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Wikipedia and the Politics of Verification
In its simplest form, couldn't a person's academic credentials be verified by sending a confirmation link to their .edu e-mail? (Which could be identified as a faculty address either by a domain name like "faculty.schoolname.edu", or by a Web page in the faculty section of the school's Web site identifying the person's e-mail address?) And then once the user's bona fides have been verified in this or some other way, couldn't they put their seal of approval on any article whose contents need to be considered reliable, or that readers want to cite as an authoritative source? In this way, with only a few minutes of effort and without changing a single word of the article, its value is increased many times -- surely one of the best possible trade-offs in terms of effort versus reward. (As for the question of "What experts would do this?", the answer is, presumably the same people who contribute to sites like Wikipedia currently. If their motives are altruistic in the first place, hopefully they would be willing to take this extra step if they knew it would increase the article's usefulness.)
Something like this model is planned by the operators of Citizendium.org, a Wikipedia alternative (I balk at using the word "rival" although it is inevitable that people will see them that way). The last time I wrote about Citizendium, some thought it sounded like such a valentine to the project that they wondered if I was a shill; actually, sometimes a project just comes along that aligns almost exactly with what I would have done if I could have re-done a popular project like Wikipedia with a few design changes, and when that happens, I just say so. Some others may have wondered if I was sucking up for a board position or something. No, that would be, like, work. But I think they have some good ideas that will make them a more useful alternative in some cases, unless Wikipedia copies back some of their ideas in order to serve both needs at once, which would also be a good thing.
Consider the two major issues on which Citizendium is planning to take a different approach from Wikipedia: (1) user verification, and (2) putting published articles into an "approved" state under the stewardship of a credentialed editor, who has to sign off on any future changes to the article. The issue of user verification can be further divided into two sub-issues: (a) verifying users for the purpose of ascertaining their credentials, and (b) verifying users for the purpose of limiting the amount of vandalism committed by new users under pseudonyms. (While editorial control on Citizendium means that it is not possible to vandalize the public-facing version of an article after it has gone into an "approved" state, users can still vandalize an article while it is a "work in progress" being built up towards the first milestone where it can be approved. Citizendium founder Larry Sanger says that such vandals are surprisingly, pathetically motivated even though their work is only seen by a small audience.)
On the first issue, the one of verifying user credentials, I think the verification of .edu addresses especially would be a cheap and easy way to increase the value of every article that that user writes, or signs off on. I don't think, however, it's necessary to go as far as Citizendium is currently planning on going, by requiring real names and biographies of all users. My thinking is that if an article is synthesized by 100 monkeys with typewriters but the finished product is giving the blessing of a credentialed professor of physics, it's pretty much just as reliable as if the professor had written it themselves. And if the same article gets the blessing of multiple credentialed experts, it could justifiably be considered more reliable than many printed sources written by a single author. The point is that the credentials that matter, are those of the people who stake their reputation on the accuracy of the article, not necessarily those of the people who contribute to it. So on this front, I think that while Wikipedia asks too little of users' backgrounds, Citizendium's current plan would ask too much, because as long as you have the credentials of one person who has signed off on an article, collecting non-verifiable bios of the article's other contributors doesn't actually gain anything.
The other side of verifying credentials is the use of credentials to prevent vandalism. In this situation it's not necessary to verify that the user actually is who they say they are; the system only needs to ensure that the same user is not signing up over and over again after previous accounts get banned for abuse. (You could ban users by IP address, but tools like Tor make it easy for users to connect from what appears to be a different IP address every time.) A blog post from Citizendium founder Larry Sanger lists three possible approaches instead: (a) requiring existing user X to vouch for new user Z before Z can join; (b) requiring new user Z to provide a link to a "credible" Web page establishing their identity; or (c) requiring new user Z to provide a link to a "credible" Web page of some person X who can vouch for Z's identity. I don't know how quickly a system could grow by referrals only -- after all, I was surprised that GMail took off so quickly during the period when you could only join with an "invite" from an existing user. Then again, GMail was giving away something for free that almost everyone could use, so most people who wanted it, would find themselves closely linked to someone else who had it. Citizendium, on the other hand, asks not what they can do for you but what you can do for them, and so might not achieve enough penetration to spread by referrals only.
I suggested that one alternative would be to send a postcard to each new user's physical address with a unique six-digit number, which they would have to enter in order to complete their registration, in order to verify that new users really were unique. The problem here, apart from the privacy concerns, is the delay that users would incur before their registration was complete, which would take away the "instant gratification" that they could get from starting to contribute right away. (You could let users edit before their address is verified, but that would just enable the same person to keep re-creating new accounts with unique but fake addresses, and use them to commit vandalism before the account was found out.)
Another idea would be that for new users, their first, say, three edits would go into a queue to be reviewed by verified users, and once the first three edits have been approved, the user is able to make edits in real time. (Since anybody would be able to review a new user's edits to make sure they were not spam, the new user's edits could be reviewed very quickly, since any Citizendium volunteer who was online, could review the latest entries in the edit queue and approve them.) It's true that a user could game this system by, for example, submitting three minor improvements, and then using their unblocked account to vandalize articles while they're being worked on. However, even in this case, the "vandal" would probably end up having a positive contribution to the site, because of the three small improvements that they'd already made. If a legitimate Citizendium volunteer would have to spend more effort making those three small improvements, than it would take to let a new user make those constructive changes and then ban them and revert their destructive changes once the user is caught committing vandalism (and the latter wouldn't take much effort at all), then Citizendium has actually gotten a good deal out of the "vandal"! (To make this work, a user's first contributions could not be "neutral" changes like replacing one word with a synonym; they would have to be actual improvements, even small ones, thus ensuring that the net effect of a potential "vandal" is positive.) There may be other possible solutions. These are just alternatives in case the model of referral by trusted users turns out not to work.
Now switching to the other side of the reliability issue: Whether the default article that is displayed to the public for a given topic, should be the latest "stable" version approved by credentialed users, or the very latest version incorporating all edits submitted by any user whatsoever. Having talked with members of the Citizendium and Wikipedia communities in their respective forums, there appear to be three schools of thought on the article stability issue. The first is that the whole idea of putting articles into an "approved" state and moderating all changes going forward, goes against the "spirit" of wikis in general and Wikipedia in particular. The second, suggested on the Wikipedia discussion list by Sheldon Rampton, is that it would be a useful feature if credentialed users could select certain page versions in the page history and "sign off" on the accuracy of one of those past versions; the page displayed by default would be the bleeding-edge latest one (with all of the possible vandalism and inaccuracies that entails), but users who wanted a reliable, citable source could look in the history. The third school of thought is that reliability is so valuable, that the default page displayed to the public and carrying the stamp of the project, should be the latest version approved by credentialed editors -- the model that Citizendium currently has in mind.
I'm not really partial to the first view, since I think the success of the project should be defined by how it achieves its goals (whatever you define those goals to be) and not in whether it kept with its original "spirit". Since Wikipedia has far more readers than contributors, if your motivations for contributing to or maintaining Wikipedia are at all oriented towards doing good for other people, presumably meeting the needs of readers is more important than keeping the party going for contributors (provided, of course, that the environment for contributors is at least pleasant enough to keep them contributing). The choice between the second and third points of view is more interesting. There's no obvious best-of-both-worlds choice here, because what motivates many contributors (the fact that their changes go live to the entire world, right away) is also what motivates vandals.
On the other hand, the problem doesn't sound unsolvable. You could go with the Citizendium model of editor-approved changes but create a prioritized system for "urgent" updates, in the case of changes to an article made to incorporate current events. Suppose users (who have been verified using one or more of the methods above) are each issued a certain number of "credits" that they can use to mark a proposed update as an urgent, breaking change. (Misusing these credits to mark changes as "urgent", that really aren't, would be considered abuse tantamount to spamming or vandalism.) Then let's say, for example, Anna Nicole Smith dies. A user could submit this change to the Anna Nicole Smith article, along with a link to a reliable news source (e.g. a wire service story) and a credit marking the change as "urgent". Since an editor would not need any particular expertise to view the article and verify that the change was accurate, any editor could review the "urgent request queue" and approve that particular change for publication, ensuring that the queue was checked frequently throughout the day and urgent updates would get pushed through quickly. Thus the site could keep pace with breaking current events without the kind of inaccuracies that plagued Kenneth Lay's Wikipedia entry when he died.
So there's a trade-off there, between displaying all the latest changes by default and motivating people to contribute but also running the risk of vandalism, versus displaying only the latest editor-approved page. Where there is not a trade-off, that I can see, is in the option of simply having an editor-approved version of a given page -- whether it's displayed by default, or only stored in the version history where people can look for it. To me, both of these steps seem to consist of pure gain for relatively little effort:
- Verify credentials of academic professionals by poking their .edu address.
- Allow them to give their "blessing" to certain versions of a page in the page history, so that users can rely on those specific page versions and even cite them as sources where appropriate.
So I hope that Citizendium will help bring more prominence to the idea, and that something similar might get incorporated back into Wikipedia. The approval of an identity-verified expert can improve an article's value so much, for such comparitively little extra effort, that it makes no sense not to have that option.
The mass media, and thus their old white rich owners, will -always- be scared shitless of any institution which nobody derives profit from.
here is a question, what creditationals do you need to report someones death? or how about reporting the plot line of a TV show? I mean do I need the nod of the TV geek from beat the geeks or something? I dont mean to poke fun at the issue here but lets be honest, if I wanna say that the number of bears is on the rise in the wild I can convince someone with the cred I need to do it for me... The power or Wiki is that anyone can edit, so anyone can fix the mistake.
-Ours is the wisdom of Solomon, the magic of Merlyn, the fall of Icaris.
I'd say 99.9% of University's have the number for their switchboard on their website. Call and ask for Professor [Insert Name Here].
You will get two outcomes:
1. There is no such professor
2. Sure, please hold while I transfer you.
Problem solved.
I don't think demanding credentials from people is going to make any difference. Some people will be more than happy to have their real names associated with pranking an online encyclopedia. I think the only realistic way to ensure that only "acceptable" material makes it into "print" is to have edits submitted to an editor to be proofed before they go live. Oh, and distrust anything you see on the internet regardless of who wrote it.
Life needs more saving throws.
1) Not all experts have an EDU address
.edu address. Others will rely on the reputation they develop within Wikipedia or among several web sites where they use the same psuedonym.
2) Many experts with institutional addresses can't or won't get their employer involved in authenticating them
3) "Underground experts" such as black-hat security experts value their anonymity greatly.
4) The same goes for political dissidents who have expertise to share under a pseudonym.
On a site like Wikipedia, some people will choose to post their biographies on their user pages and provide ways to contact them through "verifiable" email addresses such as an
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
"Hello, could I speak to Professor prof_guy_303 please?"
"Sure, please hold while I transfer you."
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
I think the success of the project should be defined by how it achieves its goals (whatever you define those goals to be) and not in whether it kept with its original "spirit".
Wikipedia defines itself as the encyclopedia anyone can edit. Therefore it can't change without redefining itself. That won't happen without angering everyone.
The future is niche wikis. With smaller communities it's easier to keep it open and still watch for vandalism.
Developers: We can use your help.
Do you get enough of your suitably approved .edu type folks to ensure that no dissenting opinions make it on the "official" page?
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
If anything, it's verification that the system works... maybe not instantly, but over time, it works.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
One of the things that bothered me about the NBC report is that the college told reporters about the errors, but the report said nothing about the college trying to fix the errors.
As a world renowned proctologist, I welcome this type of identity verification.
Sincerely,
Dr. Seymour Butts
Abe Vigoda
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
What if someone adds something to the article?
What is really needed is a way for people with verified credentials to approve certain content in articles, so that when new content is added the average reader can tell which content has been "approved of", and which content has not. If you just do it by version, then when Dick Cheney dies of a heart attack and I go in and add that to the article about him it suddenly "invalidates" the entire article until either a reader looks back in the version history (which the average reader has no idea how to do) and compares the two to see what was added, or until someone with the all mighty credentials comes along and "approves" it.
Whether we should rely on people just because they have credentials is a completely different question...
Really nice, and I mostly agree. Basically, you are asking for peer review for Wikipedia, that's something I really want.
I see three main problems: .edu address is not a good technical solution. I am a Ph.D. student in Italy, and we don't have .edu addresses (my university address is @unibo.it). OTOH, I don't know if ALL .edu addresses come from respectable institutions (I remember I heard that some diploma mills had .edu addresses)
- A
- There are subjects that are basically hard to be covered by academic institutions. Internet fads, TV series, web comics, urbant legends... What kind of academic peer review can be done on these articles? (Yes, they are important articles IMHO. They make of Wikipedia a resource that a traditional encyclopaedia cannot be).
- On the other hand, sometimes someone doesn't need to be a Ph.D. to be autoritative on a subject. A 16-y.o. hacker can be more autoritative on some software details than an informatics professor.
-- Patent no.123456: A way to personalize
Ok. Wikipedia is made of a bunch of "untrusted" individuals who has their own agendas.
Then who can be trusted? Mass media? They aren't made up of trusted individuals without any of their agendas either. Whenever there a subjective topic (say religion, god, Iraq war, free software) the individual's preferences come into play. And in fact, media organizations have their organizational agenda to add to individual agendas, which make them worse than Wikipedia.
That's all fine and good, but I'm not seeing how that qualifies him for an editorial on the Slashdot site. Or is he just a friend of an editor?
Not trying to troll here, honestly. I'm just curious why he was given the soap box to stand upon.
You: Can I speak to Professor [Insert Name Here].
Operator: He's very busy, so first you have to prove you're not just some time-wasting 'tard. So, what's the correct usage of an apostrophe?
You: To
Operator: You fail it!
You: Ummm, to warn that an "s" is coming?
*clunk*
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
I can see where you'd rather go to Citizendium for mission-critical information, but the same relative anonymity that enables vandalism at Wikipedia also enables objective independence, especially from the politics of academia. Besides, which Harvard professor is going to sign off on the All Your Base Are Belong To Us article?
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
I'm an automotive engineer without an .edu address. I'm probably more qualified to edit content related to my particular field of study than some academic schlub that's never built a thing in his or her life.
--Jim (me)
Stephen Hawking will be pleased when he goes to write an article about the Hawking Hole that he's discovered...
Summation 2
Bias. Slander/Libel. Misrepresentation of academic credentials...and other malfeasances. These are unique to wikipedia? Hardly. These very things happen in the mainstream mass media from outlets we all know -- for example, the New York Times. Have they forgotten about Jayson Blair?
Blair is only one example of many. Fox News has had David Milloy, discredited author of junkscience.com on their payroll for years. Reuters has been shown to doctor photographs of Beiruit. And so forth and so on. Yet these organizations will tell you that they maintain the highest standards, and that they can be trusted. Thing is, their history shows that they make mistakes too. That they have been burned by liars and miscreants in their employ.
So what's the real issue here?
It has to come down to money, somehow, somewhere. Wikipedia is a free open-source reference center that sees widespread usage. This surely has to displease those that operate similar services in the for-pay space.
Yes, wikipedia needs to evolve and put in controls to limit vandalism, bias and academic fraud. But that does not imply for one second that other sources are any better and that they are free and clear of these problems themselves.
The .edu TLD is pretty much only for US academic institutions. So in addition to excluding non-adademic experts, it would also exclude non-US ones. Some other countries have similar systems that could possibly be used, but many don't.
There's also readability. And trust me, I know all too well that experts in the field don't always write the most understandable, remotely well written (or even grammatically correct) articles. Locking down to approved versions as the default display will discourage mildly knowledgeable people from cleaning up articles for the purpose of understandability. If you can't see your edits taking effect live, I'd bet that many people will loose the impetus to make little fixes. After all, who am I to mess with an "authoritative" article.
A better approach is the one where the "bleeding edge" version is displayed by default. But it could get a badge saying "This article contains up to the minute edits, click here for an expert verified version." Digging into the history is asking too much, but that would give the best of both worlds.
Also, for the many users who would prefer to see only the authoritative versions, there could be a box to click when searching to display authoritative versions by default or even to search only authoritative versions returning nothing if there is no expert verified version. That way people can use Wikipedia however works best for them. There's enough room here for all of us, we're not trying to squeeze this thing into physical book after all.
Wikipedia has a set of guidelines indicating what is suitable for inclusion - the central WP:ATT considered the core policy to ensure attribution, with WP:V (Verifiability), WP:OR (Original Research) and WP:RS (Reliable Sources) being supporting policies.
As these issues becomes known, Wikipedia can simply identify a new method to apply it's existing policy - whether by creating something more specific (e.g. WP:BLP), or by recognizing a new method to apply existing policy. Consider it to be a variant of evolutionary hardware that was just announced.
I thought that I'd posted something on this before, but I posted it at Wikipedia and they don't seem to have a search engine for discussions. Anyway, I can't find anything by Googling, so I'll (re-)state my idea here.
I propose a Slashdot-like system for giving users karma points for good deeds, such as article submissions and editing. Some sort of moderation system would separate the good edits from the bad, and users would receive "Karma Levels" that are basically "log(points)", again like /. but without any upper limit. Add to this an ability for anyone to lock-out edits made by people of a lower level. Misuse can be avoided by also having a way to "jam the lock", preventing lower level users from locking a page. This would quickly create a hierarchy of users who could appeal to higher-level users whenever misuse occurs. Most problems could (and I expect would) be solved in the middle levels; only rarely would things filter up to the Board of Directors (who would all be hard-coded to level 1000 or so).
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
*Most* likely scenario:
You: Can I speak to Professor Z?
Operator: Before you speak to Professor Z you must answer me these questions three!
You: Um... Ok.
Operator: What is your name?
You: Dave.
Operator: What is your favorite color?
You: Blue.
Operator: What is the air speed velocity of a laden swallow?
You: African or European swallow?
Operator: What? Um, I don't... Please hold while I connect your call.
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
Credentials shouldn't matter on Wikipedia. People aren't supposed to post original research there, so we shouldn't have to take anybody's word for it that they're more correct than someone else because of their credentials. Cite your sources so that other people can evaluate them, and do a good job of interpreting those sources for the layman when you edit an article, and you're doing your job.
Besides, how many Wikipedians are experts in a field, but never purport publicly to have a particular credential? Are those editors somehow less worthy of editing a technical article because they don't say they're a well-published physicist, even though they actually are? As long as Wikipedia doesn't require everyone to specify their expertise, credentials will be worthless.
The should call the site WikiOpinion or WikiMightBeTrue instead of Wikipedia
...is the solution Citizendium? [reads more]
Why yes, the solution *is* Citizendium! How did I know?
-Carl
If you think "academic schlubs," especially ones teaching auto mechanics don' know their field, you are sadly mistaken. I've always found it funny how blue collar folks like to deride educators precisely because they are educated. Grow up, maybe you'll learn something from them.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So, what's the correct usage of an apostrophe?
Yes, it is.
3) "Underground experts" such as black-hat security experts value their anonymity greatly.
Is it possible to provide an anonymous identity that's certified to belong to only one person, so that people could build reputation under a pseudonym? It could be used by the black hats, and more importantly, by whistleblowers and political dissidents.
If anyone wants to do that, I hereby put this super-cool idea into the public domain.
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
Sorry but to simply make an article out to be good based on a person's current job or education doesn't cut it for anything but hard sciences. When it comes to soft sciences, politics, religion, or hell even fashion, who is going to be the deciding factor?
Whats to prevent some anti-(insert favorite group) person getting in with credentials? They can then prevent edits to articles they get stewardship over. What if the group you use to determine an article's accuracy all has the same view? Its not hard when you get into politics. Just assuming they will be fair is meaningless when they can determine what is fair.
Sorry, I doubt it will be better than Wiki. Wiki is at least being held to new levels of scrutiny because they screwed up. This new one is just trying to gain traction by pointing towards the successful one and going "look at me, look at me" and spouting good sounding, at the surface, ideas in hopes people will pay attention.
I'll stick with Wikipedia for now. I know where their bias is and avoid those articles.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Nothing to say really, it just didn't seem like a complete discussion of Wikipedia without a mention of Mr. Colbert.
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
they want people be forced to stick to encyclopedia britannica and the like, which are sources of 'information' that are from companies which are controllable by big capital. wikipedia is not.
hence, first stuff about 'wikipedia going bankrupt' in order to turn it to a capital corporation, then exagerrated news about vandalism in order to prevent uncontrolled knowledge entry.
not so much out of sync with the anti net neutrality crowd.
Read radical news here
Stable versions would do more than verified credentials.
Every professor I've had has warned us vehemently not to use Wikipedia. It's useless for scholarly work as you have no idea if the material is plagerized or just down right incorrect. I've come across multiple errors myself, especially concerning some of the more subjective material. To use Wikipedia for scholarly work you would have to double check virtually every word, defeating the purpose in the first place.
I view Wikipedia as a fun tool and nothing more. You may or may not be getting the right info but regardless, it's still better than word of mouth. So long as people understand its place I don't have a problem with it, but when people start linking Wikipedia articles like a Christian would link the bible I have to call them out on it. It is NOT a scholarly source, even if a scholar submitted something to it. I in fact met someone in a class who thought it was funny to screw with Wikipedia articles, simply knowing human nature as I do, I wouldn't trust it as far as I could throw it.
Why not just have the "verified sources" part of the article, and then the "sandbox" part? Why have a "user talk" page if the front page of the article's being used for that?
stuff |
I thought the whole point of wikis was that "authorative sources" were considered suspect. That everyday people might have a better handle on subjects than academic professionals.
... well, nothing. Except there might be easier access to online publications. But this isn't the problem that Wikipedia was intended to solve.
The difference between being an author included in a published encyclopedia and being a verified academic professional in an online encyclopedia is
The whole idea is credibility is not based on official credentials. Verification puts things back into the Encyclopedia Britannica mentality. No random contributions from anonymous sources that might just have a better handle on "truth" than academic professionals with their own agenda. Or so the thinking goes.
Of course, that does mean that Wikipedia is a journal of competing edits for anything remotely controversial. And there is no way to judge between a correct article and one that just echos groupthink. But again, that is the whole point.
The issue keeps coming up because while the idea of Wikipedia is an interesting one, having seen the result of "Everyman's Encyclopedia" one can quickly see that it isn't all that useful for anything except a source of opinion. Often restricted to popular opinions. Having something that is true, accurate and correct would be more useful, but that isn't Wikipedia. Trying to bring utility to Wikipedia will certainly destroy what it is.
For all you know, he could be the "automotive engineer" that designs engines for BMW.
Also, remember that there can be no certification in a field until that field has been explored by the non-certified.
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
> In its simplest form, couldn't a person's academic credentials be verified by sending a confirmation link to their .edu e-mail
Sure, if you can name a single educational institution with an edu address outside the US. Like the government sites here in Germany, our universities use country-codes. Banning Quatar's single IP address is one thing; alienating academics outside America is quite another.
.edu addresses can easily be faked as evidenced by one George Burgess, who works at the University of Florida in Gainsville. He is cited by publications all over as a shark expert and as "Dr. Burgess". In reality, he only has a BS degree in an unrelated field and happens to maintain a portion of the University's museum assests. He rolls the .edu address into "his" respectability by hosting his shark website on the university ISP.
Another example was a professor at the United States Naval Academy (Full professor) who was quickly terminated when it came to light that he faked his resume and did not have a PHD.
Sorry, your idea just doesn't cut the mustard.
I think requiring credentials for wikipedia is anti-wikipedia, for many of the reasons /.ers have pointed out. Frankly, I don't even want someone with a Ph.D. in comparative media studies, dissertation on Happy Days and The American Dream talking about shark-jumping (in fact, when that happens, wikipedia itself will have jumped the shark in a frenzy of circular referencing).
What is relevant is some feature that only lets users present credentials if those are independently verified. If you can't/won't get your employer/credentialing agency to back you up, then you can explain that, but you don't get to put the "I'm a Ph.D in ____" tag on your user page.
Tied in with this could be some user-reputation system as well, but I fear that'd just open the door to massive gaming of the system and/or reputation-flaming-wars; I've seen enough deletion discussion logs to not get too serious about recommending this.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
There does seem to be a solution to many of the problems found on Wikipedia. The solution is as follows: allow all of the junk edits to stay but choose a default or canonical version of the article according to how many people have adopted it as a version they trust. You could incorporate various meta rankings to weight individual trust scores if you want. You would also need to make it easy for people to review non-canonical versions of the article. The result would be like browsing slashdot comments at 5.
Say I want to be "davidwr" on Wikipedia. Oh wait, I am.
I can put a note in Wikipedia saying I am "davidwr" on Slashdot and a note on Slashdot saying I am davidwr on Wikipedia.
Since the names are password-protected, you have all the proof you need that the same person that made these edits also made these posts.
For email and non-password-protected web-postings, PGP and the like work quite nicely.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I don't think Wikipedia should be used to find critical information. It should be (and mostly is, best I can tell) used out of fleeting interest and curiosity. I'd never use Wikipedia for serious research, except maybe as a starting point to find reliable sources, but I use it all the time to find out completely irrelevant and intriguing things, like when the Ottoman Empire collapsed and what the worst movies of all time are and who that guy was that did that one thing I vaguely remember. I don't necessarily need these factoids to be accurate; the fact that they're there is enough.
Requiring qualifications would take away some of the charm of Wikipedia. Often, a very interesting and entertaining part of using it is noticing where the flamebait contributors set in. Besides, with such a widely used system, over time the information usually levels out to around "not false" in quality. As long as users know to take everything with a grain of salt and use Wikipedia for entertainment rather than serious reference, "not false" is definitely enough.
Why should "academic credentials" be both necessary and sufficient? It should be neither.
It's lack of sufficiency is obvious. There are plenty of crackpots on faculties. When I was a CPR instructor, one of my fellow instructors was a firefighter. He told a story about giving CPR to somebody and a guy walks up and says, "Let me do that, I'm a doctor." So he steps aside and they guy starts doing all this weird shit on the victim. "What kind of doctor are you?" my friend asks. "I'm a Doctor of Philosophy."
I once had a debate on ozone depletion at a conference with a guy on the physics faculty of a University. He was a bright guy, but his argument was that ozone depletion not a problem because ozone was (a) not important because it was in concentrations too low to make a difference in UV and (b) part of an O2/O3 equillibrium that prevents ozone concentrations from changing. Sure it sounds scientific, but he didn't have evidence for either assertion, in any case each of which tended to contradict each other.
On the necessary front, there's lots of things out there that don't have an academic specialty. We don't need PhD historians to handle entries on the history of sports teams, or professors of engineering to handle entries on the latest java framework. The best person to handle entries of model rocketry would be a hobbyist, not an aeronautical engineering professor.
A better solution would extend the open philosophy of the wikipedia to the concept of credentials itself.
The essence of a credential is that (a) you can verify its authenticity and (b) you trust the authority of the holder to speak on a subject because (c) you trust the credential granting authority. Likewise (c) may be recursive: you trust Joe Shmoe University degrees because Joe Shmoe U is credentialed by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges which in turn is part of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. Everybody extends, in effect full faith and credit to institutions that are part of this system, and in return they get recognition for degrees they hold or grant.
So, the logical extension of the wiki concept is that anybody should be able to credential anything -- but the authenticiity of the credential must be verifiable, as is the identity of the credential grantor. In turn credential grantors should be able to extend or revoke mutual recognition to each others credentials. This would be done by creating a tree ordering (actually a forest ordering) of credential granting: A big consortium accredit little consortia, and little consortia accredit credential grantors, and credential grantors certify credential holders.
Maintaining the philosophy of freedom, anybody can still edit any topic, but you should be able to see the last version of the topic approved by somebody holding a credential for X recognized by an institution recognized by accreditation consortium Y or any of its descendants.
So if you are looking at a politician's wikipedia entry, you can find the last version that it is approved by somebody who the Republican Party trusts, or whom the Democratic Party trusts, or whom the League of Women Voters trusts. Over time, the system polices itself, because groups do not want to lose the benefits of cross recognition.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I've said this before, but the strength and weakness of Wikipedia is that it's one of the closest things we've got to a representation of What Humanity Has to Say.
Human discourse has its problems, but ultimately, there's a lot of value there. If you can't deal with the untidiness of all human discourse and think that few people will somehow be less wrong than more people, sounds like Citize-pedi-whatever might be for you. If you think that the discourse of our entire species might be useful, head over to Wikipedia.
I must say, this whole fuss reminds me a bit of the idea that democracy won't work because a small number of people must be smarter than a large number of people.
No jokes, please
I would suggest that still most academics have not an .edu e-mail address. I don't have. Mine ends with rock.helsinki.fi. Hey!, the world is bigger then the edu realm.
- Martin
Guidelines are just that, guidelines, not rules.
Don't enforce them and what do they become? Meaningless.
The people who follow the guidelines will be vastly outnumbered by those who do not as long as they remain "guidelines". Any other assumption is laughable.
My understanding of Wikipedia is that because submissions and edits are open to everyone that ultimately the users themselves are responsible for ensuring accuracy. Once a sufficiently large and varied group of people are visiting the site there will inevitably be enough informed people available to spot problems in articles. It's sort of like a libertarian version of an encyclopedia. Nothing is perfect, and perhaps that fraud should have been spotted sooner, but the fact remains that the problem was eventually identified.
What I find more concerning than obvious errors, defacing and blatant bias is a more subtle bias creeping into such encyclopedias. Once the submitters and editors are reduced to a select few it creates a potential for that sort of situation. It's already a problem elsewhere. We've already got people who dismiss anyone who disagrees with them as extremists regardless of facts. That's an important, because you'll have people who are convinced they're being unbiased but in reality are merely pushing one idea or another. It's already a problem with many blogs; people who are presenting opinion and rumor as fact. Someone runs a story they've found on another blog, which they're presenting as concrete fact. Follow that link and it turns out they've linked the story from a third blog. Dig far enough and it turns out the story is all rumor, speculation and hearsay. All they care about it that it's consistent with their own opinions. The mainstream media is already bad enough, but at least they pretend to engage in fact-checking.
So that's my concern with a more closed encyclopedia. It may start with devotion to fact and impartiality, but it can easily degrade into anything but. And as many others have mentioned here, just because someone has impressive credentials doesn't necessarily make them better informed about a subject than a regular person.
Sinbad is the problem. By staying alive after Wikipedia pronounced him dead he was clearly defacing Wikipedia. To solve this problem I'm starting DeathNote.org which will have the following verification standards: ...
* The human whose name is written in this wiki shall die.
* If the cause of death is written within 40 seconds of writing the subject's name, it will happen.
* If the cause of death is not specified, the subject will simply die of a heart attack.
* After writing the cause of death, the details of the death should be written in the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds.
First off, I love Wikipedia. There's no quicker, more efficient resource to obtain background information from. And not just "encyclopediaish" information (ex: What is the population of Bermuda? or In what year did Napoleon invade Russia?) If you want to know exactly what "Numa Numa" is and the name of that fat dude on the webcam, Wikipedia has it.
That being said, it's just not an academic resource. It's not. For the same reasons why I love Wikipedia (modern, up-to-date, and information available for all to modify), it cannot be used as an academic resource. One of the suggestions in the article read, "And then once the user's bona fides have been verified in this or some other way, couldn't they put their seal of approval on any article whose contents need to be considered reliable, or that readers want to cite as an authoritative source?"
People can still change that article. What was certified one day can still be changed the next. I can almost anonymously say that Pat Robertson is an athiest, or that Hugo Chavez loves to eat little children for breakfast. And while ten minutes later, someone else might read that and correct the mistake, in those ten minutes, some high school kid could go and do a research paper on that subject, cite Wikipedia as their source, and turn in a paper saying that Pat Robertson is an actual athiest. Granted, this does bring up a different problem that kids are unable to accurately judge the reliability of internet resources, but that's another subject for another thread.
The point I'm trying to make is that Wikipedia's a wonderful resource, but it's not an academic resource. Academic resources need to remain consistantly credible in their work and their publications. Wikipedia cannot guarantee this without impeding on their current principals of freely editing content.
You weren't kidding.
--I'm not talking about dance lessons. I'm talking about putting a brick through the other guy's windshield.-
The White folk have a rich and beautiful culture with a long heritage. Maybe their norms and values are different than ours, but who are we to judge, when we have so much to atone for? That's just perfectionism.
Funny, last I checked, legitimate, credentialed and "can't mess-up" broadcast news agencies were also very capable of producing stark garbage [cough*dan-rather-default-word-template-letter-rep orted-as-decades-old]
The difference is wikipedia admitted to the error. Dan Rather never has....
Would you work for a company that could "revert" your paycheck years after you had finished your work for no reason? I didn't think so.
Three things:
1st) This is the third (or fourth, I lost the count) article that, albeit well written, touts Citizendium horn even if the final product is still in the vapor state (vaporware), taking advantage of Wikipedia's (well known and well publicized) weaknesses to push their marketing.
2nd) I'm hearing a lot about Citizendium advantages over Wikipedia lately. How come? Why? Can't one create a product without pigbacking in the success of another? This "just like, but better" strategy is despised when it is Microsoft doing (Java vs. C#), when it is NBC doing (their service vs. youtube), etc. When almost everyone is trying to pull such a stunt, why would Citizendium do better with this much talk and almost no walk?
3rd) Is OSTG planning to buy/incorporate Citizendium? Will we have an opinion section for Citizendium just like we have one for Intel?
I, for one, am tired of this. Bring the product to the judgment of the masses, as one wise guy said once, "a little less conversation a little more action".
I contend that 'credentialed' experts are not the driving force behind the articles in Wikipedia. It is the layperson, the mildly-knowledgeable, and the fanatics that actually write and maintain the vast majority of content. Experts *might* come in and tweak some information or possibly start the occasional article in their area, but their presence is minimal and not sufficient for verification.
People that talk about accountability and experts and reputation and such want to know the information is 'correct' so they come up with ideas like 'well just let the experts take care of it'. But why are the so-called experts going to do this for them? Who is going to sign off on an article and put their rep on the line unless they know for sure that every fact in the article is absolutely correct or they verify every fact? The more expert they are the less likely they are to risk their rep signing off on some random article in their field.
What it boils down to is for experts to have any meaningful role besides being a normal contributor the article has to be vouched for at some point (ie lots of work) and stay vouched for, so the rate of change cannot exceed the amount of time that experts will devote to the article. And I contend that experts are not going to put in anywhere close to the amount of effort needed to keep articles up-to-date.
Before making any 'expert only' kind of changes it would be nice to do a scientific study on wikipedia articles and see how much experts actually contribute and surveys to find out how much more they say they would contribute if they got props from it.
Actually sounds to me like NBC is scared of losing their own audience. I remember back when Steve Irwin died the only place to get all the information you wanted on it and in a reasonable amount of time was Wikipedia, and I never found a single inaccuracy about all the accounts on his death. The coupled with NBC's very poor network ratings makes me think this may actually be partly trying to discredit Wikipedia to take down their growing market share.
If i had one dollar for every brain you dont have, i would have $1.
Why go through the trouble when you can use an established and "credible" encyclopedia from your Universities library? Or hell, from their website. Why use Wikipedia at all in these cases? You don't need to take those extra steps if you just use a credible source in the first place.
I'm not meaning to degrade Wikipedia, I surf it often just for fun and ideas, but I would never consider using it as a scholarly source for the simple fact it ends up being MORE work in the end than just using Brittanica from the start.
Profiling is not allowed in America... even when there are elements of truth in it. Now I have to go make sure that the skinny old 85 year old granny isn't carrying an HK onto the plane... excuse me ma'am, please bend over [rubber glove snap /].
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Didn't read article or even the long subject paragraph but I just wanted to say that faking Sinbad's death was genius . Next up put some fake Democratic candidates on there. George Clooney would be a funny one.
Two tears in a bucket. Motherfuck it.
As everything based on voluntarism http://wikipedia.org/ needs to minimize the amount of non-creative effort needed to submit contributions. Every bit of extra effort needed to edit reduces the number contributors.
"Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades." -anon
It seems like a lot of this could be improved a couple of ways:
First, have a way, as suggested of verifying claimed credentials if the poster wants to have them verified, but allow a wide variety of credentials. As an example, I am a member of the Society for Creative Anachronisms (SCA) which has an order called the Order of Laurels which is awarded for research and crafting in (usually specific) medieval arts and sciences. These people (often) do not have accredited degrees, but may be an expert on, for instance, period bobbin lace, or 14th century fabrics, or brewing of mead. In those specific areas, their expertise is probably vastly more than a Doctor of Medieval History. As an example, I know a Laurel who has spent years studying medieval and renaissance manuscripts on paper production right down to actually building working paper mills using period materials. I have then taken his paper and used them for pen and ink drawings with homemade (india) ink and a quill. Such attempts offer a whole different perspective on the practicalities of medieval life versus mere academic work.
There are a good number of organizations and societies out there that are similar in that respect. Let the reader judge the value of the credentials. Just verify their validity. If someone wants to claim things in their biography which aren't verified, tell the reader that. Let them judge. If someone wants to pots anonymously, same thing.
Second, allow the creation of *multiple* articles on specific topics with differing points of view. Allow certain people to take charge of those specific articles but allow them to fork (perhaps with some limits). Only then will you really start to get a *coherent* democratic perspective. As an example, an academic expert on period inks might have a certain opinion on how those inks were made and used, but someone at the national archives who has actually reproduced those techniques and found that some of them are impractical would have a different perspective. Let the reader judge. This makes it much clearer to the reader that they are getting *opinions* and makes citations more stable.
It is an oft-cited quotation; "The cure for bad information is more information." Wikipedia is as accurate and as diverse as it is because it has stripped away the things that stop someone from posting. It should not change this policy - and for that reason I think Citizendium is like to fail. On the other hand, there is an opportunity to add something to the mix; to add more information to the mix, sourcing information - and to boot, I don't think that it would be hard to do. Let people keep editing pages willy-nilly. That content generation is by far the hardest thing to accomplish for any project, period. Continue to allow peer reviewing - that is what keeps the majority of the content readable. But add in the ability for peer sign-off, and let it come in as many forms as can be reasonably included. Let us say you have no verifiable credentials other than the number of posts you have as determined by some order of magnitude. The ten post user is more reliable than the one post user, after all. The thousand post user even more so. Have posts that are rolled back count against them - perhaps greatly if it is a case of vandalism, but I suspect that will be hard to arbitrate. That is one form of credential. Add others. People align themselves to institutions all the time, which give them credence to certain tasks. You have a BA in Physics? Set up a process by which their institution can confirm this, giving you an electronic stamp. Then, when you go to an article you can stamp it as "I think this is accurate, as a BA Physicist." It's not going to have as much weight as a PhD in Physics, and it's going to have no weight when talking about the political history of Sri Lanka, but it's a way of letting end users know how much weight they should give the article. The real question is; what is a valid authentication of a user? Do universities want to set up a whole process by which they respond to these sorts of requests? How does Wikipedia expedite that? Some stopgap measures can be taken: a 'Claimed Credential' can be distinguished from a 'Confirmed Credential' or a 'Multiple-Times Confirmed Credential'. But overall, I don't think that the flow of information should be choked down on, or be forced to be reviewed. The only issue here worth looking at is how to add the information regarding the reliability of encyclopedic knowledge. Also, I think that any of the above would work well with a 'bleeding edge' view and a 'last signed-off on' view. Remember too that regardless of how accurate an article is today, knowledge changes. There is nothing wrong with owning what we think now, and deciding later it is different.
[Ego]out
Class won't go away just because you want it to. When one easily identifiable class of people continually fucks over another class of people, THAT is classism. It is not classism when somone calls a group out for fucking over others.
You know why I don't like the way the market works? Because rich people fuck with the market and make it work in their favor. I wouldn't mind so much if people who were rich actually deserved it because they were smarter or worked harder, but the majority of rich people aren't and don't. They are rich because money breeds money, and because they have no compunctions about fucking over others.
Race is just a red herring, though, thrown out by the rich to keep the rest of us fighting amongst ourselves instead of uniting to fight them. There are far more middle class and poor people than there are rich people, and if we want to we can just take all their shit and there is nothing they can do. Yeah, that's right you rich motherfuckers, the police and military are all poor and middle class to, who do you really think they'd side with?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
If a professional media source doesn't present an advantage over free amateur sources of information, there is no reason for anyone to pay attention to the professionals. These advantages can include quality, accuracy, and time to deliver the information. The professionals will usually have the advantage in time delivery, but the other two are slowly slipping away from them. Instead of improve their quality, they rely on sensationalism stories to shock or guilt viewers into watching. They instill fear and uncertainty into their viewers to create a sense of dependence. Instead of improve accuracy, they report with a strategy of false confidence. If you sound right, you are right. By the time anyone cares to correct the issue, the story is long forgotten and no harm was ever done to your credibility. If the story is still in the memory of the public, other stories will be moved to the front page, to the top story, in order to distract from the previous problems.
Professional media feels threatened that the public can get their information from other sources. So they attack the problems with amateur sources. Sure wikipedia can be innacurate. It can be downright false. It can have quality issues. It can be slow to deliver information. But those are all problems that the regular media has as well. So they attack it anyway and discredit it, using the very same tactic that wikipedia editors attempt to use. False confidence. The public believes what is presented as confident.
The professional media has just as many problems as the amateur media. Fact checking is at an all time low. Errors are at an all time high. Corrections are a thing of the past. But why bother improving when you can launch a smear campaign and discredit alternative sources with one fell swoop? Fox news is particularly guilty of this. Watch fox news shows like Bill O'Reilly. They'll take other cable news clips and edit them to make them appear inaccurate or unbalanced. They'll take clips of the Daily Show, or the Colbert Report and edit them to discredit any news value the segment might have. Those two programs use satire and wit to make points and present news or make a political commentary. But when you watch an edited clip of one of those programs on Fox News, all you see is the silly actions of the hosts and they are made into goons rather than smart political commentary. If you don't watch either program, you can find some user submitted comparisons of these video clips on youtube with some searching. (I would post links, however I am at work and youtube is blocked).
All in all, most of the media out there is just plain horrible. Information is hard to come by. You can't trust any single news source or source of factual information these days. You have to look at several sources to get a full picture. Fair and balanced news just doesn't come from one source just because they say so. None of the media outlets are fair and balanced, and if you care to follow a money trail to who owns the parent companies, and what time of campaign contributions they make, you'll see that none of the major news sources can be trusted for anything.
The information wars are here, and I don't think there are really any winners.
There is also the issue of spam-nazis, who simply delete all incoming edits. Notice how there is no reference of spam-nazi on wikipedia? We all know what a spam nazi is, and there should be an entry. I noticed that there wasn't an article, and put one in. I tried to be nice about it, and keep inline with wikipedia requirements. Hell, I even logged into my account to do it. Minutes later, it is flagged for deletion, and subsequently deleted. How ideal.
I think that there is a balance between "anyone can edit", and "everything is spam".
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
"Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades." -anon
And absolutist thinking occurs most frequently in the minds of the mentally deficient.
Exactly! Anyone should be able to mark any article they want as an article they put faith in, or otherwise believe to be accurate. What matters is whether or not those people stamping the article have credentials to be meaningful. A system of identifying credentials would be awesome (and one wonders if there isn't a startup opportunity in there...), and would require no fundamental change to the way things are done; only a layer on top that allows an additional level of evaluation by the end user.
[Ego]out
Not knowing real names are as old as history.
The Underground Railroad of the early/mid-1800s and resistance cells in repressive regimes come to mind.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
There was an American Dad episode last month called "Black Mystery Month" about a conspiracy to hide the truth regarding George Washington Carver and Peanut Butter. The episode ends with the dad saying, "Hmmm... How can we disseminate information worldwide without proof, but so that people will take is as factual anyway?" (not an exact quote by any means). The next scene shows the dad and his son altering the George Washington Carver article on Wikipedia. LOL
So, Wikipedia's credibility is going down fast when even pop culture is making fun of it.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
Cutting-edge, new information ("news") is rapidly disseminated but very unstable. A solid, expert opinion is not readily available: there has been no time for anyone to develop expertise in the event that is currently unfolding.
After the information has matured, passed across some undefined age threshhold, expertise in the information develops.
So, requiring an "expert" to validate news of someone's death makes no sense - news cannot be "validated", it can only be "corroborated" - vouched for by another witness.
... is whot bwings os tugevza tsuzay.
Unless I'm misunderstanding something - the Wikipedia page was 'seeded' with this junk information at 21:33 on 14th March - and corrected by 5:33 on the following day. So it was screwed up for exactly 8 hours. Hardly a big deal. Subsequent to that, random vandalisms come and go - but are never there for more than a few minutes before being corrected.
www.sjbaker.org
"You know why I don't like the way the market works? Because rich people fuck with the market and make it work in their favor. I wouldn't mind so much if people who were rich actually deserved it because they were smarter or worked harder, but the majority of rich people aren't and don't. They are rich because money breeds money, and because they have no compunctions about fucking over others."
Is it really this way though? If it is then you're right and it sucks. But what about personal responsibility? When people, poor and middle class, constantly make bad choices and decisions that keep them poor how is that a rich person's fault? Why do you automatically assume the world is the way it is because of the plans of the rich instead of the faults of the poor?
"Race is just a red herring, though, thrown out by the rich to keep the rest of us fighting amongst ourselves instead of uniting to fight them. There are far more middle class and poor people than there are rich people, and if we want to we can just take all their shit and there is nothing they can do. Yeah, that's right you rich motherfuckers, the police and military are all poor and middle class to, who do you really think they'd side with?"
Well seeing as that hasn't happened I'm guessing the police and military would side with the side of law and order. While the police and military are mostly made up of poor and middle class families they do have HOPES and DREAMS of rising above that. They don't want to fight the rich because they want to BE rich themselves. And the way for them to do that is not to overthrow the status quo but to make it via their own merit. In any case its irrelevant. After EVERY revolution, EVERY SINGLE ONE, a new elite forms. You just end up shuffling the deck a bit. As time goes on those who are better at their jobs and or smarter will rise to the top and those who suck or are dumb will go back down to the bottom. We'll be right back square where we started from. The collective masses of the poor and middle class are not some mindless mob who all think alike. Setting aside the very REAL and DISTINCT differences between middle class and poor folks themselves (such as middle class folks being deathly afraid of sinking down to the "poor" level and being disgusted with the habits and the way "poor" folks live their lives, and the resentment the poor harbor towards not just the "rich" but the "middle class" for daring to have more than they do.) everyone is different, there's many different groups within this lot. Your dreams of everyone uniting together against the rich are just that, PIPE DREAMS.
So whats your plan then? Constant, never ending revolutions? In other words, do you have an alternative way of doing things that WORKS as opposed to the tired old ideologies of "blaming the man" or "stealing from the rich to give to the poor (life choice makers) communism/socialism" that flat out don't work and have been collectively shat upon and rejected by nation after nation, continent after continent except for the poor deluded fools in Latin America?
I don't think you do. I don't think you ever did.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
We live in a world of twenty second snippets. What you see as a news highlight, hear during the top-of-the-hour radio news break, read the Slashdot summary in RSS, and, yes, what you read on Wikipedia becomes fact. After these brief interludes people go on about their day regurgitating what they saw, heard, and read, passing on this misinformation.
How many casual people read and re-read articles on hourly or daily or weekly basis? None. They don't scan for changes nor view the history. They hit the page of interest and leave. They have their information, whether it is right or wrong.
So, no, I argue that the frauds and errors are permanent to the casual users of Wikipedia, regardless of the speed or frequency they are corrected.
Even with certified credientials there is still a problem. For example, let's look at the theory of evolution. What is to stop a Professor, with a Ph.D. in Theology, from claiming that evolution is a myth and not to be regarded, or worse, redirect the evolution article to some nonsense about intelligent design. Perhaps, the users of Wikipedia should be allowed to rate users and visibly see those ratings when reading an article written by that person?
Who actually listens to someone without double-checking their credentials? Least of all on a Wikipedia discussion page. Anytime someone purports to be an academic authority I Google them and check their publication list. People just need to get in the habit of not trusting anything they read (anywhere). It's basic internet instinct.
The problem has often been self appointed experts with an agenda.
Republican experts on Democrat misbehaviors, Democrat experts on Republican Misbehavior. You could wind up with a conservative encyclopedia for all this is worth. For an example of this, check out Conservapedia. If this was taken as an encyclopedia of the viewpoints of conservatives as written by conservatives, this would be fine. To take it as an objective viewpoint of the world is not practical. Somebody should stop the madness before we're bombarded with Liberalpedia, Commupedia, Liberteripedia, Anarchipedia and Socialpedia.
Sadly some articles are written only by these self appointed experts. You can see this in the constant use of the phrase "critics say" or something similar. If you are reporting the viewpoint, even if controversial, you can present the viewpoint accurately without sniping. But with hordes of self appointed experts, this usually doesn't happen
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
This seems like a good time to point out the first study of Wikiproject Vandalism studies which was recently completed. It analyzed 100 random articles' total 668 edits during the months of November 2004, 2005, and 2006. The salient findings suggest that in a given month approximately 5% of edits are vandalism and 97% of that vandalism is done by anonymous editors.
Basically vandalism happens, and it leads to snafu's like this. However, it seems to happen a very small portion of the time. Sensationalist media thrown in the mix makes this story seem bigger than its britches.
Please allow me to hate the creator of the 120-character limit: *HATES*. Thank you.
Wikipedia's problem is their regular practice of censorship. When Wiki censors websites like "What Really Happened" and books like "America Deceived" America Deceived (sample chps), they are following the US gov't lead (arresting protesters) and the European lead (Ernst Zundel). Free Speech forever (even on Wiki).
Personal responsibility? What about systemic responsibility? People do not exist in isolation. Their hopes and dreams, their notions of what is probable and what their place in society are all shaped by their society.
Or for that matter, what about the personal responsibility of the rich themselves? Why is it okay for them to use money and power to keep the poor poor and them rich? The poor aren't all poor because of bad choices. It is the height of arrogance to think so. Face facts: not everyone can be rich. Not everyone can be a leader. Not everyone can make money off of the hard work of others, because who then would be doing the hard work.
Good point about revolutions, though. That is the failed ideology, not communism or socialism. The first hasn't been tried, precisely because revolutions don't work. Yes, I was just trolling with that line about the police and army, I don't really think that is the answer. The second is alive and well and working quite nicely for a number of first world nations.
As for what would work? I'm not the naive ideologue you seem to think. In fact, I have given it a lot of thought. Collectivist systems such as the Mondragon Collective in Spain have proven themselves more effective than pure capitalism. Look at the number of startup failures they have. Compared to us, they have far fewer new business failures because the whole society is set up to encourage people to form new collectives, and the society provides all the business, employement, and financial services necessary to ensure success, all in the form of collectives as well.
People are no less motivated just because they have an income and wealth cap in Mondragon.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you really do want a better world, but I often find that people advocating the loudest for "personal responsibility" are the ones most vested in keeping their unfair privilege and the ones least likely to accept any form of personal responsibility that is not thrust on them by force.
One of the primary perks of being in the dominant class is that you never have to question your assumptions. You assume that hard work will always succeed because that it has for you. Others who are not in the dominant class are less likely to accept such myths because, as much as they would like them to be true, they have seen them fail in their own lives.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
With verification, the Encyclopedia becomes... hey we have one of those already, it's called Brittanica, why bother.
technical writing / development
Many are making the assumption that only people with pieces of paper can be experts. It also looks to me like people are assuming that all countries' university systems are set up the same, so there is one universal way to validate people with pieces of paper. Another thing, the only thing that piece of paper qualifies the person as an expert on is the limited subject printed on the paper (and it doesn't say anything about whether they are current in that field). It also doesn't mean they might not be experts in other areas, but in those cases will they be held in the same light as the rest of the unwashed illiteratti. And if or if not so, why?
And then there is the next step of validating whether the institution meets the required level of academic eliteness (I know this is inflammatory, but academicia is rife with elitism). What will happen when an American or Canadian engineer or doctor 'expert' is vetting an application to give a Kenyan engineer or doctor 'expert' status? Many of the first world 'professionals' won't allow professionals from other countries to practise their trade when if they immigrate into [substitute first world country name here]. Why would it be any better on Wikipedia. Would people with 'first world' degrees generally be held above others? Can you say disenfranchisement of whole regions?
What really bothers me are the thousands of articles on items that should be covered but aren't in many publications. This is because there aren't any so called academic 'experts' in these areas. For example, we generally know that St. Louis has a strong musical history of blues music that helped shape the genre. But there are not a lot of university educated experts on obscure St. Louis blues musicians who genuinely shaped the sound in the city (which shaped the sound in the region, which...). It is important not to lose the ability to ensure that these types of articles don't get lost or never created. And this will happen if people who really are experts in the smaller areas have to wait for non-experts (with their degree in some other field as their authority) to vet the article
Finally, what kind of piece of paper qualifies you as an expert. Does a PhD with passing experience in a field over-ride a BSc who works in the field more often? What about the guy with a college diploma who is quite intelligent and works in that field extensively, with deep insight into it? What about the self trained person who might know more than all the other three combined? That is the beauty of Wikipedia, that all are included. The proposal might be rather naive or maybe it is just admitting that the Wikipedia concept doesn't work, but if accepted, I think the point of Wikipedia is lost.
I think further thought on this is needed. And I am very thankful I'm not the one making the decision.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
"And absolutist thinking occurs most frequently in the minds of the mentally deficient."
Funny, I thought they (the deficient) went around constructing straw-man arguments...
FYI, Truth by definition is black and white, there is no "close".
One point of Wikipedia--or any encyclopedia, really--is to include only information for which there are reputable sources. Books, articles, documentaries, and so on. As a result, facts can be checked by anyone willing to put in the effort to gain access to the sources.
An encyclopedia is not good because some reputable person wrote about his or her field of expertise. It's only a natural and obvious correlation that experts know their subject well. And, as has been pointed out, make errors there as well. Sticking to sources has the side effect that no original research is being done, which in this context is a good thing.
Unfortunately, Wikipedia articles contain few references. If we'd remove everything that is not directly attributed to a source, I guess over 99 percent would be gone.
That's what you think. Apparently there are bunch willing to do it without rewards.
Let me dumb it down for you: The dude wasn't talking to you.
I hate all these people thinking that acuracy is a problem with wikipedia. They think this because they want it to be a "scholarly", "academic" work that is valuable to those types. Well guess what people the things they hold value in as far as credibility goes are exactly the things the wikipedia does away with. The two ideas are diametrically opposed to each other, and can not be reconciled.
Wikipedia is fantastic, it is wonderful, and occassionally I find an error or a typo, you know what I do? Unlike Sinbad or some antiquated journalist I fix the problem and save the page. This serves two functions, first I get to improve wikipedia, and second I am gently reminded to remember the error next time I am reading an article I know nothing about and can't verify.
I simply don't see the problem with wikipedia at all. I think it is fantastic in many ways, sure some articles have to be locked to edits occassionally, but I don't recall the mission statement being to make a 100% academically credible source for lazy students. The real funny part about this is that even though it can never meet those standards it turns out to be equal to or better than other sources that do in aquaracy many times.
That's what we need to clean up WHOIS information for domain registration.
"Or for that matter, what about the personal responsibility of the rich themselves? Why is it okay for them to use money and power to keep the poor poor and them rich? The poor aren't all poor because of bad choices. It is the height of arrogance to think so. Face facts: not everyone can be rich. Not everyone can be a leader. Not everyone can make money off of the hard work of others, because who then would be doing the hard work."
Nothing is guaranteed in life. I KNOW everyone can't be rich. My question is whats wrong with that? First of all you continue with the assumption that the rich are doing something to keep the poor poor. If you give 10 random people who you grabbed off the street $10 million dollars and checked back on them in 10 years each person would have a different result. Some would still have $10 million, some more and others less. There's nothing you can do to change that. As long as I am not bringing you harm then I am not responsible for you or for anyone else.
"As for what would work? I'm not the naive ideologue you seem to think. In fact, I have given it a lot of thought. Collectivist systems such as the Mondragon Collective in Spain have proven themselves more effective than pure capitalism. Look at the number of startup failures they have. Compared to us, they have far fewer new business failures because the whole society is set up to encourage people to form new collectives, and the society provides all the business, employement, and financial services necessary to ensure success, all in the form of collectives as well.
People are no less motivated just because they have an income and wealth cap in Mondragon."
Welp from what I can see here on Wikipedia.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondrag%C3%B3n_Cooper ative_Corporation It doesn't look like things are ending up all that well for Mondragon. Things may have started off well but the system doesn't seem to scale very well. Now that its the 7th largest corporation in Spain, and the largest in the Basque region, it appears the distance between the leaders at the top and the workers on the bottom has gotten to large causing resentment. There's also allegations work has been outsourced to Latin America secretly. Also less than half of the 70,000 workers are full members of the Collective. Here's some juciy tidbits: 'Trade unions have complained of anti-unionizing policies in Eroski. Some have accused Mondragón of using the co-operative ideals as a marketing figleaf.
The distance between the most senior levels of management and individual managers has also caused concern. There is less feeling amongst the members or socios that they run the company. Measures to prevent too great a gap between manager and worker payscales have been relaxed to better compete for high-level professionals, leading to greater tensions. In recent years, some co-operatives have withdrawn from MCC to try and reinstate a more personal management of each company by its workers.'
Sounds like a GREAT plan. Not. You see, all of these "alternatives to capitalism" seem to work best on the drawing board where they don't have to compete with capitalism itself. You can see from your own example that having to compete with other companies for executive talent requires them to management more money which in turn alienates the rank and file socialists on the shop floor. Thats an inbuilt hard limit to how big any collective can become.
"I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you really do want a better world, but I often find that people advocating the loudest for "personal responsibility" are the ones most vested in keeping their unfair privilege and the ones least likely to accept any form of personal responsibility that is not thrust on them by force.
One of the primary perks of being in the dominant class is that you never have to question your assumptions. You assume that hard work will always succeed because
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
I think wikipedia, and to some extent the web in general, have gone a long way to forcing us to learn that you can't trust a single source.
So much time is spent viewing education as this omniscient provider of Truth - you trust encyclopedia Brittanica, the NY Times, your textbook - most people rarely challenge this idea, yet anyone here knows that any popular press article on their subject of study is always oversimplified and usually wrong. Most teachers will require that you have a backup source and strong verification for any web source - but will accept a single source from a nonfiction book by joe nobody any day. I remember several assignments where I was required to have 5 sources if I used web sources and only 2 or 3 if they were print.
Wikipedia is, even with errors, still an amazing starting point in your research - it tells you what the subject matter is, and what terms you should be looking for. Knowing that any of the facts in it may or may not be true just encourages better outside research.
The fundamental premise on which Wikipedia operates is simply that there is no such thing as 'expertise' or cultural importance differentials in the world, and what really matters is viewpoints.
Previous posters are correct - there is no PhD in (to quote) Happy Days-ology. To some people, a thorough examination on the pantheon of Pokemon is just as valuable as, if not more than, the accuracy of any reports of anyone's death, be it Sinbad's or Ken Lay's. For anyone to say differently invokes flamewar. Validity of a topic is apparently a highly subjective characteristic, and that's fine.
But if that means no favoritism, if that means that each and every topic in Wikipedia is of equal 'importance', it means that Wiki users must be willing to accept that because there aren't experts in every field, maybe it means that they can't expect experts for every topic. Since there can't be experts for every topic, it's displaying an unfair bias to have experts on any topic. Therefore, everyone and anyone can post anything they like on any topic, regardless of experience, education, or current medication. And it opens up Wikipedia, and its users and editors, to what has been described
Professors on campuses across the US are beginning to ban references to Wiki entries in any papers, simply because of the inherent instability (not necessarily inaccuracies) of the site.
I concede the wide number of reports regarding Wikipedia's relative accuracy vs. standard sources (encyclopedias, so on) but I have two counters. One, the accuracy of any given Wiki article is subject to a significantly greater fluctuation than any printed book; just because it was right yesterday doesn't mean it is today. Two, the "errors per unit" also included entries on topics not included in standard reference sources (the TV shows, cartoons, and so on) and therefore, statistically speaking, the more academic sources' errors have a greater impact on the error rate.
Ultimately, the accuracy of Wikipedia, or any other potential reference, is only as accurate and trustworthy as its contributors. Only if the contributors are known and credentialed can a source proclaim itself as trustworth, but such a process would violate the "democracy of truthiness" proposed and promoted by a Wiki culture.
If I want to know about physics, I go ask a physicist. If I want to know about music, I go ask a musician. Yes, it means checking with different sources (there's no such thing as true one-stop shopping!) but it also means that if what I'm doing matters I can feel much better about the conclusions I draw from the information.
Thick skin is a good trait to have on /. You may not have seen it on that Mondragon page, but do you know what the workers are complaining about? The move from a 10x cap to a 50x cap. The richest in that society can't make more than 50 times what the poorest make. Now that, I can live with. Heck, I can go up to 100x. That was coincidentally, the cap in ancient Athens during the birth of democracy. Nobody is worth millions of times what someone else is worth, and no one has the right to say they are and force the rest of us to buy into it.
Given that human history is full of examples of people using money and power to keep themselves in money and power while keeping others out, I'd say the burden of proof is on you to show why that DOESN'T happen in a capitalist society. I assume you are familiar with the notion of feedback loops? Wealth is a positive feedback loop, it creates more opportunities for the accumulation of wealth. Poverty is a negative feedback loop, it makes it easier for others to take advantage of you and take your wealth because you have fewer options. These are systemic faults in the system.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Or for that matter, what about the personal responsibility of the rich themselves? Why is it okay for them to use money and power to keep the poor poor and them rich?
I have to say, I'm sick and tired of this argument. Of what use is it for a "rich" person to intentionally work to keep a "poor" person poor? Other than the odd sociopath who does it merely to inflict pain and suffering (the likes of which is not limited to any particular economic class; it's only the means with which to inflict pain that differs), there is no sense in this argument.
In fact, if you assume that most rich people earn (or get) their money through running a successful business, then it most certainly is not in their best interest to "keep the poor poor"[1]. They need someone to buy the stuff they are selling. Also, there is typically a certain ego involved that is stroked by running a company that employs more people than the competition. That tends to provide a way for the motivated poor to earn a living and potentially work their way up.
Are these "poor" going to become "rich" this way? Statistically it's unlikely, but any step up in economic status provides that much more opportunity (and comfort as far as standard of living). And yes, I'm aware that companies pay as little as they can to employees, but that's market driven and not purely a decision made by executives.
On the flip side, it's just as ridiculous to make the blanket statement that "The poor remain poor because of their own choices". There are far too many factors and individual situations to lump all poor into the same "lazy" or "stupid" bucket. Just as there are those rich people who really did nothing to earn or deserve their money, there are those poor people who have through no fault of their own not had the opportunity to better themselves. This is not a black and white issue.
[1] This doesn't apply to drug dealers and such who benefit from keeping their clientele in misery.
I haven't finished the article, but I got to the section about verification and the following system poped out to me as an elegant solution.
So, you have 3 user levels: Unverified, Verified, and Credentialed.
All users start out as unverified. As unverified all edits made by these users are reviewed (by a verified or credentialed user). However, if a user wants to make edits in real time without oversight review they can immediately choose to go through the potentially lengthy process of getting verified. This would be the postcard approach as described in the article or whatever other system you like.
Finally, once Verified (or during the process of becoming verified) a user can choose to become Credentialed by going through whatever process is deemed sufficient to establish credentials.
Within Each level there are also sub-rankings. So an unverified user who has submitted 100 reviewed edits can be more trusted than a verified user who has only submitted 1. Thus there could even be a de facto verification process for unverified users after a certain point.
So for a fresh unverified user it would go as follows. All of the first 10 edits are reviewed. Then only every 3rd-5th edit (chosen randomly so vandals can't game it) from 10-50 edits is reviewed. From 50 say 1000, edits are only put up for review sporadically (every 100 or so). After 1000 non-contested edits an unverified user becomes a verified user. Also, verified/credentialed users in good standing can contest past edits made by a user, even those that were not reviewed. If these "black marks" add up then the user is banned. It's like Ebay, once you earn your ranking it has value so you don't throw it away.
Even Credentialed users can be peer reviewed by other credentialed and (with lesser effect) verified users, with like a white/grey/black mark system. That way some crackpot academic who signs off on every article under the sun, perhaps without ever reading it, can be singled out as untrustworthy, while a credentialed user who reviews a lot of articles and provides much feedback/corrections to the writers gets white marks for being diligent.
Finally, all users, no matter what, should be monitored for suspicious behavior. Making 100 edits in 10 minutes when your account has averaged only 1 a day for the past few months is suspicious, or making a few major edits of 1000+ words when your account averages only 10-50 word edits is suspicious. Any suspicious edits are held for review, even if it is a highly regarded credentialed user (after all their account could have been stolen).
Anyway... just my 2 cents.
Ah, they want to keep the poor that way because the poor have fewer choices and must accept poor wages and working conditions. Having more wealthy people wouldn't make the wealthier any more money. You can make plenty of money selling lots of cheap crap to the poor, heck, most of them have no cars so they have little choice in where they shop and have to take whatever you offer them.
Look at world history. I don't know about you, but I see a pattern of the rich and powerful trying to maintain and expand the power and money differential between themselves and the rest of us. It's kind of, you know, one of the major driving forces of history. How has any of that changed in our system?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Well argued. That was the most useful discussion on /. I've read for years.
Oooh, did I piss off the poor small minded conservative with the mod points again? Every time one of you inbred idiots mods me down like this, I have to laugh because I know that I pissed you off enough for you to risk losing your mod points in the meta-mod round.
I have more karma than I know what to do with. Modding me down doesn't do shit. You think people aren't going to read my posts because you mod them down? As if that's going to make these oh-so-dangerous ideas go away. You really want them to go away? Refute them. Modding down a post like this just shows what pansy ass cowards you are.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I think a better solution would be to implement a trust or karma system for users based on community input (similar to slashdot and other sites). People with higher karma would tend to provide more community pleasing answers, while people with lower karma would tend to produce content that is either contentious or incorrect. How it gets implemented is less important than the fact that the community has a better guideline to judge edits by.
Even a simple color coding of sentence stability would be something. For example, sentences modified in the last week are shaded dark yellow, less than two weeks yellow, and a month or less light yellow.
"Distrust" is a little harsh and unwarranted in a lot of cases. I get the majority of my news via the internet, and I have little reason to distrust the majority of articles I read. However, I think taking anything relayed over a blog or wiki "with a grain of salt" is a common theme. The bottom line is that some sites are more reliable than others, and when in doubt - doubt.
No. Here's a hint for you: there's a world outside the USA (in fact, 95% of the world's population live there), and universities there don't have .edu domains. You may find similar things in some countries (like .ac.uk in the UK), but since not every country uses generic 2nd level domains under the ccTLDs, that doesn't work most of the time, either.
But you're confusing things, anyhow: academic titles don't matter on Wikipedia. That's not to say that expert contributors are discouraged - quite the opposite! But you cannot appeal to authority; all information that goes into articles needs to cite reliable sources, so even if you're Stephen Hawking, you can't just say "trust me, I know more about this than you ever will" (even when that's actually true). And that is a feature, not a bug - think about it.
As for the rest of the article... sorry, I lost interest after this bombshell of naivity.
butter the donkey
Requiring an .edu address is arbitrary and stupid. Every freshman script kiddie has an .edu address, whereas experts actually working in their industry do not.
What I don't get is why wikipedia doesn't require even require a registration with a verified email address to edit an article! Most blog comments even require that (or at least a registration). Makes no sense.
I love Athens and ancient greece. I just saw 300. Great movie. This thread is madness. No THIS IS SLASHDOT!!!!!!!
I don't think its appropriate for society to dictate a cap on what anyone can make. I know no one is worth a million times what someone else is worth however the salary of that executive is a matter for the shareholders/owners of that company to consider and for them alone. Its not your company, its not my company, its not the workers company. Unless you are a majority shareholder its neither your place nor your business how much a CEO makes. In any case except for the few companies that are collectively owned, the owners are still making the lionshare of the profits. So this only applies to non-founding/owning management anyway.
Feedback loops do exist, even in present day America. Our founding fathers were worried about creating a new permanent aristocratic class which is why they did not allow a nobility or inherited titles. It turns out that those steps were enough. They shouldn't have worried. Thanks to both taxation (and I'm not just talking about the inheritance tax) and the generational differences in talent/skill very very FEW families manage to hold onto their wealth for more than 3 or 4 generations. As more and more generations come along its split more and more amongst an ever increasing number of children. First generation has 4 kids, next generation has 8, next has 16, next has 32, next has 64, so on and so on. In order for every member to maintain the level of wealth that the first started with each successive generation requires a relative with the same level of business acumen. That RARELY happens. It does happen occasionally, just not in any kind of a reliable fashion. You can count on the fact that whoever's family is rich today, probably won't be in 150 years.
I wish I could find the article that stated that most of the millionaires that exist in the US today are self made ones but I can't. But I can believe it. I work in real estate and I've dealt with customers who have through their own intelligence built great sums of wealth and others through their own stupidity lost great sums of wealth. As long as human stupidity remains a constant in our world and as long as we forbid inherited titles of nobility in this country than an entrenched aristocracy will NEVER be an issue here in the United States. (or most of the western world.)
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Why? When was the last time an article that mattered was hacked? Who cares that some loser changed the article on Sinbad, saying that he had died? It wasn't true and it got corrected. Really, who gets their breaking news from Wikipedia? Wikipedia is not a news site. It's an encyclopedia. I go to Wikipedia to read about Ada or Egypt or subatomic particles, things like that. One of the things I like best about Wikipedia is that if there is controversy on a subject, I'll know it. There are links that say "look at the discussion page for this article". A hard copy encyclopedia won't give you that. Because anyone can edit it, all sides on a subject must come together to hash out the basic truths of an issue and the points of controversy get aired. I certainly don't want some "authority" who may be a complete partisan asshole having final say on a topic.
I'd like to see some statistics about old money. Another poster made a similar point, but had no statistics. I went looking, but also couldn't find anything concrete that didn't have an obvious bias. On the flip side, I did find an article about some recent research that shows it takes, on average, eight generations for a poor family to become middle class.
Just from a common sense point of view, your statement makes no sense. You don't need business acumen to stay rich, when you are rich you can hire people with business acumen.
As for ownership and me not being able to say what someone else should be worth, why? It's all just a big game, and WE are the ones who make up the rules. We can change them any time we like. No, I'm not buying the "Natural Right To Any Wealth Level Whatsoever, No Matter The Consequences For The Rest Of The World" argument. See, the thing is, it requires initiation of force to maintain that level of inequality, which is against my moral beliefs.
If a group of people set up a system that unfairly rewards them, while excluding you from the rightful rewards of your work, would you let them tell you you can't change the system? I wouldn't. No one has a moral right to tell me what systems I must or must not work with. The wealthy got where they are without consideration of me, why should I give consideration to them?
In short, I think people have every right to place whatever limits they want on others, as long as no coercion is used. That only leaves open withdrawal of reward. So groups of people can say, if you want to do business with us, you must respect an income and ownership cap. And you must not do business with people who don't respect that cap. There are far more people who would be below any reasonable cap, and it would be in their best interests to agree to such a system. It is entirely fair, and there is nothing the small minority of wealthy people could do about it without resorting to force.
Unfortunately, the wealthy often resort to force. They may not know it, but much actual force and coercion is used in maintaining such inequalities in distribution of wealth. They are also the beneficiaries of much hidden socialism. Although much of what our government does benefits everyone, most of it benefits the rich more.
In short, the wealthy have an unfair advantage that is unrelated to excellence or diligence. Despite your anecdotes and wishful thinking to the contrary, the rich tend to not only stay rich but become more so. The middle class is shrinking, it's an incontrovertible fact and it has been going on more or less since the sixties. There is no moral reason for anyone to lay back and let themselves be raped. And people can stand up to power without using force if they will only organize around their own common self interest.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Most millionaires in the US didn't inherit it (~90% or so). How do you think the young Kennedys are doing compared to Grandpa Joe?
People who are born into wealth likely have a higher probabality of being wastrels. People born into poverty are likely to bust their hump harder. Wealth *can* be a positive feedback loop and poverty *can* be a negative, but they don't have to be. A few million illegal immigrants have figured out a way to start their way out of poverty.
You want systemic faults? Look at non-capitalist societies. How long has Castro had power?
The only thing Wikipedia NEEDS to copy form Citizendium is approved version. They've mentioned this for some time now and they've started doing a test run on the German version. Recently, a contractor was hired to implement some changes into MediaWiki to facilitate reviewing. Can't wait.
seriously, WP are as fucked up and contradictory as the bible, how can ever expect them to be adequately revised?
...when in fact there seems to be a straightforward solution.
Of course there are straightforward solutions! People have been putting forth sensible, rational, straightforward solutions to Wikipedia for years. But these proposals have been ignored by wikpedians refusing to believe that there are any significant problems.
This topic sounds suspiciously like the middle manager who refuses to hear your solutions to severe problems, and then when a new CEO is brought in because the company is tanking, submits your ideas as his own, and gets a nice promotion out of the deal.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Let the logged in users vouch for "I've read through this revision and it looks OK to me", along with a rating of "How expert" they are in the field in question, and a comment.
Ratings could be something like
5. I'm a generally recognized expert working the field
4. I work in the field
3. I've studied the field at university/college level
2. I'm a generally interested bystander, having done self-study of the field to some depth
1. I'm a generally interested bystander having tried to follow the field for a few years
Comments could be something like what sources you have checked against, or a deeper description of qualifications.
Ratings like these would allow us to do a lot of stuff. We could turn users that seem to do a good job of voting in their particular areas (and staying off voting in other areas) into an officially sanctioned editorial board retroactively, for instance - by just giving their ratings weight. Or we could let people look at "Last version of article vouched for by a 5-authority", or show the differences from that version, or whatever we feel like.
The important thing is to start collecting the data. And that can be done NOW, trivially.
Eivind.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
I routinely go to several newspapers and other news outlets websites, as I'm not comfortable with trusting a single source. Same thing for search engines, etc.
A Wikipedia clone that collects info on the same/similar topics, but differently? Great, by all means, please do!. I'm not totally convinced that Citizendium's accreditation/verification policies will result in generally better articles, but at the very least they'll be another (somewhat trustworthy) source.
This -- diversity, not accreditation etc -- does make the whole system more resilient to manipulation.
regarding the .edu domain trick: it looks brilliant, but may I remind you that there is a large chunk of the academic world that is outside the US, and thus does not rejoice in an .edu email address?
Estamos como estamos porquè somos como somos.
"Just from a common sense point of view, your statement makes no sense. You don't need business acumen to stay rich, when you are rich you can hire people with business acumen."
Common sense isn't that common. Its not anymore common to the children of the rich than it is to anyone else's children. You'd think it would be as simple as hiring a financial advisor for most families but its not. If the kids fire the advisor their parents hired before they died then what else can be done to save the family fortune? A kid who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth is far less likely to realize the true value of a dollar and of hard work than his first generation parent did. I went to rich private schools (on scholarship) and I can tell you that many of those kids are pissing through their fortunes right now that they're adults.
"Unfortunately, the wealthy often resort to force. They may not know it, but much actual force and coercion is used in maintaining such inequalities in distribution of wealth. They are also the beneficiaries of much hidden socialism. Although much of what our government does benefits everyone, most of it benefits the rich more." What initiation of force? Seriously. When have the rich organized gangs to break into people's homes and steal the money under their mattresses?
"In short, I think people have every right to place whatever limits they want on others, as long as no coercion is used. That only leaves open withdrawal of reward. So groups of people can say, if you want to do business with us, you must respect an income and ownership cap. And you must not do business with people who don't respect that cap. There are far more people who would be below any reasonable cap, and it would be in their best interests to agree to such a system. It is entirely fair, and there is nothing the small minority of wealthy people could do about it without resorting to force."
What coercion? Please provide examples so I can know what you're talking about here. If someone is a moron and is too stupid to realize they're getting screwed in a specific deal then I don't harbor much sympathy for them. But in most transactions they simply don't work unless BOTH parties are enhanced by the transaction. For example, if I want a car I pay for the car. The dealer gets my money, I get the dealer's car. We both benefit from the transaction. Where's the coercion or force there? You are assuming that things are the way they are due to the application of force because you cannot accept the possibility that most folks are satisifed with our economy the way it is. No one would tell you its perfect but most folks are able to look at other places on the planet and compare themselves and no I'm not talking about just with Africa or other third world nations. There are plenty of Americans, you know like almost the entire collective group called Republicans who represent half our citizens, who detest the idea of higher taxes or increased social programs. These Republicans are not all rich either. Most of them are "Sams Club Republicans" and not "Coutnry Club Republicans" so they would benefit in your planned "take back the power and wealth" scenario....the only problem for you is they want absolutely no part in it. So where's the force there? Has the Republican party hired jack booted thugs to hold regular republicans at gunpoint and force them to vote against their own best interests?
As for the middle class, I'm well aware that it is shrinking. I'm not sure it was ever supposed to stay as large as it had for so long. The concept of a middle class is very much an anomaly. After the GI's returned from war during WWII there was a baby boom and job boom fueled by the GI bill and the rise of our post-war consumer economy. But that boom didn't last forever. For the overwhelming marjority of human history the largest class of human beings actual numbers wise has always been the abject poor, NOT the middle class. Its very possible we'll return to that. Of course it pays to keep in mind that there's "poor" and
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
I'm not a student of history, so I can't support my position with a deep knowledge thereof. However, I think it's a fallacious leap to assume that a significant portion of the wealthy actively try to keep the poor poor. It seems logical that many or most wealthy attempt or at least desire to be even more wealthy, but that isn't the same as saying they want the poor to remain poor (or even get poorer).
/.). Is it in his best interest to expand the ranks of the poor? I don't think so. The more people who can afford PCs, Office, and other MS software, the better off he is. Likewise for many companies. Note that I didn't say before that the wealthy want more wealthy, just that it doesn't make sense for them to want the poor to remain poor.
You are assigning a level of directed malice to the wealthy that I just don't see making any sense. Take Bill Gates as an example (yeah, yeah, a favorite of
Just to point out, a positive feedback loop is one where the trend is amplified, a negative feedback loop is one where the trend is countered. So poverty is a positive feedback loop as well, taking the lack of money and amplifying it. Negative feedback loops, like a spring, will seek a particular position and hold it.
To put it another way, a positive feedback loop is unstable, going away from a particular point in either direction, and a negative feedback loop is stable, seeking towards one from either direction.