Wikipedia - The Controlled Encyclopedia

I've long suspected that Wikipedia was as free as the biases of its core owners and editors allowed. I've seen articles about individuals that are simply hatchet jobs, for example, the entry of one individual in particular who is a natural health advocate and has written best selling books very critical of the pharmaceutical industry, is about as objective as a profit hungry Big Tobacco CEO when asked if he thinks cigarettes cause cancer. (I'm not linking to it because I refuse to spread the lies about the man that the article contains. If you are interested then check out his book: Natural Cures .)

Now the high priests of Wikipedia have decided to ban edits of Scientology related articles by church members. Can you believe that? Wow, what next? Only allow KKK members to edit articles about Jews and African Americans? Ban Mormons from editing articles about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?

Who made these Wikipedia nerds the arbiters of all knowledge? So much for community editing and contribution. Anyone can contribute to Wikipedia as long as the high priests approve.

To be honest, I have rarely found Wikipedia to be useful because you never really know where the data is coming from. Who wrote it? What is their bias? Then there are all the annotations indicating that something is not backed up or that it is disputed. I'd rather go to a source that tells me who wrote the article so I can evaluate it for myself.

Now and then I have used Wikipedia to get a basic idea about something technical but from now on I'm going elsewhere.

Wikipedia Bans Scientology From Editing Scientology Entries

"Truth" according to Wikipedia = mob rule

Here is an interesting piece regarding the accuracy of Wikipedia:

In a May 2006 essay on the technology and culture website Edge.org, futurist Jaron Lanier called Wikipedia an example of “digital Maoism”–the closest humanity has come to a functioning mob rule.

Lanier was moved to write about Wikipedia because someone kept editing his Wikipedia entry to say that he was a film director. Lanier describes himself as a “computer scientist, composer, visual artist, and author.” He is good at all those things, but he is no director. According to his essay, he made one short experimental film in the 1990s, and it was “awful.”

“I have attempted to retire from directing films in the alternative universe that is the Wikipedia a number of times, but somebody always overrules me,” Lanier wrote. “Every time my Wikipedia entry is corrected, within a day I’m turned into a film director again.”

Since Lanier’s attempted edits to his own Wikipedia entry were based on firsthand knowledge of his own career, he was in direct violation of Wikipedia’s three core policies. He has a point of view; he was writing on the basis of his own original research; and what he wrote couldn’t be verified by following a link to some kind of legitimate, authoritative, and verifiable publication.

See the full article here: Wikipedia: The Standard of Truth

Convicted Felon Was Running Wikipedia

I've blogged before about the promise and perils of Wikipedia (see links below). Now it comes out that Wikimedia (the foundation that owns and runs Wikipedia) employed a convicted felon as their Chief Operating Officer for 6-months: Felon Became a Top Wikipedia Exec

If they can't vouch for the credentials of their COO how can they vouch for the credentials of the people who write their articles? Any Tom, Dick or Carolyn can go write an article at Wikipedia and who knows a) who they are, b) who they work for, c) who pays them, d) what their personal biases and intolerances are or e) what their conflicts of interest are.

If Wikipedia wants to be treated as some sort of authoritative and trustworthy source of information then we need a full disclosure of who the authors of every article are because in order to accurately evaluate an article, you not only need to understand the article itself, but also who wrote it. An example that I hope demonstrates the point: If you read an article about how a particular drug was the solution to depression, you might be convinced to take it. But if you discovered that the article was written by a doctor who received a million dollars last year from the drug company who manufactures the drug, then you may have second thoughts.

My earlier articles:
Wikipedia - The Flaw
More on Wikipedia
How trustworthy is Wikipedia?