5 ms·

Something that worries me - Checking facts in Wikipedia articles becomes more difficult as it gets more popular. An incorrect fact on Wikipedia can get picked

Something that worries me - Checking facts in Wikipedia articles becomes more difficult as it gets more popular. An incorrect fact on Wikipedia can get picked up and dissipated out into articles and reports. That FIRST time it happens, the error is traceable: You can confirm that the error was published on Wikipedia BEFORE the external Article, and invalidate it as proof. BUT the external article never disappears. Years later a new Wikipedia editor may come along and re-insert the incorrect fact into Wikipedia based on the article.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
stephengillie 12y ago
How is this different from an incorrect fact being written in a research paper, then referenced again and again for centuries? The battle against incorrect facts is yet another struggle we're always facing. With this tool, people have at least some information. Which is worse, incorrect data or no data? With incorrect data, at least the mental framework gets established.
- pliny 12y ago
  Incorrect data that you think is correct is obviously worse than no data: a) You're likely to stop looking for better data once you have it. b) You're more likely to act on it than acting on no data, and the work you do based on your incorrect data is likely to be either be less useful than is acceptable (otherwise you would have acted on no data at all and gotten a similar result) or it could even be harmful/counterproductive, depending on how wrong the data is. c) Worst of all, you might help disseminate the incorrect data (and perhaps even argue against the correct along the way), compounding the damage demonstrated above.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
pavel_lishin 12y ago
This may be of interest to you, and to others reading this comment: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2014/05/how-a-raccoon-became-an-aardvark.html http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2014/05/how-a... It was also discussed on HN not too long ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7772245 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7772245
twomartian 12y ago
Randall Munroe dubbed this phenomenon "citogenesis" [1]. Good humor dances the border between silliness and truth. [1] http://xkcd.com/978/ http://xkcd.com/978/
- davidgerard 12y ago
  Yeah, circular references have happened for years. At least once spotted everyone can go "oops" and note it on the talk page.
  - jamesbritt 12y ago
    But it's an uphill battle in an age where truth is determined by likes and shares.
    - davidgerard 12y ago
      Always has been. The difference is now we can see inside the sausage factory.
e12e 12y ago
Well, it's not unique to wikipedia, it's just more visible to everyone (you do have all the history there, with any luck, there's a comment in the talk page: 600 days ago "This fact was apparently made up out of thin air, then cited as..."). If editors do a bad job (some always will) -- errors will happen and be harder to fix. It's text, it won't magically curate itself. There might be a lot of room for improvement in how wp is curated, similar to how we have various workflows to deal with code (eg: move to a model in which every change has a "bug" filed in a bugtracker, and edits are only accepted with a proper "fixes:xxx" tag -- rather than just "free form" commit messages). [edit: I just realized (it's probably not a novel idea) that the best way to look at wikipedia is not as a set of articles/"facts" and their history, but as a process of collecting "true statements"/"true articles". This process could be viewed along the lines of: 1. Ask a question (why are bees black and yellow?) 2. Look for an article that answers the question 3. If no article exist, try to write one (this perhaps should be moved to an "issue tracker"/"stack overflow" type thing -- 3.1 "file a bug against wikipedia" 4. If an article exist, read it 5. If the article appear to contain errors, investigate (for possible factual errors, look at talk page, history -- for spelling errors "file bug" 3.1) 6. If there are open bugs (such as errors you've just found) submit a patch 7. If there are pending patches vote yes/no/commment Something along those lines could constitute what wikipedia is -- not merely the articles and a wiki-interface. Then it becomes something more than "just" a wiki or "just" an encyclopedia.]

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

stephengillie 12y ago

How is this different from an incorrect fact being written in a research paper, then referenced again and again for centuries? The battle against incorrect facts is yet another struggle we're always facing. With this tool, people have at least some information. Which is worse, incorrect data or no data? With incorrect data, at least the mental framework gets established.

pliny 12y ago
Incorrect data that you think is correct is obviously worse than no data: a) You're likely to stop looking for better data once you have it. b) You're more likely to act on it than acting on no data, and the work you do based on your incorrect data is likely to be either be less useful than is acceptable (otherwise you would have acted on no data at all and gotten a similar result) or it could even be harmful/counterproductive, depending on how wrong the data is. c) Worst of all, you might help disseminate the incorrect data (and perhaps even argue against the correct along the way), compounding the damage demonstrated above.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

pavel_lishin 12y ago

This may be of interest to you, and to others reading this comment: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2014/05/how-a-raccoon-became-an-aardvark.html http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2014/05/how-a... It was also discussed on HN not too long ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7772245 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7772245

twomartian 12y ago

Randall Munroe dubbed this phenomenon "citogenesis" [1]. Good humor dances the border between silliness and truth. [1] http://xkcd.com/978/ http://xkcd.com/978/

davidgerard 12y ago
Yeah, circular references have happened for years. At least once spotted everyone can go "oops" and note it on the talk page.
- jamesbritt 12y ago
  But it's an uphill battle in an age where truth is determined by likes and shares.
  - davidgerard 12y ago
    Always has been. The difference is now we can see inside the sausage factory.

e12e 12y ago

Well, it's not unique to wikipedia, it's just more visible to everyone (you do have all the history there, with any luck, there's a comment in the talk page: 600 days ago "This fact was apparently made up out of thin air, then cited as..."). If editors do a bad job (some always will) -- errors will happen and be harder to fix. It's text, it won't magically curate itself. There might be a lot of room for improvement in how wp is curated, similar to how we have various workflows to deal with code (eg: move to a model in which every change has a "bug" filed in a bugtracker, and edits are only accepted with a proper "fixes:xxx" tag -- rather than just "free form" commit messages). [edit: I just realized (it's probably not a novel idea) that the best way to look at wikipedia is not as a set of articles/"facts" and their history, but as a process of collecting "true statements"/"true articles". This process could be viewed along the lines of: 1. Ask a question (why are bees black and yellow?) 2. Look for an article that answers the question 3. If no article exist, try to write one (this perhaps should be moved to an "issue tracker"/"stack overflow" type thing -- 3.1 "file a bug against wikipedia" 4. If an article exist, read it 5. If the article appear to contain errors, investigate (for possible factual errors, look at talk page, history -- for spelling errors "file bug" 3.1) 6. If there are open bugs (such as errors you've just found) submit a patch 7. If there are pending patches vote yes/no/commment Something along those lines could constitute what wikipedia is -- not merely the articles and a wiki-interface. Then it becomes something more than "just" a wiki or "just" an encyclopedia.]