Wikipedia's New Definition of Truth 428
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.'"
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Truth... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wikipedia: Where consistent opinions are correct opinions.
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.
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:Food for Thought (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A Reasonable Aggregate of Truth (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps we should just consider Wikipedia a reasonable aggregation of information. Some true, some false.
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.
Re:Simson Garfinkel (Score:2, Insightful)
Modding can be inexplicable sometimes, so don't feel hard-done-by. For what it's worth I mis-read it as well, and your comment made me chuckle and if I had mod points I'd be more than happy to give you a "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.
Truth does not vary (Score:1, Insightful)
I wish people would stop muddying the term truth. A thing does not "become" true -- either it is true or it is not. Truth is independent of any person's or group's perceptions or beliefs. 2+2=4 is true whether you believe it or not.
Wikipedia basically presents a consensus of opinion among some group of contributors. The real problem with it is that there is no control on whose opinions get included in the consensus. If you gather a consensus among a group of informed observers, that consensus has a relatively high probability of coinciding with objective truth. If you gather a consensus among an arbitrary group of self-selected observers, that consensus has a relatively lower probability of coinciding with objective truth. If you gather a consensus among a self-selected group of ignorant or unintelligent observers, that consensus is likely to be far removed from objective truth.
Thus the key issue with Wikipedia is that, looking at a given article, it may be difficult to discern its credibility. For an intelligent and well-informed reader, this is usually not a problem -- comparing the article to one's own knowledge and to other sources provides the indication of how trustworthy the article's statements are likely to be. Unfortunately, most readers are neither intelligent nor well-informed. They are in fact all too likely to simply believe whatever coincides most closely with their personal fantasies and desires. Oh, well.
Re:A Reasonable Aggregate of Truth (Score:3, Insightful)
Quite so. People are looking at Wikipedia the wrong way. It's not meant to replace people actually seeking truth the old-fashioned way. It's meant as an aggregation of mostly-correct information about a broad variety of topics that people can use as a starting point to inform themselves.
It's not meant to replace Encyclopedia Britannica, scientific journals, textbooks, or investigative reporting. It's meant to replace, "Well I heard from my Uncle Joe who got it from his neighbor that her daughter said she heard somewhere that this Obama fellow's actually an Arab." To which one might counter, "Well I heard from Wikipedia who heard from the Washington Post that that's patently ludicrous, and I can give you the link."
Re:And of course (Score:2, Insightful)
Plenty!!!
There are a lot of things which are presented as truths which are nothing more than opinion, or completely fabricated to support an agenda.
Even matters of objective fact are open to interpretation and spin. Sadly, I don't think Wiki is any more (or less) susceptible to this. If anything, the fact that we're explicitly aware of it in Wiki might make it easier. It's all the little ones we're not even aware of that are probably of greater concern.
Cheers
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.
Indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Food for Thought (Score:5, Insightful)
Lies create reality, so... (Score:2, Insightful)
In the extend that widely believed lies create reality, the truth is actually what most people regard as true.
Socialism (Score:2, Insightful)
In a very broad sense, this is why socialism doesn't work at the political or financial level, and we are only now beginning to better understand why. The web is much closer to our everyday experience than politics and the financial system are for most of us. We see in Wikipedia why Communism was such a huge failure in Russia. Eventually the corrupt bend the rules, take the reigns that some well-meaning individuals gladly gave up in the name of "helping others", and it ultimately results in a backwards system of disinformation and unintended consequences that benefit the few and punish the many even more than in a more competitive system like a free market economy or a multi-tiered political system. Neither communism or socialism or capitalism or a democratic republic are free of negatives, but it is the communist and socialist systems that are so much more susceptible to corruption.
Wikipedia is susceptible to corruption. When Jimmy Wales moves on, I can almost bet money that the next 'owner' of Wikipedia will find more ways to quickly monetize the content myself and thousands (millions?) of others have provided to benefit themselves and their immediate cadre of editors/admins to the exclusion of the rest of us who created the value and power of what they now control.
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.
Re:A Reasonable Aggregate of Truth (Score:3, Insightful)
Occasionally that may be true. However, pressure groups, cabals and wikipedia admins enforce their version of truth without consensus. Until all admins and cabals are removed from the site it can never be trusted.
Re:Food for Thought (Score:1, Insightful)
"proof through consensus" I think the term you are looking for is religion.
Re:Food for Thought (Score:1, Insightful)
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.
Unless the information he enters is a LIE to put himself in a better light, in which case it is NO ONE'S truth.
THAT is the problem with self-editing.
Re:Food for Thought (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree..kind of like the consensus of most western nations, that Saddam in Iraq had and was further pursuing WMD's. It was a shock to everyone when for the most part they couldn't be found. (I think recently some chemical weapons were found?)
But, for the most part...the intelligence in the US, UK, France..and Russia all said he had some hidden over there. And it isn't like Saddam didn't try to perpetuate the myth that he did. Ironically...if he's allowed unfettered inspections, and went out of his way to show he had none, and truly did NOT pursue getting them, he'd still be alive, in charge....and torturing his people for fun along with his sons.
Re:And of course (Score:3, Insightful)
A lot of the anti-climate change stuff uses similar tactics -- a couple of dissenting voices are used to support the idea that there is "widespread disagreement" on the topic.
On Wikipedia? Hardly. It has been my observation that Wiki is an echo chamber for the pro-climate change stuff. I had an article [nationalpost.com] to reference, but it's gone. Apparently censored. It did exist on archive.org, but apparently it has been purged there too. Hmm, I wonder why. You can find a digg reference to it here, [digg.com] but again, no article text. I did finally manage to dig up some of the copy here... [wordpress.com] The cult of climate change has much more effective censors than the scientologists do apparently... For posterity, here's the interesting bit:
Obligatory Penny Arcade Post (Score:3, Insightful)
TZ
Re:Food for Thought (Score:2, Insightful)
I note you're careful to say "federal taxes". Good talking point.
You might want to look at what percentage the poor pay in sales taxes (in those states that have them) and other taxes. As a proportion of salary, the poor pay more in those taxes than the rich. And as there are so many more poor than rich, they par more in aggregate as well.
Re:Food for Thought (Score:3, Insightful)
"proof through consensus" I think the term you are looking for is religion.
No ... democracy.