Slashdot Mirror
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."
In theory the wikipedia idea (many minds, many eyes, perhaps a voting mechanism) should work and result in articles which are fairly close to the state of human (knowledge * belief). And it did seem to be working for a while.
But in reality, people who are paid money to do something can spend far more time and effort than those who cotribute out of ego or community spirit. So it is not surprising to me that big entities are throwing a few bucks to their marketing firms to influence the web information flow. And marketing interns don't cost all that much, either: they are typically paid $15/hour and billed at $75. Peanuts compared to real marketing and advertising expenses.
I strongly suspect we are seeing the same thing on the political blogs. Except for those few that have a very large readership that takes self-policing seriouisly (e.g. DailyKos), I suspect that 20-30% of the comments on the key political blogs are being posted by paid agents. And of those comments, many flame-starters and most thread-redirectors are coming from those agents.
I think the "mass mind of humanity" idea ain't gonna work.
sPh
Since Wal-Mart is so heavily in bed with China, is it any wonder? They're learning from the pros. Of course they are successful and their business model is indeed efficient. They put a lot of people to work and they offer the average consumer decent prices on all the things they want, from groceries to TVs. Unfortunately, they've taken this beyond the limit of decency.
They would point out the prosperity they bring to areas where they build stores, but they fail to mention the manufacturing jobs they eliminate in this country when they import cheap Chinese merchandise, thereby converting a lot of good-paying jobs into low-paying jobs and sucking money out of the tax base and Social Security.
Their commercials would have you believe that their staff is always friendly, attentive, and knowledgeable, when this is the furthest thing from the truth. I have been to a Wal-Mart in 10 different states and I've yet to find a store that wasn't chaotic, unkempt, and whose staff wasn't lacking decent social skills. I've become so fed up with them that I do not shop there, prefering Target, even when I could save money.
They don't want the truth to come out, to tarnish Sam Walton's reputation with reality. The fact is, these people who fanatically support Wal-Mart are to retail what Scientology is to religon (go ahead Cruise, sue me!). Wal-Mart is best described as the Microsoft of retail outlets, and it shows in the way they handle employee compensation and benefits, not to mention unionization. They are so profit-centric now that they don't care who they crush along the way.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Wikipedia lost my respect when I read the 9/11 article several months back. To give them credit, upon checking this article just now, there is now a red flag saying that the "factual accuracy of this article is disputed".
Several months ago this article did *not* present the cold hard facts. Links to conspiracy articles, including some that claim the U.S. government was directly responsible, were contained within the core of the article. My attempts to at least move these links to a bottom section were immediately rolled back.
For the opposite effect, check out the page on ECT. The Side effects and complications section strays very far from NPOV.
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
It depends upon what you call, "fair and balanced".
A news organization's purpose is to inform, not to proffer an opinion. In the area of informing, NPR does better than Fox. For example, more than 60% of Fox News listeners thought the US found WMD's in Iraq, less than 20% of NPR's listeners thought the same. Since Washington has admitted that no WMDs were found, which news organization did a better job of informing its listeners?
Wikipedia needs to add a teensy little notice:
"By editing pages in Wikipedia, you agree to the following fee structure:
$0 for independent editors working in good faith
$1000 for individuals, associates, competiton, or representation for the article being edited
$1000 for inserting known false information"
Or something like this. At $1000 a pop, it becomes a profit generator!
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
So why bring this up? If you go to his site, Mentally Incontinent, you will see this story in which he says Wal-Mart offered him $500,000 for the site and all the books yet distributed because of this story. However, as you will note, the site is still up and he has since admitted it was all an April Fools joke.
Enjoy the story despite the fact that we can't blame the evil Wal-Mart for trying to squelch dissenting voices.
Oh yeah, to get back on topic, I have to agree with what others have already said: the Wiki entry doesn't seem biased. Boring like a financial report, yes, but not biased. Especially since it contains links to sites critical of how Wal-Mart operates.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Consumers have the choice to shop where the choose. They vote with the Almighty Dollar. The Almighty Dollar has spoken. For day to day goods people choose low price over quality (and in many cases Wal Mart quality was equivalent to anything else you could get your hands on anyways).
Its a cutthroat world nowadays. If you can't run with the big companies well then you better find a niche market that the big companies can't find profitable.
According to Richard Miniter's book, Disinformation, there has been found:
Found: 1.77 metric tons of enriched uranium
Found: 1,500 gallons of chemical weapons
Found: Roadside bomb loaded with sarin gas
Found: 1,000 radioactive materials--ideal for radioactive dirty bombs
Found: 17 chemical warheads--some containing cyclosarin, a nerve agent five times more powerful than sarin
So you're right to ask: considering 60% of Faux News viewers thought WMDs had been found, and only 20% of NPR listeners thought they had been found, which agency is informing, and which is pursuing an agenda?
Rather good question, that. What's your answer, actually?
-Styopa
Don't forget that they also employ many people, purchase many products from many suppliers, and provide a valued service to consumers - valued enough to allow Walmart to become the biggest revenue taker in the world.
There are two sets of premises here. Both of these sets are true. One set is represented in the wikipedia article, the other is not. Ignoring such an important set of facts is an example of bias.
Some people only see that things can be in black and white. There is such a thing as grey, often known as a centrist view. But its not about sides or trying to be in the center viewpoint. There are obvious facts in all situations. I will use the new NFL Dome and conventional hall for Indy as an example (yes, I too live in Indy):
1. Some would say that it will bring in much needed revenue and the increase in taxes to pay for the construction is acceptable (black)
2. Some say the existing RCA dome and convention center are good enough and when taxes are raised, they never seem to come down even after construction is paid for. (white)
3. We could say that some disagree that the new dome and convention center is a good idea, while others believe it is needed for the future growth of Indy. (grey)
4. A new NFL Dome and convention center are currently in the works to be constructed. Money for this project is being funded by various businesses and an increase in local taxes. (NPOV)
The difference above is the #4 never goes into peoples viewpoints.
All in all -- my reaction to this Slashdot article is that it unjustly criticises wikipedia here.
With the resources and ability to dedicate even a full time team to making sure the Wikipedia article keeps them in a good light, I fear we're entering the age where people who are interested in a NPOV are outmanned by those with a profit interest.
I just finished reading the wikipedia article. I don't see any indication that it breaks seriously with the NPOV principle. In fact, I was somewhat surprised by the extent to which the article recognizes the existence of and provides links to strongly negative POV opinions. The section titled "Economic impact studies in the United States" is one example, with citations to several studies that are not flattering to Wal-mart.
In fact, if anything, I think some of the negative points against Wal-mart in the wikipedia article may cross the line for editorial quality. For example, the last bullet point under explaination of Wal-mart's financial success is an unverifiable remark that some have accused the company of time sheet manipulation. If someone is actually claiming that wal mart A) systematically manipulates timecards and B) this manipulation takes place on a scale sufficient to account for the finanical success of WM, then the article leaves me with no way to verify who makes such claims (which are clearly POV claims), let alone to verify the veracity of these claims. That bullet should be removed.
I challenge somebody to site the NPOV and unverifiable sections of this article that are pro WM. If anything, after actually looking at the article, I think the wikipedia editors should be mostly commended for keeping this controversial subject as NPOV as possible. The borderline cases I see in the article are on the anti-WM side.
I suspect that there are so many WM bashers out there that many have lost objectivity when their statements are challenged as POV and unverifiable.
And that's typically the other side of the fence, right? "If you don't like it, don't go there."
Now, admittedly, I haven't done my research to answer a singular Slashdot comment in such a way that would both blow and change your mind about Wal-Mart. I can give you, however, an anecdote that is less emotion and what I know about where I live. Take it however you like, but I assure you that I'm not just making this up as I go along:
I live in a relatively small Southern town (~20K in population) that was built around and experienced growth largely through the textile and manufacturing industries. It is populated largely by high school graduates and dropouts who were able to work effectively as blue-collar laborers, but not much more. This has been going on for a couple of generations. When Wal-Mart left its former home in our town, moving to a new location to house its new SuperCenter, the business remaining in the strip mall of its past home eventually all went out of business (6-9 retail establishments, including grocery store, drug store, clothing store and 1-2 shoe stores, others), save for maybe one. That in itself is not "evil," nor terribly surprising.
But we know what happened to American manufacturing and textiles: they were offsourced. Plant after plant switched hands, and switched hands, and now the vast majority of them have shut down. Yes, you could say "well, that's the town's fault for building itself around manufacturing," but that'd be about as emotive as saying "Wal-Mart is evil because of this or this alleged offense," right? So we won't say that.
Now, we have lots and lots of blue-collar workers who are looking around for a job, used to being machine operators or other types of grunt workers with little education. But lo and behold, we have a Wal-Mart SuperCenter, and not only that, but a Wal-Mart regional distribution center, too. It's either one of those two places, some fast-food or other retail store, or a crapshoot application to the city government which will likely have 3-5 dozen applicants with similar qualifications, if not more.
Where do you think they go?
These are still people, taking the provider role to bring money home to keep the cars running, to keep food and clothes for the kids, and etc. In towns like mine? Where Wal-Mart makes up a significant percentage of employment opportunities for the people that relied on a section of the economy that largely doesn't exist anymore? It's -very- important not to poo-poo allegations like the ones that have been mentioned in previous comments and in Wikipedia. You're right in that they -should- be able to leave, and then magically pick up a job somewhere else. But for blue-collar workers that can't readily afford to take the time away or pay the tuition for community college classes or even a GED course...leaving is an ideal, and not so much a viable option.
___ In the words of Gen. Douglas McArthur: "I'll be right back."
<RANT ON> An Anonymous Coward Spake:
I generally agree with your overall comments, but I do have issue with the statement above. Really, you should say that those "who are interested in a NPOV are outmanned by those with an agenda". Genocide is only one aspect and generally implies that it's people like Hitler (and other dictators) who are really the "bad guys". In the referenced article, the author even mentions that at one point the Hitler page was highly critical of the dictator. Fact is, many people (who are not Jewish) have various personal interests that are negative towards the dictator (justified or not). The key is to make sure that the pendulum doesn't swing too far in EITHER direction. If most of the news posted about Hitler is negative (and after all, isn't that the nature of news, if Hitler was humming along not doing anything too bad, then you'd hardly hear anything about him), then does a wiki page that simply accumilates these news articles then also biased towards the negative? Does the NPOV imply that any negative comments should be "evened out" by positive? Sticky issue this, but plese retain a NPOV when it comes to those who would attempt to subvert the wiki concept, it's people/orgs with alterior motives, profit or not.
See how with careful manipulation of a few words you can make any seemingly rational piece of argument into a vircolic bit of anti-Semitic hate speach! We should not attempt to produce a NPOV, such neutrality is a false promise of objectivity. Those of us with an agenda should make that agenda known, and use the tools at our disposal. Remember, good men doing nothing is the easiest way for evil men to win. And NPOV is one of those good intentions that paves a long strech on the road to hell. < RANT OFF >
I'm not the parent, but heck, I'll toss my hat in on this one.
.71% U235 in depleted Uranium. That's the dangerous stuff when enriched. If the figure that we used about 315 tons in the first gulf war is true, that would mean 2.2 tons of it was U235.
"Found: 1,000 radioactive materials--ideal for radioactive dirty bombs"
They found 1000 smoke detectors? 1000s of trace elements in the environment? If you, or he, want to be taken seriously, I'd suggest not mixing in statments remenisent of the dihydrogenmonoxide website along with what you are trying to convince people are facts.
We did find a couple of things that I know about however. There was one shell of spoiled sarin, rigged as an IED. It blew open in the faces of the soldiers trying to defuse it, aparently they thought it was a conventional warhead, and it gave them a headache. It was too old and out of date to be useful as a chemical weapon.
We also found some spoiled mustard gas shells in a water filled ditch at some point as well, I think. Again, past it's shelf life and basically useless for anything other than scaring sheep. Mustard has to be kept solid, cool, and dry in order to last more than about 10 years.
That's it. Well, except for the hundreds of tons of refined (depleted) Uranium we've dropped in that country over the course of these 2 wars. It may not be very radioactive compaired to it's other isotope. It, however, would work very well as a dirty bomb if someone could figure out how to collect it.
Oh, in fact, that might make the 1.77 tons of enriched (U235) Uranium claim somewhat true. Depleted Uranium isn't pure U238, there is about
The only thing I have not heard anything about is cyclosarin. Herm... lemme look this up. Oh, here it is. Yep they found 17, like you said.
Oh, wait. Oh, look:
"Gen Marek Dukaczewski said an attack using warheads such as these was hard to imagine."
"But the US military said the agent was so deteriorated it posed no threat."
"But the US military said that while two of the rockets tested positive for sarin, traces of the agent were so small and deteriorated as to be virtually harmless."
Doe! Looks like it's some stuff lost and/or buried since the 1980's. Just like the other "finds". That kind of takes the "mass destruction" out of the claims. One could probably bludgeon or scare people with them still however, so technically they are still weapons.
Don't ignore the last part of "Trust, but verify." I realize it can be rather hard to verify some of the more obscure information, but try.
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&n ame=ViewPrint&articleId=11299
Never let it be said I don't do the legwork...
It's fitting, then, that after some hanging chads lynched his political ambitions, he returned to his roots, accepting a post at Columbia's journalism school to teach about the intersection between journalism, his first career, and the Internet, his longstanding obsession. The class, which began in Spring 2001, was entitled "Covering National Affairs in an Information Age." Gore's first lecture engaged objectivity itself, challenging the journalistic trope that fairness resides in controversy and an article has to represent all sides -- no matter how marginal -- equally. Instead, Gore argued that the journalistic impulse to exalt even the most fringe views to parity in order to furnish opposing perspectives is harmful to basic accuracy. This didn't sit well with more than a few of the wannabe reporters in the class, many of whom were aghast at the suggestion that the media should attempt to actually mediate between truth and spin. As Josh Bearman, a student in that class and now an editor at the LA Weekly, recalls it, "He stood up there challenging the entire dogma of the journalism school. First semester, you learned that objectivity was emperor, then Gore came in and told you it had no clothes."
And along with that backlash, the old anti-intellectualism Gore experienced in 2000 made a reappearance. As Bearman tells it, "He knew more than everyone in the room. So the class basically turned against him because he was smarter than they were, and they didn't like that. We witnessed exactly what had happened on the campaign plane in the year prior." Gore did not return to teach the class in 2002.
You'll find there's always someone willing to be paid to give a corporation a (voice/vote/means) to an end.
...I'm looking at you, Military/Industrial Complex...
Religious zeal is a well used tool. I do not believe there can be liberty until corporations are stripped of their rights... (as in, they should not have political power)
Which is exactly what I said, and which you would know, had you bothered reading my post to the end. Selective reporting is just a lesser version of the same evil all the other networks are guilty of, particularly FOX, which in addition to selective reporting also replaces a great number of its "news items" with outright fabrications or meaningles inflamatory invective.
As for myself, I'd give just about anything to get a Wal-Mart Supercenter in the middle of the Silicon Valley area. When I think that strawberries from Watsonville (an hour from here) cost less in Tennessee at a WMSC than they do locally at Albertsons, it becomes immediately obvious how badly the general public is getting screwed by these other chain stores. 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. So why do I pay, on average, half again more for groceries than folks at WM Supercenters in similarly expensive metro areas? I'll tell you what it isn't. It isn't the cost of employees. They make up a tiny fraction of the overhead of running a store.
The answer is corporate greed... and on the grand scale, Wal-Mart shows less corporate greed than most other companies. This is why their stock isn't doing much in spite of huge total revenue. They're not perfect, but they're a heck of a lot better than most of the alternatives. When I can buy a COLD soft drink in a vending machine outside a Wal-Mart for about what it costs to buy it in a twelve pack at Albertsons or Target, somebody is getting greedy, and it isn't Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart is a good example of how to run a business, on the whole. Yes, they could be better about benefits, but to their credit, they are steadily working on adding things like clinics to the stores in an effort to reduce their health care costs so that they CAN improve the benefits they offer to their employees without it breaking the bank. And they are already better than most small, non-chain employers; 49% of businesses with under 100 employees don't offer any insurance at all according to a recent government survey.
And FWIW, everyone I've asked who has worked at Wal-Mart said that they had health insurance. Every Single One. Not everyone is eligible, granted, but most of the ineligible are also people who probably should be looking for jobs that require less physical robustness anyway, and thus really shouldn't even attempt to work at Wal-Mart.
So to the critics, spare us the bleeding heart crap. Wal-Mart fills an important public need, driving ludicrous costs down to something more reasonable that everyone can afford, providing good work experience for high school students during the summer, bringing jobs and much-needed supplies to areas where most companies won't even go, etc. They may not be perfect, but without Wal-Mart, living anywhere in the U.S. outside of major metro areas would really, really suck. On the whole the good things that they do for our country FAR outweigh the bad, and IMHO, the Wikipedia article reflects that. It isn't corporate defacement. It is simply showing Wal-Mart without the evtremely negative bias that some people would like to throw into the mix to detract from fairness.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Believe it or not, about 20 years ago, PBS refused to air a Canadian documentary about the Soviet Union's deliberate creation of a famine in the 1930's in Ukraine, even though the film won many awards from credible organizations. Their excuse was that the Soviets didn't get to present their viewpoint!
(Ultimately, PBS did run the film, called "Harvest of Despair," but only because William Buckley ran it on his program. Even then, they forced Buckley to include a discussion with a panel of "experts," who bashed the film.)
It's a (misguided) political belief that is (incorrectly) applied to society in general. Some people feel that a small group (themselves inevitably included) would do a better better job of government than a large group (falsing disincluding themselves from) and postulate (ridiculously) that if a minorty government is better than a majority one, that all organizations would be better served by smaller size and (contradictively) assert that when the majority is eventually under their control, that a large homogeneous organization beneath them would be more efficient.
Wikipedia is the Wal*Mart of online information.
Wal*Mart provides "low low prices", but you have no idea, on any particular shopping day, of the selection, much less where it comes from. Are Koss "Plug" headphones in stock? No, Wal*Mart couldn't get a "low low price" on them; but you'll be happy with these Sony overstocks, right, and pick up some cheap plastic trinkets made in China on your way out.
And at Wal*Mart you'll have no idea where the stuff comes from: did nine-year old Indonesian girls make those shoes for 25 cents an hour? You don't know, but the prices are low.
Wikipedia is similar: it's the convenient place to find lots of (pretty much worthless) trivia and a number of good articles. You can find an annotated list of every German Army Division in WWII, but coverage of the U.S. war in Vietnam is so sparse that Paul Harkins, the first U.S. commander in the war and arguably a big reason for the U.S. failure, gets only a single sentence.
And who writes the articles? Experts tend not to stay around, because experts' articles are so frequently "improved" by acne-faced kids with no friends and plenty of time to flame-war on "teh Intarweb". (It's no coincidence that most of Jimbo Wales's "bureaucracy" at Wikipedia consists of teenagers and kids just out of college. They have the time to play around on Wikipedia, and are inexperienced enough to think they know something about everything.
Like Wal*Mart products, Wikipedia's articles are assembled by kids. Free labor keeps Wal*Mart's products cheap and Wikipedia's free. Wal*Mart uses the cheapest possible raw materials; Wikipedia's "editors" far too often paraphrase stuff they've read elsewhere on the web. Cheap products result, but so does shoddy and uneven construction.
And just like Wal*Mart's hiring of people to change articles on it on Wikipedia, Wikipedia shows a great defensiveness and overreaction whenever it is criticized. Wikipedia currently bans linking to sites critical of Wikipedia, even in articles on criticism of Wikipedia.
Recently, a long-time Wikipedia "bureaucrat" was unilaterally and without any process de-sysopped for failing to realize that another bureaucrat had surreptitiously made a page uneditable. It turned out that to avoid "bad publicity", the page was frozen -- on Jimmy Wales's orders -- without explanation. Because the long-time bureaucrat didn't read between the lines, he was locked out of Wikipedia without warning or apology.
People who have spent years building Wikipedia are routinely banned or smeared as "vandals" "trolls" or "conspiracy mongers" just for questioning the fairness of Wikipedia administrators using their powers to ban their personal enemies.
To further avoid publicity, Wikipedia's founder, Jimbo Wales, is alleged to now ask editors he trusts to make silent changes to articles on his behalf "because the stupid media watches everything I do now".
Here on Slashdot, a few weeks ago, I asked a Wikipedia Bureaucrat a few simple questions. My questions were almost immediately modded down. Thanks to Slashdot's readership, my posts in the main article were modded back up. But all four of my comments on the bureaucrat's journal -- where most Slashdotters with mod points aren't even looking -- were modded troll. What a coincidence, huh?
Wikipedia is the online equivalent of Wal*Mart: it's big, it's convenient, but the user has no way of knowing if the articles he's getting for f
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
As for your comment about Albertsons employees eating cake, while I know you're trying to attack my opinion, you are actually bolstering it significantly. The people who benefit the most from Wal-Mart are the ones who can't afford to buy groceries, including employees working at or near minimum wage at supermarkets, local stores, etc. When people have to pay more for their most basic commodities, it hurts the poor the most.
What most people fail to realize when they see Wal-Mart as the big, bad, evil juggernaut, is that the employees of Wal-Mart often end up better off with less benefits from Wal-Mart supercenters than they do with better benefits from unionized, benefits-bearing labor at other supermarkets. Why? Because when the supercenter moves into town, those low-paid workers end up paying so much less for their basic needs.
When you're spending most of your money on food and shelter, cutting 30% off the cost of your food makes a big difference. By contrast, broader availability of (non-emergency) medical plans generally make little difference in quality of life for the vast majority of Wal-Mart employees, who are predominantly young and relatively healthy compared with the average workforce.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
If Walmart were such a terrible place, would it be so successful?
I don't know if this argument would work with anyone but the simplest minded people. You could take any government in history, or any point in history and if you treat it out of context, you can say "If it's such a terrible place, would it be so successful?" Why did we free the slaves? If it was so terrible, would it be so successful? The mass slaughter of thousands of Native Americans wasn't so bad... successful, right? Seems like a good time to Godwin the thread... Nazi Germany was pretty successful for awhile there so it couldn't have been that bad, huh?
Only a fool equates success with morality.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.