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Wikipedia bans Breitbart as a source for facts

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Re: Wikipedia bans Breitbart as a source for facts

#41

Post by KozmoNau7 »

tomohawk wrote: post #26

This is a shame, as it is important to be informed from a diversity of sources. Closing yourself off to sources that do not actively support your positions is unhealthy. It can lead to a kind of political fixation that rationalizes labeling people who you do not agree with as "wrong" or worse. Digging into the links behind this 'article' reveals a labyrinth of lefty sites making dogmatic claims with little or no corr…

Breitbart can hardly be called a news site, it's more like a hard-right opinion blog.

Their posts have been shown time and time again to be incredibly biased, using dogwhistle hard-right (even fascist) terms and referring to "muslim hordes", "rapefugees" and the like. It doesn't meet any kind of standard for objective or even semi-objective journalism.

Re: Wikipedia bans Breitbart as a source for facts

#42

Post by ceejayoz »

billysielu wrote: post #35
detaro wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what "secondary source" means.

Thanks for clarifying that. Of course, nothing in a classroom is a primary source.

If you're saying that, you still haven't had the definition of "primary source" sufficiently clarified.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_source

> In the study of history as an academic discipline, a Primary Source (also called an original source or evidence) is an artifact, document, diary, manuscript, autobiography, recording, or any other source of information that was created at the time under study. It serves as an original source of information about the topic. Similar definitions can be used in library science, and other areas of scholarship, although different fields have somewhat different definitions. In journalism, a primary source can be a person with direct knowledge of a situation, or a document written by such a person.

Many, many things in a classroom will be primary sources.

Re: Wikipedia bans Breitbart as a source for facts

#43

Post by vnorilo »

acdha wrote: post #31
tomohawk wrote: post #26

This is a shame, as it is important to be informed from a diversity of sources. Closing yourself off to sources that do not actively support your positions is unhealthy. It can lead to a kind of political fixation that rationalizes labeling people who you do not agree with as "wrong" or worse. Digging into the links behind this 'article' reveals a labyrinth of lefty sites making dogmatic claims with little or no corr…

That’s like saying you’re depriving yourself of a diversity of sources by not reading the National Enquirer regularly. Unless you’re studying propaganda, the only thing reading Breitbart gives you is a chance to be mislead. If you want right-wing perspectives, the WSJ or The Economist would be far more deserving of your attention.

The Economist considers itself center-right, and is classically liberal (free trade, individual liberty). Breitbart caters to nativist sensibility, and while there might be a thoughtful, reasonable standard-bearer for nationalism, I haven't seen one. Perhaps such a publication would act as a pressure valve and reduce the prominence of the nativist garbage rags? Likely I'm too optimistic.

Re: Wikipedia bans Breitbart as a source for facts

#45

Post by ColanR »

hannob wrote: post #15
roenxi wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As is sometimes said in management theory "it was a great measure until it was made a target". Wikipedia is a good reference for what is and isn't likely to be factually accurate, but if it is going to be _the_ standard then it will quickly be corrupted by people pushing a non-factual agenda. Also, Breitbart being loose with the facts isn't something that the social media platforms want to get involved in. If we coun…

> As is sometimes said in management theory "it was a great measure until it was made a target". Wikipedia already is a target. It has been a target of distortion almost as long as it exists. It handles these exceptionally well. Not perfect, but given how attractive Wikipedia manipulation is and how easy you'd think it is it's incredible how well it fights it off.

> It has been a target of distortion almost as long as it exists.

I think you misunderstood the parent. The management theory quote is talking about the thing you measure (e.g. factory output quantity) as a proxy for success becoming what is aimed for (e.g. make as many as possible without regard for quality, worker treatment, maintanence, etc.).

Point being, as you said, wikipedia will become a focus point, with everyone pushing their agenda to the 'source of truth' even more than they do now.

Re: Wikipedia bans Breitbart as a source for facts

#46

Post by dmitrygr »

Unpopular opinion: Sometimes Breitbart does have useful info. They were the only ones who had the full leak of the Google all-hands that was definitely newsworthy, for example. Discard that and you missed some useful info. You canot just color publications as "good" and "not". This sort of maximalism (seeing the world in black and white) is rarely good long term. Almost everything in the world has a use.

Re: Wikipedia bans Breitbart as a source for facts

#47

Post by simion314 »

tomohawk wrote: post #26

This is a shame, as it is important to be informed from a diversity of sources. Closing yourself off to sources that do not actively support your positions is unhealthy. It can lead to a kind of political fixation that rationalizes labeling people who you do not agree with as "wrong" or worse. Digging into the links behind this 'article' reveals a labyrinth of lefty sites making dogmatic claims with little or no corr…

>If you are into news and being informed, leaving off sites like breitbart from regular perusal is a mistake. They often bring up facts and perspectives considered unimportant by other outlets. Even infowars has its uses, if for nothing else other than entertainment value.

I am not from US so I have no bias in this case, do you mean that I should check sites that I consider to be garbage because they sometimes may bring some story that other sites won't? Are you doing this? Do you read garbage articles, do you watch acient allients shows, read about flat earth etc ? Because when I notice that soem news site went in the bad direction(clickbait and other garbage) I will not waste my time to find a diamond in tons of garbage, it is not my fault they have that much garbage

Re: Wikipedia bans Breitbart as a source for facts

#48

Post by realusername »

barry-cotter wrote: post #12
pavlov wrote: post #3

For all their flaws, Wikipedia is one of the few web information sources that are globally accepted as more or less correct. Everybody has something they hate about Wikipedia, but the general gist is that they're more or less credible. Alternative encyclopedic efforts are totally fringe and/or money-making scams like Everipedia. With this in mind, perhaps social media companies should piggyback on Wikipedia's reputat…

> For all their flaws, Wikipedia is one of the few web information sources that are globally accepted as more or less correct. Only for things that aren’t politically fraught enough for one person, anywhere on the internet to decide to camp on the article. Look at what you get if you look up “Cultural Marxism”. It redirects to the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory article, with the subheading “Cultural Marxism Cons…

That's because Cultural Marxism isn't part of any serious scientific publication, it's just a non-sense term used by some far right members.

Re: Wikipedia bans Breitbart as a source for facts

#49

Post by billysielu »

ceejayoz wrote: post #42
billysielu wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for clarifying that. Of course, nothing in a classroom is a primary source.

If you're saying that, you still haven't had the definition of "primary source" sufficiently clarified. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_source > In the study of history as an academic discipline, a Primary Source (also called an original source or evidence) is an artifact, document, diary, manuscript, autobiography, recording, or any other source of information that was created at the time under study. It serve…

At my school (UK) we had 2 main sources - the teacher, and the textbook. Niether were primary.

Students used the internet a lot, and Encarta (lol), and were constantly getting grief from teachers for doing so.

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