Comment by kelnos
8 hours ago
> I think a lot people underestimate how arbitrary some editorial decisions on wikipedia can be.
You can say that about Encyclopedia Brittanica or any of the old-school encyclopedias too. You can say that about the news desks at ABC, CBS, CNN, etc. You can say that about the New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, etc.
I don't think people tend to blindly trust Wikipedia any more than they do for other sources of information. YouTube is full of garbage Wikipedia-regurgitating articles because Wikipedia is an easy, centralized source to scrape, not because of any level of trust they put in it.
I find this type of snap negative reaction boring, tiring, and unhelpful. It's disappointing that they often end up as top comments here. (Human psychology at work.)
My take: I expect that Wikipedia is more unbiased and a better reflection of reality then most -- maybe even all -- other sources of information on the Internet. On average! There are certainly crap articles, just like anywhere else.
If you look at the news in a democratic country vs an authoritarian one, you may easily walk away with the impression that the former is in a state of perpetual chaos, because of all the scandals, protests, resignations and snap elections. The authoritarian country will look like a paragon of stability in contrast. New infrastructure projects, record economic growth, seditious officials swiftly trialed and imprisoned. There is barely any conflict and the ones that do exist get solved quickly.
But unless you are a total mark, you should know that the stability is just a facade. That infrastructure project only went through because locals who opposed got beaten up by the cops, the economics data was cooked up by statisticians who fear the consequence of telling the truth and the seditious officials are only at the receiving end of justice because they lost the power struggle within the party. But of course you don’t know any of that, because why would the state let you?
Wikipedia, like democracies, run on transparency. This is why you get to read the editing history and talk page of any Wikipedia page and walk away with the impression that Wikipedia is uniquely full of drama. You never feel the same about the New York Times or the BBC because they run more like autocracies and keep everything inside. If we get a chance to read the internal emails of establishment media we will walk away with a very different impression.
I’ve said to a few other replies, but tbc I wasn’t promoting other mediums as alternatives.
> I don't think people tend to blindly trust Wikipedia any more than they do for other sources of information
I actually disagree or at least I think the extent to which people do is higher than it warrants. Especially to the degree people invoke it’s contents online
> I find this type of snap negative reaction boring, tiring, and unhelpful.
I didn’t ask for this to be the top comment, nor did I make you read it. I also don’t think it’s useless, just less useful than its proponents claim it is. And I think people do themselves a disservice in not looking beyond it when looking into a topic
I disagree, I know the opinion of WSJ, WP, FT or national like france24,DW, BBC, RT,AJ Or at least know is always opinion Base, the facts are selected in a subjecive way.
Is way harder to know how opinionated Wikipedia is, and everything make them sound like their opinion is only base on facts but isn't.