5 ms·

Worth noting that the whole "can it be trusted" mainly revolves around political or otherwise controversial topics. Where entire pages can switch from "freedom

Worth noting that the whole "can it be trusted" mainly revolves around political or otherwise controversial topics. Where entire pages can switch from "freedom fighter helping the world" to "literally Hitler" overnight with news articles/interviews being blacklisted for not being reliable while sourcing random blog-posts. For a good example, check the edit history of the Gamergate page, well known editors even got banned for wanting accuracy rather than pushing narratives.

harles 5y ago
I have to imagine it’s an order of magnitude better than the old encyclopedias, even for controversial articles.
- veddox 5y ago
  I‘m guessing you haven‘t used too many „real“ encyclopedias? The quality of writing on those was very high. In terms of readability, understandability, and reliability, I find the average print article to be significantly better than your average Wikipedia article. Their big downsides being, of course, that they were not as exhaustive on any given topic as Wikipedia is (though this actually helped with the understandability), and they were quickly out of date (especially as they were too expensive to replace every few years).
  - ghaff 5y ago
    One of the things that traditional encyclopedias (as well as a given book/magazine/etc.) have is a very clear view of the persona that they're writing for. With Wikipedia, this differs considerably from article to article depending upon the topic. With respect to many technical topics, especially in areas like math and physics, Wikipedia articles often dive right into equations and many articles are largely incomprehensible to anyone not already familiar with the subject matter.
    - notahacker 5y ago
      And on the flip side, there are other technical topics where large parts of the article are written by people unschooled in the subject citing magazine and news articles which are online rather than the field's core texts which aren't...
      - Kim_Bruning 5y ago
        This could be considered more of a problem with scientific publishing (in those fields). This is changing though, so you might see wikipedia start to reflect that.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    They are available online, not just in print. In fact, I think they've stopped printing them ? Online: https://britannica.com https://britannica.com
  - Kim_Bruning 5y ago
    As a someone who was born before the internet became popular, I used to love paging through paper encyclopedias. That said... https://www.nature.com/articles/438900a https://www.nature.com/articles/438900a
throwaway894345 5y ago
Can you elaborate on the Gamergate example? I’m not especially familiar with the editors of Wikipedia nor the narratives involved in the controversy itself.
- Akronymus 5y ago
  In the media GG is portrayed as evil to its core, along with mainly being about hating women. Because those sources are deemed reliable, that is how it is portrayed in wikipedia. While in reality it was a reaction to a large swath of people being called misogynist or similar. In my opinion [1,2] is a better source to get an overview of what actually happened. I am biased though, in this case. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STl7-_f4_eA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STl7-_f4_eA [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beUt5Ke_DqU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beUt5Ke_DqU
paulpauper 5y ago
maybe 1% of articles, especially about politics or current events, are perhaps biased but overall it is better than most sources
- respondo2134 5y ago
  This is a cool healing mechanism built into the nature of wikipedia; popular, big topics get far more exposure and tend to be more accurate over time. Combined with the visiblity from metadata on edits, the contention and disagreement is far more visible than say, deciding if we should trust the new book on climate change that's on the front page right now. General rule of thumb is the deeper and more topical you go on wikipedia, the more alert your BS detector needs to be. It's not perfect, but it's once of the best sources we have today.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    > General rule of thumb is the deeper and more topical you go on wikipedia, the more alert your BS detector needs to be. My perception is that the more popular and controversial topics are more likely to attract editors, but also BS. The Mohammad Ali page may attract plenty of BS, intentional or unwitting (lots of people have ideas about Ali); the page on the 1928 Olympic boxing champion probably doesn't attract much of either. > the more alert your BS detector needs to be Also, I think the "BS detector" is the most powerful mechanism for spreading mis- and disinformation. People who think they have one are the most prone to being fooled, and I think research shows that. Beyond obvious flaws, unless you already know the correct and complete information (omissions can be just as BS as outright errors), you won't be able to spot errors or omissions. Think of it this way: Using your BS detector, could you edit your own writing to fool someone else? I think I could easily pass most people's 'BS detectors'. Imagine what someone paid to write BS can do - or just look at the research about massive troll farms and disinformation campaigns. Finally, the fact is that BS spreads at a magnitude unimagined in human history. Evidently, the BS detectors aren't helping. And if you think you are smarter than everyone else, you are the most vulnerable (also demonstrated by research). > it's once of the best sources we have today. IMHO Encyclopedia Britannica is always better where it has coverage (i.e., because I can trust it), as is Google Scholar, authoritative websites by experts, and better journalism. If I want to know about the deer tick, I use a website such as Tree of Life (tolweb.org).
notahacker 5y ago
The real fun is on the marginal articles: the politicians so obscure that nobody bothers to edit war over them so that most of the article is written either by their party PR team or somebody with an axe to grind against them (or in the case of one obscure British MP, an editor that was apparently their partner!). The academic theories that are so fringe nobody's even really critiqued them as fringe, and yet because they just about pass notability they get the same prominence as entire schools of academic thought on list pages. The pages where someone makes a joke edit and it doesn't get removed ten minutes later.
- ghaff 5y ago
  Notability is one of the funny things on Wikipedia that doesn't have a great solution given that many people are notable in some community (physical or professional). You can make a case for most of the following being notable: pretty much any elected politician even if they're some county registrar of wills, journalists who may have thousands of bylines, tenured professors with lots of papers. Yet, many of these won't have a lot written about them especially in print publications which can run afoul of verifiability requirements beyond a statement about things that they've done.
wolverine876 5y ago
> the whole "can it be trusted" mainly revolves around political or otherwise controversial topics IME it's a question for any Wikipedia page. I remember a mathematics professor reviewing a page in their field, saying it omitted key topics and gave prominence, as major figures, to people the reviewer hadn't heard of. Also, I've experienced that any minor topic can be controversial or political to someone. For a page I'm almost certain you've never heard of, I saw someone create an article in a newsy blog that that supported their made-up claim and cite it in Wikipedia, then cite Wikipedia in the article, and then give interviews to other websites saying the same thing, creating a web if citations. Even after I tracked it down and fixed it - a lot of work to do for free for a low-traffic Wikipedia page - they waited a month and started again. I ran out of time (and trust).
syshum 5y ago
Unfortunately as science becomes more and more politicized I am starting to see the narrative vs truth debate come to more and more topics than just political controversy

harles 5y ago

I have to imagine it’s an order of magnitude better than the old encyclopedias, even for controversial articles.

veddox 5y ago
I‘m guessing you haven‘t used too many „real“ encyclopedias? The quality of writing on those was very high. In terms of readability, understandability, and reliability, I find the average print article to be significantly better than your average Wikipedia article. Their big downsides being, of course, that they were not as exhaustive on any given topic as Wikipedia is (though this actually helped with the understandability), and they were quickly out of date (especially as they were too expensive to replace every few years).
- ghaff 5y ago
  One of the things that traditional encyclopedias (as well as a given book/magazine/etc.) have is a very clear view of the persona that they're writing for. With Wikipedia, this differs considerably from article to article depending upon the topic. With respect to many technical topics, especially in areas like math and physics, Wikipedia articles often dive right into equations and many articles are largely incomprehensible to anyone not already familiar with the subject matter.
  - notahacker 5y ago
    And on the flip side, there are other technical topics where large parts of the article are written by people unschooled in the subject citing magazine and news articles which are online rather than the field's core texts which aren't...
    - Kim_Bruning 5y ago
      This could be considered more of a problem with scientific publishing (in those fields). This is changing though, so you might see wikipedia start to reflect that.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  They are available online, not just in print. In fact, I think they've stopped printing them ? Online: https://britannica.com https://britannica.com
- Kim_Bruning 5y ago
  As a someone who was born before the internet became popular, I used to love paging through paper encyclopedias. That said... https://www.nature.com/articles/438900a https://www.nature.com/articles/438900a

throwaway894345 5y ago

Can you elaborate on the Gamergate example? I’m not especially familiar with the editors of Wikipedia nor the narratives involved in the controversy itself.

Akronymus 5y ago
In the media GG is portrayed as evil to its core, along with mainly being about hating women. Because those sources are deemed reliable, that is how it is portrayed in wikipedia. While in reality it was a reaction to a large swath of people being called misogynist or similar. In my opinion [1,2] is a better source to get an overview of what actually happened. I am biased though, in this case. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STl7-_f4_eA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STl7-_f4_eA [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beUt5Ke_DqU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beUt5Ke_DqU

paulpauper 5y ago

maybe 1% of articles, especially about politics or current events, are perhaps biased but overall it is better than most sources

respondo2134 5y ago
This is a cool healing mechanism built into the nature of wikipedia; popular, big topics get far more exposure and tend to be more accurate over time. Combined with the visiblity from metadata on edits, the contention and disagreement is far more visible than say, deciding if we should trust the new book on climate change that's on the front page right now. General rule of thumb is the deeper and more topical you go on wikipedia, the more alert your BS detector needs to be. It's not perfect, but it's once of the best sources we have today.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  > General rule of thumb is the deeper and more topical you go on wikipedia, the more alert your BS detector needs to be. My perception is that the more popular and controversial topics are more likely to attract editors, but also BS. The Mohammad Ali page may attract plenty of BS, intentional or unwitting (lots of people have ideas about Ali); the page on the 1928 Olympic boxing champion probably doesn't attract much of either. > the more alert your BS detector needs to be Also, I think the "BS detector" is the most powerful mechanism for spreading mis- and disinformation. People who think they have one are the most prone to being fooled, and I think research shows that. Beyond obvious flaws, unless you already know the correct and complete information (omissions can be just as BS as outright errors), you won't be able to spot errors or omissions. Think of it this way: Using your BS detector, could you edit your own writing to fool someone else? I think I could easily pass most people's 'BS detectors'. Imagine what someone paid to write BS can do - or just look at the research about massive troll farms and disinformation campaigns. Finally, the fact is that BS spreads at a magnitude unimagined in human history. Evidently, the BS detectors aren't helping. And if you think you are smarter than everyone else, you are the most vulnerable (also demonstrated by research). > it's once of the best sources we have today. IMHO Encyclopedia Britannica is always better where it has coverage (i.e., because I can trust it), as is Google Scholar, authoritative websites by experts, and better journalism. If I want to know about the deer tick, I use a website such as Tree of Life (tolweb.org).

notahacker 5y ago

The real fun is on the marginal articles: the politicians so obscure that nobody bothers to edit war over them so that most of the article is written either by their party PR team or somebody with an axe to grind against them (or in the case of one obscure British MP, an editor that was apparently their partner!). The academic theories that are so fringe nobody's even really critiqued them as fringe, and yet because they just about pass notability they get the same prominence as entire schools of academic thought on list pages. The pages where someone makes a joke edit and it doesn't get removed ten minutes later.

ghaff 5y ago
Notability is one of the funny things on Wikipedia that doesn't have a great solution given that many people are notable in some community (physical or professional). You can make a case for most of the following being notable: pretty much any elected politician even if they're some county registrar of wills, journalists who may have thousands of bylines, tenured professors with lots of papers. Yet, many of these won't have a lot written about them especially in print publications which can run afoul of verifiability requirements beyond a statement about things that they've done.

wolverine876 5y ago

> the whole "can it be trusted" mainly revolves around political or otherwise controversial topics IME it's a question for any Wikipedia page. I remember a mathematics professor reviewing a page in their field, saying it omitted key topics and gave prominence, as major figures, to people the reviewer hadn't heard of. Also, I've experienced that any minor topic can be controversial or political to someone. For a page I'm almost certain you've never heard of, I saw someone create an article in a newsy blog that that supported their made-up claim and cite it in Wikipedia, then cite Wikipedia in the article, and then give interviews to other websites saying the same thing, creating a web if citations. Even after I tracked it down and fixed it - a lot of work to do for free for a low-traffic Wikipedia page - they waited a month and started again. I ran out of time (and trust).

syshum 5y ago

Unfortunately as science becomes more and more politicized I am starting to see the narrative vs truth debate come to more and more topics than just political controversy