According to (ironically) Wikipedia[1], Sanger left the project in 2006^W the early 2000s:
> Frustrated by sustained content battles and feeling he had a lack of support from Wales, Sanger eventually left the project.
There is an article about economics, obviously. And in its "criticism" section there is a long paragraph about criticism of economics from a feminist point of view.
However wikipedia also has an article about feminist economics. Which is almost equal in length to the article about economics in general. And if you go to the feminist economics page - there is no criticism section. But you can open the talk page, and there is a discussion, where editors argue that criticism hurts the neutrality of the article and should not be added there.
It just doesn't seem impartial to me.
A lot of articles in Wikipedia are inside the battle ground for politics. I like to talk about it and point it out. But would rather stay a safe distance away.
I agree with you that wiki-style projects depend on neutral volunteers to succeed. But you and me are not wiki-style projects. Our knowledge can be gathered from several differently biased sources and then combined, in hopes to get closer to "neutral".
Also it might just be the case that it was too early to praise Wikipedia as success. When it started people had precisely these doubts in mind - how could a "democratic" platform aim at truth. Maybe critics were right, just the down-spiral effect was delayed. And at first it was delayed because there was a technical barrier at being an editor. Then various groups began to train people in editing Wikipedia, and here we are.
Also see this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20371610
What I do personally for subject that feel a bit controversial is: 1) read the Wiki article 2) read the Talk page 3) look for edits that were made earlier (special before the 2016 USA election) 4) look for primary sources when feasible.
As another commenter mentioned here - editing articles in Wikipedia is a waste of time now, because there are interest groups that control a lot of "touchy" subjects. As an example (and I am adding it because I know the subject matter, having read 5 books by the author) compare the leading abstract of "Julius Evola" before 2016, and after:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Julius_Evola&oldi...
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Julius_Evola
What changed? Evola was one of the authors that Steve Bannon mentioned in one of his interviews. So editors tried to turn Evola into a misogynist + racist + fascist, just to smear the Bannon guy.
I acknowledge that making ones edits pass by other interested editors (especially those with more time or numbers than you have) is exhausting. But it is worth it, considering Wikipedia gets first place in Google's search results.
A human tradition dating back to the origin of storytelling. But at least now it comes packaged with a version history.
Nitpick: Sanger is not part of Wikipedia or the WMF as far as I know.
> t's not even just political content, it's getting to the point where history is being actively re-written and re-interpreted to match a radical narrative.
Mind giving some examples?
> In some sort of temporal example of humour, I've gone back to recommending people use Britannica as a starting point and for surface level reading.
In what way could Britannica possibly be better than Wikipedia. It is usually based on a single viewpoint, instead of Wikipedia's thousands.
> Mind giving some examples?
Google can help you with these questions, to your own satisfaction.
This is not a winnable debate, but differing views exist.
This is an incomplete list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedia_controversie...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict-of-interest_editing_o...
https://www.quora.com/Am-I-the-only-frustrated-former-Wikipe...
etc.
The dubious nature of wikipedia's editing is recorded within books and articles from over the last decade that are casually discoverable from google. AFAIK, anyone who implies they aren't aware of the biases of editors, are either willfully ignorant (since this is covered under multiple topics within wikipedia itself) or trolling.
All the criticism of Wikipedia that you raise is valid, but there are some things implied in your posts that are dubious:
* That there exists an encyclopedia better than Wikipedia (or some other Wikimedia project).
* That Wikipedia can just be ignored.
Considering the placement Wikipedias currently have, it is hard to imagine a better or more influential project being created, so we might as well try improving what already exists.
I'm glad others are keeping an eye on this issue. It is incredibly ironic to me that anyone in a leadership role at Wikipedia would criticize Zuckerberg or Dorsey. It's not even just political content, it's getting to the point where history is being actively re-written and re-interpreted to match a radical narrative.
In some sort of temporal example of humour, I've gone back to recommending people use Britannica as a starting point and for surface level reading.