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Who Writes Wikipedia? (2006)

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Re: Who Writes Wikipedia? (2006)

#11

Post by thrwaway69 »

saagarjha wrote: post #9
kick wrote: post #6

None of the comments in this submission's thread so far seem to be related to the article's content (the headline was tantalizing, but the article itself is really cool), so to try and counteract that, here's one that's directly related: As it says, Wikipedia is written by vast amounts of people. The myth that only a small number of people contribute is just that: a myth. Checking edit histories on anything but the m…

I don't get why you'd want to perpetuate the myth of Wikipedia editors being this small, powerful in-group of people anyways…

Possibly to discredit it as having a political identity of its own or something because small group of people can be more biased openly than a large group?

Re: Who Writes Wikipedia? (2006)

#12

Post by draugadrotten »

onyva wrote: post #3

From my experience with trying to contribute to the Hebrew version, try contributing focusing on expanding an existing article and watch what happens. In my case there was a very strong push back even against adding links that expand on issues mentioned which imho helped to balance an obvious slant. I gave up after a while. At university of course you’re warned not to use Wikipedia, it’s not acceptable as a reference…

The political bias of wikipedia editors is horrible in most smaller countries. You mention Israel and Croatia. I can add Sweden. For an example, compare the wikipedia entries of the two largest parties in the Swedish parliament. One, Socialdemokraterna, starts with a blurb on how the party provides public welfare and the party slogan ("av var och en efter förmåga, åt var och en efter behov"). Compare with the second largest party, Sverigedemokraterna, which has an entire section devoted to listing scandals, controversial quotes and shunnings. Whatever you think about the two ideologies, these two wikipedia entries alone should be enough proof that there is a (left) political bias of wikipedia editors.

I use wikipedia often because it has a lot of information in it, but would never rely on it as a source of fact. It is a google result like any other, and must be treated with caution.

Re: Who Writes Wikipedia? (2006)

#13

Post by saagarjha »

thrwaway69 wrote: post #11
saagarjha wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get why you'd want to perpetuate the myth of Wikipedia editors being this small, powerful in-group of people anyways…

Possibly to discredit it as having a political identity of its own or something because small group of people can be more biased openly than a large group?

Right, but this is Jimmy Wales pushing this.

Re: Who Writes Wikipedia? (2006)

#14

Post by saagarjha »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #10
executesorder66 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It deserves more but how can anyone even start with all the rules, bots and reverts. That's why I prefer contributing to smaller wikis. They have much less political issues. However, I'd say more than 90% of the edits I've made to the English Wikipedia are still live. It really depends where you choose to edit. Some articles just have asshole editors who think they own the article. And not everyone has the energy t…

Is there a simple way to check if one's edits are live, so those that aren't can be reviewed?

Incognito mode?

Re: Who Writes Wikipedia? (2006)

#15

Post by goto11 »

milsorgen wrote: post #2

The small amount of people who work on Wikipedia is it's greatest weakness. Petty power plays and individual politics all bubble up from those few into a resource so many millions use. It deserves more but how can anyone even start with all the rules, bots and reverts. It's really demoralizing to try and put in any effort there as you'll quickly encroach on some editors "territory".

So you disagree with the numbers presented in article?

Re: Who Writes Wikipedia? (2006)

#16

Post by TuringTest »

onyva wrote: post #3

From my experience with trying to contribute to the Hebrew version, try contributing focusing on expanding an existing article and watch what happens. In my case there was a very strong push back even against adding links that expand on issues mentioned which imho helped to balance an obvious slant. I gave up after a while. At university of course you’re warned not to use Wikipedia, it’s not acceptable as a reference…

You can learn a lot about a topic you care by reading the Talk page and its archives; most relevant information that people wants to add has been discussed at length there, evaluating all pros and cons of the proposed text, and the biases and analysis of the quality of sources. Some small amount of talk is "oversighted" (hidden from view to all but administrators), but that's typically only for scandals who affect living persons. Also you'll have to wade through inflamed battles with unbridled passions, but the main issues of conflict become clear.

That said, there are two kinds of articles: hot topics which get the above treatment for any suggested change (either for political or fanboyism reasons); and abandoned gardens where no one cares and weeds grow, marked with warning signs. These were created either by copying a public domain old encyclopedia, or by a passionate editor in the earlies , and have seen few since then.

Either way, the most valuable resource of Wikipedia has always been the References section. You can skim the definition and safely ignore the rest of the article, and still use it as the starting point for learning about an unknown topic by searching the most promising sources of a well-curated collection of relevant links, that would be hard to find anywhere else using a search engine.

Re: Who Writes Wikipedia? (2006)

#17

Post by TuringTest »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #10
executesorder66 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It deserves more but how can anyone even start with all the rules, bots and reverts. That's why I prefer contributing to smaller wikis. They have much less political issues. However, I'd say more than 90% of the edits I've made to the English Wikipedia are still live. It really depends where you choose to edit. Some articles just have asshole editors who think they own the article. And not everyone has the energy t…

Is there a simple way to check if one's edits are live, so those that aren't can be reviewed?

You can filter article history by user [1] to check whether their contributions are still in the current version, or use Wikiblame creatively to find who wrote some specific part of a live article [2].

[1] https://tools.wmflabs.org/sigma/usersearch.py

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiBlame

http://wikipedia.ramselehof.de/wikiblame.php

Re: Who Writes Wikipedia? (2006)

#19

Post by [deleted] »

kick wrote: post #6

None of the comments in this submission's thread so far seem to be related to the article's content (the headline was tantalizing, but the article itself is really cool), so to try and counteract that, here's one that's directly related: As it says, Wikipedia is written by vast amounts of people. The myth that only a small number of people contribute is just that: a myth. Checking edit histories on anything but the m…

[deleted]

Re: Who Writes Wikipedia? (2006)

#20

Post by woodpanel »

draugadrotten wrote: post #12
onyva wrote: post #3

From my experience with trying to contribute to the Hebrew version, try contributing focusing on expanding an existing article and watch what happens. In my case there was a very strong push back even against adding links that expand on issues mentioned which imho helped to balance an obvious slant. I gave up after a while. At university of course you’re warned not to use Wikipedia, it’s not acceptable as a reference…

The political bias of wikipedia editors is horrible in most smaller countries. You mention Israel and Croatia. I can add Sweden. For an example, compare the wikipedia entries of the two largest parties in the Swedish parliament. One, Socialdemokraterna, starts with a blurb on how the party provides public welfare and the party slogan ("av var och en efter förmåga, åt var och en efter behov"). Compare with the second…

I can echo your concern. German wikipedia has the same troubles. That's why it's not uncommon amongst anyone I've aksed or observed to habitually fact-check a German wiki-page with a quick hop into the English version (If there is any ideological classification involved).

There at least, Wikipedia's promise, that the heterogenity of writers creates informational breadth and balancedness, seems to be more kept.

In contrast to the German version, the English articles often have dedicated "criticism"-chapters, that also leave the criticism uncommented. The German versions often start with a political classification right away. If the classification is contested, then it stays there and just gets slighty changed into reported speech. If any counter-arguments to that classification make it into an article, then they are almost always commented, often with a counter-argument to the counter-argument from groups that created that classification in the first place, litteraly giving them the last word.

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