<nettime> How to Study Wikipedia’s Neutrality – According to Wikipedia

[Heather Ford via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

Hi folks,
I'm new to this list but Geert suggested I post about Wikimedia's draft
guidelines for researchers studying Wikipedia's neutrality. Below and at
https://networkcultures.org/blog/2025/08/01/how-to-study-wikipedias-neutrality-according-to-wikipedia/.
It's a difficult time for the Wikimedia Foundation right now but I still
think that this does no favours to the organisation or the community it
represents.
best
heather.

https://hblog.org/
Professor, University of Technology Sydney
On Gadigal Land


How to Study Wikipedia’s Neutrality – According to Wikipedia

By Heather Ford <https://networkcultures.org/blog/author/heatherford/>, August
1, 2025 at 10:42 am.

A platform is telling researchers how to study its neutrality and defining
what and where researchers should look to evaluate it. If it was Google or
Facebook we might be shocked. But it’s from Wikipedia, and so this move
will undoubtedly go unnoticed by most. On Thursday this week, the Wikimedia
Foundation’s research team sent a note to the Wikimedia research mailing
list asking for feedback on their “Guidance for NPOV Research on Wikipedia”
[1]. The Wikimedia Foundation is the US-based non-profit organisation that
hosts Wikipedia and its sister projects in the Wikimedia stable of
websites. The move follows increased threats against the public perception
of Wikipedia’s neutrality e.g. by Elon Musk who has accused it of bias and
a “leftward drift”, sometimes referring to it as “Wokepedia” [2]. And
threats to its core operating principles (e.g. that may require the WMF to
collect ages or real names of editors) as governments around the world move
to regulate online platforms [3].

The draft guidelines advise us on how we should study Wikipedia’s
neutrality, including where we should look. The authors write that
“Wikipedia’s definition of neutrality and its importance are not well
understood within the research community.” In response, they tell us
Neutral Point of View on Wikipedia doesn’t necessarily mean “neutral
content” but rather “neutral editing”. They also argue that editing for
NPOV on Wikipedia “does not aim to resolve controversy but to reflect it”.
There is only one way to reflect a controversy, apparently, and that is the
neutral way. In this, they seem to be arguing that researchers should
evaluate Wikipedia’s neutrality according to its own definition of
neutrality – a definition that absolves the site, its contributors and the
organisation that hosts it from any responsibility for the (very powerful)
representations it produces.

The guidelines tell researchers what are the “most important” variables
that shape neutrality on Wikipedia (and there we were thinking that which
were the most important was an open research question). What is missing
from this list is interesting… particularly the omission of the Wikimedia
Foundation itself. In a separate section titled “The Role of the Wikimedia
Foundation”, we are told that the Wikimedia Foundation “does not exercise
day-to-day editorial control” of the project. The WMF is merely “a steward
of Wikipedia, hosting technical infrastructure and supporting community
self-governance.” As any researcher of social organisation will tell you,
organisations that support knowledge production *always* shape what is
represented – even when they aren’t doing the writing themselves.

From my own perspective as someone who has studied Wikipedia for 15 years
and supported Wikipedia as an activist in the years prior to this, I’ve
seen the myriad ways in which the Foundation influences what is represented
on Wikipedia. To give just a few examples: the WMF determines how money
flows to its chapters and to research, deciding which gaps are filled
through grants and which are exposed through research. It is the only real
body that can do demographic research on Wikipedia editors – something it
hasn’t done for years (probably because it is worried that the overwhelming
dominance of white men from North America and Western Europe would not have
changed). Understanding who actually edits Wikipedia could trigger changes
that prioritise a greater diversity of editors. The WMF decides what
actions (if any) it will take against the Big Tech companies that use its
data contrary to license obligations. It decides when it will lobby
governments to encourage or oppose legislation. Recognising that the WMF
employees don’t edit Wikipedia articles doesn’t preclude an understanding
that it plays a role in deciding how subjects are represented and how those
representations circulate in the wider information ecosystem.

Finally, the guidelines are also prescriptive in defining what researchers’
responsibilities are. Not surprisingly, our responsibilities are to the
Wikipedia and Wikimedia community who “must” have research shared with them
in order for research about Wikipedia’s neutrality to have impact. We are
told to “Always share back with the Wikimedia research community” and are
provided with a  list of places, events and forums where we should tell
editors about our research. In conclusion, we’re told that we must always
“communicate in ways that strengthen Wikipedia”.

“As a rule of thumb, we recommend that when communicating about your
research you ask yourself the question “Will this communication make
Wikipedia weaker or stronger?” Critiques are valued but ideally are paired
with constructive recommendations, are replicable, leave space for feedback
from Wikimedians, and do not overstate conclusions.”

There is no room for those who think perhaps that Wikipedia is too
dominant, that it is too close to Big Tech and American interests to play
such an important role in stewarding public knowledge for all the world.
Nor for those whose research aims to serve the public rather than Wikipedia
editors, those of us who choose rather to educate the public when, how and
why Wikipedia fails to live up to its promise of neutrality and the
neutrality we have mistakenly come to expect from it. I know that this
request for feedback from the WMF will not raise an eyebrow in public
discourse about the project and that will be the sign that we have put too
much expectation in Wikipedia’s perfection, perhaps because if Wikipedia is
found wanting, if the “last best place on the internet” [4] has failed,
then the whole project has failed. But for me, it is not a failure that
Wikipedia is not neutral. The failure is in the dominance of an institution
that is so emboldened by its supposed moral superiority that it can tell us
– those who are tasked with holding this supposedly public resource – to
account what the limits of that accounting should be.

[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Guidance_for_NPOV_Research_on_Wikipedia
[2]
https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/elon-musk-also-has-a-problem-with-wikipedia
[3] https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2025/06/27/the-wikipedia-test/
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2025/06/27/the-wikipedia-test/>
[4]
https://www.wired.com/story/wikipedia-online-encyclopedia-best-place-internet/

(legacy-tribute-revival posting of INC’s 2010 Critical Point of View
<https://networkcultures.org/cpov/> network)
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