Slashdot Mirror
FUD-Based Encyclopedias
blacklily8 writes "Someone has finally gotten around to offering an intelligent point-by-point rejoinder to an ex-Brittanica editor's lambasting of Wikipedia--which was covered in this earlier Slashdot post. Aaron Krowne, a mathematician and head of Emory University's library research department, argues here that established encyclopedias are using FUD to discredit what is actually a more reliable way to build an encyclopedia: 'McHenry's definition of quality seems to consist solely of presentational matters such as spelling, grammar, and text flow. These are of course important considerations, but I propose that there are other important facets of quality - for example, coverage.'"
If you'd read the article in full, you'd notice that Aaron does not, in fact, claim that it does. Quite the opposite; unlike McHenry, he specifically states that there are several ways to define quality and that coverage (like cohesion) is one of them (but not the only one).
That being said, "coverage" does not refer to how widely-known/widely-used a certain piece of information is. It's not about how much coverage an article (or a music video) gets; it's about how much coverage it *contains*. What Krowne means is that a longer article with more information and more details has a higher quality (measured in the coverage metric, that is) - provided that the information is correct, but that goes without saying -, not that an article that's read by more people is of a higher quality (even though in Wikipedia's collaborative model where everyone can edit articles, at least, an article with more readers will likely reach a higher coverage and/or cohesion, too).
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Even a 12 year old knows they can't be trusted!
The coolest thing, by far, about Wikipedia, is the culture articles. No traditional encyclopedia can possibly record that like Wikipedia does.
Whether it be language trends, popular contemporary figures, information on small localities and online subcultures, unconventional ideas in science and technology, or books, an encyclopedia model like that of Wikipedia is the only thing that can compile and store such stuff.
And I think I exceeded the reasonable link limit for that post.
McDonald's may not be the best restaurant in the world, but I'd say you'd have a hard time arguing that it's doomed to go out of business because everyone's flocking to those restaurants where you can pay a week's wage on a meal prepared by a cook that got three stars from Michellin or Gault Millau. That's not gonna happen, and in fact, I'd also say that many people who eat at McDonald's (or other allegedly low-quality restaurants) are not even unhappy with it or secretly wishing they could afford those fancier restaurants and escape from that McDonald's fast-food hell.
That being said, I also think the comparison between restaurants and encyclopedias as such is not a good one. In a restaurant, much of the quality of the final product depends on a) the quality of the ingredients, b) the skill of the cook and c) the amount of time and energy the cook can use for preparing the dish. With McDonald's, all of these are usually pretty low; McDonald's cooks don't go to the market in the morning to buy fresh vegetables and the like to use on that day, they don't adjust their menus based on what kinds of vegetables they can find that meet their quality requirements, they are not masters of their trade, and they usually cannot invest hours into "fine-tuning" (so to speak) a dish until it is absolutely perfect: McDonald's is about quantity first and quality second.
The same does not hold true for Wikipedia: the ingredients for an encyclopedic article (that is, information) cannot be compared to the ingredients a chef would use.
Information comes in two qualities only, namely "false" and "true". Information is also almost entirely always available; most of the time, Google will be a good starting point, and you can also check books (whether your own or ones from a library), traditional encyclopedias and so on.
Writing a good and nicely flowing article needs a bit of skill, but it's nowhere near comparable to the amount of skill and expertise a good chef will need before he can even think about getting a star; basically, anyone with a reasonable amount of intelligence can write a good article. Furthermore, even if your article is not perfect, it will still be a base upon which other people can build: you don't *have* to make it perfect all on your own.
And of course, unlike chefs (those employed in restaurants, that is, rather than cooking for their own pleasure only), Wikipedia editors typically do have an unlimited amount of time and energy they can invest, at least in the sense of not having a boss who tells them to get things done by this or that time and not having to take into consideration that the time they invest costs money and that the finished product needs to be worth at least as much.
With regard to your response to point 2, based on my personal experience, I think that the amount of inaccurate information in Wikipedia is, typically, vastly overrated. There certainly is some, I'm sure, but the idea that a substantial amount of Wikipedia's articles and the information contained therein are factually inaccurate probably stems from the fact that Wikipedia *does* admit that inaccuracies happen. Not that Wikipedia should claim there is none, of course, but I think that this is mostly a case of "things might be like this" becoming "things are like this" in people's minds rather than an actual fact. It would be interesting to see a study on it, though, of course.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Indeed, and Wikipedia is all about that: facts, and nothing else (the relevant policy is called "NPOV", which means "Neutral Point of View").
That being said, conflicts happen, of course, and not every single Wikipedia user does hold this principle in as high a regard as they should; and in fact, with certain topics (politics are one example), there unfortunately are users who not only try to push an agenda, but are also very insistent.
However, it is not true that Wikipedia in general has either a bias or an agenda (outside of the agenda of providing a good, accurate and neutral encyclopedia).
That being said, if you have problems with specific articles and a consensus with other editors of these articles cannot be reached, there are ways to resolve those conflicts. The first step is to ask for comments from other (not directly involved) people at Wikipedia: Requests for Comments. If that does not help, you can file a request for mediation, where the two parties agree to a mediator that tries to help them resolve the problem; if that does not help, either, you can bring the case to the arbitration committee, who will hear all involved parties, gather evidence, hear statements etc. and ultimately come to a binding resolution. Try it - I've done so myself, and although the conflict this was about lingered for about three months and produced at least 300 KB of mud-slinging on the relevant article's talk page alone, it ultimately *did* get resolved; the offending user (who continued to push an agenda of their own and continually violated the NPOV principle) was banned from editing the relevant article and all pertaining to it for a year, and since then, constructive work on the article has resumed.
That being said, for immediate conflict resolution, if there is an edit war going on over a page, you can also request page protection; locking an article for a few days is often is a nice way of making sure that everyone cools down and a civilised discussion can resume.
As for facts not being negotiable, of course they aren't, but you should take care not to confuse facts with opinions. Not everything that *looks* like a fact is one, and while things like the date of George Washington's birthday really *are* facts, other questions like whether the it'd be justified to list shrub's regime on the Kleptocracy article ultimately revolve around opinions, not hard facts.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
The NMR article is, overall, fine. I have a physics degree, and feel that I can accurately judge an article at this level. If you don't believe me, get a physicist friend to check it for you.
Excellent troll, though.
My b) statement was that it is possible to correct errors that exist - I really have no idea how you can say that's incorrect, considering every (unprotected) page can be edited.
As for someone with enough devotion / resources being able to control an article, there *is* a process for dispute resolution. You are welcome to use facilities like WP:RFPP (requests for page protections), WP:RFC (requests for comments), WP:RFM (requests for mediation) and WP:RFAr (requests for arbitration); see my other comment in this discussion for links and details.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
If we can get 'smart' foot/end notes designed into Wikipedia's Software (MediaWiki) then I am sure Wikipedia could become the most authoritative source of information every created: Each article's facts being referenced with dozens of sources, and each of these references being confirmed by dozens of individuals.
You complain about slant and bias on a page which, right at the top, has a warning that says the neutrality is in dispute? Followed by a prominent link to the discussion page, where every nuance of the definition is hashed out in gruesome detail?
Rather than pointing out a weakness of the Wikipedia process, you've pointed out one of its strengths.
I reject your example. Have another one?
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Your argument might have some merit if the only thing bob did was attack wikipedia for its spelling, grammar, and text flow.
However, if you read the article, like I did, you would realize that those weren't the only things he attacked.
I used paper encyclopedias in grammar school and haven't used them since. For any topic of depth they were never any good. Wikipedia on the other hand serves the role as summary reference much better in that direct links to more depth can be placed directly within the article.
Of course bob knows this and that is what he is really bemoaning. Electronic versions of paper encyclopedia never really took off because the media simply couldn't contain enough data for them to be really useful. The internet IS the electronic library that is essentially, free as in beer, and free as in speech.
Wikipedia is the the the super version of britanica that the library gets. You start there and move to other parts of the library as needed.
Any more, even if I need journal articles, I get to pdf files of them via my uni's online archives.
There is NO need to be politically correct and balanced here. Paper encyclopedias really don't serve much of a purpose any more. Had britanica been on the ball they would have setup britanica online back in the mid nineties with an ad supported model. There silly little free concise version is absolutely worthless compared to wikipedia. Had they started early they could have established market presence but it's a bit late now.
It's time to say goodbye to paper encyclopedias. The main reason they existed is so that parents didn't have to drive their kids to the library to do book reports, that is EXACTLY what the internet is for now.
Witness the article about Satellite C Band:
And another passage which is not only inflammatory but factually incorrect:
Note this anecdotal comment that the author, whoever it may be (there is no way to tell) had evidently pulled out of thin air:
Over in an article on the use of L Band, there is a curious comment about how its allocation affects satellite radio but the entry doesn't offer any supporting facts.
Another article about Television receive-only satellite has an opening sentence that is even worse:
I'm sure this kind of commentary cannot help Wikipedia's credibility. Wikipedia needs a huge content enema.
Kriston