5 ms·

I think overall the wikipedia model has shown itself to be decently working. But (anecdata) I have my gripes with the way it handles evidence. My SO has a per

I think overall the wikipedia model has shown itself to be decently working. But (anecdata) I have my gripes with the way it handles evidence. My SO has a person (died already) in her family with a (relatively) short wikipedia entry. There are factual errors in the article. We know that, because we have original documents showing that the "facts" reportet in the entry are wrong. Due to the fact that the documents cannot be published online without breaking copyright laws we can't point to a correction. She communicated with an editor (or whatever his role was, but he had the right to approve or deny changes to the entry) who stated he could only allow changes to the "facts" if my SO could point to an online source (a credible one he said). Else he would deny changing anything. Or she should upload the documents to wikipedia if she had copyright on them. He didn't accept the idea to send the documents to him as proof. He made it clear that it is either the wikipedia way of determining the truth or none. We stopped. Since then I am asking myself how much of wikipedia is actually wrong and actively or passively denied from correction by these gate keepers. Wikipedia could offer a way to upload documents for editors to review without automatically making them publicly available. This would enable fact checking and correction. I had heard of it before but since this personal experience with German Wikipedia's "Blockwart" mentality I will never consider them a valid organisation for donations.

bombcar 5y ago
Get a quasi-referencable source like a Forbes blog written, and later refer to it. Wikipedia is great for a low level consensus, but if you actually know anything about many of the subjects it’s hilariously bad.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  So Gell-Mann Amnesia applies there as in most other journalism.
jl6 5y ago
If they don’t have a reliable source for the incorrect fact, it should be removed. If they do have a “reliable” source for the incorrect fact, could you write to that source and get it corrected there?
- sdoering 5y ago
  As I have just written in another comment: But they were already wrong in the cited source and we had the original documents to proof that. He just wasn't willing to look at them. To add to that - the source is a digitized out of print book that will probably never have another edition or printing. I could start a website or create a blog post with parts of the proof documents and maybe even sound snippets from an old interview (and part of old Stasi documents as well to make the point and that to be referenced by Wikipedia as a new source. But why would I need to go to these lengths if I could provide proof to Wikipedia more easily if they wanted and have them at least remove the wrong parts. Even if they would not include the corrected things.
halestock 5y ago
This is an unfortunate situation for sure, but I think I still agree with how they responded. What if they had accepted your evidence? The page still has no publicly visible references, so I (the user) have to just take the editor's word that the article is correct - I have no way to verify that information myself.
- sdoering 5y ago
  I agree. They could however remove the wrong parts. This way they would not have the user need to trust unverifiable claims but also protect the user from learning falsehoods.
  - halestock 5y ago
    Yeah, I think that's a fair criticism.
ajross 5y ago
What do you want Wikipedia to do in that circumstance, though? Just accept uncited facts based on the promise of someone on the internet? The problem with your SO's relative isn't that Wikipedia is doing something incorrect, it's that the historical record is wrong. And that sucks, but it's not something an encyclopedia is going to be able to solve. That's why we have historians.
- sdoering 5y ago
  They could see the evidence and remove the contested source. In this case they would remove a part from the entry. People wouldn't learn falsehoods. I think this would at least be better than knowingly spreading fake knowledge. I would have welcomed that approach. And applauded them. But once he decided to let wrong facts stay as part of the entry this was a lost cause to me. As said. I would have been more than fine if they had just deleted these parts.
majani 5y ago
At Wikipedia's scale, the red tape is more of a safety harness than anything
NoSorryCannot 5y ago
I feel your frustration but I don't think I want a Wikipedia with secret citations and an editor voucher system. Such a scheme would not be in the spirit of Wikipedia, which is nominally supposed to be verifiable and editable by any reader, and could only reinforce the gatekeeping mentality of its editors.
zozbot234 5y ago
Since this person is family, you can issue a publicly-available statement, e.g. on a website, and it will most likely qualify as a reliable source by Wikipedia's policies. The point is that Wikipedia must never be a primary source for what it writes about; it just always be able to point at a source for what it says. Wikipedians' job is to broadly evaluate and curate sources, not guess at the truth of any individual statement.
- sdoering 5y ago
  Yeah I could do this. But I could also just accept the fact that Wikipedia isn't even willing to delete contested information when offered proof. I don't need the facts to be in the entry. I don't care. I only care about the fake facts in there and ask myself how much of the rest of Wikipedia is also riddled with falsehoods and nobody would want to remove that if shown actual state documents that show what is wrong. I did not want it to become a primary source. I just hoped they would remove information that has new evidence not known to the original source.
  - ALittleLight 5y ago
    There are problems with the approach of requiring third party reputable sources, for example the problems you are running into. There are associated costs, some published information will be wrong. There are also problems with the alternatives - e.g. primary sources providing motivated misinformation or volunteer editors being fooled by bad sources. It's easy to find problems with wikipedia's current model, but harder, I think, to argue that their model is the wrong choice.
    - sdoering 5y ago
      Evaluating the quality of a source was one of the most difficult and also most important skills we were taught in university. Do I still get it wrong. Oh dear, yes. Did I learn how important it was? Oh yes. I especially learned to qualify what I wrote and to mark when a source could not perfectly be trusted, but the argument/point of view was interesting to discuss nonetheless. Why can't Wikipedia at least either remove false information once provided credible sources. Or at least somehow mark the relevant section/parts with a disclaimer so that readers are at least aware that something might be suspicious. Could it be gamed? Weaponized? Probably. Would it be helpful to readers? Maybe. But how is the current situation better?
lucb1e 5y ago
> an editor [...] stated he could only allow changes to the "facts" if my SO could point to an online source (a credible one he said). That's plainly false, how many Wikipedia articles have (annoying, I'll admit) offline references to books, papers, and other things that are only available under specific terms and conditions, typically after some payment? You don't have to own anything's copyright to reference it. (In many jurisdictions you'd also be allowed to publish excerpts as fair use, that would make this easier but that's not a prerequisite here anyway.) And does Wikipedia even have an approval system? I thought either you have permission to edit a page or you don't (see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=COVID-19&action=edit https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=COVID-19&action=e...). This whole situation sounds quite odd. Not that I haven't dealt with overzealous page protectors myself that have some "I did a million-and-one edits and am holier than thou" status and will revert anything that changes their perception of the world. I don't disbelieve the situation in general, just those details seem odd to me.
- sdoering 5y ago
  > That's plainly false, Thanks for denying experience. You could have said: "That should not be the case." But yet he kept denying changes. > offline references to books, papers, and other things that are only available under specific terms and conditions, typically after some payment I was talking about birth certificates, official but personal documents, things like birthday greetings personally signed by Erich Honecker, a Radio interview done in the 70ies at a GDR radio station were only one last tape of the recording exists in family archives. Nothing of that is anyhow publicly available. Whenever we proposed changes we were shut down by this person. They felt (or were - I have too little insights into the hierarchy of Wikipedia and don't want to actually) to be righteously empowered to change back any change were one could not provide citable proof. And that is actually a point I agree with. But he also was not willing to accept/provide a way to proof how "facts" in the entry were wrong. If they were missing I wouldn't have an issue. But they were already wrong in the cited source and we had the original documents to proof that. He just wasn't willing to look at them.
  - lucb1e 5y ago
scatters 5y ago
Now more than ever, Wikipedia must be publicly verifiable. That means that any claim can be checked by anyone with an Internet connection and a library card. Imagine if contested articles contained controversial facts on the basis of secret evidence? The editor made the right call.
- not2b 5y ago
  But if the editors receive proof that a statement article is wrong, but that information can't be published on the Internet for copyright or other reasons, that means it is proven that the source of the information is wrong, so that source should be removed as unreliable at least in this case. If the rules of Wikipedia don't allow unsourced information, they don't prevent removing incorrect information that has been shown to be incorrect. So they could nuke the bad information. If, after that, nothing is left, they can remove the entire article.
  - sdoering 5y ago
    Thanks. Exactly my thought on a valid approach. One not taken by this person in this case.
  - Jiro 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Access_to_sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Access... specifically allows the use of sources that are hard to access. The rule here wasn't that it couldn't be used because it was hard to access, but that it couldn't be used because it wasn't published at all. Furthermore, any sane editor would allow use of this information under Ignore All Rules (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ignore_all_rules https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ignore_all_rules ), which is specifically there because sometimes the rules don't produce good results.
  - Qub3d 5y ago
    The problem is that results in some users with privileged knowledge and other users without. The OP has been using language like "they" to refer to editors as some unified, privileged bloc but that is incorrect, and part of the issue. (If they have found some specific users to be "gatekeeping" content, that is a problem and there exist mechanisms to redress that[0].) Ultimately, if the OP wants "the editors" to see information to add to the article, they will effectively be publishing the information publicly, since anyone can be an editor, and there is no mechanism for protected sources that are available to only some special cadre. That breaks the Wikipedia model -- in article namespace, everyone should be able to review the same source information. The concept here is called "verifiability" for a reason. Wikipedia's strength is that you can ultimately go check and confirm the source. By writing articles from privileged information, Wikipedia effectively becomes a primary source on a subject, which is a big no-no for an encyclopedia in general, and for Wikipedia specifically: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research It can be frustrating, but it is a necessary minimum. As to perceived accuracy, Wikipedia has a General Disclaimer[1] for a reason. If this all makes you less trustful of Wikipedia... good! I can't speak for every wikipedian, but I personally welcome skepticism and encourage users to verify anything they have doubts on. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:General_disclaimer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:General_disclaimer
dehrmann 5y ago
> the documents cannot be published online without breaking copyright laws Can you not excerpt them to the point that the quotes would qualify for fair use? Another option is contacting the source that was cited and see if they'd post a correction. The other side of this is that family members aren't unbiased parties, so any facts they want corrected really need to be from verifiable sources--sources better than whichever source was already quoted.
philistine 5y ago
Wikipedia's whole system is not designed for interested first-party to intervene. They do ALL. THE. TIME. but it's not built for that. At this point you need to fight fire with fire. Everything you know that is factually wrong needs to be investigated; are there credible sources for those lies? Can those sources be discredited? It takes a mountain of work to fight casual lies, unfortunately.
adhesive_wombat 5y ago
This seems like something the Commons Volunteer Response Team (VRT, previously OTRS) can help with. You can send them the documents and they can vouch that they say what was claimed, but without having to publish the material against the licence. I have used this for license confirmations, not for fact checking, but they do Biographies of Living Persons work so they might be able to help.
mdoms 5y ago
You think the facts on the page should change because "trust me bro"? Come on. I don't know you from Adam.
topranks 5y ago
This is unfortunate, but what can Wikipedia do. They can’t allow you upload your own proof, and then have citations on Wikipedia pointing to Wikipedia. The only way they can really do it is to insist on citations to reliable sources. That sucks when there is nothing true about it out there, but without those rules you could just write anything at all , they need some rules.
joshxyz 5y ago
Moat of it is outdated. I think of wikipedia as the old encyclopedia books where they are just snapshots of reality.

bombcar 5y ago

Get a quasi-referencable source like a Forbes blog written, and later refer to it. Wikipedia is great for a low level consensus, but if you actually know anything about many of the subjects it’s hilariously bad.

throwawayboise 5y ago
So Gell-Mann Amnesia applies there as in most other journalism.

jl6 5y ago

If they don’t have a reliable source for the incorrect fact, it should be removed. If they do have a “reliable” source for the incorrect fact, could you write to that source and get it corrected there?

sdoering 5y ago
As I have just written in another comment: But they were already wrong in the cited source and we had the original documents to proof that. He just wasn't willing to look at them. To add to that - the source is a digitized out of print book that will probably never have another edition or printing. I could start a website or create a blog post with parts of the proof documents and maybe even sound snippets from an old interview (and part of old Stasi documents as well to make the point and that to be referenced by Wikipedia as a new source. But why would I need to go to these lengths if I could provide proof to Wikipedia more easily if they wanted and have them at least remove the wrong parts. Even if they would not include the corrected things.

halestock 5y ago

This is an unfortunate situation for sure, but I think I still agree with how they responded. What if they had accepted your evidence? The page still has no publicly visible references, so I (the user) have to just take the editor's word that the article is correct - I have no way to verify that information myself.

sdoering 5y ago
I agree. They could however remove the wrong parts. This way they would not have the user need to trust unverifiable claims but also protect the user from learning falsehoods.
- halestock 5y ago
  Yeah, I think that's a fair criticism.

ajross 5y ago

What do you want Wikipedia to do in that circumstance, though? Just accept uncited facts based on the promise of someone on the internet? The problem with your SO's relative isn't that Wikipedia is doing something incorrect, it's that the historical record is wrong. And that sucks, but it's not something an encyclopedia is going to be able to solve. That's why we have historians.

sdoering 5y ago
They could see the evidence and remove the contested source. In this case they would remove a part from the entry. People wouldn't learn falsehoods. I think this would at least be better than knowingly spreading fake knowledge. I would have welcomed that approach. And applauded them. But once he decided to let wrong facts stay as part of the entry this was a lost cause to me. As said. I would have been more than fine if they had just deleted these parts.

majani 5y ago

At Wikipedia's scale, the red tape is more of a safety harness than anything

NoSorryCannot 5y ago

I feel your frustration but I don't think I want a Wikipedia with secret citations and an editor voucher system. Such a scheme would not be in the spirit of Wikipedia, which is nominally supposed to be verifiable and editable by any reader, and could only reinforce the gatekeeping mentality of its editors.

zozbot234 5y ago

Since this person is family, you can issue a publicly-available statement, e.g. on a website, and it will most likely qualify as a reliable source by Wikipedia's policies. The point is that Wikipedia must never be a primary source for what it writes about; it just always be able to point at a source for what it says. Wikipedians' job is to broadly evaluate and curate sources, not guess at the truth of any individual statement.

sdoering 5y ago
Yeah I could do this. But I could also just accept the fact that Wikipedia isn't even willing to delete contested information when offered proof. I don't need the facts to be in the entry. I don't care. I only care about the fake facts in there and ask myself how much of the rest of Wikipedia is also riddled with falsehoods and nobody would want to remove that if shown actual state documents that show what is wrong. I did not want it to become a primary source. I just hoped they would remove information that has new evidence not known to the original source.
- ALittleLight 5y ago
  There are problems with the approach of requiring third party reputable sources, for example the problems you are running into. There are associated costs, some published information will be wrong. There are also problems with the alternatives - e.g. primary sources providing motivated misinformation or volunteer editors being fooled by bad sources. It's easy to find problems with wikipedia's current model, but harder, I think, to argue that their model is the wrong choice.
  - sdoering 5y ago
    Evaluating the quality of a source was one of the most difficult and also most important skills we were taught in university. Do I still get it wrong. Oh dear, yes. Did I learn how important it was? Oh yes. I especially learned to qualify what I wrote and to mark when a source could not perfectly be trusted, but the argument/point of view was interesting to discuss nonetheless. Why can't Wikipedia at least either remove false information once provided credible sources. Or at least somehow mark the relevant section/parts with a disclaimer so that readers are at least aware that something might be suspicious. Could it be gamed? Weaponized? Probably. Would it be helpful to readers? Maybe. But how is the current situation better?

lucb1e 5y ago

> an editor [...] stated he could only allow changes to the "facts" if my SO could point to an online source (a credible one he said). That's plainly false, how many Wikipedia articles have (annoying, I'll admit) offline references to books, papers, and other things that are only available under specific terms and conditions, typically after some payment? You don't have to own anything's copyright to reference it. (In many jurisdictions you'd also be allowed to publish excerpts as fair use, that would make this easier but that's not a prerequisite here anyway.) And does Wikipedia even have an approval system? I thought either you have permission to edit a page or you don't (see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=COVID-19&action=edit https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=COVID-19&action=e...). This whole situation sounds quite odd. Not that I haven't dealt with overzealous page protectors myself that have some "I did a million-and-one edits and am holier than thou" status and will revert anything that changes their perception of the world. I don't disbelieve the situation in general, just those details seem odd to me.

sdoering 5y ago
> That's plainly false, Thanks for denying experience. You could have said: "That should not be the case." But yet he kept denying changes. > offline references to books, papers, and other things that are only available under specific terms and conditions, typically after some payment I was talking about birth certificates, official but personal documents, things like birthday greetings personally signed by Erich Honecker, a Radio interview done in the 70ies at a GDR radio station were only one last tape of the recording exists in family archives. Nothing of that is anyhow publicly available. Whenever we proposed changes we were shut down by this person. They felt (or were - I have too little insights into the hierarchy of Wikipedia and don't want to actually) to be righteously empowered to change back any change were one could not provide citable proof. And that is actually a point I agree with. But he also was not willing to accept/provide a way to proof how "facts" in the entry were wrong. If they were missing I wouldn't have an issue. But they were already wrong in the cited source and we had the original documents to proof that. He just wasn't willing to look at them.
- lucb1e 5y ago

scatters 5y ago

Now more than ever, Wikipedia must be publicly verifiable. That means that any claim can be checked by anyone with an Internet connection and a library card. Imagine if contested articles contained controversial facts on the basis of secret evidence? The editor made the right call.

not2b 5y ago
But if the editors receive proof that a statement article is wrong, but that information can't be published on the Internet for copyright or other reasons, that means it is proven that the source of the information is wrong, so that source should be removed as unreliable at least in this case. If the rules of Wikipedia don't allow unsourced information, they don't prevent removing incorrect information that has been shown to be incorrect. So they could nuke the bad information. If, after that, nothing is left, they can remove the entire article.
- sdoering 5y ago
  Thanks. Exactly my thought on a valid approach. One not taken by this person in this case.
- Jiro 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Access_to_sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Access... specifically allows the use of sources that are hard to access. The rule here wasn't that it couldn't be used because it was hard to access, but that it couldn't be used because it wasn't published at all. Furthermore, any sane editor would allow use of this information under Ignore All Rules (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ignore_all_rules https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ignore_all_rules ), which is specifically there because sometimes the rules don't produce good results.
- Qub3d 5y ago
  The problem is that results in some users with privileged knowledge and other users without. The OP has been using language like "they" to refer to editors as some unified, privileged bloc but that is incorrect, and part of the issue. (If they have found some specific users to be "gatekeeping" content, that is a problem and there exist mechanisms to redress that[0].) Ultimately, if the OP wants "the editors" to see information to add to the article, they will effectively be publishing the information publicly, since anyone can be an editor, and there is no mechanism for protected sources that are available to only some special cadre. That breaks the Wikipedia model -- in article namespace, everyone should be able to review the same source information. The concept here is called "verifiability" for a reason. Wikipedia's strength is that you can ultimately go check and confirm the source. By writing articles from privileged information, Wikipedia effectively becomes a primary source on a subject, which is a big no-no for an encyclopedia in general, and for Wikipedia specifically: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research It can be frustrating, but it is a necessary minimum. As to perceived accuracy, Wikipedia has a General Disclaimer[1] for a reason. If this all makes you less trustful of Wikipedia... good! I can't speak for every wikipedian, but I personally welcome skepticism and encourage users to verify anything they have doubts on. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:General_disclaimer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:General_disclaimer

dehrmann 5y ago

> the documents cannot be published online without breaking copyright laws Can you not excerpt them to the point that the quotes would qualify for fair use? Another option is contacting the source that was cited and see if they'd post a correction. The other side of this is that family members aren't unbiased parties, so any facts they want corrected really need to be from verifiable sources--sources better than whichever source was already quoted.

philistine 5y ago

Wikipedia's whole system is not designed for interested first-party to intervene. They do ALL. THE. TIME. but it's not built for that. At this point you need to fight fire with fire. Everything you know that is factually wrong needs to be investigated; are there credible sources for those lies? Can those sources be discredited? It takes a mountain of work to fight casual lies, unfortunately.

adhesive_wombat 5y ago

This seems like something the Commons Volunteer Response Team (VRT, previously OTRS) can help with. You can send them the documents and they can vouch that they say what was claimed, but without having to publish the material against the licence. I have used this for license confirmations, not for fact checking, but they do Biographies of Living Persons work so they might be able to help.

mdoms 5y ago

You think the facts on the page should change because "trust me bro"? Come on. I don't know you from Adam.

topranks 5y ago

This is unfortunate, but what can Wikipedia do. They can’t allow you upload your own proof, and then have citations on Wikipedia pointing to Wikipedia. The only way they can really do it is to insist on citations to reliable sources. That sucks when there is nothing true about it out there, but without those rules you could just write anything at all , they need some rules.

joshxyz 5y ago

Moat of it is outdated. I think of wikipedia as the old encyclopedia books where they are just snapshots of reality.