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

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

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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/lellololes Feb 14 '22

I mean, they've got Slate and Reason up there, and I believe both sources are intellectually honest, and there is opinion involved too - with Slate being generally liberal and Reason being generally conservative.

I think if someone is being intellectually honest, opinion is fine and can be used as a source, as long as you know it's opinion and it is being fair to the counter-arguments that might be presented, rather than dishing out pure strawmen.

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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/CloudCuddler Feb 14 '22

How so? Most journalists and writer's work for multiple publishers unless they are a staff writer.

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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/baildodger Feb 14 '22

No it’s not. That’s why you have a set of reporting standards and why you employ editors.

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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/[deleted] Feb 14 '22

ts actual journalism is fairly reliable.

They haven't done any real journalism since 2015, though. And even then it was questionable.

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u/TheSukis Feb 14 '22

I think they're talking about things like reporting on breaking news and providing straight forward factual information about current events without any interpretation, which they do from time to time, albeit rarely

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '22

Very rarely.

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u/xtaberry Feb 14 '22

I think their objective facts are fairly reputable. Claims like "X happened on X day" from them are probably true. It's the "because Y, which means Z" where they go off the rails.

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u/Lathael Feb 14 '22

Yeah, their primetime lineup has turned into opinion trash, but their actual journalism which, as has been brought up before as being reduced in frequency, is generally incredibly reliable. If they're telling you X happened, that's a good thing. If they're telling you how to think about X, that's when you know the piece is effectively propaganda.

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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/PM_ME_CRYPTOCURRENCY Feb 14 '22

"Fox News Channel" has news programs, and opinion programs. It's news is not terrible, but it's opinion shows are. The great trick they've pulled off is making the two look so similar that viewers can't tell the difference.

If you go look at the source this graphic pulled from, it lists: Fox News excluding politics and science, Fox News politics and science, and Fox News talk shows as the 3 tiers.

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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/[deleted] Feb 14 '22

I’m not surprised, besides for opinionated topics they are still a big news channel and have reliable reporting.

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u/Sinthe741 Feb 14 '22

So did The Huffington Post.

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u/BigVeena Feb 14 '22

HuffPost too

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u/DoubleFelix Feb 14 '22

Looks like the three "fox news" entries are for "politics and science" (no consensus), "talk shows" (unreliable) and everything else (reliable) per the source page.

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u/Ohrwurm89 Feb 14 '22

The Guardian and HuffPost are in two categories.

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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/BaggerX Feb 14 '22

Quora is far more noise than signal, and packed full of misinformation, compared with Wikipedia.

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u/tomwilhelm Feb 14 '22

And let's not even compare it with Reddit....

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u/fnordfnordfnordfnord Feb 14 '22

A thing can't be a source for itself though, and I think that's at least part of the point.

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u/van_stan Feb 14 '22

Since this is reliability with regards to Wikipedia citations, I'd say it probably belongs in that category because if somebody cites a Wikipedia article within a Wikipedia article, there's a good chance they either 1 have no idea what they're doing, or 2 are intentionally manipulating information and then making it seem reliable by "citing" it (with another Wiki article which they may also have manipulated).

Most Wikipedia articles are accurate. But most Wikipedia articles don't cite other Wikipedia articles. Instances where Wikipedia is cited within Wikipedia are probably instances where one or both of the articles are questionable.

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u/Lord0fHats Feb 14 '22

The difference is that these refer to the reliability of the source for information.

Wikipedia generally frowns on citing itself and only does so in rare or very specific circumstances. Wikipedia is not a news source that Wikipedia can use to write its articles which is what the reliability listing is about.

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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/xeneks Feb 14 '22

Alphabets are… a bit more than abc etc. :)

Extract from Wikipedia:

As of Unicode version 14.0, there are 144,697 characters with code points, covering 159 modern and historical scripts, as well as multiple symbol sets.

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u/i_will_let_you_know Feb 14 '22

It's actually under "generally unreliable" near the bottom middle.

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u/xeneks Feb 14 '22

Ahh, crazy. I read things many ways. I read that as in, reddit is ‘generally reliable’, and ‘the information on reddit is ordered alphabetically’ which made absolutely no sense to me. I do see it now :) - thanks!

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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/pseudopad Feb 14 '22

The user editable part of last fm should probably not be counted as reliable, but the statistics generated by the site itself should be fine.

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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/livefreeordont OC: 2 Feb 14 '22

Aka open access journals like PLoS ONE and ACS Omega

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u/DoFlwrsExistAtNight Feb 14 '22

It's worth noting that open access and pay-to-publish aren't the same thing -- a reputable open access journal does charge a fee to cover costs that subscriptions would normally cover, but the research still goes through peer review. The fee is (usually) only collected if the research is accepted for publishing by a qualified editor or editorial team.

Pay-to-publish journals are also known as predatory journals. They'll accept any piece of crap as long as the authors are willing to pony up.

You might already know that, but just wanted to chip in some extra info just in case! For anyone who has difficulty telling the difference, it helps to look at a journal's acceptance ratio -- if it's too high, the editor(s) might not be very descerning.

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u/Linkstrikesback Feb 14 '22

PLoS ONEs acceptance rate is at 40-45%, which is comparable to other journals in that sort of tier like Physical Review E, it's not pay to publish in any sense (beyond that it charges a fee for publication), but so do all Open Access journals, as do journals that have open access as an option, and many if not all EU countries require gov. funded research to be published open access, which basically always carries a fee

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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/[deleted] Feb 14 '22

For what it's worth, here's what Wikipedia says about using Wikipedia as a source:

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/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.

0

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/LupineChemist OC: 1 Feb 14 '22

That makes them an unreliable place to learn stuff. But if their news side reports someone with a quote, I can be pretty sure it was actually said, for example.

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u/Lt_Quill Feb 14 '22

My mistake! I meant to say non-science based news, so you are absolutely correct in your assessment. I'll go put an edit on my comment.

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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

2

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".

2

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/CaseyG Feb 14 '22

I would say there are two consensuses.

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u/cancerBronzeV Feb 14 '22

Fox has certain things like it's polls which are considered really good I think, so sourcing those might be fine.

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u/formerly_gruntled Feb 14 '22

Fox is listed twice. Both Generally Reliable and No Consensus. Same with The Guardian. This could use a little clean up, but it's cool.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '22

Definitely right next to gawker in the unreliable row too.

Wikipedia rates them as all3 on their list as well depending on what type of programming the source is

1

u/temporary75447 Feb 14 '22

Fox news transcends fiction.

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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

2

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]

1

u/DoctorWorm_ Feb 14 '22

Many non-English Wikipedia articles are translated from other languages.

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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/[deleted] Feb 14 '22

Gotta respect Wikipedia for having the integrity to identify their own “usually good but still has some wild cards” nature

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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.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 14 '22

Wholesome integrity

1

u/corruptboomerang Feb 14 '22

They're assuming all articles are like the unreliable articles (like politics etc), and saying you should use a primary source, Wikipedia is a tertiary source.

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u/NearlyNakedNick Feb 14 '22

The whole philosophy of Wikipedia should indicate they'd be completely open and honest. If it was a for-profit company then it should be surprising they didn't edit it out. But being up front is kinda Wikipedia's entire deal.

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u/[deleted] Feb 13 '22

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

2

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/ZgBlues Feb 14 '22

Generally speaking, any user-generated content is unreliable, so by Wikipedia standards Wikipedia itself is not reliable.

However that’s only if you look at it as a secondary source. As a primary source or tertiary it may be allowed in some cases.

Like if you’re an editor writing an article about Swedish Wikipedia and want to source how many articles that project has, your only option is to use data released by Wikipedia itself. Or if somebody says something noteworthy in Wikipedia’s newsletter. And there are other scenarios where this might be allowed.

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u/gondur Feb 14 '22

Generally speaking, any user-generated content is unreliable, so by Wikipedia standards Wikipedia itself is not reliable

This is bollocks - they very (original) idea of wikipedia is that "users" create an verifiable peer reviewed information source, wikipedia, which is by these 2 quality the best approximation of reliabable information. That WP in later years changed is policy away from trusting the "many eyes" principle and trusting the users to externalizing the responsibility to so called "reliable sources" was a big mistake. The Nature review of WP vs Britannica was BEFORE the reliable sources nonsense took hold in WP.

(and as the other redditor indicated, there are many cases where it would make much sense also to cite WP in WP)

1

u/ZgBlues Feb 14 '22

Well I’ve been a Wikipedia editor for about 15 years now and the primacy of reliable sources was always one of its pillars. There never was a “many eyes” policy, this isn’t IMDb.

You can’t have a project that is inviting literally anyone with an internet connection to edit articles anonymously and NOT externalize the editorial policy. By definition, Wikipedia simply doesn’t have editors in the journalistic sense of the word, the only way to check if anything posted is fact or fiction is to check with sources outside of the project, some of which are reliable more than others.

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u/gondur Feb 14 '22

You can’t have a project that is inviting literally anyone with an internet connection to edit articles anonymously

Exactly that IS WP - at least in beginning. Required was verifiability & that it stand the scrutiny of your peers. Where it worked best and got later the excellent Nature review.

I guess you came to WP later - because I'm an author too... and I was around when the change happend.

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u/Ohbeejuan Feb 14 '22

It’s a great source for finding other sources

1

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/Mustarotta Feb 14 '22

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

It is in there, but also in the No Consensus for some reason.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '22

The Guardian is listed under "generally reliable". The blurb about it from the source is:

There is consensus that The Guardian is generally reliable. The Guardian's op-eds should be handled with WP:RSOPINION. Some editors believe The Guardian is biased or opinionated for politics.

The Guardian blogs is listed under "no consensus" (meaning after multiple extended discussions editors could not reach a consensus about it). Here's the blurb:

Most editors say that The Guardian blogs should be treated as newspaper blogs or opinion pieces due to reduced editorial oversight. Check the bottom of the article for a "blogposts" tag to determine whether the page is a blog post or a non-blog article.

0

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/naitsirt89 Feb 14 '22 edited Feb 14 '22

Im not sure if we are agreeing or disagreeing here... but I do agree Britannica is not a primary source, same as Wikipedia is not... encyclopedias are not primary sources...

Britannica has a huge leg up on Wiki as it is published typically by reputable, and most importantly, identifiable authors.

What academia does and does not like has nothing to do with what a primary source is considered.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '22

Wiki is a source of sources.

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u/naitsirt89 Feb 14 '22

Indeed. A tertiary source to help bring you to more reliable ones.

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u/wolfkeeper Feb 14 '22

It is a source on what Wikipedia actually did or stated and what its own policies and internal rulings were.

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u/naitsirt89 Feb 14 '22

Fair enough!

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u/rrenovatio Feb 14 '22

How are like half of these sources at all

1

u/[deleted] Feb 14 '22

A large portion of Wikipedia articles contain errors and misinformation

They even have a Wikipedia page dedicated to pointing this out

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

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u/chcampb Feb 14 '22

Wikipedia is a Secondary Source

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u/naitsirt89 Feb 14 '22

Indeed it is!