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Re:CIA to Sunset the World Factbook by sofixa on Thursday February 05, 2026 @10:37AM (#46900813)
> Wikipedia

There is nothing wrong with Wikipedia, at least in the main languages. It's crowdsourced and has citations (and where there aren't "citation needed" help identify that).

It gives you superficial, in depth and factual information, with links to sources for more details if needed.

Re:CIA to Sunset the World Factbook by PLenz on Thursday February 05, 2026 @10:44AM (#46900917)
There's nothing at all wrong with Wikipedia but it needs sources to cite since it doesn't allow original research and the World Factbook is an important one.
Re:CIA to Sunset the World Factbook by hexagonsuns on Thursday February 05, 2026 @10:53AM (#46901021)
>There's nothing at all wrong with Wikipedia

Well, except for the very obvious political bias

https://manhattan.institute/article/new-study-finds-politica...

Re:CIA to Sunset the World Factbook by tyre on Thursday February 05, 2026 @11:13AM (#46901230)
Looking at the underlying study, this isn’t evidence of bias. It’s evidence of correlation between Republicans and negative sentiment.

If you look at the sentiment for public figures given, the bottom one is, for example, Brett Kavanaugh. Well, he was credibly accused of sexual assault during his confirmation hearings, which was a huge deal at the time. Someone with that on their record will probably be read as negative, but, I mean, not the editors’ fault!

Re:CIA to Sunset the World Factbook by philwelch on Thursday February 05, 2026 @12:10PM (#46901891)
The accusations weren’t particularly credible and similar slander campaigns against people like Joe Biden aren’t nearly as prominent.

Even notorious dictators like Mao Zedong get treated with kid gloves as long as they’re on the left: https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/how-wikipedia-whitewashe...

Re:CIA to Sunset the World Factbook by sofixa on Thursday February 05, 2026 @03:43PM (#46904994)
Kid gloves? The cites text literally says:

> His policies resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of people in China during his reign, mainly due to starvation, but also through persecution, prison labour in laogai, and mass executions

What's "kid gloves" about that?

Let's contrast with the the farthest thing from a leftwing dictator we can find, the quintessential rightwing one, Adolf Hitler. Here's the intro to his Wikipedia page:

> Adolf Hitler[a] (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Germany during the Nazi era, which lasted from 1933 until his suicide in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party,[b] becoming the chancellor of Germany in 1933 and then taking the title of Führer und Reichskanzler in 1934.[c] Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 under his leadership marked the outbreak of the Second World War. Throughout the ensuing conflict, Hitler was closely involved in the direction of German military operations as well as the perpetration of the Holocaust, the genocide of about six million Jews and millions of other victims.

Note how the atrocities are last, same as Mao.

Re:CIA to Sunset the World Factbook by philwelch on Friday February 06, 2026 @12:56AM (#46909599)
Please actually read the link I shared before responding. For your convenience, I’ve shared it again.

https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/how-wikipedia-whitewashe...

Re:CIA to Sunset the World Factbook by O1111OOO on Thursday February 05, 2026 @11:09AM (#46901198)
When it comes to politics and studies... We all should know by now to research those sources too, right?

"The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit[5] conservative think tank."

It is a report generated by this conservative organization (that presumably gets donations from many other conservatives). Is there a chance that the report itself is suspect?

Re:CIA to Sunset the World Factbook by cataphract on Thursday February 05, 2026 @11:10AM (#46901205)
"Bias" here is just sentiment analysis. The report (from a conservative think-tank) is not about factual errors. Plus, the effect they find shows only for US politics, where there is really not much of a "left".
Re:CIA to Sunset the World Factbook by sofixa on Thursday February 05, 2026 @10:59AM (#46901084)
> Findings show that Wikipedia entries are more likely to attach negative sentiment to terms representative of right-leaning political orientation than to their left-leaning counterparts

Is that a bias or just reality?

Right leaning politicians in the US include people paying underage girls for sex, people screaming about "Jewish Space lasers", people obviously stealing money in plain sight with crypto pumps and dumps, people running away from responsibility, people getting caught engaging in sexual acts in public, and on and on and on. Their left-wing equivalents are... extremely mild by comparison. What, some run of the mill corruption and sexual comments that resulted in resignations?

If go past "right wing is associated with more negative things", and look into what those negative things are, you'd realise it's just reality. Just because there are two parties and two categories of political leanings doesn't mean they are somehow equal.

Re:CIA to Sunset the World Factbook by elzbardico on Thursday February 05, 2026 @11:05AM (#46901158)
Yes, the left engages only in "mostly peaceful protests"
Re:CIA to Sunset the World Factbook by throwawayqqq11 on Thursday February 05, 2026 @12:57PM (#46902482)
Citation needed for mostly violent protest.
Re:CIA to Sunset the World Factbook by hexagonsuns on Thursday February 05, 2026 @11:22AM (#46901328)
"Bias isn't bias if I agree with the side it's taking!"
Re:CIA to Sunset the World Factbook by sofixa on Thursday February 05, 2026 @11:25AM (#46901364)
It's not bias if it's factual reality. You not liking it doesn't make it bias.
Re:CIA to Sunset the World Factbook by hexagonsuns on Thursday February 05, 2026 @11:31AM (#46901425)
It is bias if your "factual reality" over-exaggerates the "facts" for the "bad guys" and under-exaggerates / completely neglects to report on the "good guys"
Re:CIA to Sunset the World Factbook by array_key_first on Thursday February 05, 2026 @01:24PM (#46902899)
There are also genuinely good guys and bad guys. Reality, itself, has a bias. To think that ideology doesn't correlate at all with how moral you might act is, frankly, stupid. Not all positions are created equal.
Re:CIA to Sunset the World Factbook by throwawayqqq11 on Thursday February 05, 2026 @01:30PM (#46902999)
Which is true for all propaganda outlets.

But to put it with John Steward, what if reality itself has a left leaning bias?

What if left leaning people have empirically broader empathy [0] which could imply that right leaning people have in tendency worse personalities. I guess you would attest yet another biased article here.

[0]: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10281241/