Wikipedia To Unlock Frequently Vandalized Pages 244
netbuzz writes "In an effort to encourage greater participation, Wikipedia, the self-described 'online encyclopedia that anyone can edit,' is turning to tighter editorial control as a substitute for simply 'locking' those entries that frequently attract mischief makers and ideologues. The new system, which will apply to a maximum of 2,000 most-vulnerable pages, is sure to create controversies of its own."
Tools have improved for vandalism, screening works (Score:5, Insightful)
(I try to volunteer a bit of my time on Huggle, a .NET application that allows for Wikipedia users with rollback permission to quickly patrol, revert vandalism, warn, and report users)
Vandalism has been down a lot from what I've seen in the past, and more and more I get beaten to the punch reverting it.
The biggest problem I see with this "pending changes" is that there will be so many edits that intentional subtle trolling (deliberately inserting incorrect facts/statistics) is more likely to get through just by the nature of the fact that experienced editors will have to read thousands of edits.
However, it does make Wikipedia more accessible to a wider variety of users and should stop scaring away new contributors. Most anonymously made edits are actually not vandalism, so it's good to see Wikipedia trying to take an approach that allows these people to contribute to "bigger" (in the sense of # of visitors) articles.
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Everybody knows part of the problem with Wikipedia is the automated tools, that and the insane edit counts required by people who play it as a game with the idea of "leveling up" to admin.
Try to correct a date, for example, and watch it get reverted just so someone can add another reversion to their edit count. Lather, rinse, repeat. Good data is 99% likely to be reverted at this point, because the people operating "tools" like Huggle, Twinkle, Finkle, Fuckle, Whatever don't give two shits about checking to
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Using it to revert anything other than obvious vandalism (content that you believe to be non-neutral or wrong) is grounds for your loss of rollback rights and a ban from Wikipedia.
And the chance of the admins on wikipedia actually being responsible enough to do this? If you think they will, you're insane.
No, in practice, the Huggle-jockey just goes on merrily reverting whatever the fuck they can. Nobody doublechecks them anyways.
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I wouldn't agree with this - for the main reason that (AFAIK) anti-vandalism currently relies a lot on automated processes that check for common vandalism patterns. This change will bring the changes under the scru
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The WikiProject model has a peer-review process. Just create a WikiProject for frequently-vandalized pages.
ironically, I just made a joke post [slashdot.org] to that effect, but now I realize it's the best course of action.
Which pages? (Score:2)
The article specifically mentions W's page, but doesn't seem to give any direction on where one might find a comprehensive list. I'd actually be kind of interested to see that.
Re:Which pages? (Score:4, Informative)
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There's an alarmingly high number of World of Warcraft pages on that list. I think I've finally lost all faith in humanity.
Yep (Score:3)
This is great! Everybody will now know that Obama was born to a prostitute in Kenya, and that Bush personally parachuted from the planes just before they crashed into the towers!
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They will also know that Ross Perot is actually an elephant [in a room], Fox News really is fair and balanced, and that farts smell like flowers if a woman does it.
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Don't be daft. Obviously George W. Bush is a human being, not Satan or some evil presence that has haunted man since the dawn of time.
Dick Cheney, however...
deeper problem (Score:5, Insightful)
A better CMS is needed (Score:2)
Re:deeper problem (Score:4, Insightful)
I generally had a very positive experience with editing WIkipedia. Your examples indicate that there is a lot of bullshit going on behind the scenes, but still, we need this friction, because without it it would be little better than uncyclopedia. If I wanted to edit articles in the earnest, I would definitely create an account, I would write intelligible comments explaining my edits, and I would start asking to lock articles with dumb-skull bots guarding them, and get my way after a proper bureaucratic process. The end result is a better article, so it is totally worth the effort.
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Recently I added a couple of sentences to a WWII-era biographical article in which I referred to the Nazi party, and someone's bot reverted it because "Nazi" was a keyword that it was programmed to assume indicated vandalism.
Should Wikipedia continue to allow personal revert-bots to troll webpages?
If it's really necessary, maybe Wikipedia should create an internal auto-revert framework and accept page specific submissions.
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Your example perfectly illustrates one of the biggest problems. You say the text you modifed is "redundant". You are you? What makes you right and them wrong? Maybe the text was fine as written and you lack the intelligence to appreciate it. Or maybe the original author was an idiot who has no ability to write coherently. Who decides which one is c
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On WP, the final say resides with whoever has the strongest case of OCD or Asperger's. In the event of a tie, whoever has the best admin connections dominates.
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My exact same experience. I uploaded over 100 images (many of which kept getting deleted), had over 8000 edits, and finally just gave up as the WikiNazis just sucked all the enjoyment out of it. It went from being a way to share my experience and willingness to research, into a drudgery that forced me to have to constantly argue with Admins who had more interest in inflating their numbers than creating a set of balanced articles.
Once in a while, I will remove a comma, correct a spelling, or do something m
I can see it now (Score:2)
"This page is part of Wikipedia Project:Vandalism. Please be kind."
I think it's a terrible idea. (Score:3, Interesting)
Even leaving aside the obvious entries on religion, abortion, evolution, etc... We also have to deal with viral marketing firms who, for example, kept editing the entry for the faux-dokumentary "The Fourth Kind" trying to make it seem real.
There are simply more people willing to discredit Wikipedia, not just the small percentage of the population who indulge in trolling behaviour for shits and giggles.
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The funny thing is that I think a lot of the shits and giggles type vandalism is done by (otherwise) productive editors of the Wikipedia. I've done a bit, practical joking sometimes, and I generally check that my vandalism didn't stick (it never does).
Wikipedia is facing marketeers and anti-wikipedia ideologues now, and they want their edits to stick. So the problem is harder.
That said, I think the problem of vandalism is overblown, and the reaction too strong in many cases. I've seen articles on my watchl
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How does this change affect any of this? Previously, when a new/anonymous user wanted to change something in a semi-protected article, they had to suggest the changes on the talk page and get an "approved" user to do them. Now, anyone can make changes to the page in a way that's not visible to Wikipedia visitors, and they can be approved by experienced editors. It's the same thing, except now it requires less work on both sides.
2000 (Score:2)
which will apply to a maximum of 2,000 most-vulnerable pages
I wonder why 2000? Did they look at the numbers and was there a natural break there. I wonder if the number of topics means anything.
It will also be interesting to see what the list of 2000 actually are and what made or didn't make the list.
It could just mean that much of these shenanigans will simply be shifted to the 2001-3001 topics...
Ugh... (Score:2)
I predict this debate will take more than one hundred years and exceed over 9000 posts before we have the correct question...
How about a warning? (Score:5, Interesting)
Everybody knows Wikipedia is often very helpful, but occasionally can't be trusted. The problem is, Wikipedia doesn't seem to give feedback about *when* vandalism, non-neutrality, and other problems are likely. Of course it can happen anywhere, but for some pages, vandalism is an epidemic.
How about if the Wikipedia engine automatically identified pages with very high rates of reverted page edits, "vandalism" and other similar terms appearing in the history, rapidly growing Talk:: sections, and other signs of trouble, and came right out and said in a top-of-page banner: this page is rapidly changing, and may be unreliable.
This can be done mechanically, without having possibly biased editors to flag or protect pages, or to approve or disapprove changes. As a reader, if I know that the page I'm reading has been modified 20 times in the past week, with edits affecting 50% of the total text, most of which were reverted, I can form my own conclusion about its current reliability.
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not hypocrisy if the rules or "ideals" are open and clear. Their "ideal" is an honest attempt at a neutral point-of-view. If that offends you, then perhaps Wikipedia isn't the site for you.
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Who gets to define neutral though? One man's fact is another man's propaganda.
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:4, Interesting)
One can only make an honest attempt. For most topics, it should be possible to find an impartial editor. There may be some fringe topics where an impartial POV is impossible, but those topics aren't terribly important in the grand scheme of things.
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:5, Insightful)
For some topics, it's difficult to find an impartial-but-competent editor. Take politics: if the editor understands the topic, they will very likely have a personal position on it. If they don't understand it, they probably won't be able to figure out what's worth including, and how much coverage to give different points of view. (Articles that simply list every possible point of view -- like "Some people believe this; other people believe that..." -- are rather useless.) At some point, someone needs to make a judgement over which points of view are fringe and which are mainstream, if only to convey that to their readers, and that is a judgement that someone will always contest.
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed that listing every possible point of view (including nut case ones) in detail is not very useful. However, listing main points of view and giving the primary arguments for each is quite useful.
Picking the first hot topic that came to mind led me to the Wikipedia article on gun politics in the USA [wikipedia.org]. While this article has a lot of warnings (including neutrality) at the head of it, it seems like a fairly balanced coverage. Nuts on either side won't like it, but I think knowledgeable and open minded people, even those who lean strongly one way or the other, will find it tolerably neutral.
People who can do this exist for most topics or, at a minimum, a couple people who are open minded and knowledgeable but are on opposite 'sides' of the issue exist and could work together to make the judgment.
The problem is, most of these people have real jobs (often in academia or in think tanks) and probably unlikely to spend their time on Wikipedia when they could be publishing their insight and research either for creds or for money. They are also likely to be unwilling to spend the necessary time to defend their contributions from editing by people who know little about the topic or are unable to accept that any position but their own could be useful.
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not convinced that you need someone who doesn't have a personal position on a topic. It's true that some people have a problem putting their bias aside to write an impartial article, but this is not true of everyone. The people most likely to abuse that situation by suppressing the opposing view, are the ones who fear the opposing view because when you get right down to it they aren't so secure in their own view.
I'm also not convinced that you need an expert on a topic to evaluate which perspectives are worthy of inclusion. An encyclopeida is a secondary source; you always have to know who's claiming this-or-that before you can include it. So all you need is someone who can rate the significance of the source. Do I have to be an expert on American politics to know that the official Republican and Democratic positions on an issue are more significant than a view that I can only find cited by Bob at the corner bar? Not really.
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Wikipedia's approach isn't even close to an "honest attempt", however. The methods by which their administrator clique treats outsiders are ridiculously jackbooted; organized groups have been able to get a few admins in place [livejournal.com] and then simply use them to run roughshod over anyone who comes in in good faith to try to repair the damage done by partisans taking over articles.
There was a kerfluffle a few years ago when an organized Arab group went nuts trying to remove the Hebrew translations of certain regional
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Before someone pulls a [citation needed] on you, this can be largely corroborated by wading through Encyclopedia Dramatica. Granted, you'll be exposed to a vast amount of shock porn, racism, homophobia and petty bickering along the way, but for a site devoted to trolling and memes it is often astonishingly (and brutally) factual.
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I try to avoid both ED and 4Chan for those reasons, but...
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Before someone pulls a [citation needed] on you, this can be largely corroborated by wading through Encyclopedia Dramatica. Granted, you'll be exposed to a vast amount of shock porn, racism, homophobia and petty bickering along the way, but for a site devoted to trolling and memes it is often astonishingly (and brutally) factual.
ED is one of the funniest sites on the internet. If you think your seeing racism and homophobia there anymore than exists in any group of people, you are woefully out of touch with reality.
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:4, Informative)
Oh really? Then... (Score:3, Interesting)
...which is the correct "neutral fact" regarding the recent Taliban act which took the life of a 7 year old boy for spying? They say they "punished" him, we say they "murdered" him. Who is correct?
Re:Oh really? Then... (Score:5, Insightful)
The Taleban put a 7 year old to death for spying. That's as neutral and baldly factual as it gets. Neither of your statements are correct, they are emotion-filled words meant to evoke a response and not state facts.
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The Taleban put a 7 year old to death for spying.
Begging the question: Was he spying?
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Begging the question: Was he spying?
Not according to the Taleban at least.
Qari Yousef Ahmaid, the Taleban spokesman, denied that any of his militants were involved. "The Taleban's enemies are the Afghan Government and the foreign forces," he said. "We never kill children. Everyone knows a seven-year-old can't be a spy."
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So let's change it to
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Yes, that would be more appropriate.
However, I found it ironically illustrative of the fact that when someone claims something is “as neutral and baldly factual as it gets”, even if they’re honestly trying to make it neutral there’s still a very good chance that it isn’t. PitaBred still fell into a logical fallacy with making what he thought was a purely factual statement.
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Nobody said convicted of. Being “convicted of” something means a court decided you were guilty, and as courts have been known to make mistakes it is possible (though usually not likely) that being convicted of something does not mean that you were guilty of it.
We are talking about someone being put to death for something. Why was he put to death? Because he was a spy. ... well, allegedly a spy. However the literal reading of the sentence, “The Taliban put a 7 year old to death for spying
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That doesn't make any sense to me.
If an innocent person is executed for spying, he's still been executed for spying. Whether or not he actually did it is irrelevant. He may have been falsely convicted but he has still been convicted.
I am explicitly not making a judgment on whether this is right or wrong, good or bad. I'm just saying that you are semantically incorrect. "Wrongly convicted", or similar, is what you're looking for.
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If an innocent person is executed for spying, he's still been executed for spying.
That is where we disagree. He has been executed, but we don’t know why: if he was innocent, it wasn’t for spying.
What was he executed for? Was he or wasn’t he a spy?
If he was a spy, then yes, he was executed for spying. Cue the discussion about whether or not it is appropriate to carry out capital punishment on 7-year-olds for actual crimes they’ve committed, which is an entirely valid topic for discussion but not suitable for the encyclopedia.
If he was not a spy, he wasn’t exe
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Oh ok I see where we differ.
It doesn't seem to me that a conviction establishes the ultimate truth of guilt or innocence, but rather states a point of view. Saying that the Taliban convicted someone of spying doesn't, in my mind, determine whether or not that person actually did such a thing. Just that they convicted him of it. In an ideal world a conviction would always match a true determination of guilt, but as we've seen in America it's perfectly possible to convict and execute an innocent man.
We're
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...Unless you go in and change it to mean what you think you mean.
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Modern usage
More recently, "to beg the question" has been used as a synonym for "to raise the question": for example, "This year's budget deficit is half a trillion dollars. This begs the question, How are we ever going to balance the budget?" Using the term in this way, although common, is considered incorrect by some usage commentators.
Zing!
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Why was I modded troll?
The statement,
The Taleban put a 7 year old to death for spying.
is an example of the begging the question fallacy (I won’t link to it on Wikipedia; Anonymous Coward already did). In order for that sentence to be true, the fact that he was spying would have to be accepted. If he was not spying, I contest that the previous statement was false, and the opposite claim “The Taliban put a 7-year-old to death on a false accusation of spying” would be true. However, either one of those statements is a judgment, not a fact.
S
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The Taleban put a 7 year old to death for spying.
Begging the question: Was he spying?
Maybe he was, but in the U.S., we don't recognize that a 7yo can understand what they're doing while committing a crime to a level where the appropriate punishment is death. The death penalty is reserved for adults (or exceptionally rare teens), and hasn't been a community event since hangings.
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Begging the question
Ahh, the smell of fresh Grammar Nazi bait...
Every instance of "begging the question" on Slashdot should automatically be modded +5 Funny, since it pulls out the strangest people, debating about the most pointless things that nobody outside a debate club cares about. It's the best meme on this site.
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An encyclopedia isn't going to be able to tell you whether or not he was really spying.
It can certainly attempt to provide enough relevant facts that you could make the decision for yourself.
It can only state the objective fact that the Taliban killed him and their explanation was that he was spying.
True enough, but just stating that he was executed for spying makes it sound like you endorse their determination that he was spying.
The facts are simple:
He was accused of being a spy.
He was executed.
What was he executed for? Who knows? It cannot be determined from the facts that we have.
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LOL. You got to be kidding! Neutral according to your world view, and that of your environment.
Another view is how the Taliban might describe it. Either the Muslim Taliban or the Christan Taliban (“teabaggers”)
The point here is, that everyone of you considers himself the only who is globally one right. And everyone of you has all his “knowledge” and “facts” from what he considers trustworthy and unbiased sources, while to everyone of you, the others are complete nutcases.
Re:Oh really? Then... (Score:5, Insightful)
See? Not hard. Perhaps it's not as good at galvanizing people into righteous outrage as the phrase "brutally murdered" but that's just the price you pay sometimes. It's an encyclopedia. I don't think Britannica would use language quite so loaded either, you know?
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Are you a Lisp programmer?
Re:Oh really? Then... (Score:5, Insightful)
What makes you think you have to choose one of those two? Or, to put it differently, what part of "neutral" don't you understand?
If I take your account at face value (not being familiar with the incident; would perhaps be nice of you to provide a link, but I know that's asking a lot around here), then here would be some neutral facts:
- The Taliban did (something), killing a 7-year-old boy
- The Taliban say the boy was spying and that they punished him
- Critics of the Taliban say that the punishment was unjust and constitutes an act of murder
Perhaps there are some other facts, such as evidence supporting or refuting each side's claims. Perhaps there aren't. But frankly, if that's your example of a "hard" problem for being neutral, then I'd have to conclude there's no problem and you just don't know what neutral sounds like.
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When a group and/or point of view is so irrefutably evil, report the facts as they are and everyone observing the facts will see that they are evil. If you instead take the road you're advocating, and insist that all anyone get to see about them is your emotional reaction, then you're insisting that everyone else "take your word for it" that they are evil. That will only breed sympathy for them.
There is a difference between neutral reporting and neutral action. Civilization depends on seeing that distinc
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Punished him, where the correct punishment for his act in their eyes was death?
We punish people with a death sentence in the US, we're far from the only ones. That some are quicker to carry out that sentence and/or looser to apply it does not make it cease to be a punishment in the eyes of those conducting the deed.
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Both. The terms are not exclusive.
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As a historian once told me, a statement of pure facts would render everything meaningless. It would reduce history to mere chronicle. It's all "what" and no "why." Nothing can have an effect, things just follow one another in a rote manner with no real connection of cause.
It is possible to state opinions as facts in this context, if you can cite them from an outside source. E.g. "So-and-so said this[#], while Other-party disputed it thusly[#]"
So you could remain neutral without deciding whose statements are credible, and you'd still get your "why".
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I'd mod you up if I hadn't already posted. This is an interesting revelation.
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That historian was an idiot.
I'm sorry, but really. I don't argue that the question "why?" shouldn't be asked, but it is not an appropriate question to ask until you "what". Speculating about "why" without knowing for sure you've got the "what" right is beyond meaningless.
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One solution would be to allow both sides to be expressed. Abortion is a good topic:
If the abortion entry has a section regarding pro-abortion, and another section regarding anti-abortion, each written by people that hold those views, that would be neutral. To me, neutral doesn't mean there aren't sides taken...it just means both sides have to have equal representation.
Just my thoughts on the matter.
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this idea that there are two-sides to everything is actually a significant problem in politics, and especially in media. "Balanced" should not mean getting a frothing-at-the-mouth liberal shouting at a born-again-conservative... it should mean getting some people who can see multiple sides of an issue and trying to be honest about the relative merits of both sides.
Let's use your example of abortion. Setting someone who is "pro-choice" against someone who is "pro-life" does not really capture the issue very well - only the extreme edges. I'd wager that most people would lie somewhere in the middle... most people would probably not object to abortion when the fetus is deformed or the mother's life is at stake, or in the case of rape. On the other hand, most rational people seemed to find partial birth abortions pretty horrifying, and I don't seem to have much trouble finding people who dislike abortion as a form of birth control.
This muddy middle is rarely captured by polarized discussions.
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On the contrary, I for example find C-SPAN's morning call-in show as the epitome of "balance." They take a call from one raving whacko from the left, let him speak for 30 seconds, until he sounds like an idiot, and then abruptly cut him off in the middle, and then do the same thing for the whacko on the right.
It's a splendiforous counterexample to what you see everywhere else. The only time I cringe is when it's obviously someone in a nursing home (who else is going to wait on hold for hours at 6 in the m
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The difference in the two concepts of balance is in yours, someone or some group is deemed to be "right" or "desirable" and that point of view is elevated at the expense of others. In your estimation, the "wise middle" is that view - but from another point of view, your wise middle is the same as somebody else's extreme. They're both defined by certain groups of people getting together and positing a worldview at the expense of others.
The other kind of balance is the one to just let it all hang out. I li
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Talk to an OB sometime. People are all talk - when presented with an abnormal fetus, it's an odd few who will opt not to abort.
And I have absolutely no data, but a strong suspicion that a typical pro-lifer would have a really strong temptation to take that morning after pill offered by rape counselors.
I file it all under the human tendency to tell others what to do, while exempting oneself from said edict. Reality is one cold mo-fo.
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:5, Insightful)
Wikipedia's neutrality policy and its style isn't really just to have two sides on a matter write a paragraph of propaganda and hope it balances out. It's to write an article whose accuracy is impeccably true by discussing the opponents and proponents in the controversy in a factual way. ("Planned Parenthood says this. The Catholic Church says that. Criticisms of the Catholic Church's position include X, Y, and Z, from organization J, K, and Q; for more information see the sub-article on this particular controversy so we don't detain the main article any further.") No one ever doubted that the one is a supporter and the other a detractor.
To take a page from Indiana Jones, it's about facts, not truth. If it's truth you're after, go study philosophy.
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Wikipedia's neutrality policy and its style isn't really just to have two sides on a matter write a paragraph of propaganda and hope it balances out. It's to write an article whose accuracy is impeccably true by discussing the opponents and proponents in the controversy in a factual way.
If you want the two sides thing, go to Everything2, which is generally happy not to delete any article that isn't too rude and doesn't seem to be total bullshit. Some topics (titles, really) are locked and you can't add anything to them.
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It's to write an article whose accuracy is impeccably true by discussing the opponents and proponents in the controversy in a factual way.
Unfortunately, this principle breaks down outside of the scientific community when it comes to topics in one of two areas:
a) emotionally, especially religious, matters, because people who seriously believe that their eternal happiness or damnation depends on it regularily pull out all the stops when it comes to convincing others. The seemingly simple act of just identifying the facts is suddenly very difficult and faces opposition. And since WP doesn't allow original research, and religious nutjobs have no
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If the abortion entry has a section regarding pro-abortion, and another section regarding anti-abortion, each written by people that hold those views, that would be neutral.
encyclopedia [en-sahy-kluh-pee-dee-uh] - noun
1. a book or set of books containing articles on various topics, usually in alphabetical arrangement, covering all branches of knowledge or, less commonly, all aspects of one subject, composed of a pair of propaganda pieces for each topic.
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If someone is truly that petty, we settle it the only way reasonable people do: alphabetically.
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Oh, and you just got a temporary ban for abusing the system.
She-BANG!
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It would be reasonable to randomly choose the side to be presented first. However that would probably be difficult to do in the framework Wikipedia uses.
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2 column format by-atch.
If there are too many mainstream views on the topic to give each a column, then you pick an arbitrary choice -- either random order on page load, alphabetical, chronological by earliest reference, or something else at random.
Fringe views get listed after the mainstream ones with a similar layout structure.
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This is an unfortunate consequence of 95% of the people lacking the qualifications to have 95% of their opinions. Unfortunately in the US we let these people vote. In Wikiland, we let them pollute.
And on slashdot we let them harbor delusions of superiority.
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:5, Funny)
If you can't define 'Neutral', just look it up [wikipedia.org].
Duh.
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I'll save you a click: For Neutral Point of View on Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:NPOV [wikipedia.org].
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:5, Funny)
And I'll save you another click. The text on that page has been changed fifteen times by six different people over the last twenty-four hours.
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Who gets to define neutral though? One man's fact is another man's propaganda.
Sez you.
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:5, Insightful)
Wikipedia strives to provide a reference for every fact:
The President ran in the cornfield naked - bullshit.
On July 1 2010 New York Times reported that the President ran in the cornfield naked - fact, easily checked.
Of course, there are gray areas, but to claim that the distinction between fact and fiction is too vague to achieve a decently neutral point of view in most cases is just pure sophistry.
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Who gets to define neutral though?
If old media is any indication the answer is Rupert Murdoch, for reasons passing understanding.
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Re:Hypocrisy (Score:5, Funny)
Also, what makes a Wikipedia editor go neutral? Is it lust for gold? Power? Or were they just born with a heart full of neutrality?
Re: Neutral (Score:4, Insightful)
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Not to mention that even simple edits like updates or the like get reverted randomly.
In the end Wikipedia manages to scare away potential editors rather than attract them.
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Yeah, but they aren't "open and clear" they change depending on the editor and which page.
There are certainly problem page editors, just as there are problem individual contributors. This is an inherent problem, and it seems to be one that Wikipedia is constantly experimenting/struggling with. I cut them some slack, since no one has ever done anything like this before. Certainly I think that calling them "hypocritical" is a bit overboard.
It's interesting how it is evolving back towards a trust model.
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They don't have a neutral point-of-view. They are promulgating their point of view and squashing any dissenting opinions.
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an honest attempt at a neutral point-of-view.
So their “ideal” is something that by the laws of physics, by how our brains and senses work, and by how our society works, is completely and utterly impossible? Yeah... way to go...
As long as they live that delusion, Wikipedia has no chance to survive in the long run.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Which they patently aren't. The whole idea of a wiki is that people contribute what they know, and others enhance it. It's how wikipedia grew from a few small articles to a wealth of information in many languages. Yet they now have bots going around and automatically deleting anything that the nothing-better-to-do, always-there gatekeeper-zealots decide is (currently) too short or isn't (yet) worded in a uniform way.
Frankly, at this point I'm
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, "ideology" is why the page on electrolytes gets replaced with the words "what plants crave" every damn week.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The "locked" articles are guarded by ideologues whose views differ from the "mischief makers and ideologues" Wikipedia hates.
Such as the ideals of truth?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)