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Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

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Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#81

Post by cy_hauser »

calumetregion wrote: post #49
29vito wrote: post #21

Could you please point to an example where you feel the article isn't neutral?

Many people asking for examples. For an easy one (among millions) just compare The New York Times Wikipedia article to the article for The Epoch Times. "Oh, but The Epoch Times is right wing, so..." How can I compare the Ochs-Sulzberger family to the Falun Gong? Well I just did. They're both made up of humans with opinions.

I'm interpreting your comment as, "Wikipedia isn't far right enough for my tastes." Is that accurate? Do you know of any examples where Wikipedia leans farther right than left?

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#83

Post by zozbot234 »

actuator wrote: post #56
magpi3 wrote: post #12

Well I suppose another "Who watches the watchmen" type site can be built to report on bias issues/irresponsible editors. But ideally Wikipedia itself would build some internal mechanism for dealing with disputes. Has it done so? I have heard that Wikipedia is "broken" before, but without specific examples the complaint comes across as hollow. And if you do have specific examples, then I think it gives people the chan…

> But ideally Wikipedia itself would build some internal mechanism It has WP:ANI, but it is hard to go against established editors, if they are not writing outright lies or doing harassment. Say, if I want to edit a line from a summary of the Wikipedia page on a person which unfairly represents a person and the established editor thinks it makes sense, then I can't do anything. They are not writing misinformation as…

> Say, if I want to edit a line from a summary of the Wikipedia page on a person which unfairly represents a person and the established editor thinks it makes sense, then I can't do anything.

Of course you can. You can argue for your prferred wording on the talk page for the individual article, and a compromise can be reached. This is how this stuff works. Talk pages are critical to dealing with even the slightest amount of controversy, "reverts" are supposed to be emergency actions only.

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#84

Post by civilized »

actuator wrote: post #75
civilized wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. While some articles may seem to have a slant in emphasis, I can't recall a time when credible information contrary to the slant was omitted or distorted. That's much better than I can say for just about any other source I read online. I remain an avid wikipedia reader.

> some articles may seem to have a slant in emphasis The editorial slant which sets the tone of the article also colours the thoughts of the reader, it is not just dissemination or omission of facts. Moreover, editors do tend to give more weightage to some sources than the other if they are reporting on the same issue.

> The editorial slant which sets the tone of the article also colours the thoughts of the reader, it is not just dissemination or omission of facts.

Yes, but as I said, Wikipedia is much less bad in this respect than any other source. If I have the sources, at least I can do my own digging. With most other sources I have to assume there is information contrary to the slant that is being swept under the rug, and I won't immediately know where to find that information.

> editors do tend to give more weightage to some sources than the other if they are reporting on the same issue.

Sometimes there is good reason to do this. Some sources are more credible than others.

If editors didn't exercise judgment in selection of sources, Wikipedia would just be a disinformation playground dominated by the most energetic propagandists.

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#85

Post by adhesive_wombat »

threatofrain wrote: post #60
adhesive_wombat wrote: post #30

Get the Wikimedia Foundation to spend money on the technical foundation of the sites, rather than spraying millions up the wall of "racial justice". That's not me making a strawman by going straight to "omg, the SJWs", it's a exact phrase from the 3rd paragraph of the 4.5 million Knowledge Equity Fund page [1]. That, and executive pay, is where donations go, not to keeping the lights on. The running cost to keeping t…

> It certainly isn't the case that engineering is "done" either, as the open bug count is growing constantly and huge swathes of the software aren't maintained and don't even have maintainers[2]. Wikipedia is moving to Vue.

They haven't even finished moving to OOUI.

Actually, if they'd just bothered to document OOUI properly in the first place, would they need to move?

As it is, they'll now have three concurrent systems (jQuery, OOUI and Vue). It's like GTK 2,3,4 all over again.

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#86

Post by actuator »

ajross wrote: post #69
actuator wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The face mask article example you gave is actually one of the ones which would be less affected by established editor bias as there would be more editors from different regions participating in editing it. Moreover claims by health organisations like WHO can be used to prove or disprove the efficacy of masks. But this is a luxury articles that are dealing with established authorities publishing information have. Arti…

Do you have an example? I mean, I'm sure there's a terrible-but-forgotten-and-ignored page in there, but in my experience Wikipedia's rules about citation and notability work very well to limit expressions of opinion in the pages. Are you absolutely sure you aren't just expressing the effect I noted? You got mad because a page listed facts, but not the "right" facts?

No, I am fine with the facts being listed and with the page in contention, I wasn't even discussing the presence or omission of the fact.

My concern was with the weightage the said fact had in the overall article. The weightage of the said issue in the summary and article, seems to far outweigh what it deserved.

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#87

Post by 3np »

nojito wrote: post #42
RamblingCTO wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not sure if /s or not, but the first page is literally "Overcoming homosexuality". wtf?

conservapedia is 100% real and not satire.

Their pages on Putin/Ukraine/The Ukraine Crisis were enlightening reads. Not as much on the topics themselves as on the sites authorship.

I took Schlafly for a 'merican bananas conservative but its looking like there's some connection to Kreml there..

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#88

Post by ZeroGravitas »

agumonkey wrote: post #13

maybe a contradictory bot farm ... something that can dig wide data graphs on wikipedia to point at inconsistencies and provide more fixes

This is partly the mission of Wikidata, for example if the two language wikipedias involved in a historical war can agree on the date it started and ended, and so do all the non-combatents, thats a good sign that there isn't mistakes or intentional bias.

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#89

Post by lucb1e »

jacquesm wrote: post #27

Without specific examples this is pretty meaningless. Every now and then there are groups that try to gain control of an article or group of articles on Wikipedia (especially around big current events) and then they start looking for ways to game the system all the while bitching about how Wikipedia is 'broken'. The way I see it: Wikipedia is imperfect, but not broken, and it has developed a pretty impressive array o…

> Without specific examples this is pretty meaningless.

I'd go one step further: specific examples are still meaningless. On a site with editors from every country and region on the world and millions of articles (not each one equally popular and viewed/vetted by other editors), of course you'll find examples for any point of view.

I'm also afraid it might then become a conversation about those specific examples. Proving systemic bias is unfortunately not trivial here. Without looking into examples at all, though, it's indeed a meaningless conversation that OP is creating.

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#90

Post by adhesive_wombat »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #66
adhesive_wombat wrote: post #30

Get the Wikimedia Foundation to spend money on the technical foundation of the sites, rather than spraying millions up the wall of "racial justice". That's not me making a strawman by going straight to "omg, the SJWs", it's a exact phrase from the 3rd paragraph of the 4.5 million Knowledge Equity Fund page [1]. That, and executive pay, is where donations go, not to keeping the lights on. The running cost to keeping t…

This could almost be taken word for word from an article about Mozilla. People who think 'social justice' is a bad thing seem to set really high standards for the open, independant organisations they say they support, and they're not afraid to give them some extreme tough love and undermine them at every step if they don't follow their priorities.

Social justice isn't a bad thing. Social justice instead of actually fulfilling your primary goal is. If all the bugs are closed, the product is beautiful and there's still money sloshing about, then fill your boots.

Also, make sure that your donors know their donation is going to go to racial education of Arab journalists (grantee #1), and not to paying developers and server bills. The begging banners on Wikimedia sites fail to mention that there's already 9 figure surplus, and yet the engineering teams will not see any of it no matter what you give, and their money isn't going to actually end up helping a wiki at all.

If I wanted to donate to racial justice in media, I can send the money to the Media Foundation for West Africa (grantee #5), the Borealis Racial Equity in Journalism Fund (#2) or any of the others myself.

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