The Internet Archive Is Making Wikipedia More Reliable (wired.com) 56
The operator of the Wayback Machine allows Wikipedia's users to check citations from books as well as the web. From a report: The reason people rely on Wikipedia, despite its imperfections, is that every claim is supposed to have citations. Any sentence that isn't backed up with a credible source risks being slapped with the dreaded "citation needed" label. Anyone can check out those citations to learn more about a subject, or verify that those sources actually say what a particular Wikipedia entry claims they do -- that is, if you can find those sources. It's easy enough when the sources are online. But many Wikipedia articles rely on good old-fashioned books. The entry on Martin Luther King Jr., for example, cites 66 different books. Until recently, if you wanted to verify that those books say what the article says they say, or if you just wanted to read the cited material, you'd need to track down a copy of the book. Now, thanks to a new initiative by the Internet Archive, you can click the name of the book and see a two-page preview of the cited work, so long as the citation specifies a page number.
You can also borrow a digital copy of the book, so long as no else has checked it out, for two weeks -- much the same way you'd borrow a book from your local library. (Some groups of authors and publishers have challenged the archive's practice of allowing users to borrow unauthorized scanned books. The Internet Archive says it seeks to widen access to books in "balanced and respectful ways.") So far the Internet Archive has turned 130,000 references in Wikipedia entries in various languages into direct links to 50,000 books that the organization has scanned and made available to the public. The organization eventually hopes to allow users to view and borrow every book cited by Wikipedia, with the ultimate goal being to digitize every book ever published.
You can also borrow a digital copy of the book, so long as no else has checked it out, for two weeks -- much the same way you'd borrow a book from your local library. (Some groups of authors and publishers have challenged the archive's practice of allowing users to borrow unauthorized scanned books. The Internet Archive says it seeks to widen access to books in "balanced and respectful ways.") So far the Internet Archive has turned 130,000 references in Wikipedia entries in various languages into direct links to 50,000 books that the organization has scanned and made available to the public. The organization eventually hopes to allow users to view and borrow every book cited by Wikipedia, with the ultimate goal being to digitize every book ever published.
Digital Book (Score:1)
Credible Sources (Score:4, Insightful)
The question is , who decides what is credible. It practice it means mainstream media. Since mainstream media is pretty much coopted, this causes wikipedia editors to voluntarily step into line with official narratives, with the best of intentions. Propaganda and PR love the idea of credible sources, because that is what their job is about, deciding who is credible and who is not.
In practice the editors with different ideas about credible sources just leave.
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How about "peer reviewed sources with verifiable data"?
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Ssshhhh. He needs to believe he's living in a dystopian sci-fi novel where truth cannot ever be ascertained and there is always a plot twist around the corner. It's the only thing that makes his life meaningful.
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For many of the conspiracy theorist have met. They seem to have a hard time taking in dull data. Sure even the best of us will not be able to sit in a boring lecture being given fact over fact. But for the Conspiracy theorist it needs to be connected to some sort of story with direct motivations
A story about a secret group of people pushing the idea of Climate Change on the public to get them t
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Did you get all that from a credible source? The main property of the conspiracy theorist is distrust of power. Stupidity is just a general attribute of people. distrust of power leads to speculation about hidden goings-on (the power aspect justifies the idea that there are actually worthwhile things going on which you can't see). The fix for that is not to make people smarter and read more. The fix to this runaway speculation is a dose of scientific method: testability . Yes many of these things could poss
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Exposing these people a dose of scientific method will just put them on a sliding scale argument. Much like how in Futurerama Farnsworth is arguing evolution with the detail of every missing link that has been found, there is a finer missing
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I always thought it was a drug habit. Or maybe a serious level of mental illness involving a troubling level of disconnectedness from reality and paranoid delusional behavior...
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Well I am giving you the chance to distinguish between paranoid delusions, the dangers of normal people speculating about the hidden activities of powerful players, the professional distrust of journalists who take their job as 4th estate seriously, and the discipline of critical thinking.
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i believe you lack imagination.
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I imagine you lack belief. Touche!
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It made me laugh in any case :)
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When it comes to reality? Yeah, I prefer mine real, not imaginary.
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when you are hypothesizing , and you conclude "this is the only explanation I can think of therefore it must be true" , then proof is nothing more than lack of imagination.
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Sorry, no. This is science. Not religion.
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Try to keep up. Firstly, he guy was hypothesizing about my motivations, hardly a science setting.. Secondly I'm rephrasing falsification in science. In hard science of course a hypothesis is also a form of guess. Hard science is good at dismissing bad guesses. Falsifying the bad guesses rather than proving the good ones . The Popper model of falsification in fact assumes lazy guessing: you only start making a 'ew guess when the previous one has been proven wrong, hence he insists on maximizing the condition
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The word religion dropped away in my last sentence.
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Falsification is science. Because "proving the good ones" simply is impossible.
But c'mon, let's call spades a spade, what is your favorite bullshit story science debunked? Flat earth? Creationism? What is it?
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On here I've seen the occasional NASA scientist with propulsion devices which defy the laws of physics. With theoretical proof. My favorite debunking is as a youngster I saw a plan in a magazine of a perpetual motion machine from some inventor and I could see the errors both at the level of conservation laws and at a detailed mechanical level, where I could predict what the actual motion would be. Later I read some books about paranormal stuff and I could build up the confidence to allow the book to make a
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So you're complaining that someone on /. claiming to be a NASA scientist, some plan in some magazine about a perpetual motion machine and a book about paranormal stuff contain bogus information?
Do you see the problem in that selection yourself or do you need help?
The key problem of creationism is also not the method. It is one flaw, but not the crucial one. The crucial flaw is introduction of an element that is by its very nature completely unscientific because it does not offer any kind of method to falsif
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Don't you have to get some coffee first or something? You asked what a favorite debunking was and i told you: early stuff which i did myself. Who's complaining. I enjoyed it a lot.
If you want to hear me complaining it's about the stuff intelligent people get stuck in . I mention russiagate somewhere. And fake news. And I don't complain because people are stupid but because it is doing damage.
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It is always nice if those you trust deserve to be trusted. It is also nice if proof makes trust superfluous but that takes much more work.
The problem with credible sources is not in the extreme cases, but in general reporting. The NYTimes has the highest reputation in 'serious journalism' . That is why so many powerful people have decided they needed to take control over it, while maintaining its status. In practice this means it is highly compromised and overvalued.
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#2 - What do conservatives have to offer even as they falsely try to paint the NY TImes and other genuine journalistic outlets with integrity as "left wing"? Oh yeah... Breitbart (associated with white supremacist groups and hiring white supremacist authors), talk radio hosts who have habits of making up nonsense out of whole cloth, blogs like "Gateway Pundit" that again are founded by and/or ru
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I don't have to convince you of anything, you should take your own responsibility. What do you think, that I will write a paragraph here which will suddenly make you see the light? It doesn't work that way. If I reference a source you will consider that source as discredited. People are embedded in a network of trusted sources. The effort to find out whether one network is superior to another takes a lot of effort. If I use my own arguments and do not rely on authoritative sources, then why would you be con
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Ah yes, Pat "KKK" Buchanan's rag. Thank you for proving my point for me.
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Yes you found out so much about me, and so fast.
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I hope you are quoting someone :) It would be odd if you were replying to yourself...
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I'm mentioning a very serious problem and i claim it is hardly noticed. You confirm that you hardly notice it and you don't take it serious.
Far right zealots are visible, they're an instant problem which cannot be ignored. This type of problems does not ruin the system . A constant nuisance draws attention to itself and that makes it a lot less dangerous.
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I think the point that GPP was making is that it's asymmetric: you can decide that a source which Wikipedia considers credible doesn't convince you, but if you edit to add a reference to a source which convinced you but which doesn't meet Wikipedia's criteria then your citation will be removed.
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It's more than that. A more general model would use a ranking mechanism as a weight attached to sources and give the user a budget to spend(time and effort). A direct mention is the highest rank, a reference is a lower rank. A hyperlink is a lower rank. A link in a link is yet lower. In general you can follow all links but you have a limited budget and you have your own private ranking system to assist you in spending the budget. For instance In 'verification mode' you stop digging when you trust a certain
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citing sources makes sure that those who spend the effort can do some level of verification. Credible source means good enough to be cited from.
We are shifting from 'organically arising credibility' to organized credibility. This credibility score becomes the authority.
Critical thinking means you go against the hierarchy of credibility and are willing to challenge the higher credibility claims. People who challenge the higher credibility claims of course can themselves be downgraded. This is rule o
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This means.
Sources from people who spent time studying the topic. And have been verified by others who studied the topic, if possible have been able to reproduce the results. Can they be wrong? Yes they can be. However unless you are willing to dedicate time to find an opposing idea, that others can verify and possibly reproduce then your views are just not as valid (even if it is shown to be correct)
Back i
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I'll add two things
99% of the people are sure the earth revolves around the sun because they have it from a trusted source. They have learned that science is pretty good at being trustworthy. Understanding that we rely very much on trust is key to getting good at evaluating and selecting information. It remains to a large extent a matter of identifying good networks to trust. I have sources which point me to interesting articles. I trust them to guide my attention to things. It is of course a matter of per
Link to article about Guardian (Score:2)
An article describing the demise of the Guardian. Now it is an extension of the establishment.
https://www.dailymaverick.co.z... [dailymaverick.co.za]
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Wiki editors are continuously iterating on its guidelines for what counts as a reliable source [wikipedia.org]. In short, this means published third-party sources, where the editorial oversight has a reputation for fact-checking, and no vested interest in the topic. The guidelines's main theme is that a source should have a self-correcting process in place for producing its content.
Topics such as science and medicine have stricter guidelines, such as how to weigh different lines of evidence [wikipedia.org].
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I have heard about this self correcting process. Newsguard is an initiative to bring reputation tools to every computer, telling you what are credible sources and what not.. It's got a lot of spooks on its board. So one of its criteria is 'the self correcting process' . Wikipedia failed that test and got a bad score. The fact that wikipedia has not published any mistakes, making it one of the if not the most reliable sites online is dismissed.
So lets see what wikipedia says: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.. [wikipedia.org]
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So one of its criteria is 'the self correcting process' . Wikipedia failed that test and got a bad score.
Cool, I'd be interested in reading those test results, if you've got a link.
The fact that wikipedia has not published any mistakes, making it one of the if not the most reliable sites online is dismissed.
I disagree. Articles' entire editing history, along with their edit summaries and archived talk pages are open for viewing. What were you expecting instead?
So lets see what wikipedia says: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Oh damn, wikileaks is not reliable! I'd never have guessed.
Let's check the weekly standard, the neocon paper of record: oh damn, they are reliable! whodathunk!
Lots of goodies on that page and apart from some oddities it confirms my view that wikipedia is becoming an extension of mainstream narratives. Let's check Venezuela. There are two resources, Telesur and Venezuelanalysis. Both unreliable. So for wikipedia whenever there is a contentious issue we have on one hand the regimechanger country and its papers, and on the other hand the country being regimechanged, which unfortunately publishes little which is acceptable for the high standards of wikipedia. I'm sure Wikipedia will give you an unbiased introduction to the issue.
What are your actual arguments for or against these sources being used as reliable or not, as per the context outlined in the summary next to each source, in the link you provided? Is your only factor whether they would be regarded as conservative in the US?
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I don't know what you disagree with concerning wikileaks. Their record of reliability is unmatched. Do you know of a case where they have posted false information?
But overall scoring news providers as a whole is much too coarse grained and should be avoided. What this list will do is that even if someone is allowed to post a Venezuelan article contradicting whatever accusation is posted in US mainstream (and anything will go there because nobody will challenge such accusations ) then the rebuttal can easily
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I don't know what you disagree with concerning wikileaks. Their record of reliability is unmatched. Do you know of a case where they have posted false information?
I was speaking of Wikipedia. As for Wikileaks, how do you know they haven't made mistakes or errors? Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Even if Wikileaks haven't made any errors, they don't seem to have a track record or publicly available process for how corrections can be made. Their process for ensuring reliability is incomplete.
But overall scoring news providers as a whole is much too coarse grained and should be avoided. What this list will do is that even if someone is allowed to post a Venezuelan article contradicting whatever accusation is posted in US mainstream (and anything will go there because nobody will challenge such accusations ) then the rebuttal can easily be removed by another wikipedia editor.. This is wikipedia itself implementing the dominance of mainstream western narratives.
I would consider Wikipedia to have a more nuanced approach to grading reliability than Newsguard, as the list of perennial sources [wikipedia.org] you sent details how e.g. Telesur
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I can split up what I mean in 2 parts: the general matter of checks and balances, of balance of power, of safeguards, and the current state of affairs. Approaches where general rules of credibility are installed on a wide scale involve a large concentration of power , the power to make people conform. This implies a great deal of trust in these power centers. The principle of balance of power means you can't do that. Power concentrations attract powerful interests who corrupt it. They need to be balanced. T
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I can split up what I mean in 2 parts: the general matter of checks and balances, of balance of power, of safeguards, and the current state of affairs. Approaches where general rules of credibility are installed on a wide scale involve a large concentration of power , the power to make people conform. This implies a great deal of trust in these power centers. The principle of balance of power means you can't do that. Power concentrations attract powerful interests who corrupt it. They need to be balanced. This is one theme. There can be a lot of discussion about it but it needs to start with a basic understanding of that such mechanisms are now being introduced everywhere and the dangers of such mechanisms, and a technique for understanding is : you approve of a measure because you trust it. Try looking at it in a way which does not trust it.
I fundamentally disagree with you. An encyclopedia has no responsibility to include every fringe view, rumor or opinion. It should establish a process for how a topic should be presented in relation to the strength of its sources, and I think that Wikipedia again has a decent guideline for how to give due weight [wikipedia.org] to differing views [wikipedia.org].
The second part is, that things are already going wrong, and that there is a strong effort to make wikipedia conform to an establishment narrative, just the way Newsguard is.
[citation needed]
Joking aside, I would instead suggest that Wikipedia's process -- akin to the scientific method -- continuously better approximates reality through its self-corre
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If my opinion was what you think it is then I'd fundamentally disagree too. I try to create simple examples to explain the concepts, this is a long way from proving anything. I am not trying to prove anything at this stage.
Wikipedia works well in many instances but it has problems when the truth goes against powerful interests. This is hard to improve. The tendency 'the winner writes history' always works to some extent. How much can be debated. It is difficult to design self correcting mechansisms that ha
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Pardon for the late reply, and I'm also sorry to have misinterpreted your opinion.
I'm thankful to have had this discussion, but I don't see anything more to add that hasn't already been said. Take care.
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I wrote 'wikipedia failed that test'! I meant wikileaks failed that test.
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this means published third-party sources, where the editorial oversight has a reputation for fact-checking, and no vested interest in the topic
Which is clearly bollocks, given that sources such as the New York Times is considered reliable despite the frequent blatant misrepresentations and lies they publish.
The reason people rely on Wikipedia (Score:3)
The reason people rely on Wikipedia, despite its imperfections, is that every claim is supposed to have citations.
Not even close.
The reasons people rely on Wikipedia are:
1/ It's free
2/ It's convenient
3/ It's up to date
The Britannica might be more trustworthy or reliable, but people are willing to sacrifice a little (or a lot of) credibility to get the above 3 advantages. Especially #1... I know I do.
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People are lazy and Google is shit (but still the best), so they end up on WP pretty well automatically as indexing WP is easier for Google than indexing the web properly.
If we had access to a good search engine wikipedia would be literally pointless. As it is, it's just pot luck whether you find a good page or not. Generally, the closer the page is to being about maths the better and the closer it is to being about politics the worse.
Copyright (Score:2)
I like what the Internet Archive is doing and don't like current copyright laws, but much like their hosting of old games and lots of copyrighted audio and video, I fear this risks their mission with flagrantly intentional copyright violation. The law says you can lend books you've purchased, but it clearly doesn't allow lending copies of books you've photocopied. I'm amazed they haven't been sued into oblivion yet.
Online??? (Score:2)
Are you bullshitting me! Sources are easy to check when they are online? Web sites and web pages GO MISSING, REPEATEDLY!!! And no the Wayback Machine does not archive every link. There are many times when the Wayback Machine does not have an archive of a link so you can't check the citation. Heck even when it says it does have a copy, it doesn't, it can't retrieve the backup.
So sto
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