Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-08-01/Humour

Humour

Does Wikipedia present neutral perspectives?

Does Wikipedia lean left? We often hear complaints. Maybe it leans right and we just never hear about the leftists complaining about it? Either way, we have a mandate to cover things from a neutral perspective, or a neutral point of view.

I decided to investigate by picking random topics that I already knew, and see if that was true. Since pictures are a thousand words, I decided to be super efficient and head over to the Wikimedia Commons to dig a selection of images from these topics, and see if they were presented from a right-leaning or left-leaning perspective.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa

Right
Right
Right
Right
Right
Right
Neutral
Left
Left

Clearly, there is a bias. Out of a random sample of nine images, only two gave a left-leaning perspective, and just one presented the vaunted neutral point of view. But that could just be a one-off. Let's continue to investigate.

Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima

While WikiProject Military History aims to cover things neutrally, that doesn't mean they get it right all the time. So how is this famous event covered? Let's investigate.

Left
Left
Left
Left
Left
Left
Neutral

Perhaps surprisingly, this topic seems to be nearly 100% left-leaning. We have six clearly biased takes on the event... and only one NPOV source. I would not have expected this, given the strongest support for the US military usually comes from people that lean right.

DYK process

It's important to check how well our processes respect NPOV. I decided to check the DYK archives for the month of June 2023. Let's see how they fare.

Neutral
Neutral
Left
Left
Neutral
Neutral
Neutral
Neutral
Neutral
Neutral
Neutral
Neutral
Right
Neutral
Right
Neutral
Neutral
Neutral
Neutral
Neutral (mostly)
Neutral
Neutral
Neutral
Neutral
Left
Neutral
Neutral
Neutral
Neutral
Neutral

Twenty-five NPOV images, three left-leaning ones, two right-leaning ones. I note however – the pupils, while neutral in pose, are given left-leaning educational material. Overall, however, DYK seems to be doing a pretty good job of having a neutral perspective.

Conclusions

After investigating 46 images – equivalent to 46,000 words worth of in-depth reading – did I manage to uncover a secret cabal? What does this mean? What other areas should we investigate?

Tell me in the comments below, because I don't have a friggin' clue about what I'm supposed to conclude from this.

← Previous "Humour"

Next "Humour" →

In this issue

1 August 2023 (all comments)

News and notes

In the media

Disinformation report

Humour

Discuss this story

These comments are automatically transcluded from this article's talk page. To follow comments, add the page to your watchlist. If your comment has not appeared here, you can try purging the cache.

Obviously this analysis is extremely flawed as it fails to check bias in four dimensions and everyone knows that Wikipedia is dominated by a cabal of Zergs from Valhalla who only operate outside Euclidean space. AryKun (talk) 12:13, 2 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Fun read. --Andreas JN 466 19:18, 2 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Disgusting oversight of not being quantitative and measuring with a protractor!! Take your imprecision to Quora!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.248.1.2 (talk) 16:56, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
F-16XL is obviously flying to the left. a!rado는 더미입니다 (C✙T) 11:11, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's flying left, sure, but it doesn't lean left. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:39, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia lean left? Don't be funny comrade. And if there's a photograph (or article) about anyone named Trump left not leaning left without dragging their names through the mud, turning around, then dragging them through the mud again, please alert ANI, thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:07, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's your Signpost. You can help us.

Home

About