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Citing Wikipedia's capture by the left, the site's co-founder is launching free-speech-friendly competitor
Just The News ^ | 02/28/2021 | Carrie Sheffield

Posted on 02/28/2021 9:56:02 AM PST by SeekAndFind

A co-founder of Wikipedia is launching a competing website as a free-speech-friendly alternative to what he views as the increasingly monolithic left-wing bias of his former organization.

Last May, Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger wrote an op-ed on his personal website titled "Wikipedia is Badly Biased" claiming that Wikipedia's neutrality policy — known as "NPOV," or neutral point of view — "is dead."

Now, when schoolchildren visit the Wikipedia website to look up answers to questions about the meaning of socialism, "they're going to find an explanation that completely ignores any conservative, libertarian, or critical treatment of the subject," Sanger told "Just the News AM" television program. "And that's really problematic. That's not education. That's propaganda."

Sanger referred to a Fox News report last week by Maxim Lott, which noted, "The two main pages for 'Socialism' and 'Communism' span a massive 28,000 words, and yet they contain no discussion of the genocides committed by socialist and communist regimes, in which tens of millions of people were murdered and starved."

Wikipedia's socialism page claims, "The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century," Lott reported, but it "ignores a man-made famine in which Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin commandeered the food from regions like Ukraine and Kazakhstan, leaving millions to starve to death even as the Soviet Union exported grain to foreign countries."

The press office of Wikepdia's non-profit parent, Wikimedia Foundation, did not respond to a request for comment

First launched in 2001, Wikipedia was initially "truly committed to neutrality," said Sanger. For about the first five or 10 years, he recalled, "you could go to articles on the most controversial topics of the day and the culture war, and you would find all sides being fairly represented."


(Excerpt) Read more at justthenews.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: encyclosphere; larrysanger; wikipedia
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1 posted on 02/28/2021 9:56:02 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind


For about the first five or 10 years, Larry Sanger recalled, "you could go to articles on the most controversial topics of the day and the culture war, and you would find all sides being fairly represented."

But about 10 years ago, he said, "as liberals made, or leftists made, their march through the institutions, Wikipedia became one of those influential institutions … and [the left] basically took it over."

By then, Sanger said, Wikipedia started getting rid of citations from conservative sources, "even conservative sources that were cited in order to explain the conservative point of view."

Sanger told Just the News that his new, forthcoming project, called "Encyclosphere," is a decentralized network of the world's encyclopedias, what he called "an old-fashioned, leaderless, ownerless network, like the blogosphere."

Sanger said just as there are no administrators in the blogosphere, "in the same way, I want to create a protocol that very loosely ties all the encyclopedias online together."

In a video posted to Twitter, Sanger announced the Encyclosphere, calling it "a free, giant, global knowledge commons without any central control."

Sanger said his Encyclosphere would be able to avoid an anti-free speech tilt "because freedom is built into the architecture, just as it is built into DNS (the web's basic domain name system) and, again, into the blogosphere. Different competing apps can restrict access to an extent, and governments can restrict access, but the network will never restrict access."

Sanger said his team has already done an encyclopedia meta-search project, started codifying standards, and talked to various encyclopedias. But for now, his first step is to start with "a free, long-term, graduate-level seminar" he said will be announced soon.

2 posted on 02/28/2021 9:58:14 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

The Left infiltrates and lies. Basically one of the few things it’s capable of doing.


3 posted on 02/28/2021 10:02:09 AM PST by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: SeekAndFind

Larry, try boosting Coseropedia.


4 posted on 02/28/2021 10:07:01 AM PST by Fungi
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To: SeekAndFind

About a week ago I looked up Robert Kennedy, Jr—son of Bobby Kennedy. Jr. has a very good site, “Children’s Health Defense,” that recently exposed Bill. Gates as the largest owner of farmland in the US, and another article about Gates’ destruction of the economy in India by buying up the land, destroying heritage seeds, and forcing GMOs down everyone’s throats. GMOs are so dangerous,, I won’t buy cat food with GMO ingredients.

Wikipedia calls RFK, Jr. a “conspiracy theorist.” I’d say ‘you can’t make this stuff up,’ but Wikipedia absolutely does.

BTW, my pharmaceutical company exec friend says Gates is a criminal and belongs in jail.


5 posted on 02/28/2021 10:08:41 AM PST by Veto! (Political Correctness Offends Me)
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To: SeekAndFind

Start a new one and I’ll go to it.

Still seems to me that Wiki depends on amateur writers chiming in. So like FB, etc, it depends on whether the parent company polices everything, and does so efficiently. I don’t think they write things. They would have to find it and delete what they don’t like. It would take too much to write.


6 posted on 02/28/2021 10:09:18 AM PST by the OlLine Rebel (Common sense is an uncommon virtue./Federal-run medical care is as good as state-run DMVs. I )
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To: Veto!

I can sympathize, but I don’t think there’s a thing wrong with GMO. Not in principle. And how do you actually verify if something is or is not? If you distrust these people so much, why would you trust where a corn cob is from or how it came to be?


7 posted on 02/28/2021 10:11:57 AM PST by the OlLine Rebel (Common sense is an uncommon virtue./Federal-run medical care is as good as state-run DMVs. I )
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To: Fungi

RE: Larry, try boosting Coseropedia.

Never heard of Coseropedia, what is this ?


8 posted on 02/28/2021 10:12:08 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Good for Larry!


9 posted on 02/28/2021 10:15:24 AM PST by Jane Long (America, Bless God....blessed be the Nation 🙏🏻🇺🇸)
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To: SeekAndFind

Sorry. Conservopedia.


10 posted on 02/28/2021 10:15:38 AM PST by Fungi
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To: SeekAndFind

The left will infiltrate, undermine and capture everything in the media, education, government spaces. It is their life. They will spend decades, generations if need be. Conservatives, or anyone not on the left, will never put in that kind of intense single minded effort. The rest of us have lives, families, businesses, careers. Subsuming everything into their control is their life, business, career.


11 posted on 02/28/2021 10:25:34 AM PST by milemark (non blogger)
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To: the OlLine Rebel

> I don’t think they write things.<

I believe that you are right. Anyone can be a Wikipedia “editor” and contribute to an entry (at least that was the way it was a couple of years ago).

I myself modified their page on Adm. Grace Hopper. It contained some false info that I corrected. Last I looked, my correction was still there.

Now here’s the thing. Anyone can challenge an entry or a correction. And then some Wikipedia big shot reviews that challenge. If the challenge is upheld, the entry or correction is deleted.

So maybe you correct their page on how great socialism is. And then your correction gets challenged by some Commie. Then maybe Wikipedia upholds the challenge, and deletes your correction.


12 posted on 02/28/2021 10:25:38 AM PST by Leaning Right (I have already previewed or do not wish to preview this composition )
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To: the OlLine Rebel

Almost all corn is GMO. So I don’t eat it. Feedlot cattle are fed corn, which they can barely digest...they need grass. So I buy grassfed beef from local farmer and pasture-raised eggs and Grassmilk. You can buy that milk and those eggs everywhere. More expensive but worth it. I’ve very old and extremely healthy...in the last 10 years I was sick once with a bad cold that lasted a week. Take many supplements —all of the things now recommended to boost your immune system I’ve taken every morning for the last 40 years.

Interesting book you might enjoy: The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan,
Knight Professor of Science and Environmental Journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. He has other books too, always bestsellers and all available on AMZ and probably your library. Heard him on the radio a few months ago, bought his book and sent a link to my sister who doesn’t have a clue about food and nutrition.


13 posted on 02/28/2021 11:08:30 AM PST by Veto! (Political Correctness Offends Me)
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To: SeekAndFind

The Left corrupts, creates hate, and wants to control. It’s what they do like water is wet.


14 posted on 02/28/2021 11:10:45 AM PST by Vision (Elections are one day. Reject "Chicago" vote harvesting. Election Reform Now. Obama is an evildoer.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Bkmk


15 posted on 02/28/2021 11:30:46 AM PST by sauropod (#ImpeachMcConnell. #Resist. #NotMyPresident.)
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To: SeekAndFind; All

There is “no such thing as an author without bias”. As such, I have, and desire others to have a bias in favor of morality justice, what is right, and liberty.

I am glad this is happening, but personally, I am a long time fan of attorney Andy Schlafly’s “Conservapedia” site and organization.

https://conservapedia.com/Main_Page

They have well sourced, and more in depth historical literacy and context over government, important events, those involved, and things which pertain.

What they don’t have is an army of leftists constantly updating everything, to subtly burry the truth. Schlafly’s people will really drill down..


16 posted on 02/28/2021 11:35:03 AM PST by patriotfury ((May the fleas of a thousand camels occupy mo' ham mads tents!) )
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To: Veto!

Eh. GMO is called “breeding” in simple terms. We’ve been deliberately breeding animals and plants for certain characteristics for ages. There’s nothing really new under the sun.


17 posted on 02/28/2021 12:02:38 PM PST by the OlLine Rebel (Common sense is an uncommon virtue./Federal-run medical care is as good as state-run DMVs. I )
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To: SeekAndFind

Awesome... AD and BC... No more BCE and CE... Complete nonsense developed by anti-Christian zealots.


18 posted on 02/28/2021 12:39:47 PM PST by jerod (Nazi's were essentially Socialist in Hugo Boss uniforms... Get over it!)
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To: SeekAndFind
It's been around for years: InfoGalactic.com
19 posted on 02/28/2021 3:37:12 PM PST by Salgak (You're in Strange Hands with Tom Stranger. . . .)
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To: Fungi; SeekAndFind

Actually is it not Conservopedia either, but Conservapedia.com, and which lives up to its name, but suffers from very spotty quality in both writing and sources, and often a lack of depth. But you are are find content that WP would never allow. Such as, https://conservapedia.com/Homosexual_Agenda#Strategies_and_psychological_tactics http://www.conservapedia.com/Homosexuality_and_biblical_interpretation


20 posted on 02/28/2021 7:34:43 PM PST by daniel1212 (Turn to the Lord Jesus as a damned + destitute sinner + trust Him to save + be baptized+follow Him!)
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