School vs. Wikipedia • Hacker News Board

Re: School vs. Wikipedia

#381

Post by akolbe » Fri, Oct 07, 2022, 11:38 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #358

nkingsy wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the article answered your question pretty well and they clearly state on their about page that they are not backed by any government and rely on donations. The entire internet points to wikipedia and its consensus mechanism is inherently vulnerable to editors for hire, as clearly demonstrated with scores of links. So my answer is "pick any publication from 1980 and it is better because its bias can be audit…

They claim they are not backed by any governments, but decline to say who is backing them. Just as an example I came across yesterday, the San Francisco Standard is "not backed by any government and rely on donations", but their funding comes from a billionaire venture capitalist. The same claim could be truthfully made by a site backed by a Russian oligarch just as well. And regardless, there's no evidence. I agree…

The former Wikimedia CEO (she left in 2021) is now on the Atlantic Council and currently serves on the US Department of State’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board:

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/expert/katherine-maher/

Then-US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent Richard Boly as a representative of the Office of eDiplomacy to the 2012 Wikimania conference. At the time, Boly was "leading an ambitious State Department initiative that uses social media and online platforms to change the way employees communicate and reach outside their boundaries to advance U.S. foreign policy interests" according to the Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/federal-fac...

Boly's Wikimania speech is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0NsY48OQdc&t=457s

A few years later, the person put in charge of facilitating the Wikimedia Strategy 2030 process was Hillary Clinton's former Trips Director, Whitney Williams:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/...

The PR company that has looked after Wikimedia for the past decade or so is Minassian Media, run by the chief communications and marketing officer of the Clinton Foundation, who formerly was assistant press secretary and director of television news in the White House for President Bill Clinton:

https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/wikipedias-d...

The Chief Advancement Officer at Wikimedia is the politically very well connected lady here:

https://sfgov.org/civilservice/sites/default/files/Documents...

The current CEO is Maryana Iskander; she has been a speaker at the Clinton Global Initiative and presented her work to Bill Clinton when he visited South Africa:

https://www.itnewsafrica.com/2018/11/harambees-exceeds-youth...

Wikimedia also partners extensively with the Tides Foundation and Tides Advocacy ... So there are very significant political connections in the US.

Re: School vs. Wikipedia

#382

Post by akolbe » Fri, Oct 07, 2022, 11:52 PM UTC

throwaway09223 wrote: post #307

akolbe wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, for a particular set of fairly obscure science articles. It's quite different in the social sciences, for example. What people don't appreciate is that Wikipedia has very different strengths and weaknesses to Britannica. Britannica doesn't contain outright hoaxes and nonsense. Examples: https://www.theregister.com/2017/01/16/wikipedia_16_birthday... https://wikipediocracy.com/2022/08/11/wikipedias-credibility..…

I think you are drastically underestimating how absolutely bonkers the 1970 Britannica edition was in terms of (using your example) Social Sciences. I did this analysis long ago and i don't have the set in front of me, but there absolutely were hoaxes and nonsense which were believed to be true (or which fit the prevailing narrative) in 1970. Not being up to date isn't just about incorporating new information. Fields…

Perhaps so, but why choose the 1970 edition, rather than one from the 1990s, or the current online one?

At any rate, here is a quote from a BBC journalist: "In the Wikipedia gullibility stakes, no one is infallible. That means any journalist in any newsroom will likely get a sharp slap across the head from an editor for treating Wikipedia with anything but total scepticism (you can imagine the kicking I've taken over this article)."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-37523772

I doubt any journalist ever got such a kicking because they cited Britannica.

Re: School vs. Wikipedia

#383

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 12:01 AM UTC

pogform wrote: post #380

> And holy hell, don’t get me started on how they teach math or English, or this new "Code Red" shit. I'm really interested in this off-handed remark from the author. Not having children of my own, and being many years removed from the US public school system, what exactly are they getting at here? I'm assuming it's related to common core?

[deleted]

Re: School vs. Wikipedia

#384

Post by linuxhansl » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 12:14 AM UTC

Controversial pages on Wikipedia (contemporary politics, etc) are typically hard to edit. Others are easy to edit. Vandalism is rare and temporary, and nobody is going fight earnestly over topics such as how a light bulb or an electric engine works, or when a certain building was build or most historical events, etc.

Wikipedia does not absolve you from checking references or the credibility of the text, but it does a damn good job collecting and pre-checking a lot of the content. You still need to be able to recognize hot-button topics and take those with a grain of salt. And as I said usually those pages cannot be edited by everyone.

The school does not seem to understand how Wikipedia works. At all.

Re: School vs. Wikipedia

#385

Post by spc476 » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 12:27 AM UTC

codetrotter wrote: post #331

m463 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe traditional encyclopedia might give wikipedia a run for the money on subjects, say toilet paper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper But wikipedia is far ahead on more practical articles like which way the toilet paper goes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper_orientation

Something I recently became aware of is that in some cases toilet paper orientation preference may be due to left handedness vs right handedness. I am right handed and prefer to have the paper oriented over itself. A member of my family is left handed and prefers to have the paper under itself. She once said that for her, with left handedness, having the paper under itself makes it easier to grab.

I don't think handness has anything to do with it. I'm left handed and I prefer the paper oriented over itself.

Re: School vs. Wikipedia

#386

Post by howenterprisey » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 12:44 AM UTC

Test0129 wrote: post #376

throwaway09223 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was the last time you read through a copy of Encyclopedia Britannica? Have you done an apples to apples comparison? No encyclopedia is perfect, but as far as I can tell the "standard" encyclopedias are a lot worse. My grandparents had bought a copy of Britannica decades ago and they had something like 50 years of its yearbooks. I would cite it sometimes and no one at school batted an eye. I remember reading thro…

It's transparent and unfortunately that's exactly why we know we can't trust it. If you want an eye opening experience pick something in the news that might be scientific. Say, COVID. Then run a correlation between the release of news articles and the frequency of edits to Wikipedia. In theory, this provides the most up to date information. In reality, Wikipedia is a disinformation farm. Contributors may think they a…

Leaving aside your other points, it's beyond ludicrous to claim that Steven Pruitt controls anything on Wikipedia. Please take more care that you yourself don't repeat random misinformation about Wikipedia.

Re: School vs. Wikipedia

#387

Post by Test0129 » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 12:54 AM UTC

howenterprisey wrote: post #386

Test0129 wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's transparent and unfortunately that's exactly why we know we can't trust it. If you want an eye opening experience pick something in the news that might be scientific. Say, COVID. Then run a correlation between the release of news articles and the frequency of edits to Wikipedia. In theory, this provides the most up to date information. In reality, Wikipedia is a disinformation farm. Contributors may think they a…

Leaving aside your other points, it's beyond ludicrous to claim that Steven Pruitt controls anything on Wikipedia. Please take more care that you yourself don't repeat random misinformation about Wikipedia.

> it's beyond ludicrous to claim that Steven Pruitt

Someone with millions of edits does not de-facto have the systems in place, the time, and the power to influence any article he puts his mind to? What I posted is inference, not misinformation, and worth considering despite the downvote parade happening on it right now by pro-wiki shills.

To call what I posted misinformation is a sign of times. Inference is not misinformation and while I have no "fact checked" articles proving he manipulates wiki articles he is a defacto central power of Wikipedia whose contributions are vast. So vast, in fact, they shadow every other contributor by orders of magnitude. If this doesn't concern you I guess by all means, cite wikipedia in all your scholarly works. Isn't my problem, anyway. I don't use it and I don't donate to it. I have no dog in this race.

Ignoring Pruitt my point stands in general. Wikipedia edits spike during times of political strife, elections, major news, etc. They are edited so frequently that it's impossible to tell what is real and fake. This is the principle failing of any truly open system that does no KYC. It inevitably collapses under the weight of idiots (which have more density than smart people). If Wikipedia expects to be trusted authors should be credential-locked to fields and vetted by the community. Except that can't happen because then you'd have to pay for it, and then it's not wikipedia.

I'd rather have vetted experts writing articles on their fields (e.g. an actual encyclopedia) than any random shmuck off the street being able to contribute to an alleged body of "knowledge". Right now I can go contribute to the article on theoretical physics. Something I know nothing about. That should not be possible on any system alleging to be a source of truth.

Re: School vs. Wikipedia

#388

Post by stall84 » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 1:03 AM UTC

akolbe wrote: post #258

TrinaryWorksToo wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're about the same accuracy according to this data: https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/study-wikipedia-as-a...

Well, for a particular set of fairly obscure science articles. It's quite different in the social sciences, for example. What people don't appreciate is that Wikipedia has very different strengths and weaknesses to Britannica. Britannica doesn't contain outright hoaxes and nonsense. Examples: https://www.theregister.com/2017/01/16/wikipedia_16_birthday... https://wikipediocracy.com/2022/08/11/wikipedias-credibility..…

I think this was your point (the last few sentences), but those 16 or so hoaxes cited are on absolutely obscure subjects .. A children's book character "Amelia Bedelia" ? A subspecies of raccoon ?? .. So yes you're going to have articles that matter to 1 person per year get skewed, and that sucks .. and it's unfortunate for whatever poor soul wants to use those 1/yr-viewed articles that are misleading .. but I'm not sure that is a good argument against wikipedia.

If however we were to go look up 'Mars' .. or 'electron' and find hoaxes there, then there would be a clear and obvious problem

Re: School vs. Wikipedia

#389

Post by cwalv » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 1:12 AM UTC

jimmar wrote: post #70

Some teachers like to play god in the classroom. Source: I'm a teacher. I try not to play god and impose non-sensical rules, but I could if I wanted to and nobody could do anything about it. Parents could complain, my department head could try to talk sense into me, but if I impose a rule saying that citations must be written in Comic Sans size 11 font with every third word italicized, then I'm within my rights to ta…

Having bad teachers (or dealing with bad/pointless systems generally) can also be instructive. Esp. prior to high school, if I had any control, I'm not sure I'd choose for my kids to not have any bad teachers.

Re: School vs. Wikipedia

#390

Post by alvah » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 1:35 AM UTC

scifibestfi wrote: post #11

chatterhead wrote: post #2

You should be fighting this at the school. Wikipedia should not be used as a source for academic purposes; the sources being referenced on Wikipedia very well could be though and as such Wikipedia is an incredibly useful tool for surface level research and schools should absolutely be taking this approach to using it. They should not, under any circumstance, have children "Googling" the answer to questions. Most of t…

> They should not, under any circumstance, have children "Googling" the answer to questions. Why not? Don't you Google answers to questions? It's what they will be doing most of their life.

My daughter's homework included the question "without an atmosphere would there be gravity?". At the time Google's featured snippet for this phrase claimed without an atmosphere we'd all float off into space. Worse, my wife (a primary school teacher) believed this to be true "because Google says". Regardless of Google's stated desire to organise all the world's information, they appear to be further from this goal than they were in the "10 blue links" era.