Pages where I can spot inconsistencies are often controversial, with long dense discussion pages, edits here are almost impossible beyond trivial details. I dont mind fixing trivia, but not if the actual improvement I think I can make is rejected.
There is a bit of a deletionist crusade to keep some topics small, for example, Ive had interesting trivia about a cameras development process simply deleted. Maybe it is truly for the better, but it is not really that easy to add to the meat of the project, without someone else's approval.
Third, the begging banners really feel a bit gross; I know the size of the endowment, and how long it would be able to sustain the project (forever essentially)... It really feels like the foundation is using the Wikipedia brand to funnel money to irrelevant pet causes. This really puts me off contributing.
Interesting. Do you have an example? I'll go look!
There must be some admin-level expectations of how things should be done but the editor flow gives you zero warning or indication. This was a while back so maybe they changed the flow
But any time you try to write them down, people will come along and interpret them to their own advantage, sometimes outright in the opposite direction. That's a people problem, to some extent, not purely a Wikipedia problem.
(BRD is my favorite pet-peeve)
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BOLD,_revert,_discus...>
> But any time you try to write them down, people will come along and interpret them to their own advantage, sometimes outright in the opposite direction.
I think this a feature/bug of a (litigious) society that works on the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40655989
https://x.com/arjie/status/1847046183342297498?s=46
If you share with me what your change is I might be able to get it done.
Example:
Most of the important articles were in the first 100,000.
I used to like Wikipedia but I'm changing my mind. One thing amongst many others was seeing some company that competed with the startup I worked in basically introduce marketing material into the site. It just feels like it's too big and there are too many interests that want to distort things. I was surprised to see some article recently removed effectively rewriting history and directing to some alternative version. I just checked again and it's been restored but it just seems like the wild west.
I'd need some serious convincing to restore my trust in it. There are still some good technical/science articles I guess. It kind of sucks that instead of getting more reliable information on the Internet we're trending towards not being to trust anything. It's not clear how we fix this since reliability can not be equal to popularity.
In fairness, this does mean the system is working.
Not sure.
There was some attempts at change review (called "pending changes") that is used on very continous articles, but it never really scaled that well. I think its more popular on german wikipedia.
Wikipedia is so dominant that it has kind of smoothered all alternative models. Personally i feel like its kind of like democracy: the worst system except for all the other systems. All things are transient though, i'm sure eventually someone will come up with something superior that will take over, just like wikipedia took over from encyclopedia briticana.
It may also hearten you to know, that small, consistent actions like yours, make these collective systems run.
Perhaps we should trust it more because it is fluid and that fluidity is documented (see the history and talk tabs for any given article). Historically, reputable sources depended upon, to a very large degree, the authority of the author. The reader typically had little to no insight into what was generally agreed upon and where there was some debate. How the Wikipedia exposes that may be imperfect, but it is better than nothing.
This has nothing to do with the information itself, it has to do with human emotions and resistance to change.
We do this in software all the time.
In software if there's a critical bug sometimes we accelerate a fix. We can have a process like that for "wrong information". But you'd think most articles about established topics should not see a lot of churn. Yes- Sometimes they find a new fossil that calls some preexisting science into question, but these are relatively rare events and we can deal with that e.g. by putting a note on the relevant topic while the new article gets worked on.
Even if it ends up supporting causes I agree with, why would I need the Wikimedia Foundation as an intermediary? I could just give money directly to the causes!
So on that basis, I agree. Please edit. It's easy. Start small.
That said, I've watched entire articles vanish under the banner of non-notability, which were clearly notable if one bothered to find some citations. The deletionists have a process and a timeline, while the contributions come slowly and sporadically. This asymmetry is a cancer. If there's a treadmill belt pushing articles off the site which fail to run fast enough, then it's impossible for small articles, which are just learning to crawl, to survive long enough to survive. It's not a test of notability, it's a test of Wiki-savvy among an article's supporters.
The best way to make a new article actually stick around, is to basically build the whole thing elsewhere, which takes weeks or months of effort for a single person since it's not collaborative, then plonk it into Wikipedia fully formed, and maybe, just maybe, it might have enough citations to pass the test of notability. But this means that, from the outset, it represents a single author's viewpoint.
Deletionists eviscerate what makes Wikipedia interesting, and they're the main reason I haven't edited more.
How about I look at some of those cases? Especially if it's relatively recent, I can take a look. Leave me a message here, or at my email address (see my HN info) , or on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Kim_Bruning
I'm not very active anymore, but I'll check in the next couple of days and see what I can do. Really to be able to help I generally need links to revisions, but if you have a username, a page, and a reasonably short time frame (a concrete date) I might be able to figure out the relevant revisions from there.
To onlookers: When I investigate cases like this, there's often a "catch." Sometimes contributors really did break Wikipedia policies — and just don’t mention that part when telling their side of the story.
Now I'm certainly not saying every case is like that, so I will look, and if you don't get what the issue was, I'll try to explain. In some cases if it was recent and it somehow wasn't fair, I might even be able to'fix' it within the bounds of Wikipedia policy.
Please note that, although there are scores of anecdotes in this thread, precisely none of them link to any examples or give enough details to find them. It’s always like this with Wikipedia detractors; I don’t know why, but it is. Complaints and horror stories galore, but nobody will link to any of it, preventing anybody from investigating what actually happened.
Raising the issues externally comes off as petty, because the “evidence” consists of 50+ pages of inane bickering on talk pages, community post , etc with no clear narrative or verdict. It’s a unique community that leans heavily on hyper-bureaucratic and bespoke debates.
I could share > 5 severe cases that required weeks of effort to “resolve” . It would require nearly as much effort for anyone to draw conclusions from.
There are some index pages of some of the more notable conflicts & debates. If you can indicate that digging that up would be worth my time to help you understand more, I may be willing to help you out.
I'm still going to ask though! We might get lucky. Want to help out?
In the past, when I've tried to keep receipts on this sort of thing (which requires an extraordinary amount of effort, and is often only possible if you've anticipated that there would be a need to do so - since content is often deleted or archived without warning, and nobody ever enters an argument on the Internet with the expectation of talking about that specific argument years later) and actually presented evidence, I've been accused being "creepy" or various other forms of misconduct, and the argument is still not taken any more seriously. I've given up on presenting evidence of this sort of thing because the people who ask for it are not being intellectually honest, in my extensive experience. They don't care if you can actually prove what you're saying; they will ignore you anyway.
And even if, as you say, all the evidence has been completely deleted, an honest critique would at least point out the exact article in question, and summarize the details of the attempted changes.
But all the criticism in this thread (and elsewhere) always lack this. It is a mystery.
Are you familiar with what Larry Sanger himself had to say about the bias that has emerged in Wikipedia (https://unherd.com/newsroom/wikipedia-co-founder-i-no-longer...)?
e: another comment elsewhere on this post brought up another source: https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/reliable-sources-how-wik... . I've read a bit of it and can generally endorse what's being said there. In particular, some specific usernames are cited and I recognize most of them, which in itself is telling. Other comments here suggested that Sanger's personal views are less than scientific, to say the least. I have not looked into this personally, but I don't think this in any way negates the argument about bias. (Nor is any political camp immune to pseudoscience.)
I occasionally contribute to various topics, and in many cases experienced editors silently fixed formatting errors I made, allowing me to focus on contributing to Wikipedia without having to keep up with the best practices.
I also participated in a deletion discussion once, and - despite being inexperienced and in the minority position (keep) - the experienced editors considered my arguments and responded to them.
Some of my edits to technical articles were well received.
You’re right it’s good to highlight the good and bad, but given the amount of goodwill that was burned , the bad did outweigh the good for me.
If it's about anonymity / not wanting to publicly link your HN and Wikipedia profiles, well fine, but the fact that there are two films about a person does not say much.
People can make films about themselves, too.
And, it probably wasn't administrators, unless you specifically looked. You do sometimes have to be a bit insistent, you're quite right. If someone reverts you, it's often not personal. Ask on the talk page why they reverted, and if no one says anything for 24 hours (definitely wait this long), just try your edit (or a better one!) again.
I wrote an essay on this once that still gets used a lot on wiki (misquoted even more often). The original version of the essay had a few more tricks up its sleeve -but- if you do it this way you're not likely to get in trouble at least. And otherwise now you know someone you can ask for help.
Not really. They continued to grumble about being "stuck" with the data on the talk page because they couldn't find any source to refute it, and the last edit one of them made about it was "Since I can't find any source to refute this (everyone seems to use it without question), let's at least sort the data correctly".
>And, it probably wasn't administrators, unless you specifically looked.
I did look! One of them is still an administrator and the other one is currently a "former administrator". I think I remember the other one being an admin back then too, but I could be misremembering.
Last time I tried to do that, I flagged a citation that went to a book saying the opposite of what wikipedia was citing it in support of as "failed verification".
This attracted the attention of an editor, who showed up to revert my flag, explaining that as long as the book exists, that's good enough.
Wikipedia could improve noticeably by just preventing the existing editors from making edits.
My edit was reverted, twice, because apparently there is no such thing as a notable source for lines from a 1980s British TV episode, not even a fan website that has a transcript for all of them. Gave up after that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Cite_episode
It can be seen in use for instance on the Beavis and Butt-head article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beavis_and_Butt-Head where the citation looks like this:
"Werewolves of Highland". Beavis and Butt-Head. Season 8. Episode 1. October 27, 2011. MTV.
Ironically an excerpt of the script/transcript would be allowed by UK copyright - but a site with only excerpts would probably but be a good source for Wikipedia's purposes.
Recently I edited a page or two, then tried to edit more, but everything is so complex now. All the special markup and stuff to consider is really off-putting. Took me forever to figure out how to properly fix the year of death of a person and some other data I just ignored because it was too much red tape. Wish it was more simple plain text. Makes quick drive-by edits too much work.
For citations you an usually delete the old stuff and then click 'Templates' to insert a new one. For "cite web" you can just enter the url and click the magnifying glass symbol and it automatically fills the rest.
As a casual, very infrequent editor, I echo everyone else's complaints that it's intimidating to have your additions reverted by the old guard who seem to have an increasingly particular vision of the site.
Basically, it's become "perfect is the enemy of good."
"If your solution consists of 'everyone should just X', you don't have a solution"
But none of the comments point out the actual article that they wanted to edit.
Ironically, presumably to remain anonymous. Anonymity and pseudonymity are directly attacked in the letter this article is about.
Wikipedia sure isn't perfect, but so far, when commenters attack it with fundamental vitriol, I've always found these people to have a political agenda.
/s
Wise that you omit adding other credible sources that do not agree with the main editor's views. What you're describing sounds like already preserving their work, no matter if it happens to be provide info based on multiple convergent sources or not.
It’s not supposed to have many rules (according to the Jimbo gospel), but admins apply policy pages as law , and given how many inane and convoluted policies there are, you can be censured for practically anything with the right quote. You can see these sockpuppet brigades watching and pouncing on the edit history of any semi controversial page.
It’s a pathetic monoculture that lacks any self awareness or sense of introspection. Critical discussions are quickly shut down and the authors are put into a penalty box.
Leadership needs to address the power dynamics, and come up with a better self regulating structure. Editors need to identify themselves and their agenda. Networks & brigades need to be monitored and shutdown using activity tracking.
Wikipedia’s social network is operating with 1990s era protocols but their influence via syndication on every common news surface means they are way too influential. Google, Alexa, LLMs and mainstream media all syndicate Wikipedia content as gospel. But the content is completely unregulated.
And don’t get me started on Wikimedia Foundation.
A few years previous, most heavy promotion on Wikipedia was music-related. Then business hype dominated. Then political hype took over. Trying to push back in the "post truth" era is valuable but painful.
It was worth doing for a while. But not for too long. It's wearing.
During the Rittenhouse trial, I watched trial coverage live, then evaluated what various news outlets were saying about what happened. Unironically, Fox News was objectively far more truthful and accurate than every left-wing source. I caught left-wing sources trying to push disproven and dubious narratives - in particular, the "taking an illegal firearm across state lines" bit - long after anyone had an excuse, even after the basic issues with that story had already been debunked by other left-wing sources. Shortly after the verdict dropped, Al Jazeera Plus put out an absurd, naked propaganda piece trying to paint the DA as a hero unjustly thwarted, with imagery showing complete ignorance to and/or resistance of the proven facts of the case.
(As a reminder: this is a DA who didn't check a firearm personally before pointing it at the jury, in order to try to make a ridiculous point about how Rittenhouse might possibly have been holding the weapon, while clearly having no actual idea how to hold and aim it properly. Who then made a closing statement baldly asserting falsehoods about the basics of how firearms work that had been disproved immediately prior. Who had previously made repeated, blatant attempts to violate Rittenhouse's Fifth Amendment rights and introduce evidence that had been very clearly excluded from consideration in pre-trial hearings.)
I have witnessed supposedly respected, mainstream sources (with a rarely acknowledged left-wing bias and an axe to grind) smear people I've personally met, and movements and groups that include people I personally know and care about (especially movements that have nothing to do with the traditional left-right axis but which certain leftists have decided to label as "right-wing" for their own reasons).
The bias built in to Wikipedia's "reliable sources" policy is self-reinforcing. You can't get conservative sources added even if what they're saying is provably true, or "liberal" (an absurd abuse of the term, but that's the American jargon now) sources excluded even if what they're saying is provably false, because a) the latter agree with each other; b) a new source needs vetting, which generally involves agreeing with existing sources; c) there is no objective standard for accuracy or reliability.
You present your comment as though you imagine that "sources that aren't explicitly conservative" are, thereby, not also "overtly biased". A lot of people seem to believe this, but it's not at all true. The fact that you frame this in terms of "defending positions" is also telling, for me.
See also: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/01/neutral-vs-conservativ...
So yeah, you don't even have to be an expert. What's weird is that there IS a lot of edits by ideologues of many kind. And it doesn't have to be "foreign agents" and this Trump attack reeks so hard of yet another attempt at authoritarian control and NewSpeak. Biden gave in with the TikTok to Trumps initial games, and now it just feeds the game. We have to resist this sort of thing from below.
I wish people had a good "sniffer" for bullshit. I'm not saying I'm perfect (we all have our blind spots) but after a while you can tell when certain things are trying to put a spin on something... It's especially odious when it comes to national identities trying to put a spin or tie either themselves or their enemies to a particular view point. The worst part is it's not necessarily obvious, to a lot of people if you don't have the knowledge, or the ability to critique and ask questions.
So we need people to keep asking questions for sure, and sniffing out this sort of thing. But it has to not be "IN THE NAME OF NATIONAL SECURITY" but rather "IN THE NAME OF OPEN KNOWLEDGE FOR ALL". Otherwise you just become a front or spokesthing for a given state, and that's no better than fucking Pravda.
I was a very active editor who'd been using the site for a very long time, but they don't care. One major mistake and you're gone forever.
The site also has a huge bias toward "media" sources rather than actual scientific content or primary sources in general. They treat the media as vetters of the truth and ignore all of the group-think/mass delusion that is common among mainstream media where they all re-report each others stories. That causes a huge blind spot. It didn't used to be that way too, it used to be that most notable sources were books, but nowaydays with everything online and the quality of media reporting going down and down it's caused Wikipedia itself to decline in quality.
I used to encourage people to edit Wikipedia like you, no longer. The site needs a hard fork, at least for the english speaking site.
My biggest beef is that any contributions volunteers make will be stolen by sama and similar scam artists & SV dweebs so they can improve their AI (and while Wikipedia is free AI which requires login/authentication and maybe even paid subscription in future).
First, my (quite correct) edits in existing pages have been reversed within minutes. No explanation as to why (I assume because I was not "known" enough). I have heard this complaint numerous times.
Second, when I tried to create a page about a system that I had originally authored, has become a well-known, worldwide tool, managed by a large team that does not include me, the page was rejected. I think it was because I had been involved in the creation of the tool.
I decided that it wasn't worth it. I didn't get upset, but it was clear that my input wasn't wanted.
No claims, no evidence. No sources, except "it has come to my attention" and "information received by my office".
> In view of public criticisms, including those expressed by Wikipedia Co-Founder Dr. Lawrence M. Sanger, regarding the opacity of editorial processes and the anonymity of contributors, what justification does the Foundation offer for shielding editors from public scrutiny?
Larry Sanger has been criticizing Wikipedia for more than 20 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Sanger#Criticism_of_Wiki...
The author of that letter is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Martin_(Missouri_politician... - "the first U.S. attorney for D.C. in at least 50 years to be appointed without experience as a judge or a federal prosecutor".
https://slate.com/technology/2025/02/wikipedia-project-2025-...
For all the progress they’ve made in dismantling our democratic institutions, deep incompetence runs through this administration.
Our efforts should be still directed to fighting their overreach. It is not the time to retreat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation
Kind of explains a lot in the balancing act in Trumps rise to power while trying to look like a marionette for various interests this term. They should remember Hitler's rebellion from his masters.
Vance is 40, I wonder how intelligent or not is he?
Consistently, the first thing every lawyer has said to me when preparing for any interaction with third parties that had a legal aspect was "never volunteer information you were not explicitly asked for". Of course lawyers would practice this among themselves. The law requires him to suspect something wrong to investigate, so he states "I hereby formally suspect something wrong". If the investigation leads to a court filing, the law would then require him to submit evidence, so he will strategically decide which evidence to submit and submit it. Why would he commit in advance to what evidence he believes relevant if not required by law?
But also, if reading the letter as if written in good faith - which I find hard to do - those are all true reasons to suspect something wrong (it is common knowledge and well established that Wikipedia is a very influential source of knowledge, and that there are attempts at foreign influence), and great questions to ask to investigate whether the Foundation is making a reasonable effort to fight it if you were a regulator or auditor or other investigator, all of which have great answers already written up that prove the foundation is doing a very good job at establishing and maintaining processes to ensure the neutrality of its articles. In my headcanon, Wikipedia's lawyer responds simply with a list of URLs.
If you don't have objective sources, it's easier to lead people around by the nose -hence the attack.
Wikipedia is, and always has been, the encyclopedia of the elite and billionaire narrative, and especially the left-wing narrative, which dominates nearly all corporate news groups. I say this as a far left person myself.
yes, you have to cite reliable sources on Wikipedia. yes, this means AP is considered more reliable than someone's Substack. you can, however, cite NPR or PBS, the BBC or the Guardian. if two reliable sources differ, you cite both and describe the conflict.
how do you know that "corporate" news lies all the time about everything? who told you that? why do you trust them? why should I trust them?
I’m one of those people you complain about. When I did deep research about DEI, I presented evidence and sources to people like you, including judges that I knew in my private life.
It seems you didn’t care, to a point that I had in my hand a document printed from a department of justice’s own website (about mothers’ own violence on their children, which is as high as men’s given the scope you decide to choose) and the person who in his public life is a judge, didn’t even bother discussing the thesis and just told me: “This document is false. You changed the figures before printing the document”.
You may say that Trump is bad for dismantling your administration, but you guys don’t care an inch about truth, evidence, sources, honesty, bad faith, or even for the number of children who are beaten to death by their mothers.
I literally wrote a book on one of those subjects and made it to a national news channel in two countries about it.
The cause is lost for science, people don’t respond to logic.
By changing the scope, you changed the effect. Unless you did every statistical validation here... Yeah. That reads exactly like data manipulation. t-distribution approaches standard normal distribution, when the degree of freedom increases. That's not something that anyone should ignore and give credit to. It's the same bullshit that Donald has repeatedly tried to do, to prove himself doing the right thing, even as everything falls apart.
Caring about the truth, requires caring about the methodology, and not just the conclusions.
Which shows:
- How much bad faith you have, assuming I argumented to a judge on a false hypothesis,
- Condescension to assume that I’m not a scientist who masters p-values,
- And ultimately, you confirm the hypothesis that you lead your research in bad faith, knowing full well the true level of violence from women and hiding it, which leads to more child deaths. You are accessory to criminality.
Your attitude confirm as well that it’s good this entire field of researched be defunded, it is a net win for science.
You've leapt to me being a researcher acting in bad faith, accusing me for a whole industry. As to defunding an entire field of research, it sounds like you'd like statistics or mathematics defunded? I'm afraid they will persist regardless. Too many industries depend upon them.
Seems like he has lots to do with the topic, and it is absolutely likely that he is the one who elicited this. Recall that Musk also basically appointed his own head of the IRS (though Bessent then ousted that person and installed his own stooge).
1 - https://www.the-independent.com/tech/elon-musk-wikipedia-naz...
This is getting ridiculous. Is there anyone associated with this administration who does not have a record of promoting Russia's positions?
― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
150 times is a lot of carelessness.
All the pro-Palestinian anti-Israel country would be enemies of the US then, including Japan. You’d be supporting Trump’s tariffs and anti-China us or them stance then towards every country that has friendly business relations with China, which is everybody at this point. Heck, even Taiwan and China are friends more than Westerners would like to think. Meanwhile, America is friends with countries like Saudi Arabia and countries that keeps a blind eye to the funding of terrorism in America
There’s a reason the famous saying is “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” rather than “the friend of my enemy is my enemy”
Having principles is orthogonal to striving adoption of ethical fair well being for everyone.
States are very different beasts, unlike human individual which have clear skin borderies as a given, they are able to take parts of each other and assimilate them. Even when they are not in official direct opposition, rampant dirty plots are always going on in the parallel background of any the official sympathy to everyone, be it because even within a state there is a broad variation of contenders.
So really it isn't enough to identify something as Russian propaganda - it is necessary to analyse whether it is propaganda of the accurate and informative variety, or the inaccurate variety.
Propaganda really just means someone is arguing a viewpoint. The BBC is classic propaganda, but nonetheless a pretty reliable source of information and a lot of the views are very agreeable.
That's why you don't "ignore" propaganda, but consume all, from all sides. Just consuming agreeable propaganda simply means it is working.
Humans are by default not influenced by logic, but rather respond on beliefs and emotions. This is one of the hardest thing to swallow for us people, we do see ourself as independent rational thinkers. We are sometimes able to, with effort.
To understand it better, you should know that Russian propaganda is not designed to instill a certain belief, but rather to make you not belief the truth. The Kremlin is happy to push different, conflicting stories. You end up with a society of nihilists.
and i'm saying everyone should expend this effort, because otherwise, people and democracy gets taken over. It's one's civic duty to ensure that you are not making choices based on lies or manipulations.
Agreed. But I would add that one shouldn't stick their head into stuff that is deliberately trying to steer you away from the truth and seeks to undermine your moral compass.
I think it would help people immensely if they first could filter their sources on intent and principles. The Guardian is a better source than the newspapers from North Korea.
If it isn't pushing a British viewpoint, wouldn't it be incumbent on the British government to shut it down? Why would they be funding something that was pushing viewpoints that undermined Britain? This is simple incentive analysis stuff, this organisation isn't being funded for billions of dollars because the Brits happen to just be uniquely dedicated to the cause of the truth even if it hurts their interests. They're British! They're one step removed from the people who invented espionage, there is a long history of information warfare here.
RT & the BBC are both state backed media organisations. It is quite difficult to come up with a reason for those except propaganda. The US has been running this experiment for centuries now, it has been well established that the government-sponsored perspective isn't any more legitimate than anyone else's.
As of 2017, it runs by royal assent, and there is just about bukpus that the Parliament can do about it. Because at the same time, funding was moved to a trust, to prevent political interference - a trust that both main parties attempted to shutdown, and control, at different times, but were told that they could only operate within the rights granted by the royal charter.
> The BBC shall be independent in all matters concerning the content of its output, the times and manner in which this is supplied, and in the management of its affairs.
Its not a perfect system. But it is very far removed from the daily pressures of propaganda and an angry government. The BBC is not really "state backed". They are independent.
> The various foreign services of the BBC have always been tied, in some manner, to the national interest. In the 2017 Agreement, that means the Foreign Secretary. Article 33.6 (right) is subject to the Mission and the Public Purposes of the BBC as defined in the Charter, but it supersedes Article 3 (independence).
> Taking account of the strategy and the budget it has set, the BBC will agree with the Foreign Secretary-
> (a) objectives, priorities and targets for the World Service;
> (b) the languages in which the World Service is to be provided
> (a) the BBC has full editorial and managerial independence and integrity in the provision of the World Service, within the structure of the Charter and this Framework Agreement;
> (b) in particular, the BBC will decide the most effective and efficient way of delivering the World Service; and
> (c) subject to compliance with the Charter and this Framework Agreement the BBC may generate other sources of income for the World Service.
Incidentally, various British governments have tried quite hard to shut down (or at least neuter) the BBC and failed. You're failing to take into account the fact that the BBC is a popular institution and that there would be domestic political consequences for a government that attacked it too strongly. If you think that your average British government minister goes around thinking "thank goodness for the BBC's news coverage!" then you may be a little out of touch with British politics.
A lot of media groups are pretty transparently in existence for propaganda purposes, but the logic doesn't imply that. It could be a media organisation exists to make their owners money while meeting an under-served need in the community. That is why most businesses exist. It obviously isn't why the BBC exists because there are a whole bunch of laws and public funding propping it up and it isn't independently profitable.
> ...absurd comparisons like your comparison between the BBC and RT.
The BBC had a policy for 60 years [0] of vetting applicants through MI5 based on their politics. And realistically it took 60 years to find that out we'll probably find out what the current vetting arrangements are in the 2040s. Any media organisation with that sort of historic tie to intelligence can be safely compared to RT.
> Incidentally, various British governments have tried quite hard to shut down (or at least neuter) the BBC and failed. You're failing to take into account the fact that the BBC is a popular institution and that there would be domestic political consequences for a government that attacked it too strongly.
That seems to be largely irrelevant. I'm sure there are factions in the Russian government that see RT as a waste of money on any given day and I'm happy to accept that British propaganda is popular in Britain.
>we'll probably find out what the current vetting arrangements are in the 2040s
We'll find out because the BBC is subject to public scrutiny. Good luck finding out about the historical vetting arrangements of CNN or Fox news! Or indeed, those of Russia Today.
You only have to look at actual examples of BBC news coverage from the period you mention to see that it wasn't government propaganda with the goal of making the British government look good or expressing some nebulous "British point of view":
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02gbms5
Margret Thatcher, the longest-serving British Prime Minister of the 20th century, hated the BBC. She had 11 years to get rid of it. She couldn't because it's an independent institution and the UK has (imperfectly) a system of democratic norms. Contrary to what you suggest, the government of the day cannot simply direct the BBC's editorial output or defund the BBC if it displeases them.
So what's your complaint about RT? Because I'm seeing arguments here that suggest if it were subject to public scrutiny it isn't propaganda, if factions of the Russian government want to shut it down it isn't propaganda, if it says something critical of the Russian government it isn't propaganda. If it is funded by the Russians it isn't necessarily propaganda.
None of those arguments in defence of the BBC really get to the root of the issues, RT could sit on any pole of all those observations and it'd still be Russian propaganda. We don't need any of those details on how the sausage is being made. The issue is that the reason it exists is to push the Overton window in directions that are favourable to the state known as Russia - and the BBC serves the same purpose for Britain and hits the same triggers as RT for identifying propaganda.
> Contrary to what you suggest, the government of the day cannot simply direct the BBC's editorial output or defund the BBC if it displeases them.
I never put either of those things. They are both obviously untrue.
But more broadly, you’re arguing at a level of abstraction that rises above actually looking at the content produced by the BBC in comparison to the content produced by RT. You only have to watch each for 15 minutes to see the very clear difference. Perhaps your theory of the world tells you that the BBC must be British propaganda because it depends to some extent on the British government for its existence. Ok then — so much the worse for your theory of the world. Believe it or not, there is actually such a thing as public service broadcasting as distinct from state propaganda. The BBC is really the obvious counterexample to any claim to the contrary.
> Contrary to what you suggest, the government of the day cannot simply direct the BBC's editorial output or defund the BBC if it displeases them. >> I never put either of those things. They are both obviously untrue.
You asked “If [the BBC] isn't pushing a British viewpoint, wouldn't it be incumbent on the British government to shut it down?” That clearly suggests that the government of the day could defund the BBC if it displeased them.
Thatcher certainly wanted to put the BBC in its place after the clip I linked above. Her husband memorably complained that she’d been “stitched up by bloody BBC poofs and Trots [Trotsykists]”.
Fair enough, faction of British politics. She didn't have the power to shut down the BBC, so she obviously didn't represent the consensus position. Again, the argument seems like it would be that the BBC isn't propaganda because the British PM is relatively weak. That doesn't hold together. Besides, Putin isn't the PM of Russia, Wikipedia tells me that is Mikhail Mishustin.
> But more broadly, you’re arguing at a level of abstraction that rises above actually looking at the content produced by the BBC in comparison to the content produced by RT. You only have to watch each for 15 minutes to see the very clear difference.
So if RT was better written then it wouldn't be propaganda? Because the fact that the BBC has better journalists and targets the middle and upper class in style doesn't particularly mean much except they're better at their jobs than the RT people. You're mistaking propaganda for low quality writing with that one. Good propaganda relies on truth and being mostly credible (see also - the model pioneered by the BBC with enormous success).
> You asked “If [the BBC] isn't pushing a British viewpoint, wouldn't it be incumbent on the British government to shut it down?” That clearly suggests that the government of the day could defund the BBC if it displeased them.
"displeased" is a bit vague but yes if there was a consensus in the Houses of Lords and Commons that the BBC wasn't advancing the interests of Britain I imagine it'd not last long. The parliament is quite powerful when it unites on a question of policy. That doesn't mean a PM can just snap their fingers and the BBC disappears, it'd be a long process.
If you want to say that the BBC is British propaganda just because the journalists are British and present a British point of view (rather than, say, a Surinamese point of view), then ok, but I don't think that's a very interesting point. By that definition, every American news service is American propaganda.
Some of your other points here are transparently not serious, such as the suggestion that I can't compare the British PM to the Russian President because the latter has a different title.
So if you were to focus in on RT, are you of the opinion that it isn't Russians pushing mainstream Russian viewpoints? That is the major complaint most people have - it is representing an unabashed Russian perspective and choosing issues that powerful Russians think are important.
The issue with the BBC is it is government funding, with historic links to British intelligence vetting to make sure that the journalists had appropriate views and a long history of running British propaganda globally with no obvious reason as to why they'd stop. The UK is supporting a particular bias and pushing it out for global broadcasting - that is the essence of propaganda. Plus as a comment pointed out further upthread, according to Wikipedia their Charter links them to objectives set out by the Foreign Secretary. This is more or less where RT will be sitting - there isn't much else they can do.
If I were to somehow end up running RT as their head of propaganda, I'd do two things: first, learn to speak Russian. Second, sit all the managers down and use my new language skills to call them idiots and tell them that standards were going up and they need to do things more like the BBC. No compromising factual accuracy and there's going to be high quality articles out on every topic from a staunchly Russian perspective. That's how competent people run their propaganda missions. The real mistake RT has been making for years (hilariously on stereotype for the Russians) is it is far too direct and straightforward about executing its mission. It'd be more effective if they were a few notches more subtle - the BBC sits at a much neater optimum.
> By that definition, every American news service is American propaganda.
A lot of them are. One of the interesting things about the so-called Twitter Files was how quickly Twitter was integrated into US state propaganda, presumably similar linkages are kept with other US media companies.
But I wouldn't say that all US media outlets are US State propaganda. Many of them are independent propaganda for their own reasons, with independent funding and goals.
Some temporal and geographic myopia going on here.
False equivalence.
By your logic, any government support automatically makes an outlet propaganda. So, NPR and PBS would also be propaganda, since they get a small grant.
RT and other Russian-sponsored outlets, in case you didn't know, try to both push the state narrative, and push conflicting conspiracy theories in different markets to convince people that there is no objective truth.
Like, for example, claiming that reliable Western news sources are government propaganda...
Id does exactly that, as does all State-supported media (such as RFI in France or Deutsche Welle in Germany).
The most gratuitous example is NYT, as documented by Ashley Rindsberg in his book “The Gray Lady Winked.”
How is that unique to the US?
Plus, you are saying it like all propaganda is somehow the same. Rosie the Riveter != "Russia isn't going to do anything...well, it's America's fault...NATO something something...actually, Ukraine basically deserved it."
It is important to point out that Russian propaganda is actually excellent propaganda. However, their message is the at the very bottom:
There is no truth, up is down, nothing matters, the invader is the victim, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_propaganda_in_the_Russia...
Stop trying to make everything equal.
How many RT TV hits did Larry King do? How recently did King appear on RT?
Source for that? My impression is that Democracy Now!, while it has a clear perspective and set of biases, has been fairly independent. I don't think Goodman herself would be involved with them, but I think some of her sometimes guests have been.
In general I agree with folks replying to you that RT is not trustworthy and someone being involved with it is a red flag.
Chris Hedges had a show as well.
I know about Chris Hedges. I wasn't asking about him.
Whether it's Jews, Russians, Communists, leftists, the Chinese, immigrants, it's always some infiltrating evildoer and not the failure of policy.
It's purely ideologically driven because these accusers think their thing being sabotaged, whether it's an economic policy, a candidate, whatever, is so obviously superior that only some secretive cackling outsider could be to blame for the disparity of the results
Whether it's Clinton in 2016 or Trump in 2020 there's an elaborate conspiracy to explain it. Any excuse to avoid introspection.
If I am anything in life I am anti-bullshit. Nothing can move productively forward when based on nonsense.
So that's really the larger context here.
Being part of Jan 6 is a signal, being a repeated guest on an ideological show like Nick Fuentes, Russ Roberts, or Richard Wolff, these are signals.
Appearing on Rt? Not so much
I think people who haven't figured this out do get sucked into it without realizing what they are.
It's similar to Fox News, but I would say worse.
The only leak than contains something barely close to Putin and was published on Wikileaks were the Panama Papers, that names three friends of him, not in the government. The lack of any russian officials in those papers speaks volumes.
Best case scenario, they are tools. Worse case, they are assets.
Can you back up your accusations with facts? I can state that I have not seen any reprehensible reporting from Amy Goodman; but rather the opposite, backed up by facts (e.g. about mass graves on Russian-occupied areas [0]).
[0]: https://www.democracynow.org/2022/9/29/ukraine_russia_mass_g...
I'm not sure who's claiming that here. The RT appearance in question is about him spreading disinformation and Russian propaganda on the eve of Ukraine invasion.
It reads like a cartoon. Everything from China is loaded with secret spyware snooping on you for countless unspecified evils - everything out of Russia by anyone is part of some secret global propaganda network.
I point it out as absurd and reductive whenever I see it and people dogpile on me like I desecrated a sacred cow.
The world is incredibly complex and a simple label doesn't cut it. Wernher von Braun was a Nazi but that doesn't mean his work on rocketry was fictional lies.
You need to assess things based on the merits of the thing, not on any narratives of attributive associations you're choosing to assign.
When people say that Russian and Chinese state media are propaganda, it is not always because they are racists. Many people say this because they make a distinction between a government and the people, and understand the difference democracy makes.
It's great that you're trying to emphasize with people in other countries. Empathize deeper and think through how it must be like to live in such a political environment to their full conclusions.
You are engaging in the logical fallacy and propaganda tactic called whataboutism.* If people genuinely care about diversity and challenging bias, they wouldn't uncritically view an unelected president (or an elected president chosen in a country without free elections) as the spokesperson for their ethnic group.
You are engaging in the logical fallacy of making a true statement about fascist dictatorships which is skewed to, by implicit comparison, imply that the thing in question is the case elsewhere (elsewhere here being liberal democracies because that’s the most common comparison and also where most people in these discussions live). Media in liberal democracies do not reflect the diversity of their people, no.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6VCzhWy-Kk
[2] How do I know? Because it’s the only reply you get 90% of the time when replying to these kinds of statements.
Who has claimed all Russians are part of a large propaganda network. This is about a government news network.
Most discussions are of the war in Ukraine which also connects to US politics. It's going to be negative and treated extremely suspect because Putin is ex KGB, lied that he wouldn't invade, the war itself, and their influence in US elections.
This is about the Russian government though. If your argument is that it's wrong in these constraints then I disagree but your generalization is valid. My original comment was about Russia as a whole but I think I wrong to try to shift to that as it doesn't come up
That was the really stupid part of that election.
The general election in 2022 had 84,2% of eligible voters in Sweden.
Almost…
What seems to be overlooked in these conversations is the skill with which American voters have been disenfranchised by partisan forces.
It’s easy to blame people for not voting if you ignore the real difficulties in actually casting a vote for many Americans.
I hesitated while reading this part, because I wholly agreed with the first 2 sentences. Do you mean physically difficult in terms of barriers to voting or making a less direct comment about the usefulness of that vote? If the former, I think I disagree compared to other countries ( and the levels of paperwork needed ). If the latter, I would be interested to hear some specifics.
Can you explain to me like I am 5 why those are bad things? For a simple person like myself, one would think, data accuracy, voting system integrity, and verifiability would be of use and value to everyone.
However, there is no evidence that voter ID laws reduce fraud, nor is there evidence that the absence of such laws introduces fraud.
Something like 90% of voter fraud is people making mistakes on their ballot, or not realizing they were not allowed to vote. Also, voter fraud is rare and elections are already very secure.
Introducing laws that don't affect the (already low) level of fraud, while making it harder for one party's voter base to vote, is not of use and value to everyone -- it is of use and value to the side that benefits from a reduction in the other side's votes.
Can you prove that? I've never read about a single case of somebody being unable to obtain a government photo ID who was legitimately eligible to vote. People need their photo IDs for pretty much everything these days. That's why voter ID is a requirement in most countries. Because it's reasonable, it makes sense, and it benefits society more than any theoretical, unproven harm.
That doesn't mean your opinion is true. I don't know how much or how widely you read, nor do I know how varied your sources are. That you have never read an anecdote describing my assertion does not mean my assertion is false.
You can read more about the effects of voter ID laws (according to research) here:
Hmm. Just the perception of fraud among the population is enough to undermine the system. We can argue whether Republicans in this case are simply playing to their base by drumming up doubt in the voting system or rigging the system for their benefit or both, but if you are going to admit that a) people who are not supposed to vote do vote b) argue that laws to penalize such votes don't work, you sound about as partisan as they do ( and merely arguing for 'your' side ). Just sayin'.
<< Voter ID laws disproportionately affect a very specific subset of the population,
Why is that important to you?
I am telling you that people are being prevented from voting. Why is that _not_ important to you?
It is important to me because it is not fair.
You haven't presented a supported argument.
They do. And the system already functions: their votes are caught and discarded.
> b) argue that laws to penalize such votes don't work
I didn't argue that. I argued against voter ID laws, which are not "laws that penalize such voters". Those laws already exist, catch fraud, and penalize those who commit fraud intentionally. Those who do so accidentally have their votes discarded. There's no evidence the existing laws are insufficient. The available evidence shows that incidences of voter fraud are rare in the USA.
> you sound about as partisan as they do ( and merely arguing for 'your' side ). Just sayin
What? I haven't argued for a side. I have spoken what I understand based on the research I have done. I have cited sources in other posts. I don't like being accused of being partisan when I'm basically just repeating the conclusions of those who have studied this. Knowledge isn't partisan.
Ok, maybe it is just too early. What did you argue?
This has been the pattern for awhile now. The pool of politically unengaged people are especially Trumpy compared to regular voters: https://abcnews.go.com/538/vote-back-trump/story?id=10909062...
I don't think it is was that hard to vote. That is a straw man to avoid facing the hard truth of American apathy. Now next election, perhaps we can have a conversation on that point. Things a trending rather poorly right now.
Says a person commenting on HN that almost certainly isn't in a demographic that it has been made intentionally difficult to register, stay registered, and get time off an hourly job to stand in line for hours to vote.
I however repeat, that was last year. Things could very well take a dramatic turn for the worse.
The GOP has also closed polling places in predominantly D areas, fought drop off boxes, etc. It is intentionally hard to vote for minorities and people in D areas.
Yes, it’s going to get worse. But it isn’t good now.
For example, voting by mail is bad. Unless you are a senior (and thus more likely to vote Republican).
And it doesn't take much to change the outcome of many elections. Just a 0.1% shift is often enough to flip the result.
I think a lot of people see all-out resistance as extremist and somewhat irrational, and so you are losing people's good will. I do see it that way, I am sympathetic as to what leads to it and don't let it count against those pushing for 'no new rules' even if I find it immature / poorly thought out - but at the same time I don't think most people think it through and are as understanding as I try to be.
Like, automatic voter registration on license renewal? Nope. Denied if you're in a Republican state.
> I think a lot of people see all-out resistance as extremist and somewhat irrational
That's more restrictions _will_ be used to entrench Republicans even more. That's the simple reason for resistance.
And yes, the media does a poor job explaining this.
Australia has entered the chat.
https://results.aec.gov.au/27966/website/HouseInformalByStat...
This article contains a fun breakdown of the types of informal votes including a category for "the usual anatomical drawings" (0.7% of informal votes):
https://www.crikey.com.au/2025/04/22/2025-federal-election-p...
If you can generalize about non-voters, it’s that they’re broadly more anti-institution than voters—which is what causes them to put less stock in the institutional practice of voting. In the U.S. in the Trump era, that has meant that non-voters or infrequent voters support Trump somewhat more strongly than regular voters.
Nitpick: Trump got less than 50% of the votes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidentia...)
More importantly, I think quite a few who voted for Trump didn’t vote for this extreme version of Trump.
Pretend I want a snack, I can choose between a cookie and an apple. If I dislike both then I also have the option to not get a snack. Neither is selected.
This is different from not voting because a candidate still wins.
I agree but it doesn't actually matter. 97% can vote by mail, early, or another method besides election day according to this article https://www.cbsnews.com/news/map-early-voting-mail-ballot-st...
>There is no incentive when there are known costs... is the result of the tyranny of indifference.
What is the cause of the Indifference in your opinion ?
They can still actively engage in civil life with a variety of actions that look more relevant and meaningful to them.
If people are not given opportunity to actively engage in meaningful way like contributing to the creation of the laws they will have to follow, then sure they sooner than later they won't bother signing the blank check of void promises.
The person I replied to
No.
> Voting by mail is incredibly easy.
This missed the point entirely.
This is about changing behavior and making it "easier" isn't the blocker. People often do not behave the way you expect them to due to simple socialization. Regardless of the specifics, making it more of a celebration (because that's how the vast majority of PTO is perceived) will make it seem like it's more important beyond the lipservice that, frankly, has been ineffective.
Why? Political ads are everywhere in election season and the news constantly talks about elections. If this isn't sufficient to make people think it's important why would making it a celebration?
I'm trying to understand why this would work.
Then wouldn't people not want to spend hours waiting to vote if they could party?
The issue with complaining about non existent problems is that it leads to everyone ignoring you. My issue with that is that when you hijack my political movement with this non issue now my movement is being ignored because of your dumb non issue. So basically Im ok with you feeling this way but dont hijack the democratic platform
I'll point out again an article about a post-election analysis by David Shor posted on HN a few weeks ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43400172): "The reality is if all registered voters had turned out, then Donald Trump would’ve won the popular vote by 5 points [instead of 1.7 points]. So, I think that a 'we need to turn up the temperature and mobilize everyone' strategy would’ve made things worse."
Even as late as April 9, disapproval of the Democratic Party is higher than for the Republican Party according to Pew Research: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/04/23/views-of-con...
There isn't a hidden wellspring of pro-Democratic voters to tap. The Dems are going to have to go out and fight to win people over.
Trump got 49.8% of votes for president, Harris got 48.3%. Vote total ~156.3 million. A rather slim 'mandate' methinks.
[0] https://www.cfr.org/article/2024-election-numbers (Council on Foreign Relations)
No discussion beyond that point is needed.
Depends if your “democracy” have one person = one vote. Or if the land is included somewhere in the vote.
The US system was never designed to be fair to individuals in the first place, pointing at it as a failure of democracy is IMHO pulling the actual issues under the rug.
“Gerrymandering” also has no effect on Presidential elections. And in 2024, Republicans won a larger share of the House popular vote than their share of House seats.
It can never be 0 and every country will have a minimum requirement, but the degree to which it is done in the US is far ahead of most western country.
Gerrymandering has an effect on the criteria for voter eligibility, the voting rules in the state etc. It's not direct but who's in power has a sizeable effect on who will have an easier time voting.
In the modern era, we should probably narrow the franchise, instituting civics tests and restricting voting to natural born citizens. Statistically, both of these would have hurt my party in 2024, so this isn’t self-interest speaking.
It's fascinating to look at that proposition for a country that mostly got rid of its indigenous population.
Restricting by birth right is simply an extension of the universal practice of restricting voting by citizenship. Every democracy decides who has sufficient stake in and familiarity with the society to be able to vote.
Well, yes. At this point we could as well get back to Wikipedia for at least a common interpretation of the concept:
> The disenfranchisement of voters due to age, residence, citizenship, or criminal record are among the more recent examples of ways that elections can be subverted by changing who is allowed to vote.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_suppression
> universal practice of restricting voting by citizenship
Citizenship restriction is not universal BTW, and going from a civil status (can be acquired) to a physical one is an incredibly huge leap that is nothing simple.
The result is that "voter suppression" is no longer understood to be a bad thing. You lose the ability to drop this phrase and expect people to pick up that the implication is negative. For example, you said above:
> Democracy is not 2 parties doing voter suppression and gerrymandering as a filter to pass the result to an electoral college.
If "voter suppression" as a term now include things that are universally understood as good, like banning toddlers from voting, this sounds incoherent. Democracy very much is about doing voter suppression, and everybody agrees it to be a good thing!
If you don't like how it sounds, you need to stop including good and proper things under the "voter suppression" label. Rayiner tried to help you with that, by distinguishing between mendacious voter suppression, and good and proper setting of voter qualifications, but you rejected that.
The weight of cognitively restricted people and non-citizens in the voting process is less and less a theoretical issue, and would merit a lot more discussions IMHO.
Countries like Japan or Korea are getting into demographic phases where elderlies account for about 30% of the whole population and their voting power is tremendous, but we probably have no idea how good or bad the result is, and just cutting their voting rights as they reach some level of impairment would also be a seriously dumb move IMHO.
And on the other side as the fertility rate plummets bringing in more foreigners is an obvious option. Except these foreigners might not want to give up a stronger citizenship (e.g. an EU passport is way more valuable than a Korean one) just to get voting rights in their resident countries, and their kids will have a stronger incentive to go abroad as soon as they can if the country makes their life harder yet.
Partly in reaction to that, Korea for instance gives voting rights to foreigners mostly by virtue of residency.
We're entering very tricky situations where there's more imbalance between the ones holding decision power and the ones bringing the most to the table, and there's just no simple solutions nor any direction that is straight "good" or "bad" or unthinkable.
Banning votes from toddlers is not as clear cut a point as you make it look like.
As a thought experiment: imagine an extreme society made 15% of childless adults, 5% of young parents and 80% of toddlers.
Would it make sense/be fair if the 15% of childless adults could pass laws that remove voting rights for life from anyone that piss their pants in public whatever their age ?
You could end up in a situation where 20 years later 90% of the adults of the country have no voting rights. Finding a way (setting the 5% of parents as representatives ?) to mitigate these kind of issues is generally important, which is why there's no cut and dry "good" voter suppression, only compromises.
Your preoccupations seem to be centered on protecting the system from demagoguery and outside influences, which is a valid POV, but that can't be the only angle nor the central focus. Even if 80% of the population was provably dumb, you'll still need a system that takes their voice into account to avoid the country getting overthrown or become a dictatorship.
> universally
Honestly I don't like that word, and it removes a lot of nuance that is utterly needed for politics and ruling systems. There is almost nothing universal, especially when it comes to "good" and "bad".
Next you will tell us all how easy it is for all Americans to get drivers ids / similar licensing right?
> Statistically, both of these would have hurt my party in 2024, so this isn’t self-interest speaking.
Ah. There it is.
"""
Any persons six (6) years of age or older may apply to the Department of Public Safety for an identification card.
All applicants must provide the following:
- A completed and signed Application.
-Original Birth Certificate or any acceptable document. (No Photocopies Accepted)
- SSN Card or an official government correspondence displaying full 9 digits. (click here)
- Two proofs of Residency.
- Legal Documents are required if going by new name.
"""
These are all very standard. The only ones I could see people having trouble with is proof of residency, but the accepted forms[1] are very numerous (over 20). Anyone that isn't intentionally trying to stay off-grid should be able to provide at least two, especially because you're allowed to use proof for a parent, legal guardian, or spouse as long as you can establish your relationship to them. You can even get your roommates to attest that you live with them to use their proofs of residency.
[0] https://www.driverservicebureau.dps.ms.gov/Drivers/Identific...
Is it ? If we're talking national IDs, most EU countries have it mandatory, so there's no requirement other than officially existing as a person.
If we're talking voting registration ID, many countries auto-enroll their citizen the moment they're adult or naturalize, and procedures are only required when your info changes or you explicitly get barred from voting (I don't even know when that happens, minor offences will not trigger that)
91% of Americans have driver licenses. So apparently it's not that hard?
Would you agree that people with more money are treated differently from people with less money? Money is not exactly property or power, but would you agree that they stand more to lose than a person without either? If they stand to lose more, they automatically have more skin in the game. In fact, if we count money, we can give fairly definitive amount of skin in said game.
So, since laws and governance have a disproportionate impact on those with less money, I would say that, if anything, those with less money have more skin in the game. But I wouldn't put it like that myself - my position is that every person who lives in a country and is subject to its laws for a long enough time has, on balance, the same amount of "skin in the game". The only distinction related to the right to vote should beade based on the ability to take rational decisions (that is, while they still have just as much skin in the game, some people shouldn't be allowed to vote because they lack the ability to rationally understand the vote - but this only applies to children and to those with severe mental disabilities).
If the above is true, then your position that laws governing the country determine skin in the game is not valid, because those individuals pick, which skin they get to wear ( as in, it is not a factor at all for them ). The two positions are not compatible, which suggests that there is a facet to these factors that is not captured within the model you propose.
<< The only distinction related to the right to vote should beade based on the ability to take rational decisions
Careful now, you are dangerously close to suggesting people, who make irrational choices should not vote, which includes just about 99.9% of the voting population.
<< An increase of 50% in taxes will cost a wealthy person much more in pure monetary terms, but will have a much, much higher impact in quality of life for a poor person.
On the other hand, it costs poor person nothing to vote for themselves somebody else's money and with opportunistic enough a leader a ignorant enough a populace, the sky is literally the limit. Who has more skin in the game here, the person, who gets to lose 50% of their resources to taxes or a person, who was promised someone's taxes to trickle down to them?
Yes, I am setting you up a bit.
Remember in the early days there was almost no immigration control as well, so finding proxies for skin in the game might have been more challenging than today, when emigrating is almost impossible for the poor so they are stuck with their skin in America whether they like it or not.
The assumption that these privileges would be voted away implies an eventual equal distribution of such thing. Then all would have equal skin in the game which would justify democracy under this bizarre definition of skin in the game.
> I don't think only land owners should be able to vote, but it's worth noting worldwide having significant property is one of the most common ways for immigrants to qualify for a resident visa (other two common ways is job or business investment).
That has got nothing to do with the political franchise.
> Right or not it signifies enough skin in the game to many if not most societies to reflect reciprocated integration the community.
No. It means that they want people with means. Same basic reason why some nations may want people with advanced degrees. Or for that matter poor people who are willing to work for low wages. They want to import people who will benefit the nation state.
You might be getting a little ahead of yourself. Yes, the nation state does what serves its interest, but we are not discussing what the nation state wants. We are not even discussing what the populace through small d democracy wants ( as the two are automatically aligned ). We are discussing, who is a part of the group that can want.
I assure you French prior, dueing and after French revolution was not pinacle of great governance. More like, the low.
Hmmm... The time when most people were not able to read?
That's not definitive, to be sure. But it's sufficient for me to believe that we did this to ourselves. Now all we can do is figure out how we're going to get through it.
Yes, it might only take a small number of votes in the right place, but either you somehow know the right place, or you have to move a lot of votes.
There's a reasonable discussion to be had along the lines of 'these guys seem to be doing everything they whine about', but could they get a big operation done without a) bragging openly about it, b) leaving a big trail, or c) having a falling out with a conspirator who then tells all.
Adding on, certainly gerrymandering and voter supression laws affect voting results, but I have trouble calling that stealing an election.
https://www.youtube.com/live/kdvpXxXVyok?si=XALuK7No9-PLQBAr...
If nothing else, that establishes a willingness to tamper with elections.
Really need a viable means to fight it, say allowing an elected official's constitutes being able to sue them for no less than $10,000 for incidence of bearing false witness. Help erode the dark money networks.
Also having a 4th branch of Governments, the people with State and Federal binding resolution, would help. Only way to overrides those in power is to unionize the will.
It's like like Dugin's Foundations of Geopolitics was a wish list.
Maybe this is indeed what Russia would do to us. But we're beating them to the punch by doing it to ourselves.
The Internet Research Agency explicitly focused on the masses.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see America sell weapons to Russia, and provide them military support in the future when they launch their next invasion.
https://www.propublica.org/article/ed-martin-trump-interim-d...
It's always projection with the MAGA crowd
Time to archive a lot of snapshots.
I know taking it at face value isn't the point but this claim is particularly galling.
are there manipulations? sure. then more people should watch it. and wikipedia should have a better process on controversal topics in own areas.
but the whining is abysmal.
The information on Wikipedia is important, but the existence of Wikipedia and you and I both knowing about it is more important. This is why building up existing institutions is almost always more valuable than the "burn it all down" populist mentality we see in politics today. Just the existence of the current thing represents some inertia, some energy, some goals, and that has value.
https://emilygorcenski.com/post/on-truth/
""But one of the most significant differences critical for moving from polarization to productivity, is that the Wikipedians who write these articles aren’t actually focused on finding the truth. They’re working for something that’s a little more attainable, which is the best of what we can know right now. "
https://web.archive.org/web/20250425235105if_/https://www.wa...
The letter:
https://web.archive.org/web/20250427075702if_/https://www.wa...
If your taxable income was $50,000 and you donate $10,000, and (some other conditions) your taxable income would now be $40,000; same as if you managed to move the money pre-tax.
However. If you donate aprechiated capital assets, you get two benefits. Your taxable income is offset by the value of the asset, and the capital gains disappear. It's much better than selling the asset and donating the proceeds; and it's handy if you don't have good records for your cost basis.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAACP_v._Alabama
That said, there are a lot of operational advantages to being a for-profit corporation. Chan-Zuckerberg is organized this way. Other nonprofits try to have it both ways where the for-profit entity operates the business while being owned by a nonprofit. It has not worked out great for OpenAI. Patagonia converted to this model recently.
He's not the one with no shame. It's tens of millions of Americans who are even now cheering this action on. Many of them on this web site.
If we have a megalomaniac idiot, it's because it reflects who we are.
s/we/his voters
So I’m unsure why the downvote. Emacs fans don’t like my vim-ism?
I think wikipedia's approach of centralizing in one place but allowing downloading backups and making all sourcecode and server config public is better. If the worst happens anyone can setup a fork.
IA is at risk too.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Hints_on_dealing_wit...
The foundation should be moved to a country where the rule of law and neutrality are respected. Switzerland perhaps?
It seems like in the worst case all Wikipedia would lose is their tax-exempt status. So it wouldn't even be the end of the world.
Please donate now to show your support. It's time to fight back against this crap.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclop%C3%A9die
[1] "Show me the man and I'll show you the crime." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Give_me_the_man_and_I_will_giv...
my problem is with wikipedia lying to us by saying it will shut down if you don't donate: which is false because their situation simply isnt that dire
There is a long legacy of authoritarian regimes attacking curious places, universities, historians, museums, books or any institution that grounds itself in reality which provides you a way to reasonably criticize authoritarian actions. Many authortarian regimes will "purge" as many of the country's intellectuals as they are able.
Wikipedia is absolutely the enemy of this administration and authoritarians everywhere in the world would love to see it's demise or collapse into chaos.
Whether the Wikipedia page for Israel says Gaza is a genocide or not, or that it's an ongoing debate matters. It matters because it influences what people think and therefore what they consent to or what they deem worth fighting for or applying resources to and that goes for just about any issue out there. If you can't read about the suffering that racism has caused, then how bad is racism really? If there are no examples of successful labor movements, then why would you hopelessly start one?
I understand the caution, and we need to be more cautious in today’s world. And I do in controversial topics quite frequently. For example, giving points for women during university admissions just for being women in Norway seemed outrageous. And when I feel that way, I immediately start to check its validity, especially that the article “forgot” to mention how many points. At the end they give out 1 or 2 points on a scale of 50, and not to just women but also men, where they are underrepresented. The article just lied about that we should have outrage. It’s a lie.
Larry Sanger wants such lies on Wikipedia. He should be way more cautious when he’s outraged. Also 100% of people who commented under this article on Reddit should do the same.
If only people can have commitments to truth, which organization, institution, or media do you think has a leader that seems to have a commitment to truth, especially truth in their institution? Who is our gold standard of "as good as it gets"?
For everything else I won't trust it, which sadly includes matters of war and history, as almost all causal claims about the world rests on counter factuals, and therefore does not merely depend on what is.
Politics also concerns what ought to be, not what is, and most editors of Wikipedia do not agree with me regarding what ought to be or even how one should determine what ought to be.
Wikipedia would do better if they could figure out a way to manage bias rather than try to eliminate it. I don't want to be overly critical. Wikipedia is useful, but it's really very far from ideal and I would not want my tax money going anywhere near it.
Roughly ~20 years behind current academic research on most subjects, makes it 10 to 40 years more advanced than other encyclopaedia and school curriculums.
But its value is on the bibliography. You have research papers linked, which makes it infinitely better than most other sources. The only way to get closer to the truth in history is rigorous demonstrations, and those only exist in academic papers.
The view on Wikipedia on the French revolution are mostly Furet's views, which is 20 years behind, as it is the case in the Anglo world. Furet isn't the only one cited in Wikipedia though, and his point of view is nuanced with research from the 90s and 2000s, all with links to actual research. The last time I checked, research from JCM on the recently (late 2000s) discovered 'archives du comité' isn't discussed yet there, but all that makes it infinitely better than encyclopaedia brittanica. Infinitely.
You also really avoided the "what's better"/"what's a better model" question.
Social consensus, consent, and political mandate aren't ideas that can be hand waived away, they matter and they effect you and they are deeply impact by what people perceive to be true.
So the question still stands, if you mention a topic like Mao's cultural revolution, where should I go to get a primer and verify that the way you're talking about it appears to be grounded in reality.
Well said.
Hannah Arendt wrote a great book about this, but it sounds like you might have already read it.
https://history.yale.edu/news/timothy-snyder-has-been-awarde...
Apparently Snyder received the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought.
He quotes her here: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/04/preparing-for-an...
After the Reichstag fire, political theorist Hannah Arendt wrote that “I was no longer of the opinion that one can simply be a bystander.” Courage does not mean not fearing, or not grieving. It does mean recognizing and resisting terror management right away, from the moment of the attack, precisely when it seems most difficult to do so.
I agree. Only thing I would add is that the 'seeking of truth' is also important. Academics get it wrong all the time, but self correction is built into the process. Finding and fixing errors is important.
It is not the role of Wikipedia to authoritative say if the war in Gaza is an genocide. Their role is to say what reliable source has reported, which in this case has so much reliable sources talking about it that there is a dedicated article about just it.
There more reliable sources are talking about a subject, and the more the subject gain notability, the more likely it will be included in Wikipedia. Editors can apply some common sense, but they are not the arbiters of truth, nor should they ever be seen as such. If a readers want simple and single truths that they can believe in then they are better served by whichever news papers that can cater to their particular world views.
It's always controlled by. Winners write the history. Now Americans decide what's truth and fact
Are you asserting that it is standard that Americans are writing and moderating all of these articles in other languages?
what about evidence?
The ADL and other Jewish organizations have pointed out that aside from articles about Israel that articles about or mention Jewish topics generally have been editing with disinformation or that made Jews out to be the aggressors.
I agree with you that in order to believe in the ideals of liberal democracy that we must have a core belief in truth. And it's absolutely true that the Trump administration has taken a position that is deeply chilling on the issue of speech. It's clear they want to be the sole arbiters of what "truth" is and they want to use their power to manipulate the reality.
All that said, I cannot as a Jew ignore the fact that Wikipedia is not in itself neutral, and that "more eyes" does not negate systemic bias. What I've seen as a Jew is what the true meaning of marginalized minority is, which is to say that if you are truly a minority and truly marginalized then in a vote of "truth", your reality will be dismissed if it conflicts with the vast majority, and that Jews are only 0.2% of the world population.
While I brought it up, I am not debating the issue of antisemitic bias in Wikipedia[1] as anything other than an illustration of your point of objective truth being true, but also that we can't simply rely on the wisdom of the crowd to materialize that truth.
To preemptively address the issue that's bound to come up when I post this- I'm not arguing that the evils of silencing the entire Wikipedia project are equal to or a fair response to Wikipedia's antisemitic bias. I do believe Wikipedia needs to address its bias problem and that's best done through internal reform.
Two wrongs don't make a right, nor are two wrongs always of equal weight.
[1] Firstly because my point is separate, and secondly because I've encountered the exact issues I've found in Wikipedia elsewhere, which is why I'm sure I'll be voted down.
I don't support what happened to Mahmoud Khalil. The Trump administration is evil. I might support Israel's right to exist, but I voted for Kamala because I support the US a hell of a lot more. None of the ordinary citizens of Israel or Palestine or the US is responsible for what's happening in Israel.
https://www.adl.org/resources/press-release/new-fbi-data-ref...
If you're not Jewish it might be a little difficult to understand. I know quite a few Jews who do not dare light a menorah in their window. Who don't dare fly an Israeli flag or identify themselves as Jews in any way. I am secular, but synagogues have to have armed security.
Jewish people != Israeli government.
By the way, Americans are absolutely safe traveling to Israel. You simple cannot say the same thing for almost any Arab country. Well, that's how Jews feel almost everywhere in the world.
I'm working on a solution to the effects of this isolation, but it's not ready for a big announcement.
Read it for yourself.
It's a pretty simple case of Wittgenstein's ruler for me. It tells me more about ADL as an org than the content.
It is obvious that Wikipedia admins communicate with each other. The fact that Aljazeera is referenced is also okay.
In fact, this is not the official Israeli narrative, it seems rather trustworthy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian_co...
This is like citing an entire book to prove a point.
They also position things in such a way that implies antisemitic things, such as saying that Zionism is only 200 years old, or discussing the Israel wars only or primarily through an Arab lens.
These biases around Jewish topics are small individually but large in aggregate, especially in how they present Jews and Jewish topics.
Multiple Jewish and civil rights organizations have done a more comprehensive job at discussing this, even organizations who don't usually agree on things. While they talk about "anti-Israel bias" Wikipedia articles on or mentioning Zionism (80% of Jews are Zionist) are IMHO just as, if not more damaging, and demonstrate the issue.
Most importantly though, talk to the Jews in your life about this. They will tell you.
https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/news/wikipedia-entrie...
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-846563
https://cameraoncampus.org/blog/seven-tactics-wikipedia-edit...
https://www.adl.org/resources/report/editing-hate-how-anti-i...
https://www.standwithus.com/post/it-s-time-to-correct-wikipe...
https://www.piratewires.com/p/how-wikipedia-s-pro-hamas-edit...
You cannot subscribe to a belief and simultaneously exempt yourself from all consequences of that belief. What I mean is, if you are a Zionist, then you believe some people should be displaced in a conquest for your people. What happens to them? You cannot say "well, we can do it without displacement" or "well, I don't believe that".
No. That is the consequence of what you belief, and you therefore MUST stand by it. You MUST believe you are entitled to the land and sovereignty of Arabs, whether you choose to articulate that belief or not.
This is something Zionists sometimes struggle to comprehend. They wish to live in an alternate reality, where they can keep their beliefs and magically get to an outcome they desire without anyone getting hurt. It doesn't work that way. If your belief hurts people, _that means you want to hurt people_.
Your first statement is a sweeping generalization that you can't prove
This is the equivalent of stating that dinosaurs evolved into birds then when asked for one piece of evidence directing a person to a book, by another author, on how dinosaurs evolved into birds
I agree this was a terrible move on the ADL's part, and there have been others, but you're essentially labeling the oldest anti-hate group "fascist" because you disagree with one statement they made.
This dismisses any concerns they raise, or if someone else says the same as them, then they too must be pro-facist.
> Jewish communties have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.
> I'm deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don't exactly like them too much.
> You want truth said to your face, there it is.
Then a bit later Musk gives the heil Hitler salute twice in a row, once facing the crowd, then turned around and gave it facing Trump.
The stuff the ADL put out after the salutes was only after he added on jokes involving Nazi party members, right? Or was the one later that day before that?
Because it's a convenience?
What it needs now is a bipartisan, sybil resistant algorithm like X’s community notes’ in order to accept/reject edits.
What an absurd claim to make without any evidence. Citation needed.
Done some other edits, some stick, some are reverted. I don't have time to deal with this so as much as I'd like to contribute, I am doing stuff where I can actually contribute.
You guys control the servers, if anything you have the psyop advantage.
However, the librarians are very vocal about self determination and keeping wikimedia out of important decisions.
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/wikimedia-foundation/recipi...
something commonly seen in e.g. Venezuela, South Africa, and now the US
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/25/health/nejm-prosecutor-le...
This coincidences nicely with all of this.
You're burning your credibility here fast as the new moderator. dang derived his respect as an admin from not getting into fights in the threads. It additonaly tarnishes your credibility as you're doing this in defense of your employer. You look like a rage-poster who has the same response copied and ready to go from thread to thread.
Please take a moment to step back and examine if this is the image you want to be projecting as the official representative of YC and HN.
Where we get it wrong, I'm happy for it to be pointed out so we can improve. That's always been the case with HN moderation, and it's what I like about the work. The community demands that we operate to a high standard, and is quick to call us out when we get things wrong. That's the way it should be.
Where it stops being OK is when people make false (or extrapolated-to-the-point-of-absurdity) claims about YC’s actions/intentions, and its influence on HN moderation (and thus HN’s integrity).
Where this happens, the least I can do is (a) provide some balancing context when claims/insinuations are made of, say, YC's leaders being in cahoots with the administration and HN moderators enabling it because it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it, and (b) ask people who accuse us of censorship to provide details of their claims so we can explain it or investigate further.
I know I'm not going to please or win credibility from everybody, especially those who seem motivated to portray HN moderation and YC management in the worst possible light.
But the problem is that if we let these claims/accusations sit there without any balancing context, people who are open-minded will read them and think they are accurate, then form a negative opinion of YC and HN, based on incomplete information or falsehoods.
I realised just how damaging this can be when I spent time around the YC offices in SF in the past month, for the first time in a few years, spending lots time with dang and in staff meetings and having casual chats with YC staff and partners and startup founders. I realised just how different the vibe and attitude is, and how different the orientation towards politics is, compared to how it is so often portrayed in HN comments.
I also saw how frustrated and dispirited dang is by being subjected to these accusations for so long. And it hit me that these kinds of comments have become so pervasive on HN for so long that even I – who has been behind the scenes at HN for years (but not in the office) – had started to believe them, and become disenchanted about YC. And only when I spent time in the office and in the meetings did I realise just how much of an inaccurate portrayal they are.
I don't for a moment think YC is perfect, and I have plenty of my own ideas about how it can be doing better. And it's still very much the case that HN is an independent arm of YC, and it's not the moderators' role to defend or advocate for YC management.
But I think it’s important that we can provide balancing context when assertions are made about HN moderation and YC's influence on our moderation practices.
(Edited 5th par to be less dismissive/accusatory.)
i think dang is successful at moderation in part because he does have a reputation and track record of being fair and unbiased in his moderation, and i do agree showing bias in conversations can make people question moderation decisions more, but i'm not sure tom is showing bias by including information relevant to people he knows, and i think he can both discuss however he likes while also being transparent and genuine in unbiased moderation
tom has and does stay out of debates and in-depth conversations around HN related stuff. he's simply dropping some information in to dispel disinformation, which i think is reasonable
Can you point to a comment of mine where that's not the case? I'll happily have it pointed out so I can avoid it in future.
Jared Friedman endorsing DOGE
https://x.com/snowmaker/status/1886672263216504853
Garry Tan hanging with a DOGE flunky
1) Yes, Jared posted (nearly three months ago) that DOGE reminded him of (and indeed is the same entity as) USDS, a program launched by Obama in 2014 – evidently a program that Jared liked and supported.
2) Yes, Garry was photographed with Joe Gebbia, a notable YC alum who is volunteering with DOGE.
The next day, Garry posted a photo of himself with prominent Democratic Senator Cory Booker:
https://twitter.com/garrytan/status/1907526506840003025
He also posted the full video of Sen. Booker giving a long, impassioned speech at a YC-hosted conference:
https://twitter.com/garrytan/status/1907537541550469410
People will make up their own minds as to whether the tweets cited by the parent pass the test of campaigning or advocating for the administration or any particular agenda.
They don't for me, given the full context.
Still, the relevant matter for HN moderation is the political signals that will influence us or cause us to be biased. The strongest signal is from pg and it’s in the opposite direction to what is being claimed in the comments that accuse us of bias. Of course we don’t want to be influenced in that direction either.
900+ upvotes
- it has nothing to do with tech
- it's about a hot button political issue
- it helps the Republican cause.
Not flagged
I guess it can have different interpretation.
Either way I'd really prefer not to see this stuff on Hacker News. We have enough things that push people buttons in other places.
Your original comment was about the change in tone, I'm giving what I think is the main reason. He spews hateful rhetoric and insults people constantly. Tens of millions voted for him to represent them in the highest position in the world.
>. It used to be more purposeful, useful and meaningful for me
I think the articles where you'll find the highest percentage of comments you'd dislike are obvious. Just don't click on them.
>The purpose is the help understand current state of play.
This is improved if the information is accurate right? Calling out those that might be lying helps.
No amount of shouting from the rooftops that this time was actually different convinced anyone. I can't really blame us collectively, we resoundingly voted for this— it's as much of a mandate you're likely to ever get in the US and we're in the find out stage of fucking around.
Looking back on old social media posts the theme is that everyone, supporters and not, were high on copium that Trump would do <list of things I like | aren't so bad> and the <list of truly terrible things> was just obviously crazy and wouldn't actually happen or were a joke.
* Paul Graham
* Mark Zuckerberg
* The Ghost of Elon Musk before he fell down the alt right pipeline and now is no longer liberal-tarian.
* Sundar Pichai
* Jeff Bezos
* Sam Altman
* Jensen Huang
* Tim Cook
A who's who of people who felt their businesses were being threatened by the Biden administration with a starry-eyed view of how this next round might benefit them and being in denial of the crazy.
Most of those people are just cowardly bending to corruption, which is not the same thing as what was originally asked for.
Elon and his loud hangers-on in the VC community have made SV look a lot more MAGA than it is
If we're going to judge these folks, judge them by their words and actions.
Trump received a minority of the popular vote. The 1.5% margin was slim compared to recent elections even.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification
I am going to increase my monthly contribution.
However they'll be worlds apart on history, economics, anthropology, sexuality, politics, previous leaders and so on.
Our Wikipedia is the world seen through the eyes of the New York Times + Harvard. Our Wikipedia is probably correct about Physics, botany...
But having an independent (not ad-driven therefore not subject to corporations), transparent (you can see edit history and authors), and funded by its users, is an amazing accomplishment and a great boon to mankind. One of the best sites on the internet.
Independent sources of information are a threat to autocrats and dictators, so it's no surprise that the Trump admin would attempt to kill Wikipedia or reduce its influence (and no better way than to hit its tax status and therefore reduce donations to it).
Now we're talking about something that needs its non-profit status revoked...
Edit in response: The broader conversation is about weaponizing government power against political opponents, ActBlue was just one example give in many being discussed. You narrowed to ActBlue to have something you felt you could condemn safely, while ignoring the larger pattern. That selective focus is the weaponization your argument is trying to distract from.
Edit: Stepping back and noting the pattern there is no need to go into specifics of ActBlue. Especially when this VERY administration is blatantly selling access with their shill coin. Your hyper focus is a weaponized distraction, a 'gotcha' from the larger discussion. The administration does not care about corruption in fundraising, they care about targeting their opposition and shutting down any influence they have via fundraising, via information/knowledge sharing on the web, via universities with students willing to challenge the status quo.
https://www.trustpilot.com/review/winred.com?stars=1
It turns out the name of the political donation game is recurring donations and spammy messages. I 100% believe people donated to some random cause via act blue and didn’t realize they were signing up for recurring donations through there —- like all political fundraising arms do as evidenced by all the people complaining that WinRed incessantly removes money from their account that they didn’t authorize. But again, only 1 of the 2 is being investigated and it’s obviously a corrupt investigation so here we are.
Likewise, I have not heard that winred don’t use CVVs, which HN, having many people with experience in handling online payments would agree is bizarre.
It was bad enough with 2001, 2008, and 2020. But this is next level.
Unfortunately for Americans, it has to get worse before it can get better. Much worse.
The institutions are deeply corrupt, and have been for decades. They must be destroyed and possibly replaced. It sucks, and it will hurt. It may even possibly require an entire revolution, as many of the deeply evil US institutions such as the CIA and FBI are so deeply and tightly integrated with the federal government that it may require destruction of the state itself.
The status quo has been comfy for a lot of Americans, but the world as a whole is not a better place because Facebook and Lockheed and the US CIA exist.
This has been pending for most of a century.
What comes after will be more transparent, more fair, and more integrated with society.
You've cherry-picked a few bogeymen.
What about Norman Borlaug, Bell Laboratories, the Gates Foundation, Margaret Sanger and the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology?
Many of the ones you’ve listed would likely have happened whether or not the USA-qua-USA existed. The Manhattan project and the current internet and the rush to build airplanes (first as weapons of war, of course) would probably not have happened the way they did without the USA.
Can you walk me through how you see this playing out, step-by-step?
I want to believe!
Over the last hundred years, American military and paramilitary forces, and their vendors, have subverted transparency and democracy to turn America into a military dictatorship.
There is nothing to suggest that the fall of the United States and subsequent replacement (with whatever may come) will reverse the thousand year trend of increased education and decreased violence.
The culture of the 3.6% of people who live in the current territory of the USA will be irreparably damaged, however. This may not be entirely a bad thing, given how significant an outlier the US lifestyle is compared to the rest of the world.
We're talking about long-term cycles of change here so it is difficult to opine with certainty leaving a lot of room for differing opinions. Unfortunately, however, I think the end of Pax Americana will usher in increased conflict and violence, particularly in the West which has experienced a long period of peace due to American dominance.
The US recently put the world on notice that everyone needs a larger military and should develop their own nukes if they can. I fail to see how that will continue to decrease violence.
I live in a county in which most people are armed. There are very few attempts at carjacking.
When everyone has weapons, more people get shot. That’s a fact. When countries arm up there is a much higher chance of a conflict happening that can’t be rolled back.
This is markedly untrue in most parts of the USA, including the most heavily armed ones. Almost all of the gun murders in the USA are in 3 or 4 extremely high crime (and high poverty) counties.
Dozens of other counties that have gun ownership rates 2-10x higher per capita have much much much less violence. It isn’t the guns unless you generalize entire USA to a single socioeconomic bucket.
The “more guns = more violence” narrative is simple and easy to understand. It’s also false. “more poverty = more violence” is actually correlated. Guns and violence are, if anything, loosely inversely correlated.
More people shoot themselves willingly and deliberately each year in the USA than are murdered by guns, to put it in perspective.
No one is claiming that US been or will ever be perfect, but what are you smoking? Everything that's happened in the current administration has gone the opposite direction of transparent, fair, and integrated.
So, for a "let people speak their mind - don't control information" the Trump side quickly goes to universities must teach only what 'WE' want, Wikipedia must mention only what 'WE' like. Hilarious if not pathetic and dangerous (very-very 1984-ish...)
Side-note: it has since amused me but apparently it's not often told/at all.. the absolute propaganda tool for Russia/Soviet was "Pravda" (the "Truth"). Imagine my amusement when Trump created "Truth Social". You can't make that shit up....
Now, as I've said before, I live in the EU and don't vote in the US, so you folks decide, and then we all get to 'share' the experience (since I do have some/plenty of SP500 and similar instruments).
How about these wankers turn their attention to their own administration ...
Oh, pardon me ... what a ludicrous thing to suggest.
I could argue that it's ironic coming from the supposedly free speech-obsessed Trump government, but given how bloviatingly, mendaciously hypocritical that particular swine is, there's nothing surprising here at all.
Also, nice to see the WaPo actually covering this, considering Jeff Bezos more recent and not so subtle sucking up to Trump.
Edit: and Yes, this tendency I mention above is much more worrying than any idiotic authoritarian canard about "spreading misinformation and propaganda".
...now where's my ladder..
Power corrupts...
"And absolute power is kind of neat."
How dare they? Don't they know that's our job Mr Putin?
There's certain individual or group that edited under the name "Icewhiz", was banned, and now operates endless sockpuppet accounts in the topic area to influence Wikipedia's coverage on the Middle East. One of them was an account named "Eostrix", that spent years making clean uncontroversial edits until one day going for adminship.
Eostrix got 99% approval in their request for adminship. But it didn't matter, because an anonymous individual also spent years pursuing Eostrix, assembling evidence, and this resulted in Eostrix's block just days before they became a Wikipedia administrator.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investiga...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Com...
It's a useful contrast to a place like Reddit, where volunteer moderators openly admit to spreading terrorist propaganda or operating fake accounts when their original one gets banned. You don't get to do that on Wikipedia. If you try, someone with far too much time on their hands will catch you because Wikipedia doesn't need to care about Daily Active Users and the community cares about protecting a neutral point of view.
Not denying the existence of influence campaigns. There have been several major pro-Palestinian ones recently, which is probably why this letter has been sent. But the only reason you know about them is because Wikipedia openly fights them instead of covering them up. Most social media websites don't care and would rather you don't bring it to their attention. That is why Reddit banned /r/bannedforbeingjewish.
A few years of work (10k edits) and a few years of dwindling participation on my side someone noticed that quite a few of those early admins never faced a vote at all. The process had re-elections when 25 wikipedians asked for a vote, took them almost three weeks, I got that treatment as well in 2009. Indeed someone had enough time to dig through and find a discussion where I wasn't the nicest person (at the same time writing and discussing on Wikipedia help me a lot to develop a healthy social skill). Well, I didn't use the admin rights anymore so I rather resigned before someone dug even deeper ;)
For security reasons those admin rights should be time limited anyways.
The primary goal of the admins seemed to be to gatekeep, in particular to keep “unencyclopedic” content out at all cost, e.g. by contesting the very existence of articles on individual episodes of TV shows, software, or video games, which are all completely uncontroversial on the English one.
“Just because it’s relevant on en.wikipedia.org doesn’t mean it’s relevant over here” is a sentence I heard frequently. Keeping the number of articles down was seen as an active ideal.
For me, it was a great motivator to improve my English, and I’ve only ever looked back when the English version didn’t have a lot of information on some Germany-specific topic. Last time I checked, they only just accepted the redesign (the one that greatly improves legibility), after vetoing it for years. What a psychotic way to run an encyclopedia…
In the first year or so of the english Wikipedia, I was very engaged in adding content but never really tried to engage with the community. I started adding articles about my topic of interest at the time, which was New York 80s punk and hardcore bands. Soon, I had the lot of my articles deleted for "lacking relevance".
I haven't been contributing much since.
> Last time I checked, they only just accepted the redesign (the one that greatly improves legibility), after vetoing it for years. What a psychotic way to run an encyclopedia
I once asked on (then) Twitter why they kept that crappy design, and got the most depressing NIMBY answers on even making the new design optional. That really killed any rest of hope I had for the German Wikipedia. Glad to hear that at least that tiny improvement made it.
I probably disagree with your opinions, but the debate would likely be useless.
They listed Greyzone as an unreputable new source because it’s pro-Palestinian. When you Google the usernames of those who voted to ban them pro Israeli think tanks from DC come up. Wikipedia is a joke when it comes to politics. If you’re lucky you can find the real contours of an issue by seeing who’s been censored and silenced out of the article on the Talk page.
One example of a heavily debated neutrality issue was the opening paragraph of the Zionism article, which ended up like this. Surely noone would call this remotely pro-Israel? "Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible."
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Not...
What isn't a joke when it comes to politics? The only way to be informed about politics I have found is to regularly read news from several different media sites paying careful attention when they talk about the same issue. This way you learn their biases and how to interpret their news articles, you get the ability to guess what really happens, not just their takes on it.
For instance, they would not directly edit the target's page, but start working 2 links removed from it, compromise the "friend of a friend of a friend", and then work towards the actual target and finally try to cancel the target through "association with " accusations.
and seeing some of the people she proudly mentions - it seems like she's just switched cults.
But even if I were, you’re not accounting for the cumulative benefit saving others from having to research the same acronym.
You’re making a lot of effort here to claim that people should already know this when the evidence here (of people asking what it means) demonstrates that it’s not universal.
For the record, I don’t actually mind people not spelling it out on first use if the acronym is guessable from the context of the comment (which, ironically, a lot of technical acronyms are). But in the case of the OP, you wouldn’t know what SJW was u less you already knew what a SJW was. So it’s not an unreasonable request from the GP. And frankly, the comments criticising them for asking is really unfair. They have just as much right to ask as you do to say “it’s common” and the OP had to use that acronym in the first place. Let’s all just be nice rather than moaning that someone didn’t memorise some specific piece of tribalism before coming to HN.
I'm sure they did at the time this (SJW) acronym got popular. That was maybe 10-15 years ago.
Someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I can appraise the situation, Israel sucks and has a somewhat higher incidence of committing war crimes than other western countries, but Palestine would suck even worse if you switched their places around, the only thing holding them back from committing much worse atrocities being lack of resources, going by their human rights record and direct statements from their leadership. Israel isn't executing anyone for being gay for example. But out of many factors, one being some left leaning people taking the mental shortcut that the anti-American option is always more intellectual and "owns the conservatives", we've ended up in this nonsense scenario.
The person he's referencing, specifically, got really pilled by evangelical Christianity and believes that anyone advocating for liberal causes has created a religion out of nebulous cultural values, unmoored from god. She blames the "cult of SJW" for the kind of character assassination she claims to have done, that it was the force of rootless bolshevism that was responsible for her supposedly destroying lives and careers by making up(?) relationships and cultural crimes on whole webs of Wikipedia articles.
There are moderators who take care of cleaning those up, then starting harassment against users who have posted these things.
I've seen one particular page, when a corruption allegation was blown up against a politically connected individual, be set up for permanent deletion (the only way to remove a page so it can't be remade).
They have all the time in the world and its clearly a full time job for them to do this, so its very hard to deal with as an individual editor. Hence the result has been that the Portuguese wikipedia has very little information on the corruption of Portuguese politicians, while the English language is full of it.
In my case I saw that they even invent new rules if needed to remove things. Completely compromised.
But in order to do that you need X amount of edits. You also need strong evidence. There are other complaints for other Wikipedias in other languages that have become biased.
You need to take into account that the Croatian Wikipedia had become a Holocaust denial website. That’s how far things had been allowed to slide.
Just look into the fact that theyre is an article about ‘Super Dragões’ which is an ultra/hooligan mafia that runs the drug trade in Porto, Portugal. They’ve been involved in multiple murders, episodes of violence, and recently their leader was arrested.
For some reason this article kept being altered/censored by two users, over literally months. They’ve successfully removed important details that link the leader of the group to an important murder (I assume they couldn’t do more).
Every single major Portuguese org. Or political figure in Portugal is like this. You add things and then it’s a fight for months to get it to stick, if you’re lucky. Here a moderator clearly acted well, but they still managed to clean some of the detail.
Or look at the article for Valentim Loureiro, where the major crimes are there, but it’s been removed that he was in fact convicted at least once. They clean up what they can.
> ... also known for hoaxing at List of Crayola crayon colors. Obsessed with inflatable, bursting, popping, and bouncing objects
I'm frankly amazed that enough people have the time to track this nonsense and stamp it out that it ends up being self-correcting. It's not just about time, either; chasing bad edits and prosecuting bad users must be a huge chore in terms of the sheer amount of work needed. I always find it amazing how horrible the tools are (like how almost anything, including having discussions, is done by editing pages; how can anyone have a discussion in such a disorganized way?), which surely must be a hindrance to productivity or to the ability to detect and deal with constant abuse. But seemingly it works. Maybe there are better tools that pro-level admins know about?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Long-term_abuse/Anan...
Sometimes perfect is the enemy of good enough.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Long-term_abuse...?
Therefore, if legal problems arise with these pages, they probably will just delete the legally problematic info and hide every edit done before.
And the times I've brought up the fact that Wikipedia can be unreliable before, I've had numerous editors come in and claim that wasn't true and that people could rely on the claims they find in Wikipedia. This runs counter to the claim that Wikipedia editors know about these influence campaigns and openly fight about them. A lot of the active and vocal editors are openly dismissing such concerns.
(Except the claim as stated isn't always in the source anyway. Best to check.)
> The way we determine reliability is typically based on the reputation for editorial oversight, and for factchecking and corrections. For example, if you have a reference book that is published by a reputable publisher that has an editorial board and that has edited the book for accuracy, if you know of a newspaper that has, again, an editorial team that is reviewing articles and issuing corrections if there are any errors, those are probably reliable sources.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/P...
Those voters (with the exception if bad actors) are working on the basis of "factual circumstances", which they debate extensively before voting.
And most LLMs probably have Wikipedia as a significant part of their training corpus, so there is a big ouroboros issue too.
The non-profit public benefit service they provide is the openly editable encyclopaedia wiki, not its contents or its editors. The same safe harbour provisions as with other content hosters should (and need to) apply as with YouTube hosting questionable videos.
Wait, why? If the edits were so clean and uncontroversial, what was suspicious?
Sorry for asking, the wiki talk-page links very chaotic to read.
Icewhiz is a bad example because a lot of the evidence is non-public now (there's a cabal of CheckUsers approved by the Wikimedia Foundation who deal non-public cases). A simpler one is Lieutenant of Melkor/CaradhrasAiguo. Lieutenant of Melkor was banned in 2014, CaradhrasAiguo was made in 2015, and in 2020 someone linked the two accounts:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investiga...
> Editor interaction tool shows 2691 common pages. This is because both have been AWB power users in several same topic areas. However, there are numerous specific commonalities with extreme detail related to American cities, Chinese cities, weather templates and airports.
> Both used navigational popups to revert edits which resulted in a non-standard date format in the edit summary.
> LoM created many US city weatherbox templates. CA has been the only editor to do major updates in many of them.
> Both have done major work with pushpins related to Chinese maps. 'Pushpin' is found in many edit summaries of both editors.
> Both often removed bold text from non-English words. Both used edit-summaries with "debold" which I don't think is a real word.
> Both updated snow days and precipitation days in US city infoboxes with almost identical edit summaries.
> Both have an interest in classical music. CTRL+F for Beethoven, Mozart or Chopin in the editor interaction tool.
They're also both named after Lord of the Rings characters. "Caradhras" is a mountain, "Melkor" was the most powerful Valar and later went by the name "Morgoth". Sauron, the antagonist of LotR, was his lieutenant.
So, is it better than reddit? I agree, probably. That bar doesn't seem very high though.
Part of the issue with gamergate discussion is that there's a lot of vapid perspectives along the lines of "it's just video game journalism who cares" which allows an infinite amount of bad behavior, dishonesty and manipulation in the name of an abstract greater good. I believe it was used as a prototype for future wikipedia manipulation for "more important" topics.
What do you consider a leftist? Why do you think they don't have jobs?
> The pro-gamergate editors were completely shut out of that article eventually and the article doesn't even mention any perspectives from the other side
The "pro-gamergate" perspective is described in the very first sentence under "Purpose and goals":
The most active Gamergate supporters or "Gamergaters" said that Gamergate was a movement for ethics in games journalism, for protecting the "gamer" identity, and for opposing "political correctness" in video games and that any harassment of women was done by others not affiliated with Gamergate.The way the article is written is arguably biased and irrational on it's face, when reading it you should get the feeling of something being amiss and information being excluded. Sometimes you can just tell when writing is biased based on the language, it's a pattern that's good to learn.
There is evidence¹ that the whole gamergate thing was an organized harassment campaign pretty much from the start. Further, the "ethics in game journalism" argument was a calculated and intentional misdirection, used as cover to provide plausible deniability to the harassment campaign.
1. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/09/new-chat-logs-show-ho...
Wikipedias policies to promote neutrality are often counter productive.
Because neutrality is hard to define, what these policies actually do is progressively raise the effort required to keep or remove a particular point of view. Unfortunately, requiring more effort also means substituting the point of view of knowledgeable but time poor and inexperienced contributors, with the point of view of time rich chronic contributors and admins. The result is that instead of neutrality, you actually select for the strongest held points of view of a small ingroup of chronic users. The viewpoint diversity of such users is extremely low, which is why you’ll notice all controversial topics tend to lean a certain way.
Also, your anecdote is specifically about a social media article about an attempt to use social media spaces to harass people.
Seems extra “special case” to me.
Amazing... I can't tell if you are trolling or seriously think this.
Same with all those “free speech wing of the free speech party” folks.
Quite frankly i find people who think there were actually some kind of organized misogyny campaigns in 2014 to be a form of insane, like something breaks inside a person because they need a bogeyman so badly that it becomes a core of their being even though it's incredibly irrational. At the time journalists would just take random twitter people who weren't affiliated with gamergate and hold them up as if they represented the movement. Reminds of me the tactics used against occupy wall street honestly. It's not a rational or reasonable belief.
I recently watched The Silence of the Lambs, an Academy Award winning movie from the early 90s. Afterward, I skimmed the Wikipedia article to see if I missed any plot details.
There is a whole section on how the movie is considered transphobic by some nobodies, how the director defends that it isn't, blah blah blah. Having just watched the film, the thought didn't even enter my mind. I realized that the entire section is irrelevant to someone seeking information about the movie and at its worst, an opinion piece or cleverly disguised political shit-stirring.
Wikipedia is full of stuff like this. As a comparison I checked a 'real' encyclopedia (with editors) and of course not a mention of this, just the facts. Any attempt to delete irrelevant stuff from Wikipedia is closely guarded by self-appointed article gatekeepers because it has 'sources'.
Literally nearly every Wikipedia page for a fictional work or creator will have a section on "controversies" or similar, if there have been any. Regardless of which political direction they go in. If it's been covered in the media or a book or whatever, it tends to be included.
This is a good thing. It helps situate everything in a broader cultural context. When I look something up on Wikipedia, I want to know these things. It's not irrelevant and it's not an opinion piece.
It's not like the articles takes sides. They just objectively describe the controversies which are real objective things which exist.
I find it curious that you seem to want to be shielded from the existence of these controversies. Nobody is forcing you to read them. But many people do genuinely find them useful and informative.
Is there guidance on what makes a controversy 'notable', or can anything be listed there? E.g. "Nobody blogger and her Twitter army were upset about $thing" - does that qualify? Nearly anything can be controversial, or have fabricated controversies. You see this a lot on political articles.
And yes, obviously controversy will focus on the one controversial detail. There are hundreds of other details that are not controversial, so they aren't mentioned.
I don't understand why this bothers you. The world is a controversial place. It's good to document these things.
Hypothetically speaking, let's say you were a famous or notable person. Your Wikipedia article would probably have a controversy section with a vague statement like, "Some people find crazygringo's feet objectionable."
The citation would be a podcast where a guest told the host in an offhand comment, "I went on a date with crazygringo once and thought he had oddly-shaped feet."
Any attempt to delete this statement, even by you with full knowledge of your own feet, would be reverted as 'vandalism'.
This is Wikipedia in a nutshell.
Articles for celebrities and political figures are full of this garbage, which merely 10 years ago we would consider exclusively tabloid fodder.
I've read articles on complete nobody actresses with a controversy section that listed any and every political opinion she's ever said. It's a lame attempt to extrapolate (or reimagine) someone's entire personality from a few offhand statements made once in her life.
It's low quality content like this that undermines Wikipedia. Unfortunately it's all over the site and growing by the day.
I’ve found that the system works pretty well. It’s not perfect, but I can’t think of a better solution.
I agree that Icewhiz is an Emmanuel Goldstein-like figure at this point who's used by pro-Hamas editors/ultranationalists. A bunch of those pro-Palestinian editors that loved to complain about Icewhiz to deflect from their own behaviour were topic-banned from Israel-Palestine area a few months ago in January.[2]
It's challenging to deal with the Israel-Palestine conflict on any website that allows for user contributions. There's astroturfing and nation-state backed influence operations from probably a dozen countries. I don't think there's any website that has successfully navigated that minefield as well as Wikipedia.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests...
[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests...
There's a survivorship bias in play here as we don't have a good other sample or more to compare to. After Wikipedia went big in the 2000s it was for a very long time a de-facto monopoly for people seeking out reference information on the Internet. Even Google's Knol project, which was intended to be a Wikipedia competitor, faltered after a few years. Same goes for Everipedia as well.
It is not survivorship bias to point out that the survivor survived.
> Even Google's Knol project, which was intended to be a Wikipedia competitor, faltered after a few years.
Not “faltering after a few years” is part of “succesfully navigating that minefield”. If you fall out of the “race” no matter how good your policies would be otherwise you won’t be a reliable source of information. Because your can’t be if you no longer exists.
This is not a statement about what could have worked, this is a statement about what did work. And there survival is a necessary ingredient of success.
I understand your whole statement perfectly. It is just wrong. My understanding is not the problem here.
We are not comparing them to other samples. We say that out of the currently existing X they are the best.
Imagine a town with 3 bakeries. Lets call them A, B, and C. Bakery A gets shut down by the health deparment and B goes bankrupt. Then we can, rightfully and without survivorship bias, call C the best run bakery of the town. Because if you get shut down by the health department, or you go bankrupt then by definition you are not the best run bakery. (Obviously it is not a high praise with that kind of competitions, but they still are the best run bakery.)
Staying in the business is not some incidental part of “being the best run bakery”. It is a core component of it.
Imagine a marathon with 100 runners. Henry runs the fastest time, and 25 others do not finish. Some got lost, some had medical issues during the race. Is it survivorship bias to call Henry the fastest competitor in that race? Of course not. You need to finish the race to be even considered to be the fastest. Just because there are others who didn’t make it, doesn’t make him somehow not the fastest. Definietly doesn’t make calling him the fastest “survivorship bias”.
Finishing the race is a core component of “being the fastest finisher”.
Similarly in the case of wikipedia. If other similar sites stopped operating then they by definition did not “successfully navigated that minefield”. Their bakery is shut and they did not finish their marathon. That is the very definition of “not succesfully navigating that minefield”.
This is how rationalwiki defines survivorship bias: “Survivorship bias is a cognitive bias that occurs when focusing on entities that made it past a selection process, while overlooking those that didn't.”
We are not overlooking the failed attempts here. We are considering them.
Bakery A and B is worse run than C. And we know that because they got shut down.
The runners who did not finish the marathon are not faster than Henry. And we know that because they haven’t finished the marathon.
The abandoned community edited websites are worse at “successfully navigating that minefield” than the ones which are still operating. We know that because they are no longer operating. They were not overlooked.
What you are missing is that the “selection process” here is not some independent, and unrelated thing. The selection process is, at least in part, is what we are talking about. You cannot be considered the best run bakery unless you are running a bakery. You cannot be considered the fastest racer unless you finished the race. And your community edited website cannot be the one who most succesfully navigates a minefield unless you are navigating the minefield at all.
Please let me know if any of the above is unclear. Happy to go into details.
By comparable, I'm meaning an alternative or competitor that had gained equal prominence as Wikipedia, in terms of Google search results, and the eyes of the whole world, again like what Pepsi is to Coca-Cola and vice versa. We would have something to compare to in terms of the criteria if Google has given their favoritism to one or more other platforms, instead of just Wikipedia.
I believe you are mistaking me with someone else. Please pay attention to the usernames when you are re-reading the thread.
What i’m saying is what you describe as survivorship bias is not survivorship bias.
I don't believe this is the case, the Israeli/Palestine are restricted to long-time contributors, so the articles are either messy and unmaintained due to lack of editors, or worse, edited only by members of influence campaigns who have scared away everyone else
I suspect the real reason is more likely due to Trump not liking pages related to himself, including the page on the Jan 6 attack.
"DEAR AMERICAN FRIENDS IN THE ADMINISTRATION KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF THE WIKIPEDIA"
"Reliable Sources: How Wikipedia Admin David Gerard Launders His Grudges Into the Public Record"
https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/reliable-sources-how-wik...
The only pages that seem useful are the technical ones.
https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/reliable-sources-how-wik...
Wikipedia is, today, a pale shade of what it once was, a source of information.
Because it is extremely hard to figure out what is going on. Lots of mysterious abbreviations. Unclear timeline.
I still don't really know it, it seems the scandal is, that he had a sockpuppet account? And there is only "private" evidence (meaning not public)?
"The Arbitration Committee has determined through private evidence, including evidence from the checkuser tool, that Eostrix (talk · contribs) (a current RfA candidate) is a sockpuppet of Icewhiz (talk · contribs). Accordingly, the Committee has resolved that Eostrix be indefinitely blocked."
So having a sockpuppet account is the reason for indefinite ban? Or that in combination with edits he made? Really, really hard to figure out for someone just having a quick look into the topic. And this is what prevented me since the beginning to participate in Wikipedia. I always got this impression. I made some edits here and there, but I think was mostly reverted/deleted/ignored - but no idea, I never felt like making the investment to really dive into it - and that seems required to contribute. Casual contribution seems pointless - and they likely miss out a lot through this.
"But the only reason you know about them is because Wikipedia openly fights them instead of covering them up."
So it seems good if wikipedia is more open - but from this story I just take "private evidence" with me and lots of questions about the whole process.
Sometimes things are genuinely complicated. If you want to understand the hardest, most elaborate forms of Wikipedia community management you're going to need to work really hard at figuring out what's going on.
Community dynamics at this scale, and with this level of bad actors, are not something that can be explained in a few paragraphs.
More and more, especially in engineering, I am in contact with people who just want everything to be easy to understand in TikTok length video clips or short posts.
Some things are hard to understand, dynamic systems especially, black or white answers do not exist.
(Sorry for the slightly off-topic/meta rant. This hit a nerve by me.)
A good place to start for information about how user blocking is done would be the following links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Policies_and_guideli... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Blocking_policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppetry
In this case I think that a sock puppet account can be trivially blocked without much process as long as it can be proved that it is operated by someone who is already blocked for some violation. The sock puppet is an attempt at evading the block that was placed on that user's other account.
but
> Because it is extremely hard to figure out what is going on. Lots of mysterious abbreviations. Unclear timeline.
> But in a real court, I can see the verdict and the laws that were broken. All in complicated, but readable english. Which makes it clear (usually). But in wikipedia to understand a indefinite ban, I have to understand global wiki community dynamics first?
your position aligns with someone who desires decision with serious consequences to be easy to understand.
And this is kind of like a court decision.
But in a real court, I can see the verdict and the laws that were broken. All in complicated, but readable english. Which makes it clear (usually). But in wikipedia to understand a indefinite ban, I have to understand global wiki community dynamics first? I am a bit reminded of Kafka - The Trial.
Thats not really true either. There is a lot to unpack to understand court cases. Just the hearsay rule and its exception would fill a book. Jurisdiction, double jeopardy, means rea, “reasonable man”, Brady disclosure, fruit of poisonous tree, presumption of regularity, habeas corpus, SLAP, reasonable doubt, writ of mandamus, motion to dismiss, motion to supress, motion for change of venue, motion in limine, amicus curiae, consideration. Just to unpack the latin terms makes your head spin, and then you will be caught out by some term with some seamingly easy to understand common meaning used in surprising ways.
One can almost say it is a whole profession to understand what is going on in court. We could call them lawyers or something if we want to be fancy about it. And then turns out even those specialist further specialise in narrower areas.
Almost all of Wikipedia's community administration is done by volunteers working for free!
I was going to start listing examples but that's not the point now. And even if something specific is undone weeks after because of outcry it's still a steady two steps forward, one step back, progression in a nasty direction.
I've read some books, seen some documentaries, learned some history. What's happening is very obvious and anyone who doesn't also see it is either ignorant or in denial.
What does "heading in a totalitarian direction" mean in this context exactly?
I'm not trying to use this as a "cherry pick" but this was news from today: "Trump administration reverses abrupt terminations of foreign students’ US visa registrations
DOJ announced the reversal in federal court after weeks of intense scrutiny by courts and dozens of restraining orders issued by judges."
How is this consistent with your theory/hypothesis?
I think what's important is not to look solely at evidence supporting your idea. The important thing is to find things that disprove your idea. That's the scientific method. I.e. finding something that weakens your hypothesis is what you need to look for. If you're not able to find anything at all disproving your theory then we should be really worried but I think there are actually many things going on that are consistent with a functioning democracy. Keep in democracy doesn't necessarily mean acting in ways that you consider to be good. You might think it's crazy to make deep cross cuts in the government but if this is what people voted for then maybe that can play out. Yes, it seems arbitrary and maybe important things are being cut, which is no different than what you'll see when companies do layoffs. But there's also a lot of resilience. At least I don't think it's anti-democratic to run on a platform of reducing government costs and then act on it. If anything the opposite. It might be really bad, but democratic, or it might end up being a good idea. Another example is you probably think it's crazy for the US to abandon Ukraine. I don't like that either but the US government can set foreign policy and it was reasonably clear that's the way they were going to go before the elections. Is this good for the world? I don't think so. Is it anti-democratic. I don't think so either. How will it play out? Who knows.
I would say that Trump is pushing the limits of presidential powers more than others before him. Some of the actions his administration is taking are borderline anti-democratic and borderline legal. But many of them are actually legal and some others will work their way through the courts. Even the Supreme Court which is generally right leaning has rebuked Trump and will likely not blindly side with him.
I'm not a fan of this administration but at least so far it doesn't look like it's the end of democracy in America. That seems like fear mongering. I think the "opposition" would be better off trusting democracy more, highlighting how its policies contrast with the current government policies, the problems it would solve better for Americans compared with the current government etc. This is probably going to end up being better for America's democracy in the long run. The erosion of democracy is partly due to the incessant attacking and divisiveness/polarization. Focus on common ground which I think is actually larger than what most think and trying to let better ideas win vs. being critical of everything is better. Not that you shouldn't speak out against obviously bad actions but it seems we are just 100% focused on attacks.
The US states also have a lot of power. The citizenry have a lot of power. Senate/congress. Courts. I think you guys will be fine but let's see how it goes. To me the bigger risk is the loss of common ground and polarization. If you have half the country basically feeling the other half is the enemy rather than debate policies that's something that can lead to trouble.
Using the terms of The Economist's "democracy index", I see the United States under Trump 2.0 as a denigrated "flawed democracy". There is even some danger of the United States backsliding towards a "hybrid regime". Hybrid regimes combine some aspects of electoral democracy with some aspects of authoritarianism. Prominent examples of hybrid regimes include Turkey and El Salvador.
Maybe we won't get that far -- strong federalism will help here. But while The Economist has ranked the United States as a borderline "flawed democracy" for the last several years, I suspect 2025's rankings will be considerably lower. My "gut feel" is that the United States could end up ranked close to present-day Hungary, or Poland under PiS. In both cases from what I remember, democracy still was present, but considerable damage was done via institutional attacks on the press and the universities. A US attorney general arresting judges for what seems like a minor dispute (but one involving migrants) seems like a pretty big flag that some degree of authoritarianism has taken hold. As is the erosion of due process involving immigrants.
Long run, I think this institutional damage being done by Trump is the most concerning aspect of Trump 2.0. Trump is actively damaging future engines of American growth (research science and universities). My guess, too, is that the anti-immigrant hostility might damage the previous paradigm where many of the brightest in the world came to America for both research and careers. There is a significant core of American voters that supports this stuff; the most vocal of this core in fact cheer on the arrest of judges and actively attack technologies where the conspiracies overwhelm the facts. (Witness the recent push of a few states to actually restrict mRNA vaccines for... reasons? Nothing solid that I can think of.) I do not think that this element will go away after Trump moves on.
I agree there is damage to US democracy but the root causes are more complex than just Trump. I also don't think anything Trump is doing is irreversible. This too shall pass. The more interesting question is what happens next. We seem to be more and more in a situation where we have two camps who are essentially saying democracy is only happening if/when my camp wins. That can't be democracy.
Due process re: US immigration has been eroding since 9/11. Public trust in government has been eroding in the US and other places. Social media and the pandemic are at least two factors I can identify.
With all the FUD there's probably still no better place in the world to start a new business. Where would you go? China? Really no comparison at all between the US and Poland or Hungary, the latter have barely gotten out of eastern europe/USSR. I'm not seeing any H1B or green card holders seeking other/better options or for that matter, US citizens seeking to immigrate somewhere better.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/07/silicon-valley-is-so-domin...
I can’t read the WP article because it’s paywalled, however I have been suspicious of Wikimedia for a long time. I used to donate to them thinking I was helping to keep the severs running, then being alarmed to find the money was going on all sorts of nonsense. The former CEO (Maher) was blatantly a political/intelligence operator. Fits the pattern of the establishment/powers-that-be abusing the NGO/non-profit sector to illicitly further their aims, so I’m not surprised the new DoJ are looking into them.
Were these not the actions of private entities rather than official government acts?
I would also note that the last straw for companies like Parler was involvement in a violent attempt to overthrow the government whereas in this case the objection appears to be constitutionally-protected speech. Again, those are nowhere near comparable situations. Where is something like, say, going after a right-wing non-profit because they published content which criticized Biden?
And I’m sure the “government overthrowers” (lol) also used Facebook and Twitter, yet only these other ones were taken down. We later found out, of course, that the likes of FB and Twitter had embedded censorship teams working hand-in-glove with the security state and advocacy groups.
There was a lot of talk about that but I note you left out the part where it wasn’t real. The IRS investigated both liberal and conservative groups, but only the conservative groups lied about being singled out as part of a defense strategy.
https://web.archive.org/web/20180225112702/https://www.treas...
But if you haven’t realized that yet it’s obvious you never will till it’s too late and sure, maybe that’s harsh to say but as trump himself said “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters” because that’s precisely how much y’all care what he does. Gimme your downvotes but don’t pretend you’re standing on moral high ground, you’d justify anything he does.
The whole anti-DEI sweep across the government where people who don’t remove “let’s treat people nice” posters risk getting fired and attacking people using the office of the president is so obviously deplatforming and censorship that your criticism of democrats is laughable. When’s the last time Biden threatened to revoke Fox News license? Republicans even a tiny bit critical of Trump get exiled for daring to step out of line. You don’t hate censorship and deplatforming, you love it, can’t get enough of it, you just hate it when it happens to people you like.
https://www.cato.org/blog/border-wall-didnt-work
No, illegal immigration is not the same as an invasion by another nation.
I don’t condone harboring criminals but if they are indeed criminals they should be tried in a court of law because that is the American way. On the other hand if these illegal immigrants are fleeing violence rather than creating it, have lived here for years and/or have kids born and raised in the US, then I can understand the grace afforded them by sanctuary cities as deporting them is not illegal but ethically questionable. Deporting someone who has never known anything but living in this country to another one they have no connection to because their parents brought or birthed them here illegally would be legal but would it be justice? I don’t think it would, I think it’s more complicated.
The true absurdity is thinking due process is optional in this country. How the party that purports an unwavering belief in the founding fathers, constitution, law, and American exceptionalism compromised so hard on a fundamental right is beyond the pale.
If it’s optional for these immigrants then it’s optional for every citizen if Trump deems it so; the precedent is set, just call someone the enemy and you’re good. Your only defense that this couldn’t happen to US citizens would be the courts and an adherence to societal and legal norms both of which Trump has shown clear indifference to.
Addendum:
Amazing, it already happened and got posted to HN.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43801959
https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/ice-deports-3-u-s-citize...
“New Orleans, LA - Today, in the early hours of the morning, the New Orleans Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Field Office deported at least two families, including two mothers and their minor children – three of whom are U.S. citizen children aged 2, 4, and 7. One of the mothers is currently pregnant. The families, who had lived in the United States for years and had deep ties to their communities, were deported from the U.S. under deeply troubling circumstances that raise serious due process concerns.
…
In the case of the other family, a U.S. citizen child suffering from a rare form of metastatic cancer was deported without medication or the ability to consult with their treating physicians–despite ICE being notified in advance of the child’s urgent medical needs.“
Truly, justice in action, protecting us from criminal pregnant women and children with cancer. Probably MS13 gang members. What a great and powerful country we’ve become, Jesus would be proud /s
Look I’m not against law enforcement, I’m sure we have common ground somewhere, but how can I take the illegal immigration rhetoric seriously, take a hardline stance, if this is part of reality?
I don’t support the wall for reasons I’ve already given but I do support border control as I think most of these people do, it’s just different with folks already here.
Even if I was worried about illegal immigrants more-so than other current issues, I’d still take issue with the cruelty in which it seems to be carried out such as in the story I posted. Surely you realize that stories like that promote civil disobedience because even if they committed a crime they aren’t all hardened criminals, some are just people looking for a better life. Not everyone believes they’re all murderers and gang members simply because Trump thinks so and especially not women and children.
In terms of the Alien Enemies act it is not the role of the executive branch to interpret the law and one could argue they are breaking the law by taking a non-literal reading of the words ”invasion” and “predatory incursion” to avoid due process for these individuals. They may argue and win in court that the interpretation should change but that doesn’t excuse them from taking liberties in the first place.
All that said. I’m going to leave it here, you’re free to respond if you wish but I don’t think we’ll change each other’s minds. I do appreciate your civil discussion despite the controversy of the topic.
https://commonslibrary.org/authoritarianism-how-you-know-it-...
What are the Top 10 Elements of the Authoritarian Playbook?
1. Divide and rule: Foment mistrust and fear in the population.
2. Spread lies and conspiracies: Undermine the public’s belief in truth.
3. Destroy checks and balances: Quietly use legal or pseudo-legal rationales to gut institutions, weaken opposition, and/or declare national emergencies to seize unconstitutional powers.
4. Demonize opponents and independent media: Undermine the public’s trust in those actors and institutions that hold the state accountable.
5. Undermine civil and political rights for the unaligned: Actively suppress free speech, the right to assembly and protest and the rights of women and minority groups.
6. Blame minorities, immigrants, and “outsiders” for a country’s problems: Exploit national humiliation while promising to restore national glory.
7. Reward loyalists and punish defectors: Make in-group members fearful to voice dissension.
8. Encourage or condone violence to advance political goals: Dehumanize opposition and/or out-groups to justify violence against them.
9. Organize mass rallies to keep supporters mobilized against made-up threats: Use fearmongering and hate speech to consolidate in-group identity and solidarity.
10. Make people feel like they are powerless to change things: Solutions will only come from the top.
1. Is all of us, on the "right" or the "left". Let's not do this.
2. Here you could say maybe the government is doing a little. But I would still say most of the lies and conspiracies that are reverberating in our society are not originating from there. This is like 95% on all of us (or social media). 5% you can maybe blame Trump.
3. I don't really see this happening yet.
4. I would say the "left" has been demonizing the right very effectively. But sure, goes both ways. This just seems to be standard for political debate today (it's the end of the world if those guys get power). I think it's mostly up to us to push back against this. So if you're a democrat push back against casting Trump as a dictator (I don't think he is) and if you're a republican push back against all this "stop the steal" and "lock her up" whatever nonsense.
5. Not happening IMO.
6. I guess Trump is blaming illegal immigrants for the rise in crime. I don't think is is a perfect match to the intention here. America is so multi-cultural/diverse anyways so this tactic doesn't really work.
7. Trump sort of does this but not really to the extent that I think the author of the list meant. So far it seems there's no fear from voicing dissent. Musk went ballistic on Navarro calling him a moron and is critical of Trumps tariffs. Many other republicans are critical. This is more of a kindergarden than authoritarianism.
8. Not happening. Would be very worrying if we get there.
9. Not happening. We had large rallies before the election but you don't see the sort of things you might see in Iran or Turkey. Again this would be a worrying sign if we get here.
10. Also not happening. You see universities fighting back against Trump. you see courts. you see states. you see people. If anything it seems people feel like they have a lot of power.
I guess at some level? But in comparison with actual authoritarian regimes/societies this seems to be in the noise.
> Encourage or condone violence to advance political goals: Dehumanize opposition and/or out-groups to justify violence against them.
Again, I don't think we're seeing this happen. Has Trump given some extreme element a sense that they can get away with things they couldn't previously? Sure. That was also the case in his first presidency. Is this a society shaping phenomena. Not really yet. Could we be in a long term change that will end up with a non-democratic US? Anything is possible. Everyone needs to uphold democratic values.
They became too petty and no longer served their purpose as the political party of the ruling class, oligarchy turned. Hell of a way to go out though.
Reality is shifting, rapidly; HN mod policies should adjust accordingly.
> We, the Party, control all records, and we control all memories. Then we control the past, do we not?
You can't love the web without loving Wikipedia, so I'm wary of anyone who disrespects it.
I just feel that logically this doesn't make any sense. Having the view or even promoting the idea that a mythical creature is "gender fluid" isn't an overt political action. It doesn't help any political party or politician. There are numerous fully-compliant tax-exempt organizations that directly aid LGBTQIA+ individuals. How are these above board but having someone submit content to your organization that claims the Nure-onna might be genderfluid is crossing into the realm of politics by influencing election outcomes?
“ Lawrence Mark Sanger (/ˈsæŋər/ ⓘ;[1] born July 16, 1968) is an American Internet project developer and philosopher who co-founded Wikipedia along with Jimmy Wales. Sanger coined Wikipedia's name, and provided initial drafts for many of its early guidelines, including the "Neutral point of view" and "Ignore all rules" policies.”
Regardless - whether you choose to describe Sanger's early involvement with Wikipedia as a "founder" or not, 2002 was a long time ago, especially online. The site which he was involved with was very different from the one which exists today.
Today, not so much. I can’t remember where I read it, but there was an analysis of just one topic where it was shown that circular referencing was used to establish a narrative.
Coming back to the point at hand: the US attorney targeting Wikipedia is merely restating allegations which have been made by many others on Wikipedia’s biases for and against certain topics and individuals.
Honestly. Is Trump not more controversial than Obama?
How Trump will end up in the history books wholly depends on whether he succeeds in his attempts to curtail globalism and save the USA from becoming insolvent due to the rising debt. If the economy fails his presidency will as well and with that he'll be remembered for all the controversy around his political career. If he succeeds he'll be seen as a 'realpolitiker' who pulled the USA out of the downward spiral it had been in since ... the late 90's? The end of the cold war?
Of course there is also the chance of a large-scale conflict breaking out during his watch in which case his place in the history books also depends on how that ends.
Time will tell.
That's a fantasy. His mere existence in the position, contradicts the premise. Hillary hoped to be in a similar position...history would have also been kind to her, despite her vicious nature by the obvious virtuous implications (a woman can become POTUS).
This is just a euphemism for "he was black in public and lesser white people didn't like it".
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
“Racism is not dead, but it is on life support – kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as ‘racists”
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/11151740-racism-is-not-dead...
But no seriously, having finished reading it, this article is incredibly Christian-centric and Americentric.
The Barack Obama article completely fails to mention many well-known scandals: Benghazi, the IRS scandal, the AP phone records scandal, and Fast and Furious, to say nothing of Solyndra or the Hillary Clinton email server scandal—or, of course, the developing “Obamagate” story in which Obama was personally involved in surveilling Donald Trump.
This is not a matter of whether you watch Fox News or not.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_attack_on_American_cultur...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204712904578090... - "What we now know—and still don't—about President Obama's 9/11." is pretty good too.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Benghazi_attack
They creatively censored it under the title “2012 Banghazi Attack”
No. His complaint is:
> The Barack Obama article completely fails to mention many well-known scandals: Benghazi
Visit:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama
Read:
> Libya
> Main articles: 2011 military intervention in Libya and 2012 Benghazi attack
> In February 2011, protests in Libya began against long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi as part of the Arab Spring. They soon turned violent. In March, as forces loyal to Gaddafi advanced on rebels across Libya, calls for a no-fly zone came from around the world, including Europe, the Arab League, and a resolution[378] passed unanimously by the U.S. Senate.[379] In response to the passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 on March 17, the Foreign Minister of Libya Moussa Koussa announced a ceasefire. However Gaddafi's forces continued to attack the rebels.[380]
> On March 19, a multinational coalition led by France and the United Kingdom with Italian and U.S. support, approved by Obama, took part in air strikes to destroy the Libyan government's air defense capabilities to protect civilians and enforce a no-fly-zone,[381] including the use of Tomahawk missiles, B-2 Spirits, and fighter jets.[382][383][384] Six days later, on March 25, by unanimous vote of all its 28 members, NATO took over leadership of the effort, dubbed Operation Unified Protector.[385] Some members of Congress[386] questioned whether Obama had the constitutional authority to order military action in addition to questioning its cost, structure and aftermath.[387][388] In 2016 Obama said "Our coalition could have and should have done more to fill a vacuum left behind" and that it was "a mess".[389] He has stated that the lack of preparation surrounding the days following the government's overthrow was the "worst mistake" of his presidency.[390]
The link is there (I don't know how long it's been there but don't care to investigate), but there is no text about the Benghazi attack on the US Embassy - just other topics. Many people can and would criticize Barack Obama and his then-Secretary of State for inaction to protect the embassy from an attack the embassy saw coming.
We can see similar problems with other sites that rely on volunteer labor, like Reddit.
Last revised by deleted account 1 month ago
Damn Wikipedia assassinating critics now? Where will it all end
FTFY. If you go dig deeper at foundation.wikimedia.org you'll inevitably come across an Israeli court document describing systemic smear defamation and libel campaign mounted by toxic editors against an academic, which lasted around a decade.
In this case, it’s even more than the simple question of degree because intention matters, and we have enormous differences around that. Criminal charges are often far heavier if they can show intent, and it factors heavily in things like whether inaccurate business statements were honest errors or intentionally misleading investors. In the case mentioned, it would be especially key whether someone was trying to suppress misinformation in good faith because they honestly thought they were performing a public safety good by preventing dangerous advice from spreading during a crisis — and that shows why Martin’s threats to are at an entirely different level since there’s no emergency and they’re clearly protected speech which has no direct harm or even a path to substantially contribute to harm.
Sacrificing people on the altar of your freedom is better? There was a reason for lock-downs and masks. They were implemented worldwide. It wasn't some fluke of US policy.
If we do, the absurdities about masks and vaccines that were spread by some will make it last just as long as the covid one
Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.
The problem with in-thread accusations isn't so much the lack of legitimacy but the deletrious effect on discussion quality, which is fragile at best:
On shilling generally: <https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix=true&page=0&dateR...>
On HN's fragility: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23047709>
Anyone who's edited Wikipedia long enough will recognize the pattern of what I'm describing. It's not a misrepresentation.
They aren't, and nobody has the political cajones to actually pick that fight. But that doesn't mean that many of them aren't breaking tax laws left and right.
Wikipedia hasn't shifted particularly Left since 2020. Centrists are just blind to shifts of the Center. it's the political equivalent of the equivalence principle.
[1] outside of identity politics
Yes, of course NPR is more on the side of democrats than republicans.
But, it is very much pro-business, and often pro-war status quo ("right"). And, as I mentioned ("identity politics"), also very much pro-diversity in race/gender/etc. ("left").
So, IMHO, very much "centrist", not "left" (except on race/sex/gender).
also english wikipedia is actually for english speakers.. so it includes countries that aren’t america. there’s a reason they didn’t name it american wikipedia.
I'd buy an argument if you looked at executive payout or something along those lines.
https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/reliable-sources-how-wik...
https://manhattan.institute/article/is-wikipedia-politically...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Rhododendrites#Don...
Oh shit! That happened already, didn't it? How is it going at attracting talented individuals?
We should remember that anti-wikipedia propaganda exists for decades now. Despite of that, it is a place cherished by many (including non commies). Its demise would be a public disaster.
Hoarders will maintain copies of it. And if there is bias, there will be tons of biased bootlegs around.
Further investigation would be more wise than rapid decisions by instinct.
Yo dawg, I heard you like to appeal to conspiracy theory types...
Why would someone introduce lots of seemingly indiscernible edits into important articles, fully knowing that the edit history is available to anyone who wants to look?
It would make more sense to spread propaganda in a place that doesn't fully track it.
Unless the exposition of such tracking edits as an obvious smoking gun exists to be staged to look like someone else did it.
Of course, it could all be to trigger a recursive conspiracytheorypocallipse that further erodes any belief in community generated content.
What should we do, Master Anakin? There's too many of them conspiracies.
Wikipedia could also stop operating as a 501c3 and incorporate.
But the typical out for these organizations are that they are not responsible for what people post. I don’t feel like that is very responsible. They already have moderation on the platform.
But Wikimedia/pedia can’t claim 501c3 status. It could spin off the political content/controversial into 501c4 which has more leeway. It can tighten editorial controls, emphasize first amendment, look at Section 230. Publish reports showing how misinformation is identified and corrected, partner with fact checking organizations.
But also if they cannot police their own content without an unpaid army of volunteers then herein lies the bigger issue with their model.
may I suggest Switzerland
I'm impressed by Wikipedia's efforts to root out "abuse" but in the end it's all a contest over truth, and Wikipedia fails in precisely the dynamic, high-interest, high-consequence topics that users seek out on the site.