Why Wikipedia cannot claim the Earth is not flat(en.wikipedia.org)
en.wikipedia.org
Why Wikipedia cannot claim the Earth is not flat
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Why_Wikipedia_cannot_claim_the_Earth_is_not_flat
143 コメント
> “…some ideas are given so little attention…”
(Long time since I _attempted_ to create an article on Wikipedia, but the form of entries makes it clear) factual assertions must largely be supported by (some metric) of published sources. A fringe topic would by definition would have “so little attention”. So it stands to reason Wikipedia would need a _policy_ of supporting fringe in order to allow page creation.
In other words, fringe is what has few supporting references, but is otherwise noteworthy. With a number of notable exceptions.
(Long time since I _attempted_ to create an article on Wikipedia, but the form of entries makes it clear) factual assertions must largely be supported by (some metric) of published sources. A fringe topic would by definition would have “so little attention”. So it stands to reason Wikipedia would need a _policy_ of supporting fringe in order to allow page creation.
In other words, fringe is what has few supporting references, but is otherwise noteworthy. With a number of notable exceptions.
There are so many Wikipedia articles which have extremely poor cited works, like literally just somebody’s crappy blog.
Yes, like many of humankind's creations, it is not perfect.
That’s fine with me. What I’m taking issue with here is the assertion that “factual assertions must largely be supported by (some metric) of published sources”. In reality, those sources are often extremely low quality, so it’s not really a useful point.
That the ideas are given little attention is the substantial basis in determining that they are fringe.
If an idea is given a lot of attention, it might be mainstream or fringe, depending on how accepted it is. It might be getting a lot of negative attention, or it might just be getting a lot of attention right now. It might be transitioning from fringe to mainstream.
But if it is not getting any attention, or very little, then it is by definition fringe.
If an idea is given a lot of attention, it might be mainstream or fringe, depending on how accepted it is. It might be getting a lot of negative attention, or it might just be getting a lot of attention right now. It might be transitioning from fringe to mainstream.
But if it is not getting any attention, or very little, then it is by definition fringe.
I hate that producing and promoting baseless arguments is near zero effort, but refuting them requires an essay.
Compounding this is the aforementioned conundrum that when you fill out the gaps in "In 1987, $person met _____ in _____" with random but not implausible values you end up with a gazillion wrong assertions and (maybe) a very short list of accidentally correct ones. So even if a troll would like to tell the truth but enjoys peppering discussion threads with many low-effort comments just so someone will interact in whatever which way with them, none of their comments will likely be factually correct. It's like a multiple choice but it's not one out of four, it's one out of a billion answers, almost all of them wrong.
Brandolini's law (or the bullshit asymmetry principle)
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Wikipedia rules are just insufficient to protect against "fringe" beliefs. Wikipedia itself creates several of them per year due to citogenesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_citogenesis_...
Wikipedia's rules do not have it as a goal to protect the world at large from fringe beliefs
Why are fringe beliefs something that need protecting against?
All progress starts out as a fringe belief.
All progress starts out as a fringe belief.
> All progress starts out as a fringe belief.
That is not true at all. The usefulness and value of many new things and discoveries is often immediately obvious. Even when the value is not immediately obvious, being a curiosity is more likely than being a fringe belief.
Fringe beliefs don't have evidence behind them, but progress does.
That is not true at all. The usefulness and value of many new things and discoveries is often immediately obvious. Even when the value is not immediately obvious, being a curiosity is more likely than being a fringe belief.
Fringe beliefs don't have evidence behind them, but progress does.
>> All progress starts out as a fringe belief.
> That is not true at all.
> Fringe beliefs don't have evidence behind them, but progress does.
That depends on your definition of fringe and evidence.
I suspect there may be some association between truth and some non-mainstream, cult idea, or conspiracy theory. e.g. it is widely accepted now that the earth is not flat although at one point more accepted that it was flat. That doesn’t eventually validate all fringe ideas, but acknowledges a possibility that when all fringe ideas are considered as a whole, some of them may be true or partially true or be a step towards truth.
A problem with this is that truth seeking and delusions go hand in hand. Delusions seem as real as anything else, and may be evidential but misconstrued evidence or even unknowingly invented evidence. This affects more mundane things like scientific studies, reporting, politics, and Wikipedia as well as “Are they after me” or “Are they lying” things.
Another problem more relevant today than ever is “Should this information be included in Wikipedia, national monuments, museums, libraries, books, or education in-general?” I’ve had articles in Wikipedia that were valid, that stood for years, and then were eventually removed, though they were valid and true, I assume because they didn’t believe it was important enough or relevant to their users that didn’t care as much as I did about preserving history. Is that the right thing to do? I don’t personally think so, but those in-control historically have and will change beliefs to suit their own. We must get involved to ensure that we are not misled. We should not stand idly by and think “Wow, Hitler really f’d up the education of our youth.” We must get involved to stop it. But that doesn’t mean culling or altering all information which doesn’t meet our worldview.
> That is not true at all.
> Fringe beliefs don't have evidence behind them, but progress does.
That depends on your definition of fringe and evidence.
I suspect there may be some association between truth and some non-mainstream, cult idea, or conspiracy theory. e.g. it is widely accepted now that the earth is not flat although at one point more accepted that it was flat. That doesn’t eventually validate all fringe ideas, but acknowledges a possibility that when all fringe ideas are considered as a whole, some of them may be true or partially true or be a step towards truth.
A problem with this is that truth seeking and delusions go hand in hand. Delusions seem as real as anything else, and may be evidential but misconstrued evidence or even unknowingly invented evidence. This affects more mundane things like scientific studies, reporting, politics, and Wikipedia as well as “Are they after me” or “Are they lying” things.
Another problem more relevant today than ever is “Should this information be included in Wikipedia, national monuments, museums, libraries, books, or education in-general?” I’ve had articles in Wikipedia that were valid, that stood for years, and then were eventually removed, though they were valid and true, I assume because they didn’t believe it was important enough or relevant to their users that didn’t care as much as I did about preserving history. Is that the right thing to do? I don’t personally think so, but those in-control historically have and will change beliefs to suit their own. We must get involved to ensure that we are not misled. We should not stand idly by and think “Wow, Hitler really f’d up the education of our youth.” We must get involved to stop it. But that doesn’t mean culling or altering all information which doesn’t meet our worldview.
Dude, read the article please. It explains why it keeps the flat earth page AND why it’s exhausting to argue with fringe zealots. You are literally soapboxing instead of having a good faith argument, which is mentioned in the article.
> at all
> often
which is it?
> often
which is it?
It is not at all true that all progress starts as a fringe belief.
This is the negation of a categorical statement, not a categorically negative statement. Thus, all it means is that some progress does not start as a fringe belief.
If you're going to bitch at someone for getting their formal logic wrong, you'd best have your formal logic right.
This is the negation of a categorical statement, not a categorically negative statement. Thus, all it means is that some progress does not start as a fringe belief.
If you're going to bitch at someone for getting their formal logic wrong, you'd best have your formal logic right.
> is
> which
I can play that game, too.
> which
I can play that game, too.
Because the world isn't flat, and that theory does not deserve equal weight with the truth in a reference work.
There are an infinite number of falsehoods, and only one truth. If we let the lies in the truth becomes impossible to find in the pile of lies.
There are an infinite number of falsehoods, and only one truth. If we let the lies in the truth becomes impossible to find in the pile of lies.
You must believe in a quasi-Platonic world of only one truth.
There are many truths. Cleveland is two hours away from me. Cleveland is 40 hours away from me. Both of these are true, but there is not enough detail in them to ascertain exactly what they mean. The same can be said of any statement outside of formal, logic-based language constraints.
The point your statement keenly misses, however, is that the truth is nowhere near as obvious as you make it seem. Darwin's theories were preposterous to people who were just as certain of "one truth" as you are.
There are many truths. Cleveland is two hours away from me. Cleveland is 40 hours away from me. Both of these are true, but there is not enough detail in them to ascertain exactly what they mean. The same can be said of any statement outside of formal, logic-based language constraints.
The point your statement keenly misses, however, is that the truth is nowhere near as obvious as you make it seem. Darwin's theories were preposterous to people who were just as certain of "one truth" as you are.
Post-modern relatavism and extreme cynicism are destroying everything that was once good in the world.
Some things are objectively true, and those objective things are exactly what encyclopedias are for. Starting from the presupposition that all statements are equally true is wrong headed in the extreme.
Some people will disagree with even obvious facts like the world not being flat. We don't have to listen to them, and we should not.
Some things are objectively true, and those objective things are exactly what encyclopedias are for. Starting from the presupposition that all statements are equally true is wrong headed in the extreme.
Some people will disagree with even obvious facts like the world not being flat. We don't have to listen to them, and we should not.
The idea that the earth is flat is a fringe belief. No evidence (that hasn't been disproven) exists to suggest that the earth is flat. What progress is being made by giving flat earth ideology equal footing? If any idea—even those with no evidence to support them—are published in authoritative texts as possible truths, then how can anyone trust those texts? If I convince enough people that the center of the earth is filled with spaghetti (of course it is, that's why the moon is made of cheese! To go on the spaghetti!) does that deserve equal footing on Wikipedia? Of course not.
I’d like somewhere where I can read about flat-earth beliefs in a neutral, non-advocacy perspective.
My train of thought goes something like “wow, people actually think the earth is flat? That’s crazy.” > “Is this an internet meme thing or 4chan astroturf thing?” > “I wonder why and how many people actually believe that?”
At no point am I confused or persuadable about the shape of the planet. I’ve looked out an airplane window before. Maybe that’s what feels off about it. There’s an underlying feeling of protecting a gullible public from bad information, a process with a high risk of being corrupted by ideologues.
My train of thought goes something like “wow, people actually think the earth is flat? That’s crazy.” > “Is this an internet meme thing or 4chan astroturf thing?” > “I wonder why and how many people actually believe that?”
At no point am I confused or persuadable about the shape of the planet. I’ve looked out an airplane window before. Maybe that’s what feels off about it. There’s an underlying feeling of protecting a gullible public from bad information, a process with a high risk of being corrupted by ideologues.
That's not what's being argued here. Wikipedia has exactly the information you've described (as it should!). There's no real argument over whether Wikipedia should or should not have information about flat earth ideology.
What's being discussed is whether Wikipedia should call it incorrect or not. Or rather, whether the idea that the earth is round is the truth. You can still provide information about provably false ideas while pointing to another idea grounded in facts as the truth.
What's being discussed is whether Wikipedia should call it incorrect or not. Or rather, whether the idea that the earth is round is the truth. You can still provide information about provably false ideas while pointing to another idea grounded in facts as the truth.
Wikipedia has this. It's already covered in TFA, that Wikipedia can have a page about flat earth believers, but can't say, even on that page, that the earth is actually flat.
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It’s covered in the article. In short, Wikipedia is not that place.
That's tautologically false. For something to be considered "progress" it has to provably improve upon something. But if your belief is provably an improvement, it's not a belief anymore, but more of a fact.
What you actually meant to say is that all progress stems from the research and implementation sparkled by a fringe intuition. But even then, you can have progress without going too far from the current mainstream, so it's not really true anyway
What you actually meant to say is that all progress stems from the research and implementation sparkled by a fringe intuition. But even then, you can have progress without going too far from the current mainstream, so it's not really true anyway
>For something to be considered "progress" it has to provably improve upon something. But if your belief is provably an improvement, it's not a belief anymore, but more of a fact.
This isn't true. For example, the Caloric theory of heat was a huge improvement over the existing heterodoxy (the phlogiston theory), made several testable predictions that were true (improving upon Newton's calculation of the speed of sound), and made it possible for Carnot to make serious advances in the field of thermodynamics with the postulation of the Carnot engine.
However, the theory was not a fact. The self-repellent fluid called "caloric" that the theory was predicated upon never existed. We need a bit more epistemic humility.
This isn't true. For example, the Caloric theory of heat was a huge improvement over the existing heterodoxy (the phlogiston theory), made several testable predictions that were true (improving upon Newton's calculation of the speed of sound), and made it possible for Carnot to make serious advances in the field of thermodynamics with the postulation of the Carnot engine.
However, the theory was not a fact. The self-repellent fluid called "caloric" that the theory was predicated upon never existed. We need a bit more epistemic humility.
Agreed. Fringe beliefs die when they are challenged, not when censored. Driving them underground makes them stronger if anything.
Policing fringe beliefs is dangerous. A free society must tolerate & even welcome such beliefs into the public sphere, not because they are good, but because the freedom to be wrong is the foundation of our ability to be right.
Policing fringe beliefs is dangerous. A free society must tolerate & even welcome such beliefs into the public sphere, not because they are good, but because the freedom to be wrong is the foundation of our ability to be right.
These discussions are used to suck the oxygen out of the room. There is no purposed served to have the same discussion over and over and over. No progress is made repeating the same discussion. But the people willing to argue for reality are slowly warn down, with the goal being to get them to remove themselves from the discourse. The goal is not honest discussion (of a discussion already had thousands of times). The goal is a state of apathy with regards to the truth, not a seeking of truth.
Sometimes they’re right. Lab leak people dismissed by experts for example.
I guess there’s a spectrum of fringe ideas. Some are ridiculous, true. Trolls. But they have no power of policy - flat earthers for example are harmless.
The more dangerous threat are people with consensus based on political power who appeal to authority, like bad science by “experts”, to silence criticism or challenges.
I guess there’s a spectrum of fringe ideas. Some are ridiculous, true. Trolls. But they have no power of policy - flat earthers for example are harmless.
The more dangerous threat are people with consensus based on political power who appeal to authority, like bad science by “experts”, to silence criticism or challenges.
But when a fringe belief has already been categorically, 100%, without the slightest doubt, been proven to be false, but a bunch of people keep claiming it's true anyway, the best thing to do is just to stop giving them a platform.
They are not advancing science. They are not "challenging our orthodoxy". They are not doing anything positive for the world.
We may never be able to convince them that they're wrong, but that doesn't mean we need to make it sound like anyone else thinks they might, with even a tiny probability, be right.
They are not advancing science. They are not "challenging our orthodoxy". They are not doing anything positive for the world.
We may never be able to convince them that they're wrong, but that doesn't mean we need to make it sound like anyone else thinks they might, with even a tiny probability, be right.
I guess it depends on the topic. Flat Earthers - yeah I’d agree. Until someone comes up with compelling evidence. But those people have no real power - no ability to set policy based on their belief. Just cranks and harmless.
But it’s not fair to cherry pick such an obvious straw man. There’s a million current examples that are much better. Covid origins which were summarily and aggressively rejected as unorthodox for example. A ton of climate science, etc. No one is an authority on truth. Requires consensus over painfully long times.
But it’s not fair to cherry pick such an obvious straw man. There’s a million current examples that are much better. Covid origins which were summarily and aggressively rejected as unorthodox for example. A ton of climate science, etc. No one is an authority on truth. Requires consensus over painfully long times.
The encyclopedia is not the place for debate.
Because a false appearance of consensus is better?
Why even have Wikipedia then? Why not just ask Reddit at that point?
Why even have Wikipedia then? Why not just ask Reddit at that point?
There's no such thing as consensus when you're talking about the scope of the encyclopedia. People will say that birds don't exist, that the sun is not a star because it's a space ship circling the globe with a big flashlight, and that Area 51 is a place where the government is hiding the mole people that we've enslaved to dig tunnels for the rich to evacuate into when WW3 happens. There will never be 100% consensus on anything—even on the most verifiable and proven universal truths—and so by saying there's "false consensus" is meaningless. If the bar is 100% agreement by everyone who cares to speak up, the encyclopedia can't say that anything is true. And if that's the case, what's the point of an encyclopedia?
At the end of the day the encyclopedia was always written through the consensus of experts.
Early encyclopedias solved this problem by hiring experts. Wikipedia doesn't hire them, it just cites them.
It has only been recently that our cynical postmodern internet hordes have decided experts are somehow only equally worthy of trust as the high-school dropout uncles of facebook and the brain-worm infested politicians on the news.
Early encyclopedias solved this problem by hiring experts. Wikipedia doesn't hire them, it just cites them.
It has only been recently that our cynical postmodern internet hordes have decided experts are somehow only equally worthy of trust as the high-school dropout uncles of facebook and the brain-worm infested politicians on the news.
Being an expert, while nice and valuable, isn’t a claim to be a final arbiter. Authority is earned provisionally by surviving criticism.
Citing experts is good practice, but invoking them to silence dissent is anti-scientific.
Citing experts is good practice, but invoking them to silence dissent is anti-scientific.
> Citing experts is good practice, but invoking them to silence dissent is anti-scientific.
That's not really what we're discussing here. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. The encyclopedia should report things that are widely regarded to be factual as facts. They should not give equal time to every looney tune with a pet theory.
Noteworthy dissent about complex subjects doesn't come from the unqualified, it comes from other qualified people with differing ideas.
That's not really what we're discussing here. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. The encyclopedia should report things that are widely regarded to be factual as facts. They should not give equal time to every looney tune with a pet theory.
Noteworthy dissent about complex subjects doesn't come from the unqualified, it comes from other qualified people with differing ideas.
The vast majority of fringe beliefs are regressive.
wikipedia's function as a general (as in not specialized) tertiary source isn't to filter out ideas or beliefs but to catalog and present them in a standardized(ish) format.
The rules are not "insufficient" in this regard in the same way that a flute is not an "insufficient" guitar; they aren't designed to "protect against" any topic that would otherwise qualify for a wiki article.
The rules are not "insufficient" in this regard in the same way that a flute is not an "insufficient" guitar; they aren't designed to "protect against" any topic that would otherwise qualify for a wiki article.
There's nothing unique to Wikipedia there though, that kind of thing has always happened. Anyone with a printing press is tempted to control the narrative. History is written by the victors, as it were.
Wikipedia rules are provably sufficient to produce the greatest and most useful reference work in human history. That's good enough for me.
Wikipedia rules are provably sufficient to produce the greatest and most useful reference work in human history. That's good enough for me.
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Why should wikipedia protect itself from fringe, when it doesn't need to try to? If your fringe theory becomes the widely accepted one, it will naturally change the wording of the article, just based on sourcing alone.
Probably because ignorance has shown itself to be tenacious, dedicated, persistent. (I think I repeat myself though.)
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These kinds of articles induce a feeling of deep hopelessness. Frankly, I can't understand how people managed to remain relatively sane for so long, given the circumstances. Being an abusive, smug, deceiving human being that tries to win arguments with rhetoric, maneuvering and logical fallacies is easy and looks good to others - look, they're crushing the other side! Taking it down requires dozens of paragraphs of instruction, and a single misstep is an almost instant loss, you have to have surgical precision. Worst of all, being right in those scenarios is extremely boring, and by the time you dismantle one of these claims, everyone's already looking the other way, towards the 17 new talking points that have spawned while you were methodically discussing the first one.
Why didn't their side win sooner? Perhaps 'being right' in the scientific sense has just been too beneficial for humans so far. But if that weakens, I fully expect humanity to go back to zealotry, superstition and undiscerning hatred, perhaps forever.
Why didn't their side win sooner? Perhaps 'being right' in the scientific sense has just been too beneficial for humans so far. But if that weakens, I fully expect humanity to go back to zealotry, superstition and undiscerning hatred, perhaps forever.
In the past these sycophants ran into hard limits of reality. Now that we are almost post scarcity on many things. It's easy for people to lose connection to science backed reality . In the past this would result in death or starvation or extreme suffering (simple things like saving food for winter pre industrial refrigeration). Now these people have EVERYTHING provided for them and an entire society that will bend over backward to make sure they have water roads etc..
It's quite literally spoiled children growing into spoiled adults. Raised to blthink whatever their current thoughts are the entire world and reality. See the rise of " affirmations" in new age woo stuff.
It's quite literally spoiled children growing into spoiled adults. Raised to blthink whatever their current thoughts are the entire world and reality. See the rise of " affirmations" in new age woo stuff.
I don't get it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth
This text explicitly and implicitly states that the Earth is not flat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth
This text explicitly and implicitly states that the Earth is not flat.
The first paragraph of the linked essay is as follows:
> It is unlikely that you will ever happen upon an editor who will argue that Wikipedia cannot claim that the Earth is not flat. But you may indeed encounter some...
From this, it is obvious that the essay is about people who claim Wikipedia can't claim the Earth is not flat, and how to respond to them.
> It is unlikely that you will ever happen upon an editor who will argue that Wikipedia cannot claim that the Earth is not flat. But you may indeed encounter some...
From this, it is obvious that the essay is about people who claim Wikipedia can't claim the Earth is not flat, and how to respond to them.
It’s an essay with a title that is tongue-in-cheek. It’s throwing shade at flat earthers.
Rather ask if Wikipedia can claim that human activity is causing climate change:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_climate_change
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_climate_change
None of these rules allow distinguishing "flat earth" nonsense from stuff that is just controversial. The real reason that Wikipedia can claim the Earth is not flat is that it's bloody obvious and only idiots think otherwise. I suppose they don't want to say that.
Maybe there's some truth to this article, but it doesn't address the history of people creating libelous content elsewhere, and then citing it on Wikipedia as truth. All you need to do to game Wikipedia is to create a few external stories, and then cross-cite them.
https://slate.com/technology/2019/03/wikipedia-citogenesis-c...
https://www.reddit.com/r/wikipedia/comments/1c1uazj/why_did_...
https://slate.com/technology/2019/03/wikipedia-citogenesis-c...
https://www.reddit.com/r/wikipedia/comments/1c1uazj/why_did_...
It's not surprising that the article doesn't address something off-topic to the article itself.
Maybe it's a matter of time and process?, bear with me:
An encyclopedia is slow. It has to be slow. It's good (beneficial) that it's slow.
And yes, it means that it is self-correcting, slowly
Thing is, if it was fast to self-correct -> it would generate more errors and it would leave the door opened to more errors.
An encyclopedia is slow. It has to be slow. It's good (beneficial) that it's slow.
And yes, it means that it is self-correcting, slowly
Thing is, if it was fast to self-correct -> it would generate more errors and it would leave the door opened to more errors.
Now apply to each topic at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_topics_characterized_a...
Very interesting to see "Technical Analysis" in this list. I'm no expert in the field, and TA always seemed like quackery to me, but I suspect many more people believe in it than for example Cryptozoology. I personally know someone who even took a course in TA, couldn't imagine anyone taking a course in looking for Bigfoot.
Technical Analysis is a bit of a mixed bag. Some parts are fairly mainstream like saying there's a bull market in tech stocks is essentially part of it. On the other hand a lot of it is like tea leaf reading.
Could it be that the course instructor was just grifting suckers?
I thought it was interesting how long Wikipedia took to rename "2023 Israel-Hamas war" to "Gaza war" and start calling it a genocide, but I suppose this is why. When major sources have a significant bias, Wikipedia copies that bias as a matter of policy.
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In response to the reply accusing this comment of bias: When people said this two years ago, they were accused of bias. But now, in the present, with the benefit of hindsight and more information, it's a mainstream fact, and Wikipedia does report on it. We also know that major news organizations were aware of this at the time and chose not to report it. After round earth theory becomes mainstream, it's not bias to talk about why it took so long for round earth theory to be recognized.
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In response to the reply accusing this comment of bias: When people said this two years ago, they were accused of bias. But now, in the present, with the benefit of hindsight and more information, it's a mainstream fact, and Wikipedia does report on it. We also know that major news organizations were aware of this at the time and chose not to report it. After round earth theory becomes mainstream, it's not bias to talk about why it took so long for round earth theory to be recognized.
I believe what Wikipedia tries to do (simplifying here) is reporting the "opinion" of reputable sources which should have an informed view on the matter. If reputable sources believe it's a genocide, then they will report it, if not they will not.
Calling these sources biased because they do not corroborate your view of the situation is your subjective opinion and doesn't mean they actually do have a bias. The whole point of considering them reputable sources is that they should be as unbiased as possible (even though 100% neutrality is impossible), if they had "significant bias" as you claim they would not be considered as reliable sources to begin with.
Actually there's a Wikipedia guideline (WP:BIASED) along the lines of "bias doesn't necessarily make a source unreliable", which in practice is taken to mean that bias doesn't matter.
Of course in practice, editors have their own biases and decisions come down popularity contests. Wikipedia's own biases seem to get worse over time, as more neutral editors give up, so we end up with some weird things like
- Almost all conservative news sources having low reliability ratings.
- Daily Mail for example is deprecated, the lowest possible rating outside of literal spam.
- Al Jazeera, which seems largely controlled by the Qatari monarchy, has the highest reliability rating and is the most-used source in Israel-Palestine. Even their blog is the top source on many articles, despite news blogs being against policy.
- Al-Manar, the Hezbollah mouthpiece which is very unashamedly biased (e.g. refering to their terrorists as "men of god"), has a somewhat low reliability rating, but still higher than several conservative sources like Daily Mail.
(See the list here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Per...)
Of course in practice, editors have their own biases and decisions come down popularity contests. Wikipedia's own biases seem to get worse over time, as more neutral editors give up, so we end up with some weird things like
- Almost all conservative news sources having low reliability ratings.
- Daily Mail for example is deprecated, the lowest possible rating outside of literal spam.
- Al Jazeera, which seems largely controlled by the Qatari monarchy, has the highest reliability rating and is the most-used source in Israel-Palestine. Even their blog is the top source on many articles, despite news blogs being against policy.
- Al-Manar, the Hezbollah mouthpiece which is very unashamedly biased (e.g. refering to their terrorists as "men of god"), has a somewhat low reliability rating, but still higher than several conservative sources like Daily Mail.
(See the list here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Per...)
There's also a tricky situation where some political factions consistently report closer to reality than others. This makes it hard to be both reality-focused* and politically neutral at the same time.
* It's not this page, but there's a separate Wikipedia policy which says that editors should only insert content which is true.
* It's not this page, but there's a separate Wikipedia policy which says that editors should only insert content which is true.
Circular reasoning that is completely ignorant of the last 2 years of analysis of media reporting on Gaza.
The evidence of media bias is extensive and extremely blatant: it spans framing ("[horrible event, war crimes, etc.] happened, according to Hamas" vs no such qualification for Israeli claims, "20 people killed in Gaza" without mentioning who or what killed them), dehumanisation ("2 people killed" when reporting on children deaths in Gaza vs "2 teenagers in hospital" when talking about IDF soldiers), selective reporting (remember the pogroms in Amsterdam that got debunked on social media while every chief of state was sending their condolences?), constant repeat of Israeli "right to self-defence" while Palestinian context is not mentioned, etc., etc., etc.
One of many, many, many reports/investigations on this: https://cfmm.org.uk/cfmm-report-media-bias-gaza-2023-24/
If you need something more visual/real-time, Newscord has been been reporting on this consistently: https://newscord.org/editorials
The media might be largely a reputable source, when it doesn't contradict the preferred narrative, and the Gaza genocide was probably the strongest example we could have had of this.
I'm not sure why I even wrote this out, because 2 years in calling it "subjective opinion" is obviously not a position that is based on facts or reason.
The evidence of media bias is extensive and extremely blatant: it spans framing ("[horrible event, war crimes, etc.] happened, according to Hamas" vs no such qualification for Israeli claims, "20 people killed in Gaza" without mentioning who or what killed them), dehumanisation ("2 people killed" when reporting on children deaths in Gaza vs "2 teenagers in hospital" when talking about IDF soldiers), selective reporting (remember the pogroms in Amsterdam that got debunked on social media while every chief of state was sending their condolences?), constant repeat of Israeli "right to self-defence" while Palestinian context is not mentioned, etc., etc., etc.
One of many, many, many reports/investigations on this: https://cfmm.org.uk/cfmm-report-media-bias-gaza-2023-24/
If you need something more visual/real-time, Newscord has been been reporting on this consistently: https://newscord.org/editorials
The media might be largely a reputable source, when it doesn't contradict the preferred narrative, and the Gaza genocide was probably the strongest example we could have had of this.
I'm not sure why I even wrote this out, because 2 years in calling it "subjective opinion" is obviously not a position that is based on facts or reason.
The discussions that led to the renaming to Genocide were interesting, the opposition was very well coordinated hostile actors but in the end there was just nothing they could do, the facts just weren't on their side. They wrote books worth of text, used every procedural trick they could, violated every rule like editing comments of other users in talk pages or spamming so much text it would break the backend, they organized to coordinate editing of thousands of Wikipedia pages to push pro-zionist messages. In the end it was so much that wikipedia topic-banned 8 super-editors over that. Many more users were banned, many were perma banned from wikipedia entirely.
It was an incredible display of the resiliency of wikipedia when faced with a hostile attack by a state-actor putting hundreds of millions $ into spreading their propaganda. Most Governments, universities and news media are much less capable than that. It was such a failure that they now are pushing the us government itself to gain direct control over wikipedia and to cut the funding from the researchers and universities that produced the facts in the first place, going to the "root of the problem" basically.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ClueBot_III/Master_Detail...
https://www.piratewires.com/p/wikipedia-supreme-court-enforc...
https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/isr...
It was an incredible display of the resiliency of wikipedia when faced with a hostile attack by a state-actor putting hundreds of millions $ into spreading their propaganda. Most Governments, universities and news media are much less capable than that. It was such a failure that they now are pushing the us government itself to gain direct control over wikipedia and to cut the funding from the researchers and universities that produced the facts in the first place, going to the "root of the problem" basically.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ClueBot_III/Master_Detail...
https://www.piratewires.com/p/wikipedia-supreme-court-enforc...
https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/isr...
> the opposition was very well coordinated hostile actors
Where are you getting this idea? While you can find examples of coordination on both sides, the most significant instance of coordinated editing and recruiting for agenda-based editing was by Tech for Palestine.
> In the end it was so much that wikipedia topic-banned 8 super-editors over that
If you're referring to PIA5, wasn't BilledMammal the only pro-Israel editor banned as a result? Quite a few were banned the pro-Palestinian side, like Iskandar323 (who seemed to lead Tech for Palestine's coordinated editing), Levivich, Nableezy, and several others.
> They wrote books worth of text
By far the worst WP:BLUDGEONING was actually from editors in favor of a "Gaza genocide" title. BilledMammal actually ran the numbers on it.
> the facts just weren't on their side
Actually the closing decision was largely based on !votes, and the admin seemed to just blatantly miscount them. By the actual !vote count it was almost exactly 50/50, a very clear no-consensus result, but sometimes closers make strange decisions.
It was only a matter of time though - Wikipedia is a numbers game and anti-Israeli editors are just far more numerous nowadays.
Where are you getting this idea? While you can find examples of coordination on both sides, the most significant instance of coordinated editing and recruiting for agenda-based editing was by Tech for Palestine.
> In the end it was so much that wikipedia topic-banned 8 super-editors over that
If you're referring to PIA5, wasn't BilledMammal the only pro-Israel editor banned as a result? Quite a few were banned the pro-Palestinian side, like Iskandar323 (who seemed to lead Tech for Palestine's coordinated editing), Levivich, Nableezy, and several others.
> They wrote books worth of text
By far the worst WP:BLUDGEONING was actually from editors in favor of a "Gaza genocide" title. BilledMammal actually ran the numbers on it.
> the facts just weren't on their side
Actually the closing decision was largely based on !votes, and the admin seemed to just blatantly miscount them. By the actual !vote count it was almost exactly 50/50, a very clear no-consensus result, but sometimes closers make strange decisions.
It was only a matter of time though - Wikipedia is a numbers game and anti-Israeli editors are just far more numerous nowadays.
Well obvious response, you were defeated thankfully. I think it's ultimately a lost cause because most people will side with humanity once the scale and magnitude of the atrocities committed became impossible to ignore. Even if you manage to wrestle control of Wikipedia by force of the US government and defund every university department that publishes things you don't like, you still won't win because the truth is not on your side, you will use ever more repression and force naturally, but that will by itself turn even more people against you. There is a resiliency to Palestinians that is very inspiring to a lot of people. Free Palestine!
Humanity has little to do with it; Wikipedia is anti-Israel because there are approximately zero Israelis (especially with the requisite English skills, patience and political correctness) against heaps of editors with anti-Israeli agendas.
lkrubner(4)
This is not a "bias". There is precise legal definition for "genocide", and it was recognized as such. Israel goverment offials were very specific on record, what they will do to population in Gaza.
They also do not allow civilians to evacuate or to surrender!!! All exits from Gaza are blocked by Israel or their allies!
They also do not allow civilians to evacuate or to surrender!!! All exits from Gaza are blocked by Israel or their allies!
Which does not matter, because for Wikipedia, Journalists are a reputable source regardless of their bias. If the WaPo writes tomorrow that Hannah Arendt was a far-right extremist, that would be a valid source by Wikipedia standards.
Wikipedia is not meant to appear neutral, it's meant to "mirror the current consensus of mainstream scholarship [... aka] 'accepted knowledge'". Basically, if the accepted knowledge of an event is that it is not a genocide, Wikipedia has to reflect _that_. Wikipedia is not a soapbox. It doesn't have an stance. It just copies and transmit as accurately as possible, the current understanding from qualified sources. You can literally see it in the "balance" section of this article.
The creator of Wikipedia disagrees with you.
https://larrysanger.org/2025/08/on-the-cybersecurity-subcomm...
https://larrysanger.org/2025/08/on-the-cybersecurity-subcomm...
spwa4(4)
0cVlTeIATBs(1)
lol but they are quick to take Chinese propaganda
Instead of reading this stupid page that does not proof anything, you better listen to what it really isn't and how it can be salvaged [0]
[0] Wikipedia Co-Creator Reveals All: CIA Infiltration, Banning Conservatives, & How to Fix the Internet https://youtu.be/vyfKyrSAVFg?t=3730
[0] Wikipedia Co-Creator Reveals All: CIA Infiltration, Banning Conservatives, & How to Fix the Internet https://youtu.be/vyfKyrSAVFg?t=3730
This is ridiculous. A "debate guide" on how to argue with people who hold views that diverge from mainstream opinion is just pointless. What do you think this will accomplish?
Every single scientific/engineering /humanities field contains people who disagree with the mainstream of that field. E.g. every advocate for purely functional programming diverges from the mainstream on the best practices for software engineering. Of course that doesn't mean equating this to "theories" about the earth being flat. My point is the exact opposite.
There always is a gradient between a debate in some field, to a totally bizarre nonsense theory. Deciding on a border between which of these views to platform and which of them to disregard is always arbitrary and has to be decided on a case by case basis. Especially arguing based on some idea of relative numerical superiority is just ridiculous and will make an encyclopedia look ridiculous.
Every single scientific/engineering /humanities field contains people who disagree with the mainstream of that field. E.g. every advocate for purely functional programming diverges from the mainstream on the best practices for software engineering. Of course that doesn't mean equating this to "theories" about the earth being flat. My point is the exact opposite.
There always is a gradient between a debate in some field, to a totally bizarre nonsense theory. Deciding on a border between which of these views to platform and which of them to disregard is always arbitrary and has to be decided on a case by case basis. Especially arguing based on some idea of relative numerical superiority is just ridiculous and will make an encyclopedia look ridiculous.
1. Aptly named HN user
2. “I didn’t read the article award” recipient
2. “I didn’t read the article award” recipient
I did read the article, what makes you say I didn't?
…Huh? What are you proposing?
That a binary distinction between "fringe" and "consensus" is nonsense and that trying to have a "debate manual" to argue with people holding "fringe views" is just ridiculous.
What policy would you recommend for something like Wikipedia? Obviously, you can’t let people post whatever they want.
My recommendation is that this is treated on a case by case basis, rather than any determination whether a belief is "fringe", and that if any position is platformed, it is platformed together with how it is viewed by those who advocate for it and against it. In the case of flat earth it should be made clear that it is not a legitimate view, that nobody with any legitimacy or authority believes in it. I also gave the example of purely functional software development, which is also a fringe view. There it should be made clear that it is a legitimate view on software development, even if the majority of academia and industry disagrees with it.
I also recommend to not have debate manuals on how to debate people who try to push nonsense into Wikipedia.
I also recommend to not have debate manuals on how to debate people who try to push nonsense into Wikipedia.
This is why wikipedia is no longer a useful tool, among other reasons.
I like how the article adds weight to mainstream vs fringe. But it occurs to me that some ideas are given so little attention that there is no substantial basis of what is fringe and what is mainstream.