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The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia

220 pointsby perooover 13 years ago

24 comments

autarchover 13 years ago
I think the overall problem is that wikipedia attempts to substitute policy for expertise.<p>As other have pointed out, wikipedia has to deal with lots of bad edits from people who are not motivated by a pursuit of facts or truth.<p>To deal with this, they've come up with a set of policies that the editors seem to enforce fairly rigidly. This does an okay job of preventing the wackos from taking over. Unfortunately, since the editors often lack the subject expertise to distinguish cranks from experts, these policies end up making it harder for experts to contribute in some cases.
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scott_sover 13 years ago
Looking at the Talk page itself (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Haymarket_affair&#38;diff=prev&#38;oldid=265741836" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Haymarket_aff...</a>, at the bottom, thanks zqfm), it was not clear to me reading his Chronicle article that he did not cite the primary sources <i>in Wikipedia</i>. Rather, in Wikipedia, he cites his own blog post, and in that blog post, he cites primary sources.<p>As ZeroGravitas points out, consider the case of a crank who links to his own blog as a source, and that blog post cites primary evidence. The Wikipedia editors now have a job that is identical to academic peer-review. I don't think that should be their job.
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ZeroGravitasover 13 years ago
This follows the standard format of these complaints. If you read through it believing the author is a true expert then it seems like Wikipedia is crazy. If you read through it believing the author is a crank, then Wikipedia is doing a fine job.<p>I'm not even sure the guy isn't a crank, but if he isn't he needs to understand that Wikipedia needs a system that takes cranks into account. If he's simply a false positive on the crank detector because it turns out that <i>everyone else</i> is actually wrong about this historical event then he'd have to demonstrate that the cost of false positives outweigh the good to effect a change, not just go in a huff because his pet subject isn't presented in the way he would like in Wikipedia.
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DarkShikariover 13 years ago
This is <i>exactly</i> how Wikipedia is supposed to work.<p>If you come up with a new theory that disagrees with scholarly/scientific consensus, an <i>encyclopedia</i> is not the place to publish it. You publish it in a journal; if it <i>becomes</i> a consensus, or at least generates significant serious response in that community, <i>then</i> it will be documented in an encyclopedia.<p>If every single crank theory was accepted into Wikipedia, you'd have a wiki consisting entirely of holocaust denialism, homeopathy, Electric Universe, and woo-peddling. Wikipedia is not in the business of deciding what's true and what isn't; that's what the academic community is for.
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zqfmover 13 years ago
He left out the part where the editor said "I think we probably need to take another look at Schaack as you suggest. I, too, hope we can incorporate your insights into the article. That's why I'm going to read your book."<p>From <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:MesserKruse" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:MesserKruse</a>
jellicleover 13 years ago
If you think of Wikipedia as a summary of what old-school mass media says about a subject, rather than being the truth or complete or informative or useful, then all these contradictions disappear.
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niels_olsonover 13 years ago
Start pulling the string on this, and it looks like there's a potentially borderline admin, Gwen Gale,(1-3) at the heart of this, and the Chronicle article is just what boiled over into the slightly more real world of academia. It appears the bureaucrats at the Foundation have take notice.(4) I'm a little disappointed they haven't caught onto the involvement of the admin in question, and especially by Tim Starling's somewhat euphemistic allusion to the problem as "inertia".<p>This "inertia" is nicely described by the histogram of new admins. Those who seized power in the middle of the last decade are running with it. (5)<p>(1) <a href="http://gwen-gale-heidi-wyss-tinpot-auteur.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">http://gwen-gale-heidi-wyss-tinpot-auteur.blogspot.com/</a><p>(2) <a href="http://english.sxu.edu/sites/kirstein/archives/1443" rel="nofollow">http://english.sxu.edu/sites/kirstein/archives/1443</a><p>(3) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Gwen_Gale" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Gwen_Gale</a><p>(4) <a href="http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/271257" rel="nofollow">http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/271257</a><p>(5) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Successful_requests_for_adminship" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Successful_requests_f...</a>
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tptacekover 13 years ago
Worth noting: the Haymarket Riot article on Wikipedia is a designated "Good Article". "GA" is a big deal. It's been on the front page of the site. Among other things, that implies that there are people specifically watching that article; changes to it can reasonably expect more scrutiny.
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beefmanover 13 years ago
I'm amazed at the general support among comments here so far for the 'tertiary source' argument. Encyclopedias have always been written by experts -- usually one expert per article. Wikipedia itself has a template, 'This article is in need of input from an expert on the subject'.<p>But this isn't even right, because Wikipedia is a not an encyclopedia. It's like Johnson &#38; Johnson saying Q-tips are for applying makeup or detailing cars and shouldn't be put in the ear. 99% of people who buy Q-tips put them in their ears. 99% of true claims on Wikipedia are contributed by experts and are either unreferenced, cite a source that doesn't really support them, a source at the other end of a broken link that nobody's read, or a source that doesn't meet the guidelines this historian was held to. Career editors spend more time checking <i>for</i> citations than checking citations. And they spend more time checking for citations when they personally don't believe a claim. The policies are applied hypocritically, with the result that opinions of non-experts outweigh the opinions of experts. The only thing limiting the damage has been the relatively small number of career editors. With massive decline in casual participation in recent years, this balance is starting to shift. I just noticed recently that career editors have started to tag mathematics articles.<p>We should be honest that the encyclopedia contrivance is really just a way to avoid flame wars, and is an imperfect one, especially when editors 'merge with their cover story' and blindly enforce it. Wikipedia will be its best when it is recognized for what it is: a truth engine, a first source, and a very important public good.<p>Editing Wikipedia needs to be about more than writing long policy documents and bludgeoning contributors with them. It is an important form of scholarship. The project could benefit greatly by a reputation model more subtle than "barnstars", such as [1]. But a fancy reputation model alone isn't enough. The culture of Wikipedia is in trouble and needs to be revitalized.<p>[1] <a href="http://www2007.org/papers/paper692.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www2007.org/papers/paper692.pdf</a>
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smsm42over 13 years ago
I have adopted the following policy about Wikipedia, and I think it reflects current state of affairs:<p>1. It is a decent repository for bare facts that can be easily verified elsewhere, but assembled there in convenient form. E.g. if you need to know the population of Nepal, Wikipedia article about Nepal is a good way to go, even though multiple other sources are available.<p>2. It is a decent source of links for more complex material - e.g., if you want to get a quick idea about what suprematism is, without knowing anything about it, and how to start researching the topic, you can use Wikipedia article, extract such keywords as "visual art", "Malevich", "russian avant-garde", etc. and take it from there if you're interested.<p>3. It is a somewhat useful, but a dangerous source about any concepts that are in any way controversial - you should verify all claims and read all links, but you can use it as an assembly of links and keywords, without assigning too much importance to any narrative.<p>4. It is absolutely useless for understanding any seriously controversial topic, as at best controversial articles would selectively present facts, reflecting biases of the writers, at worst - explicitly promote specific approach to the topic, which will be ruthlessly enforced by either the mob of opinionated editors or the wiki bureaucracy masterfully exploited by biased insiders.<p>To the defense of Wikipedia, some mainstream encyclopedic sources, especially ones published in non-free countries, suffer from even worse bias problems. I don't think there's a solution for this, except using one's own mind and take everything told to you with a grain of salt and check it when possible. Obviously, the topic described in the article falls into the third or fourth category, and so expecting Wikipedia to have anything but bare facts (like dates when it happened, names of the participants, etc.) right would be a bet, and not a safe one. In most cases it'd be whatever the random Wikipedia "guardian" or anonymous mob of agenda-bearers wants it to be. Sometimes the experts make the fuss that hits some popular media and particular article gets better, but most would give up and decide not to waste their time.
AndrewDuckerover 13 years ago
This is exactly what Wikipedia should be doing. They cannot know what the truth is, they can only provide a summary of existing sources.
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twelvechairsover 13 years ago
Key sentence: "my citations to the primary documents were insufficient"<p>While I agree that the wikipedia gestapo are often overzealous with reverting good edits - it basically requires a case-by-case basis of deciding what 'facts' are, which is never easy. If his 'primary sources' are better than the secondary sources that say the opposite, then talk sense to the person who is doing the reversion, or raise it with someone higher - don't just continuously attempt edit-wars...
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mwexlerover 13 years ago
I can imagine this back in the day. "Though almost every scholar agrees that the earth (though flat) is the center of the universe, some people do persist in saying that the earth is not only in orbit around the sun, but is also round. Most of these minority claims rely on "mathematics" and other potentially incorrect "proofs" of their theorems."<p>I am reminded of the "paradigm shift" approach to the history of science, as flawed as it may be to some (look it up, sigh, on wikipedia). It implies that the dominant point of view is held as fact until a preponderance of evidence shifts the minority view from "flawed" to "edge cases" to "the new paradigm". Then it cycles again. What was the sworn truth with history behind it is now the "old paradigm" and disregarded.<p>For wikipedia, I've never felt there to be a requirement for "article completeness", just an eye to be "well rounded", and so it often feels that whatever the dominant paradigm is currently will be the primary driver of inclusion and presence in an article.<p>Wikipedia is in that interesting tension between sticking to it's original mission, which was pretty wonderful, and potentially becoming more, but at the risk of becoming useless. For all it's flaws, I still think the world is better with it than without it, and at some point, I suspect a way to let folks contribute more original research and have it coexist on wikipedia will evolve.
snorkelover 13 years ago
Instead of fighting over the semantics of a single sentence why not instead elaborate on the evidence presented by the prosecution, then later discuss if the semantics of that summary sentence contradict the other information in the same article?
morpherover 13 years ago
One of the editors gave a form in which the newer research could be presented that was in compliance with their policy (the green sky blue sky example). Why didn't the author make an edit of his form? Something like: "Although most historians agree that little evidence was presented... newer research suggests..." It would get the new point across while keeping the prior, possibly fallacious, but accepted viewpoint visible.
2muchcoffeemanover 13 years ago
John Siracusa was complaining about the same thing recently. He also argues that it is possible to create a wiki where truth is more important than verifiability.<p>Hypercritical #53: Brad Pitt Gets to Contribute <a href="http://5by5.tv/hypercritical/53" rel="nofollow">http://5by5.tv/hypercritical/53</a>
joelmichaelover 13 years ago
Looks like Wikipedia has been corrected as a result of this article. Well done to the author, and shame on those who try to distort the truth.
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pkambover 13 years ago
Academics vs. Wikipedia Grammaticians: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fitts%27s_law#Grammar_edit" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fitts%27s_law#Grammar_edit</a>
username3over 13 years ago
Ask HN: Is anyone working on this problem? any startups?
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jrockwayover 13 years ago
Yes. Wikipedia is not for original research. Do the research, publish it, and <i>then</i> update Wikipedia.
lucb1eover 13 years ago
Similar experiences here. In one case I even got corrected by a bot... I don't know if all the millions Wikipedia slurps up from their donations go to AI research, but I actually think the bot was wrong.
maeon3over 13 years ago
Wikipedia will be destroyed when governments figure out that they can control what is and is not "authorized popular truth". Wikipedia doesn't stand up for truth, it only seeks to be based upon the data sources, even when we all know they are officially verified government propaganda.<p>That's why history books in middle school are completely screwed up with lies. You can't empirically test history. If wikipedia is to survive it will have to make a principled stand against official propaganda machines, official government sources and popular truth, myth and political agendas.
knownover 13 years ago
"The truth is more important than the facts." --Frank Lloyd Wright. But unfortunately for Wikipedia <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Consensus" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Consensus</a> is more <i></i>important<i></i> than facts/truth.
gallerytungstenover 13 years ago
There are a number of people who apparently monitor Wikipedia relentlessly, lest the truth appear. In general, they seem to be motivated by their devotion to the Big Lie, extremist political agendas, and general crankiness.