Alternatives to Wikipedia, Competitors to the beast Options Rating

[Milton Roe]

No, surely the better approach is to insist that information is cited from trustworthy sources and from a range of sources to avoid the bias of citing only favourable or only unfavourable material. That is the essence of RS and NPOV. No, I don't like some of what is in WP:RS as it now stands. That doesn't mean there is anything wrong with the principle of asking for reliable sources. It means there is something wrong with the governance of the place that allows things to be twisted.

No, it means more than that, for there's something twisted in asking for the use of "reliable sources" from a group of people whose education has not equipped them to tell what a reliable source is. That's like asking a bunch of blind soldiers with machine guns to shoot straight. There's nothing wrong with the principle of asking soldiers to shoot straight per se, but when you know your soldiers are blind and incapable of it, it becomes perverse.

The problem is that there's a lot of "folk knowledge" out there that is wrong. It gets repeated in newspapers and even textbooks, an expert in the field would be unlikely to pass it on. Your high school teacher might tell you that mass is converted to energy in nuclear reactions, but a physicist who specializes in relativity would not. You could read in a pop sci magazing that helium raises the pitch of your voice, and be given 3 reason why, all of them wrong (since it doesn't). A nutrition textbook might natter about how energy is "stored" in the chemical bonds of your food, but an actual chemist would tell you energy cannot be stored in chemical bonds; it always TAKES energy to break them (they store negative energy, like a credit card balance stores negative money). And so on. So where the hell is that energy stored? Your quiz for today.

Jimbo once opined that if a fact is true, it ought to be easy to find a citation for it. Alas, no good logic thereby supports the idea that if a factoid is false that it is hard to find a citation for it. On the contrary, myths are rampant and they multiply in proportion to how plausable they sound. And are repeated in publications the same way. Encyclopedias written by experts ignore this stuff. An encyclopedia written by the general public really has no way to do so. So they fight. Occassionally somebody has the bright idea to bring in an expert to settle a matter, but since everybody is anonymous, that doesn't work either. So they fight some more until one side is exhausted, and there it stays. Eventually some expert stumbles upon the matter again and the fight starts over. This goes on perpetually.

How many people shot JFK? How do you know?

How much vitamin C do you need for optimal health? How do you know?

[Cock-up-over-conspiracy]

No, it means more than that, for there's something twisted in asking for the use of "reliable sources" from a group of people whose education has not equipped them to tell what a reliable source is.

That is the problem ... but it get worse.

There are many people whose education HAS, in theory, equipped them to tell what a reliable source is and yet they don't care or could not give a damn. They are willfully using their knowledge and superiority as a work around to promote whatever agenda it is they have. Or vent their personal nastiness.

The only alternative to Wikipedia is no Wikipedia and unlike other dot com bubbles it cannot be sold on or sold off.

This is perhaps what makes it unique. How long will it be able to sustain itself on donations alone is the question. At present that must be at least a decade. Depressing to think this much shit will hang around that long repeating itself really ... unless it REALLY sorts it self out.

At present it is a fashion rather than an institution. As a fad, has it a shelf life and how long? Have the current contributors the capacity to raise up to an institution level? Not a hope in hell.

This post has been edited by Cock-up-over-conspiracy: Sat 27th March 2010, 7:41am

[dogbiscuit]

Jimbo once opined that if a fact is true, it ought to be easy to find a citation for it. Alas, no good logic thereby supports the idea that if a factoid is false that it is hard to find a citation for it. On the contrary, myths are rampant and they multiply in proportion to how plausable they sound.

I think that's a keeper.

[A User]

No, it means more than that, for there's something twisted in asking for the use of "reliable sources" from a group of people whose education has not equipped them to tell what a reliable source is.

That is the problem ... but it get worse.

There are many people whose education HAS, in theory, equipped them to tell what a reliable source is and yet they don't care or could not give a damn. They are willfully using their knowledge and superiority as a work around to promote whatever agenda it is they have. Or vent their personal nastiness.

The only alternative to Wikipedia is no Wikipedia and unlike other dot com bubbles it cannot be sold on or sold off.

This is perhaps what makes it unique. How long will it be able to sustain itself on donations alone is the question. At present that must be at least a decade. Depressing to think this much shit will hang around that long repeating itself really ... unless it REALLY sorts it self out.

At present it is a fashion rather than an institution. As a fad, has it a shelf life and how long? Have the current contributors the capacity to raise up to an institution level? Not a hope in hell.

As long as Google has a relationship with wikipedia and continues to pump millions into it via donations, wikipedia won't be going away anytime soon.

[Guido den Broeder]

Come off it! I'm not an idiot and I'm well aware of the problems there are on WP and how even a good article can be damaged by vandals or silly editors.

Straightforward, hear hear!

Now, could you please guide us on whether this person is a vandal or a silly editor?

Or, are you of the opinion that he wasn't "damaging" the article?

That one's easy.

[CharlotteWebb]

How many people shot JFK? How do you know?

http://i39.tinypic.com/2mcx0lh.jpg

[Cock-up-over-conspiracy]

As long as Google has a relationship with wikipedia and continues to pump millions into it via donations, wikipedia won't be going away anytime soon.

A fair comment and one which I find interesting. Especially given Jimmy Wales's recent quote about "the founders of Google being naive" which verges on biting the wallet that sustains one.

Perhaps Google's support of the Wikipedia ... as in financial support to the foundation directly rather than the value adding, content contributing editors ... is also "naive" and ideologically biased?

Why not just move Wikipedia to the Google servers directly and cut costs? (Remember where you read that first). Wikipedia does not need the cost of its own server farm/farms ... as much fun as it might be to run them. More cuts, less cost, put the money into real experts and actual professional editors.

The Google-Wikipedia relationship needs to be examined ar more closely, and with an inside eye, especially given recent evidence that raising a Wikipedia page to the very top of Google's first page takes as little time as tens of seconds ... something mere mortal web developers could never achieve despite the worthiness of any of their projects.

[Moulton]

Jimbo once opined that if a fact is true, it ought to be easy to find a citation for it. Alas, no good logic thereby supports the idea that if a factoid is false that it is hard to find a citation for it. On the contrary, myths are rampant and they multiply in proportion to how plausible they sound.

I think that's a keeper.

So do I.

Milton went on to give some obscure examples of myths and misconceptions (mostly form the worlds of physics and chemistry), but I think it's more interesting to explore the large and more momentous myths and misconceptions that pervade our culture and which substantially distort our policies and practices from ethical best practices.

One of my favorite educational exercises is to challenge students to come up with their own list of the biggest and most important myths and misconceptions currently in wide circulation today, and elaborate on the importance each of them.

[Straightforward]

Your "sensible and mature"criticism accepts the manifest premises of WP hook-line-and-sinker. You're a moron who can't tell the difference between a simulation and reality. "You need to edit and get involved in controversies and edit wars" is probably the single worst piece of advice ever given to anyone on WR.

The most important characteristic of a game is to entertain the players. There are not going to be any competency exams anywhere around WP.

Which manifest premises of WP have I accepted hook-line-and-sinker? That Jimbo is infallible? That admins always have the good of WP uppermost? That errors on WP are always corrected quickly? I could go on and on.

What I do accept is that it is wrong to have extremely biased articles, or to add information without having a good source to back you up. Who here disagrees with that? I have read a lot of debate about BLPs for example where people are saying that it is wrong that articles are biased or have unsourced information. Wouldn't thee BLP situation be a lot better (I don't say cured) if people stuck rigorously to NPOV and RS?

No, it means more than that, for there's something twisted in asking for the use of "reliable sources" from a group of people whose education has not equipped them to tell what a reliable source is. That's like asking a bunch of blind soldiers with machine guns to shoot straight. There's nothing wrong with the principle of asking soldiers to shoot straight per se, but when you know your soldiers are blind and incapable of it, it becomes perverse.

Please distinguish between the principle of RS and how it is implemented. i quite agree that it is sometimes implemented badly. We should focus on that not try to deride the principle.

[GlassBeadGame]

Your "sensible and mature"criticism accepts the manifest premises of WP hook-line-and-sinker. You're a moron who can't tell the difference between a simulation and reality. "You need to edit and get involved in controversies and edit wars" is probably the single worst piece of advice ever given to anyone on WR.

The most important characteristic of a game is to entertain the players. There are not going to be any competency exams anywhere around WP.

Which manifest premises of WP have I accepted hook-line-and-sinker? That Jimbo is infallible? That admins always have the good of WP uppermost? That errors on WP are always corrected quickly? I could go on and on.

How unbelievably shallow. Spend some time reading the forum. Learn to filter out the Wikipedian noise then come back.

[Kelly Martin]

Wouldn't thee BLP situation be a lot better (I don't say cured) if people stuck rigorously to NPOV and RS?

This statement indicates that you've accepted the remarkable assertion that such as thing as a "neutral point of view" exists, or that Wikipedia's concept of a "reliable source" has any meaning whatsoever.

[Milton Roe]

No, it means more than that, for there's something twisted in asking for the use of "reliable sources" from a group of people whose education has not equipped them to tell what a reliable source is. That's like asking a bunch of blind soldiers with machine guns to shoot straight. There's nothing wrong with the principle of asking soldiers to shoot straight per se, but when you know your soldiers are blind and incapable of it, it becomes perverse.

Please distinguish between the principle of RS and how it is implemented. i quite agree that it is sometimes implemented badly. We should focus on that not try to deride the principle.

The PRINCIPLE per se is the principle behind academic studies (though of course not experimental studies). It's the principle behind good academic research, (at least) though not all good scientific research (which relies also on experiment).

If if you want lip service to the idea so much, I'll be glad to give it to you, but it's not the reason WP fails and you can't fix WP by implementing it, any more than you make make a whale fly and keep it a whale. You could not change WP in this regard without making it wholely a different thing from what it is. You'd have to have an on-line university for that, complete with real names, experts with identified credentials, CVs and publication records, and the whole set of trappings of Harvard, save possibly the mortarboards and the VERITAS. Good luck with that (the University of Phoenix comes to mind, but it uses no Wikis that I know of).

[Straightforward]

How unbelievably shallow. Spend some time reading the forum. Learn to filter out the Wikipedian noise then come back.

I repeat: which manifest premises of WP have I accepted hook-line-and-sinker?

This statement indicates that you've accepted the remarkable assertion that such as thing as a "neutral point of view" exists, or that Wikipedia's concept of a "reliable source" has any meaning whatsoever.

This statement indicates that you've accepted the remarkable assertion that it is pointless to make any attempt to be neutral; it is impossible to be 100% neutral but you should make the effort; and that it is also pointless to try to find reliable sources, remembering that the principle of using such sources is a very different issue from the current state of the WP:RS page.

So who's for an encyclopedia that is highly partisan and biased, whose editors don't care that it is, and that relies on no verifiable sources whatsoever?

[Straightforward]

The PRINCIPLE per se is the principle behind academic studies (though of course not experimental studies). It's the principle behind good academic research, (at least) though not all good scientific research (which relies also on experiment).

If if you want lip service to the idea so much, I'll be glad to give it to you, but it's not the reason WP fails and you can't fix WP by implementing it, any more than you make make a whale fly and keep it a whale. You could not change WP in this regard without making it wholely a different thing from what it is. You'd have to have an on-line university for that, complete with real names, experts with identified credentials, CVs and publication records, and the whole set of trappings of Harvard, save possibly the mortarboards and the VERITAS. Good luck with that (the University of Phoenix comes to mind, but it uses no Wikis that I know of).

Hmm, lukewarm support for my position. But why on earth do you need "real names, experts with identified credentials, CVs and publication records"? Not even Encyclopedia Britannica does that; many articles are anonymous, and no author has his CVs and publications given. The whole point of reliable, verifiable sources is that anyone can check them. And if you're worried about bias, you can be a named, well-qualified editor and still be hopelessly biased. As I said recently, you could get Tony Benn, an identifiable and well-qualified person, to write an article on Michael Foot; it would no doubt be very biased.

[CharlotteWebb]

Hmm, lukewarm support for my position. But why on earth do you need "real names, experts with identified credentials, CVs and publication records"? Not even Encyclopedia Britannica does that; many articles are anonymous, and no author has his CVs and publications given. The whole point of reliable, verifiable sources is that anyone can check them. And if you're worried about bias, you can be a named, well-qualified editor and still be hopelessly biased. As I said recently, you could get Tony Benn, an identifiable and well-qualified person, to write an article on Michael Foot; it would no doubt be very biased.

If you wanted any sympathy you would have muttered something about Chip Berlet and Lyndon LaRouche. Alas, too late now.

[Straightforward]

Hmm, lukewarm support for my position. But why on earth do you need "real names, experts with identified credentials, CVs and publication records"? Not even Encyclopedia Britannica does that; many articles are anonymous, and no author has his CVs and publications given. The whole point of reliable, verifiable sources is that anyone can check them. And if you're worried about bias, you can be a named, well-qualified editor and still be hopelessly biased. As I said recently, you could get Tony Benn, an identifiable and well-qualified person, to write an article on Michael Foot; it would no doubt be very biased.

If you wanted any sympathy you would have muttered something about Chip Berlet and Lyndon LaRouche. Alas, too late now.

Why, what qualifications do they have?

[GlassBeadGame]

How unbelievably shallow. Spend some time reading the forum. Learn to filter out the Wikipedian noise then come back.

I repeat: which manifest premises of WP have I accepted hook-line-and-sinker?

Ignore my advice at your own peril. You seem to have swallowed whole the idea that WP is an "encyclopedia." From that endless delusions and conceits follow.

[Milton Roe]

The PRINCIPLE per se is the principle behind academic studies (though of course not experimental studies). It's the principle behind good academic research, (at least) though not all good scientific research (which relies also on experiment).

If if you want lip service to the idea so much, I'll be glad to give it to you, but it's not the reason WP fails and you can't fix WP by implementing it, any more than you make make a whale fly and keep it a whale. You could not change WP in this regard without making it wholely a different thing from what it is. You'd have to have an on-line university for that, complete with real names, experts with identified credentials, CVs and publication records, and the whole set of trappings of Harvard, save possibly the mortarboards and the VERITAS. Good luck with that (the University of Phoenix comes to mind, but it uses no Wikis that I know of).

Hmm, lukewarm support for my position. But why on earth do you need "real names, experts with identified credentials, CVs and publication records"? Not even Encyclopedia Britannica does that; many articles are anonymous, and no author has his CVs and publications given. The whole point of reliable, verifiable sources is that anyone can check them.

Not that's not correct:

http://corporate.britannica.com/faq.html

Information on Encyclopædia Britannica's authors and contributors
Unfortunately, the authors of every article are not listed on Britannica.com or Britannica Online. However, this information is available in the Encyclopædia Britannica print set. We suggest that you visit your local school or public library if you require the author's name. Authors are generally referred to by their initials at the ends of the articles in these resources. For instance, "E.G." would stand for "Evel Gasparini," who wrote part of the "European Religions, Ancient" article. This information would be found in the Propaedia section of the print set.

It is true that Britannica doesn't reference every statement like a research paper would. We're supposed to trust the experts who write the articles to write them like that, then remove the reference notes so we don't have to look at them (some further reading is given at the ends of articles if you want more). Ironically, this is part of what makes an "encyclopedia" different from a review paper in a refereed journal. WP wants to be an "encyclopedia" but due to its lack of expert identifiable authorship, it's forced to have the semi-look-and-feel of a journal review article. Strangely, this hasn't been pointed out very much (I don't remember anybody commenting on it, at least).

As for bias, that's also part and parcel of what you expect in an encyclopedia, due to the fact that the articles are written by only one (or at best) a few people, and are checked by a limited number of others. But that's usually okay, as the bias can't be removed anyway (it certainly hasn't been removed from Wikipedia) and the best way to deal with it is to know the author, so you can know something about his/her biases! And correct for them.

In my university (as in many others) it was typical for profs at the beginning of class to declare their biases, and suggest other profs you could go to for other views. Then, we started.

[Straightforward]

Ignore my advice at your own peril. You seem to have swallowed whole the idea that WP is an "encyclopedia." From that endless delusions and conceits follow.

I have said no such thing. I have said that it has good parts and that it is in principle a good idea to aim not to be overly biased and to rely on reliable sources. That's not the same thing at all.

Is it the case that in the world of WR, anyone who does not dismiss WP contemptuously as a pile of shit is labelled a fanatical Jimbo-lover who believes WP can do no wrong? I cannot fathom how you can make useful, informed criticism of WP if you are in either of those camps. Surely it would make sense to encourage people who have actively engaged in the project and have become somewhat cynical, recognising both the good and the bad. GlassBeadGame seems determined not to allow such people on this site.

Information on Encyclopædia Britannica's authors and contributors
Unfortunately, the authors of every article are not listed on Britannica.com or Britannica Online. However, this information is available in the Encyclopædia Britannica print set. We suggest that you visit your local school or public library if you require the author's name. Authors are generally referred to by their initials at the ends of the articles in these resources. For instance, "E.G." would stand for "Evel Gasparini," who wrote part of the "European Religions, Ancient" article. This information would be found in the Propaedia section of the print set.

Yes, the authors are known but Britannica does not publish "identified credentials, CVs and publication records", does it?

As for bias, that's also part and parcel of what you expect in an encyclopedia, due to the fact that the articles are written by only one (or at best) a few people, and are checked by a limited number of others. But that's usually okay, as the bias can't be removed anyway (it certainly hasn't been removed from Wikipedia) and the best way to deal with it is to know the author, so you can know something about his/her biases! And correct for them.

What ought to be Wikipedia's strength (and before people shout at me again, I know as well as anyone the difference between fact and theory here) is that many people with different viewpoints can contribute to and check articles hence avoid precisely this problem. Of course, on controversial areas that leads to a lot of fighting, but I have seen many such articles emerge from the process as fair-minded and representing both sides, so the process can work.

And if you know the field well enough to know the ins and outs of the views of the authors (who are rarely the top international experts in their areas) and to correct for them, why are you bothering with reading that article?

[Milton Roe]

Is it the case that in the world of WR, anyone who does not dismiss WP contemptuously as a pile of shit is labelled a fanatical Jimbo-lover who believes WP can do no wrong? I cannot fathom how you can make useful, informed criticism of WP if you are in either of those camps. Surely it would make sense to encourage people who have actively engaged in the project and have become somewhat cynical, recognising both the good and the bad. GlassBeadGame seems determined not to allow such people on this site.

There are others of us who are in your "engaged in WP but cynical" camp, and we're still on the site.

Personally I still contribute to WP, believing that its content will outlast it, and be useful till it eventually is overwriten or superceeded by some entity I cannot now imagine. But I see the seeds of something potentially good here, even if some on this site do not. They see Kudzu and cancer. I have an Emersonian optimism: "...striving to be man, the worm/Mounts through all the spires of form.." And all that.

Please see my skeptic's credo regarding editing Wikipedia:

http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=18620