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In response to the reply accusing this comment of bias: When people said this two years ago, they were accused of bias. But now, in the present, with the benefit of hindsight and more information, it's a mainstream fact, and Wikipedia does report on it. We also know that major news organizations were aware of this at the time and chose not to report it. After round earth theory becomes mainstream, it's not bias to talk about why it took so long for round earth theory to be recognized.
They also do not allow civilians to evacuate or to surrender!!! All exits from Gaza are blocked by Israel or their allies!
The evidence of media bias is extensive and extremely blatant: it spans framing ("[horrible event, war crimes, etc.] happened, according to Hamas" vs no such qualification for Israeli claims, "20 people killed in Gaza" without mentioning who or what killed them), dehumanisation ("2 people killed" when reporting on children deaths in Gaza vs "2 teenagers in hospital" when talking about IDF soldiers), selective reporting (remember the pogroms in Amsterdam that got debunked on social media while every chief of state was sending their condolences?), constant repeat of Israeli "right to self-defence" while Palestinian context is not mentioned, etc., etc., etc.
One of many, many, many reports/investigations on this: https://cfmm.org.uk/cfmm-report-media-bias-gaza-2023-24/
If you need something more visual/real-time, Newscord has been been reporting on this consistently: https://newscord.org/editorials
The media might be largely a reputable source, when it doesn't contradict the preferred narrative, and the Gaza genocide was probably the strongest example we could have had of this.
I'm not sure why I even wrote this out, because 2 years in calling it "subjective opinion" is obviously not a position that is based on facts or reason.
Of course in practice, editors have their own biases and decisions come down popularity contests. Wikipedia's own biases seem to get worse over time, as more neutral editors give up, so we end up with some weird things like
- Almost all conservative news sources having low reliability ratings.
- Daily Mail for example is deprecated, the lowest possible rating outside of literal spam.
- Al Jazeera, which seems largely controlled by the Qatari monarchy, has the highest reliability rating and is the most-used source in Israel-Palestine. Even their blog is the top source on many articles, despite news blogs being against policy.
- Al-Manar, the Hezbollah mouthpiece which is very unashamedly biased (e.g. refering to their terrorists as "men of god"), has a somewhat low reliability rating, but still higher than several conservative sources like Daily Mail.
(See the list here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Per...)
* It's not this page, but there's a separate Wikipedia policy which says that editors should only insert content which is true.
Well, clearly they're failing at that.
https://larrysanger.org/2025/08/on-the-cybersecurity-subcomm...
It was an incredible display of the resiliency of wikipedia when faced with a hostile attack by a state-actor putting hundreds of millions $ into spreading their propaganda. Most Governments, universities and news media are much less capable than that. It was such a failure that they now are pushing the us government itself to gain direct control over wikipedia and to cut the funding from the researchers and universities that produced the facts in the first place, going to the "root of the problem" basically.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ClueBot_III/Master_Detail...
https://www.piratewires.com/p/wikipedia-supreme-court-enforc...
https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/isr...
Where are you getting this idea? While you can find examples of coordination on both sides, the most significant instance of coordinated editing and recruiting for agenda-based editing was by Tech for Palestine.
> In the end it was so much that wikipedia topic-banned 8 super-editors over that
If you're referring to PIA5, wasn't BilledMammal the only pro-Israel editor banned as a result? Quite a few were banned the pro-Palestinian side, like Iskandar323 (who seemed to lead Tech for Palestine's coordinated editing), Levivich, Nableezy, and several others.
> They wrote books worth of text
By far the worst WP:BLUDGEONING was actually from editors in favor of a "Gaza genocide" title. BilledMammal actually ran the numbers on it.
> the facts just weren't on their side
Actually the closing decision was largely based on !votes, and the admin seemed to just blatantly miscount them. By the actual !vote count it was almost exactly 50/50, a very clear no-consensus result, but sometimes closers make strange decisions.
It was only a matter of time though - Wikipedia is a numbers game and anti-Israeli editors are just far more numerous nowadays.
I like how the article adds weight to mainstream vs fringe. But it occurs to me that some ideas are given so little attention that there is no substantial basis of what is fringe and what is mainstream.
If an idea is given a lot of attention, it might be mainstream or fringe, depending on how accepted it is. It might be getting a lot of negative attention, or it might just be getting a lot of attention right now. It might be transitioning from fringe to mainstream.
But if it is not getting any attention, or very little, then it is by definition fringe.
(Long time since I _attempted_ to create an article on Wikipedia, but the form of entries makes it clear) factual assertions must largely be supported by (some metric) of published sources. A fringe topic would by definition would have “so little attention”. So it stands to reason Wikipedia would need a _policy_ of supporting fringe in order to allow page creation.
In other words, fringe is what has few supporting references, but is otherwise noteworthy. With a number of notable exceptions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth
This text explicitly and implicitly states that the Earth is not flat.
> It is unlikely that you will ever happen upon an editor who will argue that Wikipedia cannot claim that the Earth is not flat. But you may indeed encounter some...
From this, it is obvious that the essay is about people who claim Wikipedia can't claim the Earth is not flat, and how to respond to them.
Every single scientific/engineering /humanities field contains people who disagree with the mainstream of that field. E.g. every advocate for purely functional programming diverges from the mainstream on the best practices for software engineering. Of course that doesn't mean equating this to "theories" about the earth being flat. My point is the exact opposite.
There always is a gradient between a debate in some field, to a totally bizarre nonsense theory. Deciding on a border between which of these views to platform and which of them to disregard is always arbitrary and has to be decided on a case by case basis. Especially arguing based on some idea of relative numerical superiority is just ridiculous and will make an encyclopedia look ridiculous.
I also recommend to not have debate manuals on how to debate people who try to push nonsense into Wikipedia.
2. “I didn’t read the article award” recipient
Why didn't their side win sooner? Perhaps 'being right' in the scientific sense has just been too beneficial for humans so far. But if that weakens, I fully expect humanity to go back to zealotry, superstition and undiscerning hatred, perhaps forever.
It's quite literally spoiled children growing into spoiled adults. Raised to blthink whatever their current thoughts are the entire world and reality. See the rise of " affirmations" in new age woo stuff.
An encyclopedia is slow. It has to be slow. It's good (beneficial) that it's slow.
And yes, it means that it is self-correcting, slowly
Thing is, if it was fast to self-correct -> it would generate more errors and it would leave the door opened to more errors.
[0] Wikipedia Co-Creator Reveals All: CIA Infiltration, Banning Conservatives, & How to Fix the Internet https://youtu.be/vyfKyrSAVFg?t=3730
https://slate.com/technology/2019/03/wikipedia-citogenesis-c...
https://www.reddit.com/r/wikipedia/comments/1c1uazj/why_did_...
blueflow•3mo ago
jstanley•3mo ago
All progress starts out as a fringe belief.
blackbear_•3mo ago
mkl•3mo ago
That is not true at all. The usefulness and value of many new things and discoveries is often immediately obvious. Even when the value is not immediately obvious, being a curiosity is more likely than being a fringe belief.
Fringe beliefs don't have evidence behind them, but progress does.
fhonephree•3mo ago
> That is not true at all.
> Fringe beliefs don't have evidence behind them, but progress does.
That depends on your definition of fringe and evidence.
I suspect there may be some association between truth and some non-mainstream, cult idea, or conspiracy theory. e.g. it is widely accepted now that the earth is not flat although at one point more accepted that it was flat. That doesn’t eventually validate all fringe ideas, but acknowledges a possibility that when all fringe ideas are considered as a whole, some of them may be true or partially true or be a step towards truth.
A problem with this is that truth seeking and delusions go hand in hand. Delusions seem as real as anything else, and may be evidential but misconstrued evidence or even unknowingly invented evidence. This affects more mundane things like scientific studies, reporting, politics, and Wikipedia as well as “Are they after me” or “Are they lying” things.
Another problem more relevant today than ever is “Should this information be included in Wikipedia, national monuments, museums, libraries, books, or education in-general?” I’ve had articles in Wikipedia that were valid, that stood for years, and then were eventually removed, though they were valid and true, I assume because they didn’t believe it was important enough or relevant to their users that didn’t care as much as I did about preserving history. Is that the right thing to do? I don’t personally think so, but those in-control historically have and will change beliefs to suit their own. We must get involved to ensure that we are not misled. We should not stand idly by and think “Wow, Hitler really f’d up the education of our youth.” We must get involved to stop it. But that doesn’t mean culling or altering all information which doesn’t meet our worldview.
y-curious•3mo ago
ranger_danger•3mo ago
> often
which is it?
danaris•3mo ago
This is the negation of a categorical statement, not a categorically negative statement. Thus, all it means is that some progress does not start as a fringe belief.
If you're going to bitch at someone for getting their formal logic wrong, you'd best have your formal logic right.
IAmBroom•3mo ago
> which
I can play that game, too.
Almondsetat•3mo ago
What you actually meant to say is that all progress stems from the research and implementation sparkled by a fringe intuition. But even then, you can have progress without going too far from the current mainstream, so it's not really true anyway
derektank•3mo ago
This isn't true. For example, the Caloric theory of heat was a huge improvement over the existing heterodoxy (the phlogiston theory), made several testable predictions that were true (improving upon Newton's calculation of the speed of sound), and made it possible for Carnot to make serious advances in the field of thermodynamics with the postulation of the Carnot engine.
However, the theory was not a fact. The self-repellent fluid called "caloric" that the theory was predicated upon never existed. We need a bit more epistemic humility.
Almondsetat•3mo ago
IAmBroom•3mo ago
nemo44x•3mo ago
Policing fringe beliefs is dangerous. A free society must tolerate & even welcome such beliefs into the public sphere, not because they are good, but because the freedom to be wrong is the foundation of our ability to be right.
mapontosevenths•3mo ago
potato3732842•3mo ago
Why even have Wikipedia then? Why not just ask Reddit at that point?
bastawhiz•3mo ago
mapontosevenths•3mo ago
Early encyclopedias solved this problem by hiring experts. Wikipedia doesn't hire them, it just cites them.
It has only been recently that our cynical postmodern internet hordes have decided experts are somehow only equally worthy of trust as the high-school dropout uncles of facebook and the brain-worm infested politicians on the news.
nemo44x•3mo ago
Citing experts is good practice, but invoking them to silence dissent is anti-scientific.
mapontosevenths•3mo ago
That's not really what we're discussing here. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. The encyclopedia should report things that are widely regarded to be factual as facts. They should not give equal time to every looney tune with a pet theory.
Noteworthy dissent about complex subjects doesn't come from the unqualified, it comes from other qualified people with differing ideas.
danaris•3mo ago
They are not advancing science. They are not "challenging our orthodoxy". They are not doing anything positive for the world.
We may never be able to convince them that they're wrong, but that doesn't mean we need to make it sound like anyone else thinks they might, with even a tiny probability, be right.
nemo44x•3mo ago
But it’s not fair to cherry pick such an obvious straw man. There’s a million current examples that are much better. Covid origins which were summarily and aggressively rejected as unorthodox for example. A ton of climate science, etc. No one is an authority on truth. Requires consensus over painfully long times.
_DeadFred_•3mo ago
nemo44x•3mo ago
I guess there’s a spectrum of fringe ideas. Some are ridiculous, true. Trolls. But they have no power of policy - flat earthers for example are harmless.
The more dangerous threat are people with consensus based on political power who appeal to authority, like bad science by “experts”, to silence criticism or challenges.
mapontosevenths•3mo ago
There are an infinite number of falsehoods, and only one truth. If we let the lies in the truth becomes impossible to find in the pile of lies.
IAmBroom•3mo ago
There are many truths. Cleveland is two hours away from me. Cleveland is 40 hours away from me. Both of these are true, but there is not enough detail in them to ascertain exactly what they mean. The same can be said of any statement outside of formal, logic-based language constraints.
The point your statement keenly misses, however, is that the truth is nowhere near as obvious as you make it seem. Darwin's theories were preposterous to people who were just as certain of "one truth" as you are.
mapontosevenths•3mo ago
Some things are objectively true, and those objective things are exactly what encyclopedias are for. Starting from the presupposition that all statements are equally true is wrong headed in the extreme.
Some people will disagree with even obvious facts like the world not being flat. We don't have to listen to them, and we should not.
JKCalhoun•3mo ago
bastawhiz•3mo ago
ungreased0675•3mo ago
My train of thought goes something like “wow, people actually think the earth is flat? That’s crazy.” > “Is this an internet meme thing or 4chan astroturf thing?” > “I wonder why and how many people actually believe that?”
At no point am I confused or persuadable about the shape of the planet. I’ve looked out an airplane window before. Maybe that’s what feels off about it. There’s an underlying feeling of protecting a gullible public from bad information, a process with a high risk of being corrupted by ideologues.
immibis•3mo ago
bastawhiz•3mo ago
What's being discussed is whether Wikipedia should call it incorrect or not. Or rather, whether the idea that the earth is round is the truth. You can still provide information about provably false ideas while pointing to another idea grounded in facts as the truth.
JohnTHaller•3mo ago
braiamp•3mo ago
JKCalhoun•3mo ago
ajross•3mo ago
Wikipedia rules are provably sufficient to produce the greatest and most useful reference work in human history. That's good enough for me.
bawolff•3mo ago
b00ty4breakfast•3mo ago
The rules are not "insufficient" in this regard in the same way that a flute is not an "insufficient" guitar; they aren't designed to "protect against" any topic that would otherwise qualify for a wiki article.
y-curious•3mo ago
IAmBroom•3mo ago