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Wal-mart's Wikipedia War
An anonymous reader writes "Whitedust is running an article which claims that lobbyists for Wal-mart have successfully waged a war against a fair viewpoint on Wikipedia's Wal-mart page. From the article: "Although Wikipedia maintains a 'Neutral Point of View' (NPOV) policy, the Wal-mart page is highly biased. Additionally, all criticism has, contrary to policy, practice, and the general opinion of those concerned, been moved to a Debates Over Wal-mart section. Even that page has noticeable resistance to negative points of view about Wal-mart."
It depends on what you use Wikipedia for though.
Their Doctor Who section is absolutely awesome, with details back to the early sixties. Similarly, their music and dance genre sections are also good.
If you are looking at hot-button issues you can expect bias. The only difference here is that the corporate bias shows through compared to personal bias from external sources. If you accept that anything that you read has bias and account for that then you won't have nearly as many problems.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
You're joking, right?
You've really never heard any of these, or other, complaints about Wal-Mart?
All's true that is mistrusted
You speak of 'conspiracy theories'. Yet the very story given by the American government and media is just that: a conspiracy theory. It surmises that 20 or so Arab men conspired to hijack a number of planes, crashing them into various locations.
Please recall that the US government provided very little, if any, evidence regarding the events. Passports that supposedly survive a plane crash, including the fire during and afterwards? Uh huh. A few grainy, obstructed, and misdated stills from a Pentagon security video? Uh huh, again. And this goes on and on.
You talk about "cold, hard facts." Like it or not, the US government hasn't supplied anything remotely like that. According to your stance, their theory should be bumped down into that separate section you attempted to create.
It's the duty of Wikipedia to present articles that are factual and diverse. Part of that includes looking into the events of 9/11, especially where the official story is either unclear, questionable, or just plain bullshit. Wikipedia would be useless if it didn't cover the alternative theories regarding the events of that day, regardless of what you may think of them. Just because such ideas don't particularly arouse your sense of nationalism doesn't mean that they shouldn't be covered by an online encyclopedia that strives to be complete.
PBS's Frontline did a very good piece called "Is WalMart Good for America?" If you're being earnest, then I highly recommend that you that the time to watch it online.
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
"It seems only logical that they should fight back and try to balance out the haterade on wikipedia."
Except one of the Big Rules at Wikipedia is "Thou shalt not edit thy own article."
Nonsense. Presentation of only factual information is not at all an indication of lack of bias. Anybody who has taken basic courses in behavioral psychology can tell you this. The selection of facts from a nearly limitless pool of factual information can highly bias the perception of a reader of a set of facts. It is nearly trivial to choose a set of facts that lead a reader to radically different conclusions, if one chooses to do so.
The Walmart page falls victim to this, as well as presenting a set of very positive facts at the top of the "Debates" page to create an anchor point for perceptions skewed toward the positive. Setting such an anchor point goes a huge way to diminish the perceptual impact of any following negative information.
Clearly the people on Walmart's side have a solid understanding of these psychological principles, which doesn't surprise me from a company that employs "greeters" to make themselves feel more friendly. The people at Wikipedia obviously are missing the point if they think NPOV means "just presenting facts".
Avoiding bias entirely is impossible, but the best way to minimize it would be eliminate excessively positive framing on a page intended to highlight debate over negative aspects of the company, and enforcing that a roughly comparable amount of information gets to be presented by both sides.
If the sides can't get along or agree, the arguments can always be broken out into two separate pages, each of which gets to be edited by a contingent of people who clearly fall on one side or the other of the argument, and each gets to select their own set of facts that support their argument (but still attempt to maintain at least a neutral use of language). NPOV or not, I've seen this approach used on other pages, such as some Israeli-Palestinian related pages, where the participants otherwise would just get into non-productive edit-wars.
"Maybe Walmart isn't the great satan afterall"
To be sure, there are a lot of poor, arbitrary, or economically inaccurate accusations hurled at Wal-Mart, the "evil corporation that steals jobs from Americans" (for example). Some people have probably reasoned out their arguments; most haven't. I personally have no problem buying inexpensive Chinese-made goods, or shopping at a store that pays minimum wage, or shopping at a store that hires immigrants. I do have the choice to buy local goods from better-paying mom-and-pop stores, and I exercise that choice often.
One heinous crime committed by Wal-Mart that I can't excuse, though, is property theft. Going by the euphemistic "eminent domain", Wal-Mart frequently colludes with corrupt city administrations to seize land from its legitimate owners and give it to Wal-Mart for stores and parking lots. Wal-Mart slips some thick envelopes under city councillors' doors and promises to generate more property tax revenue, and Bob's-your-uncle, Wal-Mart gets permission to tear down your building and take your property. The whole damn lot of their management should be thrown in jail or worse.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
Apparently there is so much about Wal-Mart's Employee relationships that there is a third page about Wal-mart. Wal-mart Employee Relations
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
This is not Wikipedia's definition of NPOV. What you are talking about is more similar to "balance." The idea behind NPOV is to state obvious facts where the facts are known, and to present opinions as opinions. This has nothing to do with "2 sides," and trying to be definitively centrist is in fact against the NPOV policy.
There are plenty of valid criticisms of NPOV. Even many Wikipedians admit that it is an ideal to strive for, not something that can be accomplished entirely. But your strawman is entirely irrelevant to this debate.
English is easier said than done.
You somehow left out that Wal-Mart is a major portal for Chinese goods. I think that China will be a great country eventually, but most of these goods are being produced by what is essentially slave labor.
Here's one article about it..
and another..
I don't shop at Wal-mart anymore because saving a buck is not more important to me than encouraging slave labor.
Aero
Please stop hurting America -- Jon Stewart
There are serious flaws in your argument that no POV exists that is not biased. If you are talking about "opinions" you are absolutely correct. If you are talking about "facts" you are absolutely incorrect. No real and unquestionable fact is biased. You can misrepresent the whole truth by acknowledging only a certain collection of facts while ignoring others. But if you acknowledge all facts and provide nothing else but those facts, you have a truly unbiased view of the situation. If for a moment you think "sure.. that's a fact.. but it isn't relevent to the message I want to send" well.. that would be biased.
Slashdot.. where people join together in deliberate ignorance.
NPOV does not mean "give equal treatment to all viewpoints". Read the talk page for the explanation, but you continue to make the same mistake that many others do.
_ 2001_attacks#Evidence_citation_in_summary.
"Where do you get off deleting opposing points of view?"
Where do you get off insisting they be included? Again NPOV DOES NOT mean equal treatment for all view points. It does not mean balance a biased viewpoint on one side with an equally biased viewpoint from the other.
For those of you that would like to read more
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:September_11%2C
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
If Rupert Murdoch decides that Fox News has the purpose of transforming itself from a cable news network to a fast food service, then that's Fox News' new purpose.
Whether or not Murdoch would have to be a complete idiot to do so, and whether or not they'd be successful at it is sort of irrelevant.
Lots of businesses fail all of the time. Their purpose was to make money, even if they failed horribly at it. One would be stretching definitions a bit if one claimed that the "purpose" of any failed business was to fail.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
That specific example actually is bullshit. The stats for thinking WMDs were found was 33% (Fox viewers) and 11% (NPR listeners). These stats are from October 2003 (8months after the beginning, 6 months after "mission accomplished") so surely those misguided Fox viewers have stepped back into reality by now. The one where Fox viewers really botched it was the "Evidence Hussein worked with Al Qaeda". 67% Fox and 16% NPR. The other statistic they looked at was "World Public Opinion" is it for or against our war in Iraq. 35% Fox and 5% NPR. Now... The best is the cumulative statistic. 1 or more misperception vs no misperception. Misperceptions: 80% Fox and 23% NPR. So basically if you watch Fox News (aka the White House mouthpiece) you'll have an inaccurate view of reality. Here's the study:
t 03_rpt.pdf
http://65.109.167.118/pipa/pdf/oct03/IraqMedia_Oc
They lobbied relentlessly to weaken the definition of "organic" food, and then started selling food that can now be called "organic" but isn't by any sane definition of the word.
... and not much to do with how the compound was made. "Organic Chemistry" is not the study of the chemistry of vegetables grown without pesticides.
I agree with most of the points in your post, but that one seems kinda weird. As a chemist, our definition of "organic" has more to do with compounds based on C, H, N, O
My only point here is that there are plenty of "sane definitions" of "organic" that would include everything you eat (even McDonalds). The chemistry definition of "organic" in particular would include all such compounds. Essentially everything you eat is organic.
In fact I think using the term "Organic Food" is a bad idea exactly for these reasons, and because it is an ill-defined phrase that (as we can see) is subject to lobying and re-interpretation.
I'm not defending Wal-Mart, but your statement was not really correct.
"Psychology Ninjas" is distinct from "Well-trained marketing and PR department". In fact, your use of such a snarky, distortive phrase suggests that you didn't want to tackle my argument, but instead resort to an attempt to discredit me. I am an MBA, not a "psychology ninja" and I understand these concepts perfectly well. I don't accept that nobody at Walmart does.
In any case, you've done nothing to undermine my point that selection of facts in and of itself creates a point of view and introduces biases. I am glad to suggest some readings to you, if you are curious. If you disagree that such a process has occurred in the editing of that article, fine, but try counting the facts presented, looking at the headlines in the articles, and the placement
Just to nit-pick a bit, I believe you meant illegal immigrants.
So NPR ignores positive news in Iraq? Subtle and devious. Of course, I'm sure you checked your fact with a simple web search.
Oh wait...
Rate of New U.S. Deaths Declining in Iraq
Now, I don't mean to be a complete jerk by pointing this out. Just 80 percent jerk. The other 20 percent wants people to actually go and read, listen, or watch the news source before they criticize it.
Informed opinion makes the discussion more interesting, and civil.
Take a look at this short chronology and corresponding perspective on Wikipedia
There is a French version
--
Yep!
walmart wreaks havoc on the local economies in small towns. consider the following scenario:
you are a mayor or city council member of a town with a population of 5000 or so. WalMart wants to build a store in your town, and offers to give the city (or maybe you personally) half a million dollars in return for approval to do so.
Pros:
1) Half a million dollars is a lot of money for a town your size. It would go a long way toward building a new school, or improving an existing one.
Cons:
1)MANY small businesses in the town will go bankrupt because they cant compete, either in selection of goods, or in price.
2) The loss of jobs, as a result, will exceed the number of jobs created by the new Walmart, and the new jobs created will pay much less than the jobs lost.
3) Lower average income generally results in an increase in crime.
4) Much of the money that used to circulate in the local economy via locally owned businesses will now be directed to Walmart central HQ, further adding to the drain on the local economy.
5) The chances are high that the Walmart store will not remain profitable in the long run. A very high percentage of walmart stores close less than 10 years after opening. This would drastically increase unemployment in an already fragile economy. It would take decades for the town to recover, if it recovers at all.
6) (This is the important one!!) If you don't accept Walmarts offer, they will go to one of the other towns within a 20 mile radius. Your town's local economy will still get raped in the long run, though the effects may not be as immediate, and you don't even get the benefit of the half million dollars being offered.
There you have it. Thats how you force building plans on a town that doeesn't want them.
The paragraph in the link is just the summary of a 4 minute news report that gives hard numbers and explores various reasons for the declines in deaths, including differing political climates, better body armor, more US combat experience in Iraq, a shifting of missions to the Iraqi forces, and a shift in insurgent targeting to civilians.
This has to stop.
The baby's fine -- please stop sending business cards.
If you were to ask the Fox and NPR audience if they believed it had been scientifically proven that man is causing global warming, you'd probably find that the Fox viewers are "better informed."
First you would have to define "scientifically proven" since science never proves anything, it only disproves theories and their lighter-weight cousins.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
No discussion on Wal-Mart would be complete without a link to PBS's Frontline Documentary, "Is Wal-Mart Good For America?" - it's a brilliant show that covers many of the bases and it's available free online.
If some would have their way, there wouldn't be this level of high quality documentaries on corporate America. Watch it while it's still available.
I just wanted to come forward as the person who actually split the criticisms off into a new article (now titled "Debates over Wal-Mart"). I am hardly a "Wal-Mart lobbyist" (ha!) I did this purely because of size. The article was huge, still is, and the criticisms was taking up more than half the space...most of it poorly referenced material from POV-pushers on both sides of the issue. The strategy was to move it off to a seperate article, get it down to size, and then fold it back into the main article. That goal is still out there, but it's getting harder to do. The "Debates" article has continued to grow (and has itself been forked). The tricky issue here is balancing the criticisms (which are very notable) with the other encyclopedic aspects of Wal*Mart, while remaining neutral. It's easy to sit back and take potshots at Wikipedia. It's another thing entirely to sit down and help edit it. If you can see a way to help improve the situation, please join us in trying to get these articles up to snuff.
"Besides the difficulty of quantifying the problem, there's also the issue that job loss affects a few people very severely, while price cuts benefit a whole lot of people much more modestly. How do you balance those concerns?"
The same arguement can be made against productivity gains and specialization of labor. How can we justify replacing a room full of people manually calculating figures, typing documents, etc with a computer and a printer? How can we justify having a tractor plant/harvest food crops instead of paying a bunch of workers to do this manual labor in the field? How, in the first place, did we get to having "farm hands" instead of having everyone hunt/gether/farm for themselves?
1. If you can reach the same result using less resources (money and/or people), you can use those now-surplus resources to effect another result.
2. If 15 households spend $2000/year less on goods (because Wal-Mart reduced the number of people necessary to service those folks by one and is passing the savings along), that's $30,000 those families have in aggregate to spend on something else. Aggregate this across an entire nation of folks and that's a lot of money that will be spent on other activities (home improvement, other goods, entertainment, etc) that will in turn employ other people.
3. There is also some correlation to game theory... If company A doesn't keep it's costs in line, another company will and will have a competitive advantage.
Long ago the output of 100 people was probably enough food for 200 people. Now, those same 100 people produce a lot more (maybe 10 produce food, 10 produce computers, 10 produce cars, 10 produce fancy houses, 10 produce fancy clothing and furniture, etc). The standard of living for all of these people go up because of specialization of labor and productivity gains. They all still get fed, but now they get more than just food. Each sector competes against itself to keep it's costs low. In this process resources are released to move where there is demand for them.
It seems like a problem (and it can be frightening to lose a job), but history has shown this to not be a very big problem because there is always demand for labor. Efficiencly like this may keep wages down, but this also keeps inflation down. If wages for everyone were to rise, so would the cost of goods...and there would be no real rise (just inflationary rise). The economy is more stable and the standards of living for the entire population are better specifically because these concerns are balanced.
Bullshit.
There was a time when Walmart was a relatively genteel buy annoying company. They eventually turned the corner where the old guard was no longer in place and the new people decided to run amok. This is when they decided to send as many manufacturing jobs to China as they possibly could. They didn't used to blackmail their suppliers into cutting quality and outsourcing.
Walmart's got way too much market power and it's abusing it badly.
Even if they were still nice and fluffy, the fact remains that they are too big and thus inherently dangerous.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Hint: there are more Albertsons stores (2500) than WM Supercenters (2000), therefore Albertsons has MORE buying power and should be able to charge LESS for everything.
This makes sense to you?
I would rather talk about Wal-Mart. They could have openned a Supercenter in the valley any time. They didn't. You know why? I don't either. But I bet they considered it at least one time and decided against it.
They aren't here to lower prices and be my best friend. They're here to outcompete Albertsons by paying their own employees poorly and outsourcing to businesses with questionable employment practices, using their buying power, which I can only assume is greater than Albertson's, to strongarm them out of the market. They're not a friendly business at all. Not to Albertsons, not to mom'n'pop grocers. The only benefit they give me is cheap goods, which I can almost as easily obtain online. But their net effect on the economy could possibly be bad because of their extremely competitive nature.
Wal-Mart doesn't have a Supercenter in the valley, but Albertsons is here selling those strawberries you mentioned right now, today. Its conveniently located for me to consume. Now imagine what it would be like without the Albertsons.
Some would call the facts "negative bias", but I call a fact a fact. And I think all the facts need to be included in the Wikipedia article. The biased opinions can be left up to some discussion page, but if Wal-Mart commits to actions that reflect negatively on its image, I'm sorry, but maybe they just aren't as nice as their reputation would have you believe. Which do you want to believe, the facts or your version of reality? Choose now and let it be stated for the record.