There’s a War Going on over Kamala Harris’s Wikipedia Page

https://theintercept.com/2020/07/02/kamala-harris-wikipedia/

by ingve • 6 years ago

30 20 6 years ago

collyw2• 6 years ago

I have noticed that Wikipedia has become pretty terrible for anything political recently. It's got a very left wing bias and doesn't come off as objective at all.

aiscapehumanity• 6 years ago

Wow, in what way? Please explain. I have mostly used wikipedia for science/tech, followed by historical. I don't understand what you mean by it having a strong political bias? If it does, then you're referencing recent events?

ryan_h• 6 years ago

Wikipedia's Co-Founder wrote a blog about a month ago detailing biases in Wikipedia articles: https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/

devwastaken2• 6 years ago

Its generally difficult for political positions that lack evidence to take a seat at the table of sourceable information.

If you have specific points then that may be discussable, but making grand general statements like that doesnt yield any productive discussion.

collyw2• 6 years ago

Ok, here is an example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Racial_views_of_Donald_Tr...

elijahwright• 6 years ago

Language is by its nature non-neutral.

bb88• 6 years ago

The way most candidates should handle something like this, is to put out a book. Then reporter's questions can be addressed by saying, "Well, I wrote a book about it last year, and apologized for my past behavior, you can read the details there."

Traster2• 6 years ago

The problem with that is Kamala Harris didn't know what political position she needed to have last year. Last year's book might have needed to be a complete apology for her stance as tough on crime or it might have needed to be trumping her strong record. Only the events of the last year have made it clear exactly what position she wants to take.

sukilot4• 6 years ago

That's why politicians should write multiple books to cover every possibility.

Traster2• 6 years ago

I think wikipedia is basically in a no-win situation on this. Is Harris' connections to Steve Mnuchin important? I don't know. I know a republican would tell you yes and a democrat would probably tell you no. Hell, a Republican might well tell you that it's an important fact about Harris' career whilst simultaneously not recognising that it's probably an important fact that should reflect very poorly on Steve Mnuchin who is currently serving a Republican president. I can see you could make an argument for either frankly - sweetheart deals are a problem and so is special treatment. Also she was a DA for 7 years and AG for 6 years and frankly it would be a miracle if she didn't have a few controversial decisions or dealt with some well known people. You could see a mirror of this article about her using her office to target a republican. I can certainly say the quote from the article seems to be leading - I know the article wants to imply that Harris' decision not to prosecute Mnuchin is linked to his donation to her campaign. I don't find that compelling and I certainly think its pushing a biased agenda.

Personally I would like to see Wikipedia take a step back in these political situations, draw clear lines about what should be in articles and draw those lines in such a way as to minimise the pay off for editorialising. You could for example, minimise her CV to literally just which jobs she had and when, and then you could have a separate article for the Attorney General of California, where specific instances can be documented.

sukilot4• 6 years ago

Aside from the specifics of the political squabble, an elected official (Harris) has far more to lose from "bad associations" than an appointed official (Mnuchin) who is accountable to no one except his boss.

clawedjird• 6 years ago

I agree that this is a difficult position for Wikipedia to be in, but I don’t think the solution is to simply scrub posts of most of their content. The reality is, for better or worse, that Wikipedia will be the first (or perhaps only) stop for many voters researching political candidates. If a voter can’t even determine the basic characteristics of a candidate’s political identity (there’s a pretty wide gulf between the profile of a “tough-on-crime” prosecutor or AG and a “progressive reformer,” for ex.) from Wikipedia’s entry on that candidate, Wikipedia will provide very limited utility to them.

sukilot4• 6 years ago

At the end of the day, a wiki (or any UGC system) is only as good as the admins who have the final say on what is published.

As good a Wikipedia is, it's dangerous for it to be the only "legitimate" one. Thanks to the open license, there should be many forks by people striving to do better or with a different editorial tilt (without needing to all the way to fringe like Conservapedia and even Rationalwiki.) Even Uncyclopedia deserves some competition.

There’s a War Going on over Kamala Harris’s Wikipedia Page

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