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Comment by jampekka | Hacker News Reader

> Wikipedia looks like a fantastic resource, but it's not really a reliable source of information.

It's about as reliable it gets. It cites sources, has whole history available, has little conflicts of interest and has transparent editorial guidelines and process.

Many people are probably shocked to find views in WP that aren't aligned with what their newsmedia reports and frames.

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Totally agree.

The key point, which perfectionists miss or more likely just don't agree with, is about being less wrong. WP is time and again show to be less wrong than supposedly trusted or more formal resources.

When it started many people would look to the Encyclopedia Britannica as more reliable yet research showed that on average it contained more errors and that's with the occasional inexperienced/ rogue editor on the WP side.

EDIT: fixed my own typo! (relatable -> reliable)

Wikipedia is often wrong once you stray from mainstream topics. Subspecialties often have 1-2 super-contributors, whose blind spots and misunderstandings become part of Wikipedia. Plenty of articles also have no actual citations of their technical content.

And some of the actual citations are to easily hyperlinked pop science articles and opinion pieces, sometimes actually replacing more accurate unsourced material...

Nobody says Wikipedia is perfect. The fact that you can point out that certain content are wrong proves what the GP said — “[It] has whole history available, has little conflicts of interest and has transparent editorial guidelines and process.”

It’s also worth pointing out that it could be you who has blind spots, not the contributors. And if you’re certain they are wrong you can always try to correct them, or create a competing topic?

> Wikipedia is often wrong once you stray from mainstream topics.

So it’s a good source for topics with the largest audience. That alone shows how beneficial it can be. At the very least, it’s a good starting point for further research.

> And if you’re certain they are wrong you can always try to correct them, or create a competing topic?

I’ve tried that before, and it’s often not worth the time. The lord of the article is often an expert Wikipedia Editor and rules lawyer with endless time to argue and revert even when they have no expert or even basic knowledge about the subject.

In order to maintain some semblance of process, Wikipedia has to approximate what is true by relying on the consensus from reputable sources, not reality itself. This means that experts are often not who you want editing an article, because experts are often poorly positioned to know what the general public knows, and what consensus is from outside their area of expertise. E.g., I have published research that contradicts information on Wikipedia, and while I am of course convinced I and my co-authors are right while Wikipedia is wrong, I would much rather have that state of affairs than a world where Wikipedia is written by everyone with a paper on a subject, and the line is drawn at whoever was the most recent editor.

That's the propaganda Wikipedia wants you to think, citing itself.

In practice, it doesn't work. The bias and delusional behavior of the editors is infectious, widespread, and has even been criticized by Wikipedia's own co-founder Larry Sanger as being overrun by "left-wing propaganda essays." He even went as far as to call it the "most biased encyclopedia in history" in an interview with Glenn Greenwald. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR6dO8U8okk)

Frankly, it does seem (following stereotypes) that left-wing people have a stronger tendency to be writers from being white-collar; while more right-wing folks are too busy with blue-collar jobs and physical labor to be writing rebuttals. A very simple example is how Wikipedia approves Vox, Slate, The Nation, Mother Jones, Jezebel, The Atlantic, Gizmodo, and Jacobin as sources, but Fox News is considered "unreliable." Permitting Jacobin and Jezebel, but not Fox, is delusional. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Per...)

Every source you list as "approved" either isn't listed as perennial at all (which makes me wonder, how did it end up on your list?), or has explicit carve-outs saying that statements need to be attributed due to bias. Meanwhile, Fox has had thorough discussion showing that there are substantial problems with their factual reporting on politics and science, that using them as attributed opinion sources is still fine, and that non-politics or science reporting should be examined critically but can be used. Particularly given the documents now publicly available on their handling of election coverage pretty clearly demonstrating an intentional distinction between what they think is true behind closed doors vs. reporting presented as reality (a distinction they ultimately had to admit in court), what grounds is there to dispute this policy?

Maybe you could clarify your concern by pointing to something where the public consensus from reputable sources is distinct from what Wikipedia presents, by matter of policy?

I am not going to value the other sources, as I don't know some of them, but considering Fox News "unreliable" is even tame. You are better informed if you simply not watch news at all:

https://web.archive.org/web/20241001193736/https://www.busin...

> experts are often not who you want editing an article, because experts are often poorly positioned to know what the general public knows, and what consensus is from outside their area of expertise.

I would argue the opposite, since consensus from reputable sources is not the same as consensus of the general public, and unless it's a subject of study in multiple fields, the consensus in their field is their area of expertise.

Academic scholarship is generally preferred over lay sources, though there are caveats and individual instances of primary research are rarely considered indicative of consensus (usually review articles and other secondary sources are significantly preferred). However, if you do disagree with any information on Wikipedia, even if it's based on only your own primary research, I would strongly encourage you to at least tag the statements with a {{dubious}} or {{disputed inline}}[1] tag so that it can be discussed, or make an edit request[2] if you're not comfortable making the change yourself.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Disputed_inline [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Edit_requests

> It’s also worth pointing out that it could be you who has blind spots, not the contributors. And if you’re certain they are wrong you can always try to correct them, or create a competing topic?

No, it's not me who has the blind spots in the cases I have seen, sorry. Also, they are not worth the work to correct, since the overlord of the niche is usually someone with far too much time on their hands to argue, even when presented with incontrovertible proof. They also often have "Wikipedia editing" as a hobby, and know all the nitpicking rules of the site that they will use against you if you encroach on their domain. And yes, I tried this once for an obvious error in a math article (with no citation in the original article, mind you).

> So it’s a good source for topics with the largest audience.

Also not for topics of any political bent, but sure, if your target audience is at a high school level or below and you can separate out the facts from the editorialization, it's not bad.

At this point, I want Encyclopedia Britannica back. I would take it any day of the week over Wikipedia. The golden age of Wikipedia, when that was reversed, seems to be over.

Britannica still exists. You can find it at https://www.britannica.com/

Name and shame the specific articles and the specific data - I don't like it when people cast vague aspersions - it makes it difficult to refute or to corroborate rendering further discussion effectively meaningless.

Tangentially, I use Wikipedia strictly for topics of a scientific nature and usually find that it's relatively accurate.

You, and everyone else, are welcome to flag or fix every single one of these that are found.

Or just go somewhere else for our information. That seems easier.

I'm honestly more concerned with how Wikipedia handles mainstream topics - i.e. the ones its editors are likely to have strong opinions about. Misunderstandings can be corrected with time, dogma on the other hand actively fights any correction.

I would change that wording to say that: it's mostly reliable, but not perfect and not as objective as it purports to be.

I’ll take Britannica any day.

I would take almost ANY real encyclopaedia, any day, for very general topics. For specifics, I would go to specific literature, or just google it to find sources myself. Often what I search is either wrong, or for example math or physics things are written in a sooo complex form, that I just cannot do anything with it.

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