
The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia - peroo
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Undue-Weight-of-Truth-on/130704/
======
autarch
I think the overall problem is that wikipedia attempts to substitute policy
for expertise.

As other have pointed out, wikipedia has to deal with lots of bad edits from
people who are not motivated by a pursuit of facts or truth.

To deal with this, they've come up with a set of policies that the editors
seem to enforce fairly rigidly. This does an okay job of preventing the wackos
from taking over. Unfortunately, since the editors often lack the subject
expertise to distinguish cranks from experts, these policies end up making it
harder for experts to contribute in some cases.

~~~
tptacek
It is indeed very annoying for experts to contribute to Wikipedia. They
probably shouldn't. Instead, they should do what experts do best, and
Wikipedia should do what encyclopedias do best: to wit, experts should conduct
research to generate new primary sources or write books to generate new
secondary sources, and Wikipedia should continue finding secondary sources to
summarize.

~~~
phren0logy
That seems like a real shame, and an unnecessary repetition of work. Surely
there's some way to verify expertise and provide expert commentary _with
supporting links to primary sources_ , even if it doesn't mean editing the
entry directly? Perhaps a side-bar?

I'm sure this would lead to arguments about how to verify expertise, but even
if it only started with unimpeachable credentials that would seem like a
start. Tell me very clearly who is providing the commentary, and I can decide
myself if it's credible.

I feel like I'm rambling a bit, but really this seems like a wasted
opportunity. Why recreate Wikipedia from whole cloth when it already has so
much? I suppose that given the way it's licensed, you could always fork it...

~~~
tptacek
An encyclopedia is a survey of existing secondary sources. It's not a research
venue.

The _true_ waste would be taking valuable research and synthesize and _hiding_
it in an encyclopedia. Pokemon aside, most new knowledge that merits inclusion
in Wikipedia deserves its own independent source.

It goes research -> authorship of secondary source (journal article, book,
magazine article, whatever) -> citation in encyclopedia.

And that's really all that happened here: someone tried to skip the middle
step (notably: they tried to skip it _while authoring the secondary source_
\--- the author of this article published an authoritative text on the
Haymarket Riot later on), and Wikipedia called that out.

~~~
phren0logy
> An encyclopedia is a survey of existing secondary sources. It's not a
> research venue.

Then I suppose I'm also frustrated at Wikipedia's lack of ambition. To strive
toward that benchmark and not past it seems, as I said, wasteful.

One of the things that fuels this feeling for me is the work of people like
Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson. I think there is a role for experts to
address the public directly, rather than their peers. To be sure, it can get
very messy, as some of the most vocal cranks think they are experts and seek
every possible venue to espouse their nonsense, _but they do that anyway_. I'd
love to see the bar lowered for scientists to contribute to works that are
easy to access via the web and written for a lay audience, without having to
start and maintain their own blog.

~~~
tptacek
Experts _should_ address the public directly. It has never been easier for
them to do that. But they shouldn't address the public by writing encyclopedia
articles. They should write books, write journal articles, give recorded
talks, have IamA discussions on Reddit, debate things on message boards.
Encyclopedia articles are the worst way for them to address the public.

Wikipedia is one of the most ambitious projects on the whole Internet. It is
the world's most ambitious and most expansive encyclopedia. It was created
entirely out of donated time using the Internet. It is hard to take seriously
any argument that says Wikipedia is unambitious.

There's a whole rest of the Internet for you to build other ambitious
knowledge projects on; the rest of the Internet also doesn't demand that you
redefine the concept of an encyclopedia to do it.

~~~
dalke
"An encyclopedia is a survey of existing secondary sources"

This is incorrect. The definition of encyclopedia has nothing to do with 1)
primary vs. secondary sources, nor 2) a survey of said sources. Consider "The
On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences", which contains links to primary
sources. Consider the "Encyclopedia of Physics", which is certainly not a
review of existing secondary sources. The "Encyclopedia of Science Fiction"
(from the 1970s) contains new research and essays about the people and themes
in science fiction.

"Encyclopedia articles are the worst way for them to address the public."

When one of the first things that the public does is to consult Wikipedia,
then a Wikipedia page is one of the best ways to reach people. If the
information on the page conflicts with the primary sources, then the weight of
the secondary sources should be diminished in favor of the secondary sources
which are in agreement with the primary sources.

Your statement here is also wrong even on the surface. Stephen Barr (to pick
one of many specific examples) is a researcher on grand unified theories, and
he contributed the article on grand unified theories to the Encyclopedia of
Physics. You saw elsewhere in this thread that Mandelbrot contributed the
"fractal" article to Encarta. The Wikipedia page for "Encyclopædia Britannica"
even says "Britannica's authors have included authorities such as Albert
Einstein, Marie Curie, and Leon Trotsky".

Why would he or the other expert contributors have done that if doing so is
the "worst" way to reach the public?

The obvious conclusion is that your views of how encyclopedias work is wrong,
in that it does not agree with numerous real-world examples. Hence it is you
who have redefined "the concept of an encyclopedia."

~~~
tptacek
What are some examples of original research published in the Encyclopedia of
Physics? What's an example of something documented in the Encyclopedia of
Physics that isn't traceable to some earlier publication in something like
Physical Review Letters?

I think you've missed my point with regards to experts writing in
encyclopedias. I didn't say they _can't_ ; I said they probably _shouldn't_ ,
as it's a waste of their time. Of course, if Britannica is paying you to,
different story.

~~~
dalke
There are three issues here: primary sources, secondary sources, and original
research. You said "An encyclopedia is a survey of existing secondary
sources". It is not. An encyclopedia also contains references to primary
sources, and can also contain new research.

A reference to a primary source would be, for example, a reference to Newton's
"Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica" or to Darwin's "On the Origin of
Species". An article on the history of evolutionary thought would be remiss if
it does not include Darwin's book and instead only referred to books
discussing Darwin's work. Like the children's game "telephone", only relying
on secondary (and then tertiary, then quaternary) sources can amplify noise.

You then asked about "examples of original research published in the
Encyclopedia of Physics". There are two different types of research involved
here. One is "original to the field of physics". Physics has a well-
established mechanism for publishing and disseminating work, and that is not
an encyclopedia.

The other is the research needed to reconcile and synthesize multiple
viewpoints into a well-constructed whole. A non-fiction piece for the New
Yorker likely entails new research (even an interview is new research), and
that's the type of research which goes well with an encyclopedia. Take a look
at Wikipedia's entry for "History of the Encyclopædia Britannica" with
comments like "40,000-word hagiographic biography of George Washington" and
"Dr. Thomas Thomson, who introduced the first usage of chemical symbols in the
1801 supplement". Thomas Young translated the Rosetta Stone and in his WP page
is written "[s]ome of Young's conclusions appeared in the famous article
"Egypt" he wrote for the 1818 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica."

Or take Asimov's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. The
entire encyclopedia was written by Asimov, who commented "I alone have done
every bit of the necessary research and writing; and without any assistance
whatever, not even that of a typist." Right there in the text it says
"research."

Do you think these examples of the research which goes into encyclopedia
articles aren't actual research? If not, why not? Or are these simply not
encyclopedias?

As to "if Britannica is paying"... do you think Harry Houdini, Albert
Einstein, Marie Curie, Sigmund Freud, Henry Ford, Leon Trotsky, Arthur
Eddington, Lord Kelvin, Humphry Davy, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Malthus, and
yes, even Isaac Newton, were contributors to EB mostly because they were being
paid for their work? Most certainly not! (How much would Ford's time cost?)
From what I've read, other factors were because they wanted to contribute to a
collection of knowledge, and because of the prestige.

~~~
tptacek
I think you're providing a lot of examples of things that Wikipedia is also
largely fine with.

Meanwhile, the author of this article did _original research_ , generating
knowledge that was not only new to the field but that actually contradicted
the field's best known sources.

Wikipedia (justifiably, but not particularly gracefully) told him "go write a
journal article and then come back and cite it". Which is what he did.

This makes sense for a variety of reasons, some of them having to do with the
charter of an encyclopedia, others simply as a matter of pragmatism: 9 times
out of 10, when someone contributes original research to Wikipedia, their work
is crazy.

~~~
dalke
Wikipedia must be fine with it because many of the 1911 Encyclopedia
Britannica articles (which had entered the public domain) were imported into
Wikipedia pages.

My point though was nothing to do with Wikipedia's policies. It was to your
incorrect definition of what it means to be an encyclopedia. You've said:

\- "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It's a terrible place for original
research." I showed several examples of original research done for
encyclopedias. One was the first use of the element symbols now used in every
chemistry book.

\- "everyone's understanding of what an encyclopedia (ANY encyclopedia) is"
... "is not a place of first publication for new research findings." In
addition to the previous comment, this view falsely separates the scholarly
research which goes into producing an encyclopedia from the scholarly research
of any other field.

\- "Wikipedia should do what encyclopedias do best: to wit, experts should
conduct research to generate new primary sources or write books to generate
new secondary sources." I gave a long list of encyclopedia articles across
several encyclopedias written by acknowledged experts on the specific topic.
Traditional encyclopedias often ask experts to do this. Wikipedia is in the
small minority.

\- "An encyclopedia is a survey of existing secondary sources". I gave many
examples where encyclopedias references the primary sources, and pointed to
encyclopedia articles which are not a survey of existing sources.

\- "[Experts] shouldn't address the public by writing encyclopedia articles".
Excepting that experts _do_ address the public by writing encyclopedia
article, and have been for centuries.

\- "Encyclopedia articles are the worst way for them to address the public."
Excepting as Wikipedia shows, encyclopedias are often one of the first places
people turn to for information, so it's a very _good_ way to address the
public.

\- "Experts shouldn't want to write encyclopedias." Except that some
encyclopedias are written by experts. Do you think the "Encyclopedia of
Magnetic Resonance" was written by non-experts? (Hint: "The existence of this
large number of articles, written by experts in various fields, is enabling
the publication of a series of EMR Handbooks on specific areas of NMR and
MRI.")

Your statements are definitely contra-factual to how other encyclopedias work,
as you make statements for which counter-examples are easily found. Your
understanding of the goals and purpose of an encyclopedia seem based solely on
your understanding of the goals, purpose, and operation of Wikipedia.

Do you have any evidence to back your claims? Otherwise I must conclude that
you don't know what you are talking about.

~~~
tptacek
From what I can tell, the only encyclopedia you have that really refutes my
argument is an encyclopedia of science fiction. When I asked you to pin down
what original research the Encyclopedia of Physics hosts, you provided
examples of things that are also fine on Wikipedia.

~~~
dalke
How bizarre. The one claim of your which I mostly agree with is that there are
better ways to disseminate new scientific research than through an
encyclopedia. Yet this is the one you insist on bringing up again.

What I say is that original scholarly work includes developing new synthesis
of how to interpret existing information. This new work definitely has a place
in (some) encyclopedias.

Ha! I just looked up the Wikipedia article on "Encyclopedia." It agrees with
me, saying "The second half of the 20th century also saw the publication of
several encyclopedias that were notable for synthesizing important topics in
specific fields, often by means of new works authored by significant
researchers."

That directly and explicitly counters your argument that encyclopedias
categorically do not have original content.

------
scott_s
Looking at the Talk page itself
([http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Haymarket_aff...](http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Haymarket_affair&diff=prev&oldid=265741836),
at the bottom, thanks zqfm), it was not clear to me reading his Chronicle
article that he did not cite the primary sources _in Wikipedia_. Rather, in
Wikipedia, he cites his own blog post, and in that blog post, he cites primary
sources.

As ZeroGravitas points out, consider the case of a crank who links to his own
blog as a source, and that blog post cites primary evidence. The Wikipedia
editors now have a job that is identical to academic peer-review. I don't
think that should be their job.

~~~
angersock
_The Wikipedia editors now have a job that is identical to academic peer-
review. I don't think that should be their job._

Then why have editors? God forbid that, if you take on the mantle of vetting
articles, you actually exert some intellectual _effort_.

~~~
scott_s
Because now Wikipedia editors are required to have the same expertise in each
subject as academics who spend their careers in those subjects. I submit that
model is clearly not sustainable, and quite different from not expecting them
to expend intellectual effort.

Wikipedia is not a place for original research for exactly this reason. Once
something has gone through peer review, and is published somewhere, then it
can be used in Wikipedia. I think that's reasonable. Wikipedia editors are
then relying on a particular subject's community of experts instead of having
to be those experts themselves.

I think it's also important to note that this model is the same as any other
encyclopedia.

~~~
angersock
Wikipedia would seem like a great place for original research, right?

It's trivial to get people to check over claims, and you have a place to
discuss issues (Talk pages), and the person doing the research can cite their
references _right there_ and get called out on it if they don't.

~~~
tptacek
No, _the Internet_ is a great place for original research. _Wikis_ are great
places for original research.

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It's a terrible place for original research.

------
ZeroGravitas
This follows the standard format of these complaints. If you read through it
believing the author is a true expert then it seems like Wikipedia is crazy.
If you read through it believing the author is a crank, then Wikipedia is
doing a fine job.

I'm not even sure the guy isn't a crank, but if he isn't he needs to
understand that Wikipedia needs a system that takes cranks into account. If
he's simply a false positive on the crank detector because it turns out that
_everyone else_ is actually wrong about this historical event then he'd have
to demonstrate that the cost of false positives outweigh the good to effect a
change, not just go in a huff because his pet subject isn't presented in the
way he would like in Wikipedia.

~~~
bendauphinee
Quote: "as I had cited the documents that proved my point, including verbatim
testimony from the trial published online by the Library of Congress"

His opinion in this matter isn't as relevant as the fact that he cited actual
testimony. That alone should lend enough weight to the edit that it should not
have been reverted simply b/c of the Wikipedia "undue weight" policy.

~~~
Symmetry
Evaluating primary sources isn't a perfectly simple and straightforward
exercise, and cranks generally have facts that they can point to to "prove"
that their view. I expect that with selective enough citation I could create a
fairly convincing (to a layman) argument for quite a wide variety of points of
view.

~~~
CPlatypus
Comparing primary sources is indeed not straightforward, but this is primary
vs. secondary. If a book makes a claim that is directly contradicted by _the
author's own source_ then not much expertise is required to see that
preferring the "child" over the "parent" would be absurd.

------
DarkShikari
This is _exactly_ how Wikipedia is supposed to work.

If you come up with a new theory that disagrees with scholarly/scientific
consensus, an _encyclopedia_ is not the place to publish it. You publish it in
a journal; if it _becomes_ a consensus, or at least generates significant
serious response in that community, _then_ it will be documented in an
encyclopedia.

If every single crank theory was accepted into Wikipedia, you'd have a wiki
consisting entirely of holocaust denialism, homeopathy, Electric Universe, and
woo-peddling. Wikipedia is not in the business of deciding what's true and
what isn't; that's what the academic community is for.

~~~
moldbug
Is there a specific reason you assume the academic community is doing a good
job at this?

Consider the case in point. The myth the Chronicle author was refuting was a
political myth: that the Haymarket defendants were innocent men railroaded by
a biased prosecutor who was not "credible." This myth had been repeated by
generations of pro-labor historians with a big ol' axe to grind.

As for the anti-labor historians? Oh wait, there aren't any anti-labor
historians. At least, if by "historian" you mean "individual funded by the US
Government to teach history." Thus, Wikipedia is simply recording in its pages
the depressing result of a political power struggle in academia.

Now that labor has become the establishment, an honest historian who is not
pro or anti labor, just interested in the past, can discover from primary
sources that gee whiz, the prosecution actually had a case. It's 2012 so he
won't be purged for this. On the other hand, it's not clear how he's supposed
to purge all his axe-grinding colleagues who continue insisting that the sky
is green.

Academia is just a thing called "academia." Science is just a thing called
"science." The Soviet Union had both. Ours are better than the Soviet Union's,
but they're still de facto government agencies. Jeebus didn't come down
yesterday and make our government systematically infallible.

Imagine Wikipedia in the Soviet Union. Would you want it to be a crowdsourced
version of the Great Soviet Encylopedia? Or would you want it to do a little
better?

Wikipedia has done a great job of being a tertiary source, mostly. That
doesn't mean it can't have higher ambitions for the future. When I stop being
a child, I put aside childish things. It's childish to assume that "reliable
sources" are reliable just because everyone says they are. Is Wikipedia all
grown up now? If so, maybe it should at least think about starting to address
its utterly circular definition of a reliable source.

If there is no conceivable mechanism to distinguish between homeopathy and
medicine, how do our existing mechanisms work? Are these mechanisms unique?
Are they perfect? Can they be duplicated, improved, advanced?

~~~
mistercow
I think the really important point here is that _readers_ need to understand
that an encyclopedia is a record of academic consensus rather than a
compendium of solid facts. The former is a useful but imperfect tool. The
latter is an impossible ideal to strive for which will inevitably result in
something less reliable than the former.

------
zqfm
He left out the part where the editor said "I think we probably need to take
another look at Schaack as you suggest. I, too, hope we can incorporate your
insights into the article. That's why I'm going to read your book."

From <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:MesserKruse>

------
jellicle
If you think of Wikipedia as a summary of what old-school mass media says
about a subject, rather than being the truth or complete or informative or
useful, then all these contradictions disappear.

~~~
stfu
Being the truth? I bet you can find an "expert" like the person complaining on
the Cronicle, who disagrees whole heartedly about what you belive the "truth"
is.

Outside of the hard science "truth" is a very negotiable subject. Just imagine
how difficult it would become to find the "truth" between the opposing parties
around the currently most popular The Cronicle article (
[http://chronicle.com/article/Charles-Murray-Author-of-
The/13...](http://chronicle.com/article/Charles-Murray-Author-of-The/130722/)
).

------
niels_olson
Start pulling the string on this, and it looks like there's a potentially
borderline admin, Gwen Gale,(1-3) at the heart of this, and the Chronicle
article is just what boiled over into the slightly more real world of
academia. It appears the bureaucrats at the Foundation have take notice.(4)
I'm a little disappointed they haven't caught onto the involvement of the
admin in question, and especially by Tim Starling's somewhat euphemistic
allusion to the problem as "inertia".

This "inertia" is nicely described by the histogram of new admins. Those who
seized power in the middle of the last decade are running with it. (5)

(1) <http://gwen-gale-heidi-wyss-tinpot-auteur.blogspot.com/>

(2) <http://english.sxu.edu/sites/kirstein/archives/1443>

(3) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Gwen_Gale>

(4) <http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/271257>

(5)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Successful_requests_f...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Successful_requests_for_adminship)

~~~
scott_s
I really want to avoid falling down this rabbit hole, but sources 1 and 2
pinged my crackpot-detector. That doesn't mean they necessarily are, but I am
not willing to accept the notion, at face value, that Gwen Gale is the
problem.

~~~
niels_olson
You're right. I should have just linked to the google search.
<https://www.google.com/search?q=gwen+gale>

------
tptacek
Worth noting: the Haymarket Riot article on Wikipedia is a designated "Good
Article". "GA" is a big deal. It's been on the front page of the site. Among
other things, that implies that there are people specifically watching that
article; changes to it can reasonably expect more scrutiny.

~~~
ErrantX
You're thinking of "Featured Article" - those get onto the front page.

It is a bit of an odd process but, basically, "Good Article" consists of a
semi-formal review of the article by an uninvolved editor to assess it for
neutrality, completeness and language (etc.).

"Featured Article" is a more involved formal review involving multiple
editors. It's those that get then picked for appearance on the main page.

The intended progression for an article is supposed to be something like: Peer
Review, Good Article review, Featured Article review.

~~~
tptacek
I know about GA & FA, and that FA is a bigger deal. I disagree that GA isn't a
big deal, having watched people try to GA good-looking articles and fail. I
should have been clearer: this article was on the front page repeatedly, but
not necessarily because it was a GA.

~~~
ErrantX
Ah, sorry, I misread your comment :)

(Agreed over GA, wasn't intended to belittle it!)

------
beefman
I'm amazed at the general support among comments here so far for the 'tertiary
source' argument. Encyclopedias have always been written by experts -- usually
one expert per article. Wikipedia itself has a template, 'This article is in
need of input from an expert on the subject'.

But this isn't even right, because Wikipedia is a not an encyclopedia. It's
like Johnson & Johnson saying Q-tips are for applying makeup or detailing cars
and shouldn't be put in the ear. 99% of people who buy Q-tips put them in
their ears. 99% of true claims on Wikipedia are contributed by experts and are
either unreferenced, cite a source that doesn't really support them, a source
at the other end of a broken link that nobody's read, or a source that doesn't
meet the guidelines this historian was held to. Career editors spend more time
checking _for_ citations than checking citations. And they spend more time
checking for citations when they personally don't believe a claim. The
policies are applied hypocritically, with the result that opinions of non-
experts outweigh the opinions of experts. The only thing limiting the damage
has been the relatively small number of career editors. With massive decline
in casual participation in recent years, this balance is starting to shift. I
just noticed recently that career editors have started to tag mathematics
articles.

We should be honest that the encyclopedia contrivance is really just a way to
avoid flame wars, and is an imperfect one, especially when editors 'merge with
their cover story' and blindly enforce it. Wikipedia will be its best when it
is recognized for what it is: a truth engine, a first source, and a very
important public good.

Editing Wikipedia needs to be about more than writing long policy documents
and bludgeoning contributors with them. It is an important form of
scholarship. The project could benefit greatly by a reputation model more
subtle than "barnstars", such as [1]. But a fancy reputation model alone isn't
enough. The culture of Wikipedia is in trouble and needs to be revitalized.

[1] <http://www2007.org/papers/paper692.pdf>

~~~
derleth
> a truth engine

I don't know what that is, but I think if it ever existed it would be in the
service of something foul and malign.

Humans have facts. Humans have evidence. Humans even, in mathematics alone,
have proofs. Humans do not have truth. Woe betide anyone who thinks we do.

------
smsm42
I have adopted the following policy about Wikipedia, and I think it reflects
current state of affairs:

1\. It is a decent repository for bare facts that can be easily verified
elsewhere, but assembled there in convenient form. E.g. if you need to know
the population of Nepal, Wikipedia article about Nepal is a good way to go,
even though multiple other sources are available.

2\. It is a decent source of links for more complex material - e.g., if you
want to get a quick idea about what suprematism is, without knowing anything
about it, and how to start researching the topic, you can use Wikipedia
article, extract such keywords as "visual art", "Malevich", "russian avant-
garde", etc. and take it from there if you're interested.

3\. It is a somewhat useful, but a dangerous source about any concepts that
are in any way controversial - you should verify all claims and read all
links, but you can use it as an assembly of links and keywords, without
assigning too much importance to any narrative.

4\. It is absolutely useless for understanding any seriously controversial
topic, as at best controversial articles would selectively present facts,
reflecting biases of the writers, at worst - explicitly promote specific
approach to the topic, which will be ruthlessly enforced by either the mob of
opinionated editors or the wiki bureaucracy masterfully exploited by biased
insiders.

To the defense of Wikipedia, some mainstream encyclopedic sources, especially
ones published in non-free countries, suffer from even worse bias problems. I
don't think there's a solution for this, except using one's own mind and take
everything told to you with a grain of salt and check it when possible.
Obviously, the topic described in the article falls into the third or fourth
category, and so expecting Wikipedia to have anything but bare facts (like
dates when it happened, names of the participants, etc.) right would be a bet,
and not a safe one. In most cases it'd be whatever the random Wikipedia
"guardian" or anonymous mob of agenda-bearers wants it to be. Sometimes the
experts make the fuss that hits some popular media and particular article gets
better, but most would give up and decide not to waste their time.

------
twelvechairs
Key sentence: "my citations to the primary documents were insufficient"

While I agree that the wikipedia gestapo are often overzealous with reverting
good edits - it basically requires a case-by-case basis of deciding what
'facts' are, which is never easy. If his 'primary sources' are better than the
secondary sources that say the opposite, then talk sense to the person who is
doing the reversion, or raise it with someone higher - don't just continuously
attempt edit-wars...

~~~
ErrantX
In fairness, he didn't attempt to edit war (only making the changes once) - he
just gave up the discussion very quickly and didn't argue the point.

~~~
twelvechairs
"So I removed the line.... Within minutes my changes were reversed. " "I tried
to edit the page again. Within 10 seconds..." "Tempted to win simply through
sheer tenacity, I edited the page again. My triumph was even more fleeting
than before. "

~~~
ErrantX
He made three _different_ changes to different pieces of content. I see how he
doesn't get that across well in the article, though.

------
AndrewDucker
This is exactly what Wikipedia should be doing. They cannot know what the
truth is, they can only provide a summary of existing sources.

~~~
CPlatypus
There's nobody I'd trust less than a Wikipedia editor to act as the arbiter of
truth, but they could still do better. Wikipedía could adopt a policy of
preferring primary sources over secondary, which would still keep out the
"teach the controversy" cranks who are the obvious reason for the "undue
weight" criterion without affecting well researched rebuttals of conventional
folly. They consciously _choose_ to do the exact opposite, preferring popular
opinion to actual verifiability, and IMO that's wrong.

~~~
starwed
Wikipedia has explicitly adopted the opposite policy, and they didn't do so
arbitrarily.

In specific cases it might seem stupid, but I think in general it makes sense.
It goes hand in hand with the "no original research" policy.

(Like everything in wikipedia that policy can be misapplied by small minded
people, though.)

~~~
CPlatypus
The "no original research" policy is fine when it prevents self-citation, but
when it prevents citation of little-read but thoroughly credible third-party
sources such as court transcripts that's a different matter.

~~~
tptacek
No, it's really not. The proper venue for interpretation of little-read
primary sources like court transcripts is a book or journal article, not an
encyclopedia.

~~~
CPlatypus
Nobody's talking about interpretation. I was referring to mere verification
that the source exists and says what it's claimed to. That can _and should_
happen in an encyclopedia.

~~~
tptacek
That's not what he did. He synthesized from the primary sources text that
contradicted the majority of all published sources on the incident, including
what was up until then the most authoritative source. That obviously should
not be happening in an encyclopedia.

But let's be careful about wording. It obviously shouldn't happen _in an
encyclopedia_. But it obviously _should be happening_. And it did. He went on
to write an authoritative secondary source and the article is sure to reflect
it.

------
mwexler
I can imagine this back in the day. "Though almost every scholar agrees that
the earth (though flat) is the center of the universe, some people do persist
in saying that the earth is not only in orbit around the sun, but is also
round. Most of these minority claims rely on "mathematics" and other
potentially incorrect "proofs" of their theorems."

I am reminded of the "paradigm shift" approach to the history of science, as
flawed as it may be to some (look it up, sigh, on wikipedia). It implies that
the dominant point of view is held as fact until a preponderance of evidence
shifts the minority view from "flawed" to "edge cases" to "the new paradigm".
Then it cycles again. What was the sworn truth with history behind it is now
the "old paradigm" and disregarded.

For wikipedia, I've never felt there to be a requirement for "article
completeness", just an eye to be "well rounded", and so it often feels that
whatever the dominant paradigm is currently will be the primary driver of
inclusion and presence in an article.

Wikipedia is in that interesting tension between sticking to it's original
mission, which was pretty wonderful, and potentially becoming more, but at the
risk of becoming useless. For all it's flaws, I still think the world is
better with it than without it, and at some point, I suspect a way to let
folks contribute more original research and have it coexist on wikipedia will
evolve.

------
snorkel
Instead of fighting over the semantics of a single sentence why not instead
elaborate on the evidence presented by the prosecution, then later discuss if
the semantics of that summary sentence contradict the other information in the
same article?

------
morpher
One of the editors gave a form in which the newer research could be presented
that was in compliance with their policy (the green sky blue sky example). Why
didn't the author make an edit of his form? Something like: "Although most
historians agree that little evidence was presented... newer research
suggests..." It would get the new point across while keeping the prior,
possibly fallacious, but accepted viewpoint visible.

------
2muchcoffeeman
John Siracusa was complaining about the same thing recently. He also argues
that it is possible to create a wiki where truth is more important than
verifiability.

Hypercritical #53: Brad Pitt Gets to Contribute
<http://5by5.tv/hypercritical/53>

------
joelmichael
Looks like Wikipedia has been corrected as a result of this article. Well done
to the author, and shame on those who try to distort the truth.

~~~
voyou
And well done to the Wikipedia editors, who didn't include the updated
information in the article until it had gone through the academic publishing
process and so been vetted by experts in the field.

------
known
"The truth is more important than the facts." --Frank Lloyd Wright. But
unfortunately for Wikipedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Consensus>
is more __important __than facts/truth.

------
pkamb
Academics vs. Wikipedia Grammaticians:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fitts%27s_law#Grammar_edit>

------
username3
Ask HN: Is anyone working on this problem? any startups?

~~~
sp332
Citizendium was supposed to recruit experts to write articles, it's basically
dead. [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/10/five-year-
ol...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/10/five-year-old-
wikipedia-fork-is-dead-in-the-water.ars)

Google's Knol would have avoided a bunch of procedural mess, but it's been
shuttered. [http://techcrunch.com/2008/07/23/googles-knol-the-
monetizabl...](http://techcrunch.com/2008/07/23/googles-knol-the-monetizable-
wikipedia/)

~~~
tokenadult
Thanks for mentioning that Knol has been shuttered. The TechCrunch link you
kindly shared announces the launch of Knol, but I found the link

[http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/22/google-announces-plans-
to-s...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/22/google-announces-plans-to-shutter-
knol-friend-connect-and-more/)

that mentions Google abandoning Knol.

------
jrockway
Yes. Wikipedia is not for original research. Do the research, publish it, and
_then_ update Wikipedia.

------
lucb1e
Similar experiences here. In one case I even got corrected by a bot... I don't
know if all the millions Wikipedia slurps up from their donations go to AI
research, but I actually think the bot was wrong.

------
maeon3
Wikipedia will be destroyed when governments figure out that they can control
what is and is not "authorized popular truth". Wikipedia doesn't stand up for
truth, it only seeks to be based upon the data sources, even when we all know
they are officially verified government propaganda.

That's why history books in middle school are completely screwed up with lies.
You can't empirically test history. If wikipedia is to survive it will have to
make a principled stand against official propaganda machines, official
government sources and popular truth, myth and political agendas.

------
gallerytungsten
There are a number of people who apparently monitor Wikipedia relentlessly,
lest the truth appear. In general, they seem to be motivated by their devotion
to the Big Lie, extremist political agendas, and general crankiness.

