5 ms·

Curious, what areas do you find are usually flat out wrong? The math sections seem to be pretty good. A friend found a flaw in a crypto algorithm though.

by kyled 10y ago

Ralfp 10y ago
I've eventually learned to limit my usage of the Wikipedia to science, distant history, and synopsis of works of popular culture while avoiding like plague current politics and ongoing events. ...but thats on english wiki only. As pole understanding english, I despair for my natives trying to use polish wikipedia, because here politics creep everywhere. I remember what a disaster polish's article on Big Bang was before its ridiculous state was called out and went viral in sceptic circles as being plainly antiscientific. Until then it's contents were more fittingly titled as "philosophical and religious criticisms of Big Bang theory". Remnants of those may be found in Article's discussion which filled with philosophical and religious debate about Big bang.
- belorn 10y ago
  Honest question, what alternative do you use instead? HN mostly links to news article, and I would question if current politics and ongoing events are more accurately written by news media and with less bias. I don't know about polish news companies, but its not uncommon elsewhere that news companies are openly biased towards one political party or bias their articles towards their main customer group (UK example from Yes, Minister: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGscoaUWW2M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGscoaUWW2M). We have books or research papers, but meta research generally acknowledge that researchers include bias into their work, often linked to the opinion of those that funds the research. Meta research is thus generally a bit better, especially the meta-meta-research papers, through it generally takes a quite political contested topic for that to happen which then further increase the risk of bias by the meta researchers selecting results that favors their side.
  - notcolin 10y ago
    In terms of news, I use Haystack (http://www.haystack.tv http://www.haystack.tv). It aggregates YouTube videos from various media sources daily, much of it American (then again, that might be intentional). You can also pick and choose specific sources and topics you want to follow, even cast to Chromecast. The developer(s) are pretty responsive too and the app is free. My only frustration is that it only aggregates videos on YouTube. If you want to get video news segments from media companies that publish their videos to a proprietary CDN or hosting service, you can't use it with Haystack.
yongjik 10y ago
Topics of contention between two nations (or worse, between two political factions inside a nation) are usually suspect. Even if every sentence is meticulously sourced, you can't tell if someone is "lying by omission." Basically, the tone of the article is determined by which country (or faction) can muster more people with free time and passable English skills, which may not correspond to actual expertise on the topic... I agree that math/physics sections are pretty good. It's difficult for knowledgeable people to disagree on these matters...
- jessriedel 10y ago
  > Even if every sentence is meticulously sourced, you can't tell if someone is "lying by omission." This is a problem for literally every source on Earth, and persists even among the most prestigious newspapers, books, etc.
  - hackuser 10y ago
    > This is a problem for literally every source on Earth, and persists even among the most prestigious newspapers, books, etc. That's true but practically meaningless. Some sources are dramatically more reliable and accurate than others. I can't completely trust my 4 year old nephew about physics, nor can I completely trust a leading physics text book, but that doesn't make those sources similarly reliable. What we're discussing here is where Wikipedia falls on that continuum. I agree with the GP; there is so much deception by omission in WP that I don't trust it. For example, I was just looking at (American) football player Peyton Manning's article; it completely omitted a major sexual assault/harassment allegation, one about which there was a court settlement, book, major news coverage, etc.
    - jessriedel 10y ago
      I mean explicitly that Wikipedia does as least as good on lying by omission as the most reputable sources (NYTimes, the Wall Street Journal, whatever).
      - 10y ago
thebooktocome 10y ago
The math sections are okay up to what a typical mechanical engineer would know. My own sub-field is very poorly covered.
- gravypod 10y ago
  Do you submit corrections?
  - flubert 10y ago
    Do you? Seems like there should be a xkcd covering this. The usual case as near as I can tell is something like: Make a minor correction to an obvious error, including a link to a source and other wikipedia articles. Edit gets immediately reverted by whoever has declared themselves the guardian of that particular page. Talk page lights up with all sorts of tangential discussion of whether or not this particular subtopic should be corrected or deleted or reworded or something else. Someone else tries making a modification, which again is immediately reverted. People who enjoy the drama have a self-interested desire to perpetuate it. If you are lucky you could go back 6 months later and there's maybe a 50% chance that the original has been corrected (that's if the original topic hasn't come into contact with the non-notable deletionists). Anyone know when C2 became a javascriptified dumpster fire? Seems like that's a "Day the Music Died" event that should have a date associated with it.
    - maccard 10y ago
      (Not OP) I have in the past, and my experience was that the talk page was civil, my changes were discussed and we came to a common agreement as to what the change should be. Nothing like the fiasco you're describing. You still haven't answered the question though; do you submit corrections?
      - flubert 10y ago
        >You still haven't answered the question though; I was never asked a question until now (N.B. the original posters). > do you submit corrections? I haven't for years (as in over 5+ years). I'm sure someone will point out it is different now.
simonsarris 10y ago
Really? I find many math topics to be covered extremely poorly, and presume a lot of prior knowledge without linking to that knowledge. Plenty of philosophy articles are also very poor. For example the page on Deconstruction, though its better than it was ~4 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction
- noobermin 10y ago
  >Really? I find many math topics to be covered extremely poorly, and presume a lot of prior knowledge without linking to that knowledge. At what level, an ELI5 level or the level of people who are actually going to look that stuff up?
  - Larrikin 10y ago
    I think all articles should be at formers level since people with a deeper knowledge will be using sites, books, etc where that deeper knowledge is assumed. If they aren't already they can get started by reading reading the sources in the article
    - noobermin 10y ago
      It is an encyclopedia, not a collection of tutorials. That seems more appropriate for something like wikibooks. Otherwise, every single article would be in inordinately long with a lot of redundancy. I like it better in which pre-requisites are often linked to other pages, so you can brush up on the pre-req's if you don't understand them.
    - throwaway2048 10y ago
      wikipedia is a reference, reference material isnt teaching material.
  - ghaff 10y ago
    Many of them seem to be written/edited by people who are more interested in using an equation editor than in trying to explain the topic. I don't necessarily expect ELI5 level but I wonder how many people who don't already understand the topic in depth can decode most of those math pages. They dive into a lot of jargon and rarely attempt to provide any real context that a non-specialist can understand. I understand that it's hard to do and it also reflects the fact that Wikipedia pages are wildly variable in the audience they're written for.
_0ffh 10y ago
I find that quality on technical and mathematical subjects varies wildly. I remember once looking up a very specific topic, just to be sure that I don't misremember a certain simple but crucial core relation. What I found was a page that was so shockingly disorganised that I had to wade through 5 pages of mindbendingly complexified, quasi-obscurantist... drivel... just to extract that central piece of information that really should have been mentioned in the bit above the TOC, or at least easy to find. So, YMMV.

Curious, what areas do you find are usually flat out wrong? The math sections seem to be pretty good. A friend found a flaw in a crypto algorithm though.

by kyled 10y ago

Curious, what areas do you find are usually flat out wrong? The math sections seem to be pretty good. A friend found a flaw in a crypto algorithm though.

Ralfp 10y ago

I've eventually learned to limit my usage of the Wikipedia to science, distant history, and synopsis of works of popular culture while avoiding like plague current politics and ongoing events. ...but thats on english wiki only. As pole understanding english, I despair for my natives trying to use polish wikipedia, because here politics creep everywhere. I remember what a disaster polish's article on Big Bang was before its ridiculous state was called out and went viral in sceptic circles as being plainly antiscientific. Until then it's contents were more fittingly titled as "philosophical and religious criticisms of Big Bang theory". Remnants of those may be found in Article's discussion which filled with philosophical and religious debate about Big bang.

belorn 10y ago
Honest question, what alternative do you use instead? HN mostly links to news article, and I would question if current politics and ongoing events are more accurately written by news media and with less bias. I don't know about polish news companies, but its not uncommon elsewhere that news companies are openly biased towards one political party or bias their articles towards their main customer group (UK example from Yes, Minister: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGscoaUWW2M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGscoaUWW2M). We have books or research papers, but meta research generally acknowledge that researchers include bias into their work, often linked to the opinion of those that funds the research. Meta research is thus generally a bit better, especially the meta-meta-research papers, through it generally takes a quite political contested topic for that to happen which then further increase the risk of bias by the meta researchers selecting results that favors their side.
- notcolin 10y ago
  In terms of news, I use Haystack (http://www.haystack.tv http://www.haystack.tv). It aggregates YouTube videos from various media sources daily, much of it American (then again, that might be intentional). You can also pick and choose specific sources and topics you want to follow, even cast to Chromecast. The developer(s) are pretty responsive too and the app is free. My only frustration is that it only aggregates videos on YouTube. If you want to get video news segments from media companies that publish their videos to a proprietary CDN or hosting service, you can't use it with Haystack.

yongjik 10y ago

Topics of contention between two nations (or worse, between two political factions inside a nation) are usually suspect. Even if every sentence is meticulously sourced, you can't tell if someone is "lying by omission." Basically, the tone of the article is determined by which country (or faction) can muster more people with free time and passable English skills, which may not correspond to actual expertise on the topic... I agree that math/physics sections are pretty good. It's difficult for knowledgeable people to disagree on these matters...

jessriedel 10y ago
> Even if every sentence is meticulously sourced, you can't tell if someone is "lying by omission." This is a problem for literally every source on Earth, and persists even among the most prestigious newspapers, books, etc.
- hackuser 10y ago
  > This is a problem for literally every source on Earth, and persists even among the most prestigious newspapers, books, etc. That's true but practically meaningless. Some sources are dramatically more reliable and accurate than others. I can't completely trust my 4 year old nephew about physics, nor can I completely trust a leading physics text book, but that doesn't make those sources similarly reliable. What we're discussing here is where Wikipedia falls on that continuum. I agree with the GP; there is so much deception by omission in WP that I don't trust it. For example, I was just looking at (American) football player Peyton Manning's article; it completely omitted a major sexual assault/harassment allegation, one about which there was a court settlement, book, major news coverage, etc.
  - jessriedel 10y ago
    I mean explicitly that Wikipedia does as least as good on lying by omission as the most reputable sources (NYTimes, the Wall Street Journal, whatever).
    - 10y ago

thebooktocome 10y ago

The math sections are okay up to what a typical mechanical engineer would know. My own sub-field is very poorly covered.

gravypod 10y ago
Do you submit corrections?
- flubert 10y ago
  Do you? Seems like there should be a xkcd covering this. The usual case as near as I can tell is something like: Make a minor correction to an obvious error, including a link to a source and other wikipedia articles. Edit gets immediately reverted by whoever has declared themselves the guardian of that particular page. Talk page lights up with all sorts of tangential discussion of whether or not this particular subtopic should be corrected or deleted or reworded or something else. Someone else tries making a modification, which again is immediately reverted. People who enjoy the drama have a self-interested desire to perpetuate it. If you are lucky you could go back 6 months later and there's maybe a 50% chance that the original has been corrected (that's if the original topic hasn't come into contact with the non-notable deletionists). Anyone know when C2 became a javascriptified dumpster fire? Seems like that's a "Day the Music Died" event that should have a date associated with it.
  - maccard 10y ago
    (Not OP) I have in the past, and my experience was that the talk page was civil, my changes were discussed and we came to a common agreement as to what the change should be. Nothing like the fiasco you're describing. You still haven't answered the question though; do you submit corrections?
    - flubert 10y ago
      >You still haven't answered the question though; I was never asked a question until now (N.B. the original posters). > do you submit corrections? I haven't for years (as in over 5+ years). I'm sure someone will point out it is different now.

simonsarris 10y ago

Really? I find many math topics to be covered extremely poorly, and presume a lot of prior knowledge without linking to that knowledge. Plenty of philosophy articles are also very poor. For example the page on Deconstruction, though its better than it was ~4 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction

noobermin 10y ago
>Really? I find many math topics to be covered extremely poorly, and presume a lot of prior knowledge without linking to that knowledge. At what level, an ELI5 level or the level of people who are actually going to look that stuff up?
- Larrikin 10y ago
  I think all articles should be at formers level since people with a deeper knowledge will be using sites, books, etc where that deeper knowledge is assumed. If they aren't already they can get started by reading reading the sources in the article
  - noobermin 10y ago
    It is an encyclopedia, not a collection of tutorials. That seems more appropriate for something like wikibooks. Otherwise, every single article would be in inordinately long with a lot of redundancy. I like it better in which pre-requisites are often linked to other pages, so you can brush up on the pre-req's if you don't understand them.
  - throwaway2048 10y ago
    wikipedia is a reference, reference material isnt teaching material.
- ghaff 10y ago
  Many of them seem to be written/edited by people who are more interested in using an equation editor than in trying to explain the topic. I don't necessarily expect ELI5 level but I wonder how many people who don't already understand the topic in depth can decode most of those math pages. They dive into a lot of jargon and rarely attempt to provide any real context that a non-specialist can understand. I understand that it's hard to do and it also reflects the fact that Wikipedia pages are wildly variable in the audience they're written for.

_0ffh 10y ago

I find that quality on technical and mathematical subjects varies wildly. I remember once looking up a very specific topic, just to be sure that I don't misremember a certain simple but crucial core relation. What I found was a page that was so shockingly disorganised that I had to wade through 5 pages of mindbendingly complexified, quasi-obscurantist... drivel... just to extract that central piece of information that really should have been mentioned in the bit above the TOC, or at least easy to find. So, YMMV.