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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."
As someone who runs a City Wiki, I always felt that what makes a reference wikis work is that there are more people interested in having a NPOV article than people who have a financial interest at stake. However as companies and politicians become more familiar with the wiki movement and the whole anonyminity of it, they are more likely to see how easily you can edit articles as another PR platform and seek to control it. 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. After all, for years spammers have nearly outmanned those whole try to filter it.
The problem with information sources for a localized wiki like Bloomingpedia though is that since it is on a much smaller scale, its easier to obscure facts because there are not as many industry watchdogs paying attention to companies and organizations. You have to get the information by working for the company or accept the information that a company provides on its website or product brouchures.
All in all, I can't find any hard evidence to support his claims, and the remaining evidence he presents seems to be nothing more than, "I think this page should be more critical of Wal-Mart, therefore there must be lobbists at work!" While that's a nice sentiment, it doesn't make for a smoking gun.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Wow, that's quite a security expert there! I wonder how much it would cost to hire Whitedust Security to hang out on IRC and make up conspiracy theories about people attacking my network?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Isn't it just possible that, on the whole, Walmart's contribution to society has been good?
I'm not saying Walmart are saints or anything, but it seems like many people are starting with the assumption that Walmart is bad and then trying to find evidence that supports their prejudice. C'mon. Have an open mind. Maybe Walmart isn't the great satan afterall.
Wikipedia is a free, online encyclopaedia. It uses a model of information where anybody can contribute. Although this leads to some vandalism and some disinformation, almost always an accurate and knowledgeable viewpoint prevails. The project has brought thousands of intelligent people devoted to its cause.
Why should Wikipedia be penalized or criticized for telling the truth about a bad company that exploits its workers and the taxpayer at the same time?
We need more truthfulness and facts in this world, not BS spin and PR from company spokesmen.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Wikipedia isn't supposed to be biased for (and here is the part many miss) or against. Hence the "NPOV stance" they try to enforce. If citing buisness stats and other corporate information is "bias" then they have a skewed definition of bias. After reading the article, it seems that any information about Wal-Mart that isn't a critism as automatically biased and suspect. That is just as bad a POV as being a "sunshine and rainbow fanboy".
In short, Wikipedia is not the place to have a diatribe on the goods or evils of any topic, even the much vaunted Wal-Mart. I simply don't see what the complaint is here. Are they disappointed they can't argue about Wal-Mart on Wikipedia? Well Wikipedia isn't the place to do that. That has nothing to do with bowing to presure from Wal-Mart. Chaning a link from "Wal-Mart Corporate Communication Page" to "Wal-Mart Propaganda Site" is not a legitamite edit nor is it NPOV.
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
Unless I've been living under a rock, Wal-Mart is, without a shred of bias, bad by many objective definitions of the word. No positive argument can be made in its defense without resorting to logical fallacies. Are there people out there who think that the article on slavery is biased against it, and that it needs to take a neutral view highlighting the benefits? What is the difference I am missing?
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
And here I thought that we kept all our lobbyists tied up with DC and off the internet.
If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
On topics that are simply "black and white", true and false, matter of fact, it's easy. Water is made up of 2 atoms of Hydrogene, one atom of Oxygene, and you'll hardly find anyone to challenge that. The Great War was 1914 to 18. Again, no dispute (except maybe with Russia that decided to end it in 1917 'cause they had a revolution to take care of, ages before Nintendo had the idea).
But as soon as you touch religion, politics, business or other areas where your opinion starts to play a role, you'll have people tugging at both sides of the page, trying to pull it towards their point of view. Wikipedia IS a big platform, after all. People turn to it for information! Imagine: A page, where you can write "what you want" (to some degree, you have to keep it within certain borders), and people will read whatever you write as facts.
Now, don't tell me it ain't tempting.
Maybe the insight we get out of this is not only that companies use pages like wikipedia as a place for their marketing department to develop on. Maybe the insight should also be that we should NEVER EVER rely on only one source for information. No matter how "unbiased" or how "neutral" this source claims to be. Even if the source is indeed genuinely neutral (unlike, say, a certain TV network in the US that claims to be broadcasting news while actually spewing propaganda), their information, or their editors, could be biased.
To be able to really create your own opinion, you need more than one source. Actually, often it's quite informative to listen to propaganda instead of a "neutral" source. As long as you listen to BOTH sides of the propaganda machine.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You accuse a poster of nativity and yet you make a statement like:
> Walmart isn't about fair competition. It is about monopolistic bullying. They can and do anything they want.
We've all heard the phrase "Jack of all trades, master of none"... Did you know that it pretty well describes Wal-Mart?
Sure they've often got many lower prices than competing stores and because of their bulk buying power can command even lower prices from manufacturers... that doesn't mean that they can do it all though.
I cannot speak for you... but when I end up going into Wal-Mart looking for something I usually end up being quite disappointed because I am looking for something very specific and they do not have it. Where do I find it? A specialty store.
Believe it or not that isn't very uncommon. While a grocery store stocks plenty of general food if you are looking for a specific cut of steak for instance, likely you'll have to go to a specialty butcher to get it instead.
Why is such a thing so surprising or so bad? Wal-Mart's inability to compete fully across the board leave huge opportunities for skilled people and companies to fill in those niches.
BTW... care to define 'fair competition' for the class?
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
"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."
I personally think Wal-Mart is one of the best corporations out there. A company that provides value and offers cheap products to everybody? The horror!
Troll? Dunno. Don't ever underestimate a person's ability to be uninformed. My stepfather is a lifetime Democrat and retired union blue collar worker. He'll drive 70 miles one-way in a rural area to a WalMart for the selection and prices. As far as I can tell, he doesn't spend a lot of time connecting the stuff on the shelves with teenage Asians working in factory conditions he wouldn't have tolerated.
So? A lot of the available evidence points to a possible conspiracy within the government. Wikipedia is supposed to have a Neutral Point of View (NPOV). That includes highlighting theories and evidence that you don't agree with. Since when did you have a right to scrub the entry "clean" for the rest of us. Where do you get off deleting opposing points of view?
9/11 is messy business. Give us the facts, give us the evidence, give us theories (both mainstream and alternative) and let us -- the reader -- decide. That fact that your deletions/modifications were overturned indicates to me that the system was working.
Electric Monkey Pants
NPR is right leaning... Fox is a propaganda machine.
After all, it can't possibly be that the case against Wal*Mart is weak and easily debunked.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
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
How someone could claim article that begins with...
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) (also known as 'The Great Satan', or 'Satan-Mart')
Isn't neutral! Thats as neutral view of Wal-Mart as possible!
Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.
Bullshit. You Fox News-types have been insisting for a decade now that anybody who doesn't deep throat huge corporations on demand is a "socialist".
Socialists advocate workers' ownership of farms, factories, and mines.
Regulating businesses is not socialism. Unionizing is not socialism (who brought down European communism? Oh, that's right, the Polish Labor Union). Pointing out corporate misdeeds is not socialism. Taxing corporate profits is not socialism.
Socialism is only workers' ownership of farms, factories, and mines. I know you like to paint everyone to the left of Ayn Rand as a socialist, but saying it doesn't make it so.
All's true that is mistrusted
This is exactly why citing sources is so important!
Wal-mart is bad! - Maybe.
Wal-mart treats its employees badly! - Maybe.
Wal-mart has been said to treat its employees badly because the New York Times has written an elaborate article about it with interviews of ex-employees. (link) - Yes. It may or may not be true that Wal-mart treats its employees badly, but there's no discussion about whether the New York Times has stated its opinion on the matter. That's truth, and that's how you can make articles NPOV.
Their wages are too low? Oh, come on! Just pretend Wal-Mart doesn't exist, and work elsewhere, but don't complain about them. If you think, wages should be higher and general, and there should be more jobs, provide some yourself.
They force their plans on somebody? How can they do that? Either politicians force their plans on somebody (that's not really new, is it?), or Wal-Mart can't do anything, because it's Just A Company. They only have lots of money, but you don't have to sell them anything.
On the definition of organic food, I'd probably agree with you. Mislabeling or selling something as something it isn't should clearly be considered fraud, not more and not less.
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...
What have we learned?
8 86274-2659010?v=glance&n=283155
Walmart is nothing but a free company in a capitalist society. Those complaining about Walmart are really complaining about capitalism itself.
Yes, walmart prices some American manufacturers out of business. But that is allowing a switch from manufacturing to service based economy. And, thanks to low prices at places like Walmart, more Americans than ever are able to own a house, and stock that house with Tvs, DVDs, Mp3 players and Cell Phones - even at the salary paid by Walmart!
Yes, Walmart buys Chinese. In fact, it is China's leading trading partner and is giving China a real capitalist change from within - a growing middle class in China is coming up. Millions have benefitted there, and I fail to see how this is a bad thing for anyone.
Yes, Walmart doesn't give the very best health benefits. But it beats having unemployment and medicaid. And if Walmart wasn't providing "low paying" jobs, we'd be paying for them in taxes, instead of collecting tax revenue from them.
I checked the Walmart page and Walmart was called "The great satan" in the first line. Why? Because they decided to sell inexpensive, yet usable goods to a mass market?
I rarely shop there, don't work there, don't own stock - but I'm glad they exist. Because they show, better than anything, the hypocracy of anti-capitalist whiners. You know the type - those who complain that they are entitled to everything the world has to offer, for free from the government.
Walmart has shown that the goverment need not provide every citizen with a DVD player. Instead, Walmart has shown the real way for every American who wants a DVD player to get one - is to make it cheaply and sell it cheap enough.
And that's really why people hate Walmart - it shows that capitalism does what utopian socialism never could.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0451191145/103-4
-Ben
Providing a particular slant along with the news, if the slant is overwhelming enough to create the vast distortions perpetrated by the likes of Fox News, then said organization isn't really informing, rather, they are misleading.
Afterall, sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken :) You can say it does, pretend it does, demand that it does, get legislation passed that says it does, but it doesn't.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
It's a fucking store. Nothing more, nothing less. Channel your passion into something more worthwhile.
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.
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."
That statement is flawed in that it jumps to the conclusion that correlation implies causation. (The actual study was pretty clear in stating it only found correlation, but of course all the left-wingers went nuts over it mistakenly jumping to the conclusion that it meant causation.)
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." It hasn't been scientifically proven that man is causing global warming, but a greater percentage of the NPR audience probably believes it because it's dear to them and their threshold for belief on it is lower. In other words, it's just a correlation due to the political leanings of the two audiences.
If you select a fact on a topic that's widely liked or disliked by the groups, you're going to come up with a bias independent of the quality of the news service. Therefore to test the quality of news services, you need to select facts that are neutral or equally liked to disliked by both audiences.
However even the facts you choose to present, order presented in, and context can exhibit bias.
Two facts given in the article:
These are two verifiable facts. The facts make Wal-Mart look bad. Now assume we remove the second fact, or move it into a list of stores which have been closed, so that its no longer easily connectable. All the facts are still present, but Wal-Mart in that case comes out looking neutral or good.
There is always bias. Even when sticking to the facts. I think the idea here is that one sides point of view is being systematically repressed by eliminating even the mention of facts and controversy. This is not in the interest of a healthy public debate.
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.