats various topics in alternative medicine—often dismissively, and frequently labeled as “pseudoscience” in Wikipedia’s own voice. [...]
Yeah I'm OK with Wikipedia being biased against misinformation.
> The Mueller investigation culminated with the Mueller Report, which concluded that though the Trump campaign welcomed Russian interference and expected to benefit from it, there was insufficient evidence to bring any conspiracy charges against Trump or his associates.
This makes it sound like there was something underhanded there, and their source for it was some opinion piece news article rather than the report itself. The fact is that the report conceded that they found no evidence which linked Trump or his campaign of colluding, conspiring with Russia.
The alleged hacking or leaking of Clinton and DNC information under the Obama administration by Russians or other hackers was nothing to do with Trump. He "welcomed" it like any politician welcomes bad news for their opponent, but it's a total mischaracterization of the report, which is really a incredibly problematic indictment of the wild conspiracy theories, lies, and misinformation pushed by many politicians and corporations and people around this.
And major related articles from this one, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links_between_Trump_associates.... When you look at other kinds of misinformation or even unproven allegations made by less favorable sides of politics, the articles often lead with "unsubstantiated claims", "without evidence", etc. This Trump Russia conspiracy theory clearly should be treated the same way, but it is not, wikipedia is still attempting to keep it alive and is trying to salvage the reputations of those who perpetuated it and those who fell for it.
I love how one can see the examples and the (political stances) effect which is being described especially when this question is asked by reading the responses to the answers.
I first noticed it with the article on the Orlando gay club shooting.
The initial article contained unverified reports that the suspect was himself gay, and that that was his motive for the attack. ...and mods on Wikipedia were deleting any edits that referenced the fact that the suspect's father was a former Taliban official that was admitted under the Obama administration, and was politically active in Florida, attending a number of Hillary Clinton talks despite video evidence.
References to the suspect verbally professing his allegiance to ISIS was constantly struck from the article with constant rewrites that the motive was that he himself was gay.
It was wild to see the disinformation being pushed by mods.
I think the clearest example would be the Gamergate page. Whole page being rewritten twice a day, conservative outlets being blacklisted as sources for not supporting the narrative while random blogs were fine, long time editors being banned from editing because they wanted it to be 'neutral', and a lot of users being banned for pointing out that a lot of the claims were not supported by the questionable sources.
For a more recent example that was posted on HN a few days ago: the proposed deletion of a page on mass-killings under Communism. Most of the arguments on the discussion page were from power-editors complaining that the page was "making Communism look bad" and that it was used for "anti-revolutionary talking-points". While the deletion is still being voted on, gives you an insight into the culture.
> An administrator or other editor is in the process of closing this discussion. Please do not contribute further to it; the result should be posted shortly.
unicornfinder|4 years ago
The problem in my mind is that on subjects where I'm not as well educated I may well not notice the bias because I don't know what may or may not be disputed for a given subject matter.
Obviously everything on Wikipedia should be sourced but it's entirely possible to be selective of which sources you use.
akolbe|4 years ago
manicdee|4 years ago
no_time|4 years ago
with https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Julius_Evola&oldi...
Don't tell me him being antisemitic is such a paramount piece of information that it needs to appear in literally the first sentence.
throwaway2016a|4 years ago
Any more defensible examples?
7sidedmarble|4 years ago
Some things cannot be expressed or explained without political language or terminology because they are inherently political. For what it's worth I think Wikipedia did a great job with that article.
adolph|4 years ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Farrakhan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Duke
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Antisemitism_sidebar
ceejayoz|4 years ago
gpvos|4 years ago
Bud|4 years ago
eecc|4 years ago
Take https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Gentzen instead; he was an unquestionable Nazi and it’s pretty well documented in the entry, although not central to the article.
Try better
sol_invictus|4 years ago
As an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_...
clavicat|4 years ago
>The Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory is a series of unevidenced claims centered on the false allegation that while Joe Biden was vice president of the United States, he engaged in corrupt activities relating to the employment of his son Hunter Biden by the Ukrainian gas company Burisma.[1] They were spread primarily in an attempt to damage Joe Biden's reputation during the 2020 presidential campaign.[2] United States intelligence community analysis released in March 2021 found that proxies of Russian intelligence promoted and laundered misleading or unsubstantiated narratives about the Bidens "to US media organizations, US officials, and prominent US individuals, including some close to former President Trump and his administration."
The article begins by immediately labeling the accusations “unevidenced” and “false” and then suggests that it is a foreign intelligence plot, an allegation which is itself a conspiracy theory. The article then continues to debunk the accusations point by point all in the introduction of the article, placing the refutation prominently at the top so that the only impression the reader is left with is that there is nothing to it. Only in the final sentence does it reluctantly concede that:
>The article's veracity was strongly questioned by most mainstream media outlets, analysts and intelligence officials, due to the questionable provenance of the laptop and its contents, and the suspicion it may have been part of a disinformation campaign.[8][9][10] It was later confirmed that at least some of the laptop materials were genuine and Hunter Biden himself said that the laptop could be his.[11]
Veen|4 years ago
mandmandam|4 years ago
They backed up one editor at the highest levels, after people wised up that he edited Wikipedia an average of 30 times per day, every day, over 14 years; almost entirely making edits against left wing and anti-war causes: [1]
They've also literally destroyed someone's life, lied about it, and then patted themselves on the back for fixing the problem nearly a year too late: [2]
With regard to Irish national politics, I can attest that they leave out serious scandal information regarding the top two parties politicians, while leaving out important good stuff and including all sorts of bs about independent and left wing politicians; from what I've seen they do the same everywhere.
[0] - https://thegrayzone.com/2020/06/10/wikipedia-formally-censor...
[1] - https://www.mintpressnews.com/phillip-cross-the-mystery-wiki...
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...
akolbe|4 years ago
But yes, it's the endemic failure to tell "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" that is so worrying. The Wikimedia Foundation wants to become the "essential infrastructure of the [global] ecosystem of free knowledge".
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/...
Even if one were to agree that such a global infrastructure monopoly is a desirable thing to have, one would have to need one's head examined to want an organisation in charge of this infrastructure that regularly resorts to lying by omission to suit its own self-interest.
circlefavshape|4 years ago
sleepysysadmin|4 years ago
orwin|4 years ago
""" This article weirdly claims, or implies, a thing that no serious Biblical scholar of any sort would claim, viz., that Jesus was not given the title “Christ” by the original Apostles in the New Testament. The Wikipedia article itself later contradicts that claim, so perhaps the editors of the above paragraph simply meant the two conjoined words “Jesus Christ,” and that Jesus was rarely referred to with those two conjoined words in the New Testament. But this is false, too: the two words are found together in that form throughout the New Testament. """
This is wrong. Or rather, wikipedia is completely right in this case. In fact, the line quoted in the article is fully taken from Encyclopedia Britannica. The line is very clear of what it mean, and while it is true that Jesus (son of Joseph) was probably titled "messiah" (or Christ if you want) after meeting with John the Baptist (from the gospels), "Jesus Christ" as a name probably came later. Some bad translations of the gospel or Paul's letter might say otherwise, but don't found your knowledge on translation. And the historiography tends to agree with Wikipedia/me/anybody who had catechism.
Another article ruined. I can't read further after that, if the author is wrong about that, he might also be wrong on things i'm not an expert on, so i won't be able to take anything i read on this seriously. People should just stop talking about history in political articles, they ruin it every time. Or maybe they should everytime, and allow history geeks to classified them easily in the "untrustworthy" category.
pera|4 years ago
Yeah I'm OK with Wikipedia being biased against misinformation.
throwawaylinux|4 years ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Counsel_investigation_...
In the first paragraph -
> The Mueller investigation culminated with the Mueller Report, which concluded that though the Trump campaign welcomed Russian interference and expected to benefit from it, there was insufficient evidence to bring any conspiracy charges against Trump or his associates.
This makes it sound like there was something underhanded there, and their source for it was some opinion piece news article rather than the report itself. The fact is that the report conceded that they found no evidence which linked Trump or his campaign of colluding, conspiring with Russia.
The alleged hacking or leaking of Clinton and DNC information under the Obama administration by Russians or other hackers was nothing to do with Trump. He "welcomed" it like any politician welcomes bad news for their opponent, but it's a total mischaracterization of the report, which is really a incredibly problematic indictment of the wild conspiracy theories, lies, and misinformation pushed by many politicians and corporations and people around this.
And major related articles from this one, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links_between_Trump_associates.... When you look at other kinds of misinformation or even unproven allegations made by less favorable sides of politics, the articles often lead with "unsubstantiated claims", "without evidence", etc. This Trump Russia conspiracy theory clearly should be treated the same way, but it is not, wikipedia is still attempting to keep it alive and is trying to salvage the reputations of those who perpetuated it and those who fell for it.
chippy|4 years ago
q1w2|4 years ago
The initial article contained unverified reports that the suspect was himself gay, and that that was his motive for the attack. ...and mods on Wikipedia were deleting any edits that referenced the fact that the suspect's father was a former Taliban official that was admitted under the Obama administration, and was politically active in Florida, attending a number of Hillary Clinton talks despite video evidence.
References to the suspect verbally professing his allegiance to ISIS was constantly struck from the article with constant rewrites that the motive was that he himself was gay.
It was wild to see the disinformation being pushed by mods.
convery|4 years ago
For a more recent example that was posted on HN a few days ago: the proposed deletion of a page on mass-killings under Communism. Most of the arguments on the discussion page were from power-editors complaining that the page was "making Communism look bad" and that it was used for "anti-revolutionary talking-points". While the deletion is still being voted on, gives you an insight into the culture.
matkoniecz|4 years ago
> An administrator or other editor is in the process of closing this discussion. Please do not contribute further to it; the result should be posted shortly.
but nothing changed sine 29th November
kiba|4 years ago