6 ms·

Wikipedia Pain

40 points by zdw 2y ago

CamperBob2 2y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- crote 2y ago
  Yes, because the company has something to gain by lying. If Wikipedia cites a newspaper article which brought to light that the company has been poisoning the local water supply, should that section be removed just because the company's founder says differently?
  - CamperBob2 2y ago
    No, but someone else can use a "reliable source" (whatever that means) or an authoritative primary source to add that information. Personally, I want a resource that values primary sources, not one that censors them. The world isn't short on hard drive space (and deletionism didn't make sense back when it was, either.) I would prefer that an article about XYZ Co. is edited by the former CEO of XYZ Co., rather than by someone who knows nothing about XYZ Co., but whose opinion regarding "reliable sources" is informed by their biases regarding the "social structure of capitalism."
    - dessimus 2y ago
      > I would prefer that an article about XYZ Co. is edited by the former CEO of XYZ Co. Even a former CEO would keep secrets. The next corporation's board is not going to hire a CEO that will knowingly be frank on Wikipedia about a former company.
      - CamperBob2 2y ago
        Note that he didn't say anything about the information the CEO tried to add/remove/edit, just that the edit was "historical" in nature and epistemically unacceptable based on its source. It might not have involved a secret plot to dilute the company's baby formula with methanol, it might have been as innocent (and as objective) as their date of formation or ownership structure. We simply don't know. There's a lot we don't know because somebody like this didn't approve of where the information came from. Somewhere a homeowner's association is missing a lawn committee chair.
  - arp242 2y ago
    Of course not, but no one is saying that we should always uncritically accept what a company says. That's just boring black/white nonsense. Obviously people involved in a topic have a conflict of interest and their edits should be viewed with the appropriate amount of trepidation (if they should even be editing at all). This, however, has nothing to do with capitalism. It's a very odd swipe to include. And it really does depend on the specifics of what they wanted to change. People with a conflict of interest try to make poor edits all the time, but there's also tons of uncited or poorly cited stuff on Wikipedia that can be hard to change if one particularly difficult editor stands in the way for whatever reason (possibly due to their own opposing conflict of interest). A whole-sale dismissal of their complaint without any information about the specifics at all is just flat-out wrong. This is exactly the sort of behaviour are complain about.
- jjmarr 2y ago
  Speaking as someone who edits frequently, the "social structure of capitalism" argument is a bad way to put it, but the general point that employees/leadership aren't reliable sources is true. Virtually every company has a direct financial incentive to prevent negative information about them from spreading widely and to add positive information of dubious relevance. The way Wikipedia deals with this is the policy commonly abbreviated as WP:ABOUTSELF [1], which allows to cite companies for information about themselves in the following situations. > Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, usually in articles about themselves or their activities, without the self-published source requirement that they are established experts in the field, so long as: >> The material is neither unduly self-serving nor an exceptional claim; >> It does not involve claims about third parties; >> It does not involve claims about events not directly related to the source; >> There is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity; and >> The article is not based primarily on such sources. If you want to "begin to argue with someone who holds an opinion like this", the first step is probably to clarify what the policy really is. Personally, I think this is a fair compromise between a maximalist approach (anything influenced by capitalism = bad) and the idea that companies are 100% authoritative on their own history. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published_or_questionable_sources_as_sources_on_themselves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-p...
  - defrost 2y ago
    It's interesting to me that no specific mention is made in [1] of Company X material released by Company X to the stock exchange that lists them. In the case of minerals and energy listing specifically there are steep penalties for releasing information known to be false and for not correcting information by a following release at the earliest oppotunity. Annual reports, quarterlies, board positions, major share holdings, assets, new grounds, technical report summaries, reserve|resource estimates etc are all "self published" but can be assumed to be accurate and backed by third party accountants, third party assessors, etc if pressed.
    - jjmarr 2y ago
      In my opinion, that kind of material would fall under that rule, but I can't find enough discussions to tell you if they should be treated as especially reliable. The closest thing to a discussion on stock exchange filings was in 2012 on SEC filings (which also have legal penalties for dishonesty) where editors made the points you did: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_120#EDGAR%2FSEC_filing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Not...
- davidgerard 2y ago
  Wikipedia editor and admin here. I am one of the people who deals with the mountains of commercial editing, on the spectrum from PR to spam. Wikipedia deals with a firehose of this nonsense. I can assure you that prima facie rejecting edits from company sources with a glaring conflict of interest is the obviously correct move, both with a moment's thought and in practice. If you bounce this hard off the mere words "social structure of capitalism", then you come across as trying way too hard not to understand fairly straightforward and obvious things.
chambers 2y ago
The author described the frustration of drafting and publishing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartland_(Smarsh_book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartland_(Smarsh_book) against concerns about notability. Reading more, I think the notability concerns may not be unfounded. The article feels inflated and its book received mixed feedback in Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38532119-heartland https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38532119-heartland
thetruthstings 2y ago
Wikipedia has the same problem that the DMV has. Working there is extremely low status, so the workers take out their pathologies on everyone and everything around them. There is no incentive to professionalize the service, because you'd need to pay professionals.
jjmarr 2y ago
I've made a decent chunk of edits especially in the area of reliable sources, so I might as well extend on what the article is saying. First off, Wikipedia is pseudonymous. You can't cite yourself because anyone could easily claim to be a domain expert and lie.[1] Rather than verify credentials, it's generally expected that content be cited to a reliable source other than the user. And it's also not just about being a domain expert, because experts frequently disagree. The ideal source isn't "domain expert says x",[2] it's "academic article says major views in domain include x,y,z".[3] The goal of this isn't to entrench a cabal, it's to ensure that Wikipedia doesn't spotlight fringe perspectives only seen by a few experts in a field. So, re; "Wikipedia specifically rejects domain experts until someone who knows nothing cites them elsewhere", that's a feature and not a bug. Anyways, to add some more context, Wikipedia has a big problem with people citing their own content to boost SEO.[4][5] Even academics publishing peer-reviewed content do this because Wikipedia cites are now a tracked metric. I can't verify whether that's what happened in the original blogpost. But the average editor seeing someone that isn't very active come on and repeatedly cite a single book is going to get alarm bells in their head. About citing a company on itself, I wrote a lengthy comment on that below.[6] Probably the single piece of advice I'd give to someone wanting to edit Wikipedia is to understand that someone reverting your edit is supposed to start a discussion, not end one. This is called the "bold, revert, discuss cycle".[7] You're entitled to ask for reasons why your edit is reverted, and if you can't reach an agreement, you can get input from other people in the community. The main place for discussing whether a source is reliable is the reliable sources noticeboard,[8] but you can also get help editing at the Teahouse.[9] Also, if you're a grieving widow trying to get your husband's article updated, I would recommend contacting the volunteer response team at info-en-o@wikimedia.org. This is a private email (instead of the publicly visible Teahouse), one of the purposes of which is to help people who are the subjects of articles to get errors about themselves fixed.[10] You can also use photosubmission@wikimedia.org to submit photos of yourself for articles. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essjay_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essjay_controversy [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published_sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-p... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research#Secondary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest#Citing_yourself https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?fulltext=Search&fulltext=Search&prefix=Wikipedia%3AConflict+of+interest%2FNoticeboard%2F&search=selfcite&ns0=1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?fulltext=Search... [6] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40698952#40701045 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40698952#40701045 [7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BOLD,_revert,_discuss_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BOLD,_revert,_discus... [8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Not... [9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse [10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Volunteer_Response_Team https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Volunteer_Response_T...
arp242 2y ago
> Wikipedia not only respects but requires expert support for its content. However, it uses a very specific definition of “expert”: Someone who can get their assertions published in one or more Reliable Sources. Yes exactly, "it gets cited" is not "expertise". And "it has not been cited much" is not a lack of expertise. That is what people are complaining about. And no, vague hand-waving about "Reliable Sources" doesn't help. You can't just redefine "expert" to an very specific non-standard meaning and then use that for your argument. This is playing word-games and doesn't engage with the substance of the criticism. And look, I'm not even saying Wikipedia is wrong to have the policies that it has. But any policy on this matter will have real limitations and trade-offs, and the current one is no exception. Being dismissive of that and playing word-games around it is not going to change that. The article then continues to defend Wikipedia against some of the allegations entirely without any knowledge of the conflicts or facts involved. It's just speculating in thin air.
forgot-im-old 2y ago
> Somebody spoke up on the Fediverse, saying “I wonder if reporters know that Wikipedia hallucinates too?" This recent xAI chat on SpaceX is way better and more revealing than anything I've read on Wikipedia: https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1dgyujd/comment/l8tgf79/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1dgyujd/comment/l8... The fact that AI is allowed to connect the dots (banned as WP:OR in wiki) can be an advantage over Wikipedia...
smrq 2y ago
I was really, really hoping that this article might change my mind about Wikipedia editors; that it would show me that they have some legitimate points that I have been unaware of, and that the gripes about them are uninformed if not totally misguided. But geez, every sentence just doubles down on what we already can't stand about them--the relentless insistence on the letter of their law being the One True Way, and if you think there might be room for improvement then fuck you. If this is what passes for a defense, then the editorship is further gone than I thought.
partomniscient 2y ago
I'm with jwz on this - I had that exact experience. Some autistic german guy (self described in his profile) rolled back an edit I'd made related to a local band known for its satirically serious take on things, quoting 'lack of citation'. I had zero clue as to how some guy in Germany knew, let alone understood the band given their lack of context. It was then I noticed that wikipedia had gamified moderation because part of his profile showed off his 'moderation badges' or whatever they were. Despite all that I still use it often enough that I overall like it, it just has its flaws like most things do. I also found it funny that my attempt to be funny/clever on the internet was thwarted by someone who clearly had no idea what they were doing (other than gaming the system as part of their own self-identity), which kind of fits with the bands whole schtick.
chromoblob 2y ago
My favorite quote from this article: > maybe Wikipedia should change its tag-line from “anyone can edit” to “anyone who’s willing to provide citations can edit.”

Wikipedia Pain

40 points by zdw 2y ago

CamperBob2 2y ago

[flagged]

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
crote 2y ago
Yes, because the company has something to gain by lying. If Wikipedia cites a newspaper article which brought to light that the company has been poisoning the local water supply, should that section be removed just because the company's founder says differently?
- CamperBob2 2y ago
  No, but someone else can use a "reliable source" (whatever that means) or an authoritative primary source to add that information. Personally, I want a resource that values primary sources, not one that censors them. The world isn't short on hard drive space (and deletionism didn't make sense back when it was, either.) I would prefer that an article about XYZ Co. is edited by the former CEO of XYZ Co., rather than by someone who knows nothing about XYZ Co., but whose opinion regarding "reliable sources" is informed by their biases regarding the "social structure of capitalism."
  - dessimus 2y ago
    > I would prefer that an article about XYZ Co. is edited by the former CEO of XYZ Co. Even a former CEO would keep secrets. The next corporation's board is not going to hire a CEO that will knowingly be frank on Wikipedia about a former company.
    - CamperBob2 2y ago
      Note that he didn't say anything about the information the CEO tried to add/remove/edit, just that the edit was "historical" in nature and epistemically unacceptable based on its source. It might not have involved a secret plot to dilute the company's baby formula with methanol, it might have been as innocent (and as objective) as their date of formation or ownership structure. We simply don't know. There's a lot we don't know because somebody like this didn't approve of where the information came from. Somewhere a homeowner's association is missing a lawn committee chair.
- arp242 2y ago
  Of course not, but no one is saying that we should always uncritically accept what a company says. That's just boring black/white nonsense. Obviously people involved in a topic have a conflict of interest and their edits should be viewed with the appropriate amount of trepidation (if they should even be editing at all). This, however, has nothing to do with capitalism. It's a very odd swipe to include. And it really does depend on the specifics of what they wanted to change. People with a conflict of interest try to make poor edits all the time, but there's also tons of uncited or poorly cited stuff on Wikipedia that can be hard to change if one particularly difficult editor stands in the way for whatever reason (possibly due to their own opposing conflict of interest). A whole-sale dismissal of their complaint without any information about the specifics at all is just flat-out wrong. This is exactly the sort of behaviour are complain about.
jjmarr 2y ago
Speaking as someone who edits frequently, the "social structure of capitalism" argument is a bad way to put it, but the general point that employees/leadership aren't reliable sources is true. Virtually every company has a direct financial incentive to prevent negative information about them from spreading widely and to add positive information of dubious relevance. The way Wikipedia deals with this is the policy commonly abbreviated as WP:ABOUTSELF [1], which allows to cite companies for information about themselves in the following situations. > Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, usually in articles about themselves or their activities, without the self-published source requirement that they are established experts in the field, so long as: >> The material is neither unduly self-serving nor an exceptional claim; >> It does not involve claims about third parties; >> It does not involve claims about events not directly related to the source; >> There is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity; and >> The article is not based primarily on such sources. If you want to "begin to argue with someone who holds an opinion like this", the first step is probably to clarify what the policy really is. Personally, I think this is a fair compromise between a maximalist approach (anything influenced by capitalism = bad) and the idea that companies are 100% authoritative on their own history. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published_or_questionable_sources_as_sources_on_themselves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-p...
- defrost 2y ago
  It's interesting to me that no specific mention is made in [1] of Company X material released by Company X to the stock exchange that lists them. In the case of minerals and energy listing specifically there are steep penalties for releasing information known to be false and for not correcting information by a following release at the earliest oppotunity. Annual reports, quarterlies, board positions, major share holdings, assets, new grounds, technical report summaries, reserve|resource estimates etc are all "self published" but can be assumed to be accurate and backed by third party accountants, third party assessors, etc if pressed.
  - jjmarr 2y ago
    In my opinion, that kind of material would fall under that rule, but I can't find enough discussions to tell you if they should be treated as especially reliable. The closest thing to a discussion on stock exchange filings was in 2012 on SEC filings (which also have legal penalties for dishonesty) where editors made the points you did: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_120#EDGAR%2FSEC_filing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Not...
davidgerard 2y ago
Wikipedia editor and admin here. I am one of the people who deals with the mountains of commercial editing, on the spectrum from PR to spam. Wikipedia deals with a firehose of this nonsense. I can assure you that prima facie rejecting edits from company sources with a glaring conflict of interest is the obviously correct move, both with a moment's thought and in practice. If you bounce this hard off the mere words "social structure of capitalism", then you come across as trying way too hard not to understand fairly straightforward and obvious things.

chambers 2y ago

The author described the frustration of drafting and publishing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartland_(Smarsh_book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartland_(Smarsh_book) against concerns about notability. Reading more, I think the notability concerns may not be unfounded. The article feels inflated and its book received mixed feedback in Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38532119-heartland https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38532119-heartland

thetruthstings 2y ago

Wikipedia has the same problem that the DMV has. Working there is extremely low status, so the workers take out their pathologies on everyone and everything around them. There is no incentive to professionalize the service, because you'd need to pay professionals.

jjmarr 2y ago

I've made a decent chunk of edits especially in the area of reliable sources, so I might as well extend on what the article is saying. First off, Wikipedia is pseudonymous. You can't cite yourself because anyone could easily claim to be a domain expert and lie.[1] Rather than verify credentials, it's generally expected that content be cited to a reliable source other than the user. And it's also not just about being a domain expert, because experts frequently disagree. The ideal source isn't "domain expert says x",[2] it's "academic article says major views in domain include x,y,z".[3] The goal of this isn't to entrench a cabal, it's to ensure that Wikipedia doesn't spotlight fringe perspectives only seen by a few experts in a field. So, re; "Wikipedia specifically rejects domain experts until someone who knows nothing cites them elsewhere", that's a feature and not a bug. Anyways, to add some more context, Wikipedia has a big problem with people citing their own content to boost SEO.[4][5] Even academics publishing peer-reviewed content do this because Wikipedia cites are now a tracked metric. I can't verify whether that's what happened in the original blogpost. But the average editor seeing someone that isn't very active come on and repeatedly cite a single book is going to get alarm bells in their head. About citing a company on itself, I wrote a lengthy comment on that below.[6] Probably the single piece of advice I'd give to someone wanting to edit Wikipedia is to understand that someone reverting your edit is supposed to start a discussion, not end one. This is called the "bold, revert, discuss cycle".[7] You're entitled to ask for reasons why your edit is reverted, and if you can't reach an agreement, you can get input from other people in the community. The main place for discussing whether a source is reliable is the reliable sources noticeboard,[8] but you can also get help editing at the Teahouse.[9] Also, if you're a grieving widow trying to get your husband's article updated, I would recommend contacting the volunteer response team at info-en-o@wikimedia.org. This is a private email (instead of the publicly visible Teahouse), one of the purposes of which is to help people who are the subjects of articles to get errors about themselves fixed.[10] You can also use photosubmission@wikimedia.org to submit photos of yourself for articles. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essjay_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essjay_controversy [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published_sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-p... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research#Secondary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest#Citing_yourself https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?fulltext=Search&fulltext=Search&prefix=Wikipedia%3AConflict+of+interest%2FNoticeboard%2F&search=selfcite&ns0=1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?fulltext=Search... [6] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40698952#40701045 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40698952#40701045 [7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BOLD,_revert,_discuss_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BOLD,_revert,_discus... [8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Not... [9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse [10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Volunteer_Response_Team https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Volunteer_Response_T...

arp242 2y ago

> Wikipedia not only respects but requires expert support for its content. However, it uses a very specific definition of “expert”: Someone who can get their assertions published in one or more Reliable Sources. Yes exactly, "it gets cited" is not "expertise". And "it has not been cited much" is not a lack of expertise. That is what people are complaining about. And no, vague hand-waving about "Reliable Sources" doesn't help. You can't just redefine "expert" to an very specific non-standard meaning and then use that for your argument. This is playing word-games and doesn't engage with the substance of the criticism. And look, I'm not even saying Wikipedia is wrong to have the policies that it has. But any policy on this matter will have real limitations and trade-offs, and the current one is no exception. Being dismissive of that and playing word-games around it is not going to change that. The article then continues to defend Wikipedia against some of the allegations entirely without any knowledge of the conflicts or facts involved. It's just speculating in thin air.

forgot-im-old 2y ago

> Somebody spoke up on the Fediverse, saying “I wonder if reporters know that Wikipedia hallucinates too?" This recent xAI chat on SpaceX is way better and more revealing than anything I've read on Wikipedia: https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1dgyujd/comment/l8tgf79/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1dgyujd/comment/l8... The fact that AI is allowed to connect the dots (banned as WP:OR in wiki) can be an advantage over Wikipedia...

smrq 2y ago

I was really, really hoping that this article might change my mind about Wikipedia editors; that it would show me that they have some legitimate points that I have been unaware of, and that the gripes about them are uninformed if not totally misguided. But geez, every sentence just doubles down on what we already can't stand about them--the relentless insistence on the letter of their law being the One True Way, and if you think there might be room for improvement then fuck you. If this is what passes for a defense, then the editorship is further gone than I thought.

partomniscient 2y ago

I'm with jwz on this - I had that exact experience. Some autistic german guy (self described in his profile) rolled back an edit I'd made related to a local band known for its satirically serious take on things, quoting 'lack of citation'. I had zero clue as to how some guy in Germany knew, let alone understood the band given their lack of context. It was then I noticed that wikipedia had gamified moderation because part of his profile showed off his 'moderation badges' or whatever they were. Despite all that I still use it often enough that I overall like it, it just has its flaws like most things do. I also found it funny that my attempt to be funny/clever on the internet was thwarted by someone who clearly had no idea what they were doing (other than gaming the system as part of their own self-identity), which kind of fits with the bands whole schtick.

chromoblob 2y ago

My favorite quote from this article: > maybe Wikipedia should change its tag-line from “anyone can edit” to “anyone who’s willing to provide citations can edit.”