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Wikipedia's Not as Biased as You Might Think, Say Harvard Researchers (qz.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report on Quartz:In a sea of biased content, Wikipedia is one of the few online outlets that strives for neutrality. After 15 years in operation, it's starting to see results. Researchers at Harvard Business School evaluated almost 4,000 articles in Wikipedia's online database against the same entries in Encyclopedia Brittanica to compare their biases. They focused on English-language articles about US politics, especially controversial topics, that appeared in both outlets in 2012. In its initial years, Wikipedia's crowdsourced articles were tinted very blue, slanting more toward Democratic views and displayed greater bias than Britannica. However, with more revisions and more moderators volunteering on the platform, the bias wore away. In fact, the upper quartile of the Wikipedia's sample had enough revisions that there was no longer any difference in slant and bias from its offline counterpart. More surprisingly, the authors found that the 2.8 million registered volunteer editors who were reviewing the articles also became less biased over time.
Just where it counts.
Because the Harvard is the bastion of balanced political thought.
But you know the saying about statistics. Wikipedia can be as unbiased as it wants in aggregate but on the articles that matter? Oh boy do I have an edit war for you.
This is a more recent event. As a volunteer publication, someone has to donate their free time to do this.
Why don't you start?
So they've managed to validate that just 1 out of 4 articles is free of bias. And the other 3?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Infofogalactic not as biased as you might think say conservative think tank
...the fact that the editorial system still follows the king-of-the-hill model, where those that choose to sit on pet-pages win simply by undoing any other changes simply because they don't like them, will leave the entire thing biased in some fashion or another.
I will not contribute to Wikipedia anymore. I've had edits that I could provide support for undone by some self-important busybody whose only credentials were the ones they defined when they signed up for an account on Wikipedia. Forget that.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
So? This is recentism in a nutshell. It is a mistake to think just because an event is happening now that it is therefore more important. Harvard has a 300 year history; an event in one specific year needs to be a really big deal to make it into the primary article on its history.
Bradley Manning. You're welcome.
Yes, like their main news channel being self-described as "fair and balanced"... oh, wait!
Or by having someone with 100% conservative credentials (Megan Kelly) suddenly being accused of being a closet liberal (or RINO) the moment they say something different than Cheeto Jesus. Yeah, no conservative bias there.
Oh wait, it's not there, because Wikipedia's Social Justice Warrior contingent insists it must be "Chelsea."
Bradley Manning exists, even though it is a redirect
Which shows what happens when people get information from outside their comfortable filter bubble ... they tend to take on less extreme views.
.
Which is one of the reasons why some of the more extreme news sites often say something to the effect, ~you don't have to go anywhere else, we tell you all the news you need to know~
You mean like when they use Muhammad Ali instead of Cassius Clay? SJWs did that?
Oh wait, it's not there, because Wikipedia's Social Justice Warrior contingent insists it must be "Chelsea."
Or it could be that this is the legal name of said individual since 2014....
Does it makes it less biased? Should the English Wikipedia be perfectly balanced between US Democrats and Republicans? Why?
Especially since Republicans are known to be biased against science and facts (creationism, climate denial), it sounds like a good thing.
Harvard Business School says its cool. lol
From the linked page:
Anyone who thinks Wikipedia isn't biased is someone who has never tried to contribute to Wikipedia.
"Cheeto Jesus"
And you wonder why no one takes libs seriously.
A bunch of left wing nutjobs find no bias in a site maintained by a bunch of left wing nutjobs.
Color me shocked.
Did you ask the editor who reverted that change to explain the reversion? If you ask, wait a week, and try the edit again, the burden falls on the reverting user to explain why the edit should not stick.
I get all my information from Conservapedia - totally free of liberal lies and bias.
Vote Trump!
I usually laugh when somebody says that something based on opinions does not seem to be very biased. When Harvard says this, I cry.
No SJWs involved: Chelsea is her legal name, and Bradley_Manning redirects to the correct page.
Yes, like their main news channel being self-described as "fair and balanced"... oh, wait!
I have plenty of conservative friends that think fox news is less biased and plenty of liberal friends who disagree. I even have conservative friends that think that fox news is a little too left leaning.
I'm not sure how you even go about measuring bias. Do you find the most conservative and the most liberal person you can find and ask them? I would love to see more shows with opposing views but it would be hard to do the extremes without turning in to the Jerry Springer Show. I've found that it's easy to talk politics to people who are in the rational middle but if you get a diehard democrat or a diehard republican then they get very angry if you disagree with them. Both sides have taken the moral high ground and think anyone who disagrees with them is evil and irrational.
Let's face it, the rest of the English-speaking world is more liberal than the USA.
The problem here is US politics which has a conservative bias, not Wikipedia.
Shouldn't the algorithm that evaluates article bias be written by the swarm of programmers rather by a small and possibly biased group of experts?
is the guy blind or maybe he can't read
Anyone who thinks Wikipedia isn't biased is someone who has never tried to contribute to Wikipedia.
Wikipedia as an organization and as a website generally isn't biased on most topics. Kind of hard to have a bias about some random regurgitation of a technical fact like a chemical or math equation. Some of the people who contribute to Wikipedia very much are biased because most people carry assorted biases with them. But these biases generally don't seem to lean coherently towards one political persuasion or another across Wikipedia but rather are generally confined to specific hot button topics. The hope is that the various biases of the contributors will mostly balance out and the objective facts will remain. This doesn't always happen but it seems to happen often enough that one can say it usually works and not look stupid saying so.
What is amusing/depressing is that some people reflexively claim that any facts that don't match their pre-existing world view must be biased.
You mean HIS legal name. Just because he's fucked in the head doesn't change his biological gender.
"Perfect is the enemy of good". It's not perfect but it's good enough to be useful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
love is just extroverted narcissism
Ah, yes. The assassination attempt of Gabby Gifford, originating from Sarah Palin's crosshairs attack ad and recently mirrored by that orange bag of hate and bile in a 'winkwink nudgenudge" call for gun owners to kill Clinton, was just an uninterested dismissal of the congresswoman.
Cheeto Jesus is a very apt name. He's completely manufactured, 95% air with no real substance, has to be dressed up tremendously to look appealing, is only popular because of a massive marketing effort, and is bad for your health.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
You mean like when they use Muhammad Ali instead of Cassius Clay? SJWs did that?
They also use Michelle Obama rather than Michelle Robinson.
How are you going to make money after tomorrow's shitshow is over with?
Everything is biased and political... and the left has more time to devote to the craft.
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
Hahahaha Havard !
And Barak Obama, rather than B. Hussein O.
The difference is, conservatives know Fox is right wing, but the liberals lie to themselves about their biased media.
The methodology employed is severely purple blind. On the other hand, I bet it's pretty good at distinguishing a Tribble on diazepam from a rabid Tasmanian devil.
(Still no Unicode quote characters? Overlord fail.)
9
Commander, Gunner, driver, and 6 infantry
So if this statement is true. I think Wikipedia is a wonderful tool, because let's face it, the root of the big problems in the world is caused by bias and prejudice. It could also be that those who choose to contribute to Wikipedia are more likely to already be less biased than those who doesn't.
Says the anonymous russian propagandist desperate to get Vlad's pet jaundiced chihuahua into the white house so he doesn't get disappeared in the next week.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
It isn't a news site.
Um so?
From literally the first line of the article:
And from the infobox:
So, "Bradley Manning" and "Chelsea Manning" link to the same page because, er, it's the same person. OMG EVERYBODY PANIC SJW ALERT!!!
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Oh wait, it's not there, because Wikipedia's Social Justice Warrior contingent insists it must be "Chelsea."
Funny, I find myself not fucking caring about that non-issue. Personally I like the idea of flagging the page as not-notable.
And Hillary Clinton instead of Hillary Rodham! That _proves_ the liberal bias. Donald Drumpf wouldn't ever be given this preferential treatment.
Yet within seconds of the first unconfirmed report of a celebrity being dead Wikipedia is updated by a horde of ravenous "volunteers".
Wikipedia is awful for many reasons, but the worst is the entrenched editors with moderator powers that police certain pages. The reason why more people don't volunteer to update shit is because the majority of the time some aspie comes along and reverts the updates if they don't like the facts. If you try to find out why on the "talk" page, you'll see that there's one clown policing the page and making sure it presents the story they want it to present, not the facts.
People are allowed to legally change their name, regardless of your point.
Appeal to popularity still taught in the ivory tower?
Bah! Legal names! What politically correct drivel is this?! HIS JESUS NAME IS BRADLEY! HIS JESUS NAME IS BRADLEY! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
See, here's problem. According to the most accurate and unbiased source on ALL the internets, a sauce that may even be a big truck!:
Most of Wikipedia's articles can be edited publicly by both registered and anonymous editors, mostly consisting of teenagers and the unemployed. As such, it tends to project a liberal--and, in some cases, even socialist, Communist, and Nazi-sympathising--worldview, which is totally at odds with conservative reality and rationality.
See! Only a TEENAGE NAZI would think a legal name fucking matters for ANYTHING! I'll bet you fucking spell sympathising with a Z you naZi! AAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Trump 2016~! IT's all rigged~! Reality is unknowable~! You can't argue against JESUSreality! Aaa--!
SIGSEGV received. Core dumped. Exiting.
Sheesh AC! Keep up! His real name is now Emperor Hussein Soetoro!
And you will get a taste of the online moderation going on @ Wikipedia.
Appeal to popularity still taught in the ivory tower?
Yep. And so is false equivalence.
If anything "insists" it must be Chelsea, it would be the legal process which has been undertaken and granted by the court to legally change said indivudual's name. Though simple common courtesy should be reason enough.
Maybe you should have a go at Bono, Lady Gaga, and Pope Francis for having the audacity to run around using a name other than that given to them by their parents - and they haven't even bothered to make it legal!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
You mean HIS legal name. Just because he's fucked in the head doesn't change his biological gender.
Nope, the OP means "HER" real name not "HIS", because, frankly only people with wayyy to much time on their hands and very, very fragile feelings care about the details of someone's biological gender.
There are plenty of cases IME where post-op you really can't tell without getting really rather intimate with the person. And if you didn't know them before, and can't tell after, how on earth would you even know if you were using what you consider to be the wrong pronoun?
Or are you going to insist on a full genital examination before using pronouns in future, just so you can be right?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I have a whole argument that I can make on this, unfortunately it's rather interactive on leading you to realize why what you just said is not only true, but is also one of the most idiotic things that can be said. I won't put the whole thing here, but in short it deals with reality being defined by the information you receive, and a claim that reality is liberal biased and the news is liberal biased are really the same statement since the news controls the information which defines your reality. But I suspect you'll argue with some asinine straw man, so I won't bother putting the whole thing up.
Real drama is in the talk pages. Check ones like how dangerous pit bulls and whether its owners vs breeds, gamergate, mens rights, any politician, politics, political view, etc.
Basically anything with a point of view, will slant to the left, that's because more editors are of leftish ideology, and wikipedia staff are mostly leftist.
The article itself says it has a slight leaning left, what is "slight" in numbers, 10%, 20%?
2.8 million US gov bots get bipartisan smackdown...
Wikipedia may not be biased relative to other sources, but let's face it, they're all gov approved too.
Fox news was a stroke of business genius -- have a different slant that doesn't make people feel attacked. It worked and shot to popularity.
The problem with ABC and to a lesser degree CNN is their True Believers refuse to recognize an equal bias on "their side" (to say nothing of NPR.)
Most bias isn't in fact checking, but the choice of stories to harp on, all day, every day, shouldn't the govrnment do something, wink!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Liberal wennies think biased liberal sources are not actually biased. Pay $10 to watch what you want to hear
Right you are. Stick to Conservapedia instead.
It's almost like particular groups of people are getting nervous for some reason.
The bias is not democratic versus republican. Its mostly government and corporation versus the people. Information is censored and biased for the government and corporations on Wikipedia and features mostly propoganda. Information on government crimes and conspiracy is almost always edited out and removed. The articles are pro industry and pro military. Classified information is gone in favor of censored white washed versions. Harvard one of the largest and most secretive military industrial complex facilities in the world doesn't care about these issues because it favors them when the articles appear like this.
obamasweapon.com
Well, that's not necessarily an inaccurate assumption.
Bias is hard to examine because it's prone to the examiner's bias. Further, there's a "fair and balanced" fallacy in which you give equal-weight to each side--for example, you might try to remain "fair" by evaluating that 1,000 strong-methodology studies about vaccines not causing autism have as much weight as the massive anti-vaccine movement backed by 1 study using known-fraudulent data, even though one of these only has "evidence" in the form of confirmed lies. In either case, someone can conclude the end-result is less-biased, when it's only really including shoddier information or following a more-popular bias (or just the bias of the reviewers).
When two reviewers of opposing bias review something for bias, you have to then review the reviewers for bias. Turtles.
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I'm not saying liberalism is good because it is popular (which I guess is the appeal to popularity you are referring to?). I'm only stating the fact that if you measure bias as a deviation from the center of the left-right spectrum of US politics, then of course any world-wide project will appear biased.
All I hear is "waaaah" . You think this is the first time a Scotus nomination has been suspended or blocked? You think your party is above that? Take note especially of #5
http://thefederalist.com/2016/...
And it's now becoming evident that Obamacare is becoming a cluster-f with ever rising premiums, but no, the dems had to rush it out essentially unread so they could all pat themselves on the back. Sometimes resistance is the best course of action.
Apparently, facts are biased left.
If you're right-wing and think this you're a fucking idiot.
There is no linkage between the Palin advertising for "targeted districts" and the actual shooting. The shooter was reportedly obsessed with Ms. Gifford, and was diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic, and was eventually sentenced to life in prison.
Voting rolls show that Loughner was registered as an Independent, and acquaintances report that he had a long-established dislike for Giffords, and that he was apparently an enthusiast of conspiracy theories.
Pay $20 to listen to what you want to see.
I mean, trannies weird me out and shit, and I don't jive with changing the gender pronoun because my brain breaks; on the other hand, it breaks slightly-less using the biologically-correct gender pronoun, because something weird is going on here.
The simple solution to this is I stay the fuck away from those people.
Honestly, you don't like someone? Are they doing anything harmful? No? Then go hang out with someone else. You don't need to start a crusade against everyone who makes you uncomfortable. What part of this do people have trouble grasping?
Also I can usually spot the tranny, but that's largely because I can't see faces, kind of. Mild(?) prosopagnosia. I can identify people by the specific tone of their voice (which isn't just pitch, but frequency distribution), the way they walk, body structure, bone structure, hair, the cadence of their speech, and so forth. Even the way people smell groups by race and gender; the rest of their movement, their facial structure, and their voice changes similarly. Sometimes, the bone structure of a woman's face is kind of masculine, but her facial muscle structure is feminine; the voice, however, always gives it away, though only due to subtle changes in frequency distribution.
You can imagine how that works for me. Sexuality is also kind of bewildering, so putting the two together... I'm faced with something unusual that largely revolves around something not-entirely-comfortable to begin with. I just avoid the whole situation, because that's what grown-ups do when they encounter something they don't quite jive with.
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I've been wanting to start a conservative progressive party. Conservative politics dictates that you always look before you leap, and that you should never leap if there is a ladder; and yet we are surrounded by progressives who have turned any forward movement into an act of liberal psychosis, jumping off cliffs because there may be something nice at the bottom. The polarized politics in America especially and infesting the rest of the world more-mildly means conservatives don't even want to approach the cliff, when they could very well look over the edge and call for a rappel if there is something worth descending for.
It's not efficient. Moving too fast is not efficient. In American politics, we stick to ideals which are not efficient--liberal progressives want to raise minimum wage and tax the rich, while conservatives want to cut back welfare and shrink government. We don't engineer new tax policies befitting of a country which has grown wealthy thanks to technical progress and trade; we don't replace our welfare system with a more-efficient one which would have destroyed our nation 20 or 50 years ago but would today make it strong and secure; we don't take advantage of Malthusian population behaviors and current economic opportunities to decrease working hours without sacrificing current wealth, and pave the way into a future of higher standard-of-living and greater free time. Instead, we latch on to the same arguments made two generations ago, the same plans, the same efforts, and damn the consequences of doing those things today.
The opportunities for progress are dangerous. I've designed economic and taxation plans which could easily destroy America, or could blow our chances for shorter working hours, or trigger population explosions and a future recession; and I've built-in inherent controls against short-term effects and long-term damage, avoided new modes of abuse, and capitalize on new opportunities. These plans include contingencies in case of certain faults; and even prescribe strategies to hold back the immediate benefits which would lead to sudden population growth, diverting this toward lowering the national debt until the gain in efficiency has reached a point to which releasing such new wealth to the American people will force a reduction of the working week by 8-12 hours.
That's progress. It's dangerous, it's cautious, it's conservative; it's not simply jumping on a new ideal of equality and wealth, but identifying how and why this is now possible, and how to maximize this new opportunity.
We need a conservative-progressive movement. We need a new party who pushes for progress, and demands accountability. We need leaders who refuse to take action hastily, while seeking out those opportunities and searching for the best way to take them. Instead, we have fools who argue over whether we should jump at every new idea or hold fast to the oldest ways they can remember.
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The "striving" is fine, but their approach is self-desctructive. "Community" standards are in reality "whichever demographic came first decides everything" rules.
My college's newspaper made a controversial decision to run a Holocaust denier's ad and justified it as "we need to air both sides of this issue." (This was in the late 90's.) Airing both sides of an issue is often a good thing, but there are instances when one side is so clearly wrong that all "airing both sides" does is make both sides seem equivalent. It elevates the clearly wrong side and degrades the clearly correct side so that both are just another point of view.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
My college's newspaper made a controversial decision to run a Holocaust denier's ad and justified it as "we need to air both sides of this issue." (This was in the late 90's.) Airing both sides of an issue is often a good thing, but there are instances when one side is so clearly wrong that all "airing both sides" does is make both sides seem equivalent. It elevates the clearly wrong side and degrades the clearly correct side so that both are just another point of view.
There aren't two sides of an issue when it comes to facts.
You might as well print geo-centric and flat-earth articles as well--gotta give both sides.
Ah, you must be the person who called me ma'am yesterday.
Transvestites and transsexuals are not the same thing and by lumping them together it makes it sound very much like you don't know what you're talking about, especially because I can't tell what you're talking about.
I just avoid the whole situation, because that's what grown-ups do when they encounter something they don't quite jive with.
The thing grown-ups do is have a good, long, hard think about it and learn to deal. If someone presenting entirely as female gives you pronoun problems because you believe they might be transsexual based on the precise tone of their voice, then that's something you should sort.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
...is another man's bias.
Wikipedia is awful for many reasons, but the worst is the entrenched editors with moderator powers that police certain pages.
Which pages? Could you please offer even a single example?
SJW-ridden propaganda vehicle not as ridden by SJWs as thought, says researchers at SJW Factory
https://infogalactic.com/
It says a lot about slashdot that the above post is considered flamebait when all it is doing is injecting some truth and objectivity into the discussion. I guess that if you take the sort of world-view that considers this flamebait then yes, wikipedia probably *does* look like it has a massive left-leaning bias.
Transvestites are ALSO unnerving, for other reasons--to the same effect: I let them do their thing and stay away from all that.
As for what I believe about someone or not, you seem to be overestimating how easily a man can convert themselves into a woman, or vice-versa. The number of tells span adjustable major development that occurred early in life (such as larynx shape and size--hormone therapy alters this, but doesn't rebuild it from scratch), integral physical characteristics (such as the shape of the pelvis and the associated gait--it is physically-impossible for a man to walk like a woman and vice-versa), and environmental development factors (growing up biologically as one gender places you under the social pressures of that gender, impressing certain behaviors from what people expect of you; the conflict in self-image creates a type of behavioral distortion, and the attempt to change gender-role behavior is always imperfect).
Again: you look at a person and assess what they are. I don't. I can't. I don't see people; I don't see human beings. What I see are behaviors, movements, physical characteristics, patterns, differences. I'm different. I don't understand the concept of family--everyone tries to explain it by describing a situation in which anyone would understand a certain social, emotional sense of belonging or bonding or some bullshit, and I've never experienced that and it took me until I was 26-ish to start maybe-believing that people aren't full of shit (and I'm still uncertain). I don't have friends. Without that ability to socially-bond, I couldn't integrate anyone's value system; I developed my own, which means I've determined that it is the duty of the strong to protect the weak, but I also don't specially value children and so have given people confused looks when they tried to explain that all people consider certain things universally important such as protecting children.
You're a million tiny details, but you're more than that: you're a handful of simple details which, themselves, are spans of ranges of smaller details, which are themselves spans of ranges of even smaller details. When one of those small details doesn't quite fit, you're a disturbance; and then I identify what you are. That "what" isn't just the final category (black, white, gay, whatever), but all the little pieces; the final category is just an easy handle.
You only think you're nothing more nor less than a person; and people think they're special, when they're really not. 3% of the population is like me, and only 1% of those are ever identified, which is why we're invisible to professionals: they don't have enough data to pick us out, and give a misdiagnosis. I'm different, but I'm also rather common.
None of that matters. When you encounter someone who makes you uncomfortable, the only mature option is to identify if they're doing anything actually harmful, and simply cope if not. Avoidance is one way to cope. Crusading to rid the world of those icky people you don't like is pathological.
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Get it right. His name is Barack Saddam Hussein Osama bin Laden Obama.
Actually the hard news part of FoxNews is fairly balanced. They try to present both sides, but sometimes one side or the other won't comment on the story. The shows most people call biased are commentary shows - in other words, opinions NOT news. So, yes, Hannity, O'Reilly, Megan Kelly, etc. do lean a bit to the right, but the newscasts are pretty much right down the middle.
What you are feeling is a symptom of the 'Uncanny valley'. It's perfectly normal.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
As for what I believe about someone or not, you seem to be overestimating how easily a man can convert themselves into a woman, or vice-versa.
Nope. Having actually known a couple of people who have made the transition, one very very well, one not so well, I claim you are full of crap.
You're also assuming that every individual has the dimorphism taken all the way to 11 before making the switch.
such as larynx shape and size-
Not all men have large and prominent larynxes.
such as the shape of the pelvis and the associated gait--it is physically-impossible for a man to walk like a woman and vice-versa
Not every woman walks like Marylin Monroe in high heels.
and environmental development factors (growing up biologically as one gender places you under the social pressures of that gender, impressing certain behaviors from what people expect of you; the conflict in self-image creates a type of behavioral distortion, and the attempt to change gender-role behavior is always imperfect).
Except people can and do overcome those without switching gender.
Yeah it's going to be more difficult for some than others, especially when certain dimorphisms are heavily pronounced, but not every man is 6'5", has vast hands and an adams apple the size of a melon. I know one guy well who's short, slender, slightly built and has not much of a beard at all. Thinking hard, not much of a prominent larynx either.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Not in their selection of what to report (and this applies to other media as well). So while the NYT might spend a lot of time reporting yet another apocalyptic AGW prediction, FoxNews will instead concentrate on yet another overblown Hillary email scandal.
All men do not have a giant, basso larynx, no. They all have a larynx that projects a male voice, even if it's a higher-tone male voice. Male voices have a lower and higher register, with the natural tone in the lower register; female voices have a more-dynamic higher register with greater range.
Women have a greater lumbar curve and an anterior-tilted pelvis, rather than a posterior-tilted pelvis as men. This doesn't just make them walk with an exaggerated hip-swing; it allows them greater and smoother pivoting, giving better balanced and control while walking.
People overcome environmental development factors; but they don't scrub the impact from their personalities. Absolutely every experience in your life defines how you think and act; when you change your thinking, your new basis is built on thoughts and ideals which were built on your old basis. You can learn to tolerate or better-understand the things you were originally more-sensitive about; and you can become mindful of and sympathetic to the things you were less-sensitive about; but you'll never develop a pathological, immature lack of emotional control, or the psychological hot-buttons that get masked over by growing out of it.
Even someone like me is plainly-obvious to read through. My current positions, beliefs, and regards toward everything are built completely from scratch; yet you can read my parents's ideals if you look for the cracks, given the right probing. Think about how that works when you're dealing with a person's basic behavior--what makes them who they are. Do you really think these people live in a deep schizophrenic dissociative episode where they've invented a fantasy identity in their head that grew up in a different world, with different parents, with different experiences, and then forgotten who they were and what really happened, replacing themselves with this new person with false memories?
You're still trying to justify people as people, and imagine them as individuals with control over their destiny and value as persons and whatever. I thought everyone was faking the whole love-and-relationships thing until I was 26, and I still kind of don't believe people really do the dating and marriage thing for any reason other than that they feel pressured into an expected lifestyle. You want to fit people into a generic mold so you can label them; I have to evaluate if a person is a good person or a bad person at every interaction, even though I remember they were an asshole yesterday and know they're probably still an asshole today--but they might not be. I'm looking at all the little changes in tone in the paint on the machine, the imperfections in the surface, and the hums and vibrations coming from the mechanisms inside; you're not.
You'd probably tell chicken sexers they're just voodoo con artists.
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Seems to me Wikipedia is edited by children, biased spiteful children. They'll do a "Speedy Deletion" on you if they simply don't like the person or entity you're writing about, despite having valid references and significant information. They themselves also "vandalize" in areas they think most Wikipedia officials may not notice. Wikipedia claims there are no designated "editors" or "monitors" in the Wikipedia site. But you just try to add a new article or edit an existing one... At least a couple editors (who were watching) will jump all over you, practically call you names, change your article around (a lot), then even threaten you that you'd "better not violate the site's protocol" again or you'll be banned from making contributions. This has happened to me more than once. Note: My contributions were right on point and inoffensive in every way. (Then they dare to ask us for donations!)