Do you trust Wikipedia? (1 Viewer)

[timschochet]

Spin-off from the discussion we’re having, in several threads (but especially the Hunter Biden one these days) about trust of the mainstream media. 
 

Obviously Wikipedia is not the MSM. But many of us rely on it for information, use it as a source of evidence to make arguments in the forum, etc. So the question: do you trust it? Do you think you can rely on it? And if you don’t trust it, can you offer examples of it being wrong? 

 

[knowledge dropper]

No

 

[Boston]

https://www.allsides.com/blog/wikipedia-biased

https://www.foxnews.com/media/wikipedia-co-founder-larry-sanger-says-online-dictionary-scrapped-neutrality-favors-lefty-politics

 

[squistion]

Spin-off from the discussion we’re having, in several threads (but especially the Hunter Biden one these days) about trust of the mainstream media. 
 

Obviously Wikipedia is not the MSM. But many of us rely on it for information, use it as a source of evidence to make arguments in the forum, etc. So the question: do you trust it? Do you think you can rely on it? And if you don’t trust it, can you offer examples of it being wrong? 

It is a quick starting point for proving something (and I use it myself here quite often) but it must be taken with a grain of salt, as it can be edited by anyone, anytime. With rare exceptions (which were later corrected) I have found it to be pretty accurate and not the "fake news" some here have characterized it as.

 

[timschochet]

It is a quick starting point for proving something (and I use it myself here quite often) but it must be taken with a grain of salt, as it can be edited by anyone, anytime. With rare exceptions (which were later corrected) I have found it to be pretty accurate and not the "fake news" some here have characterized it as.

It’s true that it can be edited by anyone, but studies have demonstrated that if someone edits it to post false information, that is very quickly corrected almost every time. The sheer size of editors prevents it from being false info, IMO. 

 

[sho nuff]

On its own?  No...the information is only going to be as good as its sourcing.  So read it to get a general idea, but check out the references to get more information.

Like others said...its a start to get the general idea of something and get to the reference points to certain aspects/details of something.

 

[timschochet]

https://www.allsides.com/blog/wikipedia-biased

https://www.foxnews.com/media/wikipedia-co-founder-larry-sanger-says-online-dictionary-scrapped-neutrality-favors-lefty-politics

Thank you. 
Let me just say that, unlike with the mainstream media I have no axe to grind here. I don’t normally rely on Wikipedia for political news, unless it’s less recent. I absolutely rely on it for history and basic science knowledge, trivia, etc. 

 

[sho nuff]

Lets also agree that a degree of bias in either direction is not necessarily a bad thing.  Overall bias and a history of posting just flat out false stories (and not retracting or any type of correcting things)...that is the issue.

 

[Boston]

Lets also agree that a degree of bias in either direction is not necessarily a bad thing.  Overall bias and a history of posting just flat out false stories (and not retracting or any type of correcting things)...that is the issue.

I have no issue with bias (left or right) as long as you admit your are biased so we know where you are starting from.

 

[squistion]

Speaking of bias reminds me of this quote:  

Reality has a well known liberal bias.

- Stephen Colbert at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Dinner

 

[PinkydaPimp]

I trust it but recognize if can be changed by anyone so you can’t take it as gospel.  If I’m using it i generally go to the sources to validate.  I wouldn’t cite it in a paper for example.  

And i agree with the above.  Bias isn’t an issue. Every media org has some bias. Actually i think it’s important to read articles with a thought that it’s likely biased and we should again do some due diligence and critical thinking around the content.  I also like when writers disclose their bias or any conflict of interest when writing.  

 

[Chaz McNulty]

No

Really.  Wikipedia is excellent for getting information quickly.  

Do you dislike them because they have Obama's inauguration as being bigger than Trumps?  They are generally non-political.

 

[Snotbubbles]

I use it for quick information.  Sometimes I'll read the cites for more information.

 

[Leroy Hoard]

I like the fact that is written by such a wide circle of sources.

 

[lazyike]

Seems to be pretty accurate....I haven't seen much to disagree with. I can see why Republicans wouldn't like it as it reports Biden as winning the 2020 election. It describes Trump and his supporters efforts to overturn the election as a coup de'ta. So, yes good stuff there.

 

[quick-hands]

Spin-off from the discussion we’re having, in several threads (but especially the Hunter Biden one these days) about trust of the mainstream media. 
 

Obviously Wikipedia is not the MSM. But many of us rely on it for information, use it as a source of evidence to make arguments in the forum, etc. So the question: do you trust it? Do you think you can rely on it? And if you don’t trust it, can you offer examples of it being wrong? 

When I want to know who someone is sure.

For me it's jumping off point.

 

[Philo Beddoe]

No zero trust. The only left wing source they deprecate is Occupy Democrats. They allow sites like Daily Kos, Palmer Report and The New Republic as sources. Here is their deprecation list 

Wiki

 

[squistion]

No zero trust. The only left wing source they deprecate is Occupy Democrats. They allow sites like Daily Kos, Palmer Report and The New Republic as sources. Here is their deprecation list 

Wiki

They do? I don't recall ever seeing something from DailyKos cited as factual or even cited at all, most everything DKos posts are clearly marked opinion diaries. And the Palmer Report is the left wing equivalent of TownHall or TheGateway Pundit, again sources I seriously doubt being posted as some sort of factual information (unless they were the first to report it and it was verified by other sources after that).

 

[pecorino]

I use it as a resource for math stuff which is so objective that I trust it nearly completely in that context.

 

[ShamrockPride]

Don't really use it for current events, but anything else, for the most part, yeh.

 

[Sabertooth]

No

 

[SeniorVBDStudent]

Kind of a strange question topic, given that we know wikipedia is crowd-sourced information.  

It can be an excellent information aggregator, but any hot takes need to be cross-verified.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

Wikipedia is pretty great for getting basic facts -- who, what, when, where -- and also pretty decent for general background information.  If you just need to familiarize yourself with a topic, it's a very good source.  Obviously if you want to get into something in more depth you're going to have to find something more rigorous, but that's usually not too difficult to do.  

It should go without saying that you need to take entries about political topics with a much larger grain of salt than non-political topics.

 

[supermike80]

Don't really use it for current events, but anything else, for the most part, yeh.

Ditto.   I like reading about historical stuff there.  I will look at the "on this day" section and sometimes click into the event.  Then I'll go down historical rabbit holes.  I think my wikipedia interest ends around the 1600's

 

[Stealthycat]

well I don't "trust" anything .... I do reference wikipedia often enough, I can't remember it being "wrong" as far as information I found

And if you don’t trust it, can you offer examples of it being wrong?

do you have any examples of it being wrong ?

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

As always -- like pretty much literally always -- the best place to start on this subject is Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideological_bias_on_Wikipedia

Seriously, read that page if you want a competent overview (and then dig into the sources cited there if you want to go down the rabbit hole).

 

[rockaction]

I trust WIkipedia probably more than I should, but I find it a great jumping off point for almost any subject. 

 

[Philo Beddoe]

https://townhall.com/columnists/johnstossel/2022/04/27/wikipedia-bias-n2606403

“People on the left far outweigh people on the center and the right...a lot (are) openly socialist and Marxist." Some even post pictures of Che Guevara and Lenin on their own profiles.

These are the people who decide which news sources Wikipedia writers may cite. Wikipedia's approved "Reliable sources" page rejects political reporting from Fox but calls CNN and MSNBC "reliable."

Good conservative outlets like The Federalist, The Daily Caller and The Daily Wire are all deemed "unreliable." Same with the New York Post (That's probably why Wikipedia called Hunter Biden's emails a conspiracy theory even after other liberal media finally acknowledged that they were real).

While it excludes Fox, Wikipedia approves even hard-left media like Vox, Slate, The Nation, Mother Jones, and Jacobin, a socialist publication.

Until recently, Wikipedia's "socialism" and "communism" pages made no mention of the millions of people killed by socialism and communism. Even now, deaths are "deep in the article," says Weiss, "treated as an arcane academic debate. But we're talking about mass murder!"

The communism page even adds that we cannot ignore the "lives saved by communist modernization"! This is nuts.”

 

[tymarsas]

No zero trust. The only left wing source they deprecate is Occupy Democrats. They allow sites like Daily Kos, Palmer Report and The New Republic as sources. Here is their deprecation list 

Wiki

Note that the Daily Kos is listed as deprecated, just not listed on that page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources#Daily_Kos

Like everything on Wikipedia, that list is up for debate so I'm sure it's not perfect.

Edit: oops my bad. Mixed up the icons. It is listed as generally unreliable.