Re: [WikiEN-l] Alleged Liberal Bias
As the overwhelming majority of points on the list are absurd or pathetic, it
took me a bit by surprise that I'm sort of agreeing with #51 (Wikipedia's
entry on Peter Singer downplayed his advocacy for infanticide and moral disdain
for human life.)
The coverage in his article and in [[Practical Ethics]] doesn't match the
controversy it created and doesn't pinpoint *why* it created a such a
controversy.
Yeah, I'm aware of {{sofixit}}.
[[User:Pjacobi]]
Original-Nachricht
Datum: Wed, 13 Oct 2010 08:48:54 -0700
Von: Steven Walling steven.wall...@gmail.com
An: charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com, English Wikipedia
wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Betreff: Re: [WikiEN-l] Alleged Liberal Bias
Even if Conservapedia are raving lunatics (and I agree with David on
that),
paying careful attention to our critics is a useful exercise. If you're
really interested Fred, make a list of smart people and try to pry
specific,
constructive pieces of criticism out of them.
We all know we're not yet meeting our own standards though. There's plenty
of work to on the neutrality front without wondering about how fringe
groups
like Conservapedia view our neutrality. The silent majority of readers
already appreciate what we're shooting for with NPOV.
/twocents
Steven Walling
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Alleged Liberal Bias
On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 11:01, Peter Jacobi peter_jac...@gmx.net wrote:
As the overwhelming majority of points on the list are absurd or pathetic, it
took me a bit by surprise that I'm sort of agreeing with #51 (Wikipedia's
entry on Peter Singer downplayed his advocacy for infanticide and moral
disdain for human life.)
The coverage in his article and in [[Practical Ethics]] doesn't match the
controversy it created and doesn't pinpoint *why* it created a such a
controversy.
Yeah, I'm aware of {{sofixit}}.
[[User:Pjacobi]]
This would be problematic to take seriously. Singer's arguments that
seem to suggest that infanticide could be morally justifiable under
some circumstances are made in an environment of academic philosophy
where everyone recognizes that they are theoretical investigations,
and not authoritative pronouncements.
Conservatives (of the Conservapedia.com breed, anyway) are really
freaked out by this kind of thing because they think academics want to
replace Jesus as our moral authority -- they're used to accepting
answers to these kinds of hard questions from Divine Authority
(communicated to them through their favored religious institutions,
which relieves them of the burden of independent thought). But the
whole point of philosophical investigation is to figure out this kind
of hard problem through ongoing original thought, discussion, and peer
review. That there are few (if any) sacred cows in this endeavour
enables philosophers to pursue whatever they can argue for in a
persuasive (or at least interesting) way, and while some become
committed to outlandish ideas, usually they don't take hold. Singer's
arguments on infanticide are in that category: they are recognized as
interesting, but he hardly won consensus for them.
This particular breed of conservative thinker, being ignorant of the
advantages of independent philosophizing, waxes histrionic about how
If the Liberals succeed in replacing Jesus in the classroom, they
will command everyone to kill their babies! They are using the
counter-intuitive results of one philosopher's intellectual exercise
as an example of the grievous perils of Liberalism (which they have
thoroughly confused with a systematic academic pursuit of independent
thought). That allowing people to think independently will inevitably
allow some folk to come to conclusions we find reprehensible is a
price we pay, and the only way not to pay it is to enforce the kind of
uniformity that they want. Their shock tactics (A Liberal said
WHAT???) serves that agenda.
As such, maybe the article on Singer should discuss his arguments
about infanticide. As it happens, I think that is undue weight in the
current article, which is badly under-developed on issues where he has
more influence in the discipline.
- causa sui
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Alleged Liberal Bias
On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 11:42, Ryan Delaney ryan.dela...@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 11:01, Peter Jacobi peter_jac...@gmx.net wrote:
As the overwhelming majority of points on the list are absurd or pathetic,
it took me a bit by surprise that I'm sort of agreeing with #51
(Wikipedia's entry on Peter Singer downplayed his advocacy for infanticide
and moral disdain for human life.)
The coverage in his article and in [[Practical Ethics]] doesn't match the
controversy it created and doesn't pinpoint *why* it created a such a
controversy.
Yeah, I'm aware of {{sofixit}}.
[[User:Pjacobi]]
This would be problematic to take seriously. Singer's arguments that
seem to suggest that infanticide could be morally justifiable under
some circumstances are made in an environment of academic philosophy
where everyone recognizes that they are theoretical investigations,
and not authoritative pronouncements.
Conservatives (of the Conservapedia.com breed, anyway) are really
freaked out by this kind of thing because they think academics want to
replace Jesus as our moral authority -- they're used to accepting
answers to these kinds of hard questions from Divine Authority
(communicated to them through their favored religious institutions,
which relieves them of the burden of independent thought). But the
whole point of philosophical investigation is to figure out this kind
of hard problem through ongoing original thought, discussion, and peer
review. That there are few (if any) sacred cows in this endeavour
enables philosophers to pursue whatever they can argue for in a
persuasive (or at least interesting) way, and while some become
committed to outlandish ideas, usually they don't take hold. Singer's
arguments on infanticide are in that category: they are recognized as
interesting, but he hardly won consensus for them.
This particular breed of conservative thinker, being ignorant of the
advantages of independent philosophizing, waxes histrionic about how
If the Liberals succeed in replacing Jesus in the classroom, they
will command everyone to kill their babies! They are using the
counter-intuitive results of one philosopher's intellectual exercise
as an example of the grievous perils of Liberalism (which they have
thoroughly confused with a systematic academic pursuit of independent
thought). That allowing people to think independently will inevitably
allow some folk to come to conclusions we find reprehensible is a
price we pay, and the only way not to pay it is to enforce the kind of
uniformity that they want. Their shock tactics (A Liberal said
WHAT???) serves that agenda.
As such, maybe the article on Singer should discuss his arguments
about infanticide. As it happens, I think that is undue weight in the
current article, which is badly under-developed on issues where he has
more influence in the discipline.
- causa sui
Actually, I haven't looked at this article in awhile since I quit
editing Wikipedia. It looks like the balance is quite good, as far as
your philosophy articles go. If anything, the discussion of his
arguments on infanticide may be too prominent. But there are no
serious problems that I see.
- causa sui
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Alleged Liberal Bias
Ryan, All, (Regarding #51, [[Peter Singer]]) Actually, I haven't looked at this article in awhile since I quit editing Wikipedia. It looks like the balance is quite good, as far as your philosophy articles go. If anything, the discussion of his arguments on infanticide may be too prominent. But there are no serious problems that I see. Have you compared the German articles (at least using online translation)? It's not an ivory tower philosophy discussion, it got a lively real world controversy with activists from the disability rights movements and other (mostly far left) organisations trying and often succeeding to prevent Singer speaking in Germany (and elsewhere). A stream of articles and books published against and in defense of Singer? And while I have no overview about the situation in the US, there seem to be parallels, e.g. http://www.thearclink.org/news/article.asp?ID=426 Peter -- Neu: GMX De-Mail - Einfach wie E-Mail, sicher wie ein Brief! Jetzt De-Mail-Adresse reservieren: http://portal.gmx.net/de/go/demail ___ 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] Alleged Liberal Bias
Are you speaking of the article on the German Wikipedia? Fred Ryan, All, (Regarding #51, [[Peter Singer]]) Actually, I haven't looked at this article in awhile since I quit editing Wikipedia. It looks like the balance is quite good, as far as your philosophy articles go. If anything, the discussion of his arguments on infanticide may be too prominent. But there are no serious problems that I see. Have you compared the German articles (at least using online translation)? It's not an ivory tower philosophy discussion, it got a lively real world controversy with activists from the disability rights movements and other (mostly far left) organisations trying and often succeeding to prevent Singer speaking in Germany (and elsewhere). A stream of articles and books published against and in defense of Singer? And while I have no overview about the situation in the US, there seem to be parallels, e.g. http://www.thearclink.org/news/article.asp?ID=426 Peter -- Neu: GMX De-Mail - Einfach wie E-Mail, sicher wie ein Brief! Jetzt De-Mail-Adresse reservieren: http://portal.gmx.net/de/go/demail ___ 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
Re: [WikiEN-l] Alleged Liberal Bias
On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 12:09, Peter Jacobi peter_jac...@gmx.net wrote: Ryan, All, (Regarding #51, [[Peter Singer]]) Actually, I haven't looked at this article in awhile since I quit editing Wikipedia. It looks like the balance is quite good, as far as your philosophy articles go. If anything, the discussion of his arguments on infanticide may be too prominent. But there are no serious problems that I see. Have you compared the German articles (at least using online translation)? It's not an ivory tower philosophy discussion, it got a lively real world controversy with activists from the disability rights movements and other (mostly far left) organisations trying and often succeeding to prevent Singer speaking in Germany (and elsewhere). A stream of articles and books published against and in defense of Singer? And while I have no overview about the situation in the US, there seem to be parallels, e.g. http://www.thearclink.org/news/article.asp?ID=426 Peter The controversy about Singer's ideas has definitely spilled outside of philosophy journals (where emotions don't run so hot). I don't read German, but the article on en.wiki covers that controversy pretty well, from what I can tell. I'm not sure what problem you are suggesting en.Wikipedia has, or what should be done about it, on this point. - causa sui ___ 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] Alleged Liberal Bias
On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 13:23, Ryan Delaney ryan.dela...@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 12:09, Peter Jacobi peter_jac...@gmx.net wrote:
Ryan, All,
(Regarding #51, [[Peter Singer]])
Actually, I haven't looked at this article in awhile since I quit
editing Wikipedia. It looks like the balance is quite good, as far as
your philosophy articles go. If anything, the discussion of his
arguments on infanticide may be too prominent. But there are no
serious problems that I see.
Have you compared the German articles (at least using online translation)?
It's not an ivory tower philosophy discussion, it got a lively real world
controversy with activists from the disability rights movements and other
(mostly far left) organisations trying and often succeeding to prevent
Singer speaking in Germany (and elsewhere). A stream of articles and books
published against and in defense of Singer?
And while I have no overview about the situation in the US, there seem to
be parallels, e.g. http://www.thearclink.org/news/article.asp?ID=426
Peter
The controversy about Singer's ideas has definitely spilled outside of
philosophy journals (where emotions don't run so hot). I don't read
German, but the article on en.wiki covers that controversy pretty
well, from what I can tell. I'm not sure what problem you are
suggesting en.Wikipedia has, or what should be done about it, on this
point.
- causa sui
Okay, I looked at [[de:Peter Singer]] using the Google Chrome
translation tool. It's coming through as pigeon English (It remains
unclear for some critics of the status does not articulate or later
only to articulate interests.) but I'm not getting the sense that the
public protests are better covered in de.Wiki than en.Wiki. The
section at [[Peter_Singer#Criticism_of_Singer]] seems more detailed
and historical, and includes a more balanced representation of
Singer's response to the controversies that result from a second-hand
reading of his more sophisticated and well-developed ethical system.
If there is content more comprehensible to German readers that should
be added to the English article, then this is indeed a {{sofixit}}
problem.
Further, after a closer reading of [[Peter Singer]], I really strain
to detect any liberal bias in this article. Although reasonable
suggestions for improvement could easily be made in various places, I
seriously doubt that any will come from Conservapedia authors: we
should expect that the only content that would satisfy them would be
polarizing histrionics about the evil demon Peter Singer and his
baby-eating liberal drones. Anything less, in their view, is liberal
bias -- see the above (reality has a liberal bias, etc) for an
explanation as to why.
Remember that the primary goal of a Conservapedia article is to remind
the reader about why conservatism is so great, why liberalism is so
bad, to reinforce conservative viewpoints and to produce angry
judgment while terminating independent thought and investigation. If
you want to know the full sum of what Conservapedia editors think you
need to know about Peter Singer, look no further:
http://www.conservapedia.com/Peter_Singer
- causa sui
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Alleged Liberal Bias
On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 3:47 PM, Guettarda guetta...@gmail.com wrote: Reality has a liberal bias doesn't mean that liberals are right. Rather, it means that any attempt to represent reality will, in the eyes of American conservatives, amount to displaying a liberal bias. That should only be correct insofar as the reverse is true, namely that reality has a conservative bias - when viewed from the Left. However, reality is subjective for pretty much anything that we can't whip out a tape measure for, take its temperature or define its geographic range. We can cross-reference a hamlet on Google Maps or define the tilt on the Leaning Tower, but we cannot accurately describe the precise political orientation of a politician. My rule of thumb is to look at (say) a biographical article on a sitting politician, and ask myself, would that politician's media spokesman be happy with it. If the answer is YES!, then it's biased. Reality, according to some editors, is a matter of following the party line. Or the faith's doctrine, nationalist outlook, cultural preference or preferred football team's victory song. We aren't going to convince, through rational argument or ranting abuse, the editors producing biased material that they are actually doing so. Or, if they know their material is biased, they will not admit it, because that would be a betrayal of the sacred party line. The same holds true for biased critics of fair and balanced articles. If an article contains criticism or a negative view of their hero, then it must, by definition, be biased. And in need of correction. I think that Wikipedia is big enough that we have room for all points of view by drilling down far enough. We are not going to state in our main article that the 9/11 attacks were a conspiracy organised by the US government, but we have an article on the various conspiracy theories. In fact we have sub articles on specific theories. If critics claim a bias in Wikipedia, then rather than battle over the main article, just write a child article focussing on the specific concerns. If there is any merit, then it will be revealed and promoted. Contrariwise, if it is tripe, it will be labelled as such and eliminated. -- Peter in Canberra ___ 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] Alleged Liberal Bias
On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 9:47 PM, Guettarda guetta...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 3:26 PM, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.comwrote: On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 1:11 PM, Ian Woollard ian.wooll...@gmail.com wrote: On 13/10/2010, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com wrote: I am concerned not so much with the specifics they are pointing out, but at a general trend that we may include more negatives about conservative positions and people than about liberal positions and people, which would be worth some statistical analysis. The problem is that a good encyclopedia, such as the Wikipedia, tries to reflect reality and truth. But reality and truth... have a well known liberal bias. That's the second such reply, and it's a little disappointing. I want the encyclopedia to accurately and fairly represent things I personally disagree with, as well as the ones I agree with. The assumption that some bias is ok because we're right ... is Wrong. It's a fundamental failure of NPOV. Reality has a liberal bias doesn't mean that liberals are right. Rather, it means that any attempt to represent reality will, in the eyes of American conservatives, amount to displaying a liberal bias. I am not consistently in either camp; I'm one of those darn individual issues unbundled, make up own mind people. It's not just representing reality - it's misrepresenting Conservatives' positions and philosophy and similar non-neutral things. I see this in plenty of articles where I fully personally agree with the liberal position as well as ones where I don't. If I see bias when I agree with the conservatives, I may not be a dispassionate observer on that point, and I know that. But if I see it when I disagree with them, it's probably really there. It's not everywhere. And on the average it's not worth doing anything about. But there are places it's a problem. One area - homosexuality / gay rights. My personal position here is very strongly pro-homosexual marriage and equality - I'm slightly offended still that my ex-neighbors the now married lesbian couple did it without me getting a chance to officiate and even out the heterosexual marriages I've performed for people. I find the anti-gay-marriage arguments either narrow denominationally religiously focused or intellectually incoherent, personally. But I keep finding cases where those arguments against are belittled to the point of not even being reported accurately. I understand the arguments against despite disagreeing with pretty much every one completely, and I can say that our coverage of those points has not (at the times I've looked) accurately resembled the actual arguments, philosophy, and beliefs of the opponents. That's not neutral. That's not representing reality. That's outright conservatives are so batshit we don't care about them bias. And the argument doesn't deserve being simplified to that, in part because people seeking to understand it who tend to agree with the opponents who come look at our pages will immediately see the bias and turn off of Wikipedia as a useful information source, at least on this topic. Oh, also, we're supposed to be neutral POV. Minor thing there... This is Not Good for the Encyclopedia. -- -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com ___ 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] Alleged Liberal Bias
On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 3:47 PM, Guettarda guetta...@gmail.com wrote: I think that Wikipedia is big enough that we have room for all points of view by drilling down far enough. We are not going to state in our main article that the 9/11 attacks were a conspiracy organised by the US government, but we have an article on the various conspiracy theories. In fact we have sub articles on specific theories. If critics claim a bias in Wikipedia, then rather than battle over the main article, just write a child article focussing on the specific concerns. If there is any merit, then it will be revealed and promoted. Contrariwise, if it is tripe, it will be labelled as such and eliminated. -- Peter in Canberra The limiting factor with respect to such endless proliferation of viewpoint is notability, whether there is substantial published information about that view in a reliable source. A good source for subtle political motivations for expression of political positions is political memoirs, and private correspondence, such as that entombed in Presidential libraries. Not real helpful for the latest news of a current campaign of course. Fred ___ 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] Alleged Liberal Bias
On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 9:47 PM, Guettarda guetta...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 3:26 PM, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.comwrote: That's not neutral. That's not representing reality. That's outright conservatives are so batshit we don't care about them bias. And the argument doesn't deserve being simplified to that, in part because people seeking to understand it who tend to agree with the opponents who come look at our pages will immediately see the bias and turn off of Wikipedia as a useful information source, at least on this topic. Oh, also, we're supposed to be neutral POV. Minor thing there... This is Not Good for the Encyclopedia. -- -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com Right, that is the unacceptable outcome. And someone thoroughly familiar with the Bible, which is usually their source of authority, instantly sees that their familiar arguments are not accurately or fairly presented. Fred ___ 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] Alleged Liberal Bias
-Brock On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 8:47 PM, Guettarda guetta...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 3:26 PM, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 1:11 PM, Ian Woollard ian.wooll...@gmail.com wrote: On 13/10/2010, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com wrote: I am concerned not so much with the specifics they are pointing out, but at a general trend that we may include more negatives about conservative positions and people than about liberal positions and people, which would be worth some statistical analysis. The problem is that a good encyclopedia, such as the Wikipedia, tries to reflect reality and truth. But reality and truth... have a well known liberal bias. That's the second such reply, and it's a little disappointing. I want the encyclopedia to accurately and fairly represent things I personally disagree with, as well as the ones I agree with. The assumption that some bias is ok because we're right ... is Wrong. It's a fundamental failure of NPOV. Reality has a liberal bias doesn't mean that liberals are right. Rather, it means that any attempt to represent reality will, in the eyes of American conservatives, amount to displaying a liberal bias. Indeed. It's a line from Colbert's speech to Bush at the White House Correspondents Dinner playing up the 'you're either with us or against us' crock that was being peddled around. Reality is nuanced, but admitting that nuance, however slight, means you hate America and are a sworn enemy to our friends from the American Taliban who are out there either fighting for dinosaurs to be acknowledged and honored for giving their lives in Noah's Flood or protecting you from gay people getting a marriage license somewhere. ___ 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
Re: [WikiEN-l] Alleged Liberal Bias
On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 09:36, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com wrote:
I'm going to stop there, with a general observation - I think they're
right on one big picture thing: Wikipedia has an editorial bias - our
default neutrality is that of a moderately internationalist,
left-of-US-center somewhat more intellectual than average and more
young internet user than average position, compared to the US
political landscape as a whole. I.e., our userbase (editors) is
skewed younger and more liberally, with the Internet early adopters
general population statistics.
I am concerned not so much with the specifics they are pointing out,
but at a general trend that we may include more negatives about
conservative positions and people than about liberal positions and
people, which would be worth some statistical analysis. Ancedotal
examples, especially those cited by someone so far off on the right
end of the spectrum as young-earth creationists, aren't particularly
useful for identifying the pattern.
--
-george william herbert
george.herb...@gmail.com
I don't get this objection, really - that is, if I'm reading you
right, that you should be concerned that your articles include fewer
negatives about conservative positions. Your goal ought to be to
represent facts, not to strike a balance between highly politicized
narratives that are woven to serve the interests of political
movements rather than accumulate knowledge.
The generally 'moderately left of center' perspective of most
Wikipedia articles reflects the same bias present in US media sources;
and some people{{weasel}} (me) would consider that to be quite an
extreme conservative perspective, eg in articles on Islamic terrorism,
well to the right of most people in the country (and the facts, for
that matter).
The great thing about an encyclopedia is supposed to be that compiling
the facts cuts through these preconceived notions, but when your
sources are already themselves biased, it may be time to look in the
mirror a bit.
- causa sui
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Alleged Liberal Bias
On Wed, 13 Oct 2010, Charles Matthews wrote: #167 is the allegation that we fail to understand what the Tea Party guys are all about. AFAIK we don't claim to understand anything much, just to compile articles from sources. I think that as a serious response, this is disingenuous. People don't write with 100% precision, and they certainly don't use Wikipedia terminology. It may be literally true that we don't claim to understand anything, but that doesn't make the complaint invalid. It just means that you need to apply a bit more intelligence to understanding the complaint beyond literally parsing the words. (And there's *far* too much literalness among Wikipedia policy wonks). I would guess that a complaint that we don't understand something is a claim of undue weight and unreliable sources. Almost any claim about the Tea Party has been made by someone; whether it has been made by someone who we ought to pay attention to is another story. ___ 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] Alleged Liberal Bias
On 13/10/2010, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com wrote: I am concerned not so much with the specifics they are pointing out, but at a general trend that we may include more negatives about conservative positions and people than about liberal positions and people, which would be worth some statistical analysis. The problem is that a good encyclopedia, such as the Wikipedia, tries to reflect reality and truth. But reality and truth... have a well known liberal bias. -- -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com -- -Ian Woollard ___ 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] Alleged Liberal Bias
On Wed, 13 Oct 2010, Charles Matthews wrote: #167 is the allegation that we fail to understand what the Tea Party guys are all about. AFAIK we don't claim to understand anything much, just to compile articles from sources. I think that as a serious response, this is disingenuous. People don't write with 100% precision, and they certainly don't use Wikipedia terminology. It may be literally true that we don't claim to understand anything, but that doesn't make the complaint invalid. It just means that you need to apply a bit more intelligence to understanding the complaint beyond literally parsing the words. (And there's *far* too much literalness among Wikipedia policy wonks). I would guess that a complaint that we don't understand something is a claim of undue weight and unreliable sources. Almost any claim about the Tea Party has been made by someone; whether it has been made by someone who we ought to pay attention to is another story. I note Fox News is excluded from this list: External links * Collected news and coverage at The New York Times * Collected news and coverage at The Guardian * Collected news and coverage at CNN * Tea Party Movement at History News Network at George Mason University * Tea Party Movement at SourceWatch I can make a good faith argument that it is not a reliable source, as I could for any other news source with obvious bias, but I don't think there would be consensus on that point. Fred ___ 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] Alleged Liberal Bias
On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 1:11 PM, Ian Woollard ian.wooll...@gmail.com wrote: On 13/10/2010, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com wrote: I am concerned not so much with the specifics they are pointing out, but at a general trend that we may include more negatives about conservative positions and people than about liberal positions and people, which would be worth some statistical analysis. The problem is that a good encyclopedia, such as the Wikipedia, tries to reflect reality and truth. But reality and truth... have a well known liberal bias. That's the second such reply, and it's a little disappointing. I want the encyclopedia to accurately and fairly represent things I personally disagree with, as well as the ones I agree with. The assumption that some bias is ok because we're right ... is Wrong. It's a fundamental failure of NPOV. -- -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com ___ 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] Alleged Liberal Bias
On 14/10/2010 20:36, Ken Arromdee wrote: On Wed, 13 Oct 2010, Charles Matthews wrote: #167 is the allegation that we fail to understand what the Tea Party guys are all about. AFAIK we don't claim to understand anything much, just to compile articles from sources. I think that as a serious response, this is disingenuous. People don't write with 100% precision, and they certainly don't use Wikipedia terminology. It may be literally true that we don't claim to understand anything, but that doesn't make the complaint invalid. It just means that you need to apply a bit more intelligence to understanding the complaint beyond literally parsing the words. (And there's *far* too much literalness among Wikipedia policy wonks). I would guess that a complaint that we don't understand something is a claim of undue weight and unreliable sources. Almost any claim about the Tea Party has been made by someone; whether it has been made by someone who we ought to pay attention to is another story. Well, you might be right (I don't mean about me being disingenuous, which is certainly one of the wrong words for what I was being). On the other hand it seems more likely to me that the complaint was one of interpretation, rather than reporting. Charles ___ 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] Alleged Liberal Bias
I think there have been some discussions at WP:RSN about whether it is a sufficiently reliable source for negative BLP. My own opinion would be that it is not, and neither is the Guardian. On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 4:21 PM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: note Fox News is excluded from this list: External links * Collected news and coverage at The New York Times * Collected news and coverage at The Guardian * Collected news and coverage at CNN * Tea Party Movement at History News Network at George Mason University * Tea Party Movement at SourceWatch I can make a good faith argument that it is not a reliable source, as I could for any other news source with obvious bias, but I don't think there would be consensus on that point. -- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG ___ 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] Alleged Liberal Bias
On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 3:26 PM, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.comwrote: On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 1:11 PM, Ian Woollard ian.wooll...@gmail.com wrote: On 13/10/2010, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com wrote: I am concerned not so much with the specifics they are pointing out, but at a general trend that we may include more negatives about conservative positions and people than about liberal positions and people, which would be worth some statistical analysis. The problem is that a good encyclopedia, such as the Wikipedia, tries to reflect reality and truth. But reality and truth... have a well known liberal bias. That's the second such reply, and it's a little disappointing. I want the encyclopedia to accurately and fairly represent things I personally disagree with, as well as the ones I agree with. The assumption that some bias is ok because we're right ... is Wrong. It's a fundamental failure of NPOV. Reality has a liberal bias doesn't mean that liberals are right. Rather, it means that any attempt to represent reality will, in the eyes of American conservatives, amount to displaying a liberal bias. ___ 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] Alleged Liberal Bias
Is there anything on this list: http://www.conservapedia.com/Examples_of_Bias_in_Wikipedia which is a legitimate complaint that we can do something about? I was led there by a link from this post: http://www.redstate.com/docquintana/2010/10/11/fighting-liberal-bias-on-wikipedia/ Which complains bitterly. Fred Bauder ___ 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] Alleged Liberal Bias
On 13 October 2010 14:45, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: Is there anything on this list: http://www.conservapedia.com/Examples_of_Bias_in_Wikipedia which is a legitimate complaint that we can do something about? Every word. Then, when we've gone through that list, we can fix our articles on the physical sciences: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Conservapedia:Conservapedian_relativity - d. ___ 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] Alleged Liberal Bias
Seriously, Fred... He cites WIKIPEDIA:NOT#DEMOCRACY and the use of American football instead of just football as examples of liberal bias. Not much substance to this bitter complaint in my humble opinion. Nathan ___ 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] Alleged Liberal Bias
On 13 October 2010 14:45, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: Is there anything on this list: http://www.conservapedia.com/Examples_of_Bias_in_Wikipedia which is a legitimate complaint that we can do something about? Every word. Then, when we've gone through that list, we can fix our articles on the physical sciences: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Conservapedia:Conservapedian_relativity - d. Not fair... But is it clear God made the Earth? Seriously, do our articles Creationism, Creation myth, Ex nihilo and Genesis creation narrative adequately and appropriately deal with the matter? I'm a little skeptical about Ex nihilo, too many big words, well not too many or too big, but a bit obscure. Keep your eye on the ball d., the question is the adequacy and appropriateness of our articles and behavior. What they do is another matter. We do not list Consider the source among our logical fallacies, but perhaps we should. Fred Bauder ___ 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] Alleged Liberal Bias
On 13/10/2010 14:45, Fred Bauder wrote: Is there anything on this list: http://www.conservapedia.com/Examples_of_Bias_in_Wikipedia which is a legitimate complaint that we can do something about? I don't know. One of them (#67) may be about you, but it's kind of hard to tell whether it is, and whether we can edit you to improve matters. #167 is the allegation that we fail to understand what the Tea Party guys are all about. AFAIK we don't claim to understand anything much, just to compile articles from sources. What might be worth doing is to sort these into types of complaint, as a preliminary. The link http://www.redstate.com/docquintana/2010/10/11/fighting-liberal-bias-on-wikipedia/ is of course comical rather than anything to take seriously. Where the Conservapedia criticisms are adjacent to the stuff about soccer loving socialists imposing the view of 95% of the world of the default meaning of football, I think we can scoff, and the writer of that piece has clearly not figured out the traditional uses of encyclopedias either. Charles ___ 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] Alleged Liberal Bias
So we got Conservapedia and some other conservative website accusing Wikipedia of having a liberal bias. What else is new, or what else are we to expect? -MuZemike On 10/13/2010 8:45 AM, Fred Bauder wrote: Is there anything on this list: http://www.conservapedia.com/Examples_of_Bias_in_Wikipedia which is a legitimate complaint that we can do something about? I was led there by a link from this post: http://www.redstate.com/docquintana/2010/10/11/fighting-liberal-bias-on-wikipedia/ Which complains bitterly. Fred Bauder ___ 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
Re: [WikiEN-l] Alleged Liberal Bias
I had no idea that theories about gravity and relativity were the result of a liberal conspiracy, but quite a few of those Examples of liberal bias discuss Wikipedia's failure to promote criticism of both principles. Nathan ___ 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] Alleged Liberal Bias
So we got Conservapedia and some other conservative website accusing Wikipedia of having a liberal bias. What else is new, or what else are we to expect? -MuZemike Well, is there anything at all to it, or is it just bull? Fred ___ 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] Alleged Liberal Bias
Conservapedia isn't even a reliable guide to what most U.S. conservatives think of Wikipedia; despite the broad name, the site is actually run by Young Earth creationists http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Earth_creationism, which is why it's so outlandish. So, put me down for bull. Pardon the apparent self-promotion, but I wrote about this last yearhttp://thewikipedian.net/2009/11/14/examples-of-bias-in-conservapedias-examples-of-bias-in-wikipedia/#commentson my blog (David commented, so that makes it better, maybe) and my chief takeaway was that some complaints were in fact answered over time, although one imagines not due to their influence, as no one there ever bothered to take credit for the changes. What I'd set out to do in the first place was catalogue their complaints, but it was all too much. If they were at all serious, they'd write something more concise. It's just a list of gripes, and not so much with Wikipedia, but with modernity. On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 11:02 AM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.netwrote: So we got Conservapedia and some other conservative website accusing Wikipedia of having a liberal bias. What else is new, or what else are we to expect? -MuZemike Well, is there anything at all to it, or is it just bull? Fred ___ 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
Re: [WikiEN-l] Alleged Liberal Bias
On 13/10/2010 14:45, Fred Bauder wrote: Is there anything on this list: http://www.conservapedia.com/Examples_of_Bias_in_Wikipedia which is a legitimate complaint that we can do something about? I don't know. One of them (#67) may be about you, but it's kind of hard to tell whether it is, and whether we can edit you to improve matters. Charles Yes, 67 is a more or less accurate treatment of my reaction to Michael Moore's shennanigans, but the question is about problems we can do something about. Policies are like spider webs, they catch flies, but hawks fly through. There is little we can do to control the behavior of people who are wildly popular. Nobody can control Glen Beck either. I didn't actually go down the list, so I didn't see that or want to draw attention to it specifically. Fred ___ 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] Alleged Liberal Bias
On 13/10/2010 16:02, Fred Bauder wrote: So we got Conservapedia and some other conservative website accusing Wikipedia of having a liberal bias. What else is new, or what else are we to expect? -MuZemike Well, is there anything at all to it, or is it just bull? Of course they can point out deficiencies in Wikipedia articles. Those exist. The question is whether they can prove the case for either of (a) conscious slanting or (b) systemic bias, away from neutral treatment. We should not care if anyone dislikes a WP article because it is neutral: we should care if a serious deviation from neutrality can be shown. Naturally Conservapedia is selective in its interests, and probably the list is as revealing about its selectivity as about anything else. By putting the focus on a subset of articles it might be possible to demonstrate selective bias in an area in Wikipedia: I don't suppose anyone seriously thinks we have no systemic bias of any kind. Which is why my response was in terms of sorting. It is more perhaps of looking for signal in a load of noise. We know that criticisms of disproportion in coverage, for example, are always with us. I didn't feel much illuminated. Charles ___ 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] Alleged Liberal Bias
On 13 October 2010 15:19, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: On 13 October 2010 14:45, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: Is there anything on this list: http://www.conservapedia.com/Examples_of_Bias_in_Wikipedia which is a legitimate complaint that we can do something about? Every word. Then, when we've gone through that list, we can fix our articles on the physical sciences: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Conservapedia:Conservapedian_relativity Not fair... Entirely fair. They're gibbering lunatics whose every word subtracts from the sum of human knowledge. If Conservapedia says the sky is blue, look out the window. If docquintana on redstate says Conservapedia's opinion on anything whatsoever is good for *anything* other than horrified laughter, then he's approximately as worth listening to. Remember: Conservapedia considers *claiming the existence of black holes* is evidence of liberal bias. http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Talk:Black_holediff=prevoldid=719675 There's a broader point here. Why the big push for black holes by liberals, and big protests against any objection to them? If it turned out empirically that promoting black holes tends to cause people to read the Bible less, would you still push this so much? Certainly there is no practical justification to pushing black holes; no one will ever be helped by them in any way. - d. ___ 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] Alleged Liberal Bias
Even if Conservapedia are raving lunatics (and I agree with David on that), paying careful attention to our critics is a useful exercise. If you're really interested Fred, make a list of smart people and try to pry specific, constructive pieces of criticism out of them. We all know we're not yet meeting our own standards though. There's plenty of work to on the neutrality front without wondering about how fringe groups like Conservapedia view our neutrality. The silent majority of readers already appreciate what we're shooting for with NPOV. /twocents Steven Walling On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 8:29 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: On 13/10/2010 16:02, Fred Bauder wrote: So we got Conservapedia and some other conservative website accusing Wikipedia of having a liberal bias. What else is new, or what else are we to expect? -MuZemike Well, is there anything at all to it, or is it just bull? Of course they can point out deficiencies in Wikipedia articles. Those exist. The question is whether they can prove the case for either of (a) conscious slanting or (b) systemic bias, away from neutral treatment. We should not care if anyone dislikes a WP article because it is neutral: we should care if a serious deviation from neutrality can be shown. Naturally Conservapedia is selective in its interests, and probably the list is as revealing about its selectivity as about anything else. By putting the focus on a subset of articles it might be possible to demonstrate selective bias in an area in Wikipedia: I don't suppose anyone seriously thinks we have no systemic bias of any kind. Which is why my response was in terms of sorting. It is more perhaps of looking for signal in a load of noise. We know that criticisms of disproportion in coverage, for example, are always with us. I didn't feel much illuminated. Charles ___ 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
Re: [WikiEN-l] Alleged Liberal Bias
On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 8:02 AM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: So we got Conservapedia and some other conservative website accusing Wikipedia of having a liberal bias. What else is new, or what else are we to expect? -MuZemike Well, is there anything at all to it, or is it just bull? Fred Responding on some technical points; 10 (relativity/PBR) - no substance 12 (Pioneer Anomaly) - numerically understanding and articulating the various factors and their estimated errors is critical to coherently understanding this phenomena. WP article is decent (in part because an involved scientist is a contributor) - CP seems not to get it. [disclaimer - COI, slightly involved] 14 (engineering - wind turbines) - no substance 16 (relativity contradictions) - no substance 39 (cold fusion) - may have a point here, but we know about this one... 40 (strategic defense initiative) - no substance [disclaimer - COI, but pro-SDI-ish COI] 45 (gun politics in the US) - no substance [disclaimer - pro-gun COI] 76 (wikipedia promoting suicide) - no substance 95 (operation eagle claw / iran hostage / carter election) - editorial choice to put political consequences in main article on hostage crisis, not in the article on the rescue itself; main article has coverage in lede for the issue. 97 (editor liberal bias) - probably true but omits age based statistical trend (younger / more liberal) - WP generally consistent with active internet user community. 107 (edward teller / oppenheimer security clearance testimony) - WP article is consistent with biographies and histories of the event, perhaps more Teller-leaning nuanced than the average historical coverage 119 (elementary proof) - doesn't appear to have been in WP until the mathematics project got going 2007ish, from reviewing its article and the main mathematical proof article. i don't consider this a valid criticism, however; WP's growth and evolution are strength (and future challenge) not flaw. 141 (communism mass killings) - main communism article section Criticisms of communism at the bottom of page has links to Mass killings under communist regimes prominently, so it's there now. 500 edits ago it was mentioned in the criticisms section but not linked directly off the main article. I'm going to stop there, with a general observation - I think they're right on one big picture thing: Wikipedia has an editorial bias - our default neutrality is that of a moderately internationalist, left-of-US-center somewhat more intellectual than average and more young internet user than average position, compared to the US political landscape as a whole. I.e., our userbase (editors) is skewed younger and more liberally, with the Internet early adopters general population statistics. I am concerned not so much with the specifics they are pointing out, but at a general trend that we may include more negatives about conservative positions and people than about liberal positions and people, which would be worth some statistical analysis. Ancedotal examples, especially those cited by someone so far off on the right end of the spectrum as young-earth creationists, aren't particularly useful for identifying the pattern. -- -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
