Wikipedia bias
I’ve just noticed how biased Wikipedia is. I seldom use it a reference but decided to look at it after Tim Lambert mentioned the site in a post.
I did a search on John Howard and noticed this Further Reading list.
David Barnett and Pru Goward, John Howard, Prime Minister, Viking, 1997
Tony Kevin A Certain Maritime Incident the sinking of SIEV X, Scribe Publications, 2004. ISBN 1920769218.
Margo Kingston Not Happy, John! defending Australia’s democracy, Penguin, June 2004. ISBN 0143002589.
Marion Maddox God Under Howard: The rise of the religious right in Australian politics, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, February 2005. ISBN 1741145686.
David Marr & Marian Wilkinson Dark Victory. ISBN 0143002589
Andrew Wilkie, Axis of deceit, Schwarz Publishing, Melbourne, 2004. In series Black Inc. Agenda. ISBN 09750769-2-2 (“the story of the intelligence officer who risked all to tell the truth about WMD and Iraq”: cover)
Wow!
In the Dicussion section it all becomes clear. Contributor Adam Car writes;
I am referring to the Further reading section – all of which are identified as “criticisms of Howard.” It has never occurred to anyone to have a “Praise of Howard” section. This is of course because almost all Wikpedians (including me) are anti-Howard.Comments like that are fine for a writer, commentator or journalist where the readers know the authors political bent but the pedia suggests accurate information given without bias and its clearly not the case.
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Apart from displaying just about every stereotypical characteristic of ‘the enemy’, this fellow is one hell of a prolific poster. One wonders how much of this posting gets done during his unpaid time, given nature of his ‘job’. On the whole, I think the Wikipedia concept is a good one… and in many cases, articles are of high quality due to many eyes/editors. Where it might sometimes fall down is when you get a small group of people (or even single person) with the time and motivation to ‘go (do?) over’ a field of knowledge (e.g. Australian Political History)… Who among the anti-idiotarians would have the time to get involved in an ‘edit-war’ with them?
Think of the TV series ‘The Dismissal’… not to mention ‘Changi’ or the movie ‘Gallipoli’… all of which took more than a few liberties with the truth… and now are accepted as historical truth by most of the Australian population.
Worrisome stuff.
You’re right Pete. I overreacted by deleting the link as other that political comment it is OK
I am quite impressed with how well the Wikipedia concept works but it is very true that you need to have the bias radar turned up high. I wonder if there shouldn’t be some sort of highlight on recently admitted changes that are currently the subject of edit-wars.
Whatever, I use it extensively and find it a good starting point for many investigations. In fact I even found the entry on The Dismissal to be a reasonably thourough and concise coverage of the events of 1975.