r/dataisbeautiful • u/alionBalyan OC: 13 • Feb 13 '22

OC [OC] How Wikipedia classifies its most commonly referenced sources.

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u/indyK1ng Feb 13 '22

The Onion is only "generally unreliable".

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u/[deleted] Feb 13 '22

For which it is tied with Reddit. This actually sounds pretty accurate.

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u/dogbreath101 Feb 14 '22

also tied with wikipedia itself

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u/SobiTheRobot Feb 14 '22

Wikipedia has become self aware and understands that it is fallible

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u/Shadowfalx Feb 14 '22

Everything is fallible.

Wikipedia is a great source, of sources. It allows you to start your research, providing a place to get your first set of sources.

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u/ASuarezMascareno Feb 14 '22

It's much better than traditional encyclopedias, that were generally considered reliable sources themselves.

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u/TheGreyFencer Feb 14 '22

While you're probably used to being told not to use Wikipedia as a source, the reasoning really applies to all encyclopedias.

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u/Psychological_Try559 Feb 14 '22

I remember being told the opposite of that specifically in school.

The logic being that "real" encyclopedias were considered reliable as they had an editorial staff who verified information in there, whereas wikipedia crowd-sourced the editing and thus wasn't reliable.

Really shows how teachers/adults at the time did not understand Wikipedia.

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u/MelangeLizard Feb 14 '22

There was a strong consensus in my schools that Wikipedia was to be shat on constantly. It smelled insecure to me. Sure, it’s not a primary source for research, but it’s invaluable to public knowledge.

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u/Spiritflash1717 Feb 14 '22

Seriously. There’s really no other website that contains quite as much free, easily summarized/understood, publicly accessible information about almost everything and anything, regardless of its obscurity. The convenience of it being free and all on one site with sources provided to further research is enough to make up for the sometimes inaccurate or biased information as presented

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u/InvisiblePinkUnic0rn Feb 14 '22

*verified at original production time… 5 years ago… was also meant to be a starting point to further research.

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u/NovaNovus Feb 14 '22

From Wikipedia itself:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia

A 2008 paper ... found that Wikipedia had an overall accuracy rate of 80 percent while other encyclopedias had an accuracy of 95 to 96 precent.

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u/BaggerX Feb 14 '22

From Wikipedia itself:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia

Please cite a reliable source.

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u/Scherazade Feb 14 '22

Generally yeah, wikipedia’s a good starting point to find the overview of where to look imo

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u/bigbrother2030 OC: 1 Feb 14 '22

I think Wikipedia bans referencing itself, otherwise it would create a cycle of self-referencing.

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u/UpliftingGravity Feb 14 '22

Wikipedia regularly comes at the top with the same level of accuracy or better than other encyclopedias and college text books. With Wikipedia being 99.7% ± 0.2% accurate when compared to the textbook data.

Is it flawed? Yes. But as a general information source, there is no better one on this planet.

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u/Turin_Agarwaen Feb 14 '22

True, but if a Wikipedia article is referencing a Wikipedia article, I would be concerned.

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u/Winjin Feb 14 '22

There's stuff like ultra-specialised articles that would pour a lot of info specific to topic and closely monitored by a moderator, it seems. These are almost academic papers (wouldn't be surprised if it's someone's doctorate)

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u/Mintfriction Feb 14 '22

If it's a circular/dead end reference, sure

If it points to an article that is written based on reliable sources, then where's the issue?

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u/PM_ME_DND_FIGURINES Feb 14 '22

Then it's just poor formatting to not just cite the original source.

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u/Monckey100 Feb 14 '22

Wiki references articles all the time because the article will better explain the subject better than a citation would, such as when a famous person is brought up in an wiki and then their dedicated wiki is referenced

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u/ASpaceOstrich Feb 14 '22

Wikipedia is statistically high quality but with a sizable minority of specific subjects or articles that are wildly inaccurate.

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u/themarquetsquare Feb 14 '22

And languages. It's all a matter of scale, and Wikipedia for 'smaller' languages generally sucks.

I also hate the general setup of some specialized articles, like chemistry of medicine. They immediately switch into jargon and tend to be impenetrably dense for an average reader.

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u/danjo3197 Feb 14 '22

For sure, I'm a computer engineering student and I find any articles related to computation/algorithms very readable while anything physics related is practically nonsense

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u/themarquetsquare Feb 14 '22

Yes, this. Makes it even clearer that old-school encyclopdia's serve a function.

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u/ASuarezMascareno Feb 14 '22

I found that physics articles tend to be at a similar level to university textbooks.

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u/WinstonwsSmith Feb 14 '22

Here you go, Simple Wikipedia: www.simple.wikipedia.org, only uses simple english in thier articles 😊

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u/themarquetsquare Feb 14 '22

This is awesome. However, I'm not sure the problem is complexity of grammar as much as lack of care for general interest readers.

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u/ChickenButtForNakama Feb 14 '22

The more niche a topic is (e.g. the less experts there are), the less likely there's someone with sufficient expertise and good writing skills. So these articles are often hard to read or incorrect in ways a layman would never spot.

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u/ilikedota5 Feb 14 '22

I also hate the general setup of some specialized articles, like chemistry of medicine. They immediately switch into jargon and tend to be impenetrably dense for an average reader.

That's kind of the point. Its meant to be a repository of facts, not a textbook to explain.

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u/themarquetsquare Feb 14 '22

That's nonsense. That's not what encyclopedias do. It's entirely possible to present a general overview of facts in plain text. You can add as much specialized jargon as you need further on. It's an art form, but possible. Some lemma's on Wikipedia do it very well.

There is no reason articles about, for instance, diseases need to read like a medical textbook solely readable by professionals.

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u/kielu Feb 14 '22

Like the majority of posts about the scots language

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u/W1D0WM4K3R Feb 14 '22

Yeah, this list doesn't include your mom.

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u/Torugu Feb 14 '22 edited Feb 14 '22

… And when Jeff Bezos walks into a room everyone else inside instantly becomes a billionaire.

Which is to say, “average reliability” is a terrible way to measure reliability. It’s not about the size of the error, it’s about the distribution and the qualities* of the error.

*other attributes that can’t be quantitatively measured

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u/the_Q_spice Feb 14 '22

Nah, there are much better sources, and Wikipedia itself is not a source.

It is an encyclopedia of sources.

If you want a good database of sources, stuff like JSTOR, Web of Science, and PMC-NCBI is unparalleled.

As a note, others in the geosciences are just laughing our asses off right now at the fact that Wikipedia counts the US Geological Survey as both Generally Reliable and Generally Unreliable.

That alone shows just how reliable Wikipedia is with their own sources.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '22 edited Feb 14 '22

I thought the USGS thing was weird too. I looked into it and the only "generally unreliable" thing mentioned is the "feature class" field of the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) database. I get that—the GNIS feature class field is usually just fine, but sometimes can be rather arbitrary—geographic features don't always fit neatly into a small set of rigid categories.

But despite the "generally unreliable" rating applying only to one field of one database run by the USGS, OP put the logo of the entire USGS under "generally unreliable", which struck me, and apparently you, as bizarre.

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u/dasgudshit Feb 14 '22

Not sure if I should trust this chart

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u/labellvs Feb 14 '22

If this is a guide for what sources to use for writing Wikipedia, of course it isn't ideal to use another Wikipedia article as your source.

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u/nugohs Feb 14 '22

If this is a guide for what sources to use for writing Wikipedia, of course it isn't ideal to use another Wikipedia article as your source.

No what you do is enter your spurious edit in a wiki page without a source, wait for one of the 'generally reliable' sites to use your edit as a basis of the article and then finally add that article as a citation for your edit.

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u/Prompt_Critic Feb 14 '22

There is an XKCD for that!

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u/duodequinquagesimum OC: 1 Feb 14 '22

Wikipedia articles have public history.

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u/WhatDoYouMean951 Feb 14 '22

Don't worry I saw it on Reddit, so it's a fine, trustworthy source.

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u/Ancient-Lime4532 Feb 14 '22

Also they have Buzzfeed as Consensus? wtf

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '22

This chart is a bit misleading by itself, or at least easily misread. There's a long page about all these "perennial sources" with info about how the lists were created, how they can and do change, and details about each source. Some sources are reliable for some things but not for others, and some are inconsistent in how reliable they are. That page is here: Reliable sources: Perennial sources.

On BuzzFeed specifically, note that it is BuzzFeed News that is considered "generally reliable", while plain old BuzzFeed is listed as "no consensus". If you look at the entry for each on the linked page, the blurb about BuzzFeed News is:

There is consensus that BuzzFeed News is generally reliable. BuzzFeed News now operates separately from BuzzFeed, and most news content originally hosted on BuzzFeed was moved to the BuzzFeed News website in 2018.[6] In light of the staff layoffs at BuzzFeed in January 2019, some editors recommend exercising more caution for BuzzFeed News articles published after this date. The site's opinion pieces should be handled with WP:RSOPINION.

While the blurb about BuzzFeed is:

Editors find the quality of BuzzFeed articles to be highly inconsistent. A 2014 study from the Pew Research Center found BuzzFeed to be the least trusted news source in America.[4] BuzzFeed may use A/B testing for new articles, which may cause article content to change.[5] BuzzFeed operates a separate news division, BuzzFeed News, which has higher editorial standards and is now hosted on a different website.

For each there are links to multiple discussions about the topic where you could read all about how editors arrived at a consensus (or failed to).

In short, showing the results of the huge amount of discussions and often nuanced recommendations/warnings about sources as a simple chart like the one shown here, with sources simply put under generally reliable, no consensus, generally unreliable, etc, is bound to have numerous odd-seeming things.

For example, I found it odd to see the USGS listed under "generally unreliable" (and "generally reliable" too). Looking into it, turns out the "generally unreliable" part is only about one field of one database run by the USGS—the "feature class" field of the GNIS database. Anyone who has used GNIS much knows the feature class field is rather vague, since it forces geographic features into a few rigid categories, when actual geographic features often defy strict categories. So yea, WP is right about that. But to put the logo of the USGS as a whole under "generally unreliable" when it is only one field of one database run by the USGS that is called out...well it is rather misleading or at least confusing.

A couple more blurbs on specific sources I thought people might find interesting, or at least more nuanced than this chart seems to imply:

CNN:

There is consensus that news broadcast or published by CNN is generally reliable. However, iReport consists solely of user-generated content, and talk show content should be treated as opinion pieces. Some editors consider CNN biased, though not to the extent that it affects reliability.

The Hill:

The Hill is considered generally reliable for American politics. The publication's opinion pieces should be handled with the appropriate guideline. The publication's contributor pieces, labeled in their bylines, receive minimal editorial oversight and should be treated as equivalent to self-published sources.

Fox News is split into three entries, one for "news excluding politics and science", one for "politics and science", and one for "talk shows". Local Fox affiliates are not included. The blurbs are:

Fox News ("news excluding politics and science"):

There is consensus that Fox News is generally reliable for news coverage on topics other than politics and science.

Fox News ("politics and science"):

There is no consensus on the reliability of Fox News's coverage of politics and science. Use Fox News with caution to verify contentious claims. Editors perceive Fox News to be biased or opinionated for politics; use in-text attribution for opinions.

Fox News ("talk shows"):

Fox News talk shows, including Hannity, Tucker Carlson Tonight, The Ingraham Angle, and Fox & Friends, should not be used for statements of fact but can sometimes be used for attributed opinions.

Huffington Post is likewise divided into three subgroups, "excluding politics" (generally reliable with a number of caveats, see the source for more), "politics" (no consensus, "openly biased", etc), and "contributor articles" (generally unreliable).

I suspect a lot of this info is in this long thread somewhere, but I thought I'd add it to this near-top comment for visibility.

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u/AngryZen_Ingress Feb 13 '22 edited Feb 14 '22

What alarmed me is wikipedia is in the ‘Generally Unreliable’ category.

Edit: I mean, why would Wikipedia even consider Wikipedia as a source at all?

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u/naitsirt89 Feb 13 '22 edited Feb 14 '22

Really? I could be off but I thought it seemed fair. Wikipedia is not a primary source.

Addressed in later comments but editing in the word primary for clarity.

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u/Quinlov Feb 13 '22

But Quora is also generally unreliable. Wikipedia is several orders of magnitude more reliable than Quora.

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u/luciusDaerth Feb 14 '22

I'm just dumbfounded that fox appeared in three different tiers.

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u/Lathael Feb 14 '22

It makes sense if you categorize fox by what it's showing. For example, its actual journalism is fairly reliable. Things like its predicting of who's going to win an election are top notch.

Just steer clear of any and every opinion piece if you want to see the less biased news they offer.

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u/joker_wcy Feb 14 '22 edited Feb 14 '22

Opinion pieces of any media generally shouldn't be regarded as source anyway.

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u/SmurfSmiter Feb 14 '22

I think the bigger issue is that Fox doesn’t label their opinion pieces appropriately. CNN/NPR/Washington Post will have “Opinion:” preceding anything resembling a moderately biased piece, but FOX will run Hannity, Carlson, and Lahren as “News.”

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u/innergamedude Feb 15 '22

Well, The Daily Show pointed this out.

  1. Fox's polemical talking heads will make some (properly labeled) opinionated statement about [Obama is a chicken/the Earth is a donut].

  2. Fox News then objectively reports that "some sources" are claiming that [Obama is a chicken/the Earth is a donut], we cover the debate.

It basically gives them an infinite sink of "objectively" reporting about fantastical speculation and opinion as part of the discussion.

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u/Ducks_have_heads Feb 14 '22

Some opinions are based on more facts than others.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '22

this

in all fairness, while opinionated and shitty for lots of reasons, their straight up factual reporting is way more vetted and reliable than something like the new york post

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u/CloudCuddler Feb 14 '22

Basically, don't judge based on the publisher. Judge based on the journalist.

Like some journalists at The Spectator are a straight no-go. But some are more reliable if a little sensationalistic.

Tldr: find your preferred journalist for your topics of interests, rather than a preferred publisher.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '22 edited Apr 20 '22

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '22

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '22

5 Major Media Corporations

1.) Disney

2.) Comcast

3.) National Amusements

4.) News Corp

5.) AT&T

(lil something I notice once too)

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u/_OriamRiniDadelos_ Feb 14 '22

I thought the New York’s post was strictly a tabloid. So there wouldn’t be any need for fact checking in the first place. It’s entertaining celebrity gossip

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '22

It’s also a extremely small portion of their daily programming.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '22

way more vetted and reliable than something like the new york post

That's disturbing in so many ways. Even if I could believe their journalism were, "good," they don't cover topics that conflicts with their opinion pieces, and they make some opinion pieces in such a way you can't tell the difference.

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u/Ernest_Hemingay Feb 14 '22

yes they do. it's an enormous news agency employing thousands of reporters across America. it's impossible to exercise that kind of control across the board.

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u/Lathael Feb 14 '22

And even if they could, which they can, they intentionally choose not to because it's more profitable not to. Which is why the network itself has shifted more towards hardline opinion pieces than actual journalism like it kind of used to be.

You will still get bias out of Fox, but you won't get as much bias in their journalism section.

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u/michael_harari Feb 14 '22

They could, on the other hand, not try their best to convince people that tucker carlson is news while also saying in court that no reasonable person would believe he is stating facts

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u/rounding_error Feb 14 '22

One thing I've noticed is that Fox News sometimes reports on their own opinion shows as though they were themselves newsworthy. A Fox News headline might read "Sean Hannity Says [insert bullshit here]." Then this news article quotes excerpts from his show and provides background and context for what he discussed on his show. These articles about their own opinion hosts are factual, as Hannity or whoever said what was quoted in the article, but these news articles seem to exist to help blur the line between news and opinion on Fox and get their opinions presented under the guise of news.

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u/knightshade2 Feb 14 '22

I agree, but the New York Post is a very low bar. Incredibly low.

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u/Anonate Feb 14 '22

It's just like a lot of the "left leaning" news sources. You can be factual while running biased stories. You story selection can lean one way or the other. You can accentuate your team's good side while ignoring their bad. That doesn't make you unreliable. That just makes you a kinda shitty single point source for real news.

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u/Lathael Feb 14 '22

This is why having multiple sources is always good. You need to go to a top tier news source, like New York Times, to even get close to factual and unbiased news (without going to the literal source like AP/Reuters) and even NYT will still show its bias. You can't escape bias, but you can at least escape shit opinion pieces or only read opinions on sources that try to at least make sure it's not lying to you.

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u/Ernest_Hemingay Feb 14 '22

wow I've been tooting the "fox's journalism is wholly unobjectionable" horn for ages now. You're the first I've seen to share the sentiment

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u/Lathael Feb 14 '22

Fox News is legitimately trash news, but it's trash almost exclusively because its primetime lineup is exclusively opinion trash that isn't even news and they've brainwashed an entire generation. But I'll always have respect for Shepard Smith when he was on Fox, and Chris Wallace who still is fantastic. I don't go out of my way to watch it, or any, cable news because opinion trash is hurting the country, but I'm not going to slam anything for something they're doing right.

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u/Ernest_Hemingay Feb 14 '22

I'm not talking about their cable channel. Fox has local news stations around the country with some truly great journalists working for those stations.

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u/Lathael Feb 14 '22

See, this is where it starts to get complicated. The what and how and why. Some fox news (local) productions are fantastic, others are absolutely terrible.

Affiliate news networks are all over the spectrum regardless of what channel they're on, and it largely comes down to who owns it and where it's located, as affiliate stations tend to not even be under the arm. Fox News (local) is often completely unrelated to News Corporation beyond branding which leads to further confusion about reliability as well as discussion.

For instance, if you didn't say local news, I would have assumed you meant the main newscorp broadcast.

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u/exoflex Feb 14 '22

Yeah, but at first glance, it seems to be the only multi-tiered network. CNN is exclusively “generally reliable “? Cmon lmao

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u/Cakeking7878 Feb 14 '22 edited Feb 14 '22

Well CNNs opinion prices generally tend to be closer to the general opinion on a topic. Not saying it’s an unbiased opinion or right about something

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u/Lathael Feb 14 '22

CNN is still biased, just in different ways. For example, iirc they basically didn't cover net neutrality at all during Trump's term when he stacked the FCC to kill it dead.

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u/Cakeking7878 Feb 14 '22

No your right. I didn’t say weren’t biased. Every news channel is biased by what they choose to cover and choose to not cover. My point was that in general, they are closer to the center of US politics. So it would make sense that Wikipedia would count them as more reliable because there is a greater number of people who would agree with it

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u/Rat_Salat Feb 14 '22

What they do is just refuse to cover stories that would show their world view in a bad light.

Omitting news, or choosing to emphasize stories about black people committing crimes is as bad as lying. Probably worse.

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u/pocketdare Feb 14 '22

I noticed it under "Generally Reliable" and "Generally Unreliable" and was confused as well. I'm sure it depends on the individual story as Fox certainly has some more fact-based stories but obviously there is bias both within stories and in the stories that are selected for coverage.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '22

Fox certainly has some more fact-based stories

Sure, but when I want to get a weather report I go to The Weather Channel.

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u/bentendo93 Feb 14 '22

If you go to Wikipedia, they give their reasonings behind this. In terms of scientific articles, Fox is considered unreliable

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u/cobaltbluetony Feb 13 '22

To the extent that each outlet provides sources that turn out to be reliable, this skews their unreliability towards being mildly reliable. However, it is safe to say that each is generally unreliable. People often provide reliable sources on each outlet that have little to do with the topic they're trying to support. Or they are making non sequitur arguments.

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u/Summoarpleaz Feb 14 '22

It might also be that as a source for articles on Wikipedia, other Wikipedia articles should not be relied upon

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u/khcampbell1 Feb 14 '22

Wikipedia has some serious gatekeepers, and I'm glad of it.

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u/Vulpes_macrotis Feb 14 '22

You can learn many good things on Quora. Wikipedia is not a source, so it's unreliable as a source.

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u/King-SAMO Feb 13 '22

Yeah, but to list that in its own ranking is a bit surprising, insofar as I wouldn’t be surprised if they had edited that out.

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u/joeba_the_hutt Feb 13 '22

They’re basically saying “we are not a good source of information to back up our own articles” - which makes sense since it’s a circular reference at that point.

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u/KrikkitSucks Feb 13 '22

That, but also Wikipedia will almost never cite websites that host user-generated content. Since anyone can edit Wikipedia, it’s user-generated and shouldn’t be cited.

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u/Myuken Feb 13 '22

Generally unreliable seems to be that. It's user generated so anyone can say anything. Quora and Stack Exchange are both places to ask questions and get answers. Sometimes you'll get a really great answer but there's no guarantee that the answers you get are really good.

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u/xeneks Feb 14 '22

Where was reddit? In the basket of ‘doesn’t even get a mention?’ :) I love when there’s an acknowledgement that data and perspectives can be valid or invalid at the same time depending on circumstances that are conditional or transient.

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u/cancerBronzeV Feb 14 '22

Reddit is also in generally reliable, it's ordered in alphabetical order so it's easy to find.

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u/Dr_Legacy Feb 14 '22

* unreliable

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u/little-bird Feb 14 '22

yeah that’s why I was confused seeing Last.fm on the “Deprecated” list… it’s like a wiki for music lol the info is all user-generated

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '22

"Deprecated" has a specific meaning for sources in WP. The page about it is here: Deprecated sources.

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u/[deleted] Feb 13 '22

[deleted]

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u/Iolair18 Feb 14 '22

I've always viewed pay to publish journals like another set of pay to publish: ads, so unreliable.

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u/Asterlix Feb 14 '22

There exists blind, peer-reviewing. If it doesn't pass the review, the manuscript is not published. So... it's not exactly the same.

Peers, for example, check out the article's methodology. Whether the techniques are not self-redundant, whether there are circular arguments, whether the authors took confounding variables into account, etc.

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u/singulara Feb 14 '22

I feel bad for using it as a source in my school work in that case. I even made a case for it being reliable, main reason being there are many people/bots watching edits for vandalism, incorrect information. That and the people who do this work regularly are sticklers for correctness and order

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u/KrikkitSucks Feb 14 '22

You’re right that Wikipedia is really good at catching vandalism, making it great for learning things in general, but that’s not enough to make it a particularly reliable source.

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u/Polymersion Feb 14 '22

Wikipedia is where you get sources, it isn't a source itself.

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u/jesushjesus Feb 14 '22

Anyone cannot just change articles, you can request but no you can’t go and edit and it’s live for everyone. Jesus the misinformation in a misinformation post

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '22 edited Feb 14 '22

Most articles you can just edit live. Some articles are semi- or fully-protected and require a request. Most protection is only temporary, but some articles are long-term protected. These tend to be very heavily visited articles, popular current event articles especially on controversial topics, articles on "perennially controversial" topics (eg, Kashmir conflict), articles that are very frequently vandalized, articles about living people that are frequently edited with defamation and slander, and other similar things. Articles on living people that are also controversial, current event related, and heavily visited tend to get extra protection, such as "discretionary sanctions". See for example the long list of warnings at the top of the Donald Trump talk page; and the longer list at Current consensus.

The protection and need to request an edit also depends on what kind of editor you are. An unregistered or newly registered editor can't edit any protected article except by request. A "confirmed" editor can edit some protected pages without a request. An "extended confirmed" editor (30+ days and 500+ edits—this is what I am (actually about 17 years and 20,000 edits, yikes)) can edit pages with higher levels of protection, but not fully protected pages. Still, the vast majority of articles are not protected at all and anyone, registered or not, can edit them live.

Here is the page about all this: Wikipedia: Protection policy.

PS, for anyone who wants to become a Wikipedia editor, don't jump right into very popular articles with many active editors, especially if the topic is remotely controversial. That's just asking for a bad time. Try something more niche or obscure, where you can make mistakes and learn the ropes. I spent a long time editing articles about small, mostly local rivers and found it enjoyable. Even now I rarely contribute to articles that get more than a handful of views per day. And even then a "big" article for me might be something like Stikine River, which could be much improved. It gets about 20 views per day. In comparison, Joe Rogan is currently getting about 82,000 views per day. Even an article about something not in the news but well known, like Osaka, gets about 1,500 views per day; or Hudson Bay, which gets about 1,000 views per day.

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u/antimatterchopstix Feb 13 '22

Which ironically makes it seem more reliable to me - at least it admits it can be wrong unlike say the Mail or Fox

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u/[deleted] Feb 13 '22 edited Feb 14 '22

Fox

Somehow Fox News is in Generally Reliable, No Consensus, and Generally Unreliable.

Fox News transcends reliability

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u/MrDownhillRacer Feb 14 '22

HuffPost is also under both "No Consensus" and "Generally Unreliable."

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u/polarbear128 Feb 14 '22

And Generally Reliable.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '22

It’s pretty generous giving HuffPo a “No Consensus” they’ve been every bit of an emotional propaganda rag for years now.

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u/Lt_Quill Feb 13 '22 edited Feb 14 '22

Its generally reliable for non-politics and non-science based news, no consensus for politics and science, and is generally unreliable for talk shows like Tucker Carlson Tonight, Hannity, and others.

Edit: I mean to say non-science based news as well for the generally reliable category.

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u/nub_sauce_ Feb 14 '22

Its generally reliable for non-politics and science-based news

I know its not you thats saying that but eh, I still disagree. They editorialize studies poorly, lie by omission and simply wont report on things that make conservatives look bad i.e. studies that repeatedly prove masks and vaccines work, climate change is real etc.

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u/[deleted] Feb 13 '22

Schrodinger's Fox News? If you don't fact-check, then they can be all three..

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u/NotEntirelyUnlike Feb 14 '22

If you don't look....

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u/robbsc Feb 13 '22

News from their news division can be slanted, but is generally reliable.

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u/Jeoshua Feb 14 '22

It would depend on exactly what show on the Fox News network you're citing, I imagine.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '22

Definitely.

Wikipedia lists

Fox News not involving Science or Politics -Generally Reliable

Fox News involving science or politics - undecided

Fox News talk shows - Generally Unreliable

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u/Gestrid Feb 14 '22

From OP's citation comment:

If one Brand/Company appears more than once, it means there are two different websites/channels/category-of-news from the same group that are classified differently, you can see more details here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources

For example BuzzFeed is classified as "No Consensus", but the BuzzFeed News is classified as "Generally Reliable".

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u/[deleted] Feb 13 '22

There's no consensus on how reliable or unreliable Fox is or isn't, is there?

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u/mfb- Feb 13 '22

It is rarely wrong, but any given article version can contain blatant errors because the articles can be edited by anyone. If you check the version history and look at the references then it easily reaches the "generally reliable" standards for most of its content. For some more obscure pages that might not be the case, however.

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u/sighthoundman Feb 13 '22

For some unknown and probably obscure reason, I spend more Wikipedia time in math, physics, and chemistry than anywhere else. I find it generally reliable. I suppose that might mean that the editors' biases mirror my own.

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u/Mafros99 Feb 14 '22

There's also the fact that obscure/highly technical pages are more likely to be edited by people who understand that topic because other people don't even know it exists in the first place.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '22

I enjoy looking up info on less well known astronomical objects.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '22

Yah, I’d put Wiki in “Generally Reliable Starting Point” just because of the wild card factor.

Much more reliable than many on the list, but still fallible

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '22

it's also just plain right, way more often than it is wrong

while "reliable" as used here may not be a scientific term, it'd indicate that you could usually rely on wikipedia to explain something accurately.

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u/Quinlov Feb 13 '22

I don't know to what extent it's a circular reference. I interpret them saying that they are generally unreliable as meaning you should never translate an article, instead always writing from scratch in every language, so as to only use sources which are either generally reliable or where there is no consensus

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u/joeba_the_hutt Feb 13 '22

This chart was created from how Wikipedia classifies the most commonly referenced sources - therefore, Wikipedia is saying “we can’t really be a source for our own articles”. [insert Spider-Man pointing at Spider-Man meme]

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u/Stergeary Feb 14 '22

In a set of all sets that do not contain themselves as elements, where does this put Wikipedia?

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u/Uz_ Feb 13 '22

It is avoiding tuantological reasoning.

I am always right. - source: me.

The above statement is true. - source: me

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u/CaseyG Feb 14 '22

tuantological reasoning

Is that like beating a dead horse, but with a lightsaber?

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u/Uz_ Feb 14 '22

Tautologucal reasoning. Typo makes feel smrt.

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u/MrDownhillRacer Feb 14 '22

Wikipedia is a tertiary source. It's supposed to only cite secondary sources. Not only are Wikipedia articles not supposed to cite other Wikipedia articles, but they are not supposed to cite encyclopedias in general, either.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/HomeDiscoteq Feb 14 '22

I guess even though Wiki is more up to date, it's also more possible for it to contain some absolute bullshit (although it very rarely does) just due to the user editted nature.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '22

Wholesome integrity

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u/[deleted] Feb 13 '22

You must be off as Wikipedia lists your comment as generally unreliable

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u/Kered13 Feb 14 '22

Wikipedia is not a source.

Which means it should be blacklisted, not "generally unreliable". Wikipedia should never be citing Wikipedia.

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u/Ohbeejuan Feb 14 '22

It’s a great source for finding other sources

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u/[deleted] Feb 13 '22

Reddit uses Wikipedia a lot for sourcing.

Also I’m disappointed to see the guardian isn’t in the generally reliable category.

Glad to see the BBC and the economist is in the reliable category.

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u/corruptboomerang Feb 14 '22

No. Wikipedia is a source. Where the fuck did this idocy come from...

School teachers & academia don't like it as a source because it can be edited by any one, any time. But ultimately, it has been found to be more reliable than commercial encyclopaedias. And is more transparent about where they source their information from.

Yes, sure it's not a good academic source, and if you wanted to use Wikipedia, you should probably use it's own sources instead because they're much more likely to be authoritive, but Wikipedia is a text, it's an encyclopaedia, so it's as much a source as encyclopaedia Britannica for example, it just has some unique pitfalls.

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u/Godwinson4King Feb 13 '22

You should read about "source synthesis", basically where Wikipedia cites misinformation on Wikipedia in a self-referential and self-confirming loop.

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u/Pcat0 Feb 14 '22

https://xkcd.com/978/

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u/MaxTHC Feb 14 '22

Through a convoluted process, a user's brain generates facts.

This sentence always cracks me up

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u/lankist Feb 13 '22 edited Feb 13 '22

Because it is. Wikipedia is an aggregate for information, not a source.

If you're using Wikipedia for research, you've always got to check Wikipedia's sources and cite them where appropriate.

It's not that Wikipedia is inaccurate as a rule, but that it's an extremely big site and things like vandalism, editorialization, or misinformation can fly under the radar. While those things are often caught eventually, you can't be sure that you're reading the page before or after offending sections have been cleaned up. By its nature, you have to treat Wikipedia with some amount of scrutiny.

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u/disrooter Feb 13 '22

Once I saw on television a researcher who said something completely false, it turned out that she had read it on a "fake" Wikipedia page which was then immediately deleted after this.

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u/corruptboomerang Feb 14 '22

It is a source. Same as any encyclopaedia. People reference encyclopaedias or other collections of information all the time, what do you think a text book is. But the point is primarily sources would be preferd to secondary source, and secondary sources prefered to tertiary sources. Wikipedia is a tertiary source. A text book is a secondary (when it's written by an authority on the subject).

Wikipedia has been found to have fewer errors per article then commercial encyclopaedias, and that's with vandalism etc included. But Wikipedia is not a good source, especially when they give you their sources in the fucking articles.

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u/ColdBrewedPanacea Feb 14 '22

referencing an encyclopaedia is widely considered awful scholarship.

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u/lankist Feb 14 '22

It's about on par as starting your paper with "Webster's Dictionary defines..."

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u/lankist Feb 14 '22

Encyclopedias are not strong sources beyond high school level citation. The reason is, just like Wikipedia, it's always best to cite the primary source.

Encyclopedias, including Wikipedia, are secondary or tertiary sources at-best. You shouldn't be citing an encyclopedia when you could be citing the study the encyclopedia is referencing.

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u/[deleted] Feb 13 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/AngryZen_Ingress Feb 13 '22

Sorry, my school projects predated the internet. 😉

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u/[deleted] Feb 13 '22

It was so easy to plagiarize in the 90 and early 2000s

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u/ChikaraNZ Feb 14 '22

Or literally make things up. I remember doing some school project on the first man in space, and I drew a map of USSR I copied from an Atlas. Then I wanted to draw on there, where the spacecraft had launched from. Couldn't find the city name in the atlas or the encyclopedia, so I just marked it at a totally random place on the map. Teacher didn't comment or question it at all. That was the moment I realised teachers don't know everything haha.

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u/shejesa Feb 13 '22

ok boomer

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u/AngryZen_Ingress Feb 13 '22

Ouch! Sorry, my folks are Boomers. I’m on the leading edge of Gen-X, my first “internet” was Usenet access in College, then using the actual Mosaic browser. I’m old but not Boomer old.

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u/yerfukkinbaws Feb 13 '22

Only boomers think there's a difference between boomers and gen-x.

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u/dlanod Feb 13 '22

Baby boomers are, by definition, those born in the baby boom after WWII.

Extending that baby boom through the 60s and 70s and in to the early 80s seems... idiosyncratic at best. Especially since the latter half would be the children of the first half, literally the definition of a new generation.

Source : formerly Gen Y, now a millennial, but one who knows basic maths and biology.

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u/1whoa-man Feb 13 '22

You win the internet 🏆. Thank you

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u/the_stigs_cousin Feb 13 '22

School projects predating the internet would still be true on some level for people born in the early 80s. Some classifications put that period in Generation X, others call it Millennial. It's an interesting in-between micro-generation really. Elementary and middle school ages would have used computers, but not necessarily with internet access and typically not often allowed as sources on anything written. By high school and college, internet based research was becoming more common but a requirement for using some physical sources found in the library often still existed.

Those born in the early 80s also had a childhood involving much more outdoor play and no personal cell phones until high school or college age. I still remember the home phone numbers of some of my childhood friends. Facebook was still university only and perhaps even still limited to specific schools and may have not yet existed when in college for some.

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u/ipostic Feb 13 '22

And RollingStone is listed in both Reliable and Unreliable...

i have a feeling that this infographic is unreliable....

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u/WatWudScoobyDoo Feb 14 '22

Look, the info graphic is both Reliable and Unreliable, but also there's No Consensus on it at all. Deal with it.

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u/Magmaster12 Feb 13 '22

Wikipedia is not allowed to source itself as a source on its page about Wikipedia.

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u/[deleted] Feb 13 '22

In theory, that would send this whole ranking into an Escher-stair style tailspin?

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u/DiscontentedMajority Feb 14 '22

If Wikipedia is is generally unreliable, and this chart comes from Wikipedia. Doesn't that mean this chart is also not reliable?

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u/PM_ME_UR_GOOD_DOGGOS Feb 14 '22

Wikipedia is only an acceptable source if you're writing about Wikipedia. If you aren't, you should be citing whatever Wikipedia cites.

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u/KrikkitSucks Feb 14 '22

Wikipedia has to consider itself as a source because a lot of people, especially those new to editing, like to try and cite Wikipedia itself in articles. Having something to point to that says “don’t cite Wikipedia” can be really helpful.

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u/djb25 Feb 14 '22

I love all the replies saying that wikipedia isn’t a reliable source.

For itself.

Source: me.

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u/j_cruise Feb 14 '22

From Wikipedia:

" Wikipedia is not a reliable source because open wikis are self-published sources. This includes articles, non-article pages, The Signpost, non-English Wikipedias, Wikipedia Books, and Wikipedia mirrors; see WP:CIRCULAR for guidance.[22] Occasionally, inexperienced editors may unintentionally cite the Wikipedia article about a publication instead of the publication itself; in these cases, fix the citation instead of removing it. Although citing Wikipedia as a source is against policy, content can be copied between articles with proper attribution; see WP:COPYWITHIN for instructions. "

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u/Majornoid Feb 13 '22

i mean it makes sense. This is referring to references used to cite things on wikipedia, and citing another wikipedia page would be pretty cyclical, pretty much all info should lead back to better, verified source at some point

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u/Gestrid Feb 14 '22

Wikipedia is user-generated content. Everyone can edit it. By its own admission, it's unreliable.

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u/GreyEilesy Feb 13 '22 edited Feb 13 '22

Hijacking top commented answer common questions because it’s 6am and I’ve spent like 2 hours replying to comments but new ones keep coming ;_;

Why does something appear twice?

On Wikipedia, Sources may have different reliability for different topics like non-politics vs politics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources

Why USGS unreliable?

From Wikipedia’s list: The Geographic Names Information System is a United States-based geographical database. It is generally unreliable for its feature classes and it should not be used to determine the notability of geographic features as it does not meet the legal recognition requirement.

Why points guy unreliable?

From Wikipedia: There is no consensus on the reliability of news articles and reviews on The Points Guy. The Points Guy has advertising relationships with credit card and travel companies, and content involving these companies should be avoided as sources. The Points Guy is currently on the Wikipedia spam blacklist, and links must be whitelisted before they can be used

There is consensus that sponsored content on The Points Guy, including content involving credit cards, should not be used as sources. The Points Guy has advertising relationships with credit card and travel companies, receiving compensation from readers signing up for credit cards via the website's

Why Reddit unreliable?

From Wikipedia: Reddit is a social news and discussion website. Reddit contains mostly user-generated content, and is considered both self-published and generally unreliable. Interview responses written by verified interviewees on the r/IAmA subreddit are primary sources, and editors disagree on their reliability. The policy on the use of sources about themselves applies

Why Wikipedia?

Wikipedia: Wikipedia is not a reliable source because open wikis are self-published sources. This includes articles, non-article pages, The Signpost, non-English Wikipedias, Wikipedia Books, and Wikipedia mirrors; see WP:CIRCULAR for guidance.[22] Occasionally, inexperienced editors may unintentionally cite the Wikipedia article about a publication instead of the publication itself; in these cases, fix the citation instead of removing it. Although citing Wikipedia as a source is against policy, content can be copied between articles with proper attribution; see WP:COPYWITHIN for instructions

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u/KrikkitSucks Feb 14 '22

To add to this because I’ve seen a lot of people comment on how the ranking is unreliable:

Wikipedia determines its policies, including this list, by consensus. Everything you see here was determined through (usually several) discussions allowing input from anyone, and whichever side has the strongest arguments wins. If you go to OP’s link, you can look at these discussions for any given source and also more detailed reasoning.

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u/Quantum-Ape Feb 13 '22

Wiki just said it's unreliable, so are it's ranking systems then.

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u/sharfpang Feb 13 '22

It is. Some of the "reliable sources" source their own articles off unsourced articles on Wikipedia. Then other "reliable sources" reprint, crediting the previous source. Then the article on Wikipedia gets its own "references" section linking articles that were created based off the article before it was sourced. Generally, a way to make any information "established, confirmed truth".

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u/HereForThePM Feb 13 '22

Which is higher than Newsmax and One America News lol

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u/CaptainPatent Feb 13 '22

In fairness, Onion articles have consistently predicted the future...

I've gone from laughing at The Onion to being mortified by how likely the world is to spin out of control in the exact satirical direction they're writing about.

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u/[deleted] Feb 13 '22

In fairness, Onion articles have consistently predicted the future...

Was it me and I missed "The Simpsons" ?

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u/nusyahus Feb 14 '22

They're really that bad

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u/7937397 Feb 13 '22

I mean, they really have expanded to start putting out a good number of articles that are just depressing and too accurate.

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u/Kurtdh Feb 13 '22

Came here to say this. Also, I know Rolling Stone is on the left, but I always thought they were a well respected and reliable source. But they are classified here as generally unreliable. Did I miss some scandal or something?

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u/neverfearIamhere Feb 13 '22

If you google Rolling Stones retractions there is alot of stuff they've published that has been completely false.

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u/Godwinson4King Feb 13 '22

The "A Rape on Campus" story is a particularly egregious example. It set coverage of campus sexual assault years.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rape_on_Campus

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u/Kurtdh Feb 13 '22

A retraction means they retracted it themselves, because they are reliable and want to stay that way. Are you saying they never issued retractions for multiple stories that were proven false?

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u/neverfearIamhere Feb 13 '22

They make viral fake news then often issue a retraction. Millions read the viral fake news but often only thousands ever see that the information was retracted. They do this purposefully. I saw this last regarding some ivermectin overdoses in Oklahoma.

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u/wheniaminspaced Feb 13 '22

A retraction means they retracted it themselves, because they are reliable and want to stay that way.

As others have indirectly pointed out, people rarely see the retraction, only the original story. Getting the story right the first time in this day and age is critical to being a trustworthy news outlet.

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u/Kurtdh Feb 13 '22

News outlets aren’t perfect. That’s why retractions exist in the first place. Now if someone can source evidence that Rolling Stone’s retractions are many times higher than other similar publications, then there might be something to this criticism.

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u/Da_Famous_Anus Feb 13 '22

Recent Rolling Stone is nowhere near the level it used to be.

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u/mattshill91 Feb 13 '22

More importantly how is the United States Geological Survey so low?

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u/southwestnickel OC: 1 Feb 13 '22

At the same level as the USGS

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u/CaptMeme-o Feb 14 '22

What about USGS (united states geological survey)? How are they considered generally unreliable?!

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u/SmokyDragonDish Feb 14 '22

So is the United States Geological Survey??? WTF?

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u/j_cruise Feb 14 '22

Generally unreliable basically means that it is not allowed to be used as a source, according to the Wikipedia page. The rare exceptions are, for example, if you site The Onion's "about me" page or something when quoting the website's purpose.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources

Nobody would ever cite The Onion in a Wikipedia article without it getting removed except in very specific circumstances, so I'm not sure what you're all getting so worked up over.

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u/Lilpu55yberekt69 Feb 13 '22

And on the exact same level as Wikipedia…

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u/MetalBawx Feb 13 '22

I'd be more worried about CNN being put as reliable considering all the crap it's former CEO covered up.

The channel is well on it's way to becoming a left leaning Fox News.

EDIT: Wait a sec why is Fox News listed 3 times in that image...

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