Isn't Wikipedia Biased?

Isn’t Wikipedia Biased?

Yes, Wikipedia is biased—if by “biased” we mean that Wikipedia reflects the proclivities of its contributors, who overwhelmingly skew male, white, college educated, and middle class. Wikipedia is acutely aware of its bias (there’s an entire Wikipedia page devoted to it) and has made strides to enlist more women and people of color to its editing ranks. Over the past few years, the phenomenon of “edit-a-thons” has taken hold, where groups come together to create Wikipedia content to rectify imbalances in coverage. The first edit-a-thons focused on increasing the coverage of women scientists. But there have also been editing events on Black history, the history of Indigenous peoples, and the status of lower caste peoples in India, as well as events on many other underrepresented groups.11

Wikipedia still isn’t where it wants to be—not by a long shot. But it’s trying. Between 2015 and 2018, the site increased the number of entries about women from 15 to 17 percent. This might not seem like a lot until you realize that the change resulted in 83,600 new entries.12 While the rest of the internet peddles clickbait, tracks our every move, and auctions our data to the highest bidder, Wikipedia—free, ad-less, and staffed by volunteers—is headed in the right direction. The site, notes internet theorist Yochai Benkler, captures our imagination not because Wikipedia is “so perfect” but because in so many cases it is “reasonably good . . . a proposition that would have been thought preposterous a mere half-decade ago.”13