"reputable content" as defined by GOOG's own ideological bias
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/feb/08/wikipedia...
> The editors described the arguments for a ban as “centred on the Daily Mail’s reputation for poor fact checking, sensationalism and flat-out fabrication”.
I'm surprised it took Google 2 years to get around to the same viewpoint.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, surely if there's anyone who knows which sources are worth using, it would be the editors of the world's biggest encyclopedia?
As you say, it is a primary source here. The question isn't what's on the Daily Mail's anyone-can-edit Wikipedia page, it's what a closed group of encyclopedia overseers have decided constitutes an acceptable source. What's more, the closest competitor, Britannica, relies on finding expert contributors instead of listing specific reputable sources, so its editors wouldn't be nearly as relevant here!
Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia is a point here, it's a crowdsourced publication that purports to be a neutral source, despite well documented conflicts among the editors.
Even a cursory glance at how wikipedia is actually structured vs how early 2000s news media and schools portrayed it will lead you to the conclusion that it's a significantly better primary source than any other encyclopedia currently available.
The sort of stuff in wikipedia that traditionally might be slightly biased (current events, very new political stuff) doesn't even appear in other encyclopedias until a decade later, so that has to be worth something as well.
The number of eyes actively vetting and checking and re-checking every change on a moderately trafficked wikipedia page probably dwarfs the total number of editorial staff for even the largest of encyclopedias. The average accuracy is just going to be higher in a situation like that, even with people occasionally defacing pages.
You have got to be kidding me, how can you say that with a straight face? https://www.vox.com/2015/9/17/9345487/wikipedia-lamest-edit-...
I think a fair assessment wouldn't pin 100% of the cause to Google's ideological bias. However, a fair assessment of the situation would also acknowledge the existence of Google's ideological bias.