
Who really runs Wikipedia? - jamesbritt
http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/05/economist-explains-who-really-runs-wikipedia?fsrc=neurogami
======
lkrubner
I recall taking a class on journalism and we argued about whether or not true
objectivity could ever exist. Some people pointed out that it was possible to
write an article that consisted only of factual statements, and therefore such
an article proved that objectivity was possible.

There were several counter-arguments: what about the factual statements that
were not included? You could factually say "The nation of x invaded the nation
of y and slaughtered 10,000 innocents." That makes the nation of x sound
pretty bad. It might also be factually true that the nation of y had invaded
the nation of x the previous month, but if you leave that out, is your article
still objective? It only consists of factual statements, but those factual
statements paint a misleading portrait.

I recall the professor of that class insisted that most of the bias he saw in
newspapers happened at the level of deciding what subjects to cover. During
his career he had seen the following scenario: a newspaper might run an
objective article about corruption in Egypt, and an objective article about
the brutality of the Iranian government, but then the paper would perhaps
never run an article that objectively covered the treatment of some people
under Israeli rule. Each article was objective, but the overall coverage was
biased.

And so too, with Wikipeida. 85% of the editors are male. Does that have an
impact one what decisions get made? This opening is interesting:

"LATE last month Amanda Filipacchi, an American writer, discovered that the
editors of Wikipedia, a crowdsourced online encyclopaedia, were re-
categorising female American authors from "American Novelists" to to "American
Women Novelists". No corresponding "American Men Novelists" subject area
existed at that time. "

Even if each article tries to acheive Neutral Point Of View, there can still
be bias merely in the way things get categorized.

~~~
dragonwriter
> You could factually say "The nation of x invaded the nation of y and
> slaughtered 10,000 innocents."

Probably not. "Innocents" is not a factual description, nor is "slaughtered",
and "invaded" is dubious. More importantly, even to the extent that that
statement could be rephrased into a series of fact claims, that doesn't make
it objective. Fact claims aren't inherently objective, as belief in a fact
claim is generally based on subjective interpretation of evidence for that
claim.

Striving to eliminate as much as possible the reporter's subjectivity results
in what we see frequently in the media today: "He said, she said" journalism
where the reported facts consist merely of reports that varying parties made
various claims.

~~~
glenra
> _Striving to eliminate as much as possible the reporter's subjectivity
> results in what we see frequently in the media today: "He said, she said"
> journalism where the reported facts consist merely of reports that varying
> parties made various claims._

Wikipedia does that too to some degree. The goal for claims in a wikipedia
article is that they be _verifiable_ , not that they be _true_. The definition
of a "verifiable" claim is that somebody made that claim in a "reliable
source". So people wanting to push a point of view will pad out the article
with references to other people expressing that view. Pointing out that the
view is _wrong_ and explaining why tends to be discarded as "original
research".

In instances when the conventional wisdom is wrong but widely reported,
wikipedia will tend to report that conventional wisdom.

The good news is that often when this happens, you can find what contrary
points of view are being suppressed by skimming the associated talk page. It's
usually worth doing that on controversial and/or current topics.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Wikipedia does that too to some degree. The goal for claims in a wikipedia
> article is that they be verifiable, not that they be true.

Tertiary sources are _by design_ about summarizing and relaying what secondary
(and sometimes primary) sources have stated about subjects. They serve a
different function than news reporting.

What is a sensible approach for an encyclopedic reference is not a sensible
approach for news reporting.

------
jfb
The NPOV and sourcing rules are what they are (quixotic, doomed to fail), but
one thing that I think doesn't get enough attention is the violence they do to
_style_. Wikipedia can at best read like the output of a really good text
summarization algorithm; usually it's even worse. I love reading Wikipedia,
and I love it even more when I come across gems like "the midget commits bowel
movements" [1] that gets edited down from the delightfully insane to the
beigest beige.

I am aware that looking for reading pleasure in Wikipedia is a fool's errand,
and I'm not suggesting that anything change; but the relationship between the
Wikipedia house style and their rules about "objectivity" is perhaps under-
appreciated.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Trapped_in_the_Clo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Trapped_in_the_Closet&diff=prev&oldid=436411213)

~~~
specialist
_the output of a really good text summarization algorithm_

Yes. And I value this aspect very much.

Often as not, I prefer the wikipedia page description over a (open source)
project's self-description.

------
malkarouri
One point that I had from experience is that Wikipedia tends to entrench the
bias of its editors, through seemingly sensible policies. A specific example
happened to me while contributing to the Arab spring pages (while the Arab
spring was ongoing). It was claimed that the Tunisian revolution was the first
by an Arab country. I disagreed because Sudan had a couple, which I know of
because I am Sudanese. Sensibly, the admins requested citation needed and no
original research. Given that the statement in question was mentioned in the
NYT and the British Guardian. I had to contact the journals, and the Guardian
actually published a correction, before the issue was settled. For other
issues involving Sudan I was generally not so lucky. Wikipedia reflects the US
understanding of Sudan, with a European slant, much more than it reflects the
situation in Sudan.

My lesson: we must try to understand the New York Times effect on man..

------
guard-of-terra
I no longer donate to Wikimedia until they find a way to end all kinds of
sociopatic bullshit surrounding it.

~~~
jeffdavis
I think you are setting the bar too high. Nothing is perfect, but Wikipedia is
great.

If you have some better idea how these things should be handled, then please
explain.

~~~
rsync
This is mildly off-topic, but since we're talking about the little hitlers
that dominate wikipedia content, here goes...

I (John Kozubik / rsync.net) will donate USD 10,000 to wikipedia if they
change their official stance to inclusionism, and adopt a "all well formed
articles belong" stance.

Yes, most of what is in deletionpedia is garbage. Yes, it deserved to be
deleted. But somewhere in there are thousands of articles that people spent
hours on, in good faith, zapped away due to "notability". If it's well formed,
it gets in.

~~~
bane
I just got bit by this recently...there used to be an excellent article on
frisson in WP. Full of great information and a nice collection of external
resources. It was 2 or 3 pages long and was up for several years if I recall.
It was probably one of the best summaries of the topic on the Internet at one
time.

It's gone, redirects to "cold chills" [1] which is not only incorrect, it's a
far inferior article to begin with.

Having given up on contributing or editing things in WP due to the rampant and
frustrating deletionism I have no idea how to even begin the labyrinthine
process of getting the old article returned. The only thing I can find of it
is a history where sometime in 2007 it was marked for redirection...but I know
that it worked at least through 2010 and into 2011 (my own comment history has
a link to it back then).

1 - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisson>

~~~
rsync
Frisson is not in deletionpedia - perhaps they do not retain articles that
were simply merged, etc.

Your frustration is shared by many, many people. Here's a well formed article
on a software package:

[http://deletionpedia.dbatley.com/w/index.php?title=EleBBS_(d...](http://deletionpedia.dbatley.com/w/index.php?title=EleBBS_\(deleted_10_Jul_2008_at_04:15\))

that was deleted because some kids hadn't heard of RA before. There are
_thousands_ of these.

~~~
bane
> perhaps they do not retain articles that were simply merged, etc.

if that _is_ the case, that's infuriating, I wonder how many tens of thousands
of man hours and how much knowledge has been vaporized in this way

 _poof_

------
Ras_
Don't forget that even though en.wikipedia is the most important, each
language version is independent. Some of those have distinct characteristics.

Many things are carried off from the largest one, but for example governance
can include unique features (e.g. Arbitration Committee, which is rare). Each
have their own established practices in deletions. For example En.wikipedia
has merit-based deletion, where you suggest support or delete with an argument
and it hopefully leads to a consensus. In fi.wikipedia only the numbers in a
community-wide vote matter. There are also some optional quality assurance
methods (Flagged revisions).

For example De.wikipedia has a very developed, almost professional Wikimedia
foundation chapter behind them. They run several development projects and
global services on behalf of the whole community. Flagged revisions was
piloted there. They also have a distinct look due to strict guidelines on
image use. Unlike most, they don't allow fair use pictures.

<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Flagged_Revisions>
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Arbitration_Committee>

Tektok @ Economist: "Wikipedia is run by those who have the most time to waste
and energy to outlast others." Unfortunately this is not far from the truth.

------
footoverhand
If one wants to know the official narrative of the US government or the EU,
you only need to glance into a recent history book distributed in schools, or
Wikipedia.

~~~
CleanedStar
Of course I agree, but there's an extra reason why this is the case on
Wikipedia. Let's take a look at "History of Iraq" on Wikipedia back in 2002 -

[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_Iraq...](http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_Iraq&oldid=569103)

"Once known as Mesopotamia, Iraq was the site of flourishing ancient
civilizations, including the Sumerian, Babylonian, and Parthian cultures.
Muslims conquered Iraq in the seventh century A.D. In the eighth century, the
Abassid caliphate established its capital at Baghdad, which became a frontier
outpost on the Ottoman Empire."

Now let's look at the US State Department profile of Iraq it had from 2001 to
2003 -

<http://www.state.gov/outofdate/bgn/iraq/24819.htm>

"Once known as Mesopotamia, Iraq was the site of flourishing ancient
civilizations, including the Sumerian, Babylonian, and Parthian cultures.
Muslims conquered Iraq in the seventh century A.D. In the eighth century, the
Abassid caliphate established its capital at Baghdad, which became a frontier
outpost on the Ottoman Empire."

Yes, the history of Iraq on Wikipedia was literally written by the US State
Department. As have the histories of most of the world's countries.

~~~
thomasz
Isn't it possible that the state department plagiarised Wikipedia?

------
tnuc
I always though Wikipedia was run by lobbyists and publicists who have their
clients best interests at heart.

~~~
ttrreeww
Big pharma has massive influence on a whole lot of Wikipedia articles, it is
quite disgusting to be honest.

~~~
np422
I would like to know more, could please explain further and give some
examples?

~~~
ttrreeww
Let's just say, they would go as far as saying parachute is unproven as it has
never undergone a double blined trial.

They would then go on and somehow imply parachute is bad for you by citing
parachute accidents.... Nicely sourced.

It's... disgusting.

This is actually not isolated to big pharma, a whole host of other pages on
Wikipedia suffer from the same kind of agenda pushing editors.

~~~
jlgreco
Instead of fabricated strawman examples of what you could imagine they might
do, do you have any examples of what they have actually done?

~~~
sfmcjgkbrbm
Electronic cigarette article summary doesn't mention that they are healthier
than tobacco. And the article was much worse in the past.

~~~
adventured
Bad example. The e-cig article does a fine job of pointing out that they're
healthier than cigarettes.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_cigarette#Health_con...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_cigarette#Health_concerns)

"Proponents of electronic cigarettes often claim that electronic cigarettes
deliver the experience of smoking while eliminating the smell and health risks
associated with tobacco smoke."

"While e-cigarettes may give nicotine addicts more or less the same amount of
nicotine as a conventional cigarette, they do not produce the same toxic smoke
that can cause lung disease and cancer when inhaled over time. Since there are
no products of combustion to be inhaled, no tobacco toxins are inhaled besides
nicotine"

------
teeja
The answer is short: the policies are in charge.

Follow a few discussions and the (crowdsourced) rules are continually umpiring
them. Do all editors follow them, no. But when other (more experienced)
editors come along - eventually - the hammer falls. You'll see an admin in the
fray now and then, but rarely.

------
Tichy
Reminds me of the early worries, wikis can never work yadda yadda yadda. In
fact there may be countless changes, but if people care about a subject they
will monitor it and notice even the tiny changes.

------
adventured
I wonder if Wikipedia will suffer from some of the same problems the open
directory (DMOZ) did when it began to stagnate. Ops became openly hostile and
started promoting or punishing various people / causes / businesses depending
on their personal alignment.

------
CleanedStar
Well start with Wikipedia's head, Wales. Where does he come from, how does he
think? We know he ran an Ayn Rand mailing list before becoming involved with
Wikipedia, but how does his personal, political thinking influence Wikipedia?
Well he himself has said that conservative Friedrich Hayek's work "is central
to my own thinking about how to manage the Wikipedia project". While he is not
always blatant and draconian in politically influencing Wikipedia, this has
cropped up again and again.

For example this Arbitration Committee spoken of - in mid-2005 Wales appoints
an editor so biased against Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims that Wikipedia
Review has a whole forum on this editor - JayJG (
<http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showforum=46> ). People find him
incredibly biased and the vote of all Wikipedia in early 2006 for ArbCom
members kicks him out. But Wales is not happy with this and decides to stuff
ArbCom, like FDR threatened to stuff the Supreme Court. So Wales creates a new
ArbCom seat. Does he appoint the Wikipedia-wide next highest voted neutral
editor to ArbCom? No, he reappoints this Arab and Muslim hating editor JayJG.

You can find many examples of this sort of thing. With Wikipedia, the rot
starts at the top. One day, a rival wiki encyclopedia will come into play and
trounce Wikipedia (or at least be an alternative to it).

~~~
adventured
Jimmy Wales doesn't run Wikipedia and is not the head of Wikipedia. He is a
figurehead. There's a very dramatic difference between the concepts.

That fact makes your entire rant pointless.

~~~
toyg
A figurehead who can create new seats on committees and arbitrarily appoint
people to them doesn't seem a "figurehead" to me, unless you're insinuating
that he's merely doing someone else's dirty work.

~~~
gwern
I'll put it this way: grandparent's example was from _7_ years ago. If Wales
was not a figurehead, his chosen example should be a little more recent, shall
we say?

~~~
toyg
I agree that he's renounced his long-held sweeping powers a few years ago, but
he still has "editorial input", sits on the board and clearly still holds a
certain influence.

I have nothing against the guy, to be honest.

------
nwzpaperman
The days of people being lazy information consumers are long past. If
something is important, it's incumbent upon you to pursue understanding of
said something. Wikipedia has been a very useful platform, but it is no more
secure in its future than horseshoe manufacturers were a century ago.

People and society need information and if someone or whatever outlet supplies
good information, people will use it. If the person or whatever outlet start
putting out bad information, the audience will leave for better information
sources.

------
ttrreeww
PR firms LOVE Wikipedia...

~~~
HarryHirsch
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.

~~~
tptacek
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
> 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/...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/COI)

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
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.

~~~
HarryHirsch
The discussion there shows the viewpoints of the participants and the
suggestions going forward in dealing with PR, and they are for the most part
naive.

Here is an actual example how PR has been dealt with:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/TimidGuy_ban_appeal).

The protagonists are "TimidGuy", a person affiliated with Maharishi University
of Management engaging in advocacy for Transcendental Meditation, and "Will
Beback", the fellow who attempted to put a lid on the PR. The outcome: a
siteban for Will Beback and no consequences for TimidGuy.

A weak performance.

~~~
tptacek
Did you actually _read_ this case? An editor is topic-banned from editing
pages about Indian religions after a pattern of advocacy is detected. The ban
expires, and the editor resumes contributing to pages on those topics, but
without the advocacy; for instance, the user adds negative material about
topics he'd previously advocated for.

Another Wikipedia editor notices the resumption in editing and goes nuts,
trying to out the user, appealing for the user to be banned, and picking
intractable fights.

What conclusion was this case supposed to come to?

Is it your belief that the whole of ArbCom are secretly in the tank for
commercial transcendental meditation?

Also, look at how much time Wikipedia sunk into trying to resolve this case
carefully. How do you find a way to make that a bad thing?

~~~
HarryHirsch
> What conclusion was this case supposed to come to?

I said this already: in the real world companies send press releases to trade
journals, who then turn those into editorial content. The equivalent on
Wikipedia would be that the PR professional makes his suggestions on the
talkpage but is banned from the main article. It this even a question? What
alternative do you suggest? Neither Harvard nor Maharishi University get to
write their own pages in US News & World Report College Rankings Issue.

I can understand well how someone can go mad and eventually become completely
out of order when faced with a history of ethically questionable behaviour.
Unfortunately Wikipedia isn't very lenient with mad people.

> Is it your belief that the whole of ArbCom are secretly in the tank for
> commercial transcendental meditation?

They are just inexperienced and clueless. But that isn't an excuse, clue is
required when in a visible position at one of the world's top websites.

Did you ever read the Conflict-of-Interest RfC? Actually it is a product of
that TM Arbcom case. There are some real howlers in there:

Jclemens: _Whether an editor is directly paid to edit Wikipedia is irrelevant
to the quality of their contributions_

Sandstein: _Conflict of interest (COI) is a problem only where it leads to the
production of non-neutral (or unverifiable, or otherwise policy-noncompliant)
content_

Sven Manguard: _We should not treat paid editors differently from unpaid
editors._

Elen of the Roads: _... to be clear that the problem is not working for Acme
PR, being Prof Elk or having a lifelong interest in debunking astrology. It is
breaching the contract with the reader that articles will be fair, balanced,
neutral, give due weight to all the current thinking._

All of these are prominent Wikipedians with very, _very_ muddled thinking.

~~~
tptacek
The one example you've managed to provide is of Wikipedia going through
tedious and extensive efforts to prevent conflict-of-interest edits. Maybe you
could provide a more convincing example than this one?

I simply don't care what you read on some Wikipedia discussion page about what
random people on the Internet think about conflict-of-interest edits. The
project has rules; cite those, or cite instances where the rules weren't
followed.

