Wikipedia Criticised by Its Co-founder 727
wikinerd writes "Wikipedia is under criticism by its co-founder Larry Sanger who has left the project. He warns of a possible future fork due to Wikipedia's Anti-Elitism and he presents his view on Wikipedia's (lack of) reliability. New wikis on various subjects have already emerged, with some of them being complete forks of Wikipedia. Critical articles on Wikipedia are also being published by other sources."
Wikipedia informs me and scares me. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wikipedia informs me and scares me. (Score:5, Interesting)
That's about where I am on it. I used to actively contribute, write (small, out of the way) articles, but I got tired of my work being molested for someone's agenda, and threatened for not pandering to the trolls.
My experience on Wikipedia (Score:3, Informative)
While Abu Ghraib is definitely an abuse situation, there were no cases of rape involved, and it's not standard U.S. policy to rape peop
Re:My experience on Wikipedia (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm going to have to disagree with you here. It is commonly known that if you go to prison [msn.com], you're probably [aclu.org] going to be raped [spr.org]. Prison officials have done little to nothing to curb the problem, so the threat remains. Therefore, it has become defacto U.S. policy to rape people.
Re:My experience on Wikipedia (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:My experience on Wikipedia (Score:3, Insightful)
K. That implies that they don't have the moral obligation to protect prisoners from that level of harm. If that's the case, would it not be more economical to simply put all prisoners on islands with the means to grow food, and shoot anyone who tries to leave before their time is up? That's a similar le
Re:My experience on Wikipedia (Score:5, Insightful)
You see you got hung up on the "rape" part exclusively and the article's title was "Rape and SEXUAL TORTURE". Whether rape occurred at Abu Ghraib is open to debate, you dismiss it out of hand though you don't know. What would it take to prove to you rape happened at Abu Ghraib? Well video tapes but video tapes aren't proof either, they tend to just look like porn and its not likely someone would be stupid enough to actually rape someone in front of a camera anyway. Is anecdotal evidence good enough, well that is mostly what you have that Saddam used rape as tool, and that is mostly what you have that it occurred at Abu Ghraib. As in most cases of political propaganda you have anecdotal evidence that you choose to believe(against Saddam) and anecdotal evidence you choose to disregard(against Abu Ghraib) because you predetermined which you wanted to believe.
The rape issue aside, there is a mountain of photo and video evidence of sexual abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib, but you seem to be trying to brush it under the rug because it doesn't conform to what you want to believe.
If you weren't pushing a political agenda here you should have probably added the link to Saddam's use of torture, and not tried to purge the Abu Ghraib link. Abu Ghraib is an undeniable instance of sexual torture, occuring in a U.S. military prison, with indisputable graphic evidence on a scale which is rare. You choose to try to make Abu Ghraib go away because it doesn't conform to what you thought the U.S. stands for. Well the U.S. unfortunately has fallen pretty far from the lofty ideal you seem to think it adheres to. You trying to pretend otherwise isn't going to change it. If you feel bad about it you should hold the Bush administration and the Army responsible for failing to insure humane treatment of prisoners of war.
As for state sponsorship of all this, well that is a tough one. Unfortunately the organization that conducted the investigation was the same organization that perpetrated the offense, the Army. It is an unspoken truth about most militaries that, if they can they will blame everthing on the little fish, the enlisted men, and protect their officer corp and chain of command. It appears they may have done just that at Abu Ghraib so far. Its pretty much undeniable military intelligence officers and the CIA were endorsing the "softening up" that was occuring at Abu Ghraib, though maybe the people doing it got carried away. There have been far to many leaks of of information showing that officers and the civilian leadership in the Bush administration has been sanctioning degrees of torture as a matter of policy. Unfortunately when you santion a little torture you run a pretty high risk of it becoming rampant and abusive as it did at Abu Ghraib. This is a place the U.S. just simply should have never gone. It should have strictly adhered to the Geneva conventions in treatment of all prisoners instead of finding legal justifications in the White House for why people in these wars aren't worthy of this most basic humane treatment. You strictly adhere to the Geneva conventions, if for no other reason, than to help insure your soldiers will get the same humane treatment if they are taken prisoner. It is no assurance of that treatment but at this point the U.S. has no ground to stand on in demanding humane treatment of its POW's because it has chosen to unilaterally withdraw from the Geneva conventions using legalistic hair splitting.
Re:My experience on Wikipedia (Score:3, Insightful)
The article's title is "Rape [wikipedia.org]." There is a section in this article on "Rape and Sexual Torture." Since this is a section of the article on rape, I think the parent is correct in getting "hung up on the rape part."
Re:My experience on Wikipedia (Score:3, Interesting)
"For instance, the page on rape had a section called "Rape and Sexual Torture""
Excuse me, but if the article has a section on "Sexual Torture" it is obviously on topic to include Abu Graib, even if you choose to believe there wasn't rape there when there is at least a 50/50 chance there was.
Both of you are splitting the same semantic hairs the original parent did.
Bottomline here is they should have included links to all of the exmples, instead of trying to suppress the links each of
Re:My experience on Wikipedia (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't think you actually know the full extent of the abuse there to make such a bold and absolute statement. The photo's that were publicly released didn't include the most graphic ones which apparently sickened most of the people that saw them behind closed doors.
I'm thinking maybe you would like to do a stint as a prisoner in a place like Abu Graib and maybe you wouldn't be so willing to downplay what happened there.
You also sound a lot like you work in the Bush administration. They try to split hairs on what constitutes torture too which is why all this ugliness happened in the first place. There is no sharp division between abuse and torture, its just gradations. I imagine you are more likely if to call it torture if you are on the receiving end and less likely if you are administering it(personally or by supporting a government which does it).
Are you saying including the link on Saddam was objective and not hyperbole? On this particular topic I think we have established that a moderator is most likely going to include links that cites torture by people he disapproves of and suppress ones that hit to close to home.
Unfortunately state sanctioned rape and torture is pretty much inevitably be the subject of innuendo, objectivity and hyperbole because it usually comes down to one persons word against anothers. What makes Abu Ghraib unique is they were stupid enough to produce reams of indisputable evidence which is why it IS such a good case study on the topic.
Re:My experience on Wikipedia (Score:4, Insightful)
Excepting we know they exist and they are worse than the ones that were publicly released which were REALLY bad, so only someone in a severe state of denail would call them irrelevent. Like I said many Japanese are in the same state of denial about Nanking more than 60 years later.
As a reminder you said:
"Except that there was no sexual torture at that prison"
That was an absolute statement which you simply can't support and the weight of the evidence leans against you. You have zero evidence that there was no sexual torture, in fact that is an unprovable statement. Sexual torture happens in nearly every prison whether it be inmate on inmate or guard on inmate.
So I'm at a loss how you think you can get away with saying absolutely it didn't happen when you have no evidence to support that, and you have to deny a large body of photographic evidence showing severe abuse, and we know there is more evidence that has been concealed showing even worse abuse, and a there is a presumption that if they did stuff that awful on camera that they may well have done things far worse off camera.
"The link to Abu Ghraib was *subjective*. It was *biased*. It was *inappropriate* for an encyclopedia."
And so was the link to Saddam and Nanking. They are all subjective charges. Unfortunately EVERY link on this subject is going to be subjective and inflammatory. It is the nature of the subject. I guess you can either deny it exists because it is never absolutely provable, or you can include links to instances with some substantiation and Abu Graib is hands down the best documented case there is. Most torturers are smarter than American torturers because the usually strive to not leave an evidence trail, its a reason electic shock, drowning and rubber hoses are popular, no marks to take pictures of later.
Bottom line is you either include all the links or none of them. The people who were fighting over this at Wikipedia were just trying to replace ones that that offended their political view with ones that were inline with what they want to believe. The original poster was acting like he was being objective and fair when he obviously wasn't, he was replacing an anti American link with a pro American propaganda link.
Re:My experience on Wikipedia (Score:3, Insightful)
That entirely depends on how you choose to subjectively define torture. You are obviously setting a higher bar than most people would. If Saddam had done that shit and the same photos were realeased you and most of America would be screamy bloody TORTURE at the top of your lungs. You are just applying a double standard because you can't cope with the fact that your beloved country got caught redhanded doing something you don't want to admit your country does.
Again, just answer my question, would it be O
Re:My experience on Wikipedia (Score:5, Insightful)
If I, rd_syringe, do not personally believe that something is true, no reference to it should be made.
This is clearly the case in the "Fisher Price" incident. This is a well-known criticism of Windows XP. The "hardcore guy" you are criticizing did the correct thing by citing the references and showing that yes, this is a criticism that's out there. You did the wrong thing by declaring 'Well, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia unless it's the majority view!' Is that what you think Wikipedia's purpose and policy is, to report only the "majority" view and pretend those other 'minority' views don't exist?
On the issue of the "Rape" article, you fail to mention several things.
One is that when you claimed that the wording only applied to "countries where torture is tolerated or accepted as part of the normal behaviour of police or security", the wording was changed to eliminate that artificial restriction on discussion of the subject. (It wouldn't make sense to create separate sections for "Rape and sexual torture in countries that tolerate it" and "Rape and sexual torture in countries that don't officially tolerate it", since they'd say pretty much the same thing.) Funny that you mention that "based strictly on the wording of the section, the link didn't apply," but fail to mention how that technicality disappeared.
Another is that you're bringing in your misconception again that the majority view (your view) is the truth and there's no need to discuss any others. First you say "there were no cases of rape involved" at Abu Ghraib. Then you mention "except that one prisoner is claiming it without proof." If you had joined Wikipedia earlier, instead of just joining around the same time that you started repeatedly removing the link to "Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse", I wouldn't have been surprised to see you editing out any reference to coercive interrogation techniques being used there because, hey, it's only one person claiming it without proof! Then it's only two people claiming it without proof, only five people claiming it with a photo of Lynndie England smirking at hooded naked prisoners simulating fellatio as proof...
Thirdly, you offer up as your proof that you were the thoughtful considerate party in the right, and that it was the other side, the "hardcore guy", who was "politically motivated", who "snuck in" his restoration of the link you removed ("snuck in"? are you suggesting I had a webcam on you and was carefully watching and waiting until you were looking the other way?) the fact that you offered The Rape of Nanjing as an alternate. Which you are claiming now is "more pertinent to that section than either of the links we had" and "just a given".
You fail to mention that it was explained to you why that was not a suitable alternative: the Rape of Nanjing was a famous military atrocity where there is no question that rapes were committed, as well as murders, as well as wholesale destruction. However, the entire reason that the Rape article has a section on Rape and Sexual Torture is to discuss rape when it occurs not as an act of self-gratification committed at another's expense (as it usually does), but as a method of torture to advance policy. No historical evidence has ever suggested that the Japanese commanders said to the soldiers who did the raping, "Hey, we're gonna want to get information out of those civilians later, so why don't you torture them by raping a bunch?" There's no suggestion that it was anything other than "They're the enemy anyways; whatever you feel like doing to them, go ahead and do it." To quote someone whose name I can't recall, "based strictly on the wording of the section, the link didn't apply."
Re:My experience on Wikipedia (Score:3, Insightful)
Get a grip.
Re:OT: Rape in Abu Gharib (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh, here's the small print from the top of that page:
Re:My experience on Wikipedia (Score:3, Informative)
The US did not put Saddam in power; if you read history, he saw an opportunity to grab power and took it. Saddam is a lot more of a self-made man than most people give him credit for. The US supported him because they needed some power in the area, and he was good at holding onto power (= keeping a stable government.)
Re:My experience on Wikipedia (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:My experience on Wikipedia (Score:4, Informative)
Since you asked, here is a little reference regarding Seymour Hersh, the dude who saw all the unreleased videos the US government has at present regarding Abu Ghraib (the quote below stolen via google from dailykos et al):
---
This is a summary of Hersh speaking at the ACLU 2004 America At A Crossroads conference according to EdCone.com (via Oliver Willis). I verified by watching the video myself (it starts at 1:07, the "worse stuff" part starts at 1:30).
There's more bad stuff in here, read Ed Cone's summary.
I'll try transcribing some of the more important bits.
[my transcription from 1:31 - 1:32]
The actual speech here [realimpact.net]
They need expert Guest Editors (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:They need expert Guest Editors (Score:5, Interesting)
"Wikipedia has the right basic structure but they need..."
Like the original article and most posts here everyone says Wikipedia has "the right basic structure" but we need to change it in a really fundamental way so it completely stops being what it is. Wikipedia is inherently "Antielitism" and it should stay that way. If you want it to be written and edited by vetted experts in their field, tell you what, READ AN ENCYCLOPEDIA, instead of trying to make Wikipedia something its not. Wikipedia is a people's encyclopedia written by people, with all the brilliance and flaws you find in people. It is a creation of the collective web consciousness of all the people that choose to contribute to it and fight over it.
As soon as you put a bunch of "expert" editors in charge of it chances are the only people who are going to contribute to it, or at least get their contributions included, are the "expert" editors. Amazingly enough they probably all have agendas too and a bunch of them are going to troll if anyone challenges their "expert" opinions.
Knowledge is unfortunately subjective, in most arenas there is no absolute truth. There are nuggets of pretty much absolute truth embedded in it like when an historical event occured, but all the interesting stuff around the edges is not so cut and dried. Wikipedia is a collection of views of what is true which tend to be be different which each set of beholder's eyes. It is interesting precisely because it is a collection of eclectic views by ordinary people. Wikipedia is one collective view of truth, so is Britannica, so is Encarta, so is most of the propaganda nation states put out as their history and news. If you are a good researcher, tell you what, read them all and form your own opinion on what is "right". One thing don't do, don't try to homogenize all information sources so they tell the same story, and all of the alternative views are silenced.
If you want a wikipedia with "expert" editors please fork it and see if you can make it fly. Not sure you will because there is already Encarta and Britannica in that niche. JUST LEAVE WIKIPEDIA ALONE.
Have 2 versions (Score:3, Interesting)
They're idiots then (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:open source for code but not information? (Score:3, Insightful)
So, no, this is nothing like open source.
Re:Wikipedia informs me and scares me. (Score:3, Interesting)
If it is reliable for the 'most part', then it is not reliable at all. If I am looking for information on a topic, I can't rely on a source that is mostly correct. This is the reason that you always check your facts with other sources. Using an unreliable source as a primary source or to verify information is essentially a waste of time.
I use Wikipedia only for casual information. I would n
Re:Wikipedia informs me and scares me. (Score:3, Interesting)
You shouldn't cite any encyclopaedia in your own work - use them as a jumping board towards new lines of research.
This is why it's so important for encyclopaedia (and Wikipedia) articles to give references. Treat them as brief introductions and overviews of particular areas, and then do your own reading and work from the references. An encyclopaedia should never be the primary source of a particular piece of information. [wikipedia.org]
Wikipedia leans
Re:Wikipedia informs me and scares me. (Score:3, Insightful)
That depends whether the article is a normative reference or a background or credit reference. There used to be a time when academics used to claim that there should NEVER EVER be references to URLs in academic papers. Then the engineering journals started to discover that many network standards are only available through the web and the URL is the definitive reference.
The emphemeral nature
Sites and sources (Score:3, Interesting)
This is one of the reasons why I love the Snopes Urban Legends site [snopes.com]. Not only do the stories tend to be well-researched, they list references at the bottom and the writers tend to admit when they're
Re:Wikipedia informs me and scares me. (Score:5, Insightful)
No data sources are reliable. The Encyclopeadia Britanica which keeps being referred to as some sort of gold standard of accuracy was started as a triumphalist celebration of the British Empire.
But even unreliable data can point to data that is more reliable. Police investigations do not begin with firm facts, they begin with a set of evidence which may or may not be contaminated in various ways. The same is actually the case in physics research, there are very few experiments that work really well and repeatedly when they are first done.
In the last election we discovered that the mainstream media are terrebly sloppy and unreliable. The media gave far more attention to the smear boat liars for Bush and TANG memos provided by a highly dubious source than they did to actual policies.
The problem with openness is that it only takes a small proportion of jerks to screw everything up. I don't think anyone would seriously consider running the Linux kernel on wiki lines.
Fortunately there is a very simple way out of the current situation and one that will inevitably be put into practice. Just as slashdot has a reputation mechanism and can be surfed at +1 (mostly good stuff) or -1 (mostly trolls) the same sort of mechanism will eventually be put in place on wikipedia or a branch thereof.
The creative commons license even makes it easy for people to do this, the troll version of wiki is simply the last input to the editor queue.
A deeper problem though is the one that all these knowledge engineering projects suffer from at some point, not everything is physics, in most fields there is no absolute knowledge of the form that fits into a rigid taxonomic structure. There is no definitive opinion of the literary merits of Burroughs or Dickens.
The revert wars are in part reflecting genuine differences of opinion. A bunch of loonies who think they have found absolute truth and attempt to construct a rigid ideology arround it are not going to tolerate dissenting views. And bunches of loonies with a rigid ideology are not going to tollerate any form of epistomological relativism.
Re:Your a perfect example of bias. (Score:3, Interesting)
The smear boat liars have been proven to be liars numerous times. The fact that you attempt to repeat their baseless claims shows that you are the partisan hack here. I note that you claim that I am unable to support my claims with facts when in fact you provide absolutely no facts to back your argum
Re:Wikipedia informs me and scares me. (Score:5, Informative)
Thank you for so neatly summing up the problem in what appears to be one of the first posts. I've read several articles over the last while on wiki that contained a paragraph or two in them that I just simply cringed at because the author didn't really know what the heck they were talking about.
I seem to remember a story not long back
in which the former head of Encyclopedia Brittanica criticized it for that very reason.
It is in danger of becoming just another set of web pages which may or may not be opinion. The fact that its co-founder is pointing this out as well says a lot.
Re:Wikipedia informs me and scares me. (Score:5, Insightful)
In general the "threat of revert wars" you speak of seems more like FUD to me. People always say, "Anyone can edit? That will never work." Yet so far it's been working amazingly well. Sure there are trolls and, perhaps more importantly, changes made in good faith that are of poor quality or plainly wrong. The fact that anyone can edit helps, since you can go in and correct those mistakes.
Don't take a vague threat of a revert war as an excuse. You may need to explain on an article's Talk page why you made certain corrections, but that's a Good Thing. Anti-elitism is something to be embraced: it means not blindly following someone because they have the right credentials as an authority. It's usually good to have those credentials, but it's better to demonstrate that you know what you're doing than to simply assert it. If you really know your stuff, you should be able to explain your position clearly and I shouldn't have to take your word for it.
Ideally, this also means that editors cannot abuse trust based on a history of useful contributions. Here on
Overall, open rational dialog is a successful approach. Sure, there will be trolls who try to abuse this, but you already know how to deal with them from your experience here on Slashdot.
Re:Wikipedia informs me and scares me. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wikipedia informs me and scares me. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm curious what is really wrong about the Fox News piece. There are a couple of other replies asking the same question that appear to indicate a bias against Fox News, and I want to make clear that I'm not railing against Fox. I host a highly politically charged mailing list with extremists and moderates from the full spectrum. While there is strong disagreement on whether Fox News presents the views of the majority of the US, those from both the left and the right concur that, overall, it is presented with a neo-conservative perspective. Likewise, members of the list from both the left and right concur that The New York Times presents things from a liberal perspective. I hasten to add that the fact that those people concur does not make the content of the allegations fact, but it does make the allegations themselves worthy of inclusion in a proper analysis of current events.
If the Fox News piece were reflective of some bias in Wikipedia, I would not expect to see reports of left bias allegations in the article on The New York Times - but, indeed, the entry for The New York Times [wikipedia.org] includes a similar section on allegations of bias.
This strikes me as being about stating the facts. There are allegations of bias, and it's not Wikipedia's job to decide that those allegations are correct (and state them as fact) or that they are incorrect (and not state them). The role of an encyclopedia, at least in the context of current events, and where made possible by the technological capabilities of Wikipedia, is to state the facts, and make clear when those facts are allegations (IE: the allegation itself is a fact, the truth of the content of the allegation may be questionable).
Re:Wikipedia informs me and scares me. (Score:5, Insightful)
Another poster argued that the Fox News "allegations of bias" section is unfair because no similar section can be put on CNN's article. This simply shows that *there is less controversy over bias on CNN* which is undoubtedly true. CNN is generally percieved as no more or less biased than the general American media; whose percieved bias is already documented [wikipedia.org] on Wikipedia. All Wikipedia can do is be a record of what is generally percieved; it cannot aspire to some higher standard of "genuine truth". Indeed, the nature of "genuine truth" is a philosophical question which can be debated at length. Despite this lack of "genuine truth", Wikipedia (including this "Fox News" article) is still an amazingly valuable resource.
Re:Out of curiosity (Score:3, Insightful)
Other media outlets claim to be unbiased, but when something like 85% of them are Democrats, I would expect them to be biased that way anyway. I believe every individual's biases color what they see and what they believe, only a very few people operate in a manner that is truly unbiased.
Re:Out of curiosity (Score:3, Insightful)
I certainly don't buy into the idea that civilians killed by a legitimate army are less dead then those killed by suicide bombers. From the point of view of surviving family members, there's no difference between these acts.
Re:Out of curiosity (Score:3, Insightful)
Concerning CNN, I don't necessarily think that information regarding bias is warranted. How credible are the allegations of bias? How frequent and widespread are the allegations? Are there good sources to cite for these allegations? I would say that for information to be included in an encyclopedi
Re:Wikipedia informs me and scares me. (Score:3, Informative)
In my opinion, you are a troll. In your opinion, you are not.
This is a problem. Certain things are facts (George Washington was the 1st president of the US), while other things are opinions (George Washington was a great leader). People need to be able to determine the difference between fact and opinion.
But I must admit that I give Wikipedia credit for at least having as one if its stated goals differentiating fact and opini
Re:Wikipedia informs me and scares me. (Score:3, Interesting)
As you say, they acknowledge the nature of the debate and present both sides. Furthermore, they present them well, with a great deal of supporting evidence. They don't simply state that there are multiple opinions without giving you information and references to judge f
Sanger's an epistomologist? (Score:5, Interesting)
The first encyclopedists [utm.edu] had at least ulterior motives. Anybody have any other ideas what this is really all about? Then there's always the parallels to the world of Asimov's Foundation series, which started off as an Encyclopedia project!
Ulterior motives (Score:5, Insightful)
Flaming Wikipedia for inaccuracy is missing the two most important single points about Wikipedia that no other encyclopedia has.
#1 You can reuse, reference and reprocess the content. If you want trusted articles then set up a scheme where experts in the field can GPG sign versions of the article that they believe to be correct.
#2 Unlike every other encyclopedia you can take Wikipedia content under license and "fix it", where fixing means adjusting to your own world view. If you happen to think the Encyclopedia Britannica has its head up its backside you can't fix it. Wikipedia you can. Thats both powerful and dangerous as you can easily imagine groups with an agenda doing things like issuing 'evolution free' wikipedia variants to schools.
What matters for Wikipedia isn't IMHO whether Sanger has an axe to grind but who is going to build the tools to take this kind of distributed public knowledgebase further.
Re:Ulterior motives (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree, and this potential is what makes the project interesting.
However, fixing things requires mindshare and timeshare. If everyone who points out the systematic failings in the current Wikipedia is either, at best, ignored as some poor luddite from the depths of the 20th century (when people exchanged knowledge on bits of dead trees, poor fools) or, at worst, shouted down, nothing will get get fixed because the consensus view (at least among the majority of current contributors) that nothing needs to be fixed will never be overturned.
The two most talked about articles lately regarding the Wikipedia are from a) an ex-editor of EB and b) a co-founder of Wikipedia. Both articles were thoughtful essays from experts that addressed and analysed, albeit from different directions, the same underlying problem: Wikipedia has a credibility and a reliability shortfall. I think it's unfair to dismiss this point of view as simply "flaming Wikipedia for innaccuracy."
In particular, given Sanger explicitly discussed the licensing of Wikipedia and how it allowed for a fork, he can hardly be accused of "missing the two most important single points about Wikipedia that no other encyclopedia has."
Alas, just because the licensing can allow Wikipedia to be fixed, doesn't mean that it will, or that, in the interim, Wikipedia deserves a free pass.
if you sat twenty scientists in a room and gave them one article an academic fight would break out with many subjects.
That's a straw man. It's all a matter of degree. Ask twenty physicists about an article regarding some fine point of string theory, you're going to get 20 answers, because string theory's new and shiny and no-one understands it properly and the maths and the empirical evidence are still coming up to speed. But ask them to comment on, say, an article on Maxwell's Laws and you're going to get a high, if not unanimous, degree of concordance.
Absolute nonbias is probably impossible, true. But that still doesn't mean everything is on a level playing field. Between bias and non-bias is a continuum, and even if the limits are asymptotically unreachable, it's neither ridiculous or a fools errand to demand articles from the non-biased end of the spectrum.
Remember UseNet FAQs? An awesome collection of knowledge, also theoretically forkable and open to all, but practically, very pro-expert.
Until the Wikipedia develops a mechanism for promoting expert viewpoint above that of others, it's credibility and reliability problems will remain, and it will never fulfil its potential.
Re:Ulterior motives (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ulterior motives (Score:3, Insightful)
That's a misleading statement. Certainly the potential for disagreement exisits at the periphery of the field, but on the core tenents relevant to their expertise - the part relevant to an encyclopedia - there's far more likely to be complete agreement. It's hard to see how any science could proceed without.
Re:Ulterior motives (Score:3, Interesting)
Take a look for example at Egyptology and at Geology on the subject of the Sphinx. It's a nice simple question "Who built the Sphinx and when", its a rather complex non-answer.
Actually the fact Wikipedia can encompass both wel l is nice - also that it is rapidly updated. My paper encyclopedia still says in learned style that the Ti
Let's not forget... (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe a completely free online encyclopedia is just impossible. There are hundreds if not thousands of revisions done on Wikipedia each day and to have a team sit there to review each update and research it would be monotonous without a paid team of researchers.
As well, having a team of professionals review their particular field on the online encyclopedia surely will not come free. Perhaps Wikipedia has hit a stopping point, if not slowing point?
Live by traffic, die by bottleneck (Score:4, Informative)
For any project that seeks to be an encyclopedia of everything, there are but two roads: leave the door open to all, like Wikipedia, or keep the writing closed, and hire researchers to build the articles from the inside. The trouble is, the more knowledge you want to include, and the faster you want it, the more researchers you'll need to hire. That costs a lot of money, and unless you hire a true army of people to do the job, it's going to be a few years before you begin to see any progress. And the progress doesn't get faster.
No, for all the inaccuracies, arguments, and varied forms of pettiness, the raging river of activity has to remain and grow for Wikipedia to survive... and to have any form of accuracy. Consider that one person creates an article. It is only a stub, but it all information in it is correct. Someone edits it, and adds something, but some part of that is incorrect. Someone else edits again, correcting that, and adding something else that's incorrect. Someone else adds something else, and misses the mistake. Another person comes along, and fixes the mistake. The stub is shaping up, and the article gets more attention for some reason. A few people edit the budding article one way and then another. They get into an argument, and the argument becomes a fight. The truth lies somewhere between their positions, but that's forgotten. Maybe there's a reversion war. One of them gets pissed off and leaves. The other one feels he's won the day, and lingers for a little bit, then leaves. Then somebody else comes in and fixes the article.
The end result is the article becomes acceptably accurate. And it has the hands of many different people, and the subtle truths that they bring. A single researcher brings only his own hand and the truth he knows.
Great example of some of the strengths of Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea [wikipedia.org]
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wikipedia has exactly one problem, neatly broken into two (related) main subproblems:
It allows stateless-user modification. This allows untrusted users to completely trash perfectly good entries, and it doesn't allow for the creation of "untrusted" users.
A very, very simple fix for this exists - Force users to register (they don't need to provide any IRL info, as I'll explain in a moment), and implement a Slashdot-like karma and moderation (and metamoderation, if necessary) system.
Limit all users to only creating new entries, and to editing their own entries and those at least one karma-class below themselves (with the highest karma-classes kept in check by a few absolutely-trusted WikiGods (most likely the physical maintainers of the site). Additionally, to address your point about having expert review of topics, allow users to grant other users permission to edit their own created topics.
Thus, a new user will have basically no power, other than to contribute new material. This stops people from making accounts just to trash legit entries. If a new user makes a slew of new entries consisting entirely of mindless drivel, they'll never gain any karma, thus can't cause any real damage. At the same time, this allows the creation of local experts, those who have proven themselves worthy of editing certain topics by higher-karma but less-expert users (if so desired by both) based on personal permission-granting.
I suppose this also sounds a bit like E2's approach, but without the annoying minimum number of nodes per level (the biggest reason I stopped contributing to E2 - A user would do better to write large amounts of barely tolerable crap than to write a small number of well-researched, well-written nodes; Personally, I wrote a dozen or so rather good entries and (two crap ones, I'll admit it), including seven "Cool"s, and never got past level 1) and with the addition of actual editing of entries rather than only creating or appending new ones.
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:3, Insightful)
Slashdot is not the best model to emulate. Whenever the topic discussed is one in which I'm well versed I always cringe at the high moderation given, for lack of a better term, 'feel good' posts full of factual errors. Moderators have a strong prediliction to assign points base
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:3, Informative)
success within limits (Score:5, Insightful)
I also feel that Larry's criticism about "antielitism" is a little weird, because I actually tried to contribute a physics article to Nupedia, and the reason I gave up on the process was exactly because I felt that it was the kind of "antielitist" atmosphere he seems to be imputing to Wikipedia. I have a PhD in physics, I teach physics at a community college, and I've written some free physics textbooks. I don't expect other people to fall down on their knees and worship my erudition, but I think I qualify as an expert within my field. My experience with Nupedia was that I was being endlessly nitpicked by people who had no particular expertise in physics. On Wikipedia, OTOH, I've generally found that people tend to contribute at their level of ability, and it works great. People who know a lot do the biggest, most important edits, and people who know less generally exercise a lot of self-restraint. I'm an amateur musician, but not an expert by any means. If I'm editing a music article, I'll typically restrict myself to correcting typos, or contributing factual information that I'm very sure of (or, if it's something more substantial, I'll typically post on the article's talk page).
Wikipedia is a huge success, within certain limits. The main limitation is simply that it doesn't work well on controversial topics. I find it really odd that Larry's critique talked all about rudeness, trolling, etc., but never talked about the situation that, in my experience, is what leads to people getting upset. It comes from arguments about controversial topics: Ronald Reagan, astrology, ... And the problem with these topics is not that people ignorant about Ronald Reagan fail to defer to people who are experts on Ronald Reagan. The problem with those topics is that there is intense disagreement. That's the way Wikipedia is. It can't handle controvesial topics, and I don't see any way to modify it so that it can. The NPOV (neutral point of view) policy works fine on noncontroversial articles, and doesn't work at all on controversial ones. Wikipedia is a tool that works for some jobs, but not for others.
Re:success within limits (Score:4, Interesting)
That in and of itself is a very good reason not to put too much trust into Wikipedia.
Max
Sanger's Dead-On (Score:3, Interesting)
Every once in a while I may go look something up on there for general interest purposes, but never for anything for my classes.
Re:Sanger is just a tad biased (Score:3, Insightful)
Is that like how the Slashdot moderation results in a balanced set of views?
Anyway, I'm off to use my KILLER Apple dual G5 (which can totally blow away anything Intel makes) with OS X (the best, prettiest OS ever) to share the latest movies and music with everyone in the world. Then perhaps I'll use my iPod for a while.
Re:Sanger is just a tad biased (Score:3, Insightful)
Heheh, just like when someone gets modded "Flaimbait" for simply suggesting trying OpenBSD instead of Debian for a server (as seen in the recent 3.0r4 article). Given enough people and you'll likely see patterns in views. For lots of topics there can't really be a "balanced" view since everyone is going to have a different definition of "balance". Slashddot moderation isn't going for "balance" anyways, it's purely a populist/c
Larrys History (Score:5, Interesting)
2002 was the last time he edited a page *not* related to himself
Re:Larrys History (Score:3, Funny)
Besides, if he's for elitism, it may be that he thinks he's not qualified to edit other articles.
Just giving him the benefit of the doubt...
In Theory, Communism Works (Score:5, Insightful)
The best solution I have seen was someone suggesting "stickyness" -- the longer an entry remains, the sticker and more truthful it is. I think that, combined with academics actually starting to put in information* and some sort of meta-moderating system, could work.
Either way, I think it's neat. I would not rely on it for critical information, but then, I never do that with the internet to begin with.
* I'm sure academics do now -- I guess I meant "Academia" in that a lot of them contribute.
Re:In Theory, Communism Works (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In Theory, Communism Works (Score:3, Insightful)
You're right, of course, that direct democracy on a nationwide scale has never been done; ditto for communism. However, practical experience shows that attempts at communism inevitably end in autocracy and horror -- while those nations which, through whatever mechanism they use, attempt to hew closest t
Re:In Theory, Communism Works (Score:3, Interesting)
You mean, once people started seriously thinking about it? Not very long at all, actually. It took a while for the idea to percolate throughout all levels of society, but that was mostly because the vast majority of people would have no reason to even consider the question.
OT: Annoying (Score:4, Insightful)
For example, let's say we're looking at the article on Wikipedia itself. Somewhere within it, it says "Wikipedia has been criticized [wikipedia.com] for being an unreliable source of information."
Now, anywhere else on the web, you'd expect that the link in there would point to further information on that specific criticism of Wikipedia. But, instead it points to a page defining the term "critic"! How useless is that?
I can't count the number of times I've seen a link on Wikipedia that made me say "ooh, I'd like to know more about that" and clicked it, just to find out that it only points to a simple definition of whatever term I clicked. That's not what I wanted, dammit!
Re:OT: Annoying (Score:3, Informative)
What if there isn't an expert? (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of the time, I use it as a resource for pop culture references (leet, for instance) for which other people, though not experts, know a bit more than I do. I think of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia of the moment.
Here is an example (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Here is an example (Score:3, Informative)
There were many other incidents, and many many Sinhalese groups took stuff exclusively Tamil Tsunami victims and vice versa, as signs of friendship, but only the above appeared on Wikipedia, which gave a very wrong picture of our country. I am sure someone will soon change it.
What is the value of accuracy or truth (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're in school and you're doing one of the 3 million papers you will do in your school career about the Civil War, let's say and you go to Wiki and it's chockful of subtle agendized "Wawr of Northun Aggresshun" revisionism. So what? You will probably get a good grade if you live in the south and you will probably get a pass if you live in the north and all its multicultural tolerance and whatnot.
A few weeks ago for example the entire nationalized abstinence sex ed curriculum was exposed as a fraud, jammed with flat out inaccurate information. So? It wasn't an accident and the fact that it's exposed really doesn't change anyone's mind. So in the end, truth is whatever you can use to further your own aims and accuracy be damned.
Why not incorporate moderating into Wikis? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why not incorporate moderating into Wikis? (Score:3, Insightful)
Take the example of the "FOX News" entry someone made earlier. Since the subject has somehow become emotionally and politically charged it is clear that people will tend to moderate edits based on which side they are on - not on research and facts.
Groupthink tends to be reinforced by a moderation system by allowing administrators to easily determine which "side" someone is on, the site administrators can then easily ident
anti-elitism? (Score:3, Interesting)
So, "Anti-elitism"? No, it's "pro-community," and while I agree that it's out of place for mediating some rather silly disputes, the community-driven atmosphere has survived. Sanger is rightly second-guessing the community's ability to make Wikipedia a fully credible source, but while Wikipedia has been one of the internet/open source community's greatest achievements, it should also be allowed to highlight its limitations.
Re:anti-elitism? (Score:3, Insightful)
Essentially, he wants there to be a trade - expertise for time. Right now, if you spend a ton of time working on the wiki, even if you aren't a
Nothing wrong with anti-elitism (Score:4, Insightful)
Larry Sanger may be an epistemologist, but his views on knowledge and its justification seem a bit naive. Who determines who the "experts" and "authorities" are? It can't be these same people, that would just beg the question. Or perhaps its the social structures already created that mold and promote expertise. But then why even make wikipedia in the first place? Wikipedia is not a reflection of these social structures, and that was intentional from the very beginning. It's not a mistake to be rectified.
Go ahead, fork the project. It was founded so that those unhappy with its direction could fork it. Just like Linux. Make your own elitist version. Just don't expect any tears from me.
Re:Nothing wrong with anti-elitism (Score:3, Interesting)
What most of us call "facts" are the very things which are independent of social structures, cultural contexts and other biases. As such, anyone is in the position to determine who is an expert and who is not.
An expert is a person who has a more detailed knowledge of facts than someone else.
Scientific
The same criticism applies to democracy (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem that infects Wikipedia is not limited to a few simple trolls. It is a world-wide societal problem. It is the wicked child of the delusional advocates of democracy and egalitarianism, who in their naivete believe that all people are equal in their abilities and judgement.
How else can we explain the sick believe that masters of rhetoric and intrigue make decisions that are affecting the future of the world? How is it a moron with an 8th grade education is allowed to have a legitimate position on highly technical topics like environmental protection and global warming?
The world has become too complex for any one man to have the requisite knowledge to make decisions about anything other than his field of expertise. What we require is a new social order than recognizes the various discplines of each citizen and identifies his expertise. When our electorate is organized along these lines, only then can representative government work. Instead of a mass of rhetoricians ruling over the world, we should have a council of experts, each elected by the members of his respective field. Chemists should elect the most elite chemist. Electrical engineers, the most elite electrical engineer.
With this top down approach, Wikipedia and society at large will work far better. Further, we may prevent the complete destruction of our civilization by ceasing to hand power to the unqualified and depraved.
Watching the Watchers (Score:4, Insightful)
You need a peer rating system where authors and editors can be given points as to the quality of their material and corrections. I think Experts Exchange [experts-exchange.com] and probably others offer something of this kind. This, as always, required community participation to work effectively. But beyond that, for an encyclopedia people should have an overall rating and a rating for subcategories, for example a lot of
Wikipedia isn't "anti-elitist" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Maybe you haven't seen it... (Score:4, Insightful)
And that is a perfect illustration of why someone with an agenda (or just ego problems) will always win stupid arguments on the Internet - they care more. Since the very young have a tendency toward fanaticism, more time, more energy and fewer opportunities for rewards in other spheres their views often win out in "easy democracy" like wikis or newsgroups.
Re:Maybe you haven't seen it... (Score:3, Insightful)
Wikian: That's not right. I have a book that clearly states XYZ.
True--but sometimes a bit of give and take is necessary, too. Even when there is a new study (or more than one, for that matter) which reinterprets a historical event, there are often many people in the real world who may not want to change world views. You often have the same problem even if you ask a
Wikipedia needs moderators and editors (Score:4, Interesting)
Another option is
But the idea behind Wikipedia is great, and shouldn't be allowed to die. Despite its warts, I do consider it a valuble reference, and keep a quick link to it on my Mozilla toolbar.
Re:Wikipedia needs moderators and editors (Score:5, Insightful)
Niche media (Score:4, Insightful)
In the past 20 years or so, media has become extremely niche (if you're a bicycle rider into tarantulas, there's probably a magazine for you). The benefit of this is that you often get experts and people genuinely interested in the subject writing the articles.
I tried Wikipedia and gave up in disgust (particularly that articles about GNAA trolls, filled with lies and editorials, were kept). I since have spent some time with the (admitally silly) Homestar Wiki at http://www.hrwiki.org, and have found it to be a much different environment. No brass arguments, no format wars -- just people adding bits and pieces of what they like about their favorite web cartoon. I've thought about setting up a similar MST3K wiki.
The point is, all-encompassing media is dead. No one expects CNN/Fox News/etc. to focus on every story available, and no one should expect the same from internet sites. Niche media will continue to thrive.
There is no such thing as an "expert" (Score:5, Interesting)
The fool who wrote this critique of Wikipedia is attempting to defend the exclusivity of who can be considered to be informed and who can't. One of the worst things in the world you can do to any information resource is to make it exclusive. When you make it exclusive, you make it useless and inaccessible to the average person. It might be nice to have someone who has a deep knowledge of philosphy share their knowledge on Wikipedia, but if they can't speak in terms that others can understand, what good is it? Even with it's warts, Wikipedia provides people with better access to knowledge on various subjects than they previously had access to. That's the point. If one wishes to expand their knowledge on that subject, then they can feel free to delve deeper into it from more authoritative sources. The Wikipedia is not meant to be ultimately authoritative. The set of Encyclopedia Britanica Year books I have at home prove that to me. In the early 50s, their music reviewer (a supposed expert) claimed that rock and roll was a fad of insanity where children wanted to play and listen to tribal rhythms. Apparently, he was wrong since rock and roll had a long life beyond the 1950s. By the 1957 edition, he had been replaced by someone who was a little more flexible in their thinking. By the previous expert's opinions, I'm sure that the new reviewer was one the "rabble" or the "hoi polloi" who didn't understand the value of real music vs. those tribal jungle rhythms. (Note: the older reviewer did refer to rock music in increasingly racial terms between 1955 and 1956 editions, I believe)
My point is that there can be no experts because information is not immutable. It always changes and updates are required. Homosexuality used to be considered a psychological disorder that could be "cured". Blacks used to be considered sub-human as they didn't possess souls. These views are quite obviously wrong. But if you would have checked with an expert of the past, those are the answers you would have gotten. If Wikipedia never reaches a point where the information is 100% reliable at all times, it doesn't matter because it still does the job of opening minds to new subjects and areas of knowledge. I say, kick this guy in the bollocks and charge forward. If we want people to be armed with knowledge, Wikipedia is a pretty darn good tool.
A Wikipedia Admin's reply (Score:5, Informative)
First, about the title of this thread - calling Larry Sanger a co-founder of Wikipedia is a bit of a stretch. It's before my time, but I know several people who were around from those days found this objectionable. As I understand it, Larry was more involved in Nupedia (now defunct). Wikipedia was started to augment Nupedia, and (as I understand it) the idea was Jimbo Wales'.
Now, this "lack of public perception of credibility" Larry mentions - this is misleading. Wikipedia is (as others on this thread have said) an experiment. However, I don't think the public percieves us as uncredible. I think it would be more accurate to say that the public is still making up its mind. Yes, there is some inaccurate information in Wikipedia - the same can be said [wikimedia.org] of Britannica. However, Wikipedia has been cited in in books, [wikipedia.org] in academic studies [wikipedia.org], in conferences, and in court cases [wikipedia.org]. If the public really though of Wikipedia as a unreliable source, then I don't think that it would be drawing in these kinds of references
The next problem Larry mentiosn is the trolls. The arbitration committee was formed about a year ago as a way for Jimbo Wales (the actual founder of Wikipedia) to devolve his powers to the community. In particular, he appointed a committee of 12 users who would have the right to issue decrees and such - the ability to prohibit people from doing certain things, or ban them, 'etc etc. The primary (and pretty much only) complaint against the committee to date has been that it has been too slow to act. On the other hand, I think if you were to ask the average user what he thinks, the trolling problem has been getting much better in recent months - just look at the list of complete cases [wikipedia.org]. Several long time trouble makers are currently banned (and if they come back, it resets the clock on their ban). I know one recently banned user (troll) said (before he was banned) how much he hated it, how much the "cabal" had taken over, 'etc. If the trolls are saying this, I take it as a good sign. Beyond that, I can't really reply to Larry's nebulous complaint about trolling because he's really not saying a whole lot there.
Larry's third (and perhaps only concrete point - IE, specifically refutable point) is that he claims Wikipedia has a lack of respect for experts. Nonsense, I say. As a rule of thumb, we expect that everyone (experts and laymen alike), if requested, can cite specific sources to justify their edits. In this respect, it is no different than Academia. Quite frankly (and this is my personal opinion) I think a great majority of the editing disputes could be solved by requiring disputants to cite and/or quote reputable sources. On the other hand, Larry's asseration that "But if the expert should have the gall to complain to the community about the problem, he or she will be shouted down (at worst) or politely asked to "work with" persons who have proven themselves to be unreasonable (at best)." - I think this gets more to the heart of how Wikipedia works. If you want to contribut
Compounding the Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Which would only further erode the influence of experts who would, by definition, post their own knowledge of the subject.
Instead, you would have people simply regurgitate what they read somewhere else, without any way to validate whether or not they correctly interpreted the information.
Missing the point... (Score:4, Insightful)
Wikipedia was built on the backs of the thousands of users who have contributed to it. Some of these contributors were bona fide academic experts in a specific field, others were just interest amateurs. But in both cases, they contributed because they could, and, most importantly, because the entire philosophy of the project not only allows for, but encourages, that sort of contribution. We've reached the point where we people can start to take Wikipedia seriously enough to ponder questions like the ones Mr. Sanger brings up.
Wikipedia is not anti-elitist. That's a downright silly allegation. It does not specially privilege "elites," but they are likewise no more discriminated against than anyone else. The problem Mr. Sanger is addressing is ultimately not how eliminate anti-elitism, but how to institute pro-elitism. Which is absolutely fine, if your goal is to produce a traditional encyclopedia the likes of Britannica. But to encourage a special privilege for experts conversely discourages the participation of non-experts: if you make it so that average users can no longer edit Wikipedia articles, or make it enough of a chore that they no longer want to, then the entire project isn't Wikipedia anymore. And what's worse is if you appropriate the work they've already contributed in the process. It's the functional equivalent of a software company hosting an open source project which then they turn around and close once it's progressed to a certain point.
But more than that, it's a denial of what's gotten Wikipedia to where it is now in the first place. Without the active participation of all users, expert or not, it's unlikely Wikipedia would have gotten very far to begin with. To change it into something it isn't (and never aspired to be) now is silly. To imply that the contributions of non-experts are no longer desired because otherwise Wikipedia will never occupy the same privileged position as Encyclopedia Britannica is misguided. Wikipedia is not Britannica. It does some things better than Britannica, and it does some things worse than Britannica. While some specific failings can be addressed whilst maintaining the core of the Wikipedia philosophy, the key is to do so without damaging that which Wikipedia does well.
Larry Sanger hasn't been on Wikipedia in years. (Score:3, Insightful)
Science and politics (Score:3, Insightful)
As far as pages pertaining to say Israel and Palestine, I think quality control is hopeless. I am perfectly happy to get into flame (or revert) wars on Wikipedia, but even I'm scared to go into that section. Different people have very different views on certain historical and political issues. I do not mind the idea of some kind of peer review for scientific articles, but I would be very suspicious of such a process related to say the Israel and Palestine pages, or the Northern Ireland pages, or the George W. Bush and John Kerry pages and so forth. Wikipedia already have administrators who are ideological fanatics. I'm thinking of four of them right now - two are hard-core right-wingers, one is a social democrat (Americans would say liberal) who is nonetheless fanatically anti-communist, and the other is far-left.
I don't believe objectivity exists in historical and political matters. Wikipedia incorporates the now public domain 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, and some of the material in there would appear biased, racist, sexist and so forth to our modern eyes. English Wikipedia is mostly comprised of citizens of England and its former colonies, including the US. Relative to the half of the world living on less than $2 a day and whom have never made a phone call, these are relatively privileged people, and Wikipedia is a subset of even these people since Internet users and Wikipedians are more likely to be college-educated than from some ghetto or even a blue-collar household. This alone makes for a very elitist and skewed view of the world. For example, in the 1950's, there were lots of accusations in the US that the Bandung Conference was some kind of communist ploy, which in my opinion is far removed from reality. A person from India or some other third world country would have had a more realistic view of this I think. Then again, the rest of the world has some odd ideas about the US, perhaps they watch Baywatch, Friends, and shows like that and think that is what life in the US is really like.
The link in the article to Wikinfo [wikinfo.org] is a fork of Wikipedia, one run by a right-wing Wikipedia user who thinks Wikipedia is too left-wing. There are forks by left-wing people who think Wikipedia is too right-wing by left-wing users as well - the "liberal Democrat" DKosopedia [dkosopedia.com] and the anarchist English Anarchopedia [anarchopedia.org] and Infoshop's OpenWiki [infoshop.org]. Wikipedia articles are GFDL so forks are easy.
Wikipedia should be able to handle science articles on biology and so forth, although speciality forks might appear by people who realize the Man's conspiracy to cover up the reality of orgone energy [wikipedia.org] (please consult Robert A. Wilson). More likely, people will realize Wikipedia pages on the Israel/Palestine conflict will always be in flux depending on the time of day, and will go off and start wikis pertaining to primarily politics and history and other social science types topics. But outside of what touches upon the social world, Wikipedia should be able to handle it.
At the risk of being drowned out (Score:4, Informative)
Am I alone in thinking wikipedia should A) have experts come in and run a "stable" version of the encyclopedia and that B) a Google scholars type function is right up wiki's ally?
Re:At the risk of being drowned out (Score:4, Insightful)
The dates of her birth and death check out, as is her appearance on the 5000-yen note. The year of her father's death is also right. I'm wondering about her siblings...? Beyond that, I haven't the time to fact check, and it's not in my field.
Luckily I ran it by my professor before handing it in, but I will never use Wikipedia as a source on a paper again.
Glad to hear it. I'm kind of surprised that a university professor wouldn't bite your head off for using an encyclopedia as a reference in an academic paper anyway--there should be better sources than a three-paragraph Wikipedia article.
I do still visit wikipedia when I need general information but I even take that with a major grain of salt.
Great! That's what encyclopedias are for.
Am I alone in thinking wikipedia should A) have experts come in and run a "stable" version of the encyclopedia
Perfect. And at twenty-five edits per minute, with one minute to review each edit, you'll just need a full-time team of a hundred highly-qualified fact checkers. That will cost, what, five million or so per year? This assumes that the rate of growth of Wikipedia does not increase, and that existing articles are not also reviewed.
Trust (Score:3, Insightful)
And so facts, like opinions, largely become either trusted or untrusted, rather than verified. Wikipedia should implement a ratings system somewhat like that of slashdot, with these features:
For an example of a trust metric, check out Advogato [advogato.org].
I do not mean to say that there is no such thing as objective truth or reality, there indeed is such a thing. But geographical distance, time passed, lack of measuring equipment, and other factors mean that in a very practical and real sense, "knowing" truth in many cases is reduced to a matter of trust and intuition. There is such a thing as expertise, but qualifying expertise is, in the end, a matter of trust.
Debating this point is worthwhile, because it can be difficult to grasp and should not be accepted lightly. But neither should we go around in circles never acknowledging this point or moving past it. In the end, filtering reality through a sytem of trust, tailored to the individual, is something that should be reflected in entities such as wikipedia.
Re:Fork (Score:3, Insightful)
Sometimes I think it would be easier to grab the whole damned thing, strip out what isn't in topic...
So do that. Why is forking a bad thing? I thought that was the whole point of open-source.
Re:Sour Grapes. (Score:2)
Take your own advice and shut up, otherwise stop spewing silly platitudes.
Either idiotic response or excellent satire (Score:4, Insightful)
There is a decidedly revisionist, politically correct, liberal, secular humanist bent to the Wikipedia that prevents it from becoming an entirely reliable source. Accuracy isn't nearly as encouraged as non-offensiveness. Anyone who dealt with the flames on the Bush and Kerry campaign can see that easily.
Re:Either idiotic response or excellent satire (Score:4, Insightful)
This isn't 100% right IMO. By lumping all that together you make it seem as though "political correctness" is still exclusively a tool of the left, which simply isn't true. The techniques of PC, making your opponent look like a bad guy because of what they've said or the way they said it, appealing to sentiment rather than engaging their arguments, is pretty skillfully used by the right nowadays. All done in the service of the greater good, of course...
Pretty much everything you've mentioned except the "secular humanist" bit are offenses the right are quite frequently guilty of. That's politics, I guess, but it has spread beyond the political campaigns into the "discourse," which is sort of sad.
Re:How fast can you say lawsuit (Score:2)
Re:Anti-elitism is what the net is all about (Score:3, Interesting)
The bottom line is that I am an elitist, and I think its a good idea. Shouldn't the smartest people b
and techcentralstation (Score:3, Interesting)
Encyclopedias and "Facts" (Score:3, Insightful)
This is naive. Encyclopedias aren't just catalogues of facts. The majority of entries involve someone's interpretation of the item being described. In commercial encyclopedias, the issue of objectivity was addressed by a process involving peer review, editors, and other checks and balances that attempt to prevent obvious abuses in which a contributor gets to promote their own points of view over others.
This has its limits, th
Re:My argument against Wikipedia (Score:5, Insightful)
I think criticism of Wikipedia generally tends to miss the fact that most contributors recognize that bad data can sneak in, and that it's impossible to ensure 100% reliability. The rationale for Wikipedia merely suggests that the "open" approach offers some benefits not available to traditional encyclopedias (specifically, the breadth of specialized, niche or quickly changing information).
As someone who is an "expert" in at least one field (MLS degree), I tend to think that most criticism of Wikipedia is a bit naive: it overlooks shortcomings of traditional reference sources (print encyclopedias, etc.) simply because most people are familiar with them. We know how to read Encyclopedia Britannica, we know what to expect, and we know what to look out for, even if we often do so unconsciously. Wikipedia is an entirely new approach, and most people are still approaching it as they would traditional sources. Once things settle down and people become used to the idiosyncracies of Wikipedia as they have to other sources, I think it will be recognized for what it is: a valuable reference source that does not replace traditional encyclopedias anymore than traditional encyclopedias replaced research lithographs.
(Not to suggest that there aren't things that can be done to tweak Wikipedia so that, in Mr. Sanger's words, "the general public can regard [it] as reliable." But I think that's really something quite different than the sort of radical departure most such suggestions invariably seem to take.)
Re:Statistical Fully Democratic Wikipedia (Score:3, Insightful)
For instance, I'm sure that if one solicited calls for 'balance' on Adolf Hitler, one could get LOTS of claims from his proponents suggesting all sorts of positives about him, blaming everybody but the Germans for the Second World War due to the Versaille Treaty, denying the Final Solution, attributing the Nazi defeat to Jewish Bolshevik traitors, or whatever. Personally, I'm inclined to think that any properly balanced view of him in terms of histo