[whynotmaybe]

It is tedious because you must edit with facts, not ideology.

But we now live in a world where people agree that ideology should be able to change facts.

> or the impact of certain wars

Exactly, like China wanting to completely censor anything regarding the Tiananmen Square protests.

> for example questioning homosexuality

I don't know what you have to question about this.

>If you are seeking for a global view you better ask different LLMs for arguments and counter-arguments on a subject.

All the LLM I've tested have a strong tendency to increase your echo chamber and not try to change your opinion on something.

>This is why you need to use different sources.

Only if deep down, you're ready to change your POV on something, otherwise you're just wasting time and ragebaiting yourself. Although I admit, it can still be entertaining to read some news to discover how they're able to twist reality.

[rvnx]

For the last part I agree with you, the LLMs tend to say what you like to hear. The echo chamber problem also exists, pushing them to say pros and cons is not perfect, but helps to make an opinion (and also "unaligned" models).

Facts are very skewed by the environment: in the case you push too much in one direction that is too controversial or because the politicians disagree too much with you; there can be plenty of negative consequences:

- your website gets blocked, or you get publicly under pressure, or you lose donations, you lose grants, your payment providers blocks you, you lose audience, you can get a fine, you can go to jail, etc.

Many different options.

There is asymmetry here:

    We disagree, you have one opinion, what happens if both of us fight for 10 months, 24/7 debating "what is the truth ?" on that topic.

    - You have that energy and time (because it's your own page, or your mission where you are paid by your company, or because this topic is personally important to you, etc)

    - I don't have time or that topic is not *that* important for me.

    - Consequence: Your truth is going to win.

Sources are naturally going to be curated to support your view. At the end, the path of least resistance is to go with the flow.

The tricky part: there are also truths that cannot be sourced properly, but are still facts (ex: famous SV men still offering founders today investment against sex). Add on top of that, legal concerns, and it becomes a very difficult environment to navigate. Even further, it's always doable to find or fabricate facts, and the truth wins based on the amount of energy, power and money that the person has.

[dc396]

> It's always doable to find or fabricate facts, and the truth wins based on the amount of energy, power and money that the person has.

You appear to be using unusual definitions of "fact" and "truth", more akin to "assertions" and "vibe". I'll stick with the traditional definitions.

[rvnx]

An example of (either fabricated, or just very convenient) facts:

[1] https://patriotpolling.com/our-polls/f/greenland-supports-jo...

    According to an American poll that surveyed 416 people residing across Greenland on their support for joining the United States.
    57.3% wants to join the US.

[2] https://www.politico.eu/article/greenland-poll-mute-egede-do...

    According to a Danish poll (conducted through web interviews) among 497 selected citizens in Greenland.
    85% do not want to join the US.

What is the actual truth ? Who knows.

[dc396]

You're confusing data with facts.

A "fabricated fact" (or "alternative fact" if you prefer) is an oxymoron. Actual truth, as opposed to a vibe or what people are basing their decisions on these days, is orthogonal to "the amount of energy, power and money that the person has." Deriving or identifying actual facts and truth is hard (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method) and always subject to change based on new data, so lots of people don't do it -- it's much easier to just make shit up and confirms biases.

[whynotmaybe]

You know that both can be true right ?

If I ask 10 people what they think of something and 60% says "no" and if I ask another 10 people and 90% says "yes" there's no relation between the 60% and the 90%, like at all.

Or as Homer said it "Anybody can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. 40% of people know that."

[rvnx]

I like what you said about the quote :)

My favorite is: "Numbers are fragile creatures, and if you can torture them enough, you can make them say whatever you want"

[panath]

> It is tedious because you must edit with facts, not ideology.

Not just because you must edit with facts. If your opposition outnumbers you and/or they have more energy to spend than you, they can grind you down with bad-faith arguments and questions for clarification.

The way this goes is that they edit an article to insert their POV. You edit/revert it. They open a talk page discussion about the subject. Suppose their edit is "marine animals are generally considered cute throughout the world" with a reference to a paper by an organization in favor of seals. You revert it by saying this is NPOV. They open a talk page question asking where the organization has been declared to be partisan. Suppose you do research and find some such third-party statement that "the Foundation for Animal Aesthetics is organized by proponents of marine animals". Then they ask how this third party is accurate, or whether "organized by proponents" necessarily implies that they're biased.

This can go on more or less forever until someone gives up. The attack even has a name on Wikipedia itself: "civil POV pushing". It works because few Wikipedia admins are subject matter experts, so they police behavior (conduct) more than they police subject accuracy.

Civil POV pushers can thus keep their surface conduct unobjectionable while waiting for the one they are actioning against to either give up or to get angry enough to make a heated moment's conduct violation. It's essentially the wiki version of sealioning.

In short, a thousand "but is really two plus two equal to four?" will overcome a single "You bastard, it is four and you're deliberately trolling me", because the latter is a personal insult.

[throw10920]

> It is tedious because you must edit with facts, not ideology.

Wikipedia is ideological. Even when the articles stick to the facts (which they often don't), editors will selectively omit inconvenient (but factually true) information to push their ideology.

As a recent, first-hand example of this, witness the highly ideologically motivated Wikipedia editors actively suppressing discussion of Hasan Piker's dog abuse/shock collar scandal: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Hasan_Piker&...

[frenchtoast8]

There are many examples of edit wars between people fighting political battles, but I don’t think your link is one of them. I think how he treated his dog was cruel and I believe how he responded by lying and gaslighting his audience was disgusting, but that doesn’t mean it belongs on Wikipedia. In your link I don’t see Hasan white knights protecting their master from bad publicity, I see Hasan haters trying to bludgeon the change into the article by ignoring any objection and just reverting edits. It was frustrating to read people bringing up the same Forbes article and not reading the reason why it wasn’t suitable. Again, I dislike Hasan in general and especially for this, but if this was so important then why hasn’t any major news outlet written about it? You may disagree about what does and doesn’t belong on Wikipedia, and I have my own objections, but I truly don’t believe the rules were designed by a left leaning cabal to make their favorite Twitch streamer avoid egg on their face.

[throw10920]

I appreciate your reasoned comment and think that it's thoughtful, but I respectfully disagree with some of your claims.

> In your link I don’t see Hasan white knights protecting their master from bad publicity

Yes, because it's not overt. Nobody says that when they're doing it. What's happening is claiming that the story is not notable so it can be removed because it's bad publicity for him:

> This is a nothing story and not encyclopedic.

> it seems to be "drama" amongst the terminally online

Then it turns out that it's notable because some sources are reporting it, but the editors make every effort to discount all of those sources:

> The Australian is noted as a center-right newssheet. I think there has been no rfc on it, but it seems an opinionated source.

> WP:NEWSWEEK has been noted to have had some quality decline according to RSP.

> WP:DEXERTO states not to use it for BLP and that its very tabloidy.

> WP:DAILYDOT also states its highly biased and opinionated. It seems rather tabloidy as well.

> See WP:TIMESOFINDIA but its not reliable enough for this

...and this is used as a reason to not even put a single-paragraph summary at the end of his article, despite the fact that the event is extremely notable as part of his career, and is exactly the information that someone reading the Wikipedia page would want to know.

> I see Hasan haters trying to bludgeon the change into the article by ignoring any objection and just reverting edits.

Yes, I see some of those people too. But, in response, the editors are reverting the changes and locking out the topic. An impartial editor concerned about the truth and curating a useful encyclopedia would not do that - they'd create new changes to remove specifically only the offending unsourced material and rewrite sourced material to be neutral.

> if this was so important then why hasn’t any major news outlet written about it

Along with the other sources listed in the talk page that the editors did their best to discount, The Guardian wrote about it - that certainly counts as a "major news outlet".

Nobody wants a ton of drama on Wikipedia, but this clearly surpasses the threshold of "drama" given that (1) it's still being discussed months afterwards (2) it has transcended the cultural circles around Hasan (which is the main metric for "drama") and (3) it's received reporting from many news outlets, including large and reliable ones like The Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/11/i-love-when-...

[frenchtoast8]

I want to make sure I understand -- In The Guardian article you linked, the author is making no claim about what happened to Kaya, he is only giving Hasan's statement about the incident. The claim presented in the article essentially boils down to: Kaya yelped while Hasan was reaching for something unrelated and that it's a "conspiracy theory" to think that Hasan uses a shock collar as he claims he doesn't. You're saying you're in favor of the Wikipedia article being updated to say this?