Discussions

« Back 1 [2] 3 Next »

This discussion relates to Technology Review's article Wikipedia and the Meaning of Truth.

• 
  H.B. Esbin, PhD
  

  Posts:
  1

  Avg Rating:
  

  

  Reply

  10/23/2008 08:08 AM

  Research in context

  I'd like to share a related article "Rethinking research in the Google era" from eSchool News Oct 15. This doesn't address the absolute need for truth and accuracy from trusted information sources per se. Rather it contextualizes how people, students in particular, tend to use a resource like Wikipedia. And that is with a certain amount of common sense. I know Wikipedia info is not Britannica info [which is vetted by the best minds within an exacting framework]. But the info I want from Wikipedia serves. Many thanks for raising the flag of caution.
  
  H.B. Esbin, PhD
  www.heliotrope.ca
  

  Rate this comment:
  • 
    mergatroid
    

    Posts:
    20

    Avg Rating:
    

    

    Reply

    10/29/2008 10:11 AM

    Re: Research in context

    Not so much a flag of caution to Wikipedia articles, unless one is using the information to build a spaceship to take them to the moon and back, and expecting to live to tell the story. One should take Wikipedia articles with a grain of salt, expecting errors and bias perhaps to what they read. The ideas of Truth and Authority to base knowledge are transient. Wikipedia does compile sources for further information which can be used to become more familiar with a subject.

    Rate this comment:
• 
  vin43075
  

  Posts:
  1

  Avg Rating:
  

  

  Reply

  10/23/2008 12:48 PM

  A relevant philosophical perspective...

  ...might be found in the writings of the famous pragmatist Charles Peirce:
  
  "To satisfy our doubts, therefore, it is necessary that a method should be found by which our beliefs may be caused by nothing human, but by some external permanency — by something upon which our thinking has no effect...
  Our external permanency would not be external, in our sense, if it was restricted in its influence to one individual. It must be something which affects, or might affect, every man. And, though these affections are necessarily as various as are individual conditions, yet the method must be such that the ultimate conclusion of every man shall be the same. Such is the method of science. Its fundamental hypothesis, restated in more familiar language, is this: There are real things, whose characters are entirely independent of our opinions about them; those realities affect our senses according to regular laws, and, though our sensations are as different as are our relations to the objects, yet, by taking advantage of the laws of perception, we can ascertain by reasoning how things really are; and any man, if he have sufficient experience and reason enough about it, will be led to the one true conclusion."
  
  Undoubtedly the definition of truth and objectivity can be debated for the next century, with no probable settlement of the issue; that said, there are many ways to approach the topic, and the more ya know about them the better your chances of being able to make a good decision regarding your own behavior.

  Rate this comment:
• 
  david.collin
  

  Posts:
  4

  Avg Rating:
  

  

  Reply

  10/23/2008 02:42 PM

  Medipedia

  Well, I'm glad Simson does contribute to Wikipedia. Nothing gripes me more than all the academics and "experts" who snipe at Wikipedia but don't participate or offer an alternative.
  
  Evidently a bunch of medical experts at some prestigous universities got fed up with what they consider inaccurate information on health and medicine on Wikipedia and other sources, so they've set up Medpedia.  <http://www.medpedia.com/index.php/Main_Page> It's mission is: "Medpedia is the collaborative project to collect the best information about health, medicine and the body and make it freely available worldwide."
  
  Now that's what I call a constructive approach. After all, this really isn't about Wikipedia but about the total corpus of quality infomation freely available to the public. If worried experts want to do something why don't they advocate for open access to scientific and medical journals?

  Rate this comment:
• 
  protn7
  

  Posts:
  69

  Avg Rating:
  

  

  Reply

  10/23/2008 03:38 PM

  Censorship at Wikipedia

  I am a scientist and inventor. A few years ago I was very pleased to find that friends and admirers I had never met but who read my work on the Internet wrote a biography on wikipedia. I read it and though it was accurate. To keep the objectivity of that bio, I never posted any corrections to the wikipedeia article myself; Establishing i had not written it myself.
  
  This year, after a bunch of enemies of mine posted a lot of lies to the automatic polling system on PHYSORG.COM they were bale to overload the system that counts how many negative and how many positive responses my postings got. They were able to change the weight of ratings from overwhelmingly positive to overwhelmingly negative- retroactively. The PHYSORG.com forum computer removed my name from the rolls of its members in good standing.
  
  After PHYSORG.com did that, a few months after, an editor at Wikipedia took steps to freeze my wikipedia bio after the same nuts that pulled their prank on PHYSORG.com did a radical rewrite of my bio attacking the integrity of people who reviewed my technological innovations including a testimonial from the Former President of the American Chemical Society- Dr. Thomas Netzel.
  
  Wikipedia requires its editors to justify their decisions and they have a bulletin board to complain about editors who have violated their own rules.
  
  I found that the editor there had no legitimate justification for ending my right to challenge people who fraudulently edit and rewrote my biography inserting libelous statements. His so called justification was simply that he had read a libellous posting on PHYSORG.com and that
  since they barred me from their bulletin board he was going to do the same thing despite a total lack of complaints against me from any of wikipedias millions of posters and amateur editors. If you are lawyer who reopresnts people in slander lawsuits and academic freedom issues please contact me at protn7@att.net
  I have seen other people who have the very same complaints about abuses at wikipedia

  Rate this comment:
  • 
    HaeB
    

    Posts:
    1

    Reply

    10/30/2008 12:48 AM

    Re: Censorship at Wikipedia

    Are you referring to this Wikipedia article? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Farbstein

    Rate this comment:
  • 
    N O M
    

    Posts:
    23

    Avg Rating:
    

    

    Reply

    06/02/2009 05:43 PM

    Re: Censorship at Wikipedia

    Curious how the unknown "friends and admirers" had the same ID as the one Neil used to complain about people correcting his biography.

    Rate this comment:
• 
  terrylynneturner
  

  Posts:
  1

  Avg Rating:
  

  

  Reply

  10/23/2008 04:04 PM

  Integrity and Wikipedia

  As both a J.D. and an MLIS I am all too familiar with the song that Wikipedia is selling, after all we should never underestimate the stupidity of people in large groups.  The fundamental difference is that a published expert can be held accountable and serve jail time for printing incorrect information thereby protecting innocent victims; bloggers, internet posters and Wikipedians are not held to this standard.  They can (and do) say anything that suits them and hide behind their "whatever" defense.

  Rate this comment:
• 
  hughesro
  

  Posts:
  1

  Avg Rating:
  

  

  Reply

  10/25/2008 09:22 AM

  Wikipedia follows a common standard

  Garfinkel's central assertion is that Wikipedia redefines truth is an exaggeration.  In fact, Wikipedia's policy is that they don't provide truth, they provide information that can be "verified" by reliable sources.  This standard is no different than the standard adopted by textbooks and other secondary sources of information.  Despite Garfinkel's example of the occasional challenges of correcting misinformation about oneself, the general standard of providing information based on reliable sources and not permitting original research that cannot be adequately verified is an appropriate standard for a secondary source. 

  Rate this comment:
• 
  Nick Franklin
  

  Posts:
  1

  Avg Rating:
  

  

  Reply

  10/27/2008 11:00 AM

  question answering citing wikipedia

  I work at True Knowledge where we answer questions based on semantically linked facts (more info here: http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/21151/).
  
  Many of the facts in our knowledge base have been sourced from Wikipedia, so the accuracy of our answers can often be dependant on the accuracy of information found in Wikipedia; so the issue of Wikipedia accuracy is very relevant to us.
  
  In order to reduce the risk of any inaccuracy in our answers we try and make sure all facts in our knowledge base are endorsed by more than one source (in fact any member of True Knowledge can endorse a fact and cite a new source).
  
  We are discussing the possibility of warning users when we deliver them an answer that uses facts that only cite one source - so at least they will know if the answer is based on information that only comes from one source (be it Wikipedia or anywhere else).

  Rate this comment:

« Back 1 [2] 3 Next »