
The Shining light of Wikipedia and other disappointments - hoofish
http://wikipediawehaveaproblem.com/2017/06/censorship-suppression-the-shining-light-of-wikipedia-and-other-disappointments/
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zenkat
Reading between the lines, this appears to be someone who has tried to alter
Wikipedia to support fringe scientists & alt-medicine gurus like Rupert
Sheldrake and Deepak Chopra. So I all a bit skeptical of his motives.

Does anyone know the other side of the story?

~~~
mangecoeur
I saw that too, mixed in with likely legit criticism of the possibility of
editors abusing their power in the community and possibly too much orthodoxy
squashing less popular views, is the fact that they want there to be more
prominence for ideas that don't hold up to scientific scrutiny - and worse,
can create confusion among lay people about what constitutes a valid
scientific theory.

~~~
hoofish
where specifically do you see that? It is detailed and mentioned both on
Wikipedia itself and the website that the focus was on non controversial
biographical information and had nothing to do with the ideas or the theories.

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FrozenVoid
Wikipedia is fine if you look up something less controversial like proton
decay, but as soon as article has multiple points of view, there is a fight to
establish the 'dominant narrative'. Articles that have any arbitration
measures applied or in semi-protection shouldn't be trusted: if there are huge
talk page archives its also a sign the topic has multiple points of view which
Wikipedia can't express. Neutral point of view(Wiki policy) with controversial
topics often leads to one-sided articles where the side which 'won the
article' controls completely the content, which is massaged to fit the NPOV
policy without adding anything from opponents.

~~~
kerkeslager
This is a problem for sure, but consider the alternative. We could include all
viewpoints. This means we put "the universe originated with a big bang and
humans evolved from apes" next to "an invisible being created the world and
humans 8000 years ago", "AIDS is caused by HIV" next to "AIDS is caused by
vaccines and can be cured by ear candling", "the Holocaust killed 10 million
plus people" next to "the Holocaust is a Jewish conspiracy to gain sympathy so
they can take over the banking system". It's true that for some topics,
including only the dominant view glosses over substantial evidence, but we
can't ignore the fact that dominant viewpoints are often dominant because the
non-dominant viewpoints have no basis in reality.

~~~
FrozenVoid
These contrasting views are documented in Wikipedia as conspiracy
theories(holocaust denial, HIV denial) and creationism, wikipedia is fine with
it. What i talk about are single articles where there is no other view
elsewhere: the only expression of that topic belongs in a single article. It
doesn't require to seek political articles to find obvious bias. Lets take for
example 0.999... ; its contained in single article, there is only a brief
mention of opposing view in skepticism section, but if you look at the talk
pages you'll see its more controversial than it sounds and the opposing view
is silenced.

~~~
kerkeslager
Okay, but there's similar argument on vaccines and Obama's birth certificate;
how do you propose to resolve that? Do you feel qualified to say that the
minority opinion on 0.999 is more notable or sane than moon landing denials?
On what basis?

~~~
FrozenVoid
Wikipedia is fine with all of these topics and has articles documenting them:
Obama birth certificate has its own
article,[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_citizenship_consp...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_citizenship_conspiracy_theories)
Moon landing conspiracy theories article
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing_conspiracy_theori...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing_conspiracy_theories)
Vaccines
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_controversies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_controversies)

~~~
kerkeslager
I think you're conflating "documenting disproved conspiracy theories" with
"presenting disproved conspiracy theories as alternative theories".

The vaccine controversies page, for example, notes that some people think
vaccines cause autism, but also prominently quotes someone calling the
vaccine-autism connection "perhaps, the most damaging medical hoax of the last
100 years". At no point does either the vaccine or vaccine controversies
article deviate from the dominant viewpoint that vaccines do not cause autism.

This is very different from the numerous attempts to edit the page vaccines to
say that vaccines cause autism. That is what we'd be allowing if we say that
articles must present opposing viewpoints when there is controversy. Do you
really want the vaccines page to present that as a valid viewpoint?

~~~
FrozenVoid
Wikipedia pretends to be neutral retelling of secondary
sources("Verifiability, not Truth"). If Wikipedia was truly neutral it
wouldn't need to adhere to "valid/dominant viewpoints" and pretend everything
else doesn't exist. Basically, they claim to be neutral and unbiased while
"dominant viewpoints" determine the content.

~~~
kerkeslager
I agree. As I said upthread, that's a problem.

However, I'm saying, the alternative, where treating every viewpoint that
exists as worthy of inclusion, is worse.

~~~
hoofish
but those are not two mutually exclusive options. There is a difference
between suppressing a minority voice (perspective) away from editing an
article as opposed to INCLUDING a minority reference or fact in the article
itself.

~~~
kerkeslager
My argument is that many minority views (for example "vaccines cause autism")
should be actively removed ("suppressed" in your words) from Wikipedia in
favor of reality-based opinions. The only mechanism wikipedia has for choosing
which minority opinions to remove is majority opinion (hopefully expert
majority opinion). Wikipedia doesn't have a mechanism to include minority
opinions without also including crazies.

Majority opinion isn't always right, but Wikipedia isn't well suited for
solving that problem. This isn't speculation: it wasn't always this way, but
the rules were made because people were flooding Wikipedia with all the insane
things people believe. I've never been an active wikipedia contributor, but
I've used the site long enough to remember this.

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H4CK3RM4N
The site was having trouble loading for me. Here is an archive:
[http://archive.is/mOynr](http://archive.is/mOynr)

I think blocking wikipediawehaveaproblem.com as a source is ok, but banning it
from Jimmy's talk page is an entirely different kettle of fish.

~~~
hoofish
it is not blocked as a source, it is blocked site wide from sharing on talk
pages of any editor.

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powera
I wouldn't expect Wikipedia to accept "WikipediaSucks.com" as a source either.

~~~
CDRdude
I wouldn't expect them to ban it from talk pages though.

~~~
posterboy
I would if the posts are destructive, disruptive or spamy.

At first I would tend to ban the authors, but that would create precedent and
effectively ban the posts not before long.

~~~
hoofish
damn you scarey

~~~
posterboy
that's only what they do here on HN

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posterboy
While Wikipedia is certainly not any more objective as a collective than any
individual alone. It surely is tough to deal with confrontation and rejection
emotional support. It's frustrating to eb the one who is wrong or being
wronged. But it is most of all frustrating to be absolutely ignorant and
Wikipedia is a great resource at providing educative insights, even if the
editing process is severely laborious and the needed quality not always
obvious or easily provided.

~~~
hoofish
The issue is agenda based editing. While it is natural that people will
disagree on context, that is not the problem, the problem is when you have
agenda based editors who guard articles and suppress other viewpoints from any
editing at all. That is what is happening on Wikipedia

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luhn
> Jimbo Wales, in touting the value of overcoming fake news with his new
> WikiTribune, is without realizing it admitting to the utter corruption of
> the Wikipedia model.

The author makes this assertion and then quickly moves on. I don't follow it.
Can anybody clarify how WikiTribune relates to the author's complaints of
Wikipedia?

~~~
hoofish
Sure, WikiTribune uses a soft wiki model in a way that insures reliable
reporting. This requires a responsible paid staff while still keeping the
collaboration of the outside community in tact.

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edoceo
Perspective seems clear and we'll reasoned to me. Until Wales is compared to
Trump.

~~~
hoofish
good point

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babuskov
> The website is temporarily unable to service your request as it exceeded
> resource limit. Please try again later.

Mirror anyone?

