The popular rap on Wikipedia, the world’s must used information source, and one of the treasures and marvels of the web, is that it is democratic. Anyone can edit and add or subtract. But for those in the know, the reality is different. The iron law of oligarchy takes over. An outsider can’t in fact edit anything, anytime. The changes have to stick, and to get them to stick you have to justify the change in the talk page, and this is where the the battles truly take place. Disputes are resolved by editors.
I was thinking about this in light of Climategate. Here we have what is probably the most successful attempt ever to game the Wikipedia system. UK scientist William Connelley spend his every waking hour as a dedicated wikipedia editor and successfully kept the lid on contrary views.
Lawrence Solomon describes what he did:
All told, Connolley created or rewrote 5,428 unique Wikipedia articles. His control over Wikipedia was greater still, however, through the role he obtained at Wikipedia as a website administrator, which allowed him to act with virtual impunity. When Connolley didn’t like the subject of a certain article, he removed it — more than 500 articles of various descriptions disappeared at his hand. When he disapproved of the arguments that others were making, he often had them barred — over 2,000 Wikipedia contributors who ran afoul of him found themselves blocked from making further contributions. Acolytes whose writing conformed to Connolley’s global warming views, in contrast, were rewarded with Wikipedia’s blessings. In these ways, Connolley turned Wikipedia into the missionary wing of the global warming movement.
The Medieval Warm Period disappeared, as did criticism of the global warming orthodoxy. With the release of the Climategate Emails, the disappearing trick has been exposed.
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The Medieval Warm Period is all cited over Wikipedia. However it’s very presence is an argument in favour of AGW. Try the NOAA graph, http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/medieval.html.
Me again. The NOAA url does not have a period at the end. Try this, http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/medieval.html
Really? I am so freaking shocked!
I remember a picture I got from one of mine university buddies, still in the academic sector: one of his colleagues was wearing a T-shirt reading “Wikipedia is accurate! (by the way I was being sarcastic)”. It’s common knowledge that many “scientific” articles on Wikipedia are either ransacked from academic textbooks (so much for their IP politics) or heavily biased.
That’s why I do not use nor endorse the thing.
The very problem is that Wikipedia is “democratic”. I edited for Wikipedia for over a year. I focused on articles of low or mid importance to avoid the heated disputes which invariable come with editing more important information (e.g. economics, global warming, Catholic Church, et cetera).
What usually occurs if you are “Wiki-savvy” is that when you put the article up for review (if it’s not heavily read; if it’s heavily read then your edits will probably be disputed immediately) there will be some beginning to dispute your writing. If they are educated, they will leave it there (to provide a semblance of “stability”) until the dispute is ended (and something is agreed upon). If the dispute gets out of hand, they will call in something called the “arbitration committee”.
The problem is that given that anybody can edit an article, past disputes and arbitration tend to be immediately forgotten. New editors, unsatisfied by past disputes and agreements, will edit the articles anyways. Finally, if the majority of editor agree with anthropogenic global warming then there is no doubt that the article will have that bias, given that there are few willing to edit war a majority on Wikipedia (I know that I wouldn’t waste my time).
The problem with John’s link is the discussion there relies on the IPCC reports, the data of which is now suspect. In particular, the scale (amplitude) of historical proxies compared to modern instrumental data is debatable, not to mention that the latter itself appears to be exagerrated. The medieval warm period only supports the anthropogenic warming theory if it really was not as warm as today. That’s possible, but I have yet to see anything that can tell us for sure. If it was equally warm or warmer, it undermines AGW. Evidence of efforts to minimise it, in both scientific and popular literature, are therefore troubling.
This is why Wikipedia is best for information that is not really very controversial. For topics where there are marked differences in views, you tend to get the conventional “wisdom”.
this wales fellow, an objectivist, got the idea that you could design and implement a formal system which would encompass liberty. that’s right: freedom by prescription.
the creators are forced to go so far as to fashion ridiculous orwellian concepts such as “NPOV” which basically means “play semantic games to ensure that an article’s POV does not look like one.” unfortunately, the choice of which facts to include is itself one made subjectively. POV is inescapable, unless entirely meaningless, in which case, why bother trying to eradicate it?
The truth eventually bubbles to the surface.
I once tried to edit a Wikipedia article on fencing, by summarizing the differences between modern, electronically-scored, sport fencing and classical, non-electric fencing.
Apparently, the introduction of the electric scoring machine into fencing (like 100 years ago now) has left a wide swath of hurt feelings, petty jealousies, and, in some cases, vehement outrage all over the fencing community. This is fencing, mind you. A sport almost no one practices any more. But the fires of animosity still rage. The war of edits, deletions, revisions and re-revisions was bitter, and the end result was a mess.
But that was nothing compared to the time I tried to edit the Wikipedia article on taxes. All I did was try to add the comment that taxes are collected by force. The editor who patroled that article is some leftist mathematician in California, who said that my comment was “nonsense,” because people pay HOA dues, and those are “taxes” and yet they are still paid voluntarily.
This was a grown man with a Ph.D who said this. Apparently, academics have nothing better to do than sit in their offices scouring Wikipedia for whiffs of opinion they can’t abide.
Let me guess…he has his own wikipedia biographical article which features a picture of him wearing a red shirt and covered in birds.
A “*potential* problem?” Jeffrey, there you go being nice and civil again. I guess it is the better way to state a case.
Actually, your title says, “potentional” which is either a great new word or you mean “potential”. I like the new word!
Why doesn’t “our side” have a full-time Wiki staff? Marxoids control education and most universities. Do they now have control of online Wiki too?
HL,
I’m not sure a great many people would be interested in providing the time and service. A more open, and better organized, LvMI Wikipedia (more organized than it is currently, that is) would probably be far better.
I heard the latest attempt by the Wikipedia elite is to “disappear” all references to Climategate. They have now decided to call it “Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident”
And what’s their excuse? “The use of “scandal” or “-gate” frequently implies wrongdoing or a particular point of view. I guess “hacked” does not imply any wrongdoing or point of view…
HL – I love the idea of having another wiki type site written by others and controlled by an editorial board w/ no agenda other than presenting accuracy and truth. My guess is you’d be surprised how many frustrated, competent intellectuals are out there just waiting to do something along those lines. It seems to me that the “progressives” have been worming their way into the educational system for very many decades and it’s time to take back the futures of our children who are being dumbed down on a daily basis in the public school system. I fear we are rapidly approaching the point of no return .
I was surprised to see that in the article on the subprime crisis in the French version of Wikipedia, a typically Austrian explanation is put forward as the main cause of the crisis:
“Les causes de cette crise sont imputées à la Federal Reserve Bank qui a pratiqué entre 2003 et 2004 des taux directeurs très faibles, suivi d’un réhaussement brutal de ces taux.”
(Brief translation: the causes of this crisis are due to the low interest rates fixed by the Fed, followed by an increase of these rates.)
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crise_des_subprimes#Causes_invoqu.C3.A9es
But no Austrian economist is cited in the references.
In the English version of Wikipedia, the Austrian explanation (“monetary policy”) is hidden among many other minor causes:
“Causes proposed include the inability of homeowners to make their mortgage payments, due primarily to adjustable rate mortgages resetting, borrowers overextending, predatory lending, speculation and overbuilding during the boom period, risky mortgage products, high personal and corporate debt levels, financial products that distributed and perhaps concealed the risk of mortgage default, monetary policy, international trade imbalances, and government regulation (or the lack thereof).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis#Causes
“HL – I love the idea of having another wiki type site written by others and controlled by an editorial board w/ no agenda other than presenting accuracy and truth.” – ObserverOnTheHill.
Such sites already exist! Here one and here’s another
When was there ever an encyclopedia without some form of bias?
Gil,
You’re joking, right? A “creation science” wiki has no agenda?
Gil,
Are you joking? A creationist wiki has no agenda?
When there is grant money, prestige in your field and the ability to control others, no level of deceit is beyond tolerance.
Al Gore obviously doesn’t care about global warming personally at an environmental level – he sees it as a cash cow and a way to have a legacy that being the VP to a lousy president didn’t give him. If Al cared about the planet, he’d live like Ed Bagley Jr. Instead, he flys around the world on his private jet and lives in a mansion that uses more energy in a month than most people use in a year. If he was selling pet rocks to rubes that would be one thing. Instead he is trying to sell a disaster that inflicts control over the economy which affects us all (except maybe Ed Bagley Jr).
There is nothing wrong with Wikipedia. It reflects the struggle to reach the truth very well.
Meh. Competition is still competition.
Gil,
OK, I have no problem with that.
BTW, sorry about the multiple posts under different names. I got a message that made me believe that I was actually being moderated. I wanted to see if the moderation applied only to my email address/name, or to everyone, so I experimented with another email address and name. Has anybody else seen a message recently saying a post is pending review by a moderator?
Jeff wrote:
“If Al cared about the planet, he’d live like Ed Bagley Jr. Instead, he flys around the world on his private jet and lives in a mansion that uses more energy in a month than most people use in a year.”
Sure Al cares about the environment. That’s why he believes us little people should live in a stone age environment. But that shouldn’t apply to important people like himself. Important people like him are too busy saving us hoi polloi from ourselves to be concerned with his own carbon footprint. You just have to look at the big picture. *rolls eyes*
The same thing happened to me Russ.
I don’t know about you but I have been threatened to be banned by Kinsella, so I thought that may be actually the case. This thing actually made a reply to you dissappear on the IP arguments. Which is kind of ironic.
I wrote and asked Tucker and I haven’t received a reply. Maybe it is a technical glitch maybe someone is practicing the art of censorship.
What’s incorrect about the wiki competitors on Global Warming?
Competitor #1:
“Mainstream science, or the pro-anthropogenic side of the debate continues a stranglehold on the scientific process regarding global warming. The trend that there is no worthy scientific alternative to the theory of anthropogenic global warming is dispelled through dissenting qualified and competent scientists speaking out against the so-called scientific monopoly.”
Competitor #2:
“Global warming, or climate change, is a liberal conspiracy devised by Al Gore, treehugging hippies, and the electric car industry in order to gain political and financial power. Some argue that no one has ever actually seen global warming, pointing to the fact that said hippies probably imagined it while on LSD. (Plus, don’t forget that there were at least 6 or 7 ICE AGES over the course of Earth’s history.) All we have to do is keep burning ****, and we’ll have enough carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to really change things. In fact, if another Ice Age does occur, then warming the earth with emissions will help reduce the catastrophic temperature drop.
Last Thursday Al Gore finally lost the argument by comparing Global Warming to Nazis. Seriously.“
Nice post, Jeffrey. When I discuss Wikipedia with my Mass Media classes, I typically reference the 2007-08 Presidential Election (and preceding campaigns), too. During the span of this time-period in United States history, several candidate’s Wikipedia pages were locked because the (false) editing was so rampant, that it was hard to keep false info out and legitimate info in. That same seems to be the case for “climategate.” I recently wrote about another potential danger for Wikipedia: corporate/organizational sponsorship.
Nice post, Jeffrey. When I discuss Wikipedia with my Mass Media classes, I typically reference the 2007-08 Presidential Election (and preceding campaigns), too. During the span of this time-period in United States history, several candidate’s Wikipedia pages were locked because the (false) editing was so rampant, that it was hard to keep false info out and legitimate info in. That same seems to be the case for “climategate.” I recently wrote about another potential danger for Wikipedia: corporate/organizational sponsorship.
Gil,
I am not saying that the “wiki competitors” are wrong on the specific issue of global warming. I’m just saying that claiming that a creationist wiki has no agenda in general is, on the face of it, ridiculous. Of course they have an agenda; pushing creationism! (They have every right to do this, of course, on their own web sites.)
Kerem Tibuk wrote:
“This thing actually made a reply to you dissappear on the IP arguments. Which is kind of ironic.”
I don’t know that it’s ironic. The LvMI web server is private property, and the owners have a right to have designated moderators control it. This has nothing to do with IP, AFAICT. I do think, though, that if the moderators actually start moderating, it should be for the purpose of keeping things civil, and not for the purpose of enforcing a particular party line.
Wikipedia = “Truth based on who edits last”
The Faith-Based Encyclopedia (Robert McHenry, Former Editor in Chief, the Encyclopedia Britannica)
When wikipedia was new, I’d often add little tidbits, cite articles, and fix grammar and punctuation.
After not doing any editing for a long while, I noticed that a comedian’s biographical entry had listed his high school under its old name. I went to “edit” and added, parenthetically “(now known as _____)” so that an interested person could get to the current wiki page or web page of that school. (disclosure: I went to the same school)
Within minutes my update was reverted, and a response was sent to my email that the edit “added no useful information.” On the page of a comedian, what is useful about listing his high school anyway? And if you’re going to list it, shouldn’t you want to actually identify the school?
I haven’t edited a page since, even for grammar. I still use wikipedia as a “inch think, mile wide” resource from which I can find better primary and secondary sources – but I’m not going to waste any of my resources helping these wiki-trolls make a better product.
Russ,
The ironic part is, my post that disappeared was a reply to you and the same thing happened to you later on. Of course they can do whatever they want with the site and the comments.
Kerem,
Sorry, I misunderstood what you meant.
I learned this lesson a long time ago trying to contribute something on the monopoly page citing DiLorenzo. They promptly removed it.
Of course they can do whatever they want with the site and the comments.
true. but if they are telling lies or preventing clarification of information it should be exposed as deceptive ,and if such is the case, malicious.
i will email them
i wasnt around during the medieval age to know if there was a warm period of not.
if there is true archeological evidence of sheep bones from the period where there is now tundra or whatever…..that would seem to be legitimate information and should be kept on the wiki pages
To those replying to the creationistwiki link about having no bias: I can tell you have never been to the other wiki linked, as the other wiki is naught but one huge joke site in the form of a wiki. His statement was sarcasm, pure and simple.
Winnie, who cares???
http://masshealthinsurance.info
I couldnt think you are more right…
That was revelatory post..
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