Your Ilk Prefer Wiki ? (economist)

[White_Male_Canada]

Online encyclopedias

Fact or fiction?

Mar 10th 2007
From Economist.com


The idea of an encyclopedia—a compendium of all the best available knowledge—is as tempting as it is flawed. Truth does not always come in bite-sized chunks. And the notion of an infinitely elastic internet encyclopedia, always up to date and distilling the collective wisdom of the wired is even more tempting. When open to all comers, anonymously, the problems are even more glaring.

This week a senior Wikipedia editor, who used the pseudonym Essjay, turned out not to be a professor of religious studies as he claimed, but in fact a 24-year-old college drop-out. That has highlighted both the strengths and the failings of the world’s biggest online encyclopedia, which now boasts well over 1.5m articles. The “Encyclopedia Britannica”, by contrast, has a mere 120,000.

Essjay (or Ryan Jordan in real life), got away with his pretence because Wikipedians jealously preserve their anonymity. With most entries, anyone can edit without even logging in; or they can create an entirely fictitious online identity before doing so. The effect is rather like an online role-playing game. Indeed, it is easy to imagine some sad fellow spending the morning pretending to be a polyglot professor on Wikipedia, and then becoming a buxom red-head on “Second Life”, a virtual online world, in the afternoon.

That anonymity creates a phoney equality, which puts cranks and experts on the same footing. The same egalitarian approach starts off by regarding all sources as equal, regardless of merit. If a peer-reviewed journal says one thing and a non-specialist newspaper report another, the Wikipedia entry is likely solemnly to cite them both, saying that the truth is disputed. If the cranky believe the latter and the experts the former, the result will be wearisome online editing wars before something approaching the academic mainstream consensus gains the weight it should.

Wikipedia has strengths too, chiefly the resilient power of collective common sense. It benefits from the volunteer efforts of many thousands of outside contributors and editors. If one drops out, another fills his place. People are vigilant on issues that interest them. When mistakes happen, they are usually resolved quickly. This correspondent’s modest Wikipedia entry was edited this week by an anonymous contributor who posted a series of entertaining but defamatory remarks; a mere four minutes later, another user had removed them.

Constant scrutiny and editing means even the worst articles are gradually getting better, while the best ones are kept nicely polished and up to date. Someone, eventually, will spot even the tiniest error, or tighten a patch of sloppy prose. Mr Jordan, for all his bragging, seems to have been a scrupulous and effective editor.

The most tiresome contributors do get banned eventually, though they can always log in under a new identity. Other shortcomings are the subject of earnest internal debate too, such as Wikipedia’s inherent bias towards trivial recent events rather than important historical ones. That is already changing, slowly, though subjects of interest to northern white computer-literate males are over-covered, while others are laughably neglected.

Wikipedia is the biggest collaborative online encyclopedia, but not the only one. Citizendium, supposedly launching soon, aims to be like Wikipedia but without anonymity, and with more weight given to recognised experts. Conservapedia aims to offer a version of the truth untainted by Wikipedia’s liberal secular bias on issues such as evolution.

So how useful is Wikipedia? Entries on uncontentious issues—logarithms, for example—are often admirable. The quality of writing is often a good guide to an entry’s usefulness: inelegant or ranting prose usually reflects muddled thoughts and incomplete information. A regular user soon gets a feel for what to trust.

Those on contentious issues are useful in a different way. The information may be only roughly balanced. But the furiously contested entries on, say, “Armenian genocide” or “Scientology”, and their attached discussion pages, do give the reader a useful idea about the contours of the arguments, and the conflicting sources and approaches. In short: it would be unwise to rely on Wikipedia as the final word, but it can be an excellent jumping off point.
http://www.economist.com/science/dis...ory_id=8820422

[trish]

Conservapedia aims to offer a version of the truth...

you got that right.

...untainted by ... [/i]secular bias on issues such as evolution.

you mean as opposed to cold sectarian analysis?

[LG]

Here is what one conservative blogger had to say about Conservapedia. Unlike most conservatives, this man has a sense of humour:

Conservapedia

For years homeschooled children have had to rely for all of their information on Wikipedia, which is full of dangerous ideas that homeschooling was supposed to prevent from seeping into the home. Now, finally, there is an alternative, which doesn't have any controversial ideas at all: Conservapedia. Conservapedia is based on good Christian values, unlike Wikipedia, which I gather from the name, is based on Wiccan. In Wikipedia, according to the founders of Conservapedia, "Christianity receives no credit for the great advances and discoveries it inspired, such as those of the Renaissance." But Conservapedia gives Christianity its due for being so supportive of the work of Galileo and Copernicus.

"The administrators who monitor and control the content on Wikipedia do not represent the views of the majority of Americans." reads Conservapedia's entry on Wikipedia (helpfully redirected from Wackypedia in case you mistype). "For example, only 10% of Americans accept evolution as it is taught in public school, yet virtually 100% of Wikipedia administrators accept it and will quickly censor factual material contrary to evolution." The biases in Wikipedia that Conservapedia corrects are all outlined in an article called "Examples of Bias in Wickipedia."

"Wikipedia allows the use of B.C.E. instead of B.C. and C.E. instead of A.D. The dates are based on the birth of Jesus, so why pretend otherwise? Conservapedia is Christian-friendly and exposes the CE deception" is the Number 1 Example of Wikipedia bias. Example 5 points out "Wikipedia often uses foreign spelling of words, even though most English speaking users are American." On Conservapedia less acceptable English spellings of English words are banned in favor of proper American spellings. "Gossip is pervasive on Wikipedia," reads Example 8. "Many entries read like the National Enquirer. For example, Wikipedia's entry on Nina Totenberg states, 'She married H. David Reines, a trauma physician, in 2000. On their honeymoon, he treated her for severe injuries after she was hit by a boat propeller while swimming.' That sounds just like the National Enquirer, and reflects a bias towards gossip. Conservapedia avoids gossip and vulgarity, just as a true encyclopedia does." In fact, one of the reasons I stopped reading the National Enquirer is because I was tired of all the stories about Nina Totenberg's affairs and her latest stints in rehab. Conservapedia doesn't even have an entry on Nina Totenberg, much to my relief.

Another example of Wikipedia bias that Conservapedia cites is its unfair attack on the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, which must be particularly upsetting to Conservapedia's founder. Started in November 2006 "as the class project for a World History class of 58 advanced homeschooled and college-bound students meeting in New Jersey" Conservapedia was founded by its most prolific writer Andrew Schlafly, the non-gay son of Phyllis Schlafly, who just happens to be the legal counsel for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Schlafly is an outspoken critic of vaccines (which as someone who hates needles I fully support), has warned that abortion causes breast cancer, filed briefs on behalf of Terry Schiavo and revealed that junk science claiming a link between asbestos and cancer is what led to the World Trade Center's collapse.

I am astonished by all of the things I have learned already from Conservapedia. For example, I was unaware of something called the Law of Mass Conversation: "Matter cannot be created or destroyed, it can only change form." Now that I think about it, I have observed that often when you're in a conversation with a large group of people you sometimes think you have let a matter drop, but you end up rehashing the same topic over again in a different form. This happens a lot on the Internet, too. But I had no idea someone had written a law about it.

But that's just one of the many fascinating, unbiased facts I learned. After spending the day hitting the random search button I felt like a Renaissance man, the good Christian kind. Of course, since anyone can edit the Conservapedia, the entries are constantly changing, so the links go to the last version I saw. Feel free to register and add your own insights, although it would be difficult to improve on some of these entries:

Kangaroo: "Like all modern animals, modern kangaroos originated in the Middle East and are the descendants of the two founding members of the modern kangaroo baramin that were taken aboard Noah's Ark prior to the Great Flood." (I'm sure skippy will be very interested to learn this.)

Theory of Relativity: "Nothing useful has even been built based on the theory of relativity.…'All things are relative' became popular as atheists and others used relativity to attack Christian values. There remains enormous political support for the theory of relativity that has nothing to do with physics, and Congress continues to spend billions of dollars unsuccessfully searching for particles predicted by the theory of relativity."

Gospels: "The greatest writing in the history of the world is the Gospel of John....This single book has done more to shape human thought and behavior than any other work. Our uniquely American First Amendment right of free speech is based on ministers preaching of the 'Word' of God as described in the first few verses of the Gospel of John."

George Washington: "Washington is perhaps the person other than Jesus who declined enormous worldly power, in Washington's case by voluntarily stepping aside as the ruler of a prosperous nation."

Scopes Trial: "Hollywood has little regard for the truth. Its movie version Inherit the Wind changed everyone's name, thereby preventing libel suits, and changed the facts in order to ridicule religious belief. Thanks to Bryan's victory in the Scopes trial, Tennessee voters have been educated without oppressive evolution theory for 75 years. Free from the liberal indoctrination, Tennessee voted against native son Al Gore in the 2000 Presidential election - probably the only time a candidate has lost the Presidency due to losing his home state. If Tennessee had a high level of belief in evolution comparable to that of East Germany, then you can bet Gore would have won his state and the Presidency."

The Da Vinci Code: "Dan Brown is responsible for feeding millions of readers a pack of lies cleverly wrapped up as a historically accurate novel."

Holocaust: "The Holocaust was the massacring of the Jewish race during World War II. The Germans are not to blame for this but the Nazi are. Besides 6 million Jews dying, 3 million Christians were killed also along with many priests and nuns. This is a very touchy subject for the Jews and is not often discussed amongst them."

Communism: "Communists believe that if they share everything, no one will ever have to work."

Most of the articles in Conservapedia are scrupulously sourced. For example, the entry on Isaac Newton -- "Sir Isaac Newton was one of the inventors of calculus and the propsed [sic-whoops!] the theory of gravity (It should be noted that gravity, like evolution, is just a theory and has never been proven to be true). He was a Devout Christian whose discoveries were inspired by God." -- refers you to the Bible Code Digest, which proves that Newton was a devout Christian. Virtually all of the science entries cite books by Dr. Jay L. Wile, the respected author of homeschool textbooks.

Unlike Wikipedia, which is full of too much information that can easily confuse people, most of the entries in Conservapedia are refreshingly brief, giving us just the facts we need to know: "Sufi: Sulfism [sic]; the tradition of Islam containing the beliefs dedicated to Allah." Concise, accurate, to the point. Who said encyclopedic necessarily means "comprehensive," I mean, besides Webster's dictionary, with its well-known liberal bias.

But Conservapedia is not just a dry, factual compendium of articles. In addition to scholarly encyclopedia entries, the Conservapedia contains "Debate Topics" which pose a number of provocative questions: "Crusades... Good or Bad?" "Did Jefferson Copy the Declaration of Independence?" "Is it even possible to install democracy in a Muslim country?" and "Was it wrong for him to allow the attack in order to wake up the American public and motivate Americans to fight and win the war?" which refers to Franklin Roosevelt and Pearl Harbor. This last topic has led to quite a debate between some frequent contributors and Andrew Schlafly, who not only believes that Roosevelt knew about Pearl Harbor in advance, buts thinks it was a good thing he let it happen.

Unfortunately, Conservapedia doesn't have an entry yet for Franklin Roosevelt or for other minor Presidents like John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Harry Truman or Theodore Roosevelt, although it does have very illuminating yet succinct entries for Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce and William Henry Harrison. But the encyclopedia is still growing and with your help its 3000 or so articles based on incontrovertible conservative facts will soon approach Wikipedia's 1.5 million entries filled with liberal lies. However, there is one disturbing lack that both encyclopedias share: Neither of them has an entry about this modest blog.

Update: Someone has finally corrected one of Conservapedia's most egregious inadequacies and added an entry for this modest blog: "Jon Swift is 'a reasonable conservative who likes to write about politics and culture.' He maintains a modest log on the internet ('weblog,' or 'blog') that is entirely factual, rational, and most importantly, conservative. Jon Swift is not funny and has no monkeys in his family tree."

Interestingly, even a right-wing "encyclopedia" such as the Conservapedia suggests that Hitler and Mussolini were right wingers.

[White_Male_Canada]

Thanks for biting, again

Wikipedia founder plans rival


One of the founders of Wikipedia is days away from launching a rival to the collaborative internet encyclopaedia, in an attempt to bring a more orderly approach to organising knowledge online.However,its openness has also drawn charges of unreliability and left it vulnerable to disputes between people with opposing views, particularly on politically sensitive topics.

The Citizendium (sit-ih-ZEN-dee-um), a "citizens' compendium of everything," is an experimental new wiki project. The project, started by a founder of Wikipedia, aims to improve on that model by adding "gentle expert oversight" and requiring contributors to use their real names. http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Main_Page

[insert_namehere]

Thanks for biting on WHAT?

Does posting a comment on a thread you start constitute "biting"? So far, no-one's said that the wikipedia is the end-all/be-all reference source.

I think it's pretty much a given that at best, the Wikipedia is a starting point. Thankfully, unless it's listed as a stub, more wikipedia entries have reference links and additional sources listed... sort of like... you know... the bibliography in REAL books.

You know, rather than assuming you're setting up some gambit to snare the "libtards" why not just post and state an agenda at the outset.

If this turns into yet another cut'n'paste tardfest between the regular suspects, I'm going to be severly disappointed.

[White_Male_Canada]

Thanks for biting on WHAT?

Does posting a comment on a thread you start constitute "biting"? So far, no-one's said that the wikipedia is the end-all/be-all reference source.

.

Most people I have back and forths with cite Wiki as I have always stated the exact message of Wiki`s front page,that wiki can be edited by anyone,at anytime, anywhere. The owners know this and have created the new beta site in an effort at accuracy.

Welcome to Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

[LG]

Thanks for biting, again

What the fuck is this guy talking about?

I'm not even going to bother replying.

[guyone]

BUT DO YOU LOVE THE BABY JESUS???

(chefmike turned into a born again something or other)