Accusing a site of being left bias then turning it into a right wing shithole has, sadly, worked time and time again. Let's hope Wikipedia can keep holding out.
this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2026
418 points (99.1% liked)
Technology
85694 readers
3633 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
So long as reliable secondary sources exist, Wikipedia will exist.
And if not, the idea of a centralised information collection is unkillable
Physicists say otherwise. Its death is in fact inevitable.
He's not really a founder; he didn't even have anything to do with it.
And he's a right wrong fascist so banning him is a good thing.
To me, Larry Sanger always struck me more as an Ideas Guy. Specifically, the kind of an Ideas Guy who didn't always have the best ideas. He keeps dissing Wikipedia, but just look at the absolute trainwrecks his supposedly better other projects turned out.
Sander hasn't been a part of the Wikipedia project since 2002.
Leaves the first encyclopedia site
Wonders why a bunch of shit-tier clones with worse branding never catch on
Thinks he's this guy:
Is actually this guy:
This is fine.
But the optics are important. There’s a concerted effort to delegitimize Wikipedia as an information source, as it’s not in Big Tech’s control.
And they don’t have to kill it. They just have to make it less popular than, say, Grokipedia, and every headline like this is a step in that direction.
I have very scientifically minded family who are already saying some strange things about Wikipedia.
wikipedia was never seen as a legit source, plus often subjects are outdated and not true in some cases, you are not allowed to cite from in academia, of course you can go the references it has. one time in the 2000s i was using wiki the computer lab moniter person got mad i was even on the page for more than a minute.
i think the recent attacks, by i think Starmer trying to write favorable entries about him has largely been ignoreed.
Wikipedia is not a source but an information aggregate. You don't even understand what you are criticizing so confidently - how sad is that?
I notice Grokipedia is getting put up more on search results even on duckduckgo.
Yep.
That’s because DDG is Bing. To be blunt, it’s search is kinda terrible.
This headline isn't a bad headline. The article seems to be pretty well balanced, and leaves plenty siding with Wikipedia. It even mentions another news article that DOES have a bad headline:
Sanger has spent more than a decade criticizing Wikipedia for what he claims is an ideological, left-wing bias on a variety of topics, and on X has framed this recent ban as further proof of everything that’s wrong with Wikipedia. The New York Post took that bait and last night published an article with the headline “Left-leaning Wikipedia blocked founder from editing site—after he campaigned to make it more balanced.”
The thing is Wikipedia isn't even left-wing. User survey shows the editors holds left-wing and right-wing beliefs about equally. And Jimmy Wales, the founder, is an Ayn Rand reading "objectivist" for crying out loud.
where is that survey source you got, i seriously doubt it, almost every right winger criticizes the site as not being right wing enough.
To right-wing extremists, everything in the world seems left wing.
reality has a well known left-wing bias
reality has a well known left-wing bias
No, it's just that the right-wing has become accustomed to lying it's ass off to get what it wants.
And why do you think that is?
Because right-wingers can't handle reality. So they have to come up with "alt-facts" to keep their worldview from collapsing.
also verifiable facts, and sciences contradicts right wing beliefs. plus having the dirty laundry of every prominent right winger as well.
If you base something on facts, it will be left leaning. Right leaning has a higher value in loyalty, authority, respect, and spirituality. They will deny facts if they have to in order to prioritize their other values. Right leaning people tend to be more likely to be on time, have cleaner desks, and speak more formally to someone they deem a "superior". Left leaning often could give a rats ass about authority, and respect is only given once it's earned.
All that to say, facts and reality are more left leaning by nature. Given many religious folks will deny nature's history for their spiritual beliefs.
User survey shows the editors hold left-wing and right-wing beliefs about equally
all i found was that self-responses are preponderantly left/center-left: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2024-04-25/Recent_research
![Political position of Wikipedia users, based on responses to the survey question "In political matters, people talk of 'the left' and 'the right.' How would you place your views on this scale, generally speaking? [You position on the left-right scale]" [sic], with the answer hint "The scale goes from 1 (left) to 10 (right)." Visualization of data from: Cruciani, Caterina; Joubert, Léo; Jullien, Nicolas; Mell, Laurent; Piccione, Sasha; Vermeirsche, Jeanne (2023-12-01), Surveying Wikipedians: a dataset of users and contributors’ practices on Wikipedia in 8 languages doi:10.34847/nkl.4ecf4u8m, see also m:Research:Surveying readers and contributors to Wikipedia (June/July 2023 survey of Wikipedia readers and contributors in 8 languages)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f0/Political_position_of_Wikipedia_users_%282023_Wikipedia_survey%29.png/960px-Political_position_of_Wikipedia_users_%282023_Wikipedia_survey%29.png)
And in the left Lemmy communities is known as 'nato-pedia' for his Western pov bias
load more comments
(11 replies)
Will he start working for conervapedia now?
Good work by wikipedia. Always good to get the trash out.
I read his "contributions" to the Gaza genocide article's talk page, along with the equally mealy-mouthed hand-wringing of Jimmy Wales. Total bellends both, although for different reasons. Jimmy is pressured into being an annoying grandstanding dickhead by Israeli interests, whereas Larry's pressured into being an annoying grandstanding dickhead by his childhood.
view more: next ›