Re: [WikiEN-l] Front Page on BLPs
It's always sad to see this cast as a left/right thing - or Wikipedia has a liberal bias. We equally have huge problems with right wing agenda's on some articles. And most of the BLP issues aren't related to politics, but to all manner of sides (sexuality,political,ethnic,historical and those are the non-trivial examples). Biographies are a mess; we have detailed criticism of fairly non-notable people who've done nothing except piss off the wrong person once or twice. And we have others who are so beloved of their followers that trying to write any fair criticism is like pounding a brick wall. With a lemon. Tom On 23 August 2011 12:11, Tony Sidaway tonysida...@gmail.com wrote: Here is an interesting article by David Swindle of Front Page, about Wikipedia's problems with biographies of living persons. Swindle sees it in terms of a persistent left wing bias. I won't pretend to agree with everything he says--it is not helpful to compare Michael Moore to Ann Coulter or Keith Olbermann to Glenn Beck. The gist of the article has merit, though. I think he makes some reasonable points about the biographies of Noam Chomsky and that deceased poster child for youth rebellion, Che Guevara. http://frontpagemag.com/2011/08/23/how-the-left-conquered-wikipedia-part-1/ ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
[WikiEN-l] Front Page on BLPs
On Tue, 23 Aug 2011 12:11:41 +0100, wikien-l-Tony Sidaway wrote: Here is an interesting article by David Swindle of Front Page, about Wikipedia's problems with biographies of living persons. Swindle sees it in terms of a persistent left wing bias. And (at least when I went there) it plays annoying audio ads when you go there, placed below the fold so that you can't even quickly find the stop button for them... makes one appreciate all the more how Wikipedia is one of the few major sites that doesn't have any ads (well, except the periodic fundraising pitches, but so far those don't blast audio at you). Hopefully the form of hell that marketing people will go to after they die will include an eternity of ads blasting at them from all directions. I won't pretend to agree with everything he says--it is not helpful to compare Michael Moore to Ann Coulter or Keith Olbermann to Glenn Beck. Why not? Of course they're not all identical other than their political views... no two people are. However, they all have in common being outspoken commentators for political causes, so the differing treatment of the outspoken leftists vs. outspoken rightists is relevant. -- == Dan == Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/ Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/ Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/ ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Front Page on BLPs
On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 13:58, WereSpielChequers werespielchequ...@gmail.com wrote: Hmm nice that he's not entirely relying on the Siegenthaler incident and has quoted something beyond 2007. But his reliance on a 2009 Daily Mail story about 20,000 editors vetting changes via flagged revisions http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1208941/Free-edit-Wikipedia-appoints-volunteer-editors-vet-changes-articles-living-people.html Yes, during the pending changes trial, Reviewer status was basically being given out along with Rollback. The idea that there was some kind of political motivation behind it is insane. Yes, more experienced users with things like Rollback or Reviewer rights tend to run the site, but that might be because those people are selected for their ability to competently manage the site and those who are incompetent, don't. That may be wishful thinking. -- Tom Morris http://tommorris.org/ ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Front Page on BLPs
For those who professionally seek attention, You know; rather than political bias, or political editing, this is probably the root cause of problems in the specific articles he highlights. Not that I'd call it their own damn fault, but they are in those situations deliberately. Tom ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Front Page on BLPs
On Tue, 23 Aug 2011, Charles Matthews wrote: But bias of the kind he works with is a really unhelpful concept for us, in practice: especially when trivialised by being metricated. What other way is there to claim bias than being metricated? Is he just supposed to give his subjective opinion, or just complain that a particular thing is being left out of the article? ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
