Among other problems with it, Wikipedia's bias problem is a men's rights issue.
During the last few years the men's issues community has seen Wikipedia articles on gender issues targeted by feminists to create a biased source that can be used as backup for feminism's claims about everything from various gender issues themselves to the men's rights community and specific men's advocates. Feminist-leaning editors have banded together to shut other editors out of writing and influencing the choice of content.
The same thing has occurred with #gamergate, with Wikipedia's coverage of the topic including information that is demonstrably false and excluding information in order to support an inaccurate, negative portrayal of #gamergate's consumer revolt.
The bias stretches across topics of all kinds, wherever the site's biased editors find it politically prudent to limit the information presented in order to frame an article in their own political bias. Public figures, historical events, organizations, and even abstract concepts have been subjected to this treatment, making the site worthless as a source of information unless the reader is trying to support a similar bias. Even then, its credibility undercut by its own editors, Wikipedia's value as a source has been destroyed.
In the past, I've written to ask what can be done about the site's political bias problem. Administrators showed no interest in addressing it. Now they're having a donation drive. I thought it would be appropriate to let the staff involved with collecting donations know why I can't see participating in it as a wise choice. Given that the admins' previous response was "well this is just how we do things," I do not expect my one letter to have much impact. However, I'd bet that if their donations drop and they hear from a lot of consumers that rampant political bias on the site is why, they may have to take a second look at the problem.
My email, sent to donate@ wikimedia.org, Wikipedia's contact address for issues with donating to the site:
During the last few years the men's issues community has seen Wikipedia articles on gender issues targeted by feminists to create a biased source that can be used as backup for feminism's claims about everything from various gender issues themselves to the men's rights community and specific men's advocates. Feminist-leaning editors have banded together to shut other editors out of writing and influencing the choice of content.
The same thing has occurred with #gamergate, with Wikipedia's coverage of the topic including information that is demonstrably false and excluding information in order to support an inaccurate, negative portrayal of #gamergate's consumer revolt.
The bias stretches across topics of all kinds, wherever the site's biased editors find it politically prudent to limit the information presented in order to frame an article in their own political bias. Public figures, historical events, organizations, and even abstract concepts have been subjected to this treatment, making the site worthless as a source of information unless the reader is trying to support a similar bias. Even then, its credibility undercut by its own editors, Wikipedia's value as a source has been destroyed.
In the past, I've written to ask what can be done about the site's political bias problem. Administrators showed no interest in addressing it. Now they're having a donation drive. I thought it would be appropriate to let the staff involved with collecting donations know why I can't see participating in it as a wise choice. Given that the admins' previous response was "well this is just how we do things," I do not expect my one letter to have much impact. However, I'd bet that if their donations drop and they hear from a lot of consumers that rampant political bias on the site is why, they may have to take a second look at the problem.
My email, sent to donate
My issue with donating to your site is not a technical one. It's a consumer complaint.
For years I've been researching and writing for various blogs and other publications. I have learned during that time that it is easy to find backup for anything a writer with a political bias wants to insert into an article. It's easy to ignore available information in order to frame an article to promote a political outlook. This is a thing that writers for political blogs often do. It's expected, and it's why readers should question what they read in those publications.
It should not, however, be a thing that writers for publications presented as reference material do. For reference material to be of any value, a reader should be able to trust that its presentation of information is complete, untainted by bias, and factual. It should present confirmed information without prejudice and allow readers to do their own evaluation of its meaning and importance.
Unfortunately your site does not do that.
Editors with a political bias have largely taken over the portions of Wikipedia which can be either categorized as or even remotely related to politics or the social sciences. Not only have they inserted bias into the writing on these topics, they have crowded out other editors in order to avoid being subject to any oversight on their work. When biased writing on the site is questioned, these biased editors treat that as harassment or sabotage of their work, and use Wikipedia's popular-opinion-weighted vetting process to censor dissenting editors.
This behavior calls the entire site's credibility and usefulness into question. I cannot use any Wikipedia articles as original reference material for any of my writing, as I cannot be certain without checking their work myself whether I'd be citing factual information, or quoting an ideologue's biased opinion. Instead, if I use the site at all, it's to search through your editors' sources as a starting point for online searches to see if I can get more complete information than your editors are willing to present. I might as well be doing the research for their articles myself.
I discourage my kids from using the site as an academic source except, again, as a starting point if they're having trouble figuring out what to search when doing their own research.I don't see any sense in supporting such roughshod, useless work. It would would be a terrible waste of money; if I am going to pay someone to do my research for me it would be wiser and more productive to buy access to a more established encyclopedia site.
I am terribly disappointed to see this happen to Wikipedia. It is with that disappointment and much regret that I inform you that as long as your site's administrators tolerate the biased editing and censorship of dissent, I'm afraid I simply cannot be one of your donors.
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