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Wikipedia on non-controversal scientific topics is great. The rabbit hole begins with controversial scientific topics and "edit wars", which rage since forever

Wikipedia on non-controversal scientific topics is great. The rabbit hole begins with controversial scientific topics and "edit wars", which rage since forever and no sensible solution was ever proposed, instead wikimedia arbitrarily blocking and banning editors, even on the pages about themselfes, trying to rectify information. It continues with the political topics and oh boy, just get to investigating and reading if you care for a look into the deep, dark depths. The short heads up is, wikipedia is absolutely riddled with one-sided, manipulative information on political topics. Often written by ghost writers, posting stuff 14 hours a day for years without a single day off. The finances and agressive begging for donations are also highly controversial. I have read multiple investigations accusing them of absolutely not needing any money, and staging a charade while getting huge sums by big interest groups, though I cannot estimate if this is true, or to which degree.

tablespoon 5y ago
> The rabbit hole begins with controversial scientific topics and "edit wars", which rage since forever and no sensible solution was ever proposed... Yeah, table stakes for editing Wikipedia on anything even remotely controversial is an obsessive personality, limitless time, and patience for an huge amount of toxicity. > ...instead wikimedia arbitrarily blocking and banning editors, even on the pages about themselfes, trying to rectify information. IMHO, it's quite sensible to not allow people to edit pages about themselves, because people tend to have a strong-well understood biases on that topic.
- jbuhbjlnjbn 5y ago
  > IMHO, it's quite sensible to not allow people to edit pages about themselves, because people tend to have a strong-well understood biases on that topic. Ok that sounds reasonable. But what if blatant falsehoods are written on a person on wikipedia? There is no way to rectify that information as far as I heard, probably only the legal way, suing for libel, with uncertain outcome facing a multimillion dollar company and the structure of semi-anonymous unpaid writers.
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > Ok that sounds reasonable. But what if blatant falsehoods are written on a person on wikipedia? I think Wikipedia's standards are fairly reasonable there: their main criteria is actually traceability to a source, not actual truth. If "truth" was the main criteria, they'd actually destroy themselves because there'd be no practical way to resolve disputes about what that is. That's a limitation of their institutional structure that they know they have. So if there's a blatant falsehood, you have to point to a valid source with the correct information (or that shows the falsehood to be false). I suppose it might be possible to get something struck if you made a convincing behind-the-scenes case that it is in fact false (though I don't think you could get something included that way).
    - jart 5y ago
      The problem is their sources on living persons is usually clickbait and tabloids. If you feel like you've been treated unfairly, then there's no authority you can appeal to at Wikipedia. Even if you know an admin, they use a consensus process where if one of these anonymous accounts doesn't like you then they do nothing, and doing nothing for them means all the cruel, biased, misleading, false, and harassing content written by guys with names like Dingolover6969 remains as your #1 google search result. So what can you do other than sue for libel? Problem is you might as well be suing Santa Claus, since not many people understand what Wikipedia does, and these constant donation drives buy them an army of lawyers who'll just point the finger at the tabloids. There's no accountability for them either. The only chance you have of making a successful case is if you can argue you're not a public figure, but it's hard to make that argument if you're an open source developer. Even if you're a billionaire, it might take you ten years and millions of dollars to hold just one online tabloid accountable, only to see it sold off at bankruptcy to another head of the hydra that keeps its old harassing content on the web as read-only static content so that Wikipedia can continue to cite it.
      - tablespoon 5y ago
        > The problem is their sources on living persons is usually clickbait and tabloids. I'm pretty sure those aren't considered good sources on Wikipedia (for instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NYPOST https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NYPOST), and you'd probably have a decent argument for getting something removed because it was sourced to something like that. IIRC, their standards are even pickier for biographies of living people than for regular articles. > Even if you know an admin, they use a consensus process where if one of these anonymous accounts doesn't like you then they do nothing, and doing nothing for them means all the cruel, biased, misleading, false, and harassing content written by guys with names like Dingolover6969 remains as your #1 google search result. Do you have an actual example of that? The actual issue with Wikipedia here is that it has all kinds of weird inscrutable bureaucratic processes that are confusing to outsiders (and often require herculean patience/obsessiveness to navigate to a desired result even when you know them). As far as I can tell, you have no idea how it works and are imagining a bunch of stuff (maybe to explain a bad experience?).
scubadude 5y ago
While I think it's a modern wonder of the world, I am skeptical of health topics on Wikiepdia - I read a lot about the positive benefits of Ashwaghanda in scientific journals, seriously I could go and find 20 studies right now. However, Wikipedia says "there is insufficient evidence that it is safe or effective for treating any disease". That's just wrong. I'm guessing if I made a change, it would be reverted by one of those super editors who "own" that page.
- jbuhbjlnjbn 5y ago
  That would be a good example of a controversial scientific topic. If there is still money on the line with competing ideas, different persons or groups of interest will try to manipulate the information to their favor. What is sacrificed in the process is the strive for factual information and the scientific process.

tablespoon 5y ago

> The rabbit hole begins with controversial scientific topics and "edit wars", which rage since forever and no sensible solution was ever proposed... Yeah, table stakes for editing Wikipedia on anything even remotely controversial is an obsessive personality, limitless time, and patience for an huge amount of toxicity. > ...instead wikimedia arbitrarily blocking and banning editors, even on the pages about themselfes, trying to rectify information. IMHO, it's quite sensible to not allow people to edit pages about themselves, because people tend to have a strong-well understood biases on that topic.

jbuhbjlnjbn 5y ago
> IMHO, it's quite sensible to not allow people to edit pages about themselves, because people tend to have a strong-well understood biases on that topic. Ok that sounds reasonable. But what if blatant falsehoods are written on a person on wikipedia? There is no way to rectify that information as far as I heard, probably only the legal way, suing for libel, with uncertain outcome facing a multimillion dollar company and the structure of semi-anonymous unpaid writers.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > Ok that sounds reasonable. But what if blatant falsehoods are written on a person on wikipedia? I think Wikipedia's standards are fairly reasonable there: their main criteria is actually traceability to a source, not actual truth. If "truth" was the main criteria, they'd actually destroy themselves because there'd be no practical way to resolve disputes about what that is. That's a limitation of their institutional structure that they know they have. So if there's a blatant falsehood, you have to point to a valid source with the correct information (or that shows the falsehood to be false). I suppose it might be possible to get something struck if you made a convincing behind-the-scenes case that it is in fact false (though I don't think you could get something included that way).
  - jart 5y ago
    The problem is their sources on living persons is usually clickbait and tabloids. If you feel like you've been treated unfairly, then there's no authority you can appeal to at Wikipedia. Even if you know an admin, they use a consensus process where if one of these anonymous accounts doesn't like you then they do nothing, and doing nothing for them means all the cruel, biased, misleading, false, and harassing content written by guys with names like Dingolover6969 remains as your #1 google search result. So what can you do other than sue for libel? Problem is you might as well be suing Santa Claus, since not many people understand what Wikipedia does, and these constant donation drives buy them an army of lawyers who'll just point the finger at the tabloids. There's no accountability for them either. The only chance you have of making a successful case is if you can argue you're not a public figure, but it's hard to make that argument if you're an open source developer. Even if you're a billionaire, it might take you ten years and millions of dollars to hold just one online tabloid accountable, only to see it sold off at bankruptcy to another head of the hydra that keeps its old harassing content on the web as read-only static content so that Wikipedia can continue to cite it.
    - tablespoon 5y ago
      > The problem is their sources on living persons is usually clickbait and tabloids. I'm pretty sure those aren't considered good sources on Wikipedia (for instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NYPOST https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NYPOST), and you'd probably have a decent argument for getting something removed because it was sourced to something like that. IIRC, their standards are even pickier for biographies of living people than for regular articles. > Even if you know an admin, they use a consensus process where if one of these anonymous accounts doesn't like you then they do nothing, and doing nothing for them means all the cruel, biased, misleading, false, and harassing content written by guys with names like Dingolover6969 remains as your #1 google search result. Do you have an actual example of that? The actual issue with Wikipedia here is that it has all kinds of weird inscrutable bureaucratic processes that are confusing to outsiders (and often require herculean patience/obsessiveness to navigate to a desired result even when you know them). As far as I can tell, you have no idea how it works and are imagining a bunch of stuff (maybe to explain a bad experience?).

scubadude 5y ago

While I think it's a modern wonder of the world, I am skeptical of health topics on Wikiepdia - I read a lot about the positive benefits of Ashwaghanda in scientific journals, seriously I could go and find 20 studies right now. However, Wikipedia says "there is insufficient evidence that it is safe or effective for treating any disease". That's just wrong. I'm guessing if I made a change, it would be reverted by one of those super editors who "own" that page.

jbuhbjlnjbn 5y ago
That would be a good example of a controversial scientific topic. If there is still money on the line with competing ideas, different persons or groups of interest will try to manipulate the information to their favor. What is sacrificed in the process is the strive for factual information and the scientific process.