You only need to read a few climate entries on Wikipedia to know this Spiked Online article rings true
We have watched how people like Wikipedia climate fiddler William Connolley rides shotgun on just about any climate related article on that website. As of a year ago Mr. Connolley has edited 5428 Wikipedia articles, almost all on climate and his zealotry earned him a suspension and banning for certain types of articles. So, this Spiked-Online article, aptly titled, isn’t much of a surprise to WUWT readers.
Wikipedia: where truth dies online
Run by cliquish, censorious editors and open to pranks and vandalism, Wikipedia is worthless and damaging. 29 April 2014
A man knocks at your door. You answer and he tells you he is an encyclopaedia salesman.
‘I have the largest and most comprehensive encyclopaedia the world has ever seen’, he says.
‘Tell me about it!’
‘It has more editors and more entries than any other encyclopaedia ever. Most of the contributors are anonymous and no entry is ever finished. It is constantly changing. Any entry may be different each time you go back to it. Celebrities and companies pay PR agencies to edit entries. Controversial topics are often the subject of edit wars that can go on for years and involve scores of editors. Pranksters and jokers may change entries and insert bogus facts. Whole entries about events that never happened may be created. Other entries will disappear without notice. Experts may be banned from editing subjects that they are leading authorities on, because they are cited as primary sources. University academics and teachers warn their students to exercise extreme caution when using it. Nothing in it can be relied on. You will never know whether anything you read in it is true or not. Are you interested?’
‘I’ll think about it’, you say, and close the door.
News that civil servants in Whitehall hacked the Wikipedia entry for the Hillsborough disaster and inserted gratuitous insults about the men and women who died in the worst football-ground disaster in British history was greeted with predictable anger last week. This anger was directed at the anonymous vandals who posted the edits, rather than the organisation and website that facilitated the defamation. But, it must be said, Wikipedia is not blameless in this. It allows misinformation to flourish and provides it with a cloak of respectability. It is under-resourced and is unable to police itself adequately.
Wikipedia was launched in January 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger but was predated by an earlier Wales/Sanger project, Nupedia, also a free online encyclopaedia, but one that was written and peer-reviewed by experts. In its three-year life, Nupedia only produced 25 articles, with a further 74 in progress when it was shut down. The lesson learned from the Nupedia experiment was that this protracted process with meagre output would never produce a comprehensive and up-to-date online encyclopaedia. The experts and peer reviews would have to go.
…
Wikipedia has been a massive success but has always had immense flaws, the greatest one being that nothing it publishes can be trusted. This, you might think, is a pretty big flaw. There are over 21million editors with varying degrees of competence and honesty. Rogue editors abound and do not restrict themselves to supposedly controversial topics, as the recently discovered Hillsborough example demonstrates.
Read the entire article: http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/wikipedia-where-truth-dies-online/#.U1-aSqLqizd
Wow! This reads like an undeleted, unsupressed concatenation of edits on the topic of “Wikipedia” in the Wikipedia!
How cool is that!
Seriously, tho: I agree, mostly, with a lot that has been said. I’ve written an original article or two, and edited a few more for grammar, spelling, accuracy, adding more info, etc. I don’t really bother anymore. While I love the idea/ideal of Wikipedia, the reality is that it is a rigged game. It goes to GREAT lengths (read the lengthy verbiage re: policies for editors, conflict resolution, etc.) to appear objective and academic. From what I’ve seen, that is mostly a smoke-screen for the fact that “certain animals are more equal than others” when push comes to shove. And I was surprised at just how quickly the shove comes. Like the “S.I” : when you least expect it.
Forget any complaint I might have as being sour grapes due to my brilliance being challenged. A friend of mine who is a professor from Manhattan who has been active in Republican party fundraising and has run for office several times himself in the island where registered Republicans are in the extreme minority. There was a Wikipedia article on him. He edited it for several biographical inaccuracies. This SHOULD be good, right?
Nope. His edits were erased and he was told they were not being allowed because he “was not an expert on X___ Y____” The fact that he _is himself_ Mr. X____ Y____ in the flesh apparently mattered not one whit. Maybe Wiki bosses are psychic, and KNOW that he failed in the Delphic imperative to “know thyself?”
Great resource for checking out the order of titles in a book “series” and other similar stuff, though!
I’m not going to say _anything_ about what we all know gets trashed by the time you come back to the keyboard from refilling your coffee mug. . .
Some years ago , Nature carried an article on Wikipedia . The Nature editors asked a range of respected scientists to evaluate Wikipedia in the area of their speciality . If I remember correctly , the collected opinions were remarkably favourable : Wikipedia came out surprisingly well in that survey . Does anyone remember this piece ? I myself use Wikipedia a lot and find it very valuable and informative but I do realise it can lead the unwary astray , especially in controversial areas .
A couple of years back I received an email “A Personal Message from Jimmy Wales” asking for money for Wikipedia. Since he had sent me a “personal message” I sent a “personal message” back.
I replied asking that my message should be passed directly to Jimmy Wales. I explained that I thought the harm done by Wikipedia with its misleading climate change coverage outweighed whatever good it did in other areas and therefore I would not be donating. I mentioned Connolley’s editing antics.
I received a reply stating:
– Jimmy Wales is not involved in the day-day running of Wikipedia (and presumably he would not be seeing my email).
– The Connolley issue had been addressed.
Ah, Wikipedia. I am going to paraphrase Gene Spafford’s comment on the
ancient Usenet:
Steve Garcia says:
April 29, 2014 at 10:23 pm
I generally enjoy your posts, Steve. Here’s another passage to get you more wound up. Churchill continues his rant against Islam, in A History of The English Speaking Peoples:
It might yet.
And Gen Pershing also had a tough fight on his hands. But he eventually made the Philippine Islamists cry “Uncle!”
They’re not the only ones who were fed up and disgusted with Islamics:
Islam delenda est.
For the Wikipedia detractors, what is your alternative? For general knowledge on a given subject that you are curious about, what do you do? I can’t imagine that peer-reviewed and governmental sources are well liked after Climategate. Is it just “some source that agrees with me” or “a source endorsed by my favorite blogger”?
Wikipedia is fairly reliable on history, observational science, and other general information.
“Adam Smith says:
April 29, 2014 at 1:06 pm
Maybe Wikipedia should get a massive injection of funding from the Koch brothers, along with editorial control over the content. If they don’t do it, a guy like George Soros eventually will.”
He (Soros) already has: http://www.wiki-rath.org/thesorosconnection.html (via OSI)
One could quote “Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when at first we practice to deceive”…
“Chris R. says:
April 30, 2014 at 1:07 pm
Ah, Wikipedia. I am going to paraphrase Gene Spafford’s comment on the
ancient Usenet:
Wikipedia is like a herd of performing elephants — massive, difficult to redirect,
awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind-boggling amounts of excrement
when you least expect it. ”
Reminds me of a scene from “musicdotes”, a book about music and musicians, and the various humorous (and other) circumstances that occurred in the world of music….
Sir Thomas Beecham was conducting Aida, which involved lots of live (and occasionally LARGE) animals….some of them elephants…although the cast and crew did their best, they were not particularly up to the task of staging and performing the opera (it really IS difficult), and in the course of events, an elephant relieved himself onstage…
Sir Thomas Beecham (to the orchestra): “By my word, gentlemen, a critic”….
I don’t know squat about Jimmy Savile, but since I just came across this story, I’m linking it.
Again: NOT RESEARCHED, I don’t vouch for the website, and if it’s BS, I apologise. But supper is coming up and I’ve only got time to pass it along for your collective consideration.
http://12160.info/video/wikipedia-editors-remove-sex-offender-sir-jimmy-savile-s
“Zeke says:
April 30, 2014 at 8:43 am”
There was an interview of Bill Gates, years ago, where he was asked what was the most difficult thing about developing En Carta, the M$ encyclopedia from days of yore. He surprised the interviewer by replying that the most difficult problems were POLITICAL, not technical, as every country has their own idea as to who invented (did, whatever) what first, where, etc., etc.
Years ago there was much ado about the Heaviside layer, which England seemed to support and no one else did… (even made it into “Cats”)….I doubt anyone even knows nor cares about that now…
We have four encyclopedias now (including an older Brockhaus from before the German reunification, which my son refers to as “ancient history”)…would love to have a few
Brittanicas to go with them…
Really interesting to the the changes as time goes on…probably cheaper to just buy atlases 🙂
Here’s my take on Wikipedia. For openers, I agree with the complaints about climate-related issues. And I’d extend that complaint to articles about controversial subjects in general.
If your crap detector is working, and if you already have some background knowledge on the subject at hand, you can find some of the biases and Wiki-style character assassinations, under the veneer of journalistic pseudo-objectivity. Some years ago, I read their article about the Global Warming ‘controversy’. I was surprised to see the claim that a certain ‘Joe Skeptic’ had accepted money from Big Tobacco.
What does that have to do with the truth or falsity of AGW? And if it was relevant, for the sake of balance, they could have mentioned that at one time, the Gore family — including Big Al himself — grew tobacco. But nooo! Mentioning that fact wouldn’t be Politically Correct.
That said, Wiki is reasonably accurate about most NON-controversial issues. For this category of articles, it’s as accurate as the average newspaper. Moreover it’s not too difficult to spot garden-variety trolling. The spelling and grammatical errors are a dead giveaway.
I do not like the Wiki’s articles about non-controversial, technical subjects. Too long! And too much arcane vocabulary! Having Dysfunctional Sensory Integration, and being reasonably well-informed about the condition, I was curious about what Wiki had to say on the subject. The article was classic Psychobabble. If I wasn’t already knowledgeable about DSI, I would not have been able to make heads or tails of the article.
My general impression is that the technical Wiki authors are writing for the approval of other experts, and that they give short shrift to the concept of imparting useful information to The Great Unwashed. (That’s us.)
I have done a little Wiki editing — mostly in the area of health and fitness. Some of my content was edited over by other contributors. However my basic points remained intact. In my limited experience, the system worked as it was supposed to.
And no, I’ll never edit a Global Warming-related Wiki article. I have better things to do with my precious time than writing engraved invitations for the Connolleys of this world.
By the way, Encyclopedia Britannica is now online. Their technical articles are shorter, and better written. My understanding is that EB use is free if you don’t visit very often.
Wikipedia is a good source of leads Quality varies, even on non-controversial technical issues.
“would love to have a few
Brittanicas to go with them…”
Do I have a deal for you my friend.
Would you like those books delivered by the ton or the tonne?
“Rick says:
April 30, 2014 at 6:19 pm”
Which side of “the pond” are you on? I’m in beautiful downtown Deutschland, missing the Britannica
I grew up with (my sister got that one 🙁 )….
It is fairly easy to detect some entries in Wikipedia that should be read with caution or fear. But some entries contain subtle sabotage. I once wanted to check a detail about a computer sorting algorithm. I think it was Shell sort or Heap Sort, but I’m not sure. Something looked suspicious. An order check had been changed. Something like “greater than or equal to” had been changed to “greater than”. Anyone that copied the doctored algorithm might get correct results with many test cases before the evil deed was detected.
Jeff says, “Years ago there was much ado about the Heaviside layer, which England seemed to support and no one else did… (even made it into “Cats”)”
True to form, and amusingly, the 1959 Britannica has a good biographical entry on Oliver Heaviside, but there is no entry about him in the 1959 Americana — here, Heaviside is only mentioned under the entry for Arthur Edwin Kennelly, and this column plainly says that Heaviside announced the layer 6 mos. after Kennelly.
I must admit, wikipedia does have a nice photograph of Heaviside. Perhaps I will be able to compare the entries later. Cheers, and I am sure you would give a good home to one of these “ancient history” sets.
SilverBear says: “I don’t know squat about Jimmy Savile, but since I just came across this story, I’m linking it. Again: NOT RESEARCHED, I don’t vouch for the website, and if it’s BS, I apologise.”
Possibly true, but the link is basically a long ad hominem article: “we should hate Israel because Jimmy Savile is a molester.” Okay, he’s a putz. He was also a BBC employee until he got caught. There’s some evidence that BBC covered up his behavior. No evidence that Israel covered up for him at all. The link, as you may have suspected, is a smokescreen. Objective: to take the focus off the BBC, in my opinion.
Godwin’s Law in … 3 … 2 … 1 …
There have been some sensible suggestions in the past, all vehemently rejected by the adolescent core group in charge of Wikipedia. I’m somewhat vague on them, but they include, IIRC:
Ability to allow experts to weigh in and “certify” articles they approve of.
Having dueling articles on controversial topics.
Better ways of countering rogue editors.
My idea: Hand over curatorship of articles to experts after five years.
Wikipedia is at its best as a source for terminology, links, and collections.
But as an authoritative source, it’s no better than rumor.
@Steve Garcia
There wasn’t any Saint Valentine present at Council of Nicea, I think you confuse him with Saint Nicolas that slapped Arius in front of Constantine the Great and the Roman Emperor threw Saint Nicolas, the Bishop of Myra at that time, in prison. The funny thing is that according to the Greek wikipedia article for Arius, Arius was absent from the Council of Nicea :p
I find that Wikipedia is really god and exact on general superficial information on topics that is not controversial, and then you have to go somewhere else if you really want to go into depth on the subject.
On controversial topics however Wikipedia is totally unreliable. Like on Climate topics.
Another totally unrelated such example to show the point is circumcision. here the Wikipedia article is taken over by pro circumcision forces and the article resembles a propaganda piece for circumcision of baby boys.