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Comment by skhr0680 | Hacker News Reader

> 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.

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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

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