Posted by leotravis10 9/4/2025
- https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/reliable-sources-how-wik...
- https://www.piratewires.com/p/wikipedia-editors-cant-decide-...
- https://www.piratewires.com/p/how-wikipedia-s-pro-hamas-edit...
It's similar to the problem on Reddit, I wouldn't trust it on any topic that is even mildly controversial. Wikipedia will have a strong progressive left slant it launders carefully through seemingly neutral language and selective sourcing.
Honestly it's gotten worse over the years too - makes me see more value in printed encyclopedia, they go out of date but at least they represent a slice of time. They're not endlessly revised to meet some false ideology that has edit power at present.
Almost every book you read about Israel Palestine will probably be biased in some way, certainly the news will be. It feels like perfect being the enemy of good. Like sure it’s a mess like all compendiums of human knowledge, but also seems massively better than the alternative.
Your point about the encyclopedia seems strange, sure it’s likely to be less accurate less complete and more biased, but it’s narratively interesting is like? What are you trying to accomplish than that that’s better?
Annoyance at Wikipedia feels nihilistic. Like “it’s not perfect so why try”. “I’d rather read things where I think I know what the bias is (but probably don’t”
The problem with wikipedia is it pretends to be above the fray and as a result it's deceptive. People think they're getting a neutral topic overview when they're actually getting something that's been designed to persuade based on the editors that control it and the editors are generally bad power hungry reddit mod types with extreme bias. It's particularly insidious because the people reading wikipedia are the least able to detect this deception. It launders their pet ideology through pseudo neutrality.
I think most alternative options are better.
The encyclopedia point is at least it is a static record from a point in time vs. a sort of "we were always at war with Eurasia" kind of fluid that bends to the times.
Right but then this isn’t the purpose of an encyclopedia. Like great! But it feels like you’re saying “the more I cook fresh meals, the less I like microwave dinners”. I should Hope so!
The bad part is people (including many in the comments here) don’t realize this.
A good encyclopedia doesn’t push an ideological agenda.
But this is the no true Scotsman fallacy, encyclopedia’s are inherently biased. A good _______ doesn’t push an ideological agenda but they all do. I think I would argue Wikipedia less and more transparently than most. They just cover a lot more and are the main one so you see it a lot more.
This article suggests for instance that though Wikipedia’s does indeed have much more bias than británica, that bias may mostly be a factor if it’s length:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/hbsworkingknowledge/2015/01/20/...
“ What’s more, much of Wikipedia’s bias seems to be due to the longer article length of the online publication, where word count is less of an issue than the historically printed Britannica. When compared word to word, most (though not all) of Wikipedia‘s left-leaning proclivities come out in the wash. In other words, for articles of the same length, Wikipedia is as middle-of-the-road as Britannica.
“If you read 100 words of a Wikipedia article, and 100 words of a Britannica [article], you will find no significant difference in bias,” says Zhu. “Longer articles are much more likely to include these code words.”
So again my point would be, your criticism seems nihilistic, why try to have a thing that may, like all things, be inherently flawed, how can something fail in its mission if all of its failures are normal human fallibilities.
It’s beyond inherent bias, it’s explicitly weaponized for a particular point of view which it does a lot of work to try to hide.
Maybe you’re not skeptical enough.
Me a Wikipedia editor?! blushes no? These days I just let ChatGPT tell me what to think, it’s more objective and rational since it’s just the thoughts of a computer and not messy human emotions.
(Not that I necessarily agree with this practice. Don't decapitate the messenger)
I'm sure they could, most teachers aren't idiots. And they were correct that "casual crowdsourcing" is not a fitting replacement for peer review.
And in fact, the current moderation policies for Wikipedia only work in so far as they use peer-review type processes, such as requiring "notability" and multiple sources, and preferring expertise in a field. Of course, if you're in a relevant field you shouldn't use Wikipedia as a primary source since you would presumably have access to whatever sources the wiki itself cites in the articles.
Especially relevant when reading this from a paywalled article.
That is some 1984-level “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength" argument. If those “news” sources want people to stop calling them liars, they should stop lying.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...
According to that Arbitrator, Wikimedia gave a legal opinion that he violated the law in doing so:
"Well, I got a result today: the ombuds commisssion found that I did indeed violate the access to nonpublic data policy, and has issued a final warning to me. Apparently mailing list comments are, "under a contemporary understanding of privacy law and the policies in question," nonpublic data on the same level as CU data or supressed libel."
https://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=350266#p350...
Wasn't the first time he did it either... Officially, community guidelines only apply on the site itself. Once you get into the Discords or forums, doxxing is common and tolerated. Admins and arbitrators are happy to participate on those forums under their Wikipedia usernames because they feel like they need doxx to take action against those trying to harm Wikipedia. And because it (usually) isn't them doing the doxxing, it's ok. There's even an "alt-right identification thread" where established editors can request doxxing from people who don't link their accounts onwiki.
Generally this targets newer editors who aren't in a clique yet. e.g. The person who made "Wikipedia and Antisemitism" got doxxed. Once you get to a certain level, you are expected to participate in these "offwiki" forums to get anything done.
Some people try to complain about it but it doesn't end well. Generally you don't want to fuck with them because by the time you find out about Wikipediocracy, you've already revealed too much and are doxxable. & unlike nation-state actors they have inside information and understand the site.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_no...
If you do choose to edit Wikipedia, use a burner email and only edit during the same one or two hours of the day so they can't track timezones. & don't post any photos or information on where you live nor attend meetups.
There are some good people but once you get deeply involved it is a toxic community. Sorry for the rant but it pisses me off whenever people talk about how great the Wikipedia community is as someone who's into the internal shit. it's the worst place to get involved in "free culture".
It is not a transparent organization, and it does not even pay lip service to the effort of transparency. It is large enough of an organization that it is an absurd claim, on its face, that there are not cliques and factions who would do such things if it were at all possible.
You investigated yourselves and found no evidence of wrongdoing.
Quite to the contrary, it's a very transparent organization because edit histories are public. It would be trivial to link to any instances of doxxing on the project, unless they don't exist, which they don't. Wikipediocracy doesn't count when talking about Wikipedia doxxing.
Please don't pretend as if people having a discussion at this level are unaware of the facilities available for permanent deletion on Wikipedia (the so-called "oversight").
> Wikipediocracy doesn't count when talking about Wikipedia doxxing.
"Wikipedia doxxing" clearly means doxxing performed by and/or against Wikipedians, not necessarily on Wikipedia's actual domains. Especially if you're using the term to refer to GP, which states:
> The article criticizes doxxing but well-known Wikipedia editors doxx each other all the time...
So unless you can demonstrate that these Wikipedia editors don't post on Wikipediocracy, then yes it obviously does count. "Wikipedia editors doxxing each other" doesn't stop being "Wikipedia editors doxxing each other" just because of where it's posted.
> When I said anyone can verify it, I meant it; go make an account on wikipediocracy, go to the "Wikimedian Folks Too Embarrassing for Public Viewing" forums, and go through the posts by that user.
It looks to me like the top-level commenter already did exactly this, and found the exact opposite of what you imply we'd find.
Yes, on-project doxxing gets OS'd but it also results in discussions and bans which can be reviewed. And from those you can easily determine that it's truly rare.
When I said to go to the forums, that was unfortunately unclear wording; I meant it's trivial to verify that Beeblebrox didn't doxx anyone in his postings.
No one doxxing others in that particular clique is going to do it from anything other than a burner account.
Unsurprisingly, "Wikipedianon" is a hit-and-run profile created just for this post, AFAICT.
I dont want a world in which Trump regulates Wikipedia but pretending it's sunshine and rainbows is a joke at this point.
And the person you're replying to is strawmanning. I never said Beeblebrox doxxed anyone, just that they leaked secret information on a doxxing forum in violation of Wikipolicy and possibly privacy law.
i know that Beeblebrox did not doxx anyone and I said that in my comment. my point is leaking information to a doxxing forum sends the wrong message and is dangerous.
Maybe you should create an account and look at the "Wikimedian Folks Too Embarrassing for Public Viewing" forum and get back to me. Or do something about it before the Trump administration uses this as an excuse to censor enwiki. Either way here are some excerpts if you don't want to.
From the first page, here's an active editor (iii, known as jps or ජපස) doxxing someone about UFOs. I took out the names to be polite but it's all there:
https://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=14172
"Is [username 1] (T-C-L) an alt account of [username 2] (T-C-L)?
For those who are not aware, [username2] is the name of an account used by one [redacted] on various platforms up until about 2024 when he more or less abandoned them. That account also was involved in the ongoing game of accusing [redacted] (T-H-L) of being [redacted] (T-C-L) which is about as fairly ludicrous an attempt at matching a Wikipedia username as I've ever seen.
Anyway, I feel like maybe he thought "If [__] can do it, so can I." And maybe that's the origin of the VPP.
Oh, this is about UFOs. Yeah, I'm in the shit. Maybe someone can link to some other stuff for you to read, but I just want to drop this here because I have nowhere else I get to speculate on these matters and everyone loves a good conspiracy theory data dump from time to time "
Here's the thread "Who is Wikipedia editor i.am.qwerty"
https://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=13821
"I.am.a.qwerty (T-C-L) gathered up a bunch of those articles and some earlier material to create Wikipedia and antisemitism..."
It goes on:
"But who is I.am.a.qwerty? Let's suppose, just for the sake of argument, that I.a.am.a.qwerty is a PhD student named [real name]. Specifically, this [real name]:"
"[real name] is a PhD candidate [major] at [university name]. He received his BA (Hons) in [major] from [university]. Previously [real name] received his rabbinical ordination from the [other school] in [location] in [year]. [real name] is also the [job title] at [organization]."
> Let's suppose, just for the sake of argument, that [username] is a PhD student named [real name]. Specifically, this [real name]:"
> "[real name] is a PhD candidate [major] at [university name]. He received his BA (Hons) in [major] from [university]. Previously [real name] received his rabbinical ordination from the [other school] in [location] in [year]. [real name] is also the [job title] at [organization]."
is not "doxxing"?
Let's suppose, just for the sake of argument, that I find that patently absurd.
Not to mention that there a whole load of #MeToo scandals which would doom Wikipedia if exposed to the media.