[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's political slant or lack thereof

Fri May 7 23:18:36 UTC 2004

>> I think Wikipedia tends to tilt slightly tilted towards the left of
>> center, and slightly towards an EU-centric viewpoint, vaguely along 
>> the
>> lines of BBC News's tilt (though theirs is somewhat more pronounced).
>
> How fascinating!  I tend to find wikipedia slanted slightly right-wing,
> with a wide spectrum of people to round it out.  It's very interesting
> that we can get such different opinions of the same group of people.

I honestly hadn't noticed any particular _political_ bias. One of the 
odd characteristics of Wikipedia is that it is (a) huge, and (b) 
doesn't lend itself to getting any kind of synoptic overview--so one's 
view of Wikipedia is strongly shaped by the articles you care to read 
and/or edit. So how you see Wikipedia becomes a kind of projective 
test.

     Drove up a newcomer in a covered wagon: "What kind of folks
     live around here?" "Well, stranger, what kind of folks was
     there in the country you come from?" "Well, they was mostly
     a lowdown, lying, thieving gossiping, backbiting kind lot of
     people." "Well, I guess, stranger, that's about the kind of
     folks you'll find around here." And the dusty gray stranger
     had just about blended into the dusty gray cottonwoods in a
     clump on the horizon when another newcomer drove up: "What
     kind of folks live around here?" "Well, stranger, what kind
     of folks was there in the country you come from?" "Well,
     they was mostly a decent, hardworking, lawabiding, friendly
     lot of people." "Well, I guess, stranger, that's about the
     kind of folks you'll find around here."

        --Carl Sandburg, _The People, Yes_

(I'll save "The Blind Men and the Elephant" for another day).

--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net