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Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

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Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#101

Post by karaterobot »

edent wrote: post #8

There are a few problems that need to be dealt with. First is that "Reality has a well-known liberal bias". Which means lots of people want a "neutral point of view" which reflects their own opinion. Secondly, there are lots of trolls and bad-faith actors. So a bureaucracy needs to be built up to deal with it in a structured and consistent (not necessarily fair) way. Thirdly, what can incentivise people? Most editors…

> Introducing money just leads to corruption.

Not sure what you mean by that. Corruption exists with or without paid labor, and I cannot for the life or me think how paying the people who do the lion's share of work at Wikipedia would increase the corruption there. Can you explain what you mean?

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#102

Post by zozbot234 »

actuator wrote: post #96
zozbot234 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 am…

> 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. I did try to argue for that but I was shut down as there was no way to agree what a fair representation is.

There are established policies for that, actually. Ideally, the 'lead' section should accurately summarize what's already stated in the article and supported by appropriate sources.

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#103

Post by zaik »

lovelearning wrote: post #28

I think most of the conflicts are because the left-wing and the right-wing are incompatible moral philosophies. Because Wikipedia content is completely public, I'd like a forking model where the left-wing and right-wing maintain independent versions. Viewer apps can provide ways to read both for people interested in all sides (like allsides.com).

It has been attempted: https://www.conservapedia.com/Climate-change

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#104

Post by qiskit »

You can't. Anything that is editorialized will skew to an extreme over time. In the past, wikipedia was bad because its quality of information was generally terrible.

"Alan Turing proved in 1936 that a general algorithm to solve the halting problem for all possible program-input pairs cannot exist."

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

Alan Turing did no such thing, but that's wikipedia for you. On topics you know nothing about, it feels like wikipedia is great. But on topics you have some knowledge/expertise, wikipedia reveals itself to be amateurish nonsense.

Now throw in politics and it isn't good for anything but superficial knowledge in a narrow band of non-political topics. And that's not touching on the problems of limiting the sources to select news/media sources which exacerbates the problem. If you have time to waste, use waybackmachine to compare the wikipedia pages of "controversial" figures and see how noticeably those pages have been changed in a consistent manner.

The only thing you can do is set up competing wikipedias. My hope is major countries around the world set up their own wikipedias ( hopefully with english translations ) because I don't see anyone competing with wikipedia in the US.

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#105

Post by actuator »

ethbr0 wrote: post #55
johannes1234321 wrote: post #34

I think Wikipedia is mostly good contentwise. Of course there are two extremes where there are problems: disputed topics (especially contemporary political topics) and niche topics receiving little to no attention. I think for both an improvment can be made by improving the view on the editing history. Showing what kind of editors (new accounts or ong term members? Editing only few articles or across the board? etc.)…

(Reparented from another content thread) Agreed. Wikipedia's strength is its long tail of niche articles. However, once one gets off "popular" articles, the quality bounds rapidly spread. But that seems inherent to having an article for which there are only 1-2 editors, as opposed to 10+ frequently reviewing. So better UX is probably the best "solution." I.e. pulling editor count, frequency, and reputation into the r…

> However, once one gets off "popular" articles, the quality bounds rapidly spread

The issues I have seen are mostly with these sorts of articles itself. Popular articles tend to be overall much more fair because of massive participation.

But once you go into articles which are about less popular things or contentious topics or from highly polarised areas, there is either frequent vandalism or chokehold control by few editors which makes it impossible to have even a good discussion if you think the content can be presented better.

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#106

Post by coffeefirst »

bwb wrote: post #11

Sorry, I am not quite sure what the problem is? I think Wikipedia is great from my day to usage. Can you point me to specific examples where the output is bad due to this? I would like to see the problem.

Yeah, I don't get it either. It's not perfect, but it might be the only web institution that hasn't broken down over time, and has done an impressive job of holding itself to quality standards given the absurdly large scale.

Encyclopedias are, by definition, fairly superficial. You could also sit down and nitpick Britannica. The quality of writing is better because they actually have a professional staff, but they have to make all the same hard choices about what to include and objectivity.

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#107

Post by thepasswordis »

You need a culture that supports truth. You will not be able to do this with policy changes.

For instance, this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biden%E2%80%93Ukraine_conspira...

>The Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory is a series of unevidenced claims centered on the false allegation that while Joe Biden was vice president of the United States, he engaged in corrupt activities relating to the employment of his son Hunter Biden by the Ukrainian gas company Burisma.

This is not a statement of fact, but an opinion of the person writing it. The fact of corruption is the question at hand.

The Vice President's son was being paid $1,000,000/yr to sit on the board of a foreign gas company.

That isn't a disputed. Joe and Hunter Biden don't dispute this.

This article should be listing the basis of accusations against Hunter, and listing refutations to those accusations.

Instead, this reads like an opinion piece/defense/misdirection.

Wikipedia should have a culture that reflexively recoils at stuff like this. I should have no idea what the political leanings of the editors at wikipedia have, but I do, and they make it obvious.

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#109

Post by captainmuon »

I think this has to be solved culturally. Wikipedia would have to have a radical cultural dedication against "cliques" and sectarianism and towards openness.

I also don't like the maxime of Wikipedia to prefer "sourced" information, rather than "true" information. Something can be wrong, but if reputable sources claim it, then it goes in WP. I know in the English speaking world the term "truth" has gotten some problematic connotations recently, but frankly I find that disturbung. I really would prefer a site that goes for the truth, and when there is no agreement then I want them to detail the disagreement (with correct proportions to prevent "false balance") and then I want to discuss the fuck out. I feel in Wikipedia, too often the "admins" (i.e. the established editors) decide on a whim.

Finally I think deletionism is the plaque, and we need an inclusionist wikipedia. This is not just because I want to read articles about Pokemon, or because I believe disk space is cheap. I personally think there is a fundamental philosophical or political argument pro inclusionism.

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#110

Post by zozbot234 »

actuator wrote: post #94
civilized wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Some sources are more credible than others. I am not saying we should trust DailyMail more than BBC. My issue is with sources where the lines are more blurry. Say, they will not publish outright misinformation but they will definitely have a editorial stance which colours their coverage. > If editors didn't exercise judgment in selection of sources, Wikipedia would just be a disinformation playground dominated by t…

If you have genuine issues with any part of the existing rating in WP:RSP, it's entirely appropriate to raise that on the talk page. "I think this source should be ranked higher/lower than it currently is, and here's evidence" is a valid concern. Wikipedians are well aware that verifiability standards may reinforce biases in article coverage, and some have even proposed (though not very seriously) that doing away with verifiability altogether may be better than the alternative of being left with a systemically biased encyclopedia.
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