3 ms·

Good grief. Wikipedia has a problem with pages that can only be evaluated by experts. They could be perfectly good, or they could be advancing an agenda. I n

Good grief. Wikipedia has a problem with pages that can only be evaluated by experts. They could be perfectly good, or they could be advancing an agenda. I noticed this with their page on the Analytic Hierarchy Process, which is a somewhat scammy group decision making technique promoted by a cult-like group of business consultants. (I've compared it to Scientology -- it has a charismatic leader and even uses special electronic gizmos to make you feel like it's more sciency.) It's hard to fix the page because nothing on it is wrong, exactly. But its sheer length and loving detail, and the utter lack of criticism or reference to alternatives, makes AHP sound way more legit than it actually is.

Bartweiss 10y ago
I think that even more broadly, Wikipedia is incapable of handling any topic primarily of interest to a narrow 'interest group'. Those topics have a limited number of people who are qualified to work on the article, and it's possible that there will be one who is qualified, interested, and unaffiliated to do the editing. At one extreme, the result is what's linked here: unqualified editors produce inaccurate content, and reject anyone more qualified as having a conflict of interest. In the worst case, knowing enough to edit competently becomes evidence of bias, and the chances of producing an accurate article drop to 0. At the other is the pattern you described. I don't know AHP, but several of the articles on personality tests suffer from similar-sounding issues. They're not wrong, but they've very visibly been edited by true believers, and the tone is bizarrely approving (or, at times, disapproving). You get pieces with 5,000 words of praise, followed by 100 weasel-words of 'Criticism', simply because the believers cared enough to go dig up sources and write good content. I'm not sure there's any good way to break through this dichotomy, since the problem is a shortage of people qualified to analyze the article. I do know, though, that it only takes a tiny amount of malfeasance to move the problem from bad to catastrophic. For instance, the EOMA68 article saw the hideous sequence of someone deleting sources, then using unsourced claims as grounds for a deletion request. Wikipedia does have some issues with bullying by senior editors, and in fragile cases like this it can have enormous consequences.
- sevensor 10y ago
  > In the worst case, knowing enough to edit competently becomes evidence of bias, and the chances of producing an accurate article drop to 0. This is why I haven't edited the AHP page, in fact. I know AHP is an inferior approach for a host of technical reasons, but the fact that I've drawn that conclusion means I can't maintain a neutral point of view.
hinkley 10y ago
What is the encyclopedic value of an article that can only be evaluated by experts in the field? Maybe we're trying to use Wikipedia as a dumping ground for all knowledge that can be catalogued without really thinking if there are more appropriate locations for it. An encyclopedia article is normally about starting points. It's supposed to begin the process of unpacking a concept and introduce some ideas, papers, books and actors, to serve as a vehicle for an in depth reading on the subject.
- sevensor 10y ago
  I agree about the purpose of the encyclopedia, but I think only experts are in a position to guide non-experts towards a deeper understanding of a subject. This is what I see as Wikipedia's basic problem. They need experts to write coherent articles, but they want unbiased content. All experts are biased by their expertise, which leaves Wikipedia in a bind. In practice, biased experts write biased articles. In the best case, they try to be as even-handed as possible, but the worst case devolves into the situation described in the article we're discussing, or the AHP page I mentioned elsewhere in this thread. Edit: to your point about basic information, I think it's going to be difficult finding where to draw the line.

Bartweiss 10y ago

I think that even more broadly, Wikipedia is incapable of handling any topic primarily of interest to a narrow 'interest group'. Those topics have a limited number of people who are qualified to work on the article, and it's possible that there will be one who is qualified, interested, and unaffiliated to do the editing. At one extreme, the result is what's linked here: unqualified editors produce inaccurate content, and reject anyone more qualified as having a conflict of interest. In the worst case, knowing enough to edit competently becomes evidence of bias, and the chances of producing an accurate article drop to 0. At the other is the pattern you described. I don't know AHP, but several of the articles on personality tests suffer from similar-sounding issues. They're not wrong, but they've very visibly been edited by true believers, and the tone is bizarrely approving (or, at times, disapproving). You get pieces with 5,000 words of praise, followed by 100 weasel-words of 'Criticism', simply because the believers cared enough to go dig up sources and write good content. I'm not sure there's any good way to break through this dichotomy, since the problem is a shortage of people qualified to analyze the article. I do know, though, that it only takes a tiny amount of malfeasance to move the problem from bad to catastrophic. For instance, the EOMA68 article saw the hideous sequence of someone deleting sources, then using unsourced claims as grounds for a deletion request. Wikipedia does have some issues with bullying by senior editors, and in fragile cases like this it can have enormous consequences.

sevensor 10y ago
> In the worst case, knowing enough to edit competently becomes evidence of bias, and the chances of producing an accurate article drop to 0. This is why I haven't edited the AHP page, in fact. I know AHP is an inferior approach for a host of technical reasons, but the fact that I've drawn that conclusion means I can't maintain a neutral point of view.

hinkley 10y ago

What is the encyclopedic value of an article that can only be evaluated by experts in the field? Maybe we're trying to use Wikipedia as a dumping ground for all knowledge that can be catalogued without really thinking if there are more appropriate locations for it. An encyclopedia article is normally about starting points. It's supposed to begin the process of unpacking a concept and introduce some ideas, papers, books and actors, to serve as a vehicle for an in depth reading on the subject.

sevensor 10y ago
I agree about the purpose of the encyclopedia, but I think only experts are in a position to guide non-experts towards a deeper understanding of a subject. This is what I see as Wikipedia's basic problem. They need experts to write coherent articles, but they want unbiased content. All experts are biased by their expertise, which leaves Wikipedia in a bind. In practice, biased experts write biased articles. In the best case, they try to be as even-handed as possible, but the worst case devolves into the situation described in the article we're discussing, or the AHP page I mentioned elsewhere in this thread. Edit: to your point about basic information, I think it's going to be difficult finding where to draw the line.