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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

#141

Post by aesthesia »

gajjanag wrote: post #24
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…

A funny thing I have noticed about Wikipedia is that although citing Wikipedia itself in an academic paper is still not a good idea generally speaking, the references provided in a Wikipedia article are usually far more relevant than the ones provided in a typical IEEE paper. It was a shock for me to discover that the "literature review" of an IEEE paper I was reading was essentially useless compared to the one provi…

I've found the opposite--the academic sources cited on many Wikipedia pages (in math and adjacent areas) are seldom comprehensive and often insufficient for the topic. Literature reviews in decent papers, on the other hand, usually clue me in to entire swaths of the literature that I was previously unaware of.

Re: Wikipedia bans Breitbart as a source for facts

#142

Post by amanaplanacanal »

ummonk wrote: post #98
blahblahthrow wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the national culture of America? Would nationalists deport all the people of European ancestry and give the land back to it's original inhabitants? What culture is preserved by stopping people moving between Mexico and Texas, which are pretty culturally similar and until recently were the same country? I don't there's a narrow line, I think there's no line and they're just branding to try and save face.

There are some clear cultural differences that America has with pretty much any other nation in the world. The most notable is our very expansive definition of free speech, which has broad popular support and is found almost nowhere else in the world. American culture also exhibits a relatively high support for economic freedom and avoiding government largesse. Additionally, we have a strong liking of suburbs (as typ…

American culture has high support for other people avoiding government largesse. Nobody wants to give up their own subsidies, on the right or the left.

Re: Wikipedia bans Breitbart as a source for facts

#143

Post by sosense »

mjrpes wrote: post #29
repolfx wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends a lot on the topic. I've seen articles on Wikipedia that were ridiculously wrong and couldn't be corrected for some byzantine reasons. For the longest time Wikipedia claimed Bitcoin was a pyramid scheme, despite it failing to meet the criteria on Wikipedia's own page on pyramid schemes. I certainly wouldn't accept Wikipedia as correct on any topic that gets caught up in the culture wars. Unfortunately, W…

Breitbart is no worse than NY Times or WaPo? I gather you have doubts about climate change also.

God forbid! That science is settled by consensus, after all.

Re: Wikipedia bans Breitbart as a source for facts

#144

Post by scarejunba »

rubyfan wrote: post #55
HissingMachine wrote: post #30

Maybe this speaks more about how Wikipedia works than quality of Breitbart as a source. First, if you look how credible news organizations work, they need three confirmations from unrelated sources before calling it a fact. If Wikipedia has lower standards than that, then it doesn't really matter whom they choose as a source of information, it still rises the question of validity of the claim if there is only one cor…

Well stated. The problem that the blanket ban on one source introduces is that it becomes a divisive issue. The source and faction that subscribes then believes Wikipedia has lost its objectivity (even if it is trying to maintain the truth). The faction then just starts saying Wikipedia is biased and discounts it as a credible source that speaks the truth universally. To be clear I am not saying that the non-truth sh…

If some group of people think Wikipedia is bullshit, they're going to miss out on the most accessible repository of human knowledge that Man has ever compiled.

That's their own problem. They will fall behind others.

Re: Wikipedia bans Breitbart as a source for facts

#145

Post by 13415 »

sarcasmOrTears wrote: post #133
13415 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because the people who argue most fervently for "national culture" are at the same time often strongly opposed to contemporary culture (arts, poetry, classical music, etc.) and don't produce anything of cultural value themselves, whereas the people who actually advance the culture of their country tend to be indifferent or fairly cosmopolitan (as a tendency, of course there are exceptions). Most people in the…

Not easy to produce things of value when you get thrown out for your opinion from essenyial platforms, like venues, banking services, payment providers, college campus, etc

That's totally ridiculous and not even worth discussing. Unless you're a full-blown Nazi, terrorist, or communist and your main goal in life is trolling and spreading hatred, you'll have zero problems with any of the above essential platforms.

Just to give you a sense of how wrong you are, I'm working at a university and one of my colleagues is a fully convinced communist and another colleague is an overtly racist Social Darwinist. They are luckily the exception, but that's just because they defend fringe positions that most people do not and never will endorse. Big surprise. The center portion of the normal distribution is larger.

Re: Wikipedia bans Breitbart as a source for facts

#146

Post by TarpitCarnivore »

repolfx wrote: post #127
aplummer wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wouldn't say Breitbart is wildly different in accuracy to any of the rest, not because it's great, but because so many other outlets (like the NY Times, BBC and CNN) routinely publish things that are false as well. I agree that many mainstream outlets have a slant, however this is a frankly ridiculous equivocation between legitimate news organisations with bias reportage and a hack conspiracy website that among o…

Go read the set of stories published in the west about Russian hacking. Every story collapses when examined. Again, I cited Greenwald above, he was written about this extensively. The only reason you believe the outlets you named are "legitimate organisations with bias" vs "hack conspiracy websites" is you haven't picked up yet on the conspiracy theories being peddled by those so-called legitimate organisations. Anot…

Your stories about Russia are specific to CNN & MSNBC, but plenty of other reporting has been done on this matter. I think it's safe to assume the narrative has moved from 'hacking' and more to highlight the weaponinzing of social media for political propaganda.

> there's a shadowy, far reaching conspiracy by men against women > To back that up, examine how they falsely reported the contents of Damore's memo

Picking these two specific things pretty much shows your hand in this matter. You're clearly someone who has made up their mind that women & men are in fact treated equal despite stories, lawsuits, and salary data proving other wise.

However, Wired did a write up[1] on why Damore's memo was clumsy despite trying to use scientific evidence. Mainly in that he cited facts without extrapolating on them and noting the small differences in the numbers. Further, there is a lot of nuiance in all of this and societal studies that get picked apart for gotcha facts is not a great way of using studies. [1] - https://www.wired.com/story/the-pernicious-science-of-james-...

Re: Wikipedia bans Breitbart as a source for facts

#147

Post by DuskStar »

danpalmer wrote: post #8
arthev wrote: post #4

A web site banned as a source for facts from schools the world over now bans a web site as a a source of its banned facts.

I get the joke, but it is worth clarifying that schools don’t ban it because it’s unreliable, but because it’s a secondary source. It’s done to teach sourcing discipline.

I'm pretty sure Wikipedia is a tertiary source, actually. Their guidelines recommend preferring secondary sources, and place significant restrictions on the use of primary sources. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research...

Re: Wikipedia bans Breitbart as a source for facts

#148

Post by KozmoNau7 »

tomohawk wrote: post #64
wffurr wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Entertainment value" is about the only thing Breitbart could have going for it, if you find that kind of thing entertaining. It has no place on Wikipedia. Also, why put "article" in scare quotes? Its pretty unambiguously an "article". That's not a good way to try to deligitimize the OP, if that's what you're going for. You should have stuck to your point about being open-minded, though I would add the "but don't let…

Vice is generally in the same category as Breitbart, only on the left. The 'article' cites such sources as splinternews to back up its various unsupported claims an innuendo.

If that is the case, can you please point out the hate-mongering present on Vice? Because Breitbart is full of it.

Re: Wikipedia bans Breitbart as a source for facts

#149

Post by pattrn »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #108
rubyfan wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well stated. The problem that the blanket ban on one source introduces is that it becomes a divisive issue. The source and faction that subscribes then believes Wikipedia has lost its objectivity (even if it is trying to maintain the truth). The faction then just starts saying Wikipedia is biased and discounts it as a credible source that speaks the truth universally. To be clear I am not saying that the non-truth sh…

I don't see it that way. This is probably just a pragmatic move to keep Wikipedia users and contributors from getting their panties in a knot. It's basically impossible to have a discussion on the internet about the merit something a strongly right leaning media outlet says (well it's possible, but the discussion won't be very civil). Anything factual Breitbart reports will be reported elsewhere because that's how me…

Many conservatives consider CNN as left wing and disreputable as many liberals consider Breitbart. Your same reasoning would also apply to Wikipedia banning CNN. Would you consider that a pragmatic move? If not, then for what reasons would they differ?

Re: Wikipedia bans Breitbart as a source for facts

#150

Post by wemdyjreichert »

blahblahthrow wrote: post #57
dmitrygr wrote: post #46

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.

> almost everything in the world has a use Do you routinely read far-left news sources like Current Affairs and Jacobin to make sure you're getting the full picture?

I'll second this. I read stuff like Jacobin as well as Breitbart.
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