Conservatives miss Wikipedia's threat - Washington Times Options

•Conservatives miss Wikipedia's threat
Washington Times, DC -39 minutes ago
Wikipedia, the community-edited encyclopedia that anyone can revise, is one of the Web's biggest success stories. What you may not know is that it also has ...

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This article doesn't seem to be written by someone who knows much about Wikipedia--I could think of better authors--but he makes a good point. Some areas of Wikipedia do seem to have a leftward bias, but conservatives and their inaction is largely to blame.

Maybe if the Schlaflys didn't decry Wikipedia's liberal bias by siphoning off conservative editors, Wikipedia would be closer to NPOV (whatever that means). Then maybe conservatives would have one less marginalized frankly kooky source (Conservapedia) competing rivaling a more (inappropriately) revered source like Wikipedia.

Far from "liberal", Wikipedia is very right-leaning. Wikipedia's only claim to "liberal" is naked body-parts.

As for the article. Pff. There's always some crank claiming that "the media" is "too liberal". The US press is so timid, so very, very timid, and conformist, and so very, very simple. They are criticized for being too liberal all the time. It's a joke. They aren't at all. Neither is Wikipedia.

This post has been edited by Disillusioned Lackey: Thu 21st August 2008, 10:29am

This article doesn't seem to be written by someone who knows much about Wikipedia--I could think of better authors--but he makes a good point. Some areas of Wikipedia do seem to have a leftward bias, but conservatives and their inaction is largely to blame.

Maybe if the Schlaflys didn't decry Wikipedia's liberal bias by siphoning off conservative editors, Wikipedia would be closer to NPOV (whatever that means). Then maybe conservatives would have one less marginalized frankly kooky source (Conservapedia) competing rivaling a more (inappropriately) revered source like Wikipedia.

Of course it misses the point. It's the Washington Times. It's one of the most blatantly obvious conservative papers in America.

Of course it misses the point. It's the Washington Times. It's one of the most blatantly obvious conservative papers in America.

Probably the most.

But with so many newspapers obviously liberal-biased, that's not bad at all.

But with so many newspapers obviously liberal-biased, that's not bad at all.

Just goes to show what the majority of Americans are.

Smart-aleckness aside, Conservapedia has a tiny, tiny number of editors compared to WP. WP has tens of thousands active any given week, most of which are likely American. If the site skews liberal thus, and conservative editors historically have gotten pantsed on true NPOV issues (Team America, Noroton, I'm sure there are more I'm not remembering) it's just a reflection of the body politic of Wikipedia and the vocal bits of society alone. Are there maybe more conservatives? Maybe--maybe if all the people for whom internet means "Google, myspace, youtube" took part in WP, it would be wildly conservative.

Who knows--but the silent majority isn't entitled to power or authority, if it even exists. Speak up, or enjoy losing battlegrounds, is what it comes down to.

Well, Conservatives are usually busy being productive members of society, which means they are not around to counter the liberals on places like Wikipedia.

Well, Conservatives are usually busy being productive members of society, which means they are not around to counter the liberals on places like Wikipedia.

Tempting flamebait that only hateful people that would deny women, gays, minorities (did you know that whiteys like me are proven to be a minority by 2030-2032 in the USA at the rate things are going? Good times--its just like when the Irish and Italians flooded our shores--exactly the same!) rights and basic human decency are productive members of society, but I'm not going to get into it.

Oh, and medical care. But those dirty liberal countries in north and western Europe that give away medical care to any sick or dying person free of charge, whose filthy Euro is crushing our American dollar--they're doing it wrong. Shall I do an image macro of George Bush and Jesus holding up a Euro bank note that says, "UR DOIN IT WRONG" ?

Its just too easy for us to heap off-topic abuse at each other--lets not, assume that the side of the fence that actually cares about human beings is right, and move back onto topic about wikis.

This post has been edited by Rootology: Thu 21st August 2008, 4:08pm

But with so many newspapers obviously liberal-biased, that's not bad at all.

Just goes to show what the majority of Americans are.

Smart-aleckness aside, Conservapedia has a tiny, tiny number of editors compared to WP. WP has tens of thousands active any given week, most of which are likely American. If the site skews liberal thus, and conservative editors historically have gotten pantsed on true NPOV issues (Team America, Noroton, I'm sure there are more I'm not remembering) it's just a reflection of the body politic of Wikipedia and the vocal bits of society alone. Are there maybe more conservatives? Maybe--maybe if all the people for whom internet means "Google, myspace, youtube" took part in WP, it would be wildly conservative.

Who knows--but the silent majority isn't entitled to power or authority, if it even exists. Speak up, or enjoy losing battlegrounds, is what it comes down to.

It is far more complicated than this. A lot of it is issue intensive, with conservatives well represented on issues that are important to them. Neocons get trashed, but their politics tends to strongly fail at RS on issues where "random political nattering diametrically opposed to measured data" fails RS.

Additionally, Wikipedia favors knowledgeable, nerdy people (at the least, for content writing). These tend towards "liberal" positions on the grounds that they are generally true. During the buildup to the Iraq war (the current one), a lot of stuff reflected very "American NeoConservative" positions on related articles, even though anyone with access to non-American news knew perfectly well that American News Networks were just repeating obvious packs of lies.

Complicated, complicated. Schafly started Conservapedia because [[Abortion]] only referenced one of the seventeen studies that suggested a link between Breast Cancer and abortion. It actually now devotes four paragraphs to the issue, but unfortunately is stuck with the fact that there is probably no link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion
http://www.conservapedia.com/Abortion
Compare, and it is pretty clear that the Conservapedia article is completely untenable. Conservapedia's History of Abortion section covers Abortion in the United States in 1973. Wikipedia's is actually quarterway decent.

Additionally, compared to English speakers, Americans are pretty clearly underrepresented to Brits, Canucks, Aussies and the like. Second language speakers and whatnot added, I would be surprised if more than half of editors are Americans. It might be an interesting exercise to try and determine the nationality of admins, though.

NOTE TO SELF: I need to not listen to Bill Hicks in the morning anymore.

NOT TO EVERYONE ELSE: Sorry.

Well, Conservatives are usually busy being productive members of society, which means they are not around to counter the liberals on places like Wikipedia.

Well y'know, there's actually a grain of truth to this, if we grant the initial premise that most ideologically-committed, evangelizing, and/or activist conservatives in the US tend to be wealthier and/or more highly-placed than the sort of person who would freely give their time to contribute to a project (however flawed, etc.) like Wikipedia. As a general rule, wealthy people really don't "have time for" things like collaborative internet sites (however flawed, etc.), or more accurately, they simply have little concern for things of that nature. (OTOH, going mainly by the stereotypes, they do seem to have time for things like golf vacations, elaborate dinner parties, and attending award ceremonies put on by the local Chamber of Commerce.)

Unfortunately (for them), the idea that most conservatives tend to be wealthier or more gainfully employed than most liberals is a crock - if anything, the opposite is true. However, it does seem to be the case that most extremely wealthy people tend to be conservatives, at least in the United States - though most of the evidence for that is anecdotal, or else based on loose interpretation of unrelated poll results, and so on.

A quick and dirty survey of 95 admin accounts revealed 45 to be Americans. Call if half.