• Mystery_Man
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    3 years ago

    In the world of academia, Wikipedia is wholly rejected as an academic source. However, it can be acknowledged that Wikipedia can be useful to gain some level of “general knowledge” in some topic or another. But anything that has some kind of political discussion is going to be a mess. Just look at the edit history of any page related to communism, the USSR, Stalin, Ukraine, “Holodomor”, etc.

    • AgreeableLandscape☭M
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      3 years ago

      I see one major issue with using Wikipedia as a launchpad for research, as many professors suggest (basically, disregard the article, just use it to find sources). Wikipedia likes to ban sources that are contrary to the Western narrative, particularly State-owned media from socialist countries (and extra topical, Russian State media). Like, they don’t outright ban it, but any edit that cites them has a large chance of being rejected, but basically any Western mainstream media, even blatantly false articles that have been debunked, seems to be just fine according to the mods. I don’t care if you’re a socialist or like socialist media or not (I mean, I am and do respectively), but either way you should definitely have a problem with tbis. Banning such media is deception by omission and that’s no bueno for serious research.

      • Mystery_Man
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        3 years ago

        That’s all true, and very problematic. Though what I meant by my statement was not specifically about political matters. Like if you’re studying chemistry or something there probably isn’t this issue.

    • Breadbeard
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      3 years ago

      solved the issue: from now on refer to the Saudi blockade of Yemen and the US occupation of syrian territory (wheat rich regions) a “Holodomor” and watch them shift goalpost into their own asses

  • Makan
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    3 years ago

    Wikipedia also lies about the CPUSA.

    We kept trying to edit our Wiki page for the benefit of giving the other side of the story. We tried to edit several Wiki pages that involved us. And yet all attempts were either halted by the admins or resulted in accounts being banned.

    Don’t trust that “Wikipedia is neutral” crap.

    Wikipedia has people up at the top of it and they in turn have admins and mods that give only a certain version of events.

  • tribuneoftheplebs
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    3 years ago

    The absolute rigour of liberal “jorunalism” at its finest, lol. not directly related but i recall seeing the one-sideness of wikipedia and their bias back during the hayday of the syrian civil war in 2015-2016 and how far it fell in line with western propaganda was a huge redpill for me

    • AcornOP
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      3 years ago

      Well aware:

      https://wikipedia.fivefilters.org/

      Secondly:

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources

      There is consensus that Bellingcat is generally reliable for news and should preferably be used with attribution.

      China Global Television Network was deprecated in the 2020 RfC for publishing false or fabricated information. Many editors consider CGTN a propaganda outlet, and some editors express concern over CGTN’s airing of forced confessions.

      The Grayzone was deprecated in the 2020 RfC. There is consensus that The Grayzone publishes false or fabricated information. Some editors describe The Grayzone as Max Blumenthal’s blog, and question the website’s editorial oversight.

      Radio Free Asia can be generally considered a reliable source. In particularly geopolitically-charged areas, attribution of its point of view and funding by the U.S. government may be appropriate. Per the result of a 2021 RfC, editors have established that there is little reason to think RFA demonstrates some systematic inaccuracy, unreliability, or level of government co-option that precludes its use.

      Way more than those examples on the page

    • AgreeableLandscape☭M
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      3 years ago

      I swear I saw a post on Lemmy about Wikipedia blocking access from Mainland Chinese IPs claiming protection from abuse. I tried searching for it but couldn’t find it. Anyone else know what I’m talking about? Or was it just a fever dream of my own creation?