Slashdot Log In
Wikipedia's New Definition of Truth
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Oct 21, 2008 12:43 PM
from the beware-the-man-with-the-lantern dept.
from the beware-the-man-with-the-lantern dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Simson Garfinkel has an interesting essay on MIT Technology Review in which he examines the way that Wikipedia has redefined the commonly accepted use of the word 'truth.' While many academic experts have argued that Wikipedia's articles can't be trusted because they are written and edited by volunteers who have never been vetted, studies have found that the articles are remarkably accurate. 'But wikitruth isn't based on principles such as consistency or observability. It's not even based on common sense or firsthand experience,' says Garfinkel. What makes a fact or statement fit for inclusion is verifiability — that it appeared in some other publication, but there is a problem with appealing to the authority of other people's written words: many publications don't do any fact checking at all, and many of those that do simply call up the subject of the article and ask if the writer got the facts wrong or right. Wikipedia's policy of 'No Original Research' also leads to situations like Jaron Lanier's frustrated attempts to correct his own Wikipedia entry based on firsthand knowledge of his own career. So what is Wikipedia's truth? 'Since Wikipedia is the most widely read online reference on the planet, it's the standard of truth that most people are implicitly using when they type a search term into Google or Yahoo. On Wikipedia, truth is received truth: the consensus view of a subject.'"
Related Stories
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Food for Thought (Score:5, Interesting)
Which raises an interesting question that no one seems to be asking: What if the problem is not Wikipedia at all? What if Wikipedia is a symptom of a much larger problem in our culture? What if the solution isn't to berate Wikipedia for that which they cannot fix, but rather to ensure the foundations upon which the system is based are fixed?
Failures in authority are of far greater reach than just Wikipedia. That's why academia seeks to correct itself on a regular basis. But the rigid standards of academia (standards which have weakened over time) are not applied to all fields that Wikipedia reports on. Using the case of Jaron Lanier, how is an impartial observer supposed to distinguish between a failure in authoritative reporting vs. an attempt to rewrite history for personal benefit? The only way to prove one over the other is to find evidence. In the case of Wikipedia, it must find another authortative party to dispute the original because doing detective work is beyond what is reasonable for an encyclopedia.
Re:Food for Thought (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Food for Thought (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
This article may contain original research... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Food for Thought (Score:4, Interesting)
For anyone familiar with B5 there is a quote:
"Truth is a triple-edged sword; My truth, your truth and the real truth".
So decisively saying that there is only one truth - you may be utterly wrong. Better to be careful with what you say and make people think instead and maybe someone will look up the real truth.
Parent
Re:Food for Thought (Score:5, Informative)
That quote refers to something called the Maginot Line; a line of heavily fortified positions on the French border prior to WWII. The "consensus truth" (a term I doubt they had heard of back then, it is so politically correct sounding) was that the Germans could NEVER break through such a heavily defended line.
That was the French "truth". The German "truth" was that they walked past the Maginot Line (because it was fixed and could not adapt to changes in attack plans) and into Paris.
"Consensus truth" is a waste of time and an insult to intelligent people. The summary shows why. If someone who was actually there because it was his life cannot get correct information into Wikipedia, that doesn't mean his life was different than he thought. It means that the Wikipedia "consensus truth" is balderdash. In other words, forty million Frenchmen CAN be wrong.
Parent
Re:Food for Thought (Score:5, Interesting)
The "consensus truth" (a term I doubt they had heard of back then, it is so politically correct sounding) was that the Germans could NEVER break through such a heavily defended line.
That was the French "truth". The German "truth" was that they walked past the Maginot Line (because it was fixed and could not adapt to changes in attack plans) and into Paris.
Well, and the French were right! The Germans didn't break through the line until after they had already cut off supply lines from the rear*. In fact the whole reason the Germans decided to go around the Maginot Line was that they, too, believed that they couldn't break through directly. So the problem wasn't that the "consensus truth" wasn't true. It was, more or less. No, the problem was deeper and more insidious. It was that they failed to fully realize what that truth was telling them, and what it wasn't. "The Maginot Line is impregnable", taken as truth, should immediately raise the question "Well what about the rest of the French border?" But they didn't want to think about that truth, so suddenly France was safe against any German invasion, a decided non-truth.
It's kinda like if you visit some witches who tell you that "None of woman born shall harm you", you shouldn't go "Woo-hoo, I'm invincible!", because that's not what the witches just said. You should instead go "Wait a minute, what was that bit about 'of woman born'? Were you just saying that to be poetic? I mean I know this is Shakespeare, but that just seems like a weird thing to say. Would, say, a C-section count as not being 'of woman born'? Cus I know a guy who was born that way and he'd be one of the first in line to try to harm me."
So anyway, I agree, I just think there's a lesson here too about being careful about what truth is actually telling you.
* This may not be 100% accurate. I know there were early battles where the Germans did attack the line, and that it by and large did its job as advertised and held them off, though Germany may have broken through at some spots. Maybe I should look it up on Wikipedia?
Parent
Re:Food for Thought (Score:4, Informative)
That is untrue.
"Consensus truth" is nothing more than a politically correct way of saying "opinion" that dresses opinion up in a fancy dress and makes it look like more than it really is. It's a way of making EVERYONE correct, while not having to point out that some people's "truth" just doesn't fit with the facts. It's good for their "self esteem" and politically correct not to think that some truths really are absolute.
The encyclopedia of the time could easily give just the facts about the line, which is what truth ultimately is based on. Real truth, not "consensus truth" which can ignore facts in favor of rumor and innuendo. "The Maginot Line consists of X number of fortified positions spread across a line from Y to Z, intended to defend the country against German attack". Those are facts. "The Maginot Line is an invincible fortified defense system ..." is an opinion, or what would be called "consensus truth" today.
Some of these might be true, but the thing is, the wikipedia has no way of being smarter than the consensus.
Yes, it does. The same way anyone has of being smarter than the consensus. Look for facts and not opinions. The fact that they don't allow one of their victims to correct his own biography is demonstration that truth really isn't the goal of Wikipedia, it's popularity. Let everyone participate, even if they don't know what the hell they are talking about.
Here's an example of how to beat "consensus truth". The "consensus truth" is that the current US tax system is unfair to the poor and lets the rich off the hook. ("Unfair" and "off the hook" are opinion words, a quick way to identify "consensus truth".) The FACTS show that the poor already pay nothing, or very close to nothing, in federal taxes. The bottom 50% of taxpayers by income pay just 3.3% of the tax revenues (and a large number of them pay 0) while earning 13% of the income, while the top 0.1% of incomes pay 17% of the revenue while earning just 9% of the income. That's the truth, and it directly contradicts the "consensus truth", which shows that the consensus truth is not.
Parent
Re:Food for Thought (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Food for Thought (Score:5, Informative)
To add to my point, the Nintendo DSi announcement is a perfect example. Take a gander at the Slashdot story:
http://games.slashdot.org/games/08/10/02/2116202.shtml [slashdot.org]
"Nintendo finally came out with a solution to the Wii's lack of storage capacity -- a 2GB SD card from which users can execute games"
Sounds pretty cool, eh? Expect that it's wrong. Nintendo announced a solution to DOWNLOAD games to the SD Card. At no point did they confirm an executable solution. (In fact, they seemed intent on steering away from such an announcement.)
But Slashdot's reporting was not the worst. The worst was GameSpot [gamespot.com], a site that SHOULD by all rights be authoritative. Yet here they are putting words into Reggie's mouth:
9:23] "Iwata is addressing the problem of Wii storage," he says. "Soon you will be able to download and store virtual console and WiiWare titles directly on your SD card, and play them off your SD card. This will make the Wii download experience much easier."
I emailed a more reputable editor who was at the event and confirmed for a fact that those words were never spoken. Yet many, many people quoted GameSpot's poor journalism as proof positive that Nintendo announced a solution to execute games off of SD Cards.
What is a site like Wikipedia supposed to do?
Thankfully, this is a case where a mountain of solid reporting existed to counteract the poor reporting. So Wikipedia reports the correct information. But what if this was more obscure information? How would Wikipedia know who to trust? How would they be able to check again bad reporting?
Answer: They can't. Reporters must be help accountable for the factual nature of their statements. (In the case of GameSpot, that means they should have issued a retraction.) If they cannot maintain a reasonable level of journalistic standards, the industry as a whole should start advertising them as an unreliable source.
Parent
Re:Food for Thought (Score:5, Insightful)
Your specific example effectively demonstra a serious limitation for Wikipedia. One of wikipedia's flaws is not that it has such limitations, but that it doesn't recognize them. Wikipedia is not well suited for the task of distilling rumors and such to predict the future. That doesn't mean that wikipedia is worthless or somehow broken, it just means that it shouldn't have entries that try and guess.
Like you said, when operating at its fullest potential, Wikipedia is really an aggregation of well supported facts. I think everyone would be better served if Wikipedia as a general philosophy would remove topics where those sorts of facts can't be found. Keeping them around only serves to draw into question the usefulness of the entire site.
I think the more useful solution is multiple wiki's, each geared towards a more specific category of knowledge, and having the appropriate level of requirements for an entry to be considered valid. A wiki about future trends of the video game industry is not a bad thing, but it has, inherent in its subject matter, a huge amount of uncertainty. The very idea that such information would be compiled in the same collection and through the same process as something as straight-forward as descriptions of historical medieval weaponry is sort of silly. (Of course, it's also half the fun of wikipedia, following the strange paths that you can end up taking by clicking interesting links between entries.)
More subject specific wiki's do exist, and more are popping up every day, but they're all currently stuck in the shadow of Wikipedia. Hopefully as people become more savvy about finding information online, they'll start to look for more focused sources.
Parent
Re:Food for Thought (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the more useful solution is multiple wiki's, each geared towards a more specific category of knowledge, and having the appropriate level of requirements for an entry to be considered valid.
That was exactly my thinking when I launched DocForge [docforge.com]. Topics for programmers need to have a lot more information than a source like wikipedia can provide. We use some wikipedia articles as a starting point and expand from there. Sometimes opinions, especially pro / con arguments, are preferred for some articles because they provide much more insight than a flat reference. Plus we can collect subjective things like tips [docforge.com] that don't belong on wikipedia.
I think this route of categorical wikis is very useful. But unfortunately, you're correct in that most will remain in the shadow of wikipedia for quite some time.
Parent
Indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem goes deeper then that, the author comes across to me as missing the deep links between religion, gossip, and ideology -- that they trump the facts every time.
That religious or slopping thinking is the standard for all human beings, even science is subject to the same sloppy thinking they accuse creationists and other "nonscience" disciplines, peoples and opinions of and hence the dire need for peer review, criticism, and understanding, etc.
But the truth is, all truths people think are true are r
Re:Food for Thought (Score:4, Interesting)
So, despite TFA, verifiability is not the only criterion. I daresay NPOV comes into play more often: WP policy is only ever important when an issue is fought over by differing editors, after all; and it is trivial to find sources for all sorts of contradictory viewpoints.
...but who seriously thinks that this is a bad thing? WP:IAR [wikipedia.org] is probably the best guideline here. Common sense, indeed...
Note that even the UNDUEWEIGHT policy is not strictly followed in Wikipedia - e.g., creationism has a lot of adherents at a popular level. It's also trivial to find cited sources and endless lines of arguments and counter-arguments. Despite this, Wikipedia is usually sceptical of creationism - statements on evolution are usually phrased "it is the case that x" whereas creationist statements are carefully bracketed as "many people believe that x".
Parent
Re:Food for Thought (Score:4, Interesting)
Which raises an interesting question that no one seems to be asking: What if the problem is not Wikipedia at all? What if Wikipedia is a symptom of a much larger problem in our culture? What if the solution isn't to berate Wikipedia for that which they cannot fix, but rather to ensure the foundations upon which the system is based are fixed?
WP might not be "the" problem, but a part of the problem, I agree on that.
However, the aggregation and the claims that WP makes about itself contribute to the problem. Most people with some critical thinking don't trust everything they read on the Internet, and have a clue about how reliable certain publications usually are. Most of us know which newspapers have good reporting and which ones don't.
WP merges everything. That means loss of differentiation. Someone decides which version is "true", maybe because he doesn't know the others.
More simply put: If you read it in a magazine, you're more likely to check at least one other source. If you read it in an encyclopedia, you aren't. For the most part, the encyclopedia is the most authoritative source a normal human will check.
Parent
Ob simpsons quote (Score:5, Funny)
2+2 (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, it doesn't work like this (Score:5, Insightful)
Wikipedia doesn't say that A is true because reference X says so. Wikipedia says that reference X tells us that A is true. There is a fundamental difference:
In the first (incorrect) version, Wikipedia cites X and adds something to this, specifically that X is trustworthy and makes correct statements about A.
In the second, correct version, Wikipedia doesn't claim that A is true or false. It just claims that X claims that A is true. Wikipedia doesn't add anything, it simply accumulates facts and let the reader choose whether A is true or not, and whether X is trustworthy or not.
Nothing is true just because you can verify that someone else thinks it is true. That idea is stupid and so is this story.
Parent
We can only hope... (Score:5, Funny)
That slashdot isn't considered some other publication.
Simson Garfinkel (Score:5, Funny)
Wiki BS (Score:4, Insightful)
The claim that "it appeared in some other publication" is in stark contrast with it's own "WP:SPAM" zealots who won't accept any external publication, strongly favoring [[self-references]] instead.
Wikipedia is more like early north american land grabs. First to put down the stake wins. Any additional, equally valid info, is spam and must be defended against.
Truth... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wikipedia: Where consistent opinions are correct opinions.
Re:Truth... (Score:5, Funny)
Wikipedia: Where persistent opinions are correct opinions.
There, fixed that for you.
Parent
Re:Truth... (Score:5, Funny)
There, fixed that for you
Don't bother, the OP will just revert it...
Parent
A Reasonable Aggregate of Truth (Score:5, Insightful)
As the article author suggests, Wikipedia, when compared to magazine articles or books, is still only the best opinions of other humans. True, magazine articles and books typically have more fact-checking involved - because the author has a reputation to protect - but it's still opinion - just like Wikipedia. The only way a reader can assess ultimate truth is to view Wikipedia in comparison to as many other publications as possible - online or offline. This is the scholastic method and should be the method for every Wikipedia reader. I know this isn't always the case, but this isn't always the case for your average book reader or magazine reader either: they read an opinion that jives with them, and it becomes truth - no different than a Wiki entry.
Re:A Reasonable Aggregate of Truth (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps we should just consider Wikipedia a reasonable aggregation of information. Some true, some false.
Parent
Wikipedia takes the truth very seriously (Score:5, Informative)
Not true (Score:3, Insightful)
I notice the only thing supporting the idea that wiki defines true comes from wiki, which is not an outside-wiki source. Therefore it can't be verified (without RTFA at least) and is not true.
And of course (Score:5, Insightful)
The Register loves this sort of thing: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/17/wikipedia_and_the_mirror/ [theregister.co.uk] is a minor example, but who knows what else has been elevated to truth by circular reasoning? (smart alec answers to *that* question are welcome
philosophically groundless criticism (Score:5, Insightful)
the crticism offered in the story summary is accurate, but pointless. the idea would be to find some sort of impossibly noble source of information for which the criticism leveled at wikipedia does not also apply. since all sources of media suffer from the same sort of suspect appeal to authority or questionable fact checking, then the criticism leveled against wikipedia is not valid in the sense that it makes wikipedia any different from any other media source you can find
all media is suspect, anywhere. you go through life with a good bullshit meter, or you don't go through life at all. there is no such thing, nor will there ever be, a perfectly verifiable and 100% trustworthy media, anywhere on this planet. media is a human endeavour, and as such, it is as flawed as we are. it is not a question of purposeful intent or partisan manipulation, it is a question of the unattainability of true impartiality
it is impossible for you to discover a media source that does not also suffer from the same criticism leveled at wikipedia. so continue using wikipedia, with a healthy functioning bullshit meter, teh same bullshit meter you should have on when reading any other media soruce. the criticism is useless
learn to accept the fundamental limitations of media in your world, and stop expecting the impossible out of media. it is biased, and always will be
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
all media is suspect, anywhere. you go through life with a good bullshit meter, or you don't go through life at all.
Or you go through life anyway, and vote republican.
Seriously, Wikipedia? (Score:3, Funny)
Wikipedia provides the new standard of "truth"?
We all know that nothing is "true" until it has been posted on Slashdot. Jimbo Wales is fit to polish Commander Taco's sneakers.
Useful Vs. Official (Score:4, Interesting)
Wikipedia has errored on the side of being "cited" over being "useful". Opinions that may be subjective or not cite-able can still be very useful information.
What is needed is a kind of competitor that *does* allow "unofficial" info. One can use wikipedia when they want cite-able stuff and the less formal one for less formal tidbits. (And maybe link them somehow.)
For example, in my opinion one of the most striking things about the original video game "Asteroids" that set it apart was the brightness of the phaser torpedoes, due to its use of vector screen scanning instead of raster scanning. I put a note about this on wikipedia, but the "citation police" kept deleting it. This despite the fact that most of the existing article was not cited either. (Cut-off time rules?) It was a frustrating experience. Subjective opinions about why people liked (or thought others liked) X is useful info to many of us. Personal experience from an arcade owner about customers' first reactions would be interesting also, even if not citable.
There's a niche to be tapped. I even considered starting "casualpedia.org" to serve it, but don't want to manage/rent the fat server farms needed. (I've filled my quota on personal dot-bombs already.)
Multiple sources (Score:5, Informative)
That's why multiple sources are the best. Whenever sources disagree, the more reliable [wikipedia.org] sources are trusted over less reliable sources.
That's just not true. Many talk pages are filled with disputes over "my source X is more reliable than your source Y because ...". That's ultimately a very healthy discussion. And WP:RS [wikipedia.org] does say that some sources aren't reliable enough to be worth including at all.
Calling Captain Kirk... (Score:5, Funny)
Notability is King (Score:5, Informative)
Help change Wikipedia for the better (seriously) (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a real attempt at changing some of Wikipedia's guidelines going on at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:compromise [wikipedia.org]
Please have a look, and please chime in. Please strike a blow AGAINST deletionism.
Irrelevant (Score:4, Funny)
We all know that the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom.
So, unless Wikipedia adds a huge DON'T PANIC header to their website, I won't be using it.
People often _lie_ about themselves. (Score:3, Interesting)
> Wikipedia's policy of 'No Original Research' also leads to situations like Jaron
> Lanier's frustrated attempts to correct his own Wikipedia entry based on firsthand
> knowledge of his own career.
Has he offered documentation?
Truth is dangerous (Score:4, Insightful)
Some facts are less widely known, like what Shatner was doing last week at tea time, or what motivated someone to jack a car. One might be tempted to ask Shanter or the car jacker, and that would certainly give a credible version of the truth. But what if 10 people saw Shatner at the time on the state day, or what if the car jacker just had a discussion with someone prior the incident describing what he or she was feeling. And what if the first hand and observed description of the 'truth' did not match? Do we accept the personal accounts or first hand observations? Do we accept the car jackers claim that he had been offered the car as a gift when 10 people saw the car being taken at gunpoint? The problem with truth is that we are forced to accept a single version, even though, at least sometimes, both can be seen as reasonable in certain contexts.
Which is why there is no issue here. Wikipedia deals with facts, figures, and personal statements. This is a commonly accepted fact. This is what I saw, and many people agree with me. This is the gestalt consensus of the truth at this moment. Confusing this with anything other than fallible observation causes nothing but problems.
OTOH academic observation often talks about validity. Starting with this data, and using these methods, this is what a reasonable person would conclude. Is the data good? You be judge. Are the methods appropriate? You be the judge. Do you trust that the procedures are carried out properly? That is also a judgement call. There is no truth, just observation and valid conclusions. Wiki cannot handle this because it usually just include out of context 'facts', with little context. No way to know why these 'facts' are more valid that those reported last week. It is this exact thing that makes people so confused about health and nutrition issues. People tend to believe what they are told, even though there is no reason to believe it.
Wikipedia probably more truthful than most (Score:3, Insightful)
The real danger is in assuming that any other source of information is significantly more accurate, complete or truthful than Wikipedia. You'd be better served by assuming that any / all of these references are not completely reliable.
The problems with wikipedia: (Score:5, Insightful)
Wikipedia is not authoritative.
Wikipedia's content is generated by pseudo-anonymous individuals who incorrectly assert the public Internet is a reliable source of information. The public Internet is not a reliable source of information, therefore wikipedia is not a reliable source.
Wikipedia's editors break the rules governing their behavior and the behavior of others if it will benefit them. As a result, wikipedia advances the subjective views and beliefs of its editors.
Contributing factors to this delusion include the competing concepts "notability" and "neutrality", as advanced by wikipedia. Lacking from that discussion, of course, is the question: notable or neutral, to who? Rather than host disputed versions of articles, representing the majority opinion and any significant minority opinions, wikipedia prefers a version advancing assertions, but not facts, which are easily disputed by any minority.
And I frankly despise the appearance of wikipedia in search results, or having some article on wikipedia quoted in a discussion online, as if it provides information of value, in lieu of the reliable primary sources wikipedia references, as if wikipedia itself is the source of that information, and not merely a link farm with some content wrapped around it.
But then, I make a living because of the difference between assertions and facts, and I'm apt to notice such things. Wikipedia is long on assertions, and short on facts.
Verifiability, not truth (Score:5, Informative)
If readers sometimes look to it for truth, well, they're misusing it.
How Wikipedia Makes People Dumb (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, and I *am* a hypocrite too. But I'm trying to get better at defining what lengths I will or will not go to in an intellectual argument. It's really easy to pull the carpet right out from beneath your own education by attempting to bring down others' viewpoints for the sake of ego.
Always read the discussion pages. (Score:5, Insightful)
A couple of times I've had someone "correct" me pointing to Wikipedia, where the article that they're pointing to is one I'd contributed to. Sometimes the article has become self-contradictory under the influence of multiple editors, other times the article is being more actively edited by someone who he happens to agree with. Either way, I "know" at least as much about the subject as Wikipedia does.
You really can't tell what a Wikipedia entry really means without reading the discussion page. In fact, that's often more informative than the article itself.
Gold Standard for Useful Definition of Truth (Score:4, Insightful)
The gold standard for any useful definition of truth is, "What is most likely given the information available. Incorporate the uncertainty into your answer."
In this light, the Wikipedia standard is almost as good as it could possibly be.
Hyper-conTextual reading beyond the lines (Score:4, Interesting)
When I was growing up, I read hypertext years before the 'web: encyclopedias. All the related articles listed at the end of each article were links to contextual aspects of the subject.
Wikipedia takes it further. I read an article that I intend to take seriously by also looking at the discussion page, and the history of edits. It is the saving grace of WP.
Good WP articles have two new dimensions available to the reader: TIME, and DEBATE. This is an astoundingly more efficient way to stimulate critical thinking about the topic than a simple article with references. Each article has multiple exposed viewpoints, and its growth pattern is part of its verifiability.
I can't stress this enough. It is a new kind of reading, something that will eventually become crucial to knowledge repositories.
Not every single article (Score:4, Interesting)
One article covers some events I was part of. While I would say that those were highly debated events and I probabely should not write about it myself, because I was involved, I still think it is very, very one-sided. I tried to argue my case on the discussion pages, but to no avail. For some reason the other side (radical liberals) thinks that their view must be the neutral one. And they have some more people.
They even got into an edit war with some Wikipedia-people, because actually those events are not even relvant enough to be part of that article.
And they still won. So now when someone reads about those events and wants to find out more he might, at some point, look at Wikipedia too check out what those events were all about. And as I am saying. What is in that article is complete bs.
And all the time I am thinking if I should get more involved because of the significance of Wikipedia. I guess I should.
Re:Jaron's new definition of "film director" (Score:5, Informative)
He is a director in the same sense I am a door to door salesman, mechanic, dirt bike rider, and diaper wetter.
Saying I once did those things is accurate. Saying that I "am" any of them is not because it creates the belief that I DO or have recently tried to sell something to someone, fixed broken machinery, ridden a low powered motorcycle on a dirt track, or soiled myself.
If only English were a rich enough language to denote the difference between what people once did and what they do now. Oh, wait, it is. :)
Parent