Richard Dawkins, Jimmy Wales - Unlike Facebook, No One Gets Special Treatment on Wikipedia (washingtonpost.com) 212
"In a world of inequality, we are well accustomed to rich, powerful, connected people getting preferential treatment..." argues an opinion piece in the Washington Post.
"The notable exception is Wikipedia." There, VIPs have been shouting "Do you have any idea who you are dealing with?!" for years, only to be told either, not really, or, don't care, and then instructed...to take their objections to a Talk page where the community can weigh in...
One reason the project is different from other digital platforms for VIPs is the absence of a mechanism for "escalating the case to leadership," as one internal Facebook memo, recently published by the Wall Street Journal, euphemistically described the process of Facebook's giving special treatment... The closest approximation to a Wikipedia power player would be Jimmy Wales, the chairman emeritus of the foundation that supports Wikipedias in more than 250 languages and the face of the project for its 20 years of existence. But Wales is not actually in control of anything. When he gets personally involved in helping a petitioner, a crowd of editors track his movements to ensure that he not hold special influence. This tradition began way back in Wikipedia's history, when Wales insisted that the birth date on his own article, and his birth certificate, was wrong. The editors did not take his word for it...
With no bigwig to enlist, people who object to what appears on their article page try to navigate Wikipedia on their own, an often-treacherous experience. In the early days of Wikipedia, the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins edited the article about him to correct an error. He confirmed in an email to an editor, Alienus, that "yes, the person who purported to be me is indeed me! But thank you very much for checking. I am bowled over by how good Wikipedia generally is." That same editor followed up, however, by questioning a change Dawkins had made to his article to reduce the number of journals he edits from four to two and to remove any mention of one, Episteme Journal. "Do you have any citations to support this change?" Dawkins was flabbergasted: "It is unreasonable to ask for a positive citation to demonstrate that I did NOT found a journal called Episteme. I am telling you that I never founded a journal called Episteme. I didn't even know that a journal called Episteme existed." Turned out an editor had made an error; the sentence was removed permanently.
The article — by Wikipedia editor Noam Cohen — opens with the story of John C. Eastman, a lawyer advising president Trump, and his argument with Wikipedia editors over his biography (an argument still archived on the biography's "Talk" page).
Eastman complains that their supporting references — which included the New York Times — were biased against him, and yet rather than allowing him to delete them "I had to ask permission from some unknown twentysomething."
"The notable exception is Wikipedia." There, VIPs have been shouting "Do you have any idea who you are dealing with?!" for years, only to be told either, not really, or, don't care, and then instructed...to take their objections to a Talk page where the community can weigh in...
One reason the project is different from other digital platforms for VIPs is the absence of a mechanism for "escalating the case to leadership," as one internal Facebook memo, recently published by the Wall Street Journal, euphemistically described the process of Facebook's giving special treatment... The closest approximation to a Wikipedia power player would be Jimmy Wales, the chairman emeritus of the foundation that supports Wikipedias in more than 250 languages and the face of the project for its 20 years of existence. But Wales is not actually in control of anything. When he gets personally involved in helping a petitioner, a crowd of editors track his movements to ensure that he not hold special influence. This tradition began way back in Wikipedia's history, when Wales insisted that the birth date on his own article, and his birth certificate, was wrong. The editors did not take his word for it...
With no bigwig to enlist, people who object to what appears on their article page try to navigate Wikipedia on their own, an often-treacherous experience. In the early days of Wikipedia, the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins edited the article about him to correct an error. He confirmed in an email to an editor, Alienus, that "yes, the person who purported to be me is indeed me! But thank you very much for checking. I am bowled over by how good Wikipedia generally is." That same editor followed up, however, by questioning a change Dawkins had made to his article to reduce the number of journals he edits from four to two and to remove any mention of one, Episteme Journal. "Do you have any citations to support this change?" Dawkins was flabbergasted: "It is unreasonable to ask for a positive citation to demonstrate that I did NOT found a journal called Episteme. I am telling you that I never founded a journal called Episteme. I didn't even know that a journal called Episteme existed." Turned out an editor had made an error; the sentence was removed permanently.
The article — by Wikipedia editor Noam Cohen — opens with the story of John C. Eastman, a lawyer advising president Trump, and his argument with Wikipedia editors over his biography (an argument still archived on the biography's "Talk" page).
Eastman complains that their supporting references — which included the New York Times — were biased against him, and yet rather than allowing him to delete them "I had to ask permission from some unknown twentysomething."
How horrible (Score:5, Insightful)
Eastman complains that their supporting references — which included the New York Times — were biased against him, and yet rather than allowing him to delete them "I had to ask permission from some unknown twentysomething."
Yes, how horrible the press report on his attempt to overthrow the U.S. election [cnn.com] and foment a coup. How dare the press do its job.
Re:How horrible (Score:5, Insightful)
Eastman is the epitome of the Republican Party, which is the Trump Party, which has fully rejected democracy. They are seditionists full stop. They have taken advantage of and benefited from media deference for so long they have spent years taking it as given. It is no surprise that he is outraged that he cannot edit his online Wikipedia footprint to suit himself.
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They are seditionists full stop.
Sorry, you lost all credibility right there. Your "full stop" should have ended in the prior sentence after Republican Party.
And to be clear, I'm not giving Eastman a pass on this at all, but your comment is BS.
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They are seditionists full stop.
Sorry, you lost all credibility right there. Your "full stop" should have ended in the prior sentence after Republican Party.
And to be clear, I'm not giving Eastman a pass on this at all, but your comment is BS.
Your argument is that the party that consistently rejects the legitimacy of any election they do not win is not an anti-democratic/seditious party. And this is not just about 2020 either -- it goes back to the 2000 election if not further.
In 2020, the only thing that stopped them from proceeding to overturn the election was that Mike Pence was advised not to go along with Eastmaan's plan. By Dan Quayle. Dan. Quayle.
But go ahead with your delusions if that makes you feel better.
Re:How horrible (Score:5, Insightful)
That is the most complete line of motivated reasoning I've seen in a long time. Your pre-conclusion is, "Republican party is bad and you shouldn't vote for them."
At this point, yes, they are. As a lifelong Republican, I'm no longer voting for any of them.
Re:How horrible (Score:5, Insightful)
That's fine, but you still shouldn't use motivated reasoning.
Thanks for making me learn something new. Despite that, let's go with horrific overspending despite claiming to be "fiscally responsible", embracing of corruption, embracing of outright lies (not falsehoods or misspeaks), embracing of fascist policies [imgur.com], voter suppression, oppression of women, working against the people, subversion and ignoring of the Constitution, and general hypocrisy on a multitude of subjects. The fascist part covers other things I would have said so it's the catch-all.
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Calm down bro, the Republicans aren't even in power right now.
That depends on whether you count Manchin and Sinema as what they are, or what they claim to be.
help us 6uild, 6ack, 6etter by getting a CDL.
Increasing trucking is so fucking stupid. What we need is to restore our nation's abandoned rail systems, not add more freeway lanes (which is what we'd need to do in order to keep up with current demand.)
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Interesting, after reading your comment, I found https://fred.stlouisfed.org/se... [stlouisfed.org]. I hadn't realized that there was such a drop off through the great recession, and we'd never recovered from that. It was further reduced ~2015-16, and again when COVID hit.
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Yes, the ongoing destruction of our nation's rail system through a broad variety of means including abandonment and even direct legal attacks is frankly inexplicable if you consider it from the standpoint of sustainability. We built all this rail and then just let most of it rot at a time when its use would have substantially improved efficiency.
Re:How horrible (Score:5, Informative)
I can't believe he tried to claim the election was illegitimate. As we all know, only people with a (D) next to their name can be allowed to do that for four years.
No high-profile (or even medium-profile) Democrats ever claimed Trump was elected fraudulently.
You saw two things - Democratic voters claiming "not my president" (in other words "he does not represent my values") and Democratic voters complaining that the American electoral system overall is injust - That someone like Trump can get three-MILLION fewer votes than his Democratic opponent, and still be President.
Contrast that with the Republican party, where many, many, many high-profile Republicans are lying and claiming the election of Biden was fraudulent, despite zero evidence of this. Democrats never did this.
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I'm not sure how this is motivated *reasoning*; it's just an opinion, surely.
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You are hung up on your apparently newly discovered "motivated reasoning" phrase which you hope will show a bias.
The reasoning is "The VALUES that underlie the CURRENT Republican Party .. reject democracy".
That is not a bias, that is objectively measurable by the policies supported and enacted by the CURRENT Republican Party which reflect those values.
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That is not a bias, that is objectively measurable by the policies supported and enacted by the CURRENT Republican Party which reflect those values.
Perhaps it is true, but the line of reasoning given here to support it was motivated reasoning.
Re: How horrible (Score:5, Insightful)
Every Republican who still can't admit trump lost a fair election is attacking democracy, or at minimum willfully aiding such an attack.
Fair Election (Score:2)
It is both hilarious and sadly disappointing that so many think any election in at least the last 10 years was "fair".
When there are more lies (including lies of omission and partial-truths) than truths in all election materials, in statements from candidates, in statements from the political parties, in articles from press reporting; then the election is not fair.
When the majority of voters don't know who or what they are voting for as evidenced by voters not being able to accurately articulate the major k
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Oh, I don't think it was fair. I think that it was biased against Democrats in a variety of ways which are frankly irrelevant here because enough people turned out that the Ds won anyway — in large part because of improvements to voter access which are now under attack or in some cases already rescinded.
Most of the damage to education has been done by conservatives, so the problems with the uneducated populace can be laid at their feet for the most part.
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That's a different issue then the actual mechanics of counting the votes (and access to the polls to vote).
Re: How horrible (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: How horrible (Score:5, Informative)
It does if you're not paying attention. The Republicans actually have a coup attempt to be involved with, the Democrats don't.
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If you don't know, then stop supporting the fucking coup.
Re: How horrible (Score:5, Insightful)
And how is that an answer to a question about how many Democrats still believe that Hillary was robbed?
That's one hell of a false equivalency.
The Democrats who believe that Hillary was robbed aren't claiming that the election was rigged, only that voters were influenced by a foreign power. Given that the Mueller report and the Senate investigation demonstrated conclusively that Russia was indeed working hard to influence the election in Trump's favor, they maybe have a point. IMO, Comey's October surprise was probably a bigger factor, and the biggest factor of all was the fact that Hillary was a weak candidate. But while they probably are overestimating the impact of Russia's meddling, they aren't claiming that the voters didn't decide the election.
Republicans supporting Trump's claims of a rigged election, on the other hand, are telling voters that the system doesn't count their votes correctly, that the process itself is broken -- and they're doing this against all evidence. While Hillary supporters overestimate the impact of Russian trolls, the trolls were at least real.
The most important point, though, is that the Hillary supporters' complaints don't undermine democracy, but the Trump supporters' complaints do. While foreign influences should be kept out to the degree possible, attempts to influence an election by swaying voter opinions are not only fine, they're the whole point. The assumption that votes are counted correctly (enough; there will always be errors) and that voters are smart (enough) to weigh the influences and arrive at a conclusion that reflects their beliefs and interests. On the other hand, telling voters that their votes don't actually count and that their government is therefore completely out of their control is how you destroy democracy and create political violence.
Even if the two groups' complaints were equally ridiculous (they aren't), the Democrats' complaints are somewhere between benign and beneficial, while the Republicans' complaints are somewhere between bad and dangerous.
Note that it's not bad to focus attention on election propriety. That's a good thing, and we need more of it. We need election standards that ensure voter-verifiable paper trails and automatic risk-limiting audits for future elections. What's bad and dangerous is insisting that past election results are fraudulent, even after they've been audited and validated, because that means the audit and validation processes are also fraudulent, which implies that there is no hope that future elections can be trusted either. The only logical conclusion is that the people must use non-democratic means to control their government, which basically means violence.
Bottom line: Hillary supporters whining that she was robbed are not fomenting violent revolt. Trump supporters whining that he was robbed are. The difference is entirely in how the two groups claim the respective thefts were accomplished: undue influence vs outright corruption.
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And is the same thing true of every Democrat who won't or can't accept that Hillary lost fair and square?
Name me three prominent Democrats who can't accept Hillary's loss, and please cite your evidence.
Re: How horrible (Score:5, Insightful)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
At around 7:00, she said "Last night I congratulated Donald Trump..."
That's a pretty clear concession.
Re: How horrible (Score:5, Insightful)
From up here in Canada, all I remember is bitching about the election process that saw her collect the most votes and lose. She did concede pretty quick.
Same with the 2000 election, bitching about the process and how the courts got involved, with Gore conceding pretty quick after the courts decision.
Bitching about the process while accepting that under the rules she lost fair and square is a lot different then claiming fraud no matter the evidence and refusing to concede.
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Actually, I'm more center-right. I'm not so much pro-Trump, as anti-Hillary and I find it hypocritical of people to bash Trump for claiming foul while ignoring what Hillary did four years earlier.
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Why is it that everybody replying to my comment thinks that bringing up how the Republicans behaved after the recent election is a proper response to my pointing out that many Democrats wouldn't or couldn't accept that Hillary lost the election fair and square?
Name one.
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This "bad candidate" got 3 million more votes than her opponent.
This "bad candidate" was backing policies that were and are favored by most Americans, including improved health care access, action on climate change, progressive tax policy and a long list of other issues.
This "bad candidate" was endorsed by newspapers that had not endorsed a candidate from her party for over a hundred years.
This "bad candidate" was universally acknowledged to be the most qualified person in modern history to run for th
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I'm gonna start my comment by saying I voted for Clinton so I give the wrong idea to the minimum number of slashdotters (many of whom will willfully misunderstand anything I say regardless.)
Clinton may have been the best candidate the DNC could field (she wasn't, but let's just say she was for the sake of argument for a moment here) but that doesn't make her a good candidate. She was the status quo candidate, and the status quo was better than Trump, but it was not good. What we needed was massive change, f
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Perhaps the "basket of deplorables" comment might have had something to do with the failure of the "most qualified person in modern history to run for the office". That struck me as the epitome of snobbish elitism. Oops!
Re: How horrible (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I really don't. In theory of course but in this particular case, given the commentary and evidence, nope.
You argued in an earlier comment that a poster shouldn't use 'willful reasoning' but you appear to be doing exactly that. Can you demonstrate any evidence that the election was unfair, not talking points, actual evidence. Do you think any of the ranking republican's who claim the election was stolen can demonstrate any evidence ? And by evidence I mean legal evidence, not some commentary on a blog.
The only logical conclusion by the continued unsubstantiated claims is not to arrive at truth and justice for American voters, it's to over turn the votes of some American voters for personal gain. There is no more fundamental attack one can make on a democracy than the the vote of each and every citizen.
Re: How horrible (Score:5, Informative)
Let's dispense with all that and discuss election integrity.
Every single time the fairness of the last election was inspected, the results came out not only the same, but more strongly the same. Even that last "Cyber Ninja" audit wound up not just confirming but overconfirming the result, which suggests skullduggery favoring the opposite result. IOW, the Republicans accusing others of election impropriety were just up to their usual tactic of accusing others of what they are doing as a means of discrediting them when they attempt to uncover that improper action.
Time and again we see that Republicans are up to overwhelmingly more dirty tricks than Democrats. Even His Trumpness famously pointed out that without playing tricks on voters, they'd never win another election. But what's relevant to this particular argument is that a massive and more importantly influential segment of Republicans including apparently almost every Republican member of Congress is still supporting the fiction that the election was stolen from DJT even though time and again the Republican-appointed auditors have proven otherwise.
Frankly, I didn't state my case as specifically as I might have liked to; I could frankly barely give two shits (three tops) about the opinion of the ever-shrinking demographic of red voters. What matters is the political action of the members of congress who are continuing to deliberately perpetrate the fraud of the stolen election for their own cynical political purposes. They are more poisonous to what democracy we enjoy than any other influence. Their only goal is to Win The Election For Their Side, and the country can go to hell for all they care if they can't rule it.
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I could frankly barely give two shits (three tops) about the opinion of the ever-shrinking demographic of red voters.
Virginia called, they want their red state back.
Re: How horrible (Score:5, Insightful)
No. 147 Republicans in congress voted for an action that was based on the motivated reasoning that the election was illegitimate. Some of them had assumed their seats from the exact same elections they were calling fraudulent.
With no evidence. After more than 160 court actions brought to bear not one presented any evidence whatsoever that a court could find acceptable. There was, is, and never will be any substance to the allegations that voter fraud was the basis of Joe Biden's win. This fact gets ignored every time someone does a video of someone who thinks Biden wasn't elected legitimately.
It has been revealed that many Republicans know this -- privately. In public they feel they have to support Trump's narrative or else the mob will turn on them next primary if not before.
To repeat. There is no good faith or supportable argument in support of Biden winning the election by fraud. People doing so anyway are supporting the insurrectionists.
Re: False equivalence (Score:5, Informative)
Did Clinton concede? Yes.
Did Abrams concede? Yes.
Did Schiff try to stop Congress from certifying the transfer of power January 2017? No.
Was Hunter Biden running for public office? No.
Did Trump concede? No.
Did Trump push Pence to avoid certifying the results of the 2020 election? Yes.
Did Trump lead a rally denying the results of the 2020 election that led to an attempted coup at the Capital? Yes.
Did some Republican members of Congress lead people on a "tour" of the Capital in the days prior to Jan 6 despite public tours being cancelled due to Covid? Yes.
Were some of those people participate in the insurrection of Jan 6? Yes.
Have elected Republicans denied the seriousness of the attempted coup of Jan 6, calling the rioters "merely tourists" and nonviolent? Yes, constantly.
Your false equivalency is unbecoming of someone who still purports to believe in the principles of the American republic.
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Correct.
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Interesting angle, but I'm hoping the discussion gets into the deeper aspects of "unified truth" and "abuse of reputation". I'm kind of skeptical of Wikipedia's premise that "best" articles can be written and offended by scammers (especially spammers) who exploit Wikipedia's reputation to push their scams. (So has anyone heard of any cases of scammers going the last mile and editing the articles to fit the scams?)
But on your vague Subject of "horrible", I'm taking it to be horrible people, so I reply with a
Re:How horrible (Score:5, Informative)
Andrew Clyde claims they were just friendly tourists. Want to see a picture of Andrew Clyde greeting those tourists?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E1... [twimg.com]
He seems pretty scared in that picture. In fact he screamed in terror at the friendly tourists who came knocking that day.
https://www.independent.co.uk/... [independent.co.uk]
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Re: (Score:2)
Re: How horrible (Score:2)
understandable (Score:5, Informative)
If I were a scumbag like John Eastman, I'd also be very upset that my Wikipedia entry is accurate.
What a load of bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
There's plenty of examples on Wikipedia of left leaning positive bias, and right leaning negative bias.
Hell, there was even a relatively mainstream media report about it maybe a year ago.
I'm too old, drunk and frosty to back up my claims with references; but I'm sure someone can find them with minimal effort.
Or mod me minus into oblivion to be suppress the truth.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't see the article claiming there isn't bias - just that VIPs don't have anyone to appeal to, to get the consensus overturned.
So, you may be right... but it's irrelevant.
Re: What a load of bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
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Mostly right, but the "poorly educated tend to be conservative" thing is just wrong. How education levels interact with the left/right spectrum thing can have drastic changes depending on the situation.
In the early 19th century the UK was the standard-bearer against the extreme-leftist Jacobins, and then the center-leftist Napoleon. The Luddites were de facto supporting the French because more English troops were engaged suppressing Luddites than in defeating the French. If you have to take their distinctly
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If by "the Nords" you mean the Nordic countries, you are missing the mark by a mile by claiming they adhere to Neoliberal Capitalism. Rather the contrary, strong interventions and control in the market is a foundation for their prosperity. If anything, they fight against the concept of Neoliberalism in practical political choices.
Thus, I can conclude Bernie is right to hate being called that.
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If that was actually true it would be trivial for you to prove any of the assertions wrong.
Seriously man, the fact that the Bush did better in the College-educated vote than either of his opponents is a verifiable fact. OP could be making an argument based on Graduate degree-holders, but the their argument seemed to be that more education inevitably led to less Conservatism. Which is just verifiably untrue.
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That depends rather heavily on your definition of Neoliberal, doesn't it? Which means it is helpful to define terms.
I define it as multiple sets of inter-related policies that appeared on the scene roughly the time the Soviet Empire fell. They all strongly support free trade, which means all forms of neoliberalism are pro-immigration. They tend to be pro-marketish, use a lot of cost-benefit analysis, support Democracy, insist on balanced budgets, tax consumption (ie: workers buying stuff) rather than produc
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Many of those policies here in Canada were introduced by the right, they pushed free trade, GST and immigration and talked about the balanced budget. That party basically got wiped out federally but we're stuck with many of the policies.
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When you say "left" and "right", are defining those terms with respect to the average USA person, or with respect to the average person from a rich country?
And if it's the former, why would you believe that Wikipedia would focus on a US point of view?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Reality has a left leaning bias.
Re: What a load of bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, this seems to be true, but we're talking about America, which has largely killed off its conservative movement and replaced it with an anti-democratic cult of personality, under the name "Republican Party". I'm an ex-Republican, but still a conservative (which is why I'm an ex-Republican).
Re: What a load of bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
Reagan era republicans would be called leftists by the current day party. Texas and Florida are great examples of their hypocrisy. Schools want to mandate masks? Nope, DeSantis passes a special law telling schools exactly what to do. Businesses want to require masks for employees? Certainly not in Texas. Now all of a sudden Texas is telling businesses exactly what they can and cannot do.
Actual conservatives would say if you don't like the policies of your employer then you're free to find a new one. The my body my choice argument is completely null because it only applies to vaccines. Oh you'd like an abortion? Well suddenly it's no longer your body or your choice.
You can't tell me what substances to I can put into my body!
Alright I'd like to smoke some pot.
Oh that's completely unacceptable. Here have a drink instead.
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The problem isn't making sense of their lack of logic. The problem is they think their lack of logic makes sense. It bloody well does not, but they want you to respect their ludicrous opinions as if it did, and then get all whiny when you explain that you don't respect nonsense.
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Traditional conservative thought models are far more likely to be fact based.
"Traditional conservative thought models"...such as religion, for example? That's not really fact-based.
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A "traditional conservative" would be kicked out of the current GOP for being a pinko commie.
Re: What a load of bullshit (Score:2)
If you take the position that most ideas are wrong, and that most of current reality is based on ideas people have had, most of what we believe already is wrong. The only cure is more ideas, even if most of those are also wrong.
Re: What a load of bullshit (Score:2)
And yet without those wrong ideas, science would not have progressed at all during that time.
It's pretty fuckin' obvious (Score:3, Interesting)
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Put up or shut up.
Provide evidence or your claim will be dismissed. I'm not doing your work.
Re:The study of bias re Wikipedia (Score:4, Interesting)
Looks like an interesting article, pity it isn't accessible.
If they're using "the average American political belief" as an indication of center, rather than factual accuracy or "the average worldwide political belief", than ... some caution should be used in interpreting their results.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: The study of bias re Wikipedia (Score:3)
Not necessarily. Seems like a narrow usage of the extremism. Reasonable of course is a bit open to interpret but one can easily argue that climate-oriented extremists are basing their position of facts but often considered unreasonable. These types generally argue against eating meat or sacrificing the economy to reduce the impact of carbon. The fact is likely extremism is based mostly in basing position purely on some facts. it's a matter of weighing facts and etc.
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If the paper is talking about bias surrounding topics or people specifically part of the USA, then yes, "average American political belief" is entirely reasonable.
I, for one, am quite happy that airmchair pedants on Slashdot don't get to peer-review journal publications. We'd have idiots screeching about "are you _sure_ that physics experiment was compared to zero energy? We don't know if the universe is at a global minimum energy configuration!" on science papers and nothing would *ever* get published or
Re: The study of bias re Wikipedia (Score:2)
John Eastman (Score:3)
"I had to ask permission from some unknown twentysomething."
I don't know who John Eastman is, but already I don't like him.
I could probably like him, if he stopped acting like he was better than other people.
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If you spend enough time in a Zen temple (or zen center, to be politically correct), then you will see people lose their ego from time to time.
Wikipedia is kingdom of 1000 petty tyrants (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wikipedia is kingdom of 1000 petty tyrants (Score:5, Insightful)
You need to be on several spectrums to be a long term Wikipedia editor.
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I once cleaned up a defacement on a Wikipedia article, only to have that reverted. Apparently the sexual habits of a certain person are very relevant to information about Greek column styles.
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Wah wikipedia called me on my bullshit, wah!
More likely they were full of shit themselves and wouldn't listen to reason.
Re:Wikipedia is kingdom of 1000 petty tyrants (Score:4, Insightful)
As an occasional Wikipedia contributor, my corroborating citations from reliable sources [wikipedia.org] outweigh your expertise because they can be verified [wikipedia.org].
You are confusing what verified means. Your cited sources can be confirmed to exist, but to verify them you lack subject matter expertise. Lacking subject matter expertise you would consider an unqualified journalist misrepresenting a scientific paper as equally "verified" source as the paper itself. More so, as non-expert yourself, you are more likely to cite a news article reporting on something then the paper itself.
Wikipedia is a hear-say site (Score:2, Redundant)
It is in their policy that external references must be given. They do not care if such external references are deceptive, biased, libel, etc., so as to put off lawsuits against Wikipedia and to place any potential lawsuits by others against the external resource.
I personally know of a few articles that persist with inaccurate information, even misleading information while the editors of such articles rule over them. Some editors are even paid by third parties and skilled in subtly biasing articles they rule
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Larry Sanger did a blog post on the bad bias of Wikipedia. Just look at Trump and compare it to Obama's page. Obama was the first president to spend every day in office in armed conflict, plus Fast and Furious (which is just as bad or worse than Iranian-Contras) and criticism doesn't appear until half way down the page. Compare it to the Trump page, where his peace treaties and fights against the TPP (something liberals were universally against prior to Tump) appear way down the page.
That's because Trump's peace is indistinguishable from Obama's war except that it's characterized by more violence and less openness — which is amazing because Obama ran the most opaque presidency in history until Trump. But one thing that Obama did open up was information on how many drone strikes were occurring, and so we know that until Trump rescinded that rule (because black man bad) he was approving more drone strikes than Obama was.
Patently false. Wikipedia has VIPs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Patently false. Wikipedia has VIPs (Score:4, Insightful)
If there's "tons" of them, then they're not VIPs.
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If there's "tons" of them, then they're not VIPs.
wat
I don't see anything about scarcity in there.
Wikipedia editors are officials with special privileges. Whether they're a "high" official or not is I suppose debatable, but since there are few levels of officialdom at Wikipedia I propose that the question is moot.
Knol (Score:2)
Anyone remembers Knol? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Mob Rules (Score:2, Insightful)
Given the absolute state of Wikipedia, I don't think that Wales has much of a leg to stand on. Democracy only works when people have good character, and Wikipedia editors, especially the ones who engage in extensive never ending edit wars, are not people with good character. A fair number, I wager are shills.
I was engaged in an edit war in which I cited a dozen or so major health organizations on what the definition of something was, and a bunch of people kept deleting it and inventing a definition that was
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I'm one of those subject matter experts, in a couple of areas that are kind of esoteric (i.e. only a few jobs like mine, even in a 10,000 person corporation). I just read over the Wikipedia articles on them and have no additional comments; they did OK.
Then again, they aren't the sort of topics I can imagine edit-wars on, either.
Most topics fall into that category (it's hard to imagine an edit-war over the properties of Yttrium).
While your experience was bad, the thing is, TFA is all about Wikipedia managi
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I don't think your post is insightful: it amounts to "people are crap".
Sure. But declarations of nihilism aren't particularly useful. No one is claiming it's perfect. Can we reasonably do better though, are we doing better and is it on the whole a net benefit.
I think the answers agree perhaps, no and yes in that order. It's not a useful or interesting discussion to simply cut everything down. Building is more fun. So do you thing we as a species can actually do better and if so how? It's clear that a crazy
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Suggestions of "don't do X" aren't useful. Is it possible to construct a system which cram do better?
It can, but only if it involves the requirement "don't do X", where X is defined as enablement of bad behavior.
Wikipedia is amazingly great, but it could be greater if only they would self-police at least as much as they police everyone else.
Wikipedia was better ... (Score:3)
Wiki facepalm, but sometimes too far opposite (Score:3)
It must feel pretty good (Score:2)
To respond to "Do you have any idea who you are dealing with?!" with something like "a dude that still didn't paid the bill"
Citations (Score:3)
He tried to fix it. They asked for citations. A birth certificate is apparently not a citation. But a report in a German newspaper, which copied the incorrect list of first names and printed it, _that_ was a citation.
No one gets special treatment? (Score:2)
Then why do we have an editors cabal who favor counter-factuals?
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Just look up how often conservative ideas are locked out and leftist edits (even false ones) are allowed to stand.
I've never met anymore more oppressed than a modern day "conservative".
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