Hurrah, someone noticed my comments!
First, thanks to siddharth for citing my mini-essay (pared down from a much larger series of pages which originally appeared in my Wikipedia user space) at http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/RelWWW/HTML/wrong.html
(If you like this page, please consider bookmarking instead the main page
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/RelWWW/ since there is much more at this website than that one page!)
Quaoar said:
If a [WP] article is not properly cited, you shouldn't believe what is written there.
Right, but you're missing a crucial point: manipulation of information presented at WP to present crank/fringe theories as mainstream.
There have been dozens of cases in which a crank writes an article on their pet theory under a pseudonym and cites papers at their own website. These papers would often be considered "obviously nonsensical" by good advanced physics students, but the "obvious problems" might be not at all obvious to laypersons or beginning physics students.
One way to appreciate this is to recognize that all good science students continually check claims they encounter against what they already know about mainstream science. Claims which appear to contradict established knowledge come in for extra scrutiny; the good student asks first "did I misunderstand what I just read?" and if the answer is "no", then looks to see if the author discusses the discrepancy and tries to meet "obvious objections" (like "this scheme contradicts the consevation of linear momentum!"), and if not, probably dismisses the claim as obviously incorrect and ill-informed.
So one "reality check" which laypersons can apply is this: does the article have citations? (If not, the problem might be that the author didn't trouble to add citations to the mainstream sources he used, in which case all might be well. But often this indicates that the article might be a hoax or written by someone who had no idea what he was writing about.) If so, are the citations to academic websites or research journals?
But even this check is unreliable! There have been dozens of cases of fringe theories or even crank theories misleading presented in WP articles as mainstream theories, which cite papers in "journals" with titles like Hadronic Journal. Few nonphysicists would immediately recognize the names of "trashcan journals" which basically publish anything they receive, even though they may claim to send manuscripts out for refereeing.
But even if you know which are prestigious journals and which are trashcan journals and which are somewhere in between, this check is unreliable! There have been cases of nonsense or fraudulent papers published in the best scientific journals, including Nature, Science, Classical and Quantum Gravity
www.iop.org/EJ/journal/CQG, and so on. So ultimately, only a genuine expert in the mainstream of the research topic in question, who has more or less carefully studied the cited papers, will be able to assess whether or not a WP article accurately presents the current scientific thought on the topic in question, or not.
This kind of misrepresentation has been a huge problem in the physics articles at WP. I could give not dozens but hundreds of examples, some of which have been the subject of long running edit wars.
There is a WikiProject Physics which in principle consists of people who have Ph.D.s in physics, or are graduate students who only write out the stuff they know best, but of course members declare themselves to be "qualified", and no-one checks credentials--- this last has recently been an issue within the WP community, which was enormously embarrassed by the revelation that one of the most powerful Wikipedians in the history of this website had utterly misrepresented himself as holding a faculty position when in fact he had not earned any graduate degrees. One of the biggest problems with the scimathtech pages at WP is that the "experts" (in the Wikipedia sense of having studied standard textbooks, not in the scholarly sense of being an author of a widely used textbook!) are outnumbered by the cranks and wind up spending most or all of their time arguing in talk pages or AfD pages rather than writing new articles or improving existing ones.
mathwonk said:
well i just tried an experiment, googling "tensor products". Indeed the first two hits were for wikipedia, so i read the first article.
At the present time, math articles are generally more likely to present the mainstream, but math cranks do exist at WP.
Another crucial point is that WP articles are highly unstable--- a carefully constructed, well written, fully cited, knowledgeable article can be destroyed in an instant by some vandal, or by a crank. For this reason, one should
never cite a Wikipedia article expect as a permanent link to the specific version you read! (See the left hand bar in any WP page to obtain a permanent link.)
Another problem with the lack of editorial oversight at WP is that newbie authors who frankly don't know how to write tend to insert new material into paragraphs written carefully by a more experience author, without regard for breaking the flow of ideas in the previous version. This kind of problem leads to "edit creep", the process by which well intentioned edits gradually degrade a good article into something which is almost unreadable, even if it does not present inaccurate information.
Manchot said:
Mathwonk, you inadvertently brought up another good point. The Wikipedia editors are all writing for different audiences. Some people, for example, might only be interested in the result of a derivation. Others might want to see that derivation in gory detail. Some might want to learn the mathematics behind tensors, while others only want to know how to use them.
Yes, and this is another reason why Brittanica makes a better read than Wikipedia--- in the scholarly encyclopedia model, authors are not only experts, they are (ideally) experienced authors who are familiar with such issues as addressing the right audience in a suitable style, and editors can assist authors who seem to be missing the mark in their first draft article.
Quaoar said:
Lets assume that the accuracy rate is terrible: 50%. I would rather kids learn from material that's 50% correct over not learning anything at all.
Quaoar said:
Isn't a superficial idea better than no idea at all?
This precisely expresses the anti-intellectual and anti-scholarly ethos I fear WP is promoting!
Quaoar, unfortunately one needs to be fairly experienced with scimathtech to really appreciate this point, but in highly technical subjects which build upon previous work in a delicate way, building upon a foundation which is 50% inaccurate is a recipe for utter disaster. All professors know that one of the biggest problems in the classroom is getting students to recognize how much they do
not know.
One of the hallmarks of the classic crank is that he vastly overestimates his knowledge and skills, and vastly underestimates the wisdom of those who really possesses some knowledge and skill. See the classic paper by Kruger and Dunning cited at
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Crank_(person)&oldid=54987381
Bearing this in mind, I fear that WP/Google may result in an entire generation of schoolchildren who behave like classic cranks. The consequences of this are unpredictable, but I doubt they will be entirely pleasant.
cristo said:
Huh? I use wikipedia, but only for things that aren't important. It's got an article about pretty much everything you could possibly want. However, wiki is not where I would go to learn technical subjects, since I know that there's a high probabilty that there will be mistakes. I use books or lecture notes freely available on university websites.
Exactly. In the page cited by siddharth, I suggested using Wikipedia articles to find search terms one can plug into Google, citeseer, to try to find textbooks published by reputable academic publishers. Even this is fraught with peril given the possibility (which has been observed "in the wild" at WP on many occasions) that someone has carefully constructed a plausible appearing but seriously misleading WP article which has gone unnoticed by unbiased "experts" (in WP sense).
Quaoar said:
the consensus seems to be that its pretty accurate for broad low-level topics, which is where I think it is the most useful.
Consensus among what group? I suggest that the appropriate group to ask would be scholars, mathematicians and scientists who are familiar with WP, e.g. by virtue of having written and extensively edited many articles as well as having participated in various administrative actions at WP such as AfDs. (Since WP is rapidly evolving, my own experience from 2005-6 will eventually become less relevant, but at the moment I think I can speak with authority as an entity which knows the math/physics pages at WP well.)
This brings up another point I discussed extensively in some essays which formerly appeared at my Wikipedia user space: the firmly entrenched WP political philosophy is avowedly populist rather than scholarly. While populism has many attractive features (such as the idea that all persons are endowed with the innate ability to comment usefully on all topics, and that the opinions of all persons are equally valid), the populist ethos is profoundly contradictory to the scholarly ethos, which is neccessarily elitist, because of the cumulative nature of mathematical and scientific knowledge, and indeed of scholarly discourse generally: you can't really comment usefully on a technical issue if you are completely unfamiliar with what previous thinkers have said.
Once you are aware that WP has a political philosophy, it is very easy to see that it falls firmly into the venerable strain of American populism. Most of WP (co?)-founder Jimmy Wales pronouncements reflect his deeply held populist convictions. The fundamental contradiction between the scholarly and populist ethos was in fact one of the major points of contention between Wales and (WP founder? WP cofounder? former employee of Jimbo Wales?) Larry Sanger, who is currently trying to found an alternative web encyclopedia upon a more traditional scholarly ethos citizendium.org/ (Unfortunately, one of the original cofounders was previously a founder of the aforementioned Journal of Scientific Research, who has made some pretty startling "fringe science" claims about UFOs, the paranormal, and what not in many places over several decades, as well as some more mainstream scientific papers. None of the technophile journalists who have written about Citizendium seem to be aware of this odd discrepancy.)
kdinser said:
If I know absolutely nothing about a topic, I go to wiki to learn the vocabulary. Then, depending on how much I need to know and how important my understanding is, I'll look for other websites using the vocabulary that I was able to get from wiki sites. As anyone with any web experience will tell you, knowing the vocabulary is the most important thing when it comes to good searching practices.
Bottom line to me is, wiki is useful for a lay person to get the very most basic under standing about a subject, and I wouldn't trust it at all for anything past first year or 1.5 year college. Even then, I would look for other collaboration before I used it as a source.
I think that is currently the best way to use WP! But be careful--- it is only likely to work well if most articles on the topics you are interested are written honestly and with some knowledge. The trouble is that it is all too easy to manipulate information at WP in extremely devious ways. Even worse, I and many others have attempted to draw attention to an insidious Google/Wikipedia cycle by which WP can be used to promote fringe or cranky viewpoints. Unfortunately, this seems likely to increase rapidly, and some experts fear it might eventually destroy the utility of Google. Even worse, even if this happens, people will continue to use Google and WP even though they know they are being misinformed, simply because they have decided going to their public library takes too much effort. That would be tragic.
Here's some suggested reading:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_epistemology_of_Wikipedia [/URL]
The epistemology of Wikipedia, by Larry Sanger. In this memorandum, Sanger challenges a core precept of the Wiki Faith: the notion that a wiki article will be naturally attracted to perfection.
[url]http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_and_why_it_matters[/url]
Wikipedia and why it matters, by Larry Sanger, January 2002. Briefly discusses the Google/Wikipedia feedback:
[QUOTE]
We believe that we are, happily, in a positive feedback loop with Google, as follows. We write a thousand articles; Google spiders them and sends some traffic to those pages. Some small percentage of that traffic becomes Wikipedia contributors, increasing our contributor base. The enlarged contributor base then writes another two thousand articles, which Google dutifully spiders, and then we receive an even larger influx of traffic. All the while, no doubt in part due to links to our articles from Google, an increasing number of other websites link to Wikipedia, increasing the standing of Wikipedia pages in Google results.
Larry Sanger
[/QUOTE]
Note that this was written well before Sanger's disillusionment with WP.
[url]http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/12/30/142458/25[/url]
Why Wikipedia Must Jettison Its Anti-Elitism, by Larry Sanger, Kuro5hin, 30 December 2005. Discusses the conflict between the scholarly and populist ethos.
[QUOTE]
Wikipedia is better described as one of those sources regarded as unreliable which people read anyway...The root problem: anti-elitism, or lack of respect for expertise...As a community, Wikipedia lacks the habit or tradition of respect for expertise. As a community, ... it is anti-elitist (which, in this context, means that expertise is not accorded any special respect, and snubs and disrespect of expertise is tolerated)... One thing that Wikipedia could do now, although I doubt that it is possible in the current atmosphere and with the current management, is to adopt an official policy of respect of and deference to expertise. Wikipedia's "key policies" have not changed since I was associated with the project; but if a policy of respect of and deference to expertise were adopted at that level, and if it were enforced somehow, perhaps the project would solve the problems described above. But don't hold your breath. Unless there is the equivalent of a revolution in the ranks of Wikipedia, the project will not adopt this sort of policy and make it a "key policy"; or if it does, the policy will probably be not be enforced. I certainly do not expect Jimmy Wales to change his mind. I have known him since 1994 and he is a smart and thoughtful guy; I am sure he has thought through his support of radical openness and his (what I call) anti-elitism. I doubt he will change his mind about these things. And unless he does change his mind, the project itself will probably not change.
Larry Sanger
[/QUOTE]
[PLAIN]http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=111504A
The Faith-Based Encyclopedia, by Robert McHenry, Tech Central Station Daily, 15 November 2004. One of the most cited critiques, includes the earliest known description of "edit creep".
To put the Wikipedia method in its simplest terms: 1. Anyone, irrespective of expertise in or even familiarity with the topic, can submit an article and it will be published. 2. Anyone, irrespective of expertise in or even familiarity with the topic, can edit that article, and the modifications will stand until further modified. Then comes the crucial and entirely faith-based step: 3. Some unspecified quasi-Darwinian process will assure that those writings and editings by contributors of greatest expertise will survive; articles will eventually reach a steady state that corresponds to the highest degree of accuracy...The user who visits Wikipedia to learn about some subject, to confirm some matter of fact, is rather in the position of a visitor to a public restroom. It may be obviously dirty, so that he knows to exercise great care, or it may seem fairly clean, so that he may be lulled into a false sense of security. What he certainly does not know is who has used the facilities before him.
Robert McHenry
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=121305E
The Faith-Based Encyclopedia Blinks, by Robert McHenry, Tech Central Station Daily, 14 Dec 2005. Commentary on the Siegenthaler defamation scandal.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/media-edemocracy/wikipedia_bias_3621.jsp
The real bias in Wikipedia: a response to David Shariatmadari, by Robert McHenry, Open Democracy, June 7, 2006. Discusses another consequence of the lack of editorial vision/oversight at WP: the perennial lack of global structure and balance:
Is imbalance in Wikipedia "systemic"? I should rather say that it results inevitably from a lack of system. Given the method by which Wikipedia articles are created, for there to be any semblance of balance in the overall coverage of subject-matter would be miraculous. Balance results from planning.
Robert McHenry
http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge183.html Digital Maoism, by Jaron Lanier, The Edge, May 30, 2006. In this thoughtful essay, Lanier challenges many of the core assumptions of WP:
The problem I am concerned with here is not the Wikipedia in itself...the problem is in the way the Wikipedia has come to be regarded and used; how it's been elevated to such importance so quickly. And that is part of the larger pattern of the appeal of a new online collectivism that is nothing less than a resurgence of the idea that the collective is all-wise, that it is desirable to have influence concentrated in a bottleneck that can channel the collective with the most verity and force. This is different from representative democracy, or meritocracy. This idea has had dreadful consequences when thrust upon us from the extreme Right or the extreme Left in various historical periods. The fact that it's now being re-introduced today by prominent technologists and futurists, people who in many cases I know and like, doesn't make it any less dangerous...The Wikipedia is far from being the only online fetish site for foolish collectivism. There's a frantic race taking place online to become the most "Meta" site, to be the highest level aggregator, subsuming the identity of all other sites...What we are witnessing today is the alarming rise of the fallacy of the infallible collective. Numerous elite organizations have been swept off their feet by the idea. They are inspired by the rise of the Wikipedia, by the wealth of Google, and by the rush of entrepreneurs to be the most Meta. Government agencies, top corporate planning departments, and major universities have all gotten the bug.
Jaron Lanier
