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I am increasingly critical of Wikipedia's project, and not just in terms of its observed gender balance. The standard of "objectivity by media citation" breaks

by chipsy 12y ago

I am increasingly critical of Wikipedia's project, and not just in terms of its observed gender balance. The standard of "objectivity by media citation" breaks down for many fields of study: For one example, there are many criticisms of Wiki history in /r/AskHistorians. [0] [1] [2] [0] http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/281u8f/what_are_the_best_and_worst_wikipedia_articles_in/ http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/281u8f/what_a... [1] http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2fa203/wikipedias_article_on_the_eurasian_steppe_claims/ http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2fa203/wikipe... [2] http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1jvfe6/if_wikipedia_is_frowned_upon_by_askhistorians_are/ http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1jvfe6/if_wik...

justizin 12y ago
Right, you can basically blog about something, cite the blog, and that will stick, but a public figure can't even present a birth certificate to correct their age, birth date, birth place - they can only try to get the media to cite them correctly. One such person I know found that for some unbeknownst reason, articles opposing him and his ideas tended to mistake his birthplace and date. So you have fact by media scrum, which is dangerous. Also, there's no way that mom can just buy one volume of a 4g tablet at the grocery store each week. ;)
- misnome 12y ago
  Not to mention the many incidents of media "borrowing" incorrect wikipedia information, then wikipedia then using said media article as justification for keeping it that way.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> The standard of "objectivity by media citation" breaks down for many fields of study To me, this isn't a problem with Wikipedia specifically, its a known feature of tertiary sources. (And its really not specific to any particular field of study, its true everywhere; its one reason that, when I was in secondary school, encyclopedias were considered a useful research tool in much the same like, say, a very heavily annotated general-purpose bibliography with a subject-matter organization, but not citable directly for information (except in the case where the information was the fact that something was presented in a certain way in the encyclopedia in question.) > For one example, there are many criticisms of Wiki history in /r/AskHistorians. I'd be surprised if there is any publication concerning history which would not have many criticism if you asked a wide and diverse group of historians about it.

by chipsy 12y ago

justizin 12y ago

Right, you can basically blog about something, cite the blog, and that will stick, but a public figure can't even present a birth certificate to correct their age, birth date, birth place - they can only try to get the media to cite them correctly. One such person I know found that for some unbeknownst reason, articles opposing him and his ideas tended to mistake his birthplace and date. So you have fact by media scrum, which is dangerous. Also, there's no way that mom can just buy one volume of a 4g tablet at the grocery store each week. ;)

misnome 12y ago
Not to mention the many incidents of media "borrowing" incorrect wikipedia information, then wikipedia then using said media article as justification for keeping it that way.

dragonwriter 12y ago

> The standard of "objectivity by media citation" breaks down for many fields of study To me, this isn't a problem with Wikipedia specifically, its a known feature of tertiary sources. (And its really not specific to any particular field of study, its true everywhere; its one reason that, when I was in secondary school, encyclopedias were considered a useful research tool in much the same like, say, a very heavily annotated general-purpose bibliography with a subject-matter organization, but not citable directly for information (except in the case where the information was the fact that something was presented in a certain way in the encyclopedia in question.) > For one example, there are many criticisms of Wiki history in /r/AskHistorians. I'd be surprised if there is any publication concerning history which would not have many criticism if you asked a wide and diverse group of historians about it.