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Wikipedia Politics

Wikipedia's Not as Biased as You Might Think, Say Harvard Researchers (qz.com) 171

An anonymous reader shares a report on Quartz:In a sea of biased content, Wikipedia is one of the few online outlets that strives for neutrality. After 15 years in operation, it's starting to see results. Researchers at Harvard Business School evaluated almost 4,000 articles in Wikipedia's online database against the same entries in Encyclopedia Brittanica to compare their biases. They focused on English-language articles about US politics, especially controversial topics, that appeared in both outlets in 2012. In its initial years, Wikipedia's crowdsourced articles were tinted very blue, slanting more toward Democratic views and displayed greater bias than Britannica. However, with more revisions and more moderators volunteering on the platform, the bias wore away. In fact, the upper quartile of the Wikipedia's sample had enough revisions that there was no longer any difference in slant and bias from its offline counterpart. More surprisingly, the authors found that the 2.8 million registered volunteer editors who were reviewing the articles also became less biased over time.
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Wikipedia's Not as Biased as You Might Think, Say Harvard Researchers

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  • by LynnwoodRooster ( 966895 ) on Monday November 07, 2016 @10:31AM (#53229529) Journal
    So they've managed to validate that just 1 out of 4 articles is free of bias. And the other 3?
    • So they've managed to validate that just 1 out of 4 articles is free of bias. And the other 3?

      You're right. The article on semigroups, particularly the bit about monoids has a distinctly liberal bias.

  • by TWX ( 665546 ) on Monday November 07, 2016 @10:31AM (#53229541)
    ...the fact that the editorial system still follows the king-of-the-hill model, where those that choose to sit on pet-pages win simply by undoing any other changes simply because they don't like them, will leave the entire thing biased in some fashion or another.

    I will not contribute to Wikipedia anymore. I've had edits that I could provide support for undone by some self-important busybody whose only credentials were the ones they defined when they signed up for an account on Wikipedia. Forget that.
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      This is, in fact, a terrible fact about Wikipedia. It's also the only way to actually achieve neutrality: a very strong bias against new people, since they're usually just there to slant an article towards their preferred point of view.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Experienced editors like former Wikipedia admin Ryulong are among the most guilty of introducing bias and incorrect information into articles. The worst part is that even in the face of these actions, it was ridiculously difficult to have an individual like this removed. The old hands can be just as damaging to an article.

    • by tepples ( 727027 ) <.tepples. .at. .gmail.com.> on Monday November 07, 2016 @10:48AM (#53229699) Homepage Journal

      Did you ask the editor who reverted that change to explain the reversion [wikipedia.org]? If you ask, wait a week [wikipedia.org], and try the edit again, the burden falls on the reverting user to explain why the edit should not stick.

      • by sexconker ( 1179573 ) on Monday November 07, 2016 @12:04PM (#53230327)

        "Not properly sourced."
        But you provided all the links to sources.

        "No original research."
        But it's not my own research. Look at the sources I provided.

        "Not noteworthy."
        What? This is a hugely significant!

        Page has been locked, your IP has been banned from editing.

        Thank you for contributing to Wikipedia. Please click on Jimmy Wales's ugly face to donate.

        • "Not properly sourced." But you provided all the links to sources.

          "No original research." But it's not my own research. Look at the sources I provided.

          "Not noteworthy." What? This is a hugely significant!

          Page has been locked, your IP has been banned from editing.

          Thank you for contributing to Wikipedia. Please click on Jimmy Wales's ugly face to donate.

          Cite? C'mon, should be easy; it's all there in the history of the article and the talk page.

          Of course, you won't respond to this. People who make these sorts of claims never do, strangely enough. I wonder why that would be...

    • by jdavidb ( 449077 )
      Yoghurt. That's all I have to say. It should not have taken years to change yoghurt to yogurt.
  • by QuietLagoon ( 813062 ) on Monday November 07, 2016 @10:35AM (#53229583)

    ... More surprisingly, the authors found that the 2.8 million registered volunteer editors who were reviewing the articles also became less biased over time. ...

    Which shows what happens when people get information from outside their comfortable filter bubble ... they tend to take on less extreme views.

    .

    Which is one of the reasons why some of the more extreme news sites often say something to the effect, ~you don't have to go anywhere else, we tell you all the news you need to know~

    • ...Which shows what happens when people get information from outside their comfortable filter bubble ... they tend to take on less extreme views.

      This explains why they insist on various "free spaces" at colleges, to keep the facts out and their extreme views in.

  • Does it makes it less biased? Should the English Wikipedia be perfectly balanced between US Democrats and Republicans? Why?
    Especially since Republicans are known to be biased against science and facts (creationism, climate denial), it sounds like a good thing.

    • You realize that creationism is a Democratic and Independent "thing" as well.

      Your position is poor. It's like saying that since Democrats (some democrats) believe in homeopathy and gaia that Democrats are anti-science and anti-facts.
      • I don't really care about some democrats and some republicans in the general population. A party can't be accountable for every single supporter. But some high profile republicans, including some elected officials, reject climate science and/or are creationists.

        Are there Democratic elected officials who reject evolution? Like it or not, it's much more a republican thing.

        Concerning homeopathy, do they vote laws against science-based medicine and favoring homeopathy? If not I don't really care if they waste t

        • I don't really care about some democrats and some republicans

          Thats great!

          But some high profile republicans...

          uhhh... did you read what you wrote?

          What a fucking clown you are.

          • I do make a distinction between elected officials (and even candidates for important offices such as Ben Carson) and unknown supporters/voters.
            I don't see this as a contradiction.
            But even if you take the whole republican supporters, they are more likely to deny climate change and evolution than democrats.

            • But even if you take the whole republican supporters, they are more likely to deny climate change and evolution than democrats.

              and democrats are more likely anti-vax, pro-homeopathy, and pro-dehumanization.

              All you are doing is trying to pretend to be open minded while actually being obviously a partisan fuck.

              • Citation needed.
                Trump himself is anti-vax. And he is not only not vaccinating his children (personal choice). He is spreading anti-vax bullshit publicly hoping people will follow him.

                • Trump himself is anti-vax. And he is not only not vaccinating his children (personal choice). He is spreading anti-vax bullshit publicly hoping people will follow him.

                  He learned it by watching Robert Kennedy Junior.

                  Now you are denying that democrats are far more likely to be anti-vax (and anti-fluoride.)

                  You are proving the point about democrat denialism.

                  • No I am not, I was just asking for a reference. I don't live in the US. Maybe it is obvious to you but not to me. Who are the elected/running democrats against vaccination? You'll have to find a lot to match Trump (being the single most important republican).
                    As for Robert Kennedy Jr, according to his own web site he claims to be pro-vaccine: http://www.robertfkennedyjr.co... [robertfkennedyjr.com]

  • Absolute horseshit (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07, 2016 @10:42AM (#53229641)

    Anyone who thinks Wikipedia isn't biased is someone who has never tried to contribute to Wikipedia.

    • by sjbe ( 173966 ) on Monday November 07, 2016 @11:11AM (#53229907)

      Anyone who thinks Wikipedia isn't biased is someone who has never tried to contribute to Wikipedia.

      Wikipedia as an organization and as a website generally isn't biased on most topics. Kind of hard to have a bias about some random regurgitation of a technical fact like a chemical or math equation. Some of the people who contribute to Wikipedia very much are biased because most people carry assorted biases with them. But these biases generally don't seem to lean coherently towards one political persuasion or another across Wikipedia but rather are generally confined to specific hot button topics. The hope is that the various biases of the contributors will mostly balance out and the objective facts will remain. This doesn't always happen but it seems to happen often enough that one can say it usually works and not look stupid saying so.

      What is amusing/depressing is that some people reflexively claim that any facts that don't match their pre-existing world view must be biased.

      • by mi ( 197448 )

        Wikipedia as an organization and as a website generally isn't biased on most topics.

        That's not saying much. In fact, this says so little as to be meaningless — the overwhelming majority of topics are non-controversial at all.

        But, if you look at the history of Margaret Sanger's page [wikipedia.org], for example, the number of times "Reverting" and "Undoing" are mentioned is rather high...

  • by Anonymous Coward

    I get all my information from Conservapedia - totally free of liberal lies and bias.

    Vote Trump!

  • Shouldn't the algorithm that evaluates article bias be written by the swarm of programmers rather by a small and possibly biased group of experts?
  • Voltaire's Opinion (Score:4, Insightful)

    by avandesande ( 143899 ) on Monday November 07, 2016 @11:17AM (#53229949) Journal
    "Perfect is the enemy of good". It's not perfect but it's good enough to be useful.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
  • Everything is biased and political... and the left has more time to devote to the craft.
  • Greenstein and his co-author Feng Zhu categorized each article as "blue" or "red." Drawing from research in political science, they identified terms that are idiosyncratic to each party. For instance, political scientists have identified that Democrats were more likely to use phrases such as "war in Iraq," "civil rights," and "trade deficit," while Republicans used phrases such as "economic growth," "illegal immigration," and "border security."
    ...
    Today, Wikipedia is less overtly blue or red and instead look

  • by Anonymous Coward

    And you will get a taste of the online moderation going on @ Wikipedia.

  • by BrookHarty ( 9119 ) on Monday November 07, 2016 @12:45PM (#53230649) Journal

    Real drama is in the talk pages. Check ones like how dangerous pit bulls and whether its owners vs breeds, gamergate, mens rights, any politician, politics, political view, etc.

    Basically anything with a point of view, will slant to the left, that's because more editors are of leftish ideology, and wikipedia staff are mostly leftist.

    The article itself says it has a slight leaning left, what is "slight" in numbers, 10%, 20%?

    • wouldn't a slant be measured in degrees? like 45 degree angle?

      • When talking about a sloping surface, it's common to talk about a grade, expressed, in percent: a 10% grade, a 20% grade, and so on. This is of course, convertable into a angle measured in degrees or radians.

        • But a grade has no sign, there is no left or right slant.

    • Maybe that's because Gamergaters and MRAs are all completely abhorrent pieces of shit?

  • The bias is not democratic versus republican. Its mostly government and corporation versus the people. Information is censored and biased for the government and corporations on Wikipedia and features mostly propoganda. Information on government crimes and conspiracy is almost always edited out and removed. The articles are pro industry and pro military. Classified information is gone in favor of censored white washed versions. Harvard one of the largest and most secretive military industrial complex facilit

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