Debate:Does bias impair Wikipedia's reliability?

?????

Could you please give me an example of their liberal bias? I use Wikipedia all the time and it's always a reliable and in-depth encyclopedia.

Reply: There are some examples for you here. Have a great day! --SharonS 15:23, 27 December 2006 (EST)

The Pot and the Kettle?

I think a more valuable question to be asking here is: Should political philosophies and religious/spiritual beliefs have a place at all in deciding the content of what is supposed to ostensibly be a resource of pure knowledge? If some people here find it repugnant that Wikipedia allegedly is "liberally biased", then I find it equally repugnant that someone felt the need to create a version of it with a "conservative/Christian bias" -- especially when it openly bashes what it was created to oppose. Ideally, knowledge should be like energy (in the physics sense of the word): neither good nor bad in it's essence, it just exists.

If your political, philosophical, or religious/spiritual beliefs are driving what you're calling "knowledge" or "fact" instead of citeable and/or independantly verifiable sources, then perhaps it should be re-examined instead of posted in a tome labelled "knowledge" or "fact" -- or at the very least, have the decency to call it "belief" instead of "knowledge" or "fact". -- Duncan Blackthorne, 22 Feb 2007

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I think that bias does at times impair Wikipedia's reliability. Truth be told I think that the same thing is beginning to occur on Conservapedia.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with most of the views expressed in the various entries I have seen on Conservapedia. But I think that Conservapedia has become a bit hypocritical. When I looked up 'homosexuality' it was necessary to dig through several paragraphs before I could find an adequate description of the term. What I did find however was lots of conservatively biased viewpoints on a subject which had not even been sufficiently explained.

This would be acceptable if this website portrayed itself as a place for people to simply come and state views. But considering that this is supposed to be an 'encyclopedia' many of the term definitions themselves belong in the 'debate topics' section due to their lack of information and tendency toward conservative bias.

I heard that this website was supposed to cut-down on the pointless paragraphs of garbage, and offer concise informative entries. Instead I found much of bias, which whether I agree with or not, does not belong in an encycolpedia.

For the most part I believe Conservapedia is still on the right track, and far more reliable than Wikipedia. If it simply changes its policy slightly to eliminate biased entries such as the one on homosexuality, and sticks to simply stating the facts then it will greatly increase its credablity. (Note that I would have stated a term on homosexuaity more like this: The tendency of a person towards the same sex... This does not say whether or not homsexuality is right or wrong, it merely states what it is...) JB--------

Yes:

Abso-freaking-lutely. Go here: Examples of Bias in Conservapedia

Any bias impairs reliability as much as it impairs respectability. Conservapedia is just as unreliable as wikipedia because of the conservative bias.

They censor non-Christian stuff. They're really, really biased. They only accept LIBERAL BIAS!

Please read this: Wikipedia.

Question? How do you define liberal bias

• Liberal: "marked by generosity."
• Bias: "a zero-frequency voltage combined with a signal to move the operating point to more linear response area."
• Liberal bias = generously allowing everyone to output their signal without distortion. I'd have to be crazy to sign this 11:36, 6 March 2007 (EST)

Yes bias creates a thought police mentality of patrolling articles and reverting changes of things the "thought police" do not agree with. For example, the Hugo Chavez article is patrolled by Pro-Chavez people, most of whom are administrators. Someone had added a quote with a link to a Youtube video of Chavez calling George W. Bush "El Diablo" and then wrote that since Chavez is supposed to be a Christian, than this name-calling was an unchristian thing to do. Despite the proper citation, and NPOV, the changes got reverted and the user was cussed out on their talk page by one of the article contributors. Later on it was added, but in a POV way that made Chavez look good and Bush look bad. There are many more examples of this. --Orion Blastar 23:27, 9 March 2007 (EST)

It's a good thing we don't have anything like that here.  :)

No. Not always:

Simply because they are liberally biased does not always effect their reliability.

For example: I want to know President Reagan dates. I go onto Wikipedia. They will tell me. They may also tell me he was a bad president. But simply because "they" tell me that he was a bad president does not mean they are unreliable and what they told me about his dates isn’t solid fact.

Where does WIkipedia say that President Reagan was a bad president? The opening paragraphs of the article, Ronald Reagan say things like

"He strongly opposed communism and socialism, and as president he pursued policies for fewer regulations, lower taxes, free trade agreements, and welfare cutbacks."

and

"His legacies include restoring America's strength and prosperity following a period of stagflation in the wake of the Watergate scandal and the withdrawal from Vietnam, reaffirming America's commitment to free market economics, large budget deficits, rejecting Détente and escalating the Cold War with the Soviet Union through a military build-up and a firm foreign policy of "peace through strength", and peacefully ending the Cold War with Mikhail Gorbachev, including a massive reduction in nuclear arms."

and

"In several recent ratings of American presidents, Ronald Reagan ranked high."

Dpbsmith 16:35, 24 January 2007 (EST)

Now, (still on Wikipedia) I want to know about Jesus. I look Him up in that little search engine, and what do I get? An article that gives every view point of Jesus that exists. If I wanted to know what Christians thought about Jesus I would go to a Christian web site. Why go to an encyclopedia to look for biased articles that exclude every one else's opinion just because it isn't your opinion? Because He’s controversial in today’s world. Almost everyone has a blind side to controversial issues. This does not make Wikipedia bad, it merely shows that they are human.

In addition, (to the comment that Wikipedia censors Christian things) Conservepedia is biased against liberals and Islam. We probably censor things that we believe are wrong. Doesn't that affect our reliability?

I am not defending Wikipedia, I am just saying that it is often a reliable resource.

-this is fun!- --Katie 23:55, 17 January 2007 (EST)

Like any wiki will be when it is that big, wikipedia definately hase some unreliable content, yet wikipedia is still mostly reliable.

--BenjaminS 23:02, 24 January 2007 (EST)

Just because they have terms on everything doesn't mean that they are unreliable. Infact I bet that people will be putting just as much stuff on Conservapedia soon.

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WIkipedia has certain kinds of reliability problems, but they relate mostly to its being a Wiki that anybody can edit.

I don't think it has problems because of bias. In fact, I believe that in practice Wikipedia's "neutrality" policy usually results in articles that represent all points of view, at least in the sense of mentioning their existence and linking to other information.

For example, if someone goes to the article on Evolution, they will see that it has section on "Social and religious controversies," which in turn links to a long article on Creation-evolution controversy. There is also a long article on Creationism. Wikipedia acknowledges the controversy, even in its main article on evolution, and doesn't try to hide it.

Of course, in a controversial article, people on both sides tend to think that their own side wasn't treated fairly.

Wikipedia should not be trusted uncritically. Neither should other encyclopedias. Wikipedia is sometimes better than other encyclopedias in showing the sources where it got its information. Dpbsmith 17:26, 26 January 2007 (EST)

I just checked wikipedia and it actually uses A.D. B.C., try looking up Mesopotamia or Rome, maybe others. I'm not trying to be aginst Conservapedia, I'm just being objective.

Double Edge

Wikipedia is a tool of the reality-based community! It should be avoided by all people of Faith. -Unscrewyourhead

Reality has a well-known liberal bias. If people want want to live in a fantasy world they will come and edit this site.

Never, or at most rarely:

Phist I think the base idea of Wikipedia is that everyone in the world is bias in some way and therefor wrong, so if you get them all together you'll make something that no one agrees with, but isn't far from the truth.

All jokes aside, the ideal of Wikipedia is to contain every fact in the world while having no real opinion about them. For those of us that choose to be extremely opinionated this dispassionate viewpoint can sometimes come across as a bias against whatever we believe. Because the fact of the matter is that Wikipedia believes nothing, it is essentially nihilistic insofar as it will(in theory at least) never say something is right or wrong, good or bad. It will state the facts and if such a conclusion exists at all, wikipedia lets the user make it.

Crimesofthelemon

To be honest, this site is more biased than wikipedia...wikipedia puts facts before uncertainties such as the existance of God.

Amen. --Dialecticftw 06:17, 15 March 2007 (EDT)