The progressives have taken over Wikipedia

Ilove Wikipedia. I donated thousands of dollars to the Wikimedia Foundation. Before Wikipedia, all we had were printed encyclopedias — out of date by the time we bought them.

Then libertarian Jimmy Wales came up with a web-based, crowdsourced encyclopedia. A Britannica editor called Wikipedia “a public restroom.” But Wales won the battle. Britannica’s encyclopedias are no longer printed.

But recently I learned that Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger now says Wikipedia’s political pages have turned into leftist “propaganda.” That’s upsetting.

All editing is done by volunteers. Wales hoped there would be enough diverse political persuasions that biases would be countered. That’s not what’s happening.

Jonathan Weiss is what Wikipedia calls a “Top 100” Wikipedian because he’s made almost half a million edits. He said he’s noticed new bias: “Wikipedia does a great job on things like science and sports, but you see a lot of political bias come into play when you’re talking current events.”

Weiss is no conservative. In presidential races, he voted for Al Gore, Ralph Nader and Barack Obama.

Maybe that’s why he notices the new Wikipedia bias. “People on the left far outweigh people on the center and the right … a lot (are) openly socialist and Marxist.” These are the people who decide which news sources Wikipedia writers may cite. Wikipedia’s approved “Reliable sources” page rejects political reporting from Fox but calls CNN and MSNBC “reliable.”

Good conservative outlets such as The Federalist, The Daily Caller and The Daily Wire are all deemed “unreliable.” Same with the New York Post. Yet Wikipedia approves even hard-left media such as Vox, The Nation, Mother Jones and Jacobin, a socialist publication.

Until recently, Wikipedia’s “socialism” and “communism” pages made no mention of the millions of people killed by socialism and communism. Even now, deaths are “deep in the article,” Weiss said, “treated as an arcane academic debate. But we’re talking about mass murder!” The communism page even adds that we cannot ignore the “lives saved by communist modernization”! This is nuts.

Look up “concentration and internment camps,” and you’ll find, with the Holocaust, “Mexico-united States border,” and under that, “Trump administration family separation policy.” What? Donald Trump’s border controls, no matter how harsh, are very different from Nazi mass murder.

Wikipedia does say “anyone can edit.” So I made a small addition for political balance, mentioning that President Barack Obama built those cages. My edit was taken down.

I wrote Wikipedia founder Wales to say that if his creation now uses only progressive sources, I would no longer donate.

He replied, “I totally respect the decision not to give us more money. I’m such a fan and have great respect for you and your work.” But then he said it is “just 100% false … that ‘only globalist, progressive mainstream sources’ are permitted.”

He gave examples of leftwing media that Wikipedia rejects, such as Raw Story and Occupy Democrats. I then wrote again to ask why “there’s not a single right-leaning media outlet Wiki labels ‘reliable’ about politics, (but) Vox, Slate, The Nation, Mother Jones, CNN, MSNBC” get approval.

Wales then stopped responding to my emails.

Unless Wikipedia’s bias is fixed, I’ll be skeptical reading anything on the site.