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Comment by raxxorrax | Hacker News Reader

Not sure who you can trust more in this conflict. I just know that political articles are full of partisan crap, I am sorry not to find better words for such a state.

I also know that the optimism and perhaps naivete was the better patron. Random vandalism of some pages wasn't even a large issue, but we can see severe framing in many cases and especially hot-button topics are often unbalanced.

Best articles come from random individuals from all over the planet. Certainly not from the WMF, but also not necessarily from a dedicated community.

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People who use Wikipedia for self-publicity are a much bigger problem IMO.

Until a few months ago, for instance, the Automatic Differentiation Wikipedia page had been gutted by someone looking to publicize their generally uninteresting pre-print on arxiv.

I agree. I'd rather not explicitly state which side of the political spectrum I've noticed being a problem, but I've certainly seen a particular tendency to see articles that they politically oppose be much less neutral, and the references allowed in the first place very skewed towards one side.

I wonder to what extent it is that perhaps Wikipedia draws editors of a certain leaning (much as some professions seem to - on both sides).

Whatever, it's incredibly frustrating when you see the framing and feel the umpires are also often in the same bubble as the editor pushing their position on the article.

> I'd rather not explicitly state which side of the political spectrum I've noticed being a problem

Why do you hesitate to say that the left are causing a problem?

Same reason your comment appears in grey - they'd rather not be censored.

It's the same political side that has been working with the MSM, Twitter, Facebook etc. to silence opposing views and "fact check" stories they don't agree with.

Random vandalism is a huge problem that requires a ton of ongoing effort to contain. It's mostly invisible to normal users because there are enough volunteers helping out with supressing it, but it's a huge effort nonetheless.

But how does all that even relate to the question of Jimmy Wales' seat on the board? The board doesn't moderate individual articles.

even if the political articles are full of partisan views, they are not written on stone, there is scope for improvement as much as there is scope for vandalism. Everything involved, the internet, the information boom, the robust misinformation, high levels of polarization are really new and emerging challenges. This entire medium and its ecosystem is new, as much as troubling these things are, they are interesting too.

The question is, will the new leadership be interested in solving this problem? Or do they even view it as a material problem?

A primary concern of the 'politicization' of information is frankly the commitment to rigour and objectivity of the leadership cadre, who are often lacking in self-awareness with respect to these issues.

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