More on reliable sources Options

[It's the blimp, Frank]

.http://www.truthout.org/072509Z?n

As my friend and colleague Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks pointed out in a Daily Kos blog recently, billionaire Rupert Murdoch loses $50 million a year on the NY Post, billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife loses $2 to $3 million a year on the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, billionaire Philip Anschutz loses around $5 million a year on The Weekly Standard, and billionaire Sun Myung Moon has lost $2 to $3 billion on The Washington Times.

Why are these guys willing to lose so much money funding "conservative" media? Why do they bulk-buy every right-wing book that comes out to throw it to the top of the NY Times Bestseller list and then give away the copies to "subscribers" to their websites and publications? Why do they fund to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a year money-hole "think tanks" like Heritage and Cato?

The answer is pretty straightforward. They do it because it buys them respectability, and gets their con job out there.

It certainly gets their con job on Wikipedia

[Moulton]

It all comes down to editorial judgment.

Compared to other reputable sources of encyclopedic information, WP has abysmal editorial judgment.

[Grep]

It all comes down to editorial judgment.

Compared to other reputable sources of encyclopedic information, WP has abysmal editorial judgment.

I tend to agree with the point that there's no editorial judgement, because there are no editors -- just a mass of contributors and some rather incoherent guidelines.

[Cla68]

One more thing I wanted to say in response to this thread's original post...I believe you do yourself a disservice if you completely shun a newspaper because it is "conservative" or "liberal." I lived in the Washington DC area for five years. I had the Washington Post, supposedly a liberal newspaper, delivered to my residence, but I also read the Washington Times whenever a copy happened to fall into my hands. I thought both newspapers were excellent. The only part of either newspaper which appeared to push a political agenda was on the editorial page, in other words, about two pages out of 20-30 each day.

Having more sources of information, such as these two newspapers, is helpful. For example, see this article on the Pentagon military analyst program. I did a lot of work on this article, and you can see by looking at the footnotes that the Washington Times was an important source for information. The Post does not appear to have chosen to cover the story in any great detail. If you want to get the story out, you need to use whatever reasonably reliable source of information is available. Cite your sources, and the reader can decide on how much credibility to give the story.

It is true that Wikipedians argue over sources, and sometimes this is a sign of POV-pushing. I think there was one case of some POV-pushing going on in an animal right's article, and an editor, who also happened to be one of those who had done a lot of work on the reliable sources policy, stated that the journalists for some reliable source "have almost certainly just made a mistake". Clear sign of POV-pushing. Wikipedia should just stick with a reasonable definition of what a reliable source is, which it seems to have now, and let verifiability be the overriding principle. I guess that would be "verifiability, not truth." I think SV might be the one who first said this.

This post has been edited by Cla68:

[Milton Roe]

It is true that Wikipedians argue over sources, and sometimes this is a sign of POV-pushing. I think there was one case of some POV-pushing going on in an animal right's article, and an editor, who also happened to be one of those who had done a lot of work on the reliable sources policy, stated that the journalists for some reliable source "obviously don't know what they're talking about" or something like that. Clear sign of POV-pushing.

But unfortunately often also a clear sign of personal expertise, since it is usually the business of journalism to explain that which it personally does not understand. Again (to repeat again) you will get that if you ever read a newspaper article connected with an event or field which you personally know well.

Wikipedia should just stick with a reasonable definition of what a reliable source is, which it seems to have now, and let verifiability be the overriding principle. I guess that would be "verifiability, not truth."

No, wikipedia should let truth be the overriding principle and goal, despite the unfortunate fact that there is no gold standard for it. Well-sourced nonsense is still well-sourced nonsense.

You like military history. Compare Johnson's airstrikes on Vietnam the same night as the supposed second attack on the Maddox, and the Tonkin Gulf resolution 3 days later, with the intelligence from Curveball, the US congress' "Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq", Collin Powell's testimony before the UN General Assembly, etc. All well-sourced at the time, but the newspapers were only reporting what they'd been fed. Repeating a rumor or mistake or outright lie in print, does not convert into anything more than a rumor/mistake or lie. Now it's just a rumor, mistake or lie, with a footnote.

So how do you fix this? You leave room for skepticism. The Washington Post reports that the government's spokesman says that X is a fact. But the government has so far refused to answer all questions about how it, itself, knows X is a fact. Thus the factuality of X stands as a naked assertion without any evidence, other than being the official government position.

Now, the Post itself many not say this at the time, especially knowing that overly critical reportage can get you tossed out of the press corps. So somebody has to say it. Who is that going to be? Well, likely some newspaper with less standing and no press corps. So you see the problem.

[Cla68]

It is true that Wikipedians argue over sources, and sometimes this is a sign of POV-pushing. I think there was one case of some POV-pushing going on in an animal right's article, and an editor, who also happened to be one of those who had done a lot of work on the reliable sources policy, stated that the journalists for some reliable source "obviously don't know what they're talking about" or something like that. Clear sign of POV-pushing.

But unfortunately often also a clear sign of personal expertise, since it is usually the business of journalism to explain that which it personally does not understand. Again (to repeat again) you will get that if you ever read a newspaper article connected with an event or field which you personally know well.

Wikipedia should just stick with a reasonable definition of what a reliable source is, which it seems to have now, and let verifiability be the overriding principle. I guess that would be "verifiability, not truth."

No, wikipedia should let truth be the overriding principle and goal, despite the unfortunate fact that there is no gold standard for it. Well-sourced nonsense is still well-sourced nonsense.

You like military history. Compare Johnson's airstrikes on Vietnam the same night as the supposed second attack on the Maddox, and the Tonkin Gulf resolution 3 days later, with the intelligence from Curveball, the US congress' "Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq", Collin Powell's testimony before the UN General Assembly, etc. All well-sourced at the time, but the newspapers were only reporting what they'd been fed. Repeating a rumor or mistake or outright lie in print, does not convert into anything more than a rumor/mistake or lie. Now it's just a rumor, mistake or lie, with a footnote.

So how do you fix this? You leave room for skepticism. The Washington Post reports that the government's spokesman says that X is a fact. But the government has so far refused to answer all questions about how it, itself, knows X is a fact. Thus the factuality of X stands as a naked assertion without any evidence, other than being the official government position.

Now, the Post itself many not say this at the time, especially knowing that overly critical reportage can get you tossed out of the press corps. So somebody has to say it. Who is that going to be? Well, likely some newspaper with less standing and no press corps. So you see the problem.

Finding and printing "the truth" is probably too ambitious for Wikipedia. Treat Wikipedia as entertainment, both as an editor and as a reader, and you're fine. As in the example you mention above, finding and explaining the truth of an historical event is fraught with difficulty. The film everyone uses as an example of this is Rashomon, in which the story of a violent event is given four different ways by four different people. If Wikipedia was involved in reporting this fictional story as if it were true, it would report each version as it was published in a reliable source. That's all it can do.

This post has been edited by Cla68:

[Herschelkrustofsky]

The film everyone uses as an example of this is Rashomon, in which the story of a violent event is given four different ways by four different people. If Wikipedia was involved in reporting this fictional story as if it were true, it would report each version as it was published in a reliable source. That's all it can do.

I think it would be more interesting than that. I can imagine factions forming to support the various versions of the story, each challenging the reliability of the sources used to support other versions. Then would come the allegations of sockpuppetry, incivility, and so on. You could write a very entertaining parody of Rashomon as re-told on Wikipedia. It might be entitled "Allegations of Rashomon."

[Cla68]

I think it would be more interesting than that. I can imagine factions forming to support the various versions of the story, each challenging the reliability of the sources used to support other versions. Then would come the allegations of sockpuppetry, incivility, and so on. You could write a very entertaining parody of Rashomon as re-told on Wikipedia. It might be entitled "Allegations of Rashomon."

That could very well happen, especially if the four witnesses or the parties to the event came from different countries or political parties. I have another example, this one from a famous battle from World War II. Please excuse the verbosity, but I want to make sure I don't leave out any important details:

One generally accepted fact of the Battle of Midway is that the air groups from the US carrier Hornet performed abysmally. On the crucial day of battle, three out of the four carrier's squadrons failed to locate the Japanese fleet. The squadron that did locate the Japanese ships, Torpedo Squadron 8 (VT-8), was completely wiped-out during their attack without scoring a single hit (before anyone mentions it, their sacrifice did help enable the subsequently successful dive bomber attacks from the other two US carriers). Many of the Hornet's aircraft, including 10 of its fighters, were unable to locate Hornet after that failed mission and ditched in the ocean.

Most of the major western historians of the battle, such as Morison, Lord, Cressman, and Prange, apparently accepted the story from Hornet's command staff, led by Marc Mitscher that the squadrons' poor performance was due to bad luck and inexperience. It's only just recently that a different, and perhaps true, account of what really happened has come out, and it has yet to be reported on in Wikipedia.

The truth appears to be that Mitscher incorrectly decided that two of the Japanese carriers were in a different place from the reported position and ordered his squadrons to fly a heading towards that location. The only reason that VT-8 found the Japanese fleet is because its squadron commander deliberately disobeyed orders and turned his squadron to the correct heading. If the ship's two dive bomber squadrons had flown the correct heading and attacked the Japanese fleet with VT-8, all four of the Japanese carriers might have been sunk in the initial strike, which means that the Yorktown would have survived the battle. Mistakes happen in war, but in this case Mitscher and his staff elected not to own up to it and deliberately covered it up. In their after-action report, they lied about the initial heading given to their squadrons.

Because the Hornet's after-action report misrepresented the courses flown by its aircraft, the search for the 10 ditched fighter aircraft was sent to the wrong location. Several days later, by chance, 8 of the 10 fighter pilots were found by patrol aircraft and rescued. Another two pilots who had survived their crash landings were not found and disappeared. Thus, Mitscher's cover-up may well have sent two of his own men to early graves. Mitscher went on to become one of the top commanders in the US Pacific Fleet and is largely credited with the successful carrier-naval campaign which helped force Japan's surrender. Mitscher died in 1947.

The first reporting on this debacle and Mitscher's cover-up was by Bowen Weisheit, a fraternity brother of one of the two killed Hornet fighter pilots. By careful research he discovered the truth of what happened and wrote it up in a self-published book called, The Last Flight of Ensign C. markland Kelly, Junior, USNR, published in 1993. Because it was a self-published book, it was ignored by most interested historians and observers. (Actually, it appears that Lord knew something about this in 1967 but chose not to mention it in his book).

It wasn't until 10 years later that several other historians picked-up on the story, verified it with their own research, and gave it more publicity in non-self-published books. Alvin Kernan wrote about it in 2005's The Unknown Battle of Midway: The Destruction of the American Torpedo Squadrons and recently ex-congressman Robert Mrazek covered it in detail in A Dawn Like Thunder: The True Story of Torpedo Squadron Eight.

How does this apply to Wikipedia? Well, it goes into the realm of reliable sources. Let's say that Wikipedia existed since 1942. The first accounts of the battle would have been from propagandic press releases from US and Japanese governments and media. In the 50s, 60s, and 70, we would have had more complete accounts from the authors mentioned several paragraphs above. Now, if someone, in 1993 had tried to introduce this story from Weisheit's book, I think interested Wikipedians would have not allowed it in, saying things like, "Exceptional claims require exceptional sources" and "self-published books are not RS" and things like that. It's only now, since 2005, 63 years after the battle that this important story can be told in Wikipedia in a way that complies with Wikipedia's RS policy. Actually, based on my experience, a note on Weisheit's book might could have been mentioned in a footnote, but that's about the top exposure that would have been allowed for it.

The truth has been out there since 1993 (and perhaps 1967), but it wasn't reasonably verifiable until four years ago.

This post has been edited by Cla68: