12 ms·

One thing (perhaps the thing) that makes Wikipedia great is that it doesn't seek the truth. Instead, it seeks verifiability. This means that editors don't have

One thing (perhaps the thing) that makes Wikipedia great is that it doesn't seek the truth. Instead, it seeks verifiability. This means that editors don't have to be experts to write articles, which is the main reason the site is useful at all. The truth can be very elusive. So it makes sense to move that burden to the sources.

aidenn0 3y ago
Also, there are enough people meticulous enough to follow up on the sources. When a source is not freely available online that often involves going to the library and looking things up; there are people who spend many hours a week doing this, unpaid as a hobby.
- kulahan 3y ago
  This really isn't true. There are references hidden around Wikipedia which link to a report for proof, but the report was actually linking to the Wiki page to begin with. It becomes circular proof, and it's pretty tough to spot.
- rewmie 3y ago
  > Also, there are enough people meticulous enough to follow up on the sources. There's an insidious aspect to Wikipedia's reliance on verifiability: any wild claim can be posted, repeated by third parties, and afterwards have Wikipedia refer to those third parties as sources. I know this to be a fact because I read a Wikipedia article on the subject. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_citogenesis_incidents https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_citogenesi...
baja_blast 3y ago
So when the sources contain inaccurate information then Wikipedia does so as well. I don't see how that is a good thing people view Wikipedia as the online version of the Encyclopedia Britannica which was curated by experts. Wikipedia should strive for the truth since finding truthful and factual information is becoming increasingly more difficult online.
- Kye 3y ago
  Pre-Wikipedia encyclopedias could be worse! And their inaccuracies could last a long time since not everyone could afford or wanted to update their entire set. You also had no way to see the discussion behind claims to help inform your interpretation.
- esafak 3y ago
  Wikipedia seeks reliable sources. If you dispute a source, take it up in the article's talk page.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    Nah, I'll let sleeping dogs lie. Beyond done trying to give all my time to help out forums and social media stuck in their ways.
- olddustytrail 3y ago
  And yet Wikipedia has ended up being more accurate than "Encyclopedia Britannica which was curated by experts". How odd.
esafak 3y ago
I'd expand that: Wikipedia's greatness is due to its policies and guidelines in general. It is not surprising that they were drafted by a second-time encyclopedist and PhD in epistemology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Sanger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Sanger The next best thought out knowledge-based site is StackExchange.
- bawolff 3y ago
  The flip side of that is larry sanger's post-wikipedia success record is very bad and quite frankly a bit nutty.
  - exo-pla-net 3y ago
    Larry Sanger is now a conspiracy theorist [1], believing gems including: - Antifa did the coup. - Face masks are harmful. - There have been "almost zero" deaths from COVID-19. - Soros may have paid people to riot for George Floyd. - The Ten Commandments were God's words: not "inspired", but precisely dictated. [2] Since Wikipedia is hostile to conspiracy theories and religious woo, Larry has in the ensuing years tried (without success) to make a Wikipedia-equivalent site that will be friendly to his nuttery. [1] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Larry_Sanger https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Larry_Sanger [2] https://twitter.com/lsanger/status/1719344152356217057 https://twitter.com/lsanger/status/1719344152356217057
    - graphe 3y ago
      Every time I read 'rationalwiki' its just a bunch of personal drama about people the writers don't like. Never seen a single good article on there, it's just a bunch of circle jerking politics pretending to be a "rational wiki" like calling it the ministry of truth.
      - shadowfox 3y ago
        I think I am confused by your comment in the context of Larry Sanger: are you suggesting that rationalwiki is incorrect and that Larry did not say any of the things quoted?
winnit 3y ago
Veritable, though infrequently used today, is, in its origins, synonymous with true.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
I guess that's one reason I can't fully trust Wikipedia. Because of its beauracracy, primary sources can't make much headway. If I had an entry and they got my birthday wrong, I can show them my birth certificate and they wouldn't accept it. But if I talked to Fox News and said I was born in X, suddenly it's "a good source for wikipedia". I think it's a good rule of thumb to not have people edit articles too close to them, but for some objective facts you may as well let it in (and remember: "facts" means "can be proven OR disproven". I can make a fake birth certifricate but you can objecively prove through later talks that I lied. Or the hospital realizes they messed up and my own birthday is a lie to begin with. Much easier to reason with than "am I a good person?")
- naasking 3y ago
  > If I had an entry and they got my birthday wrong, I can show them my birth certificate and they wouldn't accept it It's a bizarre rule that doesn't consider a birth certificate to be a primary source.
- xorcist 3y ago
  It gets really weird when 1. Someone adds obvious nonsense to wikipedia 2. A mainstream publication republishes this because wikipedia is generally trustworthy 3. Someone else at wikipedia notices nonsense and removes article 4. Article gets reinstated using a referense to publication at (2) It may sound weird but it has happened a few times. Wikipedia could probably do more to avoid circular references, but there's really no simple answer.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    Indeed, one of my favorite XKCD comics: https://xkcd.com/978/ https://xkcd.com/978/ but the answer in my head is simple. 1. make sure the primary source is publicly viewable and archiveable (be it a blog, acedemic profile, about us on a news site, or even a social media post). 2. ensure that there's some way to verify this as a primary source. This one pains me the most, but if we trust news sites to vet anonymous sources, may as well trust social media communities to vouch for a source really being that person. IME social media loves to call out lies, so them trusting a personality isn't as scary as it sounds. 3. be able to mark a source as "primary" to give a bit of distinction so we know there is some lack of vetting compared to a mainstream resource (which hopefully has such vetting built in). similar to [citation needed], it can be footnoted like [2, primary]. There is and always will be nonsense that penetrates through, but I don't think we should discount primary resources as much we do currently. That's not how real life reflects on such resources. Wikipedia has loosened up and started to use more social media as ciations, so this isn't a radical direction.
momirlan 3y ago
> "The truth can be very elusive" no shit, this must be the understatement of the day. not sure if people care much about truth these days, maybe rather just for validation of their biases. having said that, wikipedia is the site i turn to most often for information so i agree - it is the last good place...
1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
For me, it's that such a high traffic site can operate on a budget and infrastructure that is so much less than the mega-sized websites full of other peoples' work product called "Big Tech". Those "Big Tech" companies then turn around and use Wikipedia's work to capture their audience, e.g., in search results. It cuts through any myth that it takes a trillion dollar company with tens of thousands of employees to run a high traffic website. [Accessing Wikipedia from command line I never see the nags for donations.]
- SilasX 3y ago
  But don’t worry, they still nag users for unnecessary donations!
- starkparker 3y ago
  It still shocks me that they've built so much of their infra work for so long on open-source non-enterprise Puppet of all things
Iv 3y ago
The thing that makes Wikipedia great is that it is not a profit seeking-entity. It made it avoid all the incentives for shitification.
- z3ncyberpunk 3y ago
  Those banners begging for donations are profit...
lwhi 3y ago
True, but I'd say Lack of advertising is also key. Advertising provides a perverse incentive that has the effect of injecting rot into the core of products that depend on it.

aidenn0 3y ago

Also, there are enough people meticulous enough to follow up on the sources. When a source is not freely available online that often involves going to the library and looking things up; there are people who spend many hours a week doing this, unpaid as a hobby.

kulahan 3y ago
This really isn't true. There are references hidden around Wikipedia which link to a report for proof, but the report was actually linking to the Wiki page to begin with. It becomes circular proof, and it's pretty tough to spot.
rewmie 3y ago
> Also, there are enough people meticulous enough to follow up on the sources. There's an insidious aspect to Wikipedia's reliance on verifiability: any wild claim can be posted, repeated by third parties, and afterwards have Wikipedia refer to those third parties as sources. I know this to be a fact because I read a Wikipedia article on the subject. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_citogenesis_incidents https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_citogenesi...

baja_blast 3y ago

So when the sources contain inaccurate information then Wikipedia does so as well. I don't see how that is a good thing people view Wikipedia as the online version of the Encyclopedia Britannica which was curated by experts. Wikipedia should strive for the truth since finding truthful and factual information is becoming increasingly more difficult online.

Kye 3y ago
Pre-Wikipedia encyclopedias could be worse! And their inaccuracies could last a long time since not everyone could afford or wanted to update their entire set. You also had no way to see the discussion behind claims to help inform your interpretation.
esafak 3y ago
Wikipedia seeks reliable sources. If you dispute a source, take it up in the article's talk page.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  Nah, I'll let sleeping dogs lie. Beyond done trying to give all my time to help out forums and social media stuck in their ways.
olddustytrail 3y ago
And yet Wikipedia has ended up being more accurate than "Encyclopedia Britannica which was curated by experts". How odd.

esafak 3y ago

I'd expand that: Wikipedia's greatness is due to its policies and guidelines in general. It is not surprising that they were drafted by a second-time encyclopedist and PhD in epistemology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Sanger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Sanger The next best thought out knowledge-based site is StackExchange.

bawolff 3y ago
The flip side of that is larry sanger's post-wikipedia success record is very bad and quite frankly a bit nutty.
- exo-pla-net 3y ago
  Larry Sanger is now a conspiracy theorist [1], believing gems including: - Antifa did the coup. - Face masks are harmful. - There have been "almost zero" deaths from COVID-19. - Soros may have paid people to riot for George Floyd. - The Ten Commandments were God's words: not "inspired", but precisely dictated. [2] Since Wikipedia is hostile to conspiracy theories and religious woo, Larry has in the ensuing years tried (without success) to make a Wikipedia-equivalent site that will be friendly to his nuttery. [1] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Larry_Sanger https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Larry_Sanger [2] https://twitter.com/lsanger/status/1719344152356217057 https://twitter.com/lsanger/status/1719344152356217057
  - graphe 3y ago
    Every time I read 'rationalwiki' its just a bunch of personal drama about people the writers don't like. Never seen a single good article on there, it's just a bunch of circle jerking politics pretending to be a "rational wiki" like calling it the ministry of truth.
    - shadowfox 3y ago
      I think I am confused by your comment in the context of Larry Sanger: are you suggesting that rationalwiki is incorrect and that Larry did not say any of the things quoted?

winnit 3y ago

Veritable, though infrequently used today, is, in its origins, synonymous with true.

johnnyanmac 3y ago

I guess that's one reason I can't fully trust Wikipedia. Because of its beauracracy, primary sources can't make much headway. If I had an entry and they got my birthday wrong, I can show them my birth certificate and they wouldn't accept it. But if I talked to Fox News and said I was born in X, suddenly it's "a good source for wikipedia". I think it's a good rule of thumb to not have people edit articles too close to them, but for some objective facts you may as well let it in (and remember: "facts" means "can be proven OR disproven". I can make a fake birth certifricate but you can objecively prove through later talks that I lied. Or the hospital realizes they messed up and my own birthday is a lie to begin with. Much easier to reason with than "am I a good person?")

naasking 3y ago
> If I had an entry and they got my birthday wrong, I can show them my birth certificate and they wouldn't accept it It's a bizarre rule that doesn't consider a birth certificate to be a primary source.
xorcist 3y ago
It gets really weird when 1. Someone adds obvious nonsense to wikipedia 2. A mainstream publication republishes this because wikipedia is generally trustworthy 3. Someone else at wikipedia notices nonsense and removes article 4. Article gets reinstated using a referense to publication at (2) It may sound weird but it has happened a few times. Wikipedia could probably do more to avoid circular references, but there's really no simple answer.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  Indeed, one of my favorite XKCD comics: https://xkcd.com/978/ https://xkcd.com/978/ but the answer in my head is simple. 1. make sure the primary source is publicly viewable and archiveable (be it a blog, acedemic profile, about us on a news site, or even a social media post). 2. ensure that there's some way to verify this as a primary source. This one pains me the most, but if we trust news sites to vet anonymous sources, may as well trust social media communities to vouch for a source really being that person. IME social media loves to call out lies, so them trusting a personality isn't as scary as it sounds. 3. be able to mark a source as "primary" to give a bit of distinction so we know there is some lack of vetting compared to a mainstream resource (which hopefully has such vetting built in). similar to [citation needed], it can be footnoted like [2, primary]. There is and always will be nonsense that penetrates through, but I don't think we should discount primary resources as much we do currently. That's not how real life reflects on such resources. Wikipedia has loosened up and started to use more social media as ciations, so this isn't a radical direction.

momirlan 3y ago

> "The truth can be very elusive" no shit, this must be the understatement of the day. not sure if people care much about truth these days, maybe rather just for validation of their biases. having said that, wikipedia is the site i turn to most often for information so i agree - it is the last good place...

1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago

For me, it's that such a high traffic site can operate on a budget and infrastructure that is so much less than the mega-sized websites full of other peoples' work product called "Big Tech". Those "Big Tech" companies then turn around and use Wikipedia's work to capture their audience, e.g., in search results. It cuts through any myth that it takes a trillion dollar company with tens of thousands of employees to run a high traffic website. [Accessing Wikipedia from command line I never see the nags for donations.]

SilasX 3y ago
But don’t worry, they still nag users for unnecessary donations!
starkparker 3y ago
It still shocks me that they've built so much of their infra work for so long on open-source non-enterprise Puppet of all things

Iv 3y ago

The thing that makes Wikipedia great is that it is not a profit seeking-entity. It made it avoid all the incentives for shitification.

z3ncyberpunk 3y ago
Those banners begging for donations are profit...

lwhi 3y ago

True, but I'd say Lack of advertising is also key. Advertising provides a perverse incentive that has the effect of injecting rot into the core of products that depend on it.