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Author Topic:   Wikipedia's Co-founder slams its lack of neutrality
Belage
Knowflake

Posts: 4018
From: USA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted March 06, 2021 01:37 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Belage     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
“The days of Wikipedia’s robust commitment to neutrality are long gone,” Mr. Sanger told Fox News in a new interview.

“Wikipedia’s ideological and religious bias is real and troubling, particularly in a resource that continues to be treated by many as an unbiased reference work.”

Mr. Sanger, 52, co-founded the site with Jimmy Wales in January 2001. He said Wikipedia’s turn away from neutrality is “disheartening.”

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/feb/21/co-founder-says-wikipedias-neutrality-long-gone-ci/

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LuckyLeo
Knowflake

Posts: 139
From:
Registered: Dec 2011

posted March 06, 2021 03:17 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for LuckyLeo     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
NEVER trust Wikipedia

I want to share a story, I think you will appreciate it Belage. I have someone in my life who is high up in a company. The company was having a problem with their Wikipedia page. It had incorrect information so they corrected it but was quickly changed back to the false information. When they noticed that it had been changed back, they corrected it again. And it was immediately changed back again. This repeated many times and they went on like this for a while- they would correct it, and it would be immediately changed back to the false information. They finally gave up. They discovered that some type of activist group was paying someone to monitor the page and change it back every time they corrected it.

Please note I am talking about outright false and incorrect information that a company was unable to correct or have removed from Wikipedia. This was actually incorrect information, not someone’s opinion or anything subjective.

Please don’t quote this, I plan to delete it, but it is important for people to realize that Wikipedia is NOT reliable information and there are activists who monitor the pages and alter information.

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Belage
Knowflake

Posts: 4018
From: USA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted March 06, 2021 03:58 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Belage     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
^^^ Yep. Sorry to hear that.

For many years, I donated to wikipedia every time they reached out to me for their fundraising drives because I appreciated the information they provided, even though they were not considered a reliable scholarly reference. Within wikipedia, there used to be a code of honor among the contributors where if something was not up to community standards, they will actually say so and the various contributors moderated each other. There was a time I even toyed with the idea of joining their contributing team.

But for the past 2 years, I have been so dismayed at what I have seen that I outright stopped donating. The outright lies, hit pieces and manipulations. They have just become another one sided propaganda medium pushing certain ideas and politics.

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LuckyLeo
Knowflake

Posts: 139
From:
Registered: Dec 2011

posted March 06, 2021 05:06 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for LuckyLeo     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I know what you mean. I always used to want to donate to them because I was grateful for the free information. I never did and then I would feel guilty using their site without donating. Now I’m glad I never did!

I use it very sparingly now and I always take it with a grain of salt.

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Randall
Webmaster

Posts: 139168
From: Your Friendly Neighborhood Juris Doctorate.
Registered: Apr 2009

posted March 06, 2021 08:28 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Randall     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I once used Wikipedia as a source in law school (just for a definition), and I was lambasted by the professor.

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Voix_de_la_Mer
Knowflake

Posts: 3769
From: Sound
Registered: Aug 2011

posted March 07, 2021 05:00 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Voix_de_la_Mer     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Yeah, Wikipedia is frowned upon by academics.

------------------
Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant
- Robert Louis Stevenson

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Eternal Energy
Knowflake

Posts: 397
From:
Registered: May 2020

posted March 07, 2021 12:03 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Eternal Energy     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
S(he) could have, first of all, explain to you that Wikipedia serves only as a starting point in your first and general understanding of a subject and if you want to do it, you can but its role ends there. Yes, most of the academic community doesn't want and doesn't allow students to cite Wikipedia, because we know that Wikipedia itself states that it is not a source for academic writing to rely on, due to constant edits that cannot be controlled. Of course it is not my field, you are the knowledgeable and the expert here, but I do know that some courts have cited Wikipedia either by including the date and time they accessed the information or not, though my reasoning says that most of them probably did not include the abovementioned. I guess a permanent link to an entry cited could serve as a kind of solution here, but again I do not know how much it would work in your field.

Nonetheless, I am really sorry that you were lambasted, it is not nice at all. Let me tell you something if you don't mind, so that the incident doesn't have any sad effect on you and you can use it only as a reference. I really think that s(he) knew what a great student you are and having a Wikipedia citation in your paper was not something s(he) expected to see from you. It happens very often with teachers who have great students and who consider them to be equal. I'm sure this is what happened in your case.

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Randall
Webmaster

Posts: 139168
From: Your Friendly Neighborhood Juris Doctorate.
Registered: Apr 2009

posted March 07, 2021 05:11 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Randall     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I thought it was a great definition.

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Eternal Energy
Knowflake

Posts: 397
From:
Registered: May 2020

posted March 08, 2021 06:32 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Eternal Energy     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
It was. I truly believe it was. Put on a happy face...It doesn't matter anymore...

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