Waitone
Member
When I heard of a couple of congressional staffers "correcting" entries concerning their congressman's record, I knew Wiki was no source for reasonalble debate.
Wikipedia... Can we use it to support our side?
- Thread starter FTF
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When I saw that an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) mistakenly stated that the protein product of the RNASEL gene is a tyrosine kinase that "signals cells to churn out inflammatory factors," when in fact, the protein is not a tyrosine kinase; it is a ribonuclease for single-stranded RNA involved in the mechanism of action of interferon, I knew JAMA was not a source for reliable medical information.
mordechaianiliewicz
Member
No
Autolycus
Member
Jeff Timm
Member
Wikipedia is unreliable and the review process controlled by a group of moderators who don't work very well. Example from www.jerrypournelle.com
"Dr. Pournelle
Did you know this was on Wikepedia?
Regards,
Paul D. Perry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pournelle_chart
I know it is there. I have three times tried to make a couple of points and edit it and each time someone else has removed what I said, so I pay no attention to Wikipedia any longer. It has some good information, but it is also full of errors that cannot be corrected because someone wants those errors to be there."
In other words the ORIGNATOR of the information cannot correct errors introduced by others and the moderators protect the errors.
Geoff
Who none the less uses Wikipedia as a pointer to better sources. :banghead:
"Dr. Pournelle
Did you know this was on Wikepedia?
Regards,
Paul D. Perry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pournelle_chart
I know it is there. I have three times tried to make a couple of points and edit it and each time someone else has removed what I said, so I pay no attention to Wikipedia any longer. It has some good information, but it is also full of errors that cannot be corrected because someone wants those errors to be there."
In other words the ORIGNATOR of the information cannot correct errors introduced by others and the moderators protect the errors.
Geoff
Who none the less uses Wikipedia as a pointer to better sources. :banghead:
SnWnMe
Member
Most of my professors do not accept Wikipedia as a reference. I didn't cite it for my thesis either.
Carl N. Brown
Member
Wikipedia is often a good measure of the controversy of a subject
(especially the talk-discussion pages).
Personally, I would use wiki as a starting point, but not as a single
source or last word. I prefer to see at least three independent sources
on any subject from multiple points of view (insert story of blind men
and elephant here).
(especially the talk-discussion pages).
Personally, I would use wiki as a starting point, but not as a single
source or last word. I prefer to see at least three independent sources
on any subject from multiple points of view (insert story of blind men
and elephant here).
geekWithA.45
Moderator Emeritus
Ahem.
I'd like to make a point here.
The point is that yes, we have demonstrated the various faults regarding Wikipedia as being authoritative on anything.
"it is also full of errors that cannot be corrected because someone wants those errors to be there."
Dr. Pournelle.
HOWEVER, there is a vast _many_ who are not "in" on that "secret", and view Wikipedia as nominally reliable.
We daren't abandon such a venue.
As gunnies, most of our failures, IMO, are the direct result of vacating the field to our enemies.
It therefore makese sense to keep at least on eye on popular sources of information, and influence them, nudging them towards the truth & light
when we can.
We won't be making a lot of headway there w/ the MSM, but we sure can make headway with open sources of knowledge.
I'd like to make a point here.
The point is that yes, we have demonstrated the various faults regarding Wikipedia as being authoritative on anything.
"it is also full of errors that cannot be corrected because someone wants those errors to be there."
Dr. Pournelle.
HOWEVER, there is a vast _many_ who are not "in" on that "secret", and view Wikipedia as nominally reliable.
We daren't abandon such a venue.
As gunnies, most of our failures, IMO, are the direct result of vacating the field to our enemies.
It therefore makese sense to keep at least on eye on popular sources of information, and influence them, nudging them towards the truth & light
when we can.We won't be making a lot of headway there w/ the MSM, but we sure can make headway with open sources of knowledge.
XavierBreath
Member
Excellent point James. Thanks for getting this thread back on track.
I apologize for my participation in the derailment.
I apologize for my participation in the derailment.
hillbilly, I agree that wikipedia should not be used in papers. When I was in middle school, teachers forbade use of any encyclopedia as a cited reference.
Wikipedia does have transient vandalism problems, and the grammar is not always up to par. But if you are critical enough to catch the occasional bit of vandalism, it is far and away the best resource in existence for getting background knowledge on most subjects.
Long-term vandalism of important articles is extremely rare. Low-traffic pages are where lies and disinformation lurk. There are several low-traffic pages that I check every few weeks for vandalism.
Nobody should ever use one source for all information on a subject. Wikipedia may be vandalized, but other encyclopedic resources have unintentional errors that are just as bad.
Wikipedia has an advantage in that respect. When reading a suspect article, a wise course of action is to read the current edition, and read an edition from a few months back. Any major disparities or additions should be treated with caution.
Rather than complain complain complain, perhaps it's more productive to recognize the wiki as a great source of information (even if it shouldn't be quoted/cited in academia), and pick a few articles that you're willing to audit every once in a while.
I think Wikipedia is foolish to allow anonymous edits, because that's where virtually all of the vandalism -- obvious and subtle -- comes from. The rationale that oppressed people need to be able to contribute without fear of reprisal from their employer or government is silly. Wikipedia has already banned edits -- both anonymous AND pseudonymous -- from Tor exit nodes. If they were serious about creating an environment where oppressed individuals could contribute information safely, they would at least allow registered users to contribute while using Tor.
IPs of anonymous edits are logged and are visible to everyone. Pseudonyms offer more protection against typical attempts to discern posters' identities. Pseudonyms are only harmful in the case where a posters' contributions offend an entity willing to expend significant resources collecting all that poster's contributions, doing textual analysis, and comparing that writing to existing writing samples of employees/known-subversives/etc. That is a threat model most of us don't have to worry about, and anonymous edits don't fully protect against it either. Anonymous edits from fixed IPs or netblocks can be separated by textual analysis into probable individual posters. Same with anonymous edits from Tor exit nodes (which are now banned from anonymous posting). If someone is clever enough to effectively disguise his writing style, using a pseudonym for subversive wiki edits is not harmful. It doesn't matter that the pseudonym's posts are all tied together. What matters is that they cannot be easily associated with flesh&blood person.
Wikipedia does have transient vandalism problems, and the grammar is not always up to par. But if you are critical enough to catch the occasional bit of vandalism, it is far and away the best resource in existence for getting background knowledge on most subjects.
Long-term vandalism of important articles is extremely rare. Low-traffic pages are where lies and disinformation lurk. There are several low-traffic pages that I check every few weeks for vandalism.
Nobody should ever use one source for all information on a subject. Wikipedia may be vandalized, but other encyclopedic resources have unintentional errors that are just as bad.
Wikipedia has an advantage in that respect. When reading a suspect article, a wise course of action is to read the current edition, and read an edition from a few months back. Any major disparities or additions should be treated with caution.
Rather than complain complain complain, perhaps it's more productive to recognize the wiki as a great source of information (even if it shouldn't be quoted/cited in academia), and pick a few articles that you're willing to audit every once in a while.
I think Wikipedia is foolish to allow anonymous edits, because that's where virtually all of the vandalism -- obvious and subtle -- comes from. The rationale that oppressed people need to be able to contribute without fear of reprisal from their employer or government is silly. Wikipedia has already banned edits -- both anonymous AND pseudonymous -- from Tor exit nodes. If they were serious about creating an environment where oppressed individuals could contribute information safely, they would at least allow registered users to contribute while using Tor.
IPs of anonymous edits are logged and are visible to everyone. Pseudonyms offer more protection against typical attempts to discern posters' identities. Pseudonyms are only harmful in the case where a posters' contributions offend an entity willing to expend significant resources collecting all that poster's contributions, doing textual analysis, and comparing that writing to existing writing samples of employees/known-subversives/etc. That is a threat model most of us don't have to worry about, and anonymous edits don't fully protect against it either. Anonymous edits from fixed IPs or netblocks can be separated by textual analysis into probable individual posters. Same with anonymous edits from Tor exit nodes (which are now banned from anonymous posting). If someone is clever enough to effectively disguise his writing style, using a pseudonym for subversive wiki edits is not harmful. It doesn't matter that the pseudonym's posts are all tied together. What matters is that they cannot be easily associated with flesh&blood person.
CNYCacher
Member
hillbilly said:
Some time ago there was anothe THR thread where Hillbilly lambasted Wikipedia. On a whim, I hit the "Go to a random article" button on the Wikipedia homepage. I would up on a page that was a short writeup about some very small town (less than 1000 people) in rural Utah. I edited the page and put in bold letters at the top "Hillbilly is the king of this town" and saved it. I checked back half an hour later and someone had reverted my changes. . . Six months indeed.
Also bear in mind that different topics may be more prone to vandalism, bias, or plain ignorance than others.
Personally, I wouldn't trust a wiki article on a controversial political subject, as it would likely be prone to being either vandalized, or edited to "prove" a particular viewpoint.
On the other hand, for articles about relatively obscure aspects of history or science, that will probably only be of interest to a minority, and only edited by those who know the subject, it generally seems to be as good as any textbook.
And where it really shines is in any field where it helps to have all the world's internet geeks pooling their knowledge (Star Wars, 1980s cartoon shows, etc). And of course the double benefit is if someone did vandalise some of those articles, it wouldn't exactly have any serious consequences for the real world.
Personally, I wouldn't trust a wiki article on a controversial political subject, as it would likely be prone to being either vandalized, or edited to "prove" a particular viewpoint.
On the other hand, for articles about relatively obscure aspects of history or science, that will probably only be of interest to a minority, and only edited by those who know the subject, it generally seems to be as good as any textbook.
And where it really shines is in any field where it helps to have all the world's internet geeks pooling their knowledge (Star Wars, 1980s cartoon shows, etc). And of course the double benefit is if someone did vandalise some of those articles, it wouldn't exactly have any serious consequences for the real world.
Jorg Nysgerrig
Member
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Those who blast it for not being a source of serious scholarly material are completely missing the point. Wikipedia should be seen as analogous to an encyclopedia. Both provide general information on a lot of topics. Neither should be used as a source for serious research, but they articles they reference might be a good starting point.
Claiming Wikipedia is worthless because of its faults is like saying a .22LR is worthless because of its lack of stopping power. I don't need to stop a charging rhino every time I go shooting; sometimes I just want to make some cans dance in the desert. Likewise, I'm not always looking for an exhaustive and authoritative source on a topic; sometimes I'm simply looking for a bit of background information and perhaps a bit of trivia.
Is Wikipedia perfect? No, of course it isn't. I can say that most of the times I use it, I either find what I am looking for or get pointed in the right direction. Not bad for something that costs me no more than a few minutes of my time.
However, there will always be those who tilt at windmills.
Claiming Wikipedia is worthless because of its faults is like saying a .22LR is worthless because of its lack of stopping power. I don't need to stop a charging rhino every time I go shooting; sometimes I just want to make some cans dance in the desert. Likewise, I'm not always looking for an exhaustive and authoritative source on a topic; sometimes I'm simply looking for a bit of background information and perhaps a bit of trivia.
Is Wikipedia perfect? No, of course it isn't. I can say that most of the times I use it, I either find what I am looking for or get pointed in the right direction. Not bad for something that costs me no more than a few minutes of my time.
However, there will always be those who tilt at windmills.
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