Seriously, Fred... He cites WIKIPEDIA:NOT#DEMOCRACY and the use of "American football" instead of just "football" as examples of liberal bias. Not much substance to this "bitter complaint" in my humble opinion. Nathan

I had no idea that theories about gravity and relativity were the result of a liberal conspiracy, but quite a few of those "Examples of liberal bias" discuss Wikipedia's failure to promote criticism of both principles. Nathan

On Wed, 13 Oct 2010, Charles Matthews wrote: I think that as a serious response, this is disingenuous. People don't write with 100% precision, and they certainly don't use Wikipedia terminology. It may be literally true that we don't claim to understand anything, but that doesn't make the complaint invalid. It just means that you need to apply a bit more intelligence to understanding the complaint beyond literally parsing the words. (And there's *far* too much literalness among Wikipedia policy wonks). I would guess that a complaint that we don't understand something is a claim of undue weight and unreliable sources. Almost any claim about the Tea Party has been made by someone; whether it has been made by someone who we ought to pay attention to is another story.

I think there have been some discussions at WP:RSN about whether it is a sufficiently reliable source for negative BLP. My own opinion would be that it is not, and neither is the Guardian. On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 4:21 PM, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net> wrote: -- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG

Conservapedia isn't even a reliable guide to what most U.S. conservatives think of Wikipedia; despite the broad name, the site is actually run by Young Earth creationists <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Earth_creationism>, which is why it's so outlandish. So, put me down for bull. Pardon the apparent self-promotion, but I wrote about this last year<http://thewikipedian.net/2009/11/14/examples-of-bias-in-conservaped… my blog (David commented, so that makes it better, maybe) and my chief takeaway was that some complaints were in fact answered over time, although one imagines not due to their influence, as no one there ever bothered to take credit for the changes. What I'd set out to do in the first place was catalogue their complaints, but it was all too much. If they were at all serious, they'd write something more concise. It's just a list of gripes, and not so much with Wikipedia, but with modernity. On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 11:02 AM, Fred Bauder &lt;fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net&gt;wrote;wrote:

On 13/10/2010 16:02, Fred Bauder wrote: Of course they can point out deficiencies in Wikipedia articles. Those exist. The question is whether they can prove the case for either of (a) conscious slanting or (b) systemic bias, away from neutral treatment. We should not care if anyone dislikes a WP article because it is neutral: we should care if a serious deviation from neutrality can be shown. Naturally Conservapedia is selective in its interests, and probably the list is as revealing about its selectivity as about anything else. By putting the focus on a subset of articles it might be possible to demonstrate selective bias in an area in Wikipedia: I don't suppose anyone seriously thinks we have no systemic bias of any kind. Which is why my response was in terms of sorting. It is more perhaps of looking for signal in a load of "noise". We know that criticisms of disproportion in coverage, for example, are always with us. I didn't feel much illuminated. Charles

As the overwhelming majority of points on the list are absurd or pathetic, it took me a bit by surprise that I'm sort of agreeing with #51 ("Wikipedia's entry on Peter Singer downplayed his advocacy for infanticide and moral disdain for human life.") The coverage in his article and in [[Practical Ethics]] doesn't match the controversy it created and doesn't pinpoint *why* it created a such a controversy. Yeah, I'm aware of {{sofixit}}. [[User:Pjacobi]] -------- Original-Nachricht -------- -- Neu: GMX De-Mail - Einfach wie E-Mail, sicher wie ein Brief! Jetzt De-Mail-Adresse reservieren: http://portal.gmx.net/de/go/demail

On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 11:42, Ryan Delaney &lt;ryan.delaney(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Actually, I haven't looked at this article in awhile since I quit editing Wikipedia. It looks like the balance is quite good, as far as your philosophy articles go. If anything, the discussion of his arguments on infanticide may be too prominent. But there are no serious problems that I see. - causa sui

Are you speaking of the article on the German Wikipedia? Fred

On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 12:09, Peter Jacobi &lt;peter_jacobi(a)gmx.net&gt; wrote: The controversy about Singer's ideas has definitely spilled outside of philosophy journals (where emotions don't run so hot). I don't read German, but the article on en.wiki covers that controversy pretty well, from what I can tell. I'm not sure what problem you are suggesting en.Wikipedia has, or what should be done about it, on this point. - causa sui

On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 8:02 AM, Fred Bauder &lt;fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net&gt; wrote: Responding on some technical points; 10 (relativity/PBR) - no substance 12 (Pioneer Anomaly) - numerically understanding and articulating the various factors and their estimated errors is critical to coherently understanding this phenomena. WP article is decent (in part because an involved scientist is a contributor) - CP seems not to get it. [disclaimer - COI, slightly involved] 14 (engineering - wind turbines) - no substance 16 (relativity contradictions) - no substance 39 (cold fusion) - may have a point here, but we know about this one... 40 (strategic defense initiative) - no substance [disclaimer - COI, but pro-SDI-ish COI] 45 (gun politics in the US) - no substance [disclaimer - pro-gun COI] 76 (wikipedia promoting suicide) - no substance 95 (operation eagle claw / iran hostage / carter election) - editorial choice to put political consequences in main article on hostage crisis, not in the article on the rescue itself; main article has coverage in lede for the issue. 97 (editor liberal bias) - probably true but omits age based statistical trend (younger / more liberal) - WP generally consistent with active internet user community. 107 (edward teller / oppenheimer security clearance testimony) - WP article is consistent with biographies and histories of the event, perhaps more Teller-leaning nuanced than the average historical coverage 119 (elementary proof) - doesn't appear to have been in WP until the mathematics project got going 2007ish, from reviewing its article and the main mathematical proof article. i don't consider this a valid criticism, however; WP's growth and evolution are strength (and future challenge) not flaw. 141 (communism mass killings) - main communism article section "Criticisms of communism" at the bottom of page has links to "Mass killings under communist regimes" prominently, so it's there now. 500 edits ago it was mentioned in the criticisms section but not linked directly off the main article. I'm going to stop there, with a general observation - I think they're right on one big picture thing: Wikipedia has an editorial bias - our "default neutrality" is that of a moderately internationalist, left-of-US-center somewhat more intellectual than average and more young internet user than average position, compared to the US political landscape as a whole. I.e., our userbase (editors) is skewed younger and more liberally, with the Internet early adopters general population statistics. I am concerned not so much with the specifics they are pointing out, but at a general trend that we may include more negatives about conservative positions and people than about liberal positions and people, which would be worth some statistical analysis. Ancedotal examples, especially those cited by someone so far off on the right end of the spectrum as young-earth creationists, aren't particularly useful for identifying the pattern. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

On 13/10/2010, George Herbert &lt;george.herbert(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: The problem is that a good encyclopedia, such as the Wikipedia, tries to reflect reality and truth. But reality and truth... have a well known liberal bias. -- -Ian Woollard

On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 3:26 PM, George Herbert &lt;george.herbert(a)gmail.com&gt;wrote;wrote: "Reality has a liberal bias" doesn't mean that liberals are right. Rather, it means that any attempt to represent reality will, in the eyes of American conservatives, amount to displaying a liberal bias.

On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 3:47 PM, Guettarda &lt;guettarda(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: That should only be correct insofar as the reverse is true, namely that reality has a conservative bias - when viewed from the Left. However, reality is subjective for pretty much anything that we can't whip out a tape measure for, take its temperature or define its geographic range. We can cross-reference a hamlet on Google Maps or define the tilt on the Leaning Tower, but we cannot accurately describe the precise political orientation of a politician. My rule of thumb is to look at (say) a biographical article on a sitting politician, and ask myself, would that politician's media spokesman be happy with it. If the answer is YES!, then it's biased. Reality, according to some editors, is a matter of following the party line. Or the faith's doctrine, nationalist outlook, cultural preference or preferred football team's victory song. We aren't going to convince, through rational argument or ranting abuse, the editors producing biased material that they are actually doing so. Or, if they know their material is biased, they will not admit it, because that would be a betrayal of the sacred party line. The same holds true for biased critics of fair and balanced articles. If an article contains criticism or a negative view of their hero, then it must, by definition, be biased. And in need of correction. I think that Wikipedia is big enough that we have room for all points of view by drilling down far enough. We are not going to state in our main article that the 9/11 attacks were a conspiracy organised by the US government, but we have an article on the various conspiracy theories. In fact we have sub articles on specific theories. If critics claim a bias in Wikipedia, then rather than battle over the main article, just write a child article focussing on the specific concerns. If there is any merit, then it will be revealed and promoted. Contrariwise, if it is tripe, it will be labelled as such and eliminated. -- Peter in Canberra

On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 9:47 PM, Guettarda &lt;guettarda(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: I am not consistently in either camp; I'm one of those darn individual issues unbundled, make up own mind people. It's not just "representing reality" - it's misrepresenting Conservatives' positions and philosophy and similar non-neutral things. I see this in plenty of articles where I fully personally agree with the "liberal position" as well as ones where I don't. If I see bias when I agree with the conservatives, I may not be a dispassionate observer on that point, and I know that. But if I see it when I disagree with them, it's probably really there. It's not everywhere. And on the average it's not worth doing anything about. But there are places it's a problem. One area - homosexuality / gay rights. My personal position here is very strongly pro-homosexual marriage and equality - I'm slightly offended still that my ex-neighbors the now married lesbian couple did it without me getting a chance to officiate and even out the heterosexual marriages I've performed for people. I find the anti-gay-marriage arguments either narrow denominationally religiously focused or intellectually incoherent, personally. But I keep finding cases where those arguments against are belittled to the point of not even being reported accurately. I understand the arguments against despite disagreeing with pretty much every one completely, and I can say that our coverage of those points has not (at the times I've looked) accurately resembled the actual arguments, philosophy, and beliefs of the opponents. That's not neutral. That's not representing reality. That's outright "conservatives are so batshit we don't care about them" bias. And the argument doesn't deserve being simplified to that, in part because people seeking to understand it who tend to agree with the opponents who come look at our pages will immediately see the bias and turn off of Wikipedia as a useful information source, at least on this topic. Oh, also, we're supposed to be neutral POV. Minor thing there... This is Not Good for the Encyclopedia. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com