Wikipedia Is Badly Biased

The Uncyclopedia logo. Maybe more appropriate for Wikipedia itself now.

Wikipedia’s “NPOV” is dead.1 The original policy long since forgotten, Wikipedia no longer has an effective neutrality policy. There is a rewritten policy, but it endorses the utterly bankrupt canard that journalists should avoid what they call “false balance.”2 The notion that we should avoid “false balance” is directly contradictory to the original neutrality policy. As a result, even as journalists turn to opinion and activism, Wikipedia now touts controversial points of view on politics, religion, and science. Here are some examples from each of these subjects, which were easy to find, no hunting around. Many, many more could be given.

Wikipedia’s favorite president?

Examples have become embarrassingly easy to find. The Barack Obama article completely fails to mention many well-known scandals: Benghazi, the IRS scandal, the AP phone records scandal, and Fast and Furious, to say nothing of Solyndra or the Hillary Clinton email server scandal—or, of course, the developing “Obamagate” story in which Obama was personally involved in surveilling Donald Trump. A fair article about a major political figure certainly must include the bad with the good. Beyond that, a neutral article must fairly represent competing views on the figure by the major parties.

In other words—and this is the point crucial to evaluating an article’s neutrality—a neutral article is written not to take sides on issues of controversy. It does not matter whether one or both sides believe their point of view is totally factual and supported with incontrovertible proof. How many times, in politics and in many walks of life, have we seen controversies in which both sides can cite apparently rigorous studies, or chapter and verse, or original source material that, they claim, show their view is absolutely certain? In such cases, a neutral resource like Wikipedia is bound by policy not to take a side. Yet it does.

Political scandals are a good example where sources are carefully lined up on both sides. There were many controversies over “scandals” plaguing Obama’s presidency. But in fact, the only scandals that I could find in Wikipedia’s Obama article were a few that the left finds at least a little scandalous, such as Snowden’s revelations about NSA activities under Obama. In short, the article is almost a total whitewash. You might find this to be objectively correct, if you are a Democrat; but you cannot claim that this is a neutral treatment, considering that the other major U.S. party would, citing other ostensibly credible sources, treat the subject very differently. On such topics, neutrality in any sense worth the name essentially requires that readers not be able to detect the editors’ political alignment.

Not Wikipedia’s favorite president

Meanwhile, as you can imagine, the idea that the Donald Trump article is neutral is a joke. Just for example, there are 5,224 none-too-flattering words in the “Presidency” section. By contrast, the following “Public Profile” (which the Obama article entirely lacks), “Investigations,” and “Impeachment” sections are unrelentingly negative, and together add up to some 4,545 words—in other words, the controversy sections are almost as long as the sections about his presidency. Common words in the article are “false” and “falsely” (46 instances): Wikipedia frequently asserts, in its own voice, that many of Trump’s statements are “false.” Well, perhaps they are. But even if they are, it is not exactly neutral for an encyclopedia article to say so, especially without attribution. You might approve of Wikipedia describing Trump’s incorrect statements as “false,” very well; but then you must admit that you no longer support a policy of neutrality on Wikipedia. More to the point, Republican, Trump-supporting views are basically not represented at all in the article on Trump.

I leave the glowing Hillary Clinton article as an exercise for the reader.

On political topics it is easiest to argue for the profound benefits—even the moral necessity—of eliminating bias in reference works. As I argue in my 2015 essay, “Why Neutrality” (updated in Essays on Free Knowledge) we naturally desire neutrality on political and many other topics because we want to be left free to make up our own minds. Reference, news, and educational resources aimed at laying out a subject in general should give us the tools we need to rationally decide what we want to think. Only those who want to force the minds of others can be opposed to neutrality.

“Prior to prohibition, cannabis was available freely in a variety of forms,” says Wikipedia, helpfully.

Wikipedia can be counted on to cover not just political figures, but political issues as well from a liberal-left point of view. No conservative would write, in an abortion article, “When properly done, abortion is one of the safest procedures in medicine,” a claim that is questionable on its face, considering what an invasive, psychologically distressing, and sometimes lengthy procedure it can be even when done according to modern medical practices. More to the point, abortion opponents consider the fetus to be a human being with rights; their view, that it is not safe for the baby, is utterly ignored. To pick another, random issue, drug legalization, dubbed drug liberalization by Wikipedia, has only a little information about any potential hazards of drug legalization policies; it mostly serves as a brief for legalization, followed by a catalog of drug policies worldwide. Or to take an up-to-the-minute issue, the LGBT adoption article includes several talking points in favor of LGBT adoption rights, but omits any arguments against. On all such issues, the point is that true neutrality, to be carefully distinguished from objectivity, requires that the article be written in a way that makes it impossible to determine the editors’ position on the important controversies the article touches on.

Gospel reliability is “uncertain,” Wikipedia says, neutrally.

What about articles on religious topics? The first article I thought to look at had some pretty egregious instances of bias: the Jesus article. It simply asserts, again in its own voice, that “the quest for the historical Jesus has yielded major uncertainty on the historical reliability of the Gospels and on how closely the Jesus portrayed in the Bible reflects the historical Jesus.” In another place, the article simply asserts, “the gospels are not independent nor consistent records of Jesus’ life.” A great many Christians would take issue with such statements, which means they are not neutral for that reason alone. In other words, the very fact that many Christians, including many deeply educated conservative seminarians, believe in the historical reliability of the Gospels, and that they are wholly consistent, means that the article is biased if it simply asserts, without attribution or qualification, that this is a matter of “major uncertainty.” Now, it would be accurate and neutral to say it is widely disputed, but being “disputed” and being “uncertain” are very different concepts. It is in fact a controversial view that the historical accuracy of the Gospels is uncertain; others disagree, holding that, upon analysis, it is not a matter of significant uncertainty. In other respects, the article can be fairly described as a “liberal” academic discussion of Jesus, focusing especially on assorted difficulties and controversies, while failing to explain traditional, orthodox, or fundamentalist views of those issues. So it might be “liberal academic,” but it ignores conservative academic and traditional views. Therefore, what it is not is neutral, not in the original sense we defined for Wikipedia.

Of course, similarly tendentious claims can be found in other articles on religious topics, as when the Christ (title) article claims,

Although the original followers of Jesus believed Jesus to be the Jewish messiah, e.g. in the Confession of Peter, Jesus was usually referred to as “Jesus of Nazareth” or “Jesus, son of Joseph”.[11] Jesus came to be called “Jesus Christ” (meaning “Jesus the Khristós”, i.e. “Jesus the Messiah” or “Jesus the Anointed”) by later Christians, who believe that his crucifixion and resurrection fulfill the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament.

This article weirdly claims, or implies, a thing that no serious Biblical scholar of any sort would claim, viz., that Jesus was not given the title “Christ” by the original Apostles in the New Testament. The Wikipedia article itself later contradicts that claim, so perhaps the editors of the above paragraph simply meant the two conjoined words “Jesus Christ,” and that Jesus was rarely referred to with those two conjoined words in the New Testament. But this is false, too: the two words are found together in that form throughout the New Testament.

But the effect of the above-quoted paragraph is to cast doubt that the title “Christ” was used much at all by the original Apostles and disciples. That would be silly if so. These supposed “later Christians” who used “Christ” would have to include the Apostles Peter (Jesus’ first apostle), Paul (converted a few years after Jesus’ crucifixion), and Jude (Jesus’ brother), who were the authors of the bulk of the epistles of the New Testament. The word “Christ” can, of course, be found frequently in the epistles, including very early epistles, thought to be the first texts written about Jesus.3 Of course, those are not exactly “later Christians.” If the claim is simply that the word “Christ” does not appear at all or much in the Gospels, that is false, as a simple text search uncovers dozens of instances in all four Gospels,4 and about 550 instances in the entire New Testament. If it is used somewhat less in the Gospels, that would be a reflection of the fact that the authors of the Gospels were, argumentatively, using the Hebrew word “Messiah” to persuade Jewish readers that Jesus was the long-awaited Jewish messiah. But the word means much the same as the Greek title “Christ”: the anointed one, God’s chosen. So, in any event, the basic claim here is simply false. He is called “Jesus Christ” (Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ) in the very first verse of the New Testament (Matthew 1:1) and in the first verse of the gospel sometimes thought to be the first-written, Mark (1:1), as well.5

Or if the claim were that Jesus was not understood to be the Messiah or Christ in his own lifetime before being crucified, we need not quibble about that (though it is easy enough to cite the gospel claims that Peter believed him to be the Christ; see, e.g., Mark 8:29). The book of Acts and the epistles make it abundantly clear that the Apostles, setting up the earliest churches, thought Jesus was the Messiah—indeed, the Son of God.

Clearly, Wikipedia’s claims are tendentious if not false, and represent a point of view that many if not most Christians would rightly dispute.

It may seem more problematic to speak of the bias of scientific articles, because many people do not want to see “unscientific” views covered in encyclopedia articles. If such articles are “biased in favor of science,” some people naturally find that to be a feature, not a bug. The problem, though, is that scientists sometimes do not agree on which theories are and are not scientific. This point is perfectly obvious to anyone who actually follows any lively scientific debate at all closely. On such issues, the “scientific point of view” and the “objective point of view” according to the Establishment might be very much opposed to neutrality. So when certain people seem unified on a certain view of a scientific controversy, then that is the view that is taken for granted as the Establishment one, and often aggressively asserted, by Wikipedia.

Neutral information, representing a scientific consensus with no dissent, I’m sure.

The global warming and MMR vaccine articles are examples; I hardly need to dive into these pages, since it is quite enough to say that they endorse definite positions that scientific minorities reject. Another example is how Wikipedia treats various topics in alternative medicine—often dismissively, and frequently labeled as “pseudoscience” in Wikipedia’s own voice. Indeed, Wikipedia defines the very term as follows: “Alternative medicine describes any practice that aims to achieve the healing effects of medicine, but which lacks biological plausibility and is untested, untestable or proven ineffective.” In all these cases, genuine neutrality requires a different sort of treatment.

Again, other examples could be found, in no doubt thousands of other, less exciting topics. These are just the first topics that came to mind, associated as they are with the culture wars, and their articles on those topics put Wikipedia very decidedly on one side of that war. You should not be able to say that about an encyclopedia that claims to be neutral.

It is time for Wikipedia to come clean and admit that it has abandoned NPOV (i.e., neutrality as a policy). At the very least they should admit that that they have redefined the term in a way that makes it utterly incompatible with its original notion of neutrality, which is the ordinary and common one.6 It might be better to embrace a “credibility” policy and admit that their notion of what is credible does, in fact, bias them against conservatism, traditional religiosity, and minority perspectives on science and medicine—to say nothing of many other topics on which Wikipedia has biases.

Of course, Wikipedians are unlikely to make any such change; they live in a fantasy world of their own making.7

The world would be better served by an independent and decentralized encyclopedia network, such as I proposed with the Encyclosphere. We will certainly develop such a network, but if it is to remain fully independent of all governmental and big corporate interests, funds are naturally scarce and it will take time.

Here is a follow-up article (June 2021).
And here is another (June 2023).


  1. The misbegotten phrase “neutral point of view” is a Jimmy Wales coinage I never supported. If a text is neutral with regard to an issue, it lacks any “point of view” with regard to the issue; it does not take a “neutral point of view.” My preferred phrase was always “the neutrality policy” or “the nonbias policy.”[]
  2. On this, see my “Why Neutrality?“, published 2015 by Ballotpedia.[]
  3. Both in the form “Jesus Christ” (e.g., 1 Peter 1:1, Jude 1:1) and in the form “Christ Jesus” (1 Corinthians 1:2). “Christ” is found throughout three epistles widely held to be among the first written, including Galatians and 1 Thessalonians, and twice in James.[]
  4. I mistakenly conceded this false point in an earlier draft of this article, after not searching enough. Greek nominative and accusative Χριστόν and genitive Χριστοῦ can be found throughout.[]
  5. If you look at the footnote Wikipedia cites in support of its weird claim, you will find a sensible, not-misleading, and relatively neutral article by Britannica, the context of which makes it perfectly clear that the authors were not making any claim about the use of the title “Christ” but instead the two-word combination “Jesus Christ,” as applied directly to Jesus in his own lifetime. It seems likely that that two-word name was used rarely, but this has nothing whatsoever to do with his having the title “Christ,” but a reflection of the fact that “Ancient Jews usually had only one name, and, when greater specificity was needed, it was customary to add the father’s name or the place of origin.” Wikipedians copying from Britannica may have missed that bit.[]
  6. That it was Wikipedia’s original notion, see the Nupedia “Lack of Bias” policy, which was the source of Wikipedia’s policy, and see also my final (2001) version of the Wikipedia neutrality policy. Read my “Why Neutrality?” for a lengthy discussion of this notion. Both articles appear in slightly revised and footnoted versions in my recent book.[]
  7. UPDATE: In an earlier version of this blog post, I included some screenshots of Wikipedia Alexa rankings, showing a drop from 5 to 12 or 13. While this is perfectly accurate, the traffic to the site has been more or less flat for years, until the last few months, in which traffic spiked probably because of the Covid-19 virus. But since the drop in Alexa rankings do not seem to reflect a drop in traffic, I decided to remove the screenshots and a couple accompanying sentences.[]

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290 responses to “Wikipedia Is Badly Biased”

  1. Oberon

    [Editor’s note: I do not normally post such abusive stuff, but I thought I would make an exception in order to exhibit just how some people think about this, and thus how they can rationalize incredibly ridiculous bias. I’ll also reply below, but I doubt I’ll be wanting to use my blog for further dialogue with this person. –LMS]

    Just taking the first supposed example of bias given in the above article:
    Most if not all of the listed “scandals” Obama is supposedly guilty of are themselves highly biased, unsourced or supported, and presented as if they are issues which have not been thoroughly investigated and/or debunked long enough ago that referring to them is simply yellow journalism.
    “many well-known scandals: Benghazi, the IRS scandal, the AP phone records scandal, and Fast and Furious, to say nothing of Solyndra or the Hillary Clinton email server scandal—or, of course, the developing “Obamagate” story in which Obama was personally involved in surveilling Donald Trump.”

    Benghazi – I guess the reader is supposed to ignore the fact that 10 separate investigations, kept alive by Republicans for the sole purpose of keeping the issue clouded in the minds of American voters, all arrived at the same outcome: No issue found with the actions of Obama, Clinton, or Rice.

    “the IRS scandal” – I suppose making a list of supposed scandals and then calling one out specifically as a scandal is supposed to make it an even larger scandal? It does not. Make a case, if you can, or move on.

    “the AP phone records scandal” – Again with the repetition of scandal in your list of supposed scandals. Repeating something loudly or often doesn’t make it a fact. You’ll need to describe whatever you believe is scandalous and not just throw it onto a list and hope it sticks.

    Fast and Furious – First, again you just name drop and assume the reader will accept your ‘scandal’ at face value. Second, this program began under Bush, so why is it an Obama ‘scandal?’ Third, it involved members of both political parties, at the state and federal level, and members of the Mexican government. So again, why is this an Obama scandal? Might it be because you are a partisan hack, and prefer to name drop programs without any relevant details and expect that your readers will just go along with your presumption that somehow this is all a “Thanks, Obama!” issue?

    I’m not even going to cover Solyndra or Clinton’s email server separately. Companies go bust, even those who receive government funding. This happens under both Democrats and Republicans. If you want to single one out in particular, you’re a hypocrite because there are plenty of examples on both sides of the political isle. Clinton was never charged, so all you have here is an example of very poor judgement. The same very poor judgement that Ivanka Trump used when sending government emails from her own private email server. Again, you’re just a hypocrite if you list just Clinton’s lack of good judgement while ignoring all other cases of the exact same thing done by people on your side of the political divide.

    In summary, you’ve got nothing. You are a factless, biased, hypocritical hack. Maybe try again after you do just the smallest amount of homework first. Until that time, leave the discussion to the adults in the room.

    1. I note first that, for all your bluster and grandstanding, you are not confident enough of your opinions to use your real name.

      Just taking the first supposed example of bias given in the above article:
      Most if not all of the listed “scandals” Obama is supposedly guilty of are themselves highly biased, unsourced or supported, and presented as if they are issues which have not been thoroughly investigated and/or debunked long enough ago that referring to them is simply yellow journalism.

      Yeah, well, you know, that’s just like, uh, your opinion, man. This is not an opinion shared by many perfectly responsible and well-informed critics of Obama. The reason I brought the scandals up was not to advance their merits, but simply to point out the two perfectly obvious facts that (a) many Republicans (and, sure, some Democrats) think at least some of these scandals really were serious and significant, while (b) their point of view was not represented in the Wikipedia article. On that basis alone, without any further consideration of the merits of the scandal reportage (such as you gratuitously offered), we can conclude that the article was badly biased.

      But let’s look specifically at how you dismiss all of the scandal-talk. First, you say it is “biased”; that is silly. Of course it’s biased. It takes a side against Obama. Committed Obama advocates, like you, will naturally be opposed to any such talk. That is totally idle.

      “Unsourced or supported”? LOL. Every one of those scandals was a scandal because of specific sources coming forward with testimony and other evidence. I think what you mean is (a) you don’t approve of the original sources (which is boring to say; others obviously disagree with you), or (b) no news outlets of the sort you follow took any of it seriously, so that there were no available (left-wing Establishment) *news* sources. But this begs the question, obviously. You can’t argue against scandals by saying they’re unsourced, unless you ignore all the conservative news coverage, and if you do ignore that coverage by policy, because they constantly trade in “conspiracy theories” and “bad sourcing,” then you’re begging the very question at issue.

      A genuinely neutral reference accepts a wide variety of sources and scrupulously permits representatives, at least, of all major points of view on an issue, absolutely regardless of how much contempt is heaped up on it by the other side.

      Of course, the other side may (and indeed should—must) be permitted to rebut its defense in adequate and sympathetic detail. But then, that always goes for all controversies: that is the nature of neutrality.

      “presented as if they are issues which have not been thoroughly investigated”? First of all, of course they have not been thoroughly investigated. Second, official government investigations are frequently poor and lightweight. If you think their conclusions should instantly and automatically become what every sensible person will affirm, you are an immature and silly person. Finally, there are, of course, other investigations (such as those done by journalists) that a source like Wikipedia ought to reflect. Or do you think encyclopedias should only reflect the investigations performed by government bodies? And if so, does that not mean that you generally want Wikipedia to be a government mouthpiece? Because if you do say that, then I would disagree.

      “In summary, you’ve got nothing.”

      In summary, that is, obviously, just your extremely partisan and (I would add) laughably gullible opinion. You think that by repeating typical Democratic talking points on the scandals, you have established that there is nothing to them. You have established no such thing in such a short space. Besides, you completely ignore the point at contention, which had nothing to do with the merits of the scandal talk, and everything to do with the plain fact that Wikipedia systematically marginalizes Republican, traditionally conservative, and other non-Establishment views on pretty much everything.

      You are a factless, biased, hypocritical hack. Maybe try again after you do just the smallest amount of homework first. Until that time, leave the discussion to the adults in the room.

      That’s rich. It is precisely the opposite of hackery to insist on neutrality and to name and shame partisan propaganda when one sees it. And “factless”? My article is brimful of facts about the thing I was discussing: bias in Wikipedia. “Biased”? In the sense under question, texts are biased—not people. Of course people can be said to be biased when they are particularly unfair and constantly insist on their side being the only one to be heard—like you, and unlike me, since I am quite happy for Democrats to be given a full hearing.

      As to “hypocritical,” I suppose you say that because I advocate for neutrality and yet, you say, I am biased. The problem here is that you fail to understand what “neutrality” means. You think that advocating for Establishment Democrats like Obama is “neutral” because that is what a fair representation of what left-wing Establishment sources will lead you to do. You are very confused about what neutrality is; the fact is that you are dead set opposed to it, because you absolutely hate the idea that your opponents might be given a fair shake in the marketplace of ideas. And that, in turn, is probably because you’re not at all confident of your own views, despite your bluster. (Nor should you be.)

      Finally, “leave the discussion to the adults in the room.” This is something that Wikipedians like to say. It reflects a very common sort of insufferable and laughable arrogance that is constantly on display there. Anyway, at 52 years old, there is a good chance I am older than you, and old enough—and well-enough educated, too, I suppose—to be counted among “the adults in the room.” I can certainly affirm, based on your facile and bigoted remarks, and without offending too badly against modesty, that I am more intellectually mature than you.

    2. Sean Khanna

      I think this article will be very important in the future. It is articles like this, which even though some of us may not like, clearly bring to light fundamental flaws in our system of knowledge dissemination. Someday I really think the human race will treasure writing like this.

  2. […] ¿cumple Wikipedia con sus propios ideales de neutralidad? Averigüémoslo. Ya exploré esta cuestión buscando (y encontrando fácilmente) sesgos en artículos sobre temas importantes. […]

  3. […] to Wikipedia as a “broken system” in a 2019 interview. In that vein, in a May 2020 blog post, he described the encyclopedia as “badly biased” and claimed that the site no longer […]

  4. […] Larry Sanger lässt – amerikanisch-selbstbewusst – sein Erklärvideo zu #Encyclopshere so beginnen: «Wikipedia is great, right? – I started it.» Das sagt viel. Interessanter aber sein erster Satz im dazugehörigen Long-Read in seinem Blog: «Wikipedia’s “NPOV” is dead.» […]

  5. John Francis

    Stupid question: Larry would it be so difficult for you to head up an early Wikipedia type NPOV website?

    I agree with your overall analysis above: choice is at the very heart of an informed, free, liberty embracing world. More specifically, the choice to weed through as much information about a subject as exists – some of which might be controversial or even anathema to most – is vital for public trust and true democracy.

    1. I’ve tried it before. It’s harder than it looks. Besides, I am convinced that the real problem that needs fixing is the lack of a neutral network of encyclopedias. Create a free market of ideas and people will rush to fill in all the gaps.

  6. Johann

    I think wikipedia can only be used as an entry-point into serious sources, such as peer-reviewed journal articles and books, or as an entry-point into a world of media outlets. It is useful if you want to remind yourself of something. No one could probably consider those texts a source in their own right. But if you want to look up something you can use it. Critical thinking needs always to be applied. It is much better than simply googling a concept, but essentially a similar idea: look it up on the internet and begin to research a question. The fact that a lot of it is not available is of course a big problem. The abundance of sources obscures that many interesting facts never make it to the internet or get scrubbed quickly. Such is the world we live in. Wikipedia has taken on a different role than the founders may have intended.

  7. Johann

    Printed books have a lot of value. They don’t change and their contents remain. If you are lucky enough to have access to a library full of printed material.

  8. Erik Levy

    I have been accumulated “key” printed material that has historical facts, and at least provides sources other than “unnamed.” Larry, perhaps I am remiss in my knowledge of Wikipedia, but if you created it than how come you cannot correct/stop the egregious left-wing bias. Or, is it just simpler to start a new “x-pedia” and use more modern aggregators of source material w/o regard to political leanings?

    1. I’m long gone from Wikipedia, and starting an encyclopedia that could seriously compete with Wikipedia is far from easy—I know, I’ve tried.

  9. Elsie Snodgrass

    The main thing that I find extraordinary here is the extent to which this piece sees keeping US Republicans and US ‘fundamentalist’ Protestant Christians happy as defining ‘absence of bias’ .

    Apart from it being an inherently irrational criteria – most of the English speaking world is not American and most world Christians, and historical Christian -especially scholars- are bemused by the US obsession with the Bible being the literal and consistently authorative word of God. They recognise the bible as being written by humans who were of their time and may sometimes be inconsistent about details and whose meanings may be blurred by flaws in translation and changes in use, whose meanings can only discerned “in the whole’.

    Probably Wikipedia is ‘biased’ toward what the balance of learned books and articles have recorded, but that’s not a bias IMO – it’s an encyclopedia – if you don’t want your views challenged, don’t read it.

    1. Elsie, your comment illustrates perfectly a common left-wing failure to understand the meaning of the neutrality policy, which now predominates on Wikipedia. As I said very clearly, my strategy in the blog post was to identify issues in which people from the American left and right disagree in the culture war. If one side is consistently favored in articles touching the culture war, and then of course Wikipedia exhibit a bias toward that side. Neutrality means, essentially, not picking sides. Your confusion stems from the fact that you think it means something like objectivity. That is simply not the case.

      It might help to re-read the first, more theoretical section.

  10. Elsie Snodgrass

    I don’t think the neutrality policy means objectivity, I understand fully well its limitations – but don’t think that you are proposing anything better or more workable. I’m aware of areas which I think are biased, but they are very different from those you mention.

    I’m a lifelong European conservative and culturally Christian, not a left-winger as you presume. By US standards my views might be seen as socialist and atheist. Therein lies at least one of the flaws of your piece. If US conservatives are unhappy with English WP – there are many possible reasons other than bias and nobody makes them read it. I understand for example that if I look at an article on an alternative medecine, the information is going to be scientifically and medically sceptical – the kind of info a western MD might give. I understand that and am able to make my own evaluation.

    If WP claims that Trump tells palpable untruths more often than Obama – maybe, just maybe that’s because Trump tells palpable untruths more often than Obama, or, that at the very least, he has been caught doing so more often. What is WP supposed to do – pretend otherwise?

    1. Both neutrality and objectivity are difficult to achieve and, yes, have limitations. Neutrality is a style of or approach to writing; objectivity is frame of mind implying a methodological approach, of some “objective” kind, to questions. They are both difficult, but also “workable” in the sense that they are more or less achievable. We can find many texts about which we simply cannot make up our minds about what a person believes on the key disputed issues, where the competing sides are treated fairly and even-handedly, with no side being specially favored, even if perhaps one side should.

      If you want to claim conservative credentials, I’m curious: what views of yours do you call “conservative”? What’s a conservative political position that I would recognize as conservative? I’m sorry to be skeptical, but I do not take European political sensibilities as my measure of where to draw political lines. Europe has been declining faster toward a nadir of left-wing totalitarianism than the U.S. has, although we’re catching up fast. Many French “conservatives” of 2021 would have been perceived as a bomb-throwing radicals in the France of 1921.

      Obviously, my complaint isn’t that anyone is making conservatives read Wikipedia. I don’t read it. Does that mean I can’t dip into an article here and there and see how incredibly biased it has become? Of course not. And, yes, I guarantee (just look at the conservative press’s discussion of Wikipedia in the last few years) that Wikipedia’s bias is precisely the reason they’re unhappy with it.

      I don’t see why you say you are “able to make my own evaluation” about medicine after reading a biased article about some alternative medicine. If you are not given an adequate, sympathetic explanation of the views of the practitioners of alt medicine, how could you make your own judgment about it? No, you might arrive at a judgment indeed, but it will not be yours; it will be that of the article. But then, maybe that’s what you want: you want to be told what to think. I do not. Where there is significant disagreement, I want to learn about both (or all) sides. Sometimes I end up taking a minority position. Sometimes I do not.

      “What is WP supposed to do – pretend otherwise?” No. In years past, Wikipedia would not have “pretended” to have any view, of its own, about the truth or falsehood of Obama’s and Trump’s various claims. (Just by the way, Obama was a really terrible liar. He told many, many lies. He was quite shameless. But then, so are many politicians.) It would have said, “Trump claimed X. The New York Times and the Democrats declared X was an obvious lie, because [reasons].” If it matters, the article might go on and explain what often happened after that: “Trump [or his proxies] later clarified that he meant such-and-such.” And then it is left to the reader to decide whether Trump had been mendacious, generally speaking, when he originally declared X.

      This is not hard to understand, and I am frankly disappointed that I have to explain such obvious things to people. But apparently I must.

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