Jimmy Wales trusts the process
theverge.com
theverge.com
Slightly ironic, given Wales is a co-founder of Wikipedia, not the founder. Probably would have been nice to ensure the article got it correctly, considering the drama that happened around it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Wales#Co-founder_status_...
For a reputable secondary source to consider writing something it does need to be marketable. This can result in situations where there is an event that happens where only the sensationalist pieces were deemed marketable enough for people to write meaning that the writers of the wikipedia page do not have the option of using non sensationalist sources.
So one can surely imagine cases where the only references are sensationalised/biased new media reporting. However:
1) Isn't this confined to a pretty small proportion of articles, given the breadth of topics Wikipdia covers expands well outside the purview of news media? E.g. any basic physics or math articles, like Electromagnetism or Linear Algebra - a lot of the sources for these seem to be textbooks.
2) Can we not assume any editorial leeway on the part of contributors to try and contextualise such sensationalism/bias? No examples are coming to mind now, but I'm pretty sure I've seen qualifiers in articles at least hinting that the cited source could be potentially problematic.
1. I just checked Epstein's Wikipedia entry-- it lists the very recent Drop Site News allegation of his and Wexner's ties to the Iran-Contra drug smuggling operation. And that in a whole section on the topic of intelligence ties going back years.
The links covered in that Drop Site story were left out of a recent NYT article that covered a lot of the same period of Epstein's life. (I also haven't seen that Drop Site News story picked up by any of the other mainstream news sites or shows.)
NYT is prominently listed as a reliable source, Drop Site News isn't. Yet I can still read a nice summary of that Drop Site Story on Wikipedia.
2. Also checked the entry on Bin Laden killing. It not only includes a substantial summary of Hersh's account that was widely criticized by both other journalists and the Obama White House, but that Hersh story also has its own entry.
> You can only trust wikipedia as much as you can trust the news media.
I'd reword this to say if you can trust that at least one reputable journalist has covered a given subject, a Wikipedian has most likely already included a summary in the relevant article for you.
Edit: clarification
Well, no, because secondary sources are not limited to news media sources (and for current events, primary sources are allowed.) If literally everyone creating media of any kind other than Wikipedia itself relating to a subject is in on a conspiracy to suppress it, yes, you are SoL on Wikipedia.
The WP:Reliable Sources rule limits who can be used as a source. And it's not about the other side being supressed, but that there is not enough interest for someone to write a balanced article on it.
> In regards to notability, I would rather these topics not have articles at all since they aren't notable enough to have balanced coverage by secondary sources.
That's exactly what the policy does ... it's applied at the article level--articles on insufficiently notable subjects are deleted.
It's damned close: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources
"A source is where the material comes from. For example, a source could be a book or a webpage. A source can be reliable or unreliable for the material it is meant to support. Some sources, such as unpublished texts and an editor's own personal experience, are prohibited."
> There are some issues that are niche enough that the only articles written by 'reliable sources' on them are articles written with ulterior motives.
Says you. But if you encounter such an article, you are free to improve it by making it NPOV ... and people do that all the time at WP. And if you can't find such material then you have no basis for your contrary beliefs.
You folks act like there's some cabal of editors with a unified ideological outlook, but this is the furthest thing from the truth. Whatever your ideological outlook, there's a large cadre of active WP editors who share it and are constantly trying to push articles in that direction ... but they have to be able to make their case, and even the most ardently biased editors learn that bad faith must at least be disguised.
> the problem still remains that Wikipedia is only as trustworthy/unbiased as the secondary sources it derives its content from
It's not a problem because there's a vast range of such sources (people talking here about "news media" as if that's all that's allowed as a source are clueless), and as a whole they are vastly more reliable than WP's critics, who basically whine that they aren't allowed insert blatant lies into WP just because they happen to believe those lies.
That is not what I said. That quote was in relation to me saying that I don't think viewpoints are being suppressed. There just is naturally not enough interest from sources wikipedia consists reliable.
In regards to notability, I would rather these topics not have articles at all since they aren't notable enough to have balanced coverage by secondary sources.
There's no such thing and it's not happening. WP mechanisms don't even allow for "official narratives" to be "enforced".
> Literally everything to do with covid. I can list "at least 3" right there. Masks don't work, the vaccine has killed people, epidemiologists (credible ones) warned against lockdowns. Wikipedia will tell you otherwise I'm sure
You were asked for examples, not antivax talking points, or things that you're "sure" of without a shred of evidence. Wikipedia tells the truth--which includes the data on the efficacy of masks and the ratios between people dying from vaccines and people dying from the diseases those vaccines mitigate. And the credibility of epidemiologists is not measured by which ones some ideologue agrees with--but Wikipedia covers a broad range of statements made by epidemiologists. And the fact that Wikipedia articles say things that some ideologue disagrees with does not entail that an "official narrative" is being enforced.
P.S. The response displays the complete lack of intellectual integrity that was already evident.
Can you share at least your top 3 examples? Claims of an "official narrative" frankly just sound kookie when made without a shred to back them up.
There's other things as well I could probably think of but when you have politically motivated actors going on edit wars and the fact Wiki may even be controlled by the intelligence agencies we have a problem
(And why does Youtube put Wikipedia entries as official truth under certain videos?)
So what I'm actually asking for is credible references/citations to back up your claims - otherwise they're at best just your opinions, or at worst you spreading conspiracy theories.
> the fact Wiki may even be controlled by the intelligence agencies we have a problem
Seems conspiracy theories it is.
From experience, I know it is highly unlikely that I or anyone else is going to pull you away from your convictions, so I won't even bother. What I will say is you're also unlikely to find a receptive audience to such views on HN, especially if you're not even going to try substantiating them.
The 'news media' is an incredibly diverse range of disconnected groups of people, especially in the Internet era. Look at the front page of HN. You hardly see the leading journalism organizations (e.g., NY Times, network news, etc.).
That "everyone" is against you is a conspiracy theory.
How do you know about the topic?
If someone does encounter an example, they are free to correct it by adding sourced material or by removing unsourced material (preferably after a notice on the talk page).
And they say "It's a shame since it can hurt the communities reputation due to how highly ranked wikipedia pages can be" after saying that this happens because 99% of people pay no attention to the topic.
How can I correct it if it is sourced, but not true? Since I'm a primary source, I can't simply say it's untrue and remove it, even if I provide evidence. It's my understanding that I would need to wait for a reliable secondary source to write that it's not true. And since it is unlikely for someone to write about a dead community, such a valid article may never be written.
And whose intent and what evidence is there of that intent?
the stuff that gets play in the us is compatible left slop, liberal, or fascist lenses. ppl are selected for positions because they believe the correct things.
I generally agree - almost all mainstream US journalism will not use Marxist ideas for any topic, unless the publication is unaware of the idea's origins. So there is a lack of diversity there.
At the same time, I think your argument conflates Marxism and communism. The US journalists don't know the difference either, and I believe are really anti-communist - openly and avowedly - and assume Marxism is essentially the same thing.
> there are entire countries of marxists, china and cuba.
The idea that everyone in Cuba and China are Marxist or communist is just misunderstanding politics and humanity. IMHO China's government is closer to right-wing authoritarian/totalitarian, with its history clearly in communism (Mao, etc.) but they now mostly use it for ideological cover. Xi is a princeling, inheriting his status from elite (though not every princeling becomes head of the country).
P.S.
> No it isn't.
Of course it is. As others have pointed out, "the news media" is diverse, and includes FN, NewsMax, OANN, etc.
> One particular example is where an individual can reference primary sources (including personal experience)
The reasons for not allowing reports of personal experience are obvious to any remotely intellectually honest person.
Unsurprisingly there's a lot of bad faith in the responses here ... my quota for responding to such dreck is exhausted.
While i generally agree, and most of the critics of Wikipedia seem to be mad that Wikipedia doesn't take their pet conspiracy theory seriously, which, well, good.
However, i still think systemic bias is something to be seriously considered. Wikipedia is a tertiary source that aims to summarize reputable knowledge ("verifiability not truth"). As such there is a significant risk of systemic biases being reflected in Wikipedia.
But i think that's ok. Wikipedia can't be all things. It is not scientists/ acedemics. It is not in the business of creating new knowledge, just summarizing it. Its someone elses job to create it
I've seriously considered it. It helps to have been an active editor who understands how the place works and has seen the push and pull that prevents such systemic biases ... of course, there is a systemic "bias" toward veridical claims, which is as it should be. That doesn't mean that everything there is true, but there is an active process that tends to eliminate what isn't--sort of like science. But at WP there are numerous adversarial ideological cadres who have to at least play-act at good faith in order to achieve consensus, which results in a lot truth being stated in quite muted qualified ways. It's not perfect but it's hard to come up with a way to do better.
No it isn't. The news media has a bias like anything else. They have traditionally been against all sorts of groups and topics that they are now in favour of.
> But in fact it virtually never happens,
If it sometimes happens, and if you can take the inside view of a particular topics, then you can determine if it is one such instance.
> if there's any validity at all to the claim that it's misinformation and that it is being pushed by "one side" then it necessarily follows that there's another side that is your source
Your source may not be considered valid by wikipedia, for reasons that are fundamental to wikipedia as an institution, but incidental to an individual trying to determine the truth. One particular example is where an individual can reference primary sources (including personal experience) which are not covered or referenced by "reliable" (wikipedia term of art) secondary sources.
> Jimmy Wales: If you look at the Edelman Trust Barometer survey, which has been going since 2000, you’ve seen this steady erosion of trust in journalism and media and business and to some degree in each other. ...
> What do you think has gone wrong?
> I think there’s a number of things that have gone wrong. The trend actually goes back to before the Edelman data. Some of the things I would point to are the decline of the business model for local journalism. To the extent that the business model for journalism has been very difficult, full stop, you see the rise of low-quality outlets, clickbait headlines, all of that. But also that local piece means people aren’t necessarily getting information that they can verify with their own eyes, and I think that tends to undermine trust. In more recent times, obviously the toxicity of social media hasn’t been helpful.
How about a political movement's explicit, extremely aggressive all out assault on social trust, specifically journalism - an 'enemy of the people', target of law enforcement and laws, etc. And how about toxic capitalism's (emphasis on 'toxic', not all capitalism) actually valuing and aggressively embracing complete abandonment and manipulation of trust in order to profit by any means possible (e.g. stereotypical private equity squeezing money out of nursing homes)?
What planet to people like Wales live on? They are so used to ducking this issue that they almost can't see it anymore.
That doesn't mean there isn't degredation in quality journalism, but I see no evidence that it's a cause of the reduction in trust. The reduction in trust is greatest in the political movement described above.
Maybe you could address the evidence I presented (the examples). Ignoring evidence is also part of disinformation.
First, when was journalism 'weakened'? The conservative anti-journalism campaign (to be clear, not all conservatives are anti-journalism) goes back to people like Rush Limbaugh in the late 1980s and Fox News in the mid-1990s. And journalism lost funding due to Craigslist taking over the main source of income, classified ads.
Second, if these people are really interested in good journalism and truth, why do they attack journalists for reporting truth and insist on disinformation?
Maybe come up with some evidence of your own, for your own argument. Mine won't help you much.
A lot of Wikipedia is a joke.
The most glaring problem of all is that most of its labour is unpaid, despite its content being used by commercial ventures such as Amazon.