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See Who Is Whitewashing Wikipedia
Decius6i5 writes "Caltech grad student Virgil Griffith has launched a search tool that uncovers whitewashing and other self-interested editing of Wikipedia. Users can generate lists of every edit to Wikipedia which has been made from a particular IP address range. The tool has already uncovered a number of interesting edits, such as one from the corporate offices of Diebold which removed large sections of content critical of their electronic voting machines. A Wired story provides more detail and Threat Level is running a contest to see who can come up with the most interesting Wikipedia spin job."
Mediawiki has already added the capability to look at the Special:Contributions for an IP range. I'm not sure if it's been enabled yet on EN.
All content contains a bias. Knowing that is a good starting point for interpreting the content. This project is fine, as far as it goes. But implying (as you seem to) that somehow Wikipedia wonks are more trustworthy and less biased than other editors is, well, silly.
I don't buy that. I can say "the Chinese government killed student protesters at Tiananmen Square in 1989." There is no bias in that statement, its just a fact. Much of Wikipedia conforms to listing of dry facts, and areas that are speculating typically say its speculation, or section or entire articles are marked as "neutrality disputed" or unverified, etc.
The only reason we can see spin being added or taken away is exactly because the whole editing process is open, and we can all see how minor (or major) tweaks change the tone of an article from dry fact to spin.
have you checked out there Factbook?
It's arguably one of the best country resources for years, alas with an US slant (i.e. illicit drugs are very mymy in just about every country).
Nevertheless, it would be a shame if such a resource was to be pulled for "security reasons").
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Whose "objective, external reality" are you referring to? Our wonderfully objective media? All of the oh-so objective Slashdotters?
There is no such thing as an "objective, external reality". All things viewed and/or reported by a human being are subjective.
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote."
then do a tracrt to the IP addresses found. Add and subtract one, and see if it tracert's to approximately the same place. You may be able to get a good idea that way of the names and locations with reverse DNS being returned on the tracert. You should be able to compile a good guess at the range(s) that way. Then use the article in question to see if you can find any correlation.
Sure, but so are scandal sheets. You don't rely on them for accuracy or reliable information.
Not a brilliant comparison, since Wikipedia, by and large, is in fact useful for a large number of knowledge domains.
What if this example, Wikipedia, has a particularly deleterious organizational culture, and an extremely rampant and calcified editorial bias? The problem is not the existence of an organizational culture or editorial bias, but to the degree that it is existent.
I'm skeptical because the results I see don't suggest this is a crippling problem. I'm familiar with some of the problematic stories about the organization, but the bottom line is that nearly everything I've been in a position to verify has turned out to be defensbile at worst, and usually factual or accurate.
Tweet, tweet.
For those who are interested, the author of the above comment (MSTCrow5429) has been blocked several times on Wikipedia for making personal attacks on other editors.
His current project appears to be shilling for Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma)'s position denying anthropogenic climate change by citing out-of-date and rejected journal articles. By so doing, he appears to be neglecting important Wikipedia policies demanding reliable sources and requiring material be presented from a neutral point of view.
Sour grapes much? While I certainly agree that there are aspects of Wikipedia that deserve both criticism and scrutiny, I am somewhat disinclined to trust the judgement of MSTCrow on this.
~Idarubicin