I've been a user, editor, and defender of Wikipedia since its early years. It's always had problems, certainly. Vandalism might get cleaned up within a few minutes or might stick around for years. Some band articles were obviously written by, like, the bassist or somebody in a desperate bid for publicity. But it's generally struck me as a good primer on various topics and guide to further readings.
For some topics this is still true. In other areas there are signs that go beyond troubling and into the realm of alarming. The article on Scott Atlas is illustrative. In terms of Atlas's work on COVID the article gives the last word--and most of the other words--to his critics. There's an entire section labeling his analysis and advocacy as "misinformation", including some things that are arguably pretty good information. At the very least there's still an active controversy.
Now yes, strictly speaking anyone can edit. But if you look at the article's talk page you see a lot of dissent not reflected in the article. Almost certainly some of these people have tried to influence the content of the article, ultimately to no avail.
When an open source authority is edited by disparate people at varying levels of knowledge, skill, and interest, it can be refined into something fair and informative. When a particular clique captures it and they're all working in one direction, it starts to approach the level where you should take it with a grain of salt.
2 comments:
It's good that you've been a contributor to wikipedia over the years and, that being said, I'm fairly sure that most articles you've been involved in editing will have been better for your thoughtful input. I certainly visit the site pretty often myself as it's reliably informative about many disparate subjects.
What I don't look for there is honest information about contemporary news, people, corporations, politics, or the military - among other things. It's good for learning a bit about about historical figures, art, animals, crafts, geography, astronomy - in other words, general subjects that can be followed up by further searches if you need more. Taking the information found there with a grain of salt is definitely advisable.
You may have seen the Unherd interview with Larry Sanger, the co-founder, who made some very valid remarks about the left liberal takeover of wikipedia.
We read another excellent essay today by Alastair Cavendish called Bottom. I think you'll enjoy it too
I'd say that there's been a learning curve in editing. While at first I just added stuff willy-nilly, now if what I'm adding falls under the category of new information I'll make sure to include a good source, which is good practice although the range of accepted sources is cripplingly narrow. Contributing to TV Tropes is more fun, and less fraught.
You are quite right not to rely on them for honest information on contemporary events and people. Whether it's a deliberate conspiracy or just groupthink they do limit perspectives to their own biases. The Internet in itself limits perspectives in a sense by its very nature, which even someone like pioneer programmer Jaron Lanier has acknowledged.
Sanger has tried to start a more honest competitor to Wikipedia since leaving, although sadly none of his efforts have gotten off the ground. Nonetheless, he's made some good points and his warnings should be heeded.
I liked that piece by Cavendish. He's correct to note that children (and young adults) must have noted that they have to wear masks all day when members of Parliament (and across the Atlantic, Congress) don't. Basically it's something we push onto people who are little and/or powerless.
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