
Wikipedia: where truth dies online  - jamesbritt
http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/wikipedia-where-truth-dies-online/14963#.U2Fhb6KZjoo
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glenra
On any contentious topic (eg: climate change, criminal cases, religion,
politics, economics...) it is a HUGE improvement to not just read the main
article but also skim the associated "talk" page to see what points of view
are being actively suppressed by whatever cabal currently controls that issue.
_If_ you do that, wikipedia's not too bad an information source.

The primary problem is that - like google - wikipedia has been _too_
successful. What can happen now is that when a new issue becomes newsworthy:

(1) one side grabs control of the most relevant wikipedia page and slants it
in their direction by the simple expedient of giving their side "the last
word" in every argument and being ever-so-slightly more strict about sourcing
for claims made by the other side than claims made for theirs.

(2) Lazy journalists skim wikipedia to see what they should think about the
issue and write news stories that reflect the slant wikipedia intially had.

(3) Active editors use the articles written in step (2) to reference their own
slanted claims and make the article even MORE one-sided.

And so on. I don't really see an answer to this circular dynamic other than
perhaps: train journalists to look at the Talk page too?

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vacri
_Wikipedia has ... immense flaws, the greatest one being that nothing it
publishes can be trusted._

s/Wikipedia/any publication

Yet another article complaining that articles on subjective topics are
vulnerable to subjectivity. These articles are a dime a dozen, almost never
look outside their specific little bubble-of-complaint, and have been going on
for almost all of WP's 13-year history. This particular article is at odds
with itself, because it complains that the moderators are censorious and
overbearing, and also that WP can't police itself. So... moderators should
take a stronger hand? Or a weaker one?

Wikipedia is less worthless than this blinkered, agenda-pushing article.

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ekianjo
Yawn. Nothing much new in this article. There are articles that cannot be
trusted on Wikipedia. So what? It's just like everywhere else. Even History
books are full of inaccuracies or present facts according to the political
agenda of the current majority at power. This article missing the point that
there's tons of articles on Wikipedia which are not subject to controversy -
articles on science, math, technology - and those are usually written with a
pretty good standard.

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funkyy
Back in the days I was actually doing some campaigns for companies on
Wikipedia. Those would be based on creating high quality content and adding
link to our customer in exchange as a source (we were placing nice article on
customers page researched by knowledgeable folks from uni). We were doing a
lot of work creating pages, adding really nice content. Some moderators knew
about our actions but they were cool about it as they liked content we have
been creating.

Because of how many edits we were making (at least 20 a day) we have witnessed
politics and lobbying on Wikipedia. The worst are unfortunately subjects that
could by any extent critique US, UK, French or Russian governments, history,
monopoly or news.

We have seen highest placed people with absolute power just removing any
content without reason and blocking further changes.

One day I got in to the conversation with one of the "untouchable" \- admin
with small amount of edits etc but for some reason high in ranks. I got in to
argument as he removed 500+ words improvement of pretty dead article about
some delicate subject (heavy industry related) - this included removal of some
links to large companies (they were unrelated though and we placed in exchange
links to government institutions and few scholar research). Argument was
something like "I would like you to let us know the reason for removing our
edits." after no answer for 7 days I sent "If we wont get answer within 48
hours we will be forced tp take this case up as reverse seem as
selfpromotion".

Result - around 2 thousands quality edits removed (we had probably links to
our related article customers on only ~200 edits). Complete removal of our
accounts, blacklisting WHOLE IP ranges from our office and probably hundreds
of other regular users. That is how Wikipedia is neutral...

~~~
LeeHunter
From what you describe, WP was totally correct to ban your organization. Your
business model was to inject commercial links into articles. The fact that you
think you provided some value in exchange is pretty much irrelevant.

~~~
funkyy
I think you misread it - I said we have putted links in Reference fields
(below article) to articles that were placed on our customers websites. The
articles itself were quality, well researched and with images etc. Then we
would do quality edit and add value to Wikipedia. If this is not quality
editing then Wikipedia should ban hundreds of most active editors right away
as this is only way full time editors can make money from working for
Wikipedia...

~~~
LeeHunter
Exactly. Editing WP for money is a conflict of interest unless you're being
paid by Wikipedia. Hellbanning is the most appropriate action.

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alayne
The fact that so many problems with Wikipedia articles have been found really
undermines the entire thesis of this terrible article.

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argonito
I go to Wiki for biology, chemistry, math, and famous tech people. History,
politics and medicine / health issues are all just repackaged PR of a winning
country, political correctness and big pharma respectively.

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davidgerard
This is a climate change denialist upset that Wikipedia has a bias to
verifiable reality.

~~~
glenra
Climate change is just one of the issues on which overactive editors of
Wikipedia help _create_ "verifiable reality" rather than merely reflect it.
Which _might_ be a bit of a problem. (The Wikipedia page for "climategate" is
perhaps the best example of just HOW silly-political it can get.)

