Reading between the lines, this appears to be someone who has tried to alter Wikipedia to support fringe scientists & alt-medicine gurus like Rupert Sheldrake and Deepak Chopra. So I all a bit skeptical of his motives.
I saw that too, mixed in with likely legit criticism of the possibility of editors abusing their power in the community and possibly too much orthodoxy squashing less popular views, is the fact that they want there to be more prominence for ideas that don't hold up to scientific scrutiny - and worse, can create confusion among lay people about what constitutes a valid scientific theory.
I wrote a blog post about the guy behind this website. He claims to be some sort of expert who tried to "study" editor interactions on Wikipedia. He's actually a social media & SEO marketing guy in California who likes to troll skeptics and science people online in his spare time. I analyzed the editing history of the articles involved in this blog post, and show that he is not in any way serious in his interactions on Wikipedia. https://skeptools.wordpress.com/2014/04/16/nothere-wikipedia...
Where do you see any evidence of the author trying to alter Wikipedia to promote fringe science?
You list RationalWiki as the "other side of the story", yet did you note that article was written by the same editors he encountered on Wikipedia?
If you spend more time on the site, you will see that the case study involved intentional patience and only focused on non controversial biographical information.
You appear to suggest that the context of the biographies the author was editing on means he was promoting or editing false or misleading information, and therefore perhaps deserved the treatment.
Wikipedia is fine if you look up something less controversial like proton decay, but as soon as article has multiple points of view, there is a fight to establish the 'dominant narrative'.
Articles that have any arbitration measures applied or in semi-protection shouldn't be trusted: if there are huge talk page archives its also a sign the topic has multiple points of view which Wikipedia can't express.
Neutral point of view(Wiki policy) with controversial topics often leads to one-sided articles where the side which 'won the article' controls completely the content, which is massaged to fit the NPOV policy without adding anything from opponents.
This is a problem for sure, but consider the alternative. We could include all viewpoints. This means we put "the universe originated with a big bang and humans evolved from apes" next to "an invisible being created the world and humans 8000 years ago", "AIDS is caused by HIV" next to "AIDS is caused by vaccines and can be cured by ear candling", "the Holocaust killed 10 million plus people" next to "the Holocaust is a Jewish conspiracy to gain sympathy so they can take over the banking system". It's true that for some topics, including only the dominant view glosses over substantial evidence, but we can't ignore the fact that dominant viewpoints are often dominant because the non-dominant viewpoints have no basis in reality.
While Wikipedia is certainly not any more objective as a collective than any individual alone. It surely is tough to deal with confrontation and rejection emotional support. It's frustrating to eb the one who is wrong or being wronged. But it is most of all frustrating to be absolutely ignorant and Wikipedia is a great resource at providing educative insights, even if the editing process is severely laborious and the needed quality not always obvious or easily provided.
The issue is agenda based editing. While it is natural that people will disagree on context, that is not the problem, the problem is when you have agenda based editors who guard articles and suppress other viewpoints from any editing at all. That is what is happening on Wikipedia
> Jimbo Wales, in touting the value of overcoming fake news with his new WikiTribune, is without realizing it admitting to the utter corruption of the Wikipedia model.
The author makes this assertion and then quickly moves on. I don't follow it. Can anybody clarify how WikiTribune relates to the author's complaints of Wikipedia?
Sure, WikiTribune uses a soft wiki model in a way that insures reliable reporting. This requires a responsible paid staff while still keeping the collaboration of the outside community in tact.
[+] [-] zenkat|8 years ago|reply
Does anyone know the other side of the story?
[+] [-] mangecoeur|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] krelnik42|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hoofish|8 years ago|reply
You list RationalWiki as the "other side of the story", yet did you note that article was written by the same editors he encountered on Wikipedia?
If you spend more time on the site, you will see that the case study involved intentional patience and only focused on non controversial biographical information.
You appear to suggest that the context of the biographies the author was editing on means he was promoting or editing false or misleading information, and therefore perhaps deserved the treatment.
[+] [-] zenkat|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FrozenVoid|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kerkeslager|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] H4CK3RM4N|8 years ago|reply
I think blocking wikipediawehaveaproblem.com as a source is ok, but banning it from Jimmy's talk page is an entirely different kettle of fish.
[+] [-] hoofish|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] powera|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CDRdude|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonas123|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] posterboy|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hoofish|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] luhn|8 years ago|reply
The author makes this assertion and then quickly moves on. I don't follow it. Can anybody clarify how WikiTribune relates to the author's complaints of Wikipedia?
[+] [-] hoofish|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] edoceo|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hoofish|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] babuskov|8 years ago|reply
Mirror anyone?