Talk:Criticism of Wikipedia

Criticism in the Telegraph

Wikipedia should focus on content creation – not social justice campaigns Michael G. Lind (talk) 12:15, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Paywall. Pascalulu88 (talk) 02:26, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

https://archive.ph/n71wJ Buenovale (talk) 03:05, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! Pascalulu88 (talk) 11:40, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Musk's opinion (and the "Wokipedia" epithet in general)

@HiLo48: Regarding your removal of the following text and supporting source:

Elon Musk has referred to the platform as "Wokipedia", asserting that its neutrality has been compromised by "wokeness".

Over the past several days, Musk has been on a Twitter rant about Wikipedia ([1], [2], [3]), with some of these tweets being viewed millions or tens of millions of times, and receiving tens of thousands of replies. This is itself a recapitulation of Musk's earlier expression of this opinion, which is documented in reliable sources (I picked the most convenient one). Our inclusion of content is based on the reporting of that content in reliable sources, not any one editor's questioning of whether the sourced content is "of significance". The sources decide that for us, and we don't censor them because the matter reported is attributed to an eccentric figure. BD2412 T 03:19, 19 April 2024 (UTC) BD2412 T 03:19, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps the content about Musk needs to include some of the justification you have written above. As it stood, there was no reason given for why anyone should care more about what Musk thinks than what anyone else thinks. Musk is an expert on some things, but not on creating encyclopaedias, so we we need to say why his opinion matters. (If it really does.) HiLo48 (talk) 03:26, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

The justification is that it is important enough to be covered in sources, and that it reflects a current more broadly expressed criticism of Wikipedia characterizing it as "woke". BD2412 T 03:44, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Don't tell me. Tell the readers. By that, I mean that we need to say in the article why Musk's opinion matters.

@HiLo48: Perhaps we could say something along the lines of: Tech billionaire Elon Musk has been a frequent critic of Wikipedia, referring to the platform as "Wokipedia" to assert that its neutrality has been compromised by "wokeness", and at one point announcing that he would pay the site one billion dollars if it changed its name to "Dickipedia". BD2412 T 19:09, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

References

No. That still doesn't explain why Musk's opinion is of any more significance than anyone else's. HiLo48 (talk) 23:26, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Is there justification in the article itself for why any of the specific opinions expressed are important enough to be included? Every criticism of Wikipedia is a criticism by someone. BD2412 T 23:33, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I haven't looked in depth. I am opposed to criticism articles and criticism sections in articles in general for that and other reasons. If someone criticises something, it often says more about the person doing the criticising than whatever it is they are criticising. This about Musk's criticism. I will keep asking why it matters. HiLo48 (talk) 00:12, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

@HiLo48: Suppose, then, that we take Musk out of the equation. Should the criticism of Wikipedia as "woke" be included in the article? BD2412 T 18:27, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

"Woke" is one of those silly, ineffectual insults. The people its aimed at see the attributes that make up being woke as positive things. It's like "leftie". HiLo48 (talk) 23:43, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Our article on the subject suggests some specifications for the meaning of the insult. I'm not sure what "ineffectual" means in this context, but the proposition seems to be that Wikipedia engages in performative posturing that overcompensates for a perception of bias derived from the characteristics of its editing base. BD2412 T 23:55, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

By "ineffectual", I mean that it generally has no negative impact on whoever it's aimed at. HiLo48 (talk) 00:52, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

You're inferring meaning to someone's one-word derision to make it sound more like real criticism. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 00:29, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Not really, he pretty much says it here. Specifically, he quoted a tweet about Wikipedia abandoning a 'free and open' internet so as not to recapitulate a 'white male Westernized construct', and said that this was "literally the point of Wikipedia". The criticism at issue goes beyond just using the word "woke", and although Musk is the architect of this stream of it, there is plenty of follow-up to his tweets, including by fairly prominent public figures, to the effect that Wikipedia suppresses facts that counter the asserted ideological narrative. BD2412 T 00:43, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Are the really facts? HiLo48 (talk) 00:55, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Does it matter, for the purposes of criticism existing as criticism? We have substantial content in the article right now about accusations of Wikipedia being both liberally and conservatively biased, including criticism from the likes of Fox News that Wikipedia has political and ideological biases. We also have coverage of assertions of Wikipedia being biased against minorities. The assertion being made by Musk and echoed by his followers is that Wikipedia has tried to go too far in the opposite direction and become biased against the majority group. BD2412 T 01:01, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Misunderstandings and insults do not count as "criticism". They do count as "opposition". Wikipedia definitely suppresses "alternative facts" (also called lies), making it less "free and open" and more reliable than the internet at large. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:00, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

@Hob Gadling: Would you say, then, that the place for such content would be an Opposition to Wikipedia article? There seem to be sources sufficient to support having such a thing. BD2412 T 16:24, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

No need to ping me, I have a watchlist. And even if I did not, there is no reason to assume that I would know the answer any better than anybody else. But if you want such an article, I have no probably with you writing it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:56, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

[not hilo48 but] IMO we need more criticism than just calling it "woke" to include in the criticism of Wikipedia article. Just saying it's "woke" is both lacking any kind of depth or evidence and a term applied to basically anything conservatives don't like about the left (or history, or race, or gender, or science). By the original definition, the fact that we have articles on slavery, redlining, and don't say the American Civil War is "just about states' rights", we are by definition woke (but that sense of the word was never used as "criticism"). Aside: I was about to give an example and accidentally chose one that was about the WMF, which made me realize we surprisingly don't have something like criticism of the Wikimedia Foundation. Not sure it's notable, but my example didn't actually concern Wikipedia so omitting it for now. In general, we need more then a one-word political diss. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 19:33, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Is Musk aware of Wookiepedia or is that part of the joke unintentional? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:42, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Is Musk calling Wikipedia "wokipedia" "criticism"? Is that the scope of this article? If another celebrity said "Wikipedia sux" and was retweeted enough for a media source to cover it, is that "criticism" worth including? If we had a trolling of Wikipedia article, then it would certainly fit. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 20:53, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

@Horse Eye's Back: I see no indication anywhere that Musk is aware of, or referencing Wookiepedia. @Rhododendrites: Musk's trolling is encapsulated with quotes by Musk of other figures asserting that Wikipedia is "woke" and seeks to perpetuate anti-majoritarian politics. If that isn't a criticism, what is it? BD2412 T 21:06, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm looking at the proposed text: Elon Musk has referred to the platform as "Wokipedia", asserting that its neutrality has been compromised by "wokeness". Yes, we include specific criticisms by other people, but what does Musk's "wokipedia" add? I'm not saying it should be omitted; I'm asking if basic trolling like that is the kind of "criticism" this article seeks to summarize in an encyclopedic way. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 21:24, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I suggest to leave out this sort of trolling altogether. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of stupid tweets – we have better things to do, I hope, than summarising everything celebrities do to keep being talked about. — kashmīrī ^TALK 21:47, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

If Musk has specific complaints and *tweets about them and reliable sources cover his statements, it would then be worth discussing if his comments belong in the article. Random shit like "he called it Wokepedia" does not belong. He's a guy. His opinion by itself is worth no more than anyone else's. --Onorem (talk) 23:52, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

This article should cover substantive criticism. Not the random musings of a wealthy monopolist who dominates the 21st century megaphone market, and uses his "X" powers to spout banal and uninformed things to his vast audience. Cullen328 (talk) 06:34, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Second volume of something

Why exactly is the paragraph However, while the second volume of the report issued by the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee in this article? It essentially says "some people said that someone else did not influence Wikipedia, and some people with a very, very, very long description said that someone influenced something which is not Wikipedia." --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:13, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

It essentially says "some people said that someone else did not influence Wikipedia, and some people with a very, very, very long description said that someone influenced something which is not Wikipedia. Nope. Here's what the content said in reference to Wikipedia:

"However, while the second volume of the report issued by the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee on Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election cites a 2016 study published by the NATO Strategic Communications Center of Excellence that found that entities supported by the Russian government have employed paid online trolls to post misleading information on Wikipedia in the context of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the report did not identify Wikipedia as one of the Web 2.0 services used by the Russian government to influence voters in the 2016 U.S. presidential election."

What it says is that A (the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee) cited research by B (the NATO Strategic Communications Center of Excellence) that has found that Wikipedia has been subject to internet manipulation by C (the Russian government) for a specific purpose (for the Russia-Ukraine conflict), but that A however did not identify Wikipedia as a Web 2.0 service that been manipulated by C for a different purpose (interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election). I included the content because it is an example and a non-example of Wikipedia being subject to internet manipulation, although perhaps it would have been better to include the content in the "Commandeering or sanitizing articles" secondary subsection rather than the "Exposure to political operatives and advocates" secondary subsection. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 02:39, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I waded through the paragraph back then without finding any such manipulation of Wikipedia. I only found non-manipulation of Wikipedia and manipulation of something else, as I said. If you reinsert it, could you please cut that part away to leave only the manipulation-of-Wikipedia part? --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:10, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Here's what the full text said:

"However, while the second volume of the report issued by the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee on Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election cites a 2016 study published by the NATO Strategic Communications Center of Excellence that found that entities supported by the Russian government have employed paid online trolls to post misleading information on Wikipedia in the context of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the report did not identify Wikipedia as one of the Web 2.0 services used by the Russian government to influence voters in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Instead, like the first volume of the report issued by the Special Counsel investigation into the interference, the joint press statement issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in October 2016, and the declassified assessment released in January 2017 by the U.S. Intelligence Community, the second and fifth volumes of the Senate Intelligence Committee report released in October 2019 and August 2020 respectively concluded that the Russian interference occurred primarily by hacking-and-dumping operations targeting the internal communications of the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Clinton campaign officials (specifically John Podesta) and active measures social media campaigns primarily on Facebook and Twitter to influence the electorate to vote for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in the general election."

I'd recommend keeping all of the first sentence; I've encountered people in life who believe that Wikipedia was used by the Russian government for the purpose that the report U.S. Senate Intelligence did not identify it as being used for and generally believe it to be a source of false information and fake news. The second sentence can be moved to a footnote for a curious reader's interest. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 12:18, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Is what I've proposed acceptable? -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 02:57, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

I still do not think it is relevant, but I am not the boss here and others should chime in.

The reason I do not think it is relevant is that it is not criticism of Wikipedia. The core, which I had overlooked the first time because of all the other stuff around it, is "trolls post misleading information". But trolls are not Wikipedia. If they succeeded and the misleading information was there for a long time, pointing that out would be criticism of Wikipedia. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:18, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

The reason I do not think it is relevant is that it is not criticism of Wikipedia. ... But trolls are not Wikipedia. Do you think the rest of the content in the "Exposure to political operatives and advocates" and "Commandeering or sanitizing articles" secondary subsections is irrelevant? If so, how is the content that I added different in substance from the rest of the content already included there? Both sections discuss Wikipedia being subject to manipulation by state and non-state actors to further their political interests rather than the project's purpose of creating an encyclopedia. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 12:24, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Those parts list clear examples of articles that have been under attack, they are not as vague as the part I removed. But yes, I think they are not criticism of Wikipedia. But you are right that this is where the text in question belongs if it is added.

I wish other people would enter this conversation. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:42, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

I wish other people would enter this conversation. This is why I wish there was a committee of editors where individual members regularly respond to third opinion requests and resolve disagreements en banc as a panel upon request for an appeal, but other editors here seem not to agree with me that such a committee is needed. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 12:16, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Antisemitism

You don't have a section on your antisemitism or anti-Americanism or your extremely left bias. 2600:480A:8834:8F01:2C7C:D924:2303:9F03 (talk) 21:44, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Accusations of leftwing bias are covered in the Partisanship section. Broadly, the section on Racial bias discusses white supremacists and Neo-Nazis, but doesn't explicitly mention antisemitism. Do you have any citations specifically mentioning this criticism? Do you have any sources for "anti-Americanism" that could likely fit in somewhere if properly cited by a reliable outside source? GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 04:30, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Despite what some on the right maintain, perhaps the reason there is no section about extreme left bias is that there is not enough (decent) evidence to fill it? 91.110.75.30 (talk) 20:42, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

wikipedia has a pretty obvious center-right, or liberal bias. 65.59.4.202 (talk) 17:00, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Subsection on Antisemitic bias on Wikipedia

Without prejudice to the ongoing discussion of whether merge or keep the current Wikipedia and antisemitism as its main article, a new subsection on antisemitic bias is now added. So far, it is based mainly on academic research. The comments of Deborah Lipstadt and major Jewish organizations, re: ADL as an RS source, also merit inclusion here, even if expanded at greater length in a main article. ProfGray (talk) 11:02, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

FYI there are more sources on the ADL case cited by the Signpost: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-07-04/In the media. Are there any sources that cover a response by Wikimedia? ProfGray (talk) 11:27, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

For a Wikipedian's published and other responses to one of the academic articles, see: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-02-20/In the media. @User:Piotrus ProfGray (talk) 12:24, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

@ProfGray Thanks for the ping. Did you User:Piotrus/Response and other responces to that article (recommendation: install PubPeer...).

Regarding: "Several studies have found flaws in Wikipedia's handling of the mass murder of Jews during the Holocaust, including Wikipedias in different languages". This is certainly true of the Grabowski paper that I am sadly too deeply familiar with and per above, I consider it deeply flawed, but the current text is an accurate summary of it.

Moving to other, better sources cited (IMHO, anything will be better than the paper mentioned above...).

I am not sure if Makhortykh is a good source for this sentence, as I am not seeing what "flaws" their research identified. Instead, I note in conclusion that they write that [the existence of] Wikipedia's policies "prevents the use of Wikipedia for the propagation of views of Holocaust deniers or highly subjective interpretations of the past in general", although he does talk about " the instrumentalisation (e.g. by framing Ukrainians as Holocaust perpetrators in the Russian Wikipedia) or disparagement (e.g. by putting emphasis on non-Jewish victims in the Ukrainian Wikipedia) of Holocaust memory", which perhaps could be seen as a flaw of Wikipedia in this context?

Wolniewicz-Slomka (should be linked to [4], all our current refs in the new section are poorly formatted :( ) also talks about the flaws in the context of neutrality: "the articles in Polish and Hebrew present almost solely cases of heroism performed by members of their own respective nations. The semiotic analysis strengthens the conclusions of the manifest analysis: the appearance of judgmental or evaluative language in the articles is rare, yet occasional choices of vocabulary (such as the interchangeability between the words “Jews” and “victims” in the Hebrew version) reminds us that the articles are written in a certain cultural context."

den Hartogh ([5]) is a master thesis, so not a very high quality source. Likewise, they seem to focus on issues such as "One of the most significant findings of this research is that the Holocaust entries under study revealed that there does not exist one representation of the Holocaust, but each language version has its own unique account of events and phenomena included in the representation of the Holocaust." and "Another important finding is that it has been found that none of the Holocaust entries under study is rated ‘good quality’, which indicates that the pages are in considerable need of improvement according to Wikimedia standards."

Crucial point here is that outside of the first (bad but technically reliable) source, the other mentioned sources don't seem to find flaws in the context of antisemitism.

For additional academic sources on this topic, see:

• Pfanzelter, Eva (2015) At the crossroads with public history: mediating the Holocaust on the Internet, Holocaust Studies, 21:4, 250-271 [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17504902.2015.1066066#d1e337 - but I don't think she finds any flaws...

So outside the first source, we don't really have any reliable (academic) works that argue Wikipedia has 'Antisemitic bias' (in the context of the Holocaust). I think this needs to be rewritten or the heading changed; since only one of the three cited sources supports the 'antisemitic bias' claim (so this is borderline DUE...).

I am also concerned that the next paragraph is cited to a poor newspaper article and a press statement by the researchers ("In 2023, following allegations of deliberate distortions of Holocaust history, the English Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee subsequently opened a case to investigate and evaluate the actions of editors in the affected articles. Ultimately, the Committee ruled to ban two editors from contributing to the topic areas, although the researchers who studied the issue criticized the proposed remedies as "[lacking] depth and consequence".). While the first sentence is factually correct, the second is misleading - for example, the two topic banned editors represented "both sides", one of them was criticized and the other praised by the "researchers". Effectively, the community of our experts (ArbCom) reviewed the researchers allegations carefully and found that most of them cannot be substantiated or are unactionable. The researchers were unhappy with that, but I don't think it is due to give their press release much a voice. I'd recommend removing the second sentence with the reference to the PR, and replacing the newspaper citation with what I think is a better analysis by a journalist who specializes in Wikipedia: [6]. Note that AFAIK there has been no publication about this after the case; the journalist interest died out before the case was closed, and since the ArbCom did not confirm the researchers claims about major conspiracy, did not even ban anyone (except one sock), and just topic banned two editors (which is pretty much a wiki equivalent of the slap on the wrist), well, this all proved to be just a storm in the teacup. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:07, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

PS. I'll @Hemiauchenia who merged some content. I don't want to edit this myself, due to some possible COI. I'll leave it up to you folks to figure out what do do here, but the merged content is, as I note above, problematic (only one academic ref supports the assertions made in the heading about antisemitism, the other refs are pretty much saying that Wikipedia is incomplete and different language versions of Wikipedia have different POVs).

PPS. I have not reviewed the ADL part, so I am not sure if this is relevant to thread heading or not. I would expect it to be relevant, since after this is ADL. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:13, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Sorry about this. I added this with the intention for others to correct it. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:18, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to write out your analysis and recommendations, @User:Piotrus. I spent much of the day trying to revise and salvage Wikipedia and antisemitism, after the Merge closure was reverted at my request. I agree with your basic assessment of 3 academic articles and I've removed the "flaws" wording for now. I think they do find some bias worth reporting, but may require some careful way to say it. (For starters, I elaborated on two studies in the above-linked article.) I started to change the sentences about Grabowski and Klein, but will need to pick this up again Sunday or next week. I appreciate your COI situation, so I'm pleased to learn and discuss with you here and then make appropriate edits. ProfGray (talk) 21:44, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

@ProfGray Thank you. The topic may be notable, although I am not sure we have much in the way or academic sources (particularly of good quality); there is certainly some newspapers that tackle this (including in the aftermath of the 2022 paper - have you read the three rebuttals to it, including mine?). The version in the Wikipedia and antisemitisms covering now seems reasonably due and neutral, thank you, although I have some concerns regarding this sentence

“ Ultimately, the Committee banned two editors from the topic areas, although Klein criticized the proposed remedies as "[lacking] depth and consequence" ”

as far as its logic and correctness (mind you, I am not sure if we have independent RS to correct it). As I might have mentioned above, some additional sanctions were levied (including, IIRC, a total of three tppic bans); additionally, one of the topic banned editors was someone the authors endorsed. So the sentence implies, roughly correctly, that the ArbCom did not go far enough, but it also implies that the two topic bans were desired by the researchers, whereas in fact only one of them would be. And wasn't her PR published in response to the case closure, of at the stage of proposed decisions? This should be double checked. It's complicated to explain this in the article's body (and probably would be undue, even if we could cite independent sources...). I'd say something like "Ultimately, the Committee's remedies were criticized by Klein as "[lacking] depth and consequence"", although it would be good to add a short sentence saying that "the Committee did not find sufficient evidence to confirm the researchers allegations" (if there would be any RS for that), since otherwise we are missing some context (as in, why the remedies were criticized). Effectively, the paper made grandiose claims which were not substantiated, hence, lackluster remedies. Feel free to mull over how this can be worded. Frankly, I'd prefer not to be involved in this too much, both due to COI and because I find this issue quite upsetting/stressful (since from my POV, I was subject to significant slander there). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:26, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Pro-forma COI declaration

Since many critics of Wikipediocracy act as though they are members of a cult, bending WP site rules to advance their objectives, I will note here that I replaced a 404ed link for a permalink to a Wikipediocracy external link. I am a registered user and regular participant of that site but have no formal connection to its ownership or management, nor a financial connection of any sort. Derp derp. —Tim Davenport /// Carrite (talk) 18:06, 5 November 2024 (UTC) /// "Randy from Boise" on WPO