10 ms·
Why Wikipedia cannot claim the earth is not flat
- Analemma_ 9y agoThe key point to remember is that Wikiepedia's goal is "verifiability, not truth". With that one fact they neatly sidestep a lot of the arguments from cranks and whatnot about including this or that fringe view out of a commitment to "truth". Truth isn't their goal: Wikipedia is meant to be an accumulation of best-guess knowledge at the current time. It may seem like a lower goal, but that's all any encyclopedia was ever supposed to be.
- 1ris 9y agoGiven that almost all sources that constitute verifiability will happily copy and paste anything that is in wikipedia, it is arbitrary what is verifiable. If is long enouh in there it will never get out. https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/how-a-raccoon-became-an-aardvark https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/how-a-raccoon-became...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- jabretti 9y agoIt's possible nowadays with a bit of effort to create entirely new "facts" via a one-two shuffle between news sources and Wikipedia. First, you publish an article on some news source, asserting the fact. Then you update Wikipedia with that fact, citing your own article. Other news sources check Wikipedia, find your new fact, and incorporate it into their own articles. Now you have a bunch of extra sources for your Wikipedia article.
- merlincorey 9y agoThis is called Circular Reporting[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_reporting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_reporting
- AstralStorm 9y agoAnd the requisite xkcd joke, in which it is called citogenesis. (Not to be confused with cytogenesis.) https://m.xkcd.com/978/ https://m.xkcd.com/978/
- falcor84 9y agoAnd, of course, this then made its way to Wikipedia too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_citogenesis_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_citogenesis_...
- qubex 9y agoWell played, sir.
- snori74 9y agoExcept that any reputable "news source" won't let random people post stories with made up facts - and Wikipedia editors will shoot down disreputable sources such as your personal own blog.
- vidarh 9y agoYes, but you just need it to survive long enough to get quoted somewhere more reputable.
- boomlinde 9y agoThe brazilian aardvark is an interesting example because it created a genuine fact. It is now also known as the brazilian Aardvark with no caveats. It is more concerning if this happens with statements that aren't as self fulfilling. For example, saying that Elvis is alive to enough people doesn't somehow make it so.
- alvis 9y agoLove to see you making the point. Although we can hardly believe that there are still someone believing in the flat world, telling them the truth/fact does not help, as we perhaps once thought advices from our parents are not genuinely made for the sake of us. Ultimately, we learn by reading and experiencing, not by being told. Hence, wikiepedia's goal to provide verifiable information makes the trick. It is the best way to allow us to explore and learn, and hence form our belief about the truth.
- phnofive 9y agoIllustrated very well by 'How to reply' in pt.4: > Point out that if Wikipedia had been around at the time of Galileo, it would have had a duty to report the claims of the Catholic church as fact, without qualification, despite the conspiracy that undoubtedly existed.
- jabretti 9y agoThis is fine as far as flat Earthism goes, but flat Earthism is a ridiculous outlier even among ridiculous fringe theories. By making your prototypical example of a dubious minority opinion the flat Earth theory, I think you risk falling into bad mental habits. If you go round thinking "people who disagree with me on subject X are just like flat Earthers" then you're doing both them and yourself a disservice -- yourself because no matter who you are it's certain that on some issues it's you who are wrong. What I'm saying is that flat Earth is a bad example because it maps poorly onto just about any other real-world disagreement.
- phnofive 9y agoIt's an extreme example, and therefore does invite a tendency to easily dismiss non-mainstream thought, but that's intentional within Wikipedia. The 'how to reply' sections make it clear what most fringe theories try to rely on to convince editors, but Wikipedia is not a place for convincing - it is a catalog of what's currently, broadly accepted.
- jabretti 9y ago>Wikipedia is not a place for convincing - it is a catalog of what's currently, broadly accepted. That's true, and it should be the case. But how do we distinguish between "that which is currently broadly accepted" and "that which is currently the leading theory but other theories are also quite widely accepted" and "that which is probably the leading theory, by a narrow margin, but then again might not be, because nobody does polls on this stuff, so we're basically just going by what wikipedia editors reckon"? What, for instance, should we do if 80% of people believe theory A and 20% of people believe theory B? (Suppose this is one of those rare cases where we're fortunate enough to have actual polls).
- cooper12 9y agoYou present both, as long the 20% one is actually represented by reliable sources, and then you balance the article appropriately. There're quite a few subjects on Wikipedia for which there is yet no scholarly consensus but different viewpoints exist.
- labster 9y agoIf Wikipedia thinks the Earth is flat, I didn't realize that a neutral point of view was moving, relative to the Earth, so close to the speed of light.
- PaulRobinson 9y agoWikipedia does not think the Earth is flat.
- pmontra 9y agoAbout the origin of the flat Earth myth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth Tldr, it's from the end of 19th century.
- PaulRobinson 9y agoNo, that's not what that article is about. It's not about the misconception that the Earth is flat. It's about the myth that medieval Europeans believed the Earth is flat. That's not the same thing.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- coldtea 9y agoPerhaps you didn't read the parent's link? It too is about the "the myth that medieval Europeans believed the Earth is flat" and not about "the misconception that the Earth is flat". It's just that it's called the "flat Earth myth" (instead of "flat Earth belief in the middle ages myth").
- PaulRobinson 9y agoTPA is a Wikipedia explanation about why Wikipedia can not argue the earth is not flat. The linked article I was replying about was done so in the context that the Earth is flat is a 19th century myth. I was explaining the article they were linking to was not related to the same subject.
- coldtea 9y agoThe parent didn't say his link was about the same subject (to the original article). They just added the information that the belief that the middle ages believed the earth is flat is recent-ish. His "Tl;dr" was meant to be for the link he provided, not the original article.
- libeclipse 9y agoWell Wikipedia can claim that the speed of light is around 3x10^8 ms^-1. Wikipedia can claim that gravity exists, and that fish live in the sea. The fact that the earth is an oblate spheroid is a scientific fact with just as much certainty as the other claims are. Being neutrality minded doesn't mean you can't outright dismiss false beliefs.
- aidenn0 9y agoThis article assumes the reader is aware that the earth is not flat. It uses the example of arguments in favor of the view the earth is flat to expose the inherent problems with arguments of that form, so that editors who are faced with less obvious truths can recognize such specious arguments.
- idrios 9y agoThis was really interesting and I feel like I learned a bit more about how to deal with unreasonable people on the internet (and maybe recognize if I'm being unreasonable myself?) > ...even if there is a slim chance beliefs on the margin may eventually gain wide consensus (as happened with the proposals of the round Earth in Archaic Periods and continental drift before the mechanism of plate tectonics...) After reading this line, I'm curious how this article would read with an example that was once a fringe theory that ultimately did gain widespread consensus.
- colejohnson66 9y agoI was taught in elementary school (college age now) that people thought the Earth was flat until Columbus came alone to prove everyone wrong. That false statement that has some widespread consensus. My parents were taught it also.
- vidarh 9y agoThat one is a particularly weird one, given that there are so many obvious and well known examples to counter it. Case in point, Dante's Divine Comedy (EDIT: Which the linked article does mention at the end) - completed 1320 - contains a very explicit description of the earth being round, complete with describing time differences due to the sun rising and setting at different times (Purgatory explicitly mentions that at the same time there is sunset in Jerusalem, midnight over the Ganges, and sunrise in Purgatory which he placed as a physical place on the opposite side of the earth), and how the stars would be different on different sides of the earth. It'd be one thing if the evidence was all obscure, but somehow this myth managed to take hold despite the fact that one of the most famous literary works in history counters it (I guess that tells us something about how few people actually read the classics as opposed to just read about them). (there are of course many other, and earlier, sources of evidence refuting this myth, but Dante provides one of the clearest and most explicit and, most importantly, famous ones)
- jankotek 9y agoBut Wikipedia does claim that earth is not flat, it calls it a "myth" and "pseudoscientific": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth I just wish they would apply the same approach to marxism and related ideologies. So far it is called "scientific". LOL
- robin_reala 9y ago(Don’t feed the trolls, but…) an ideology is not a science but a set of choices. They’re not verifiable in the way that “the earth isn’t flat” is.
- throwanem 9y agoWhere on Wikipedia do you find Marxism so described?
- InclinedPlane 9y agoWikipedia is like a stereotypical corporation with a bloated layer of micromanaging and mediocre middle managers (accidentally alliterative). It doesn't mean that good work can't be done, but it is certainly a massive drag on productivity and effectiveness.
- klampah 9y agoi do not think Wikipedia takes a stance on anything and tries to stay neutral but present the case for ideas on many fronts but is dependent on the writer as well.
- qubex 9y agoI think a stance needs to be taken on certain issues. For example, spelling and grammar are famously well within the domain of ignoramuses demanding that their mistakes and errors be taken as “valid alternatives”, but they cannot be. This kind of stuff, in my mind, should be the same.
- zdkl 9y ago1) You are always someone else's ignoramus 2) It's tough to draw the line on what is acceptable as "enforced opinion" and what isn't. I find the true-neutral alignment of wikipedia much more sound from a public service perspective. I mean they don' hide it, and don't claim to be 100% up to date or accurate.
- GrumpyNl 9y agoThe fact that this page exists and people pay attention to is, is insane. There has a lot to be gained by education.
- qubex 9y agoRecently I corrected a spelling mistake on the Talk page of a subject (Punyi, China's “Last Emperor"). My change was reverted and I was given a stern warning by a moderator that this kind of behaviour is not acceptable. I really appreciate Wikipedia, I love the ideal, and I respect it as a source of knowledge, and I respect the community... but some behaviours are really bizarre.
- Phlogistique 9y agoWhat does "correct a spelling mistake on the Talk page of a subject" mean? Did you: - Write a comment on the article's talk page about a spelling mistake in the article itself? If so, why not directly modify the article? - Modify an existing comment on the talk page to correct a spelling mistake in that comment? If so, I can see why that would be seen as étiquette-breaking.
- qubex 9y agoI edited the spelling mistake, and added a comment to the effect that I had changed the spelling, and I listed the initial text and my change, and provided a reference as to why my proposed spelling (transliteration) was preferable.
- pwinnski 9y agoIt seems clear from your comments here that you still defend editing someone else's comment on a Talk page because the software let you. This is wrong. If you disagree about transliteration, you should have added a comment of your own with the supporting documentation you mention, without removing the other user's transliteration from their comments. The fact that the software did not automatically prevent this is irrelevant. My bank's software will let me spend money I don't have, and charge me overdraft fees after the fact; that doesn't mean I had the money to spend since the software let me. Here on HN, that seems to be worst possible justification or rationalization for behavior everyone else both there and here is telling you is not okay.
- 9y ago
- pleasecalllater 9y agoI have a couple hundreds wikipedia editions. And suddenly someone reverted my change "because it's not like this". So I reverted to my last version, attached links to documentation that I'm right, showed examples etc. Then the same guy reverted that again. And then a couple of other guys came to support him. Then I stopped editing anything there, and I stopped treating wikipedia as a source of any reliable information.
- red0point 9y agoWhat article exactly where you editing?
- oblio 9y agoThere's going to be assholes everywhere. You know the saying: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.". There's excesses and errors on Wikipedia but overall I think it is ok. Just use a skeptic mindset when reading things, just like for any other source.
- jorgec 9y agoIn this case, Wikipedia's editors are the *ssholes. Of course, not every single editor is bad, but a good editor is somebody that: a) accepted the rules of wikipedia (that are unfair and prone to abuse). b) have enough spare time. c) don't mind or have troubles working with abusive people. If you are a professional then, it takes a single day to find that Wikipedia is ruled by brats and its not your place.
- geezerjay 9y ago> If you are a professional then, it takes a single day to find that Wikipedia is ruled by brats and its not your place. It sounds like that professional tried to use Wikipedia as his free PR soapbox and found it hard to post propaganda when his submissions are under scrutiny. I've seen that before, with a PR guy trying to create a wikipedia article to sell the event he was organizing and link to it from other sources. Oddly enough, he also criticized wikipedia's editors for being childish and irrational. Meanwhile, he failed to notice the irony or even the fact that he was directly going against wikipedia's spam rules.
- jpatokal 9y agoFor those untutored in the wild ways of Wikipedia, where even most admin namespace (Wikipedia:) articles are editable by all, this is an essay and not official Wikipedia policy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Essays https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Essays
- jopsen 9y agounrelated but fun: I once chatted to an Uber driver who insisted the Earth was flat. I told him the reason helicopters doesn't spin around the Earth is that they are within the atmosphere which spins with the Earth. He hadn't really considered that explanation before... It as a light hearted discussion, I thought the encounter fun :) After the 2016 election Americans doesn't surprise me as much any more..
- icebraining 9y agoI told him the reason helicopters doesn't spin around the Earth is that they are within the atmosphere which spins with the Earth. Isn't the actual reason simple inertia? They were already spinning with the Earth, unless there's a force canceling that, they'll just keep going.
- phkahler 9y ago>> Isn't the actual reason simple inertia? It helps if an argument fits the belief system or thinking patters of the person you're talking to. What are the odds that a cab driver has never had a physics class where they really dug into newtons laws of motion and internalized that? I bet the ones that have don't think the earth is flat. One might attack the inertia concept by using the idea of jumping on a train or bus, but that's one step removed from helicopters ;-)
- Tiksi 9y agoThe inertia of the atmosphere. The inertia of the helicopter probably wouldn't be enough to fly in the 1000mph winds if the atmosphere wasn't moving with the earth.
- phkahler 9y ago...as a light hearted discussion, I thought the encounter fun That is actually how you need to approach most people when attempting to change their mind about something. Once you take a position or suggest that they have a position than may or may not be valid, you put them on the defensive. After that they will be trying to protect their belief and nothing will change them. If you approach a topic as an open light hearted discussion of ideas without judgement then there is some hope of change. From their point of view there may also be hope of you changing. I'm sure there's much to be said here about vulnerability and a two-way street.
- moomin 9y agoThe article for the most part ignores the actual techniques that are used to push viewpoints across that actually work. One small one I remember. Imagine you want people to believe X. Imagine Wikipedia currently reads. A says X but B says not X. You edit it to read A says X but left-wing commentator B says not X. The qualification "left-wing commentator" is, for the purposes of this discussion, entirely accurate. However, the effect is that B now looks like they're biased whilst A, with no qualifying adjectives, looks impartial. Now consider that it's entirely possible that A is _also_ accurately described as a "left-wing commentator" and you see why this stuff is so pernicious. Anything about Israel/Palestine is crawling with minor edits like this.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dotancohen 9y agoIsraeli here, supporter of equality among men and just rights for all. Wikipedia is just reflecting reality here. Even in Israel, unbiased narratives are very difficult to find from either side. This is compounded by the self-hating Jew phenomenon [1] and the issue that many Palestinians actually _prefer_ living in a modern, Western democracy as opposed to the kingdoms and dictatorships which are the traditional Arab norma. So we have people on _both sides_ arguing for _both sides_, often using subtle trickery such as weasel words, unjustified quantifiers and adjectives, and selected elimination. Being a technically advanced country, this spills out onto the Internet and Wikipedia. Personally, being involved in the situation, a _lack_ of such trickery on Wikipedia would raise more red flags for me than its presence. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-hating_Jew https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-hating_Jew
- dotancohen 9y agoSo much fun watching the points on parent post climb up and down. It's one thing when people post opposing viewpoints, it's another when a post is voted on (in either direction) based on the poster's affiliation. Mud slinging all around.
- vita17 9y agoThe earth isn’t flat. It’s not round either. Nor is it spherical. But we shouldn’t give up trying to describe its shape because no model will be sufficient. Rather, the earth can be thought of as flat, as round, as spherical, as elipsoidal, etc. The problem with flat earthers isn’t that they believe the earth is flat. Eveyone believes this. It’s that they approach knowlege as a fundamentalist taking the plain meaning of things without nuance or context.
- yathern 9y agoEDIT: Sorry I came off very grumpy, I apologize. I'll rephrase. I think nuance isn't so much the issue here as much as it is mistaking the map for the territory. A flat earth model has it's uses. Primarily for human-scale travel and mapping. But the topology of a sphere is inarguably far better than a flat plane. And if someone was to make the same mistake with a spherical model, they'd get a lot further before things break down.
- jordigh 9y agoWhenever articles on Wikipedia's editing process come up, you often see comments about adversarial edit wars, and people giving up. So, I want to offer contrary anecdotes: my experiences editing Wikipedia have been good. I've only ever written one article, which has gone unchallenged for over two years now, probably because the topic is abstruse and difficult for everyone to understand in the first place (which is why I wrote the article): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medcouple https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medcouple But I've also made minor edits here and there. For example, I removed some fluff around the D3.js article. Also unchallenged: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=D3.js&diff=803775247&oldid=802119604 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=D3.js&diff=803775... So, if you hear stories about how awful editing Wikipedia is, remember that it can also be a pleasant experience.
- twic 9y agoDitto. I've made small edits to dozens of articles over the years, and it's been painless. My carefully-referenced edit about giant Scottish worms still stands: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%B9m#Other_fauna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%B9m#Other_fauna
- smueller1234 9y agoTangentially: thank you, that Wikipedia article was really nice read!
- effingwewt 9y agoThis isn't as much about the 'experience' had on the site, as it is offered as evidence. Many people post links to their controversial pages, you can see the reversion history, not to mention some talk pages with arguments so bad as to make middle school look tame, so this isn't just 'wah some editor made my experience bad' rather, it's about the process itself and showing how flawed it is, and how it keeps actual information from making it to the pages, with sometimes bad information being pushed to the fore by some overzealous maintainer. Wikipedia is cited more often every day, and its pages are taken for law by some, as absolute fact, but as others in this thread have stated, this couldn't be further from the truth. When politics/money and personal motives get involved things get ugly. It's important people realize how upside down and downright toxic some wikipedia pages are. I've posted on this topic before, but it's kind of a hot topic for me. Probably because what could be such a great tool for us all has to be ruined by 'wikilawyers'. ie, this is why we can't have nice things.
- nathan_f77 9y agoI like the thought experiment of what Wikipedia might have been like in ancient times. It would have been amazing to read tweets and internet comments from Galileo, Shakespeare, and Jesus. It also makes you wonder about the distant future. I wonder if this comment will still be on the internet 2000 years from now, and if any human will read it. I'm pretty sure an AI will read it in the near future, if not right now.
- samfriedman 9y agoThis topic is explored somewhat in the (excellent) puzzle video game "The Talos Principle". Without spoiling much, the game world contains many instances of archived Internet discussion, including some self-aware posts as to the permanence of the users' thoughts long into the future.
- jorgec 9y agoPleasing everybody is the fast way to please nobody.
- known 9y agoThere is a huge difference between "Verified by volunteers" and "Verified by volunteers with vested interests"
- jimsmart 9y agoGotta love this final sentence of the whole piece: "[...] However, this essay uses the flat earth as a metaphor for explaining Wikipedia policy, not to describe any authentic historical controversy." — Very clever! (and also quite amusing ;)