I didn't notice this, in fact, I still find Wikipedia to be remarkably neutral on controversial topics. It is very explicit about not being a news website, and yet, that's where I find the best coverage for hot topics like the war in Ukraine and Gaza, Black Lives Matter, protests in Hong-Kong, etc... For instance, most western media completely disregard the Russian side of the Ukraine war, not Wikipedia, where you have both points of views shown side by side, as well as international reactions, and most importantly, sources.

It is not perfect of course, small topics and non-English Wikipedias usually show more bias, and not just about controversial topics. Even on scientific articles, you may find some guy who considers himself the king of the Estonian Striped Beetle and will not tolerate any other ideas than his, driving away other contributors because they have better things to do than go to war to defend beetle truths.

There is pretty much no way this was ever not going to happen, given Wikipedia's position and structure. It is a massive repository of knowledge, that is consulted by millions if not billions of people around the world on a regular basis, that is (in theory) editable by anyone and that has articles on just about every conceivable topic, including many politically charged ones. There must be immense pressure to use it to propagate all kinds of narratives. Given all of that, I think it does as good a job as can be expected of remaining objective, but absolutely you need to be careful when reading articles on politically charged topics (which is true of all media).

Wikipedia was always insufficiently neutral about political or social topics. At a bare minimum, you need to check whether there are any highlighted controversies in the article talk page.

> I can't be the only one who feels that Wikipedia's quality has really started to go downhill over the past 5 or so years. I've noticed more and more articles which read as ridiculously partisan, usually around subjects with any link to politics or current events.

I would say this started over a decade ago. Otherwise I completely agree.

In the last 2-3 years, every contribution I made has been reverted by a reviewer or editor, either giving some excuse like lack of references, or none at all. Ceased to contribute to articles, and financially as well.

I haven’t noticed this.

Example?

Friendly reminder that we all have the power to improve this! Become an editor and If you come across a problematic article, you can make improvements, or even just flag it as needing work. I know this is not a small ask, and can feel discouraging if you see more issues than you have time to address or your edits are not accepted, but when you consider the relatively small number of editors and the huge number of readers (not to mention AI’s being built on it) it is likely one of the more significant differences you can make towards improving the greater problem polarization.

> That's probably linked to the increasing polarisation in the US,

Not really. The phenomenon exists in other languages Wikipedias. I think it is related to the fact that NGOs that "shape" political discourse and politicians have become "sensible" to the text in Wikipedia pages.

It is always good, when you read Wikipedia, to "follow the money", i.e. look at the sources, see if they make sense.

In the last 5 years, a lot of online platforms, HN also, are used by state actors to spread propaganda and Wikipedia is perfect for that because it presents itself as a "neutral" source.

There's a reason why historians tend to view anything more recent than 10-20 years ago as politics. If you don't want to get embroiled in political debates, stick to stuff old enough to be history. There's still politics there, but it's less raw.

Wikipedia doesn't restrict itself to topics that are older than ten years ago, so some of their material is necessarily going to be viewed as political.

e.g. Wikipedia has a stand-alone page on Elon Musk's Nazi salute[1].

{Edit: It's worth noting here that Wikipedia also maintains separate pages for things like Bill Clinton's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein[3].}

This particular page is very interesting because of the sheer amount of political blow-back it's caused for Wikipedia. If you're a Republican, this one page may be the biggest reason you might view Wikipedia as having become "ridiculously partisan". As a direct result of this page, and the refusal to remove or censor it, Musk is now taking aim at Wikipedia and calling for a boycott[2]. He also had his employees produce Grokipedia which, notably, does not include a page on his Nazi salute.

Musk may have had a public falling out with Trump, but he is still very much plugged into the Republican party. He's about to throw a lot of money at the mid-term elections. So, naturally, one hand washes the other and Wikipedia is on every good Republican's hit list. The kicker is that a lot of Republicans, who don't like Musk and think he's a Nazi/idiot, are going to feel a lot of Musk-instigated pressure from their own party to target Wikipedia.

This is the price Wikipedia pays for including recent events and refusing to bow to demands for censorship.

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[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk_salute_controversy

[2]https://www.lemonde.fr/en/pixels/article/2025/01/29/why-elon...

[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_of_Bill_Clinton_a...

Disclosure: I'm Canadian and am neither a Republican or a Democrat.

It’s more likely that you became more radicalized so what used to read as neutral seems partisan now.