Wikipedia is preparing to throw the last bits of their credibility down the waste disposal. In a long running and contentious internal debate between feminists and a flurry of throw-away gamergate accounts, an arbitration panel made up almost entirely of men has decided to prohibit anything but the gamergate position. Mark Bernstein has an excellent summary.
First, this is the end of the Wiki Way. We have a blueprint now that shows how any decently-funded group with a modicum of access to the media – which is to say any group (unlike GamerGate) not patently criminal – can take control of any part of Wikipedia it pleases. You need a PR agency with a few offices in different cities and a phone – resources whose lack complicated GamerGate’s position.
Worse, the decision is so egregiously bad that it may well permanently discredit not only Wikipedia but the entire open Web. If a mature and well-funded site like Wikipedia can’t distinguish between reason and perfidious slander, if it punishes volunteers who enforce its own policies against libel, then who will trust any publication that doesn’t bear the brand of ABC/Disney, Reuters, or Al-Jazeera?
I already struggle with Wikipedia in the classroom — it’s such a mess that I do not allow students to cite it in their work, ever. If they see something in the wiki that they’d like to use, they have to go to an original cited source instead.
But my problem has been the superficiality and spottiness of Wikipedia. Now you’re telling me I also have to deal with overt bias, and that the reputed independence of the editors is easily swayed by PR campaigns by even a gang of idiots?
Nope. Done. In my writing classes, I’ll be telling students to not trust Wikipedia at all, and to steer completely clear.
Of course, it still has one use: when I suspect students of plagiarism, the first source I compare their text to is Wikipedia. Wikipedia: the go-to resource for lazy, incompetent people. And now with extra added bias!
I did regularly donate to the wikimedia foundation.
Did.
Hmm Wales had been fighting Gamergate on Twitter for a while. I guess he doesn’t have much say in what this panel decides.
A shame. I’ve often found Wikipedia a good starting point for trying to gist a topic when I don’t have the time to drill down.
What I wish someone would do is build a Wikitext site, with inputs only allowed from highly qualified educators. Something that would cover the core courses from about 5th through 12th grade, with hyperlinks up and down the levels of study so students could either find simpler answers when they need an intro or explore in depth. We could use a free resource for the public schools, with rigorous fact checking enforced to make sure no religious or political dogma sneaks in. It would provide a baseline that textbooks would have to exceed in order to be marketable, and enable poorer districts to devote more money to teaching the students.
Wikipedia’s a great place to go to find links to real sources of information, but referencing Wikipedia will always be as big a no-no as referencing someone’s Livejournal. I just can’t see it ever having credibility as a source of info about anything more important than the minor characters in the Star Wars universe. It’s all second hand info anyways; anything written on Wikipedia is at least supposed to come from a better source. The fact that it can be so easily taken over by trolls with overt, antifeminist political agendas just solidifies it’s crumminess.
Well, I’ve heard professors complain that they would make corrections on articles about thing in their field of expertise, properly cite them and everything only to have their corrections reversed by self-styled Wikipedia experts, back to the original, blatantly false information (like the year of birth or nationality of somebody).
I will say that Wikipedia can be helpful in finding sources. But it’s a sad development for all the enthusiastic people who put lots of voluntary work into it.
Wikipedia is like any other organization: you have to follow the rules to get anywhere, even if you’re in the right.
1) Your students shouldn’t be citing any encyclopaedia.
2) You think this doesn’t happen everywhere else, too? Wikipedia is remarkable in that we get to see what’s going on, and it has the best chance of being corrected.
K machine: except in this case they seem to be rewriting the rules to help the people who are wrong….
call me mark @1,
Same here. No more donations from me.
I’ll also be doing my best to curb my visits to the site from here on out.
As a feminist, my dollars and my pageviews are clearly not welcome.
@jampbonpomplemouse
and @ Giliell
You’re both spot on. I’m constantly struggling with marking student papers which have started with Wikipedia’s pages on science topics which are so full of fail its like asking for financial advice from Eric Hovind – and I’ve tried fixing pages in my areas of expertise only to have blatant falsehoods reinstated. I think its often because some petty wannabe tyrant editor is pissed that someone made changes to “his” page that show up his ignorance. Anyway, the idea of letting every random punter edit encyclopedias never struck me as being a smart way of spreading knowledge. When evidence is routinely ignored and deleted on so many of the pages for science topics, I reckon there is no hope for balanced factual content on any page dealing with social or political issues.
p.s. I meant to clarify, I said “his” because in my experience it always some dumbass guy who resents having a page improved. It seems that the proportion of female editors in charge of pages is minimal.
In my experience, Wikipedia is one of the most accurate science sources outside of academia. For example, it’s more accurate than New Scientist, and orders of magnitude better than most science documentaries. Although of course that’s starting from a low baseline. It often badly structured and inconsistent, but the number of outright falsehoods is low. Like any encyclopedia, it’s a lousy place to end research, but it can be a useful place to get an initial overview.
They’ve also done well in suppressing woo. Articles on climate change, evolution, alternative medicine, vaccination, and the like have been utterly purged of the usual nonsense. This includes peripheral articles about the denialism.
In your experience, hyperdeath? What about the experience of women? Do they not matter?
mudpuddles @ 10:
Odd, because it’s exactly the way Wikipedia doesn’t do that is at root here. There was never an organised attempt at building a proper community around editing the English Wikipedia, which led to it forming a very particular sort of tyranny of structurelessness that pushes power away from the random joes (who are usually too busy with other things to establish themselves in an informal but deeply structured group) towards the editor cliques that spend much or even most of their time on WP.
@mykroft “What I wish someone would do is build a Wikitext site, with inputs only allowed from highly qualified educators.”
An attempt at that is http://en.citizendium.org/
marilove:
Point taken. By “in my experience” I meant the things that I know something about.
I’m not saying that female under-representation isn’t a real problem. I was just objecting to the sweeping statement of Wikipedia being a “go-to resource for lazy, incompetent people”.
@marilove: So what’s your experience with Wikipedia’s articles on vaccination, electrical engineering, and 1960s mainframe computers? Too much misogyny?
Wikipedia is vast. It’s always had a problem with politically charged issues, but that doesn’t make it useless as a source of information. Otherwise, we may as well ignore anything PZ says about biology, since we know he has a liberal bias and so can’t be trusted on any topic.
I’m laughing at the idea that anyone would cite Wikipedia and not cite a blog post. They’re basically the same thing. Don’t trust either. Follow the references. No referenceS? Then assume it’s BS. This sounds like a good learning opportunity to me. Hell, I’ve never even liked citing the digested facts in an encyclopedia, but I’m one of those oddballs who put effort into my schoolwork.
Well, actually, my experience is that it lacks information about the involvement of women in most, if not all, of those things you listed, including in the history of mainframe computers, biology, programming, science in general… The history of women is often erased. This has been talked about before. This is especially apparently when it comes to information about authors (and not just fiction), for example.
This is ridiculous. Wishing that women got equal time when discussing history and the involvement of women in science and computing history has nothing at all to do with “bias” — it’s merely desiring, and demanding, that women get fair treatment.
This isn’t about politics. This is about women being treated like human beings. Human beings who have played just as big of a part in history as men have, and yet who aren’t given nearly the same amount of space.
But even though your analogy wasn’t really related to the subject at hand, what about, oh, I don’t know, Andrew Wakefield Surely he isn’t ALL wrong about EVERYTHING! And yet, I have no desire to pay him any mind. Because his anti-vaxx bias has made it so he has zero credibility. Zilch.
So, come again?
Um. I just checked Wikipedia’s article and it did not seem to be the gamer gate side. It basically said it was seen as a mostly a misogynistic reaction against changes in the industry and that the claims of ethics were either false or trivial.
Is this set to change?
Let Winston Smith review all editing . . . . . .
The problem with this, and the reason it would be a blow to all of Wikipedia’s credibility is that the gamergaters have demonstrated a working method of forcing a false opinion to be the exclusive voice on it, which better funded and better organized groups (like say, the petrochemical industry, or the evangelistic churches) could use to force Wikipedia to alter other articles on topics. (Such as climate change, evolution, athiesm, and anything else a large, well funded group doesn’t want people reading honest facts about.)
You’re happy with Wikipedia because their article about your personal favorite topic has always been fair and unbiased? Well, if there’s any kind of large interest group who disagrees with that topic being discussed, say goodbye to it. Truth there no longer outweighs the opinions of the screaming masses of obvious sockpuppets.
All such attempts have faded out, because those are precisely the people with the least time.
Oh my Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Uh, no. It’s his fraud that destroys his credibility on everything. A mere bias about a topic or three wouldn’t do much to his credibility on everything else.
There’s no such thing as “set to change” on Wikipedia. :-) As of right now, the article begins as follows (I’ve replaced all links by [[]]):
The first chapter is mostly quotes from Quinn, and a later one is called “Subsequent harassment”. Like every article that has made it through a lot of controversy, it’s chock full of citations.
On to the talk page! It contains this (I’ve omitted the links this time):
The German quotes mean: “The gamers’ ideological war”. “The fact that opponents and proponents also warred on Wikipedia got Jimmy Wales, the web encyclopedia’s boss, into the picture. He called on both sides to calm down.”
Next (links omitted again):
Look like the pendulum has begun to swing in the other direction.
Oops. Forgot the link to “right now“.
In my experience, the worst Wikipedia articles are those that concern topics which are important to some ideology but which almost nobody knows about. Those don’t get edited for years.
Hey, look at that: no edits from January 4th to 14th, one on the 14th, then none till the 24th, one in the GMT-evening of the 24th, three on the 25th, and seven *refresh* still seven edits today so far. Today’s second edit, made fairly early in the American morning, made the article 9,411 bytes longer, so it now stands (after very, very minor additional changes – spellings and citation style) at 116,318 bytes.
It’s about ethics in encyclopedia editing.
I’ve found Wikipedia to be good in many areas, poor in a few.
Anything political, religious, or controversial can be useless. There are idealogues and trolls that can spend their whole life editing a Wikipedia subject, while the rest of us have work, hobbies, and homelifes to take care of.
One area is the xian churches and xianity in general. The articles on the Catholic and Mormon churches have all been sanitized by their propaganda experts. It’s easy to tell though. They glow with a blinding white purity that one discovers is due to a 1,000 watt lightbulb designed to blind you.
If you think a Wikipedia article has been whitewashed or slanted, it is easy to check the real facts using Google.
Baby and bath water. Just have them steer clear of topics with controversial and/or political content, and stick with established facts. It’s a rule I’ve followed for some time to good effect, and this little kerfuffle doesn’t change that one bit.
…if, indeed, the real facts are online and not behind a paywall. That’s still not so common in science. I’ve had to cite paywalled papers in Wikipedia articles myself.
And what do you determine isn’t controversial or political? I mean, you’d think basic science-related topics would be non-controversial, but that’s not the case. Climate change? Controversial. EVOLUTION? Controversial. Even something as simple as narcotic pain medication can be controversial and political.
And anything at all to do with woman or their health can easily be considered controversial. Isn’t that lovely? If it’s about woman, it’s suddenly “controversial” or “political” but if it’s about the “default” male? It’s considered non-controversial. How nice for us who aren’t men. I suppose I should just accept that anything having to do with women is off-limits, then? How about, no?
scienceavenger
First, ditto what marilove said in #32. Second per the bold words, WTF? Do fuck off with that dismissive shit.
Woman = women for most of my previous comment. I can’t type today, yeesh.
Oh, but JAL, why is the topic of a woman’s right to choose important? It’s just silly women! Who cares!
Iwonder how scienceavenger creates those “rules” of his so he avoids anything “controversial”.
marilove
Oh my god, I know right?!? It’s not like it matters or that there’s consequences. Once the trolls start messing with atheism and science articles, then the mighty whitey scienceavenger will come to save the day. It’ll all be okay then. That’s when our men will be in a frenzy and we can support our hearts out. YAY!
Wow, I managed to miss that. Seriously, scienceavenger? Seriously?
Ouch. Really high bar. :)
not an expert in anything but possessing some experience in many areas and really do not always have the time to research or “drill down” to see how true the answers I can find are.
Where would it be suggested clear honest information could be found if Wikipedia is so unreliable as to be worthless ? When what is really looked for is more an in depth definition a clear outline with some details filled in to help in being “an informed citizen”?
because its beginning to sound like I am SOL.
uncle frogy
This should be S.O.P. with any encyclopedia, online or dead tree.
scienceavenger @ 30:
My. You didn’t just shove your feet in your mouth with that one. You managed to stuff your whole bod in. You have some serious privilege to check there.
I’m with raven and others above: I do rely on Wikipedia in technical and abstruse subjects. I do not rely on Wikipedia on political subjects or related areas.
For example, the article on Compact Space is thorough and dead-nuts accurate, which is typical in Wiki’s mathematical articles. But I sure as hell wouldn’t trust their bio on Nancy Pelosi.
No matter what you tell students, they’ll still trust what they want. Besides, studies show that Wikipedia is just as accurate as (often more accurate than) other sources of the same information. A distinction should be made between opinion pieces and fact pieces, though. Wiki tries to cover everything, but I would never trust it to inform my opinion, only to provide me with information as a starting point to check facts or begin research. I agree with rave, joel and others regarding political/social versus technical/scientific aspects of wiki.
As to its decision on GG, Wiki has made similar decisions about MRAs in the past. They care about the content they maintain, but they are human and make mistakes.
Another human created and run institution does what every other institution, including the vaunted construct and culture of science itself, has previously done and you toss them into the pit along with The Blaze and WND.
Get over it. Demand and work toward a better standard, and serious correction when it goes astray, but stay engaged and, if you don’t want to play Diogenes, get over it. Institutions can and do make mistakes and it is only from a distance, and in the long term, that their overall worth is clear.
Wikipedia is still young and will only learn to resist groups armed with “a PR agency with a few offices in different cities and a phone” by doing so. This may take some time and coaching to overcome. Give them the time and, if you are willing, the coaching required.
Give up on people, and their institutions, too quickly you tread the path of the frustrated artist perpetually starting a drawing but unsatisfied with the first line drawn, ripping off the sheet, and starting over. The empty page is perfect. The line is always imperfect. The key is to provisionally accept setbacks and imperfection with an eye toward continuous improvement. To improve and modify the imperfect line, and keep going. Demanding too much perfection too early is a sure-fire way to eliminate any chance of progress.
Wikipedia is, what, under thirty years old. When the institution of any particular branch of science was thirty years old they were, operating out of ignorance, making wild, outrageous mistakes and passing it all off as the current state of art. But people didn’t give up. They, against considerable resistance, built on the better parts and set about corrected the errors. Some of those wildest assertions took hundreds of years to correct.
If you want to give up on Wikipedia, in all fairness, you really need to offer something better.
A library?
Scholoarly journals? Books? Information from .edu sources?
I never, ever use Wikipedia for my scholarly essays. There are many other sources available, and they aren’t that difficult to find if you actually put some effort into it.
Look, it is one thing to have an occasional inaccuracy. It is quite another to introduce a systemic misogynist bias into the editorial process. It is like when the Komen Foundation revealed itself as a pro-life front. They woman at the center of the controversy stepped down, but there will now always be a lingering doubt. And there are plenty of other worthy charities asking for my contribution, some of whom overlap in focus. So Komen now doesn’t get a dime of my money and neither will Wikipedia.
Maybe i’m trying to rationalize my donation, but I think Wikipedia is still an invaluable resource for underprivileged groups.
How much can the kids of some remote village learn from it?
I completely agree that it should *never* be treated as a primary source, but it’s an awesome starting point, it’s a great resource of knowledge for humanity.
This said, I am disappointed myself and will let them know that they lost my money.
but I think Wikipedia is still an invaluable resource for underprivileged groups.
Well, unless you’re a woman. Guess that’s alright, then!
When I first looked at that arbitration page, there were less sanctions against anti-GG editors and it seemed like the Gaters were losing the fight. Now, I took a peak into 8chan and they’re doing a victory lap over there. I’m sad, but not surprised. Wikipedia has a huge and well document bias against women and it has at best 15% female editors. It is a by men, for men operation.
lorn #44
How exactly can anyone work for a better standard when even veteran editors are restricted and banned?
________________
F.O. #48
I agree with you there. For people with limited access to information (whether because of poverty or government censure) it remains a very necessary tool. Luckily, Wikipedia can be easily copied and maintained on a different server with a different set of rules and regulations.
marilove #49
No, even if you’re a woman. Unless you think some holy book or party dogma is better to women than Wikipedia, or that everyone everywhere in the world is born with the knowledge of where to seek better information.
Wikipedia is bad for the first-world countries, but in places where women are even more oppressed it can still provide some benefit.
I never thought it would come about that Buzzfeed would have more credibility than Wikipedia!
Are you aware that there are plenty of disadvantaged women as well as men and that they are not getting the full information? And that the misogynist, anti-woman bias of Wikipedia has a negative effect, on both men AND women?
Some benefit.
You know, if this bias was flipped, and men were getting the short end of the stick (lol, like that’d ever happen, but bear with me), there wouldn’t be a collective shrug. “Oh, well, you know. It’s better than nothing, right? It’s still beneficial to disadvantaged people!”
Yeah, if this bias was flipped and men were getting the short end of the stick, people would be FREAKING THE FUCK OUT.
But since it’s woman *continuing* to get the short end of the stick, as usual, as has been the case since the dawn of time … shrug! No big deal, right?
Ugh, fuck that complacent, lazy bullshit.
Again, women! Not woman! Jeez, marilove. Get it together.
Also, Ugh, fuck that complacent, lazy, bullshit *attitude*. I forgot a word. But fuck that sort of attitude.
It matters. The way women are represented MATTERS. Not just to us, but to those who are disadvantaged — perhaps even more so for them.
And what is your standard of measurement and normalization by which you so blithely judge this kerfuffle “little”.
And what is you definition of “kerfuffle”?
At least they didn’t say “silly kerfuffle”, I suppose.
So Wikipedia now mirrors Reddit. Lovely.
the problem is, you need a library with easily and quickly searchable databases of content information that you can also cross reference, and be able to have easy access to such a library.
kinda why Wikipedia was started in the first place.
It would indeed be very good though, if most states and counties took spending capital to develop more libraries seriously.
hmm.
what about some kind of compromise? You have one big county library, where most of the paper books are stored, and you build lots of small satellite libraries, which might only contain some periodicals, or even no paper at all, but would have direct access to main library databases, and act as repositories for lending via the larger libraries (you just order your book from the satellite, and come pick it up for loan when it arrives from the main library).
it’s only a slight change from the way things are now, with the focus on increasing access rather than making sure every proposed library has hardcopies in their stock.
meh, who am I kidding? this is the age of dumbing down. even if this cost the average taxpayer NOTHING, it still wouldn’t get any support.
@51
Suure, because either they know English or local friendly wikipedians surely are not biased at all, because it would be against rules, right?
David Marjanović
this is a good point. Open source science publishing is still moving forward, but I do wish the large journal publishers like Elsevier would stop being a hindrance to progress instead of the boon they were when they first started.
If they would just offer their product for a REASONABLE price even, instead of the completely outrageous sums they are currently asking for, that would help.
seriously, it often costs 20-30 dollars, or MORE, to even download a SINGLE journal article. not even an entire paper journal mind, which you can actually buy for less in a lot of places!
it’s insane. Frankly, I’m shocked that pirates don’t have a dedicated crew to crack access to journals. there really should be one at this point, especially given the idea that piracy is the counter to the current lack of access and high prices all media content providers have been guilty of for decades.
I can’t think of any place right now, where piracy wouldn’t bring more wanted attention to, than the scientific publishing industry.
so get with it hackers.
;)
I have read the entire current article and find that it accurately represents the progression of the misogynistic beast that is GamerGate. It does not, in fact, try to be “fair and balanced” like Faux News, but adopts a neutral tone (one of Wikipedia’s requirements) while informing readers that the vast majority of media critics, journalists, bloggers, etc. have concluded that the “ethics in gaming journalism” issue is at best, a peripheral concern of a minority of participants, and at worst, a smokescreen designed to obscure the fact that GamerGaters are fighting a culture war to keep their hobby unsullied by new and diverse voices who are demanding that gaming culture changes, that it accommodates everyone. In essence, it is a pushback designed to bully these new voices into submission. Now, there certainly appears to be some unfair restrictions placed on feminist editors, which is total bullshit, but the article itself seems fine.
Thirding what David Marjanovic and chrisdevries have said. The Wikipedia article on Gamergate is a good one; read it.
It may be that this particular conflict is not being reported accurately. I don’t know. I don’t see anything in that article that looks like a victory for Gamergaters, 8chan, or anti-feminists.
no, it’s that the reporting is focusing on the POLICY regarding the article, not the article itself, which appears to be where the confusion lies.
read the article linked to by PZ at the top.
it actually is not so much about the Gamergate article, as it is about wiki’s arbitration policy, and the fear that the tyranny of the majority will apply with such a policy in place.
that you don’t see the results in the current article on wiki is like saying there’s no problem with ocean pollution, because the surface looks clear and blue.
Bernstein’s quoted reaction was to the proposed draft order, not the order that was actually adopted. He still does not like the revised order, but the revised order does not “prohibit anything but the gamergate position.”
again though, Bernstein’s POINT is not incorrect, given the general arbitration policy currently in use by wiki.
indeed, interested parties can take over segments of wiki, and have done so in the past.
what’s really at issue isn’t even this specific article, but whether you even CAN have an efficient and effective policy regarding the accuracy of any given article, when you can’t directly tie the content to specific, interdependently verifiable references, or there is a lot of argument about even whether those sources are being correctly represented.
It needs work as a general policy, but frankly, I just don’t see how something as large as wiki is is going to even HAVE a policy that is always effective and efficient.
it’s not like a single encyclopedia, where you have a single board of directors that can make a final decision on everything.
it’s simply too big for that.
IMO, the discussion here should be revolving around if there is a potentially better policy solution than what they have currently, or not.
I frankly don’t like it much, but can’t come up with something better than would actually work, given how wiki is at this point in time.
If wiki had more cash for organizational infrastructure, or people were always more interested in fact than pushing a viewpoint, then it would be much easier. But that’s simply not the reality.
It strikes me as perfectly possible that there are five feminists somewhere out there in the world who somehow exercise a negative influence on Wikipedia. Without knowing any of the details of this case, it’s really difficult to judge Arbcom’s decision. However, Mark Bernstein published two followup posts explaining some of those details:
http://www.markbernstein.org/Jan15/Thoughtless.html
http://www.markbernstein.org/Jan15/Careless.html
It’s not clear what the rationale for the sanctions are, but it appears that the editors in question were subject to coordinated harassment campaigns, and Arbcom failed to acknowledge this.
On a side note, I’m not even sure whether the Wikipedia decision is finalized yet. You probably wouldn’t expect an immediate change in the gamergate article.
Hi Odin (#14)
Yes you and I actually agree, but I should have clarified – what I meant was that the people who manage edits are often far from experts and often seem to be random joes (I was thinking of them as editors, and others who try to add or improve text as contributors). As far as I can see, they (what I call the editors) have taken or been put in a position to control content regardless of their level of knowledge or expertise, and do so in a way which stops others – including actual experts who are not part of the clique (the random joes you refer to) – from correcting misinformation. As per my experience and that of Gilell’s professor acquaintance, establishing facts seem to matter much less to those petty tyrants than having the power to retain control of content. I have given up trying to correct several articles on the topic of biodiversity, which are full of shite, including misquoting and improperly referencing my own work. Pointing those errors out to the editors in charge of the pages and asking politely to have my work properly cited or the references deleted garnered only silence or abuse in response. And reading the Talk pages for other science pages, including several public health pages, often reveals similar cases. Sad.
There is definitely a problem here. But PZ’s statement that an “arbitration panel made up almost entirely of men has decided to prohibit anything but the gamergate position” is at best a half-truth. An arbitration panel has only prohibited a hand of people from editing pages that discuss certain topics, and it seems that they imposed this restriction on real editors on the pro-feminist side of the debate but only on throwaway accounts editing for the pro-misogynist side. This is clearly unfair, but there is no indication that it indicates a general practice of not representing women’s points of view in actual articles, or worse, a deliberate bias against this point of view (I remain open to evidence from actual women who use the site that I am mistaken on this point). I use Wikipedia a lot for social justice issues and for a site that has 11 male editors for every 1 female, I believe it does a decent job of maintaining high standards. It’s not perfect (not by a long shot), and certainly should attempt to create a culture change that makes women more likely to be interested in becoming editors, but I see no evidence that it should be written off entirely (which seems to be PZ’s position).
And I see no evidence to listen to further apologetics from you for a shockingly bad decisions made by a bunch of men not looking at the full evidence. Engage hushfile.
Right, because everyone has access to scholarly journals and technical books and the expertise to understand them and .edu sources. Check your own privilege.
Is there a better option out there for the average lay person looking into technical or scientific topics? Scholarly journals are over the heads of most average people. I end up spending a fair bit of time helping my college freshmen how to read and understand scientific articles and these are almost all students who were in the top half of their high school classes or better. Libraries are few and far between with limited hours in many locations, so books are either expensive or often not available. Looking for the thing you want on .edu sites can be very time consuming and again many average people will find this challenging. I’m not trying to deny or minimize the problem here, but there needs to be another solution for most people. At this point it seems another site that does much the same thing with different editing balance and editing rules needs to be formed, or people need to band together and exert influence on wiki to fix the current problems. If the GG folks can manage to organize and influence the system, then the rational real world side can do the same or better.
Oops, I really should use the preview function.
The third sentence should read, “I end up spending a fair bit of time helping my college freshmen learn how to read and understand scholarly articles…”
Wikipedia has consistently been okay-to-decent at dry, factual matters, and usually provides good sources for further reading, but it has never had any credibility on any topic that can be tainted by personal bias.
I’m not sure this is what you wanted to say.
did you mean to say they “didn’t” impose restrictions?
in any case, the policy on what constitutes a “real editor” is also at best problematic, would you not agree?
Ah poo. There’s a website that won’t be getting continued donations from me.
And I really like Wiki for looking up various factoids (elevation of mountains and towns for example).
…hell, did you even read the comment by Mudpuddles, right above yours?
It’s not the first time (more like the 20th or 30th) that I have heard the actual authors OF the material being cited in a wiki… not given actual authority to edit the material!
it’s quite pathetic.
(that last directed at Chrisdevries, not at beardy, just to be clear)
Side note – this is just about how my library works. There are three counties involved – all of the libraries share a single database system. You can search for a book and find which libraries have it in hard copy, can request any book from any other library and have it delivered to the one you want (or drive there in person if possible). You can pay most library fines at any location, and a single card gives access to all of them. It’s pretty fantastic, really.
what PZ said:
The problem identified by PZ is bias accruing via the tyranny of the majority. whether or not the bias ends up looking misogynist is even beside the point.
PZ is indeed correct to tell his students not to trust wiki. The GOOD thing about wiki, is the insistence on references.
so, when you (rightly) tell your students not to trust it, it still has the bibliography aspect going for it.
funny, but I remember getting into my very first argument, ever, on Pharyngula over the problems with wiki, with Truth Machine.
that was over 10 years ago.
still have not changed my mind about wiki, and the minor efforts wiki has made to address concerns along these lines haven’t had much success in those 10 years either.
it’s exactly fair to use wiki as a launching platform, AND tell your students that the information content of any given article shouldn’t be trusted.
hell, as others brought up, it’s what we tell students about any encyclopedia any way.
I guess my point is… stop being so defensive about people rightly pointing the issues out. your energy would be far better spent trying to help wiki fix the issues instead.
cool; progress being made!
I was thinking of extending the idea to an even bigger extreme though. most smaller libraries in any given county still spend the overhead on having actual paper books at them. I’m suggesting actually making a lot of the satellites VERY small, and literally not much more than something like a post office/internet cafe, which can send and receive books in the back, and out front is basically one person to help people use the terminals there to search for what they want.
the idea being to drastically reduce costs of building libraries, in favor of making sure everyone has easier access to at least the means of finding the book they want and getting it to them.
I doubt it’s a new idea; just haven’t seen it really implemented in my experience, but I have seen in places I have lived, county govts reject building new libraries because of “costs”, and residents complain about a lack of nearby access.
especially bad in larger counties like Riverside in CA, that has poor public transportation, but is a HUGE area. even with a car, you often need to drive 30 minutes to get to a library.
Eh, Berstein’s “excellent” blog post may not be as excellent as he would wish: https://eudaimonaiaclaughter.wordpress.com/2015/01/25/247/
I’ll use Wiki as a jumping-off point. It’s a handy way to find a bunch of sources of information on X topic in a short time, and from there, it’s off down the research rabbit-hole.
Wiki as a primary source? *falls out of chair laughing*
This intro to the gamergate section of Wikipedia reads:
Given that the actual Wikipedia article is so anti-Gamergaters (rightly, I believe), PZ’s assertion that “an arbitration panel made up almost entirely of men has decided to prohibit anything but the gamergate position” really does come across as a scuzzy lie. Especially since reading the actual decision supports no such assertion (Arbcom didn’t even touch what positions are acceptable to hold, it just sanctioned some people on both sides of the argument for bad behavior).
See, the problem is that I agree with PZ/Phyrangula about most things, but now I’m worried about how many other stories I’ve read here were also fiction. This is legitimately anxiety-inducing.
amblingon
The OP refers to the original draft. Bernstein himself has pointed out that the original decision has been somewhat tempered.
His major posts on the topic:
Infamous | Thoughtless | Careless | Reckless
The last two, in particular, make for disturbing reading.
See the guardian article that also cites marks blog. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/23/wikipedia-bans-editors-from-gender-related-articles-amid-gamergate-controversy
It brings to light more examples of Wikipedia sexism.
Yeah, those are really good examples of making a lot of noises I superficially agree with, without actually having a basis in fact. The original draft ALSO had no commentary on which positions were acceptable to hold on Gamergate. Bernstein is making shit up. I say this as someone who is 100% in alignment with him politically.
Almost as bad is that he’s critiquing a system he hasn’t bothered to understand. He attacks Arbcom for not taking a pro-gamergate side, without understand that structurally, disputes over content are resolved in other forums, and that Arbcom exists solely to address issues of violations of Wiki policy. For example, in Arbcom cases over creationism, they don’t tell editors they have to be on the side of science, they discipline people who engaged in contentious editing. The dispute over content itself happens somewhere else. The proof that this system worked is that Wikipedia ended up on the right side of this issue. Just read the actual article on gamergate!
I just wish PZ has bothered to actually corroborate his story before reproducing it.
Key excerpt:
amblingon #88:
Uhuh. Clearly he’s no expert and has no understanding of the system. They pick non-experts all the time, to <a href="“>chair international symposiums.
If you think this is just about one page, you’re not only mistaken, but you quite obviously didn’t bother to read all the links I provided. Also, please note that the gamergate page is still accurate so far. You think the people behind this are stupid enough to instantly pepper the article with inaccuracies while the arbitration is still ongoing?
And as to your key excerpt, Bernstein’s major point is that the system (which to be fair was never designed with this kind of sustained, highly organised attack on third parties in mind) has failed. It doesn’t matter if they followed the rules. If the outcome of following the rules leads to Wikipedia being used as a weapon in this manner, then the rules need changing.
Gamergate and articles related (check links in the Gamergate article) seem to all be locked to editing “to prevent vandalism” at the current time. So…
Here is the original draft btw. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate/Proposed_decision&oldid=643277787
The words Civility, BOTH SIDES, and seasoning come to mind. But aside from that, I am fairly certain that what PZ was referring to with the “prohibit anything other than the aggregate position” was the fact that the key people getting sanctions in this were uppity feminists. Ironic how the handwringers whining about Reading the Article apparently havent read much themselves….
Seasoning should be sealioning. Fuck this fucking phone
anteprepro #92:
Definitely not. I recommend coarsely chopped medium-hot pepper.
How has the system failed if the actual Wiki article is good? Have you even read it? What content do you actually find objectionable?
The people who were sanctioned weren’t sanctioned for having specific views, they were sanctioned for bad behavior. People on both sides were sanctioned. The mistake you’re making is interpreting the sanctioning of tenditious editing as an repudiation of the viewpoints of the sanctioned editors (which, again, makes no sense considering editors on both sides were sanctioned).
What would make you happy? The actual article, which is what matters, takes a strongly anti-Gamergate position (again, appropriately). You’re mad because a bunch of people were sanctioned for violating Wiki policy and some of those people shared your political beliefs? Seriously?
I read all your links. They’re such dramatic misrepresentations of the issues at hand that it’s awfully difficult to believe they were written in good faith. I mean, even on basic issues like whether people were banned (nobody was), Bernstein continues to make shit up.
Given that every article on the issue cites him and only him, and that the ‘infamy’ he continues to refer to has been generated entirely by his post, this seems like an example of one person stirring up a media storm based on half-truths in order to raise their personal profile.
amblingon #95:
No, I’m angry that:
And that:
And that:
And that:
But since you claim this is a ‘dramatic misrepresentation of the issues at hand,’ maybe you could point out how, exactly, those quotes are misrepresentations of either what’s happened, or the gamergaters’ behaviour throughout the entire gamergate affair, in every single media they could insert such smears into.
amblingon,
What I take away from this is that strong feminist views are not welcome on Wiki, while those who make death and rape threats can just come back with a new account and keep up the harassment. Now, maybe that is an incorrect conclusion. And maybe Komen isn’t really a pro-life front. But there are lots and lots of people who want my money. I get reams and reams of solicitations every month. So, why, I ask you, would I take a chance and give to an organization that has the taint of misogynistic bias? Sorry, but feminism is a litmus test for me, and Wiki failed.
“What I take away from this is that strong feminist views are not welcome on Wiki”
I mean, that’s just ridiculous. Nobody was banned from Wikipedia for having strong feminist views. Nobody was sanctioned for having strong feminist views. Both feminists and anti-feminists were sanctioned for violating Wikipedia rules on edit-warring.
You’re basing literally your entire take on this incident on one guy’s blog. I mean, I don’t really care if you give money to Wikipedia or not, but assuming you care about the correlation between your beliefs and reality, maybe actually read the case?
Daz- not sure how gamergaters behavior is relevant. Gamergaters are repugnant, and nobody is arguing that. What I’m arguing is that Bernstein’s posts misrepresented what happened at Wikipedia, and I explained why and gave examples. Your decision to ignore that and attempt to refocus the debate on whether Gamergaters are good people is pretty solid evidence that your real goal is winning Internet Argument Points.
The most laughable argument you’re making is that somehow, the fact that people can create new accounts is evidence Wikipedia is evil. You realize that I could write something horrible and sexist here, and when I was banned, easily create a new account and do the same thing again, and according to your and Bernstein’s logic, that means Phyrangula doesn’t care about misogyny.
This whole ‘disposable’ accounts thing is absurd. It’s the internet. There’s no way to stop someone from making new accounts except to prevent anyone from making new accounts at all, unless they’re totally tech-illiterate. The best you can do is ban people when they do something wrong, which is exactly what Wikipedia did/does.
amblingon #98:
Please answer the question. Which of the quotes I provided do you claim to be a ‘dramatic misrepresentation of the issues at hand?’
amblingon,
But the only PEOPLE banned were the feminists. The anonymous trolls are probably already back. And you can do more than ban IDs. You can block IP addresses. That is what PZ does, and it is why we don’t see the denizens of the dungeon much anymore.
amblington:
Why were the only serious targets feminist editors then?
Why were the major people mentioned only feminist, anti-gamergaters then?
The mistake you are a making is that you believe that your dishonest spin somehow makes facts disappear.
Again, amblingon, why should I support financially an organization that doesn’t seem to be interested in rectifying gender imbalance, in making a product that appeals to women as much as men or in taking a stance in favor of women? I’ve given to Wiki the past 3 years. I won’t again. Plenty of other folks want my money.
I love Wikipedia for episode lists of TV shows. I like how it is presented in a consistent fashion which makes it much faster to use than using a network’s site, which is usually bloated, slow, and confusing.
I use it for this a lot. I also use to find out about relatively obscure historical people and events. Actually, that’s what I mostly read Wikipedia for.
amblington:
Apparently you think everyone else, including Wikipedia, is as stupid as you are:
See: Special log specificially to track new users, so other people can check for offensive usernames:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Log/newusers
Edit counts:
And in “meat puppetry” : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sock_puppetry#Meatpuppetry
And finally, admins can check for sockpuppet “disposable accounts” using this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:CheckUser
Yes, Wikipedia actually does give a shit about disposable accounts and yes, they do have ways of finding them out. But please, feel free to arrogantly and ignorantly sneer more. It seems like it is all you have got.
What are you basing this on? I looked at the list of people sanctioned and there were people from both sides.
Oh, some high-level argumentation there.
First, IP bans are incredibly easy to get around. Anyone with even a basic understanding of how the Internet works knows this. Educate yourself.
Second, literally none of the things you posted actually prevent someone from creating a second account after being banned. Checking for offensive usernames? Are you joking?
Third, a huge chunk of Bernstein’s argument revolved around the assertion that it doesn’t matter that Wikipedia also sanctioned the gamergate trolls, because they’ll just make new accounts. Which one is it?
I really don’t care who you give your money to. I don’t donate to Wikipedia either. I’m correcting your misunderstandings, not telling you what to do with your resources.
<blockquote cite=""But the only PEOPLE banned were the feminists.</blockquote?
Literally nobody was banned at all. If you don't believe me, read the Arbcom decision. Bernstein lied.
Amblingon, OK, not banned. How about silenced? That work for you? The viewpoint that will be missing from future edits is the feminist one. That isn’t a problem for you on an article that has to do with the treatment of women by a community with a history of abusing women?
The facts are that Wiki is and remains a Boy’s club, and it doesn’t see anything wrong with that. I do.
I would actually trust that one, because Pelosi is famous enough that that article probably gets enough views that any unreferenced crap probably wouldn’t stay for long. The article on DDT is very good and overflowing with references, because every half-sentence is referenced.
Why bother? :-) Many authors upload pdfs to their institutional homepages, even if the contract they signed when their manuscript was accepted for publication explicitly forbids that. Barring that, people e-mail each other their papers; some send all their new publications to their friends unasked, and all scientists who use e-mail will send you their papers if you just ask. Barring that, there are Facebook groups dedicated to exchanging pdfs.
Aren’t most IP addresses dynamic these days?
did you even read the article linked to before posting your comment?
no, seriously. what is the FIRST article linked to in the OP?
Strange. Suddenly I’m no longer visible.
amblingon
Please answer the question. Which of the quotes I provided do you claim to be a ‘dramatic misrepresentation of the issues at hand’?
meh, nevermind. late comment is late. amblington was schooled and then immediately proceeded to move goalposts accordingly.
The Kafkian underworld of Wikipedia has never been amenable to caring. It is one of the most warped places on the Internet. It is a wonder that the article pages are as good as they are.
Jesus fucking Christ, Daz, I get that you think you’re being super clever, but please try to exercise some *basic* reading comprehension. I said that the article contained serious misrepresentations. I did not say that the specific quotes you later chose to highlight were misrepresentations.
This entire discussion is an excerise in strawmanning. I think there’s a shit ton wrong with Wikipedia, in particular how it handles gender issues. I think there’s a lot wrong with Gamergate, in that it’s full of misogynistic assholes. I think this particular anti-Wikipedia, anti-Gamergate article is misinformed. Because I’m an adult, I’m capable of holding all three beliefs simultaneously.
Ichthyic- I was referring to the Wikipedia article in gamergate. Obviously I read the linked article, which you can tell based on the fact that the entire conversation has been about it’s inaccuracies.
The goalposts are immobile. The question was whether the article fairly represented the events surrounding a editorial decision at Wikipedia. I argued it did not, and explained why.
In response, I’ve been told I’m stupid (for understanding how IP addresses work), asked to defend positions I’ve never suggested I hold, asked to explain why people should donate money to Wikipedia, and been told I’m dishonest.
Grow the fuck up.
And you were apologizing for not being more fair in the decision. Which was distintly misogyist, and why you aren’t being paid any attention to, other than to point our you own flaws in logic and ethics. Especially the ethics.
You don’t appear to be overly concerned about the unfair nature of the decision toward women. In fact, you almost seem gleeful. If you aren’t, change your tone ASAP.
You first tone troll.
I see you’re delusional.
I’ll get back to you when you’re not.
er, if.
amblington: You remain an idiot. It doesn’t matter if you can mess around with your IP address: your account is still a disposable account and wikipedia watches for that shit. It watches new accounts, it watches weird edit histories, it watches influxes of new accounts that edit the same, it watches for spammers and vandals. Avoid getting pinpointed to the same IP all you like, they still have ways for screening for that shit. I really want to think you are just too daft to get the point of all of those methods I cited for you, but all signs are pointing towards Dishonest Shitheel for you, right now.
It’s nice to see that they have a scripted answer already. It means that pressure is there.
Still, I’m unimpressed by the answer.
Civility is overrated compared to the truth.
The fact that someone called me a tone troll and then asked me to change my tone in the same breath really sums up the level of intellectual honesty at work here. Peace.
Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, man.
Frankly, I’m shocked that you are ignorant of what is out there.
Hint: the first 3 letters of the last word of comment #45 above, and the first 3 letters of the name of the first book of the bible, then a dot, then the first 3 letters of “organization”. There’s an alternate mirror that uses the same site name, but the domain of .in
If they don’t have a particular paper, there is a site they link to for encouraging the paper to be free. It works in Russian, but it isn’t hard to figure out.
(Fair warning: I try to only access the site(s) anonymously.)
A large number of journal sites are using an engine with a huge
bughidden feature — you can modify the URL for a particular paper, and it will magically give you access to that paper. It doesn’t work for early publications, though.AR
teehee
amblingon #114:
Soi it’s misinformed, so you claimed, because Bernstein doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Until I pointed out that the man appears to be an expert in the field, at which point you dropped that argument. Then you claimed that ‘look that page hasn’t changed!’ until it was pointed out to you that the page is currently edit-locked; at which point you dropped that argument.
Now, apparently, Bernstein is engaged in misrepresentation (for what purpose, exactly? you never say), except that the four quotes highlighting serious problems aren’t misrepresentations… but that doesn’t change the fact that something somewhere which you now don’t appear to be able to point, to is still a misrepresentation.
Did I miss anything?
To which observer? It makes a difference, when they get up to large fractions of c.
Interestingly, while I think Bernstein is correct in that the Arbcom decision is terrible – and a sadly typical case of bothsidesism – I think he’s wrong about the likely long term consequences for the articles, which at the moment are looking like it will be fine.
Looking over it there have been more long-term non-Gater editors active on there in the last few days than for quite some time; perhaps the realisation that Arbcom is not going to provide a useful solution has kicked the community there into doing something rather than leaving it to a small number of people who then make obvious targets for Gaters.
One point of Bernstein’s I disagree with is the categorisation of the editors who have been working to keep Gater libels out of the articles as “feminist”. Gamergate thinks so, sure – and some of them probably do identify that way – but the editors in question have been fairly clear that their motivation is “anti-libel-in-articles”, not “anti-Gamergate” or “feminism”. It’s not as if “Arbcom bans anti-libel editors” is any more sympathetic a headline for the committee or Wikipedia, but it would avoid accepting one of the Gater’s more obnoxious categorisations (which was one of Arbcom’s own mistakes, too)
Wiki:
Because unconscious bias doesn’t exist. Pretty, civil words that mean nothing as usual.
Note: Keyboard broke, typing with on screen.
Certainly more intellectual honesty than you ever showed. Typical of concern trolls.
The OP is in error, and should be corrected.
I’ll admit that I was taken in by this story at first, too, but it was ultimately a misrepresentation and PZ has had plenty of time to discover that his trust in Bernstein was misplaced.
jedibear:
Please elaborate and/or cite what you are referring to.
@125, Daz
Well, amblingon did point to:
The article that inspired this entire thread was nonsense. It is now followed by this correction:
There’s a better article on Slate, written after ArbCon actually made their ruling, called “The Wikipedia Ouroboros”:
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2015/02/wikipedia_gamergate_scandal_how_a_bad_source_made_wikipedia_wrong_about.html
that was indeed a good article:
and so, we’re back to the real problem of wikipedia, which has been also relayed by Bernstein, but using the wrong examples to illustrate it.
so much noise, so little progress.