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Criticisms of Wikipedia - A Compendium

January 4th, 2008 by The Review

(This post was submitted to the forum by The Review’s resident Troubleshooter, Gomi, on January 1, 2008)

Gomi: For the New Year, I decided to attempt to compile a list of Wikipedia Review’s criticisms of Wikipedia. I have tried to approach this broadly — I don’t agree with all of these myself, but this is my view of the complaints that come up over and over again. One thing that is clear, after looking at Wikipedia for several years, is that these problems are not getting better, they are getting worse.

Wikipedia Content

1. Wikipedia contains incorrect, misleading, and biased information. Whether through vandalism, subtle disinformation, or the prolonged battling over biased accounts, many of Wikipedia’s articles are unsuitable for scholarly use. Because of poor standards of sourcing and citation, it is often difficult to determine the origin of statements made in Wikipedia in order to determine their correctness. Pursuit of biased points of view by powerful administrators is considered a particular problem, as opposing voices are often permanantly banned from Wikipedia. Wikipedia’s culture of disrespect for expertise and scholarship (see below) make it difficult to trust anything there.

2. Wikipedia’s articles are used to spread gossip, abet character assassination, and invade the privacy of the general public. So-called “Biographies of Living Persons” are often the result of attempts by powerful but anonymous editors and administrators at humiliating or belittling those real-world people with whom they disagree. Wikipedia’s “anyone can edit” culture has allowed baseless defamation of various individuals to spread widely through the Internet. When the family, friends, associates, or subjects of these biographies attempt to correct errors or insert balance, they are often banned from Wikipedia for “Conflicts of Interest”. Subjects of these hatchet jobs usually must resort to legal action to get the articles removed or corrected, a course not available to all.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted at 2:42 pm, January 4th, 2008 by The Review in Administrators, Articles | 7 Comments »

Don Murphy - another Living Person who doesn’t want a Wikipedia biography

September 7th, 2007 by blissyu2

On 31st August 2007, Wikipedia Review discussion forums welcomed a new member, ColScott, who began by writing a post about his own personal experiences on Wikipedia, titled “ColScott says Hola“. As at the time of my writing this blog post, the thread was on its 14th page, with 262 replies and 4,395 views, and whilst it did go slightly off topic a few times, it is generally speaking pretty much on track.

As we discovered, ColScott is Don Murphy, who is a film producer with his own studio house called Angry Films, with a modest entry in the Internet Movie Database, and his own Wikipedia article. This issue is a similar one to Daniel Brandt’s, that inspired Wikipedia Watch, and is also similar to many other Biographies of Living Persons issues. But what does it all mean? Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted at 2:22 am, September 7th, 2007 by blissyu2 in Articles, Banned!, BLP Issues, Editors | 10 Comments »

Ikkyu2’s essay

September 1st, 2007 by The Review

In 2005, Wikipedia user Ikkyu2 wrote what was to become a well distributed and resonant criticism of Wikipedia. Though the essay was eventually deleted at the writer’s request, a copy was saved and it was hosted on another user’s wikipedia page. Very recently, this copied version was also deleted for unknown reasons.

For posterity’s sake we’ve dug up a cached version of the piece to add to our growing collection of essays. And to ensure that it doesn’t disappear down the plug hole for ever.

____________________________________

What’s wrong with Wikipedia

What’s wrong with Wikipedia is neatly summarized in Wikipedia:Policy, which is a very old and very entrenched official policy.

The offending text follows:

Respect other contributors. —Wikipedia contributors come from many different countries and cultures, and have widely different views. Treating others with respect is key to collaborating effectively in building an encyclopedia.

Then there is a list of links, which essentially are a user’s manual concerning how to implement respect for other people in a civil and effective manner. These are fine. I have no beef with them. I also have no beef with the factual accuracy of the second or third sentences of that quote. To my mind they are correct as stated.

Here is the problem: Respect other contributors, while a good guideline, is too broad. Let me explain why… Read the rest of this entry »