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PR firms LOVE Wikipedia...

HarryHirsch 13y ago
They do because that website hasn't got the faintest grasp of what "Conflict of Interest" means. One or two years ago there was this thing that Wikipedia calls an RfC on conflicts of interest, and you had to scroll down half of a huge page before someone would even properly define it. That person was someone with an IP address. Wish I could find that one.
- nmridul 13y ago
  The basic idea is that Wikipedia articles evolve over time. If one checks today, many articles don't even exist and others are in their preliminary stages (stubs). That doesn't mean Wikipedia as a whole is bad. There are thousands of articles that are mature enough and provide valuable information. If you had the perfect definition for "conflict of interest", you could have well edited the article and added your definition. Its always better to light the lamp than blame darkness.
- tptacek 13y ago
  This comment reeks of enmity. Google "WP:COI", which was the standard in place when I was editing back in ~2007. The notion that "that website" hasn't the "faintest grasp" of what conflict of interest means beggars belief. Instead, what's happened is this: WP is entirely built out of volunteer contributions, volunteers are often interested in specific topics close to their daily lives, and contributions from subject matter experts --- that is, the best contributions --- tend to be freighted with COI issues. So resolving how the project is meant to handle COI without shutting off their best contributions is difficult and can involve lots of rules-lawyering. Again, these kinds of arguments always seem to take for granted that we are talking about perhaps one of the most successful group projects in the history of the Internet; Wikipedia is, of course, an achievement on par with many of the best of the last 20 years. But now that we have it, and the novelty is all gone, all we can do to engage with what WP is doing is snark at it.
  - HarryHirsch 13y ago
    > Google "WP:COI", which was the standard in place when I was editing back in ~2007. The notion that "that website" hasn't the "faintest grasp" of what conflict of interest means beggars belief. It's not WP:COI. It's a different page, a Wikipedia RfC that they held for some reason or another; they were theorizing for quite some time why it doesn't matter if a contributor holds a conflict of interest, Wikipedia will correct itself over the long term, and only eventually someone came up and defined what a conflict of interest actually is. I still cannot find the page but wish I could show you. [edit] It's this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/COI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/... Jesus Christ, twenty years ago the medical press learned about conflicts of interest at the hand of the tobacco industry, and still a substantial part of contributors believes it's unimportant or will correct itself eventually. Only a few months back, a BP representative declared their involvement with BP and proceeded to edit the page on BP unimpeded. Companies send press kits to trade journals, but they never got to actually write material, unless labeled "advertisement". The way Wikipedia deals with PR is simply hideous. OK, they are waking up, but the fact of them ignoring centuries of real-world experience with the subject thinking they could do better just makes my head shake.
    - tptacek 13y ago
      I don't see anything in your comment about how Wikipedia deals with PR. I cited the Wikipedia policy on conflict of interest issues, and you keep talking about some discussion that took place on Wikipedia at some point, as if a discussion on a site run by anonymous volunteers was somehow dispositive.
      - ttrreeww 13y ago
        Wikipedia itself is... "innocent". But rather, those "anonymous volunteers" and their agenda have taken over Wikipedia contents. That is the disgusting part.
        tptacek 13y ago

They do because that website hasn't got the faintest grasp of what "Conflict of Interest" means. One or two years ago there was this thing that Wikipedia calls an RfC on conflicts of interest, and you had to scroll down half of a huge page before someone would even properly define it. That person was someone with an IP address. Wish I could find that one.

nmridul 13y ago
The basic idea is that Wikipedia articles evolve over time. If one checks today, many articles don't even exist and others are in their preliminary stages (stubs). That doesn't mean Wikipedia as a whole is bad. There are thousands of articles that are mature enough and provide valuable information. If you had the perfect definition for "conflict of interest", you could have well edited the article and added your definition. Its always better to light the lamp than blame darkness.
tptacek 13y ago
This comment reeks of enmity. Google "WP:COI", which was the standard in place when I was editing back in ~2007. The notion that "that website" hasn't the "faintest grasp" of what conflict of interest means beggars belief. Instead, what's happened is this: WP is entirely built out of volunteer contributions, volunteers are often interested in specific topics close to their daily lives, and contributions from subject matter experts --- that is, the best contributions --- tend to be freighted with COI issues. So resolving how the project is meant to handle COI without shutting off their best contributions is difficult and can involve lots of rules-lawyering. Again, these kinds of arguments always seem to take for granted that we are talking about perhaps one of the most successful group projects in the history of the Internet; Wikipedia is, of course, an achievement on par with many of the best of the last 20 years. But now that we have it, and the novelty is all gone, all we can do to engage with what WP is doing is snark at it.
- HarryHirsch 13y ago
  > Google "WP:COI", which was the standard in place when I was editing back in ~2007. The notion that "that website" hasn't the "faintest grasp" of what conflict of interest means beggars belief. It's not WP:COI. It's a different page, a Wikipedia RfC that they held for some reason or another; they were theorizing for quite some time why it doesn't matter if a contributor holds a conflict of interest, Wikipedia will correct itself over the long term, and only eventually someone came up and defined what a conflict of interest actually is. I still cannot find the page but wish I could show you. [edit] It's this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/COI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/... Jesus Christ, twenty years ago the medical press learned about conflicts of interest at the hand of the tobacco industry, and still a substantial part of contributors believes it's unimportant or will correct itself eventually. Only a few months back, a BP representative declared their involvement with BP and proceeded to edit the page on BP unimpeded. Companies send press kits to trade journals, but they never got to actually write material, unless labeled "advertisement". The way Wikipedia deals with PR is simply hideous. OK, they are waking up, but the fact of them ignoring centuries of real-world experience with the subject thinking they could do better just makes my head shake.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    I don't see anything in your comment about how Wikipedia deals with PR. I cited the Wikipedia policy on conflict of interest issues, and you keep talking about some discussion that took place on Wikipedia at some point, as if a discussion on a site run by anonymous volunteers was somehow dispositive.
    - ttrreeww 13y ago
      Wikipedia itself is... "innocent". But rather, those "anonymous volunteers" and their agenda have taken over Wikipedia contents. That is the disgusting part.
      - tptacek 13y ago