User:Pantarch

Disclaimer: This page reflects my personal views as a Wikipedia contributor. All of these observations apply to the English-language Wikipedia and may not hold for other language editions.

On Wikipedia, value-laden labels are often presented as facts whenever there is a sufficient number of supporting references from a specific set of sources (i.e., the so-called "perennial sources"). This has allowed freelance journalists, writing outside their area of expertise, to be cited as reliable authorities for placing subjects on the political spectrum. Many of these classifications do not rely on a reproducible, objectively defined method (such as the left–right RILE scale), but instead rest on bare assertions (e.g., "Project Veritas is far-right," full stop). There is, in fact, nothing beyond the bare assertions that certain outlets are "far-right" (OANN, Newsmax, and many others). The claimants often do not even make the minimal effort to offer a persuasive definition (i.e., "far-right" means being conservative, or engaging in conspiracy theories, or publishing fake news).

At the same time, this level of rigor has not been applied symmetrically to the left by some editors. This is often justified by appealing to certain norms not formally vetted by the community (essays), with the practical effect of undermining consistent treatment across subjects covered in different articles. A clear example is the American Antifa article, where perennial sources such as Reuters et al. have been set aside in order to avoid applying the "far-left" label they themselves use. While it is true that there have been occasional exceptions in the case of right-wing subjects — such as Javier Milei, who was described as "far-right" by many perennial sources — in most cases these labels, often little more than pejorative tags, have remained in place across many articles, leaving the overall practice highly arbitrary.

For any rational, good-faith observer, these problems effectively make genuine neutrality unlikely and, over the years, have contributed to a serious erosion of confidence in the project. This harms, above all, editors who work exclusively on articles in the hard sciences, who by the very nature of their work are almost invariably acting in good faith. It also harms donors who, seeing the level of seriousness in coverage of the hard sciences, reasonably expect the same standard when other topics are involved.

One can assume that a donor who encounters the label "far-right" expects it to be backed by serious sources, a clear methodology, or overwhelming evidence that the group in question has the kind of characteristics one associates with the far-right, rather than being just a tax-averse libertarian, a conspiracist conservative group, or a moms' group opposed to sex education.

But the worst thing is that the WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS (essay) is routinely invoked to discourage comparisons between articles in discussions, precisely the kind of comparisons that would expose the resulting lack of neutrality (in the articles themselves, on their talk pages, and especially in the rationales given in FAQs). Editors are routinely reminded that "inter-article consistency is not required," that "what about article X?" is a weak argument ex ante, and essays are often cited as if they were binding policy to shut down any attempt to compare how similar cases are treated. This happens constantly with new users and IP editors; it has effectively become standard practice (which is leading Wikipedia to self-destruction).