# Is even Wikipedia a right-wing-corrupted source? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 12, 2016, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-even-wikipedia-a-right-wing-corrupted-source/752011 "2016-04-12T16:31:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-even-wikipedia-a-right-wing-corrupted-source/752011/1 "2016-04-12T16:31:35Z")
I’m accustomed to RWs arguing on the Intertubes dismissing cites to Wikipedia as liberally biased. But I am reading [_The Crash of 2016: The Plot to Destroy America–and What We Can Do to Stop It,_](http://www.amazon.com/The-Crash-2016-Destroy-America/dp/0446584835) by Thom Hartmann, and he states at p. 30: > [@](#): > > According to the first few paragraphs of the _Wikipedia_ entry – _Wikipedia_ being a heavy target of right-wing think-tanks that pay people to essentially rewrite history all across the Internet – the 1960s was a horrible dystopia. No citation is given. Never heard of this before. Is it true – of Wikipedia alone, or even “all across the Internet”? ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-even-wikipedia-a-right-wing-corrupted-source/752011/2 "2016-04-12T16:39:33Z")
I honestly don’t think they’re that well organized. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-even-wikipedia-a-right-wing-corrupted-source/752011/3 "2016-04-12T16:45:14Z")
Everyone thinks reality is politically further away from them than it is. Conservatives and liberals think that the centrist middle is leftist or rightist biased, respectively. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-even-wikipedia-a-right-wing-corrupted-source/752011/4 "2016-04-12T17:37:16Z")
> [@Knorf](#): > > I honestly don’t think they’re that well organized. Oh, RW think-tanks are easily well-organized enough to do what Hartmann is describing. Which does not necessarily mean they are doing it. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-even-wikipedia-a-right-wing-corrupted-source/752011/5 "2016-04-12T18:03:13Z")
On another site that I frequent one poster did the “Wikipedia is left-leaning” argument. I do think that both sides do frequently edit Wikipedia and each would argue that they’re correcting the misstatements of others. I can’t say, because I don’t know, if any of this is coordinated but it would not surprise me. But I do hate it when i can’t find info on something that happened during my lifetime. ---
**Author:** ![Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/do_not_taunt/32/2968_2.png) [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-even-wikipedia-a-right-wing-corrupted-source/752011/6 "2016-04-12T19:08:12Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > But I do hate it when i can’t find info on something that happened during my lifetime. Out of curiosity, what’s an example of a notable event occurring during your lifetime not covered in Wikipedia. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-even-wikipedia-a-right-wing-corrupted-source/752011/7 "2016-04-12T19:38:50Z")
I was planning to state a couple but my computer started getting wonky. Both concerned Reagan, who has been canonized, if indeed not deified by the GOP. I seem to remember him saying that it wasn’t the business of the United States if another country, for its’ own security policy wanted nuclear weapons. The other concerned the Berlin wall. I remember hearing that Reagan’s speech actually _delayed_ the wall coming down. But can find no internet reference cites supporting either of those memories. ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-even-wikipedia-a-right-wing-corrupted-source/752011/8 "2016-04-12T19:57:48Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > I was planning to state a couple but my computer started getting wonky. Both concerned Reagan, who has been canonized, if indeed not deified by the GOP. I seem to remember him saying that it wasn’t the business of the United States if another country, for its’ own security policy wanted nuclear weapons. The other concerned the Berlin wall. I remember hearing that Reagan’s speech actually _delayed_ the wall coming down. But can find no internet reference cites supporting either of those memories. The first thing would seem a rather odd statement since Regan hated nuclear weapons. I am not sure exactly how him giving a speech would delay the wall coming down unless the destruction was scheduled for after his speech ended. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-even-wikipedia-a-right-wing-corrupted-source/752011/9 "2016-04-12T20:04:27Z")
I think Andy Schlafly would disagree with this assessment. He created Conservapedia because Wikipedia wouldn’t allow him and his ilk to spew their unsubstantiated right wing bullshit all over the site. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-even-wikipedia-a-right-wing-corrupted-source/752011/10 "2016-04-12T20:09:25Z")
Thom Hartmann sounds like a loon that is making up stories, but if you ever find the source, please let me know. I’ll happily apply at the think tank(s) responsible and get _paid_ to “fight ignorance” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-even-wikipedia-a-right-wing-corrupted-source/752011/11 "2016-04-12T20:37:20Z")
To the extreme left, everything is a right-wing conspiracy. To the extreme right, everything is a left-wing conspiracy. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-even-wikipedia-a-right-wing-corrupted-source/752011/12 "2016-04-12T20:50:46Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Thom Hartmann sounds like a loon . . . [Judge for yourself.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thom_Hartmann) ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-even-wikipedia-a-right-wing-corrupted-source/752011/13 "2016-04-12T20:53:15Z")
The thinking was that Gorbachev wanted to take the wall down but doing so after Reagan’s speech would make him look like he was “caving in” to foreign pressure. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-even-wikipedia-a-right-wing-corrupted-source/752011/14 "2016-04-12T20:58:52Z")
Here’s one example that Thom might have been referring to: [Sarah Palin supporters try to change Paul Revere page to reflect her statements](https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/sarah-palin-fans-fight-over-paul-revere-wikipedia-page/2011/06/06/AGxtzHKH_blog.html) On the other hand, when Harvard Ressearchers looked at it [they did find bias.](https://hbr.org/2014/12/wikipedia-is-more-biased-than-britannica-but-dont-blame-the-crowd'). Depending on how they analyzed the data, they found a slight left-leaning bias versus the Encyclopedia Brittanica, or less bias. All in all, my suspicion would be that Thom is talking about the cases, like the Paul Revere page, where inaccuracies were entered to try to support a candidate. These appear to be one offs more than common practice. OTOH, there’s a reason that you need to check your sources when you use Wiki. The information is only as good as the person that entered it. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-even-wikipedia-a-right-wing-corrupted-source/752011/15 "2016-04-12T21:10:30Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Thom Hartmann sounds like a loon that is making up stories, but if you ever find the source, please let me know. I’ll happily apply at the think tank(s) responsible and get _paid_ to “fight ignorance” 😃 Just wanted to add, Thom can be quite the loon. We used to listen to him, but gave it up because he was so over the top. He’s very much the left wing equivalent of Rush Limbaugh. He also has some bizarre thing about pigeons that _is_ loony. ---
**Author:** ![Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/do_not_taunt/32/2968_2.png) [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-even-wikipedia-a-right-wing-corrupted-source/752011/16 "2016-04-12T21:12:57Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > I was planning to state a couple but my computer started getting wonky. Both concerned Reagan, who has been canonized, if indeed not deified by the GOP. I seem to remember him saying that it wasn’t the business of the United States if another country, for its’ own security policy wanted nuclear weapons. The other concerned the Berlin wall. I remember hearing that Reagan’s speech actually _delayed_ the wall coming down. But can find no internet reference cites supporting either of those memories. I’m not sure either of these is really an event. If Reagan’s policy was really that any country could get nukes, that would be worth mentioning on his page, but if he said it once and then he and/or his advisors immediately walked it back, not so much. Politicians going off script isn’t notable unless these some sort of material effect. Similarly for the theory about him telling Gorbachev to tear down the wall. If that theory is itself notable for some reason, I could imagine having an article about it. But just because someone hypothesized it once doesn’t mean it’s notable. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-even-wikipedia-a-right-wing-corrupted-source/752011/17 "2016-04-12T21:33:30Z")
Of course Wikipedia isn’t really a single thing. One article or group of articles may well have a group of “right-wing” editors (or even a single such person) sort of camping out on that article(s) and defending it from the godless liberal hordes and generally pushing their POV. Another article or group of articles may have a “left-wing” editor or editors doing battle with the teabagger Neandertals and pushing _their_ POV. And a third article or group of articles may be about some completely non-partisan topic (something in pure mathematics, say) which totally doesn’t interest any of the partisan political POV warriors (although the mathematics nerds may be fighting it out hot and heavy). At any rate, Wikipedia is The Encyclopedia That Even You Can Edit, so if you think some article or portion thereof is inaccurate or unduly biased, you can always get in there and duke it out for The Truth. Be sure you can cite reputable sources, no “original research”, no hitting below the belt, etc. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-even-wikipedia-a-right-wing-corrupted-source/752011/18 "2016-04-12T21:47:26Z")
> [@ddsun](#): > > Just wanted to add, Thom can be quite the loon. We used to listen to him, but gave it up because he was so over the top. He’s very much the left wing equivalent of Rush Limbaugh. He also has some bizarre thing about pigeons that _is_ loony. I dunno about pigeons, [but](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thom_Hartmann#Political_views): > [@](#): > > In the book _Ultimate Sacrifice,_ he and co-author Lamar Waldron argue that President John F. Kennedy’s assassination resulted from a conspiracy by two Mafia godfathers (Carlos Marcello and Santo Trafficante, Jr.) who took advantage of a proposed 1963 USA-sponsored coup against Cuba’s Fidel Castro to kill the President and then hide their tracks in the resulting cover-up of the top-secret coup plans. Gore Vidal, in his autobiography _Point To Point Navigation,_ devotes much of the final two chapters of his book to praising Hartmann’s and Lamar Waldron’s scholarship in “solving” the JFK case. (JFK was a friend of Vidal’s.) How loony that is would be a question for another debate. Also of some interest: > [@](#): > > Hartmann has authored in the area of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and adult attention-deficit disorder (AADD) and is the creator (first proposed by him in 1978, first published nationally in 1992) of the now well-known hunter vs. farmer hypothesis that ADD is an expected evolutionary adaptation to hunting lifestyles. These individuals have the ability of rapidly shifting their focus and external attention and of holding multiple trains of thought. This ability causes difficulties when they must live and work in cultures in which “farming”—well-planned, predictable, organized and repetitive behaviors—is typical. His first book on the disorder, _Attention Deficit Disorder: a Different Perception_ was described by Scientific American as “innovative and fresh”.[37] Hartmann has established specialized schools[quantify] for children with ADHD, such as The Hunter School in Rumney, New Hampshire,[38] which he co-founded with his wife Louise. It doesn’t say he actually has ADD or ADHD, which conditions certainly aren’t all that loony anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/aca169/32.png) [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-even-wikipedia-a-right-wing-corrupted-source/752011/19 "2016-04-12T21:48:05Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > [Judge for yourself.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thom_Hartmann) I think the right-wing corruption has spread to his article because he seems like a loon. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-even-wikipedia-a-right-wing-corrupted-source/752011/20 "2016-04-12T21:53:28Z")
> [@ddsun](#): > > Here’s one example that Thom might have been referring to: > > [Sarah Palin supporters try to change Paul Revere page to reflect her statements](https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/sarah-palin-fans-fight-over-paul-revere-wikipedia-page/2011/06/06/AGxtzHKH_blog.html) _“Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the wiki controls the past.”_ [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-even-wikipedia-a-right-wing-corrupted-source/752011.md?page=2)