My historic house has a Wikipedia page, I’ve tried updating it with information I know is accurate (I mean, I live here), but it was always removed. Must have a primary source that’s not “individual research” like, you know, counting the bedrooms or fireplaces.
Which is what lead to me getting our city’s newspaper to interview me, print several facts and stories, and now that published article is a primary source.
During this process I realized that Wikipedia is pretty goddamn serious.
To a degree. But you also run into the classic XKCD problem of Citogenesis. This isn’t a hypothetical, either.
Had you, for instance, mentioned something you read about your own historical house on Wikipedia in the city’s newspaper, it would now be a cited piece of information that Wikipedia links onto.
There’s also the problem of link rot. When your small town newspaper gets bought up by ClearChannel or Sinclair media and the back archives locked down or purged, the link to the original information can’t be referenced anymore.
That’s before you get into the back-end politics of Wikipedia - a heavy bias towards western media sources, European language publications, and state officials who are de facto “quotable” in a way outsider sources and investigators are not. Architectural Digest is a valid source in a way BanMe’s Architecture Review Blog is not. That has nothing to do with the veracity of the source and everything to do with the history and distribution of the publication.
I have a wiki editor account primarily for updating links on pages. I have also done a handful of minor edits on some obscure pages in my field, but primarily use it to update links and references. Link rot is the worst and I wish more people would help out with it.
It would be nice if Wikipedia automatically integrated with WayBackMachine or some other archive service. Or even directly backed up the information when it was linked.
Really valuable input here, appreciate this comment!
Yeah I was reading about the editing guidelines and they have a principle that surprised me at first:
Basically, you could edit an article with information you know is true (like your bedrooms or fireplaces), but truth is not the criteria that edits get tested upon. It must be verifiable by a source.
Pretty cool that you didn’t just give up and actually got the local newspaper to interview you! That’s awesome!
That is hilarious. At that point if I was annoyed enough, I’d do something like hang a picture in the house taking a dig at Wikipedia and then the interview could mention that and now it could be in the article about the house taking a dig at them.
that published article is a primary source.
It’s not a primary source, that’s the whole point. It’s a secondary source, which takes information from the primary source and publishes it with some degree of verification.
The whole ‘no primary sources’ thing is simple if one considers that Trump and Musk are the primary sources on their own doings.
There’s a lot of misinformation on Wikipedia too, of many different kinds. Some smaller pages exists purely for someone’s PR. I’ve seen blatantly false (but “verifiable”) stuff too but the most common thing is to have pages that are just creative with the truth.
Also sometimes I’ll notice an article make multiple different claims that all point to the same source and then check the source and realize it is not a valid source for all of those claims, just some.
And also there’s stuff that gets flagged as verified based on extrapolation of data from a combination of sources. For example: one source says “John Doe facing 1 billion dollars fines if found guilty” and another source says “John Doe was found guilty”, then the article says “John Doe fined 1 billion dollars after being found guilty” as verified, then you go search the web and find no mention of any fines actually being issued following the verdict.
Btw this is not an argument against Wikipedia in any way.
Btw this is not an argument against Wikipedia in any way.
I think it’s perfectly valid to criticize it for accepting "blatantly false but “verifiable” " edits. I’m aware that the world is complex and perfection is idealistic, especially when it comes to topics where sources are inherently strongly biased, but publishing false information on a site with the format, style and reputation of Wikipedia is a real problem at a scale with far-reaching impact. To shift the onus of fact-checking onto the user is extremely inefficient and negligent.
I’m not even saying that there is a better solution, but it’s certainly an argument criticizing Wikipedia.
I frequently check Wikipedia citations, just to be disappointed. Wiki sources can be a great shortcut to good citations, but often I realise much of an article’s content is built out of the soggiest cardboard.
Honestly I think it comes from a misunderstanding regarding secondary sources vs primary ones. Wikipedia, as well as encyclopedias and textbooks, are secondary sources. It’s not good practice to cite secondary sources without primary ones, but a lot of people (namely, teachers) don’t grasp why which leads these sources to get classified as bad.
That, plus Wikipedia is accessible without the usual gatekeeping and money behind what textbooks and encyclopedias have, which adds to the sources “credibility.” Money means marketing, including constant email campaigns targeting people like me trying to validate whatever textbook they’re peddling. (And in case you wonder if they’re evil, they sometimes offer kickbacks to adopt their expensive textbooks for my university classes).
Fedi users already get that, though, as that’s a common problem FOSS usually has. Point is, wiki lives in a weird place because no, you shouldn’t cite it just like you shouldn’t cite textbooks, but yes, it’s perfectly valid so long as you check those sources. And, speaking from experience, some students really don’t understand as I see citations for so much worse.
Wikipedia, as well as encyclopedias and textbooks, are secondary sources.
Very clear.
Secondary examples include:
Dictionaries, Encyclopedias (also considered tertiary);
Tertiary examples include:
Dictionaries and Encyclopedias (also considered secondary);
They do have a handy table later though:
| Primary | diaries - world war |
| Secondary | biography - world war |
| Tertiary | encyclopedia - world war |
Wasn’t arguing I just posted the link to source from the wiki article like my teachers would have wanted 😜
Oh, snap, it is so on!
Back when I was in school they outright censored Wikipedia. Fuck that shit
Same here, but everyone used it by…just citing the sources at the bottom of the page. It was honestly the dumbest logic ever. Professors telling you, you can’t use Wikipedia because anyone can edit it, but being ok with the literal source the Wikipedia article used for its info…just made zero sense.
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I’m on the fence about not citting primary sources. And especially in the sciences, where it’s actually the slow, boring, long process of many publications and many datat sets coming together to conclude something 'in the aggregate '. Like I’ll usually go to a review or meta analysis paper as a citation, because it’s combining and comparing the results across studies.
And really, a living document like Wikipedia is more like that kind of review or meta analysis paper.
I’m not disagreeing that were taught to go for primary sources, but in some ways, they’re actually less reliable than secondary sources if those secondary sources are taking in a a broader collection of primary sources, which something like Wikipedia is.
Actually, are you sure a meta analysis isn’t a primary source? Having worked on one in the past, you’re often having to reanalyze data and the finished product is quite unique.
Even “structured literature reviews” I think count as primary sources, since the author adds to the literature their own perspective and they are generally peer reviewed.
That said, when you cite things professionally, you will often have hundreds of sources. Most researchers, legal scholars, etc., just keep a database of their citations for easy callback. It’s important because at the upper levels, different authors might speak of the same objective findings in two different ways and with two different frameworks, so the aggregate loses that.
It’s not something non-professionals necessarily need to care about, but you do want to train undergraduates on that proper methods so they’re ready if and when they go to graduate school.
I agree that in general meta analysis stands apart, but I brought it up because it’s so often coupled with a deep review of material like a review article would hold. It’s also totally valid to cite a review article as a primary source, but I tend not to prefer this in my writing. My reasons for this are two fold, first, one of my memories was a curmudgeon who insisted on going all the way back through any chain if claims and citations to find, originally source, and reevaluate each claim. And, in doing so, regularly found irregularities and misattributed statements or just straight up mysteries of where the hell someone got something from. Its a pita, but it pays to be detail oriented when evaluating claims a domain has just accepted as table stakes.
This litterally happened to me recently where I was trying to figure out how this, fairly well known author had determined the functional form they were fitting to a curve. And like, three or four citations deep and a coffee with a colleague of theirs later, it turns out “they just made that shit up”.
Agreed, and a good literature review will dig up that chain. Although it won’t ever be perfectly accurate since the point is paraphrasing the literature to build a structure around what you’re doing, that doesn’t mean your secondary source understood the original (and their reviewers, who can very much be hit or miss).
And don’t get me started on authors misunderstanding quantitative data, haha. I haven’t been doing much academic research since my kids were born, but the number of “they made that shit up” cases were wild in education research. Like arbitrary spline models, misused propensity score matching, a SEM model with cherry picked factors, you name it.
… And this comment chain is way next level for this community. Hahaha
I once posted a Wikipedia article to r/TodayILearned, and my post went really popular. Someone a few hours later then edited the Wikipedia page to contradict my Reddit post title, reported my post to the subreddit mods, and my post got taken down.
Reddit gonna reddit
Imagine being the level of asshole that would spend the time to do this. I’m not surprised, just…disappointed.
Is that Wikipedia page accurate today?
I’m not sure. It was about the “turbo” button on 80s PCs, and how its function could be confusing to users depending on how it was wired. You look at the talk page and edit history there’s still a lot of arguments about this.
Most of the edits to try and say turbo is the slow mode were done by the one person, they seem to think they are right when all the evidence points to the contrary. I’m glad they seem to have given up for now.
Heh maybe you inspired them :p
The point isn’t that Wikipedia is wrong, the point is that your research papers should cite primary sources published by the field instead of a generic encyclopedia. Even if the pages on encyclopedia are maintained by respected authors, it’s not immediately obvious, and the information is likely surface level and not worth citing.
The issue is not that Wikipedia is wrong, unreliable, superficial or not worth citing, the issue is Wikipedia is not a source.
Contrary to what schools teach for some reason, the ultimate goal of citing sources it to tell where the information comes from, not where one found it. By nature, Wikipedia or any other encyclopedia doesn’t create or analyse information, it just compiles it. No information can originate from Wikipedia, so Wikipedia is never the source of anything. The primary and secondary sources at the bottom of the page are.
I’m not saying you’re wrong in any way, but in my school days encyclopedia britanica was “a valid source” and Wikipedia was considered not. Despite them essentially being the same thing, and I recall at some point a study showing that Wikipedia was more accurate in general
Wikipedia in particular isn’t the problem here, it’s citing encyclopedias as sources (or any tertiary source in general)
Most teachers before college tend to ask for citation as “where did you find that information” to judge your work based on the reliability / their opinion of the reliability of those sources / their opinion of the “quality” of your research process. Which is understandable in the context of grading papers, but that gives the wrong idea to students about why citing sources is necessary.
In practice, citations are about information traceability and verifiability rather than some nebulous and often subjective “reliability” or “accuracy”.
Knowing that you found some information on some website is useless. What’s interesting is who originally came up with that information, how and why. From there, one can judge whether that information can be trusted. And trust in sources evolves with time, articles may get disproven or discredited, so it’s important to link to original sources rather than just saying “the editors of some encyclopedia said it was true at some point / found sources that they assumed were good at the time”
Why not just use chatgpt instead
Growing up, pretty much all our hick schools had were encyclopedias; when wikipedia showed up it felt like they were just against the ease of it’s use. Smarter kids would still use the sources cited in Wikipedia, but teachers hated when you referenced a research paper because they couldn’t find it.
Wow, I can’t believe that you are getting some flack for this. Numerous times I’ve read a Wikipedia article, followed the citation, only to discover that the Wikipedia contributor had cherry-picked from a paper, giving a misleading summary.
Or that the editor misquoted the source entirely. I’ve even found articles that are littered with “citation needed” that have persisted as such for weeks or months.
I think sometimes people unfairly discount Wikipedia’s utility and overinflate its problems, while others are too cavalier about them. Wikipedia is a useful starting point for research as long as the researcher has the knowledge required to evaluate articles and perform further inquiry into their sources.
I disagree. The problem was always teachers being afraid of technology. The whole point of a paper is to show that you know the material. If you write a paper and read an entire synopsis of the material and have to explain it in a way that improves not only your reading comprehension but also your writing skills, is that not the entire point of education?
I feel like this is one of those bell curve memes. At the start you see that it’s publicly edited and you turn away. Then you see the extensive source citations and why not? Then you get involved in editing Wikipedia and you see what constitutes a “source” and what happens on the talk pages. And you’re right back to not ever citing Wikipedia.
Seriously though, Wikipedia isn’t going to be nearly in depth enough for any research paper worth a damn after you do your first couple. And that’s because those are meant to teach you how to do research papers. Wikipedia isn’t as bad as AI but anyone who’s neck deep in a field will find problems with any Wikipedia page about their field. And it just gets worse the more politicized your field is. So the answer is as it always was. Go to the primary sources.
An encyclopedia is not a source. I don’t think you fully grasp what any academic paper’s source is. It must be a first-hand account or direct evidence. It is the research paper you mention, not the wiki article the paper was mentioned on. The problem isn’t teachers afraid of technology. You can’t use print versions of encyclopedia Britannica as a source either. Part of education is also knowing how follow academic rigor. Remembering and understanding are only the first two steps in the process. Applying (writing the paper) is the third step. But if you fail to understand primary sources and how to conduct academic research, then you will never be able to truly progress beyond that (leading to: analyze, evaluate, and create)
Censorship sucks, giving credit rules.
Good stuff. I’ll switch it
Very cool of you to do so!
It’s the right thing to do, unless there’s an obvious reason as to why it’s censored
Nah fuck this attitude, if you ever tried to use Wikipedia for an actual research project you’ll know how dubious those “”“sources”“” can be.
It’s actuslly an exercise one of my TA friends sets for students when they’re just learning to research things properly. She gives them a claim on Wikipedia and and asks them to find the primary source for it. So they end up spending hours following chains of citations, until they are checking out old books from the library to try and find excerpts that some blog post that was cited in a paper that was cited in a newspaper, that was cited in a different blog post that was cited in another news article that was cited by Wikipedia claims exists, just to find out it doesn’t.
But seriously, don’t take Wikipedia seriously unless it cites a primary source directly.
don’t take Wikipedia seriously unless it cites a primary source directly.
You’ll regularly find a link to a secondary source that contains a reference to a primary source. If you just want generically available historical, scientific, or broadly epistemological knowledge, its great. If you want an on-the-ground testimonial from an eye-witness, it may give you the start of a breadcrumb trail towards your destination.
That said, the bias endemic to Wikipedia is largely a product of its origins - primarily English, western media focused, heavily populated by editors from a handful of global north countries. If you want to learn about the history of a mayoralty in Saskatchewan going back to the 18th century, its a rich resource. If you want to find out the political valence of the major political parties of Nepal or Azerbaijan, you’ll find a much thinner resource.
Some of that is a consequence of the editors (or absence of them) around a particular topic. Some of that is a consequence of the moderators/admins graylisting or outright blacklisting sources. Newer sources - 404media, for instance - aren’t tracked while older sources that have changed management significantly and lost some of their trustworthiness - WSJ, CBS, National Geographic, as recent examples.
Anybody who thinks Wikipedia is bad should have grown up on encyclopedias. Looking back at my childhood set, they are hilariously riddled with errors.
Yes, but they have professional errors. Not those errors that could have been written by just about anyone.
People paid good money for those errors though! Not like those freeloading people doing it all for donations…
Right?! I’d rather have a bunch of autistic nerds patrolling their favorite subjects for stupid changes. Turns out that works pretty damned well.
Wikipedia is unreliable for politically controversial topics, I’ve seen multiple articles on the Gaza genocide with specific claims citing fucking Times of Israel with no other supporting evidence whatsoever, Times of Israel has been caught lying more than once and shouldn’t be used as a source at all. Each article is only as good as the sources cited and they’re not all equally well sourced, it is entirely possible to insert false info into articles especially if you’ve got a well funded organization behind the effort, and even if it is eventually caught and corrected it will already have served as useful propaganda for anyone reading the article in the interim.
Wikipedia has major process issues that make it unreliable especially in the long term. Editors are given a ton of power to wield, the process of giving them power is not something the laymen is involved in, once they have power it’s fairly entrenched and hard to remove, and bias absolutely occurs. For the most part the bias is tempered but it is seen more heavily in articles like Gaza, Crimea/Ukraine, Venezuela, war on terror, Autism, transgender issues, war crimes of Japan, articles related to colonalism, articles related to big tech controversies, etc.
It’s something they desperately need to address because the right wing nutjobs are gunning for them and are very well funded. They 100% are going to try to put people into the editorial process or convert people who are already there to swing bias (if this hasn’t happened already). The right wing has managed to do this with the us government, they can and will do it to Wikipedia
I completely agree, though they have an interesting policy where they themselves cannot be a primary source of information but can only quote secondary (news) sources.
The aim of this policy is to stay as impartial as possible, so that a Wikipedia page can link to another page, but not cite another Wikipedia page as a news source.
Great in theory, but the reality is that they remove hundreds of pages of content where the primary sources of that page (usually a news website) is no longer accessible (archive.org or otherwise).
Right-wing news media can therefore win in the longrun by simply keeping their news sources always online and available for Wikipedia to source, since left-wing news media is more likely to have expired links. Overtime this will compound to a right-wing bias.
The best thing for anyone to do therefore is to fund the archiving sites. Archive.org in particular is a crucial piece of news infrastructure keeping Wikipedia balanced.
I registered a domain and wrote an article to try to get a submission through. It worked for a few months, but was removed after that. Very vigilant.
I haven’t done it in a while, but I would make little edits to Republican political figures. If they “ended” or “stopped” a business. I change it to “aborted” the business.
Some they would fix, but not all of them.
In university my entire dorm floor was in on insisting to my ex that it wasn’t “Big Bird”, but instead “Big Bert” (as opposed to regular sized bert)
It came up for the 100th time at a party, and I was like “go ahead, look it up” and was able to get in an edit JUST before the page load. “Big Bird (Or “Big Burt” for Canadian rebroadcast)”
It lasted for maybe 20 seconds, but it was all we needed.
And than there is the fake toaster inventor who only got found out nearly a decade later because the thought the joke got out of hand
“Yeah, did you read that on Wikipedia?”
Yes, I did.
Just like I used to read things at the library in the 90’s, and no-one would’ve thought to mock that. And one of the books I read was some Soviet scientists from the 50’s describing how spiritual auras work in real life.
Although that was in the 00’s I just didn’t have the internet all the time while in the army.
