7 ms·

Wikipedia looks like a fantastic resource, but it's not really a reliable source of information. Everyone can write things there, including people with biases a

• jampekka 2y ago
  > Wikipedia looks like a fantastic resource, but it's not really a reliable source of information. It's about as reliable it gets. It cites sources, has whole history available, has little conflicts of interest and has transparent editorial guidelines and process. Many people are probably shocked to find views in WP that aren't aligned with what their newsmedia reports and frames.
  • pclmulqdq 2y ago
    Wikipedia is often wrong once you stray from mainstream topics. Subspecialties often have 1-2 super-contributors, whose blind spots and misunderstandings become part of Wikipedia. Plenty of articles also have no actual citations of their technical content.
    • notahacker 2y ago
      And some of the actual citations are to easily hyperlinked pop science articles and opinion pieces, sometimes actually replacing more accurate unsourced material...
    • signatoremo 2y ago
      Nobody says Wikipedia is perfect. The fact that you can point out that certain content are wrong proves what the GP said — “[It] has whole history available, has little conflicts of interest and has transparent editorial guidelines and process.” It’s also worth pointing out that it could be you who has blind spots, not the contributors. And if you’re certain they are wrong you can always try to correct them, or create a competing topic? > Wikipedia is often wrong once you stray from mainstream topics. So it’s a good source for topics with the largest audience. That alone shows how beneficial it can be. At the very least, it’s a good starting point for further research.
      • skhr0680 2y ago
        > And if you’re certain they are wrong you can always try to correct them, or create a competing topic? I’ve tried that before, and it’s often not worth the time. The lord of the article is often an expert Wikipedia Editor and rules lawyer with endless time to argue and revert even when they have no expert or even basic knowledge about the subject.
        • tga_d 2y ago
          In order to maintain some semblance of process, Wikipedia has to approximate what is true by relying on the consensus from reputable sources, not reality itself. This means that experts are often not who you want editing an article, because experts are often poorly positioned to know what the general public knows, and what consensus is from outside their area of expertise. E.g., I have published research that contradicts information on Wikipedia, and while I am of course convinced I and my co-authors are right while Wikipedia is wrong, I would much rather have that state of affairs than a world where Wikipedia is written by everyone with a paper on a subject, and the line is drawn at whoever was the most recent editor.
          • gjsman-1000 2y ago
            That's the propaganda Wikipedia wants you to think, citing itself. In practice, it doesn't work. The bias and delusional behavior of the editors is infectious, widespread, and has even been criticized by Wikipedia's own co-founder Larry Sanger as being overrun by "left-wing propaganda essays." He even went as far as to call it the "most biased encyclopedia in history" in an interview with Glenn Greenwald. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR6dO8U8okk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR6dO8U8okk) Frankly, it does seem (following stereotypes) that left-wing people have a stronger tendency to be writers from being white-collar; while more right-wing folks are too busy with blue-collar jobs and physical labor to be writing rebuttals. A very simple example is how Wikipedia approves Vox, Slate, The Nation, Mother Jones, Jezebel, The Atlantic, Gizmodo, and Jacobin as sources, but Fox News is considered "unreliable." Permitting Jacobin and Jezebel, but not Fox, is delusional. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Per...)
    • bradfa 2y ago
      You, and everyone else, are welcome to flag or fix every single one of these that are found.
      • pclmulqdq 2y ago
        Or just go somewhere else for our information. That seems easier.
    • account42 2y ago
      I'm honestly more concerned with how Wikipedia handles mainstream topics - i.e. the ones its editors are likely to have strong opinions about. Misunderstandings can be corrected with time, dogma on the other hand actively fights any correction.
  • avazhi 2y ago
    I’ll take Britannica any day.
    • f1shy 2y ago
      I would take almost ANY real encyclopaedia, any day, for very general topics. For specifics, I would go to specific literature, or just google it to find sources myself. Often what I search is either wrong, or for example math or physics things are written in a sooo complex form, that I just cannot do anything with it.
  • nmstoker 2y ago
    Totally agree. The key point, which perfectionists miss or more likely just don't agree with, is about being less wrong. WP is time and again show to be less wrong than supposedly trusted or more formal resources. When it started many people would look to the Encyclopedia Britannica as more reliable yet research showed that on average it contained more errors and that's with the occasional inexperienced/ rogue editor on the WP side. EDIT: fixed my own typo! (relatable -> reliable)
  • _el1s7 2y ago
    I would change that wording to say that: it's mostly reliable, but not perfect and not as objective as it purports to be.
• pastage 2y ago
  I mostly fact check and do notable research for obscure Wikipedia articles. This is usually a no drama environment sure I have helped delete articles that later became notable and removed true facts lacking sources. Many of these things have fixed themselves over time. My biggest fear with Wikipedia is citogenesis https://xkcd.com/978/ https://xkcd.com/978/ I have found one in a major news paper, this took three months to take down.
  • tim333 2y ago
    I edit a bit and it seems mostly accurate but I've followed covid origins for a while and the bit "While other explanations, such as speculations that SARS-CoV-2 was accidentally released from a laboratory have been proposed, such explanations are not supported by evidence." isn't really true. There is evidence but for some reason they only want to cite papers from the scientific establishment saying the scientific establishment is innocent.
    • tomp 2y ago
      [flagged]
    • devvvvvvv 2y ago
      Anything even slightly controversial across political lines cannot be trusted. Math and technical topics that don't address any drama or controversy are usually fine for reference, but there are almost always better resources if you're trying to learn about a topic from scratch.
  • bborud 2y ago
    Out of curiosity: was it marked as possible citogenesis during that period? How did the situation resolve itself?
    • pastage 2y ago
      No. I usually edit directly in Wikipedia, my edits are sourced and uncontroversial I try not to deal with the bureaucracy. I took the time to contact the original news outlet and they did the correction pretty fast, Wikipedia had been referencing a secondary sources and those were not that helpful. About five emails, maybe four hours of my time.
• fwipsy 2y ago
  It sounds like you're accusing Wikipedia of being both too easy to edit ("everyone can write things there") and too restrictive about who can edit ("they don't care about facts... Crap editors and political propaganda.") It sounds like your real criticism is that Wikipedia has biases and won't let you correct them. Can you provide links to some examples of bias on Wikipedia so that we can make up for ourselves how bad this is?
  • Viliam1234 2y ago
    > Can you provide links to some examples of bias on Wikipedia so that we can make up for ourselves how bad this is? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1061#David_Gerard_and_Scott_Siskind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_no... Here is an example of a Wikipedia admin who spent years harassing a blogger (and a community the blogger belongs to), and it took a lot of effort and a lot of luck to make other admins admit that this was a bad thing and that it should stop. (This is not the worst example I know of, but it is an example where Wikipedia changed its mind later, so you can agree that this was bad even if you trust Wikipedia.)
    • ErikBjare 2y ago
      David Gerard strikes again
  • gjsman-1000 2y ago
    One very recent anecdotal example involving narwhals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0L-3FfkXfM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0L-3FfkXfM Let's just say Wikipedia made an absurd lie, for years from an obvious misunderstanding, and a viciously protective editor got involved...
• lostlogin 2y ago
  > Wikipedia looks like a fantastic resource, but it's not really a reliable source of information. Everyone can write things there, including people with biases and conflicting interests. Their rules about editing are really annoying and unfair, they don't care about facts. This is what lecturers and teachers a tell us. Yet it’s far and away the most accurate and comprehensive resource I know of. When I search the few topics I think I deeply understand, it’s very rarely wrong. I corrected the last error I found. It was a small one and wouldn’t have tripped the unwary.
  • user_7832 2y ago
    Something can be technically correct, yet unreliable. How? Simply by reporting with a bias. The easiest example would be to look at a left (or right) leaning but accurate news organization like Vox or WSJ - they’re absolutely great at many topics, but read only one of the two and you’d have a slightly distorted view of everything. Being unbiased is incredibly hard even for newspapers, let alone a volunteer run org. For a more specific example of wiki’s biases, think of the average Reddit bias - like their insistence of “if you can’t prove it it doesn’t exist”. A lot of people in the world would be very sad if they learnt that their god supposedly vanished.