Inaccuracy: Are Journalists Missing the Big Picture?
Casual readers of The Wikipedia Review, in combing through its thousands of topics, are often surprised to find relatively little material about what many reporters, bloggers, and other commentators usually perceive to be Wikipedia’s biggest problem: namely, the many inaccuracies, and occasionally outright falsehoods, that are sometimes found in various Wikipedia articles.
There are several reasons for this. Among our members there are those who support Wikipedia, and those who oppose it. The supporters don’t particularly want to draw attention to inaccuracies, and would rather simply fix them - but the opposers don’t always want to draw attention to them either, because then the inaccuracies would be fixed by others, and it’s always more interesting to see how long the problem lasts than it is to point it out. Moreoever, the mainstream media already does a fairly decent job of finding mistakes, or more likely being informed of mistakes, and reporting on them. Last but not least, inaccuracy stories are really not all that interesting after you’ve read several dozen of them, all making the same points about Wikipedians’ lack of expertise, lack of editorial oversight, and lack of any number of other things.
Wikipedians, of course, have a set definition of what constitutes “responsible criticism”: Responsible criticism is anything that focuses on isolated incidents of inaccuracy, or perhaps certain types of bias, without trying to delve too deeply into the question of why any given inaccuracy or bias-related incident occurred.
By their reasoning, most problems with articles should properly be blamed on “vandals,” whose work is usually “reverted” within a short period of time, sometimes in less than a minute. And they’re doing things to help correct the more subtle inaccuracies too, in the form of increasingly rigid sourcing and citation policies, so-called “fact-tagging,” formal content-dispute mediation processes, and so on.
These are all good things, to be sure, and to be fair, most Wikipedians are conscientious, well-meaning people who just want to make their website as nice and shiny as they can. But the key point here is that all of these problems can be solved by growth in users, increased participation, and increased editorial and administrative control. Here at Wikipedia Review, we prefer to focus on irresponsible criticism, which to a diehard Wikipedian often means the mere mention of anything that can’t be solved except by changing the rules, changing the software, and above all, changing the people who are running - and in some cases, ruining - the show.
Among the more important problems Wikipedia hasn’t really been able to solve:
- Administrator burnout and attrition
- Multiple-account use (and abuse)
- Incomprehensible priorities in development of new software features
- Lack of accountability due to systemic anonymity
- Plagiarism and misappropriation of images
- Misuse of administrative tools and privileges
- The endless, agonizing “inclusionist” vs. “deletionist” debate
- “Gaming the system” by skilled, clever manipulators
- User expert-credential fraud
The list goes on, but you get the picture. What happens when the labor supply runs out? Or the money to run the servers? Where does the money come from? Who’s responsible if someone gets seriously libeled? Who’s getting enriched by Wikipedia, and who’s getting impoverished by it?
None of this has much to do with the fact that for several weeks, an article about some little town in Canada had it being the drug capital of the world, full of drunks, or smelling like a “giant pit of rat dung.”
Someday, probably someday very soon, intrepid journalists will start asking some of those questions. Until then, there’s always Wikipedia Review, eh?
Actually, many of my first posts to WR were to point out enormous inaccuracies in some articles, that Wikipedia refused to fix. These weren’t “vandalism”-related, but rather they were significant attempts to change truth. Wikipedia of course denies this charge, and claims that they are using verifiable information from “reputable sources”.
The one example that I used was Port Arthur massacre, which, from 1996 (when it happened) until 2002 when Wikipedia first had a stub article on it, had 95% of all Google searches completely disagreed with Wikipedia’s article.
However, this changed over time, until Wikipedia had a half-decent quality article on it (largely thanks to pressure from me), which still disagreed with over 95% of resources out there, in 2005.
But then Wikipedia has mirrors, such as answers.com et al, and then kids use Wikipedia or its mirrors as sources, so that now, in mid-2007, over half of all hits that you get in google roughly agree with what Wikipedia says on the topic - in spite of the fact that its quite a false representation. Eventually, the truth of what happened will be hidden by waves and waves of Wikipedia.
How often has Wikipedia performed this kind of terrible deed? Most certainly it has happened on numerous occasions. They stick to one viewpoint at the exclusion of all others, and claim the others are “not reputable sources” or “fringe theories”, even when they are the majority opinion on the topic. So Wikipedia changes truth. In time Wikipedia becomes truth.
Many people have made comments on WR about similar things happening, in such places as Pan Am Flight 103 (the Lockerbie Bombing), Cuba, dozens of Jewish articles and so forth.
The problem is that these things are hard to pick, and no matter what you do to prove it, Wikipedia always has an excuse for what they have done. Their view is the right view, or so they claim.
Wikipedia Review has a sub section for Articles, and from time to time we do write in there. But it is true that usually every individual critic has only experienced 1 or perhaps 2 articles that are like this - or perhaps 0. This is because to truly understand what is going on you must be an expert on the topic. How many of us are experts in multiple topics? At best we are experts in 1, or perhaps 2. And Wikipedia doesn’t do this in every article, only in some.
Vandalism or temporarily inaccurate content isn’t a problem with Wikipedia. However, deliberate biases that purport to be neutral, and change truth, is a major problem. It is not one that Wikipedia admits that it has, however. Deliberate changing of truth is something more linked to Hitler & Stalin’s book burning.
blissyu2
16 Jul 07 at 7:14 pm
I’ve actually written 4 blog entries about Wikipedia’s bad articles changing truth:
http://therealadrian.spaces.live.com/blog/cns?5D338A8729E83EAB?128.entry
http://therealadrian.spaces.live.com/blog/cns?5D338A8729E83EAB?131.entry
http://therealadrian.spaces.live.com/blog/cns?5D338A8729E83EAB?134.entry
http://therealadrian.spaces.live.com/blog/cns?5D338A8729E83EAB?136.entry
First 2 are on the same topic, but it was a big one.
Nonetheless, these things take a lot of analysis, and a lot of expertise to understand, so they are brushed under the carpet pretty easily.
blissyu2
16 Jul 07 at 7:25 pm
Somey, you forgot “A dysfunctional community dominated by agressive, power-addled, abusive administrators and their allies”. The media have also largely overlooked this part of the Wikipedia story. If the public knew more about “how the sausage is made”, they would be a lot less inclined to buy the product.
Cedric
16 Jul 07 at 8:58 pm
Wikipedia Makes for a Nightmare in Online Journalism Ethics
http://hardnews.ansci.usu.edu/opinion/083107_wikipedia.html
Antisocial Darwinism: Diversity and Wikicide
http://aggieblue.blogspot.com/2007/09/antisocial-darwinism-diversity-and.html
Scathing Glances
http://moultonlava.blogspot.com/2007/08/scathing-glances.html
Blathersburg Address
http://moultonlava.blogspot.com/2007/09/blathersburg-address.html
Moulton
27 Sep 07 at 11:38 pm
fh58kw6rz4eob4×8
Chad Langley
12 Nov 08 at 10:03 pm